Pan-African Regionalism or Regionalist Regionalism

The apt way of rethinking regional integration is to locate it in the broader context of the Pan-African struggles. Pan-Africanism as an ideology and a political outlook has been an enduring discourse of Global Africa over the last hundred and twenty-five years. Two important moments in Pan-Africanism have been the Fifth Pan-African Congress held in Manchester, United Kingdom, in 1945 and the Sixth Pan-African Congress held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1974. The 1945 Congress spearheaded anti-colonial liberation struggles resulting in formal independence while the 1974 Congress presaged anti-neocolonial emancipatory struggles.^[2]

The Fifth Congress was explicitly a political project unlike previous congresses which revolved around demands for equality and non-discrimination.  It underscored African self-determination – Africa for Africans – and envisioned a social-democratic future for Africa. Unlike previous Pan-African congresses which were attended by elite delegates predominantly from the Diaspora, the majority of 200 delegates attending the Fifth Congress came from the Continent and Diaspora with a strong delegation from trade unions. Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta were joint secretaries. Both of them were to lead the struggle for independence in their respective countries, Ghana and Kenya. Fired by the spirit of Pan-Africanism, they returned to their countries to spearhead the struggle for freedom. Nkrumah had a clear vision of a West African Federation but he had to start somewhere. Where else could he start but Ghana, his home country. Soon after Ghana’s independence in 1958, Nkrumah with the help of his friend George Padmore, a towering figure of Pan-Africanism, set in motion a series of All Africa People’s Conferences whose main agenda was to mobilise for the independence of the rest of Africa still under colonial rule and set a concrete programme for African unity to pave the way for a Union of African States or what Nkrumah, after Marcus Garvey, sometimes called the United States of Africa. 

Historically, the momentous conference of All Africa Conferences was the 1958-59 Conference held in Accra, Ghana between 8 to 12 December. Many of the first-generation African freedom fighters of different orientations – nationalists, left radicals, Marxists – were there.^[3] They were all united under one clarion call, Pan-Africanism. It is important to emphasise that in Africa it is Pan-Africanism that birthed nationalism, not the other way round. Only a couple of months before the Accra conference, another Pan-African conference, more regional, was held in Mwanza, Tanzania, at the initiative of Julius Nyerere, the leader of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). Under the leadership of Nyerere and Tom Mboya from Kenya, the Mwanza conference which was attended by independence movements from Kenya, Uganda, Zanzibar, Malawi (the Nyasaland) and Tanganyika, founded the Pan-African Freedom Movement for East and Central Africa (PAFMECA), later expanded to include Southern Africa (PAFMESCA). PAFMECA’s primary focus was uniting the regional struggle for independence while AAPC’s was to champion anti-colonial freedom on all-Africa level seamlessly moving into a union of independent African states. Nkrumah was not amused by such regional initiatives because he believed that such initiatives would undermine the quest for the all-Africa union that he vehemently advocated. He likened regionalism with the balkanisation of Africa at the continental level.^[4]

Parallel to All-Africa People’s Conferences, Nkrumah also convened conferences of the then independent African states, eight at the time. Only a few months before the People’s conference, a conference of the independent states was held in April 1958. Nkrumah was disappointed. It made him move to the people’s conference.^[5] Contrary to Nkrumah’s vision, the two sets of conferences ironically proved to be the beginning of the bifurcation of Pan-Africanism into a people-centred and state-centred Pan-Africanism. In the first half of 1960s, many colonised African countries became independent. Nkrumah continued to argue for the immediate political union of these states. He relentlessly warned his fellow leaders that without political unity, Africa would not be able to withstand imperialism reconquering the continent through the back door. The proto- and petty bourgeoisies who had come to power on the morrow of independence were not interested. They savoured newly found power and privilege. As Nyerere was to put it some forty years later on the occasion of the fortieth independence anniversary of Ghana’s independence.

Once you multiply national anthems, national flags and national passports, seats of the United Nations, and individuals entitled to a 21-gun salute, not to speak of a host of ministers, prime ministers and envoys, you would have a whole army of powerful people with vested interests in keeping Africa balkanised. That was what Nkrumah encountered in 1965. After the failure to establish the union government at the Accra Summit [of 1965], I heard one head of state express with relief that he was happy to be returning home to his country still head of state. To this day, I cannot tell whether he was serious or joking.^[6]

The same Nyerere had, either intentionally or inadvertently, brow-beaten Nkrumah at the 1964 Cairo conference. Calling Nkrumah’s idea of immediate political unity, absurd and more a propaganda ploy than a genuine desire for African unity, Nyerere argued vehemently for a step by step process of unity and that any type of unity, whether economic, cultural or political, was a step towards unity. 

