Fyi...



Rodney D. Coates
Professor of Sociology and Gerontology
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio 45056
 513 - 529 1590

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A pan-Africanist reflection: Point and counterpoint
2008-10-22
Kwesi Kwaa Prah
In a response to Issa Shivji's Our political guiding post: pan-
Africanism's new dawn featured in Pambazuka's 400th issue English-
language edition, Kwesi Kwaa Prah asks what can be achieved with pan-
Africanism as a `category of intellectual thought.' Problematising
the extent to which pan-Africanism could ever represent a politically
neutral philosophy, the author suggests that its proponents can be
located across the political spectrum and argues that while colour
may have provided a useful racially-based organising tool, it should
never override the essential inclusivity of the African identity.
Without doubt, the appearance of the 400th issue of Pambazuka News
deserves to be handsomely congratulated. Firoze Manji and his team
have over the years done sterling work to get this exciting milestone
behind them. They have literally established an institution of major
and unrivalled proportions on the African publishing scene. Pambazuka
provides an excellent platform for debate, the elucidation of ideas
and the exegesis of issues concerning Africa and the world. More
grist to their mill!

The appearance of the 400th issue came with a feature titled Our
political guiding post: pan-Africanism's new dawn by Issa Shivji.
Shivji is, as always, candid, plain-speaking and forthright in the
expression of his views. Yes, it goes without saying that pan-
Africanism can and should be regarded as a `category of intellectual
thought.' But, in addition and more importantly, it is an ideal whose
practice and implementation looms large. As the popular English adage
runs, `the proof of the pudding is in the eating.' What do we want to
achieve with this `intellectual thought' and what do we exactly mean
by pan-Africanism?

Shivji asserts that the `new pan-Africanism is rooted in social
(popular) democracy, [it] is African nationalism of the era of the so-
called globalised phase of imperialism. African nationalism was born
of pan-Africanism, not the other way round.' On the surface there is
precious little to quibble about this assertion, but it masks a great
deal of ambiguity and gross simplification which needs to be
interrogated. If by `social (popular) democracy' we are to understand
a political ideology defined as `democratic socialism', that is a
left and centre-left political position which acknowledges individual
rights, transparent constitutionalism, the rejection of the Marxist-
Leninist notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat, support for
universal adult suffrage, the inclusion of social and economic
equality and rights to education, medical care, pensions, and
employment, and some measure of social security support for the
unemployed and underprivileged, I would say yes, these are for many
people, without doubt, desirable ideals. They are universal ideals
with practical and theoretical adherents throughout the world, in
virtually every single country on this planet, but it is certainly
not pan-Africanism. Some pan-Africanists are doubtlessly social
democrats, but not all social democrats are pan-Africanists. Some pan-
Africanists are right-wing conservatives while others are to the left
of social democracy, indeed many have been, or are, Marxists
(including Nkrumah in his final years). Indeed, pan-Africanists can
be found within the whole spectrum of political colouring.

PROTO-NATIONALISM, AFRICAN NATIONALISM AND PAN-AFRICANISM

African nationalism is a modernist response of Africans to the
political, social, economic and cultural depredations of
(particularly) western subjugation. It is African self-assertiveness
in the face of the contradictions of Western encroachment, imposition
and rule not only in the political sense, but also in the socio-
psychological, social, cultural and economic dimensions of social
life. It is modernist in the sense that it is reaction that has
benefited from the leadership of Western-educated Africans and
advised by contemporary, universally subscribed, ideas of freedom and
emancipation. In this sense it differs from the proto-nationalist
expressions of war and resistance to western `pacification' led by
chiefs and other traditional leaders in the pre-colonial or very
early colonial periods.

These proto-nationalist social expressions included, prophetism,
millernarianism, messianism, warfare and jacqueries. The ideologies
of these proto-nationalist formations invariably leaned on cults,
religious, ritualistic and chiliastic features. Some syncretically
married western religious lore with Africanist beliefs, but others
remained more or less autonomously Africanist in character. African
nationalism superseded these earlier reactions to western thraldom.
Where the proto-nationalists had relied on magic and belief in the
millennium, the nationalists preferred to use the institutions of the
colonial state to question their legitimacy. Again, where the proto-
nationalists had favoured ritualistic secret societies, the modern
nationalists embraced the politics of mass movements.

