Forty years after Steve Biko’s murder in detention, the world we live in has not changed fundamentally for Black people. Regardless of where you reside in the world, how educated you are, religious, progressive or nice you may think you are, if you are Black you are guaranteed the scorn, humiliation, violence and death that Biko and others had to confront.
The 2nd Kwameh Nkrumah Pan-African Intellectual and Cultural Festival was held in Accra, Ghana, 25 June to 1 July 2017. The festival served as a vehicle for reflection and a springboard for new efforts to promote Pan-Africanism and transformation of the African world. Here is the experience of one youth volunteer at the event.
In spite of the positive elements of economic Garveyism, it is not appropriate for African liberation in the 21st century. Garvey’s economic development approach was based on reproducing the exploitative system of capitalism, which would continue to oppress the Afrikan working-class.
It is important to understand the political significance of this Day. It is not just a Day to celebrate our African pride but also a date to remember the freedom fighters of the continent and to keep in mind all the battles still to be fought for the definitive liberation from neocolonialism. It is a Day to denounce all foreign interference in Africa.
Some 130 years ago, European powers met in Berlin to hatch an agenda of subjecting Africa and its peoples to mere vassals, property to be possessed and exploited for the benefit of white people. African Liberation Day celebrates the African people’s successful resistance to this oppression. The Day is also a proud commemoration of the role Africa has played in the advancement of human freedom.
Throughout his life, he refused to collaborate with the ruling elite and remained committed to the principle of internationalism as witnessed by him joining up with Namibian migrant workers in Cape Town in the 1950s, or later being the people’s doctor in Lusaka where he treated fighters from various national liberation movements in southern Africa.