To rule out a step by step progress towards African Unity is to hope that the Almighty will one day say “Let there be unity in Africa”, and there shall be unity; or to pray for a conqueror. But even a conqueror will have to proceed step by step. To say that the step by step method was invented by the imperialists is to reach the limits of absurdity.^[7]

Nkrumah was heart-broken. Unlike Nyerere who excelled in rhetoric, Nkrumah argued his case for African unity with superior political analysis of imperialism and the looming threat of neo-colonialism. Nyerere’s argument of gradual brick by brick building of African unity was based on logic; Nkrumah’s on history and politics. Nkrumah had evidence behind him as was shown by the Congo crisis and the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Nkrumah came to territorial nationalism through Pan-Africanism. Nyerere arrived at Pan-Africanism through nationalism. 

Nyerere’s stinging and sarcastic response to Nkrumah had a background to it. The real sting was in the tail. Nkrumah had argued against locating the Liberation Committee in Dar es Salaam going so far as to label the country an ‘imperialist agent’. That stung Nyerere. In hindsight, Nkrumah can be forgiven. Before the Arusha Declaration, Nyerere was seen as a moderate. He was a darling of some imperialist countries. No doubt, experience is the best teacher.  Nyerere learnt his lessons well. He grew out of his moderation and became one of the most militant African leaders.

To be fair, Nyerere too was aware of what he called the second scramble for Africa.^[8] Nevertheless, his pragmatism occasionally overpowered his political sensitivities. In his last interview with Ikaweba Bunting in 1999, Nyerere returned to the debate between him and Nkrumah on African unity. Acknowledging that Nkrumah has had greater contact and understanding of Pan-Africanism having studied at Lincoln college and brushed shoulders with the paragons of Pan-Africanism like W. E. B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey and George Padmore. 

Africans who studied in the US like Nkrumah and [Nigerian independence leader] Azikiwe were more aware of the Diaspora and the global African community than those of us who studied in Britain. They were therefore aware of a wider Pan-Africanism. Theirs was the aggressive Pan-Africanism of WEB Dubois and Marcus Garvey. The colonialists were against this and frightened of it.^[9]

Ultimately, the force of Pan-Africanism, and the lip-service paid to it by the heads of states resulted in the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963. Berekett Selassie gives a fascinating eye-witness account of the happenings at that conference. He was then the Attorney General of Ethiopia. Nkrumah forcefully and persuasively argued for a political union first. The heart of his speech lay in the premise that political unity must precede social and economic unity if the latter was to hold. “African unity is, above all, a political kingdom which can only be gained by political means. The social and economic development of Africa will come only within the political kingdom, not the other way round. The United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, were the political decisions of revolutionary peoples before they became mighty realities of social power and material wealth.”^[10]   

To Nkrumah’s disappointment, a compromise charter was adopted and OAU was inaugurated. That it has survived to this day in its new iteration as AU (African Union) is more a tribute to the African people’s consciousness of Africanness than a sincere desire for Pan-Africanism by the ruling classes of Africa. 

Nyerere’s regional perspective on African unity and Nkrumah’s continental approach to Pan-African union, continued to inform the politics, programmes and, to be sure, debates and differences among African states on the question of African unity. For reasons that I have already alluded to, I want to briefly discuss the convening of the Sixth Pan-African Congress, the debates that took place around it and most important of all Walter Rodney’s paper that was circulated a couple of months before the Congress. Rodney’s paper succinctly gives us an in-depth understanding of what revolutionary Pan-Africanism entails. 

The Sixth Pan-African Congress

The initiative to call the Sixth Pan-African Congress was taken by African American and African Caribbean groups. They conceived the Congress as a political project in the image of the Fifth Congress. It would be attended by groups, organisations and liberation movements to reassert the total freedom of the whole of Africa and work towards the unity of Global Africa. In the idiom of the time, the Call, in the drafting of which C. L. R. James had played a significant role for Black Power. Germane to the Call was the conception of Black Power (which referred to all the colonised and formerly colonised people of the Third World) pitted against white power, a reference to imperialism. 

The 20^th century is the century of Black Power. It has already been marked by two dynamics. First, a unified conception of all peoples who have been colonized. They are known by friends and enemies as member of the Third World. And the most significant members of the Third World are those who strive for power to the people and Black Power to the Black People. On the other hand, white power, which ruled unchallenged for so long during this very century, is marked by unparalleled degeneration, first by savage and global wars which as the World had never seen. The mentality prepares for a third war. Its barbarism unpurged, European power strives at all costs to maintain that domination from which the formerly colonial peoples are breaking. That is the world white power seeks to maintain at a time when the colonial peoples have begun one of the greatest movements toward human freedom that the world has ever known. The SIXTH PAN AFRICAN CONGRESS … is part of that movement.^[11] 

The Call saw the Sixth Pan African Congress as a people’s, anti-imperialist movement for liberation from the savage and barbaric imperialist system. In underscoring the solidarity with all the peoples of the Third World, the Call unmistakenly added the internationalist dimension. The Call had set the bar high. The Sixth Congress which was eventually hosted by Tanzania from June 19 to 27, 1974, fell pitifully short of it. Presciently, Walter Rodney had foreseen it. In a paper titled ‘Aspects of the International Class Struggle in Africa, the Caribbean and America’^[12] prepared for the Congress and circulated to progressive groups in April 1974, Rodney outlined both the tasks of the forthcoming Congress but also the limitations inherent in the Congress being hosted by a neo-colonial state, albeit progressive. “Yet, the realities of state power have predetermined that when the Sixth Pan African Congress meets in Dar es Salaam in June 1974 it will be attended mainly by spokesmen of African and Caribbean states which in so many ways represent the negation of Pan Africanism.” (Rodney 1974, [1975], p. 28) Rodney recognised that if the Sixth Pan-African Congress were conceived as a meeting of progressive groups and organisations only, no African state would host it. Such a conference would have to be held in a metropolitan centre and “would thus condemn itself to serve primarily as a forum for alienated intellectuals.” (Rodney ibid. p.29) With C. L. R. Jame’s advice the choice fell on Tanzania. The Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), the ruling party of Tanzania, made it clear at the outset that all independent Caribbean and African states would be invited and no non-state groups or actors would be left out because of lack of resources to travel. The Call, however, stipulated that a line of steel be drawn “against those, Africans included, who hide behind the slogan and paraphernalia of national independence while allowing finance capital to dominate and direct economic and social life.” (TPH 1976, p. 220, italics in the original) This led to divergences and disputes between those in favour and those against the attendance of state delegations leading to resignations from the organising committee including that of C. L. R. James.^[13]   

The April paper by Rodney which was widely circulated among progressive groups in Africa and the Caribbean further unsettled many as to whether they should participate in the conference. It is true that Rodney, after a magnificent analysis of the class nature of independent states, had posed the dilemma. “In the light of the above considerations, any African committed to freedom, Socialism and development would need to look long and hard at the political implications of participation in the Sixth Pan-African Congress” (Rodney 1974 [1976], p. 29). There is nothing in the paper though outrightly discouraging progressives from attending the conference. In fact, he argues against taking such purist positions. Progressives should not leave such forum to reactionary forces; they should attend, join issues and expose the contradictions inherent in the system. “[I]t is crucial that within a Pan-African forum a principled and analytical position should be advanced for the adoption of increasingly revolutionary strategies for African economic and political liberation. The petty bourgeoisie must either be pushed forward or further exposed.” (ibid. p. 30) Rodney saw “the recapture of the revolutionary initiative” as one of the foremost tasks of the Sixth Pan-African Congress.” (ibid., pp. 28)

Although broadly agreeing with the Call, Rodney found it deficient in the “politico-ideological” sphere. 

[The Call] confines itself to the broad distinction between colonized blacks and European colonizers. It say[s] nothing about the existence of capitalist/imperialist world. It comes out against the fact that Africans allow finance capital to dominate and direct their economic and political life; but this leaves room for the national bourgeois interpretation that this domination can be remedied while still remaining within the capitalist fold. … With regard to indigenous exploitation, the authors of The Call are prepared to “stand with those who are avowed and open enemies of the elite who wish to lead a life of privilege among our people” - - which is fine, but hardly sufficiently analytical and explicit. (ibid., p. 32-33)

In the event, some 26 African states attended the Congress, including delegates from Liberation Movements from Southern Africa.  C. L. R. James boycotted it. Rodney did not attend because he was very sick.^[14] The Congress was dominated by states while their opponents were barred from attending. Rodney’s paper was circulated but it failed to arouse the kind of debate that Rodney’s friend Robert Hill had expected. On first reading the paper, Hill had opined: “… My best sense is that it will be your [Rodney’s] position that will divide the forces at the Congress, and that should be as it is”.^[15] Nonetheless, Walter Rodney’s paper has left a lasting legacy which is still relevant today. In concluding this section, I would like to highlight a number of the aspects of Rodney’s paper which I believe provide a handle for the revisiting of and reconfiguration of Pan-Africanism in the current geopolitics of genocidal capitalism/imperialism. 

First, throughout his paper Rodney underscores the importance of analysing the class character of what he calls the petty bourgeois post-colonial, or rather, neo-colonial states.  He argues that Pan-Africanism is ultimately nationalism and one must always analyse its class content. “Obfuscation of the notion of class in post-independence Africa has made Pan-Africanism a toothless slogan as far as imperialism is concerned, and it is actually been adopted by African chauvinists and reactionaries, …” (Rodney 1974 [1976], p. 27) Stripped of class analysis, Pan-Africanism becomes a pawn in the hands of reactionary populists and xenophobic nationalists. 

It is interesting that C L R James, an otherwise sharp Marxist whose world outlook was grounded in class and class struggles, does not make reference to the issue of class in his interview with Geri Stark, the Information Officer of the Sixth Pan African Congress. The three main issues he identified for the Congress were self-reliance, freedom of Southern Africa and “the change in the economic structure of the colonial territories.”^[16] 

Coming from our East African debates in which Rodney was a participant, he continues to use the term “petty bourgeoisie” to describe the ruling classes. Since then, the debate has moved and today we identify African ruling classes as bureaucratic or state bourgeoisie or private comprador bourgeoisie depending on each concrete social formation.^[17]

Second, Rodney leaves no doubt that his conception of Pan-Africanism is that it is a political class project of the working people. “The question posed at the outset of this analysis in relation to the class content of nationalism suggested that one identifies the leading class, assesses its revolutionary capacity and evaluates the manner in which the subordinate classes are handled”. (Rodney 1974 [1976], passim).

Third, Pan-Africanism as an ideology and political outlook is anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist. Rodney could not imagine progressive Pan-Africanism being not anti-capitalist. “…Pan-Africanism must be an internationalist, anti-imperialist and Socialist weapon.” (ibid., p. 34) “Pan-Africanism is irreconcilable with the interests of international capitalism.” (ibid.)

Fourth, Rodney identified “the principal enemies of the African people are the capitalists in the U.S.A., Western Europe and Japan” (p.33).

Fifth, real Pan-African unity, national liberation and social emancipation of the working people of Africa “will be realized only through struggle against the African allies of international capital.” (ibid.) It is of utmost significance that in each situation and historical conjuncture we should be able to identify these “allies of international capital”, or what we call comprador class/es. 

With some modification and refinement, I believe, Rodney’s precepts summarised above are as applicable today as they were when he was writing. To be sure, we must take full account of the reconfiguration of geopolitics under which the imperialist capitalist system has become even more barbaric and brutal, in fact, genocidal as we have been witnessing in Gaza. We must also take full account of the emerging junior allies of imperialism active in Africa such as the U. A. E. (United Arab Emirates), Saudi Arabia, Turkey and most vicious of them all, Israel. These powers have created military footholds on our continent, UAE and Saudi Arabia in Sudan, Turkey in Somalia and Ethiopia and Israel is rapidly penetrating the security apparatuses of a number of African states. 

Correct characterisation of Pan-Africanism in the present conjuncture is crucial to guide us as to what a Pan-Africanist regionalism would look like and should be as opposed to a regionalist regionalism. I suggest that ECOWAS in West Africa and EAC in East Africa are prime examples illustrating regionalist regionalism. By putting economics first, they have taken the political sting out of Pan-African unity. Expectedly, even their step by step economic unity called regional integration has failed. EAC is stuck at the common market level, which itself is fragile, and has failed to move to the monetary union, for example. Meanwhile, some EAC members, like Rwanda and Congo, are at each other’s throat. EAC and even SADC failed to resolve the long-standing Rwanda/Congo conflict. 

If regional bodies have failed to address the real issues of African unity and development, the continental body, AU (African Union) has proved worse. The NATO invasion of Libya, murdering of Mummar Gaddafi, and the subsequent dismembering of that country proved the utter helplessness of AU.^[18] Can AU in its present condition really spearhead genuine Pan-Africanism? Rodney’s verdict on OAU perhaps equally, if not more, applies to its successor AU. “The OAU is the principal instrument which legitimizes the forty-odd mini-states visited upon us by colonialism”. “[T]he O.A.U. does far more to frustrate that to realize the concept of African Unity” Rodney op cit p. 26). The continued rhetoric and lip-service paid to Pan-Africanism by the African ruling classes is more because of the Pan-African sentiment of the African masses than a genuine desire of the elites. When it comes to concrete measures such as an African currency that was proposed by Mummar Gaddafi, for which he was killed by imperialist powers, African “leaders” balked. 

The Alliance of Sahel States (AES) between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso comes close to illustrating what I call Pan-Africanist regionalism. Their anti-imperialism in booting out French and US military bases, their taking charge of their critical minerals like gold and uranium and their putting politics in command are positive signs. Their approach to African unity is illustrated by the formation of a confederation, a form of political unity, rather than some or other form of economic integration. Economic integration follows political unity not the other way round. To be sure, it is too early to say how far on the road to Pan-African unity AES will go. Its success will partly depend on the steadfastness of its leaders and the robust support of its people which in turn would hopefully inspire other West African states, prodded by their people, to join AES. Whatever the case, the AES initiative deserves critical support of African progressives. 

 Issa G. Shivji is a Professor Emeritus, School of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam.

Endnotes