In the early years of African nationalism, leaders were often very
willing, or found it necessary, to work in concert and partnership
with traditional leaders, but as time went on they tended to appeal
directly to the growing urban masses and used their acolytes as
surrogates in undermining the power of the traditional leaders in the
countryside. After the Second World War, African nationalism took on
the tactics of political mass movements.

When political independence came to sub-Saharan Africa, it was more,
in effect, granted than won and transformed the colonial state to a
neocolonial one. Independence was in all instances, directly or
indirectly, bestowed on the terms of the colonial power/s and their
other metropolitan allies. Their economic, cultural and geo-political
interests were never compromised. African nationalism was forced to
define its immediate scope and meaning within the terrain of the rash
of colonial statelets, so-called nations or nation-states, hashed up
like patchwork quilt by the retreating colonial powers. What
initially missed the sounder judgement of many was the fact that,
the `acceptance of the post-colonial nation-state meant acceptance of
the legacy of the colonial partition, and of the moral and political
practices of colonial rule in its institutional dimensions.'(1) Under
the leadership of the elites, African nationalism acquiesced to
Palmerstonian `permanent interests' of imperialism.

With time, it has become patently clear that, the elites - political,
economic, religious, academic and otherwise - who inherited control
and influence in these states have proven to be more creatures of
Western artifice than free agents in full command of their destinies.
African nationalism has been driven into the cul-de-sac of the post-
colonial or neocolonial state. It is like playing golf on a soccer
field. But slowly with the toll of the years, Africans are waking up
to this elaborate con-trick. The truth is that African nationalism
can and will find its fullest meaning and implications on a pan-
African canvass. On this wider canvass, the trauma of the colonial
carve-up can and will be cauterised and neutralised.

Pan-Africanism is the longstanding nationalist desire of Africans to
unite as Africans, in order to achieve greater emancipation, freedom
and development. It comes with the contention that unity is the only
viable long-term route to the advancement of Africans. Conceptually,
it emerged in the African diaspora at the fin de siècle period. It
was the African in the diaspora with the advantage of distance and
hindsight who first saw the logic and purposefulness of unity.
Nyerere's advice in 1997 in this respect was that:

`This is my plea to the new generation of African leaders and African
peoples: work for unity with firm conviction that, without unity
there is no future for Africa. That is, of course, if we still want
to have a place under the sun. I reject the glorification of the
nation-state, which we have inherited from colonialism, and the
artificial nations we are trying to forge from that inheritance. We
are all Africans trying very had to be Ghanaians or Tanzanians.
Fortunately for Africa we have not been completely successful... Unity
will not make us rich, but it can make it difficult for Africa and
the African peoples to be disregarded and humiliated. And it will
therefore increase the effectiveness of the decisions we make and try
to implement for our development. My generation led Africa to
political freedom. The current generation of leaders and peoples of
Africa must pick up the flickering torch of African freedom, refuel
it with their enthusiasm and determination, and carry it forward.'(2)

African nationalism and pan-Africanism derive from the same social
impulse, but are different historical, geographical and contextual
translations of the same impulse. One is not born out of the other.
They are divergent renderings in scale, history, and social size of
the same Africanist cause. Tactically, both in theory and practice,
they have evolved in response to changing realities, but the
strategic goal is unchanging. Both socio-political expressions are
modernist African (and I include the African diaspora) reactions,
counterpoints, to imperialism. These expressions sociologically date
to the closing stages of the 19th century. The earliest historical
substantiation of African nationalism, as a modernist manifestation,
has been indeed dated to the late 1860s.

There is no doubt that in our times pan-Africanism has to be driven
by democratic practice operating on ever-expanding mass levels. But
when we say mass levels we mean people-to-people engagement and
possibilities across existing frontiers and socio-political
constraints. We need to open institutions, of all sorts, to permit
the freer flow of ideas, people, capital and labour across our
borders. The instruments of social expression and collective social
life should be available to the masses in our societies so that the
ideals of tolerance, free speech, free association, open and free
religious confession can be effected without fear or favour to any
particular group.

Self-determination and anti-imperialism are indeed opposite sides of
the same coin and I can only agree that this cannot, in our
circumstances, be achieved on the basis of our so-called nation-
states. But what do we mean by this?

The point is that the colonial states that became post-colonial
states do not represent any historical continuity with the age-long
societies, cultures, histories and peoples as units on the ground.
Indeed, in all instances the borders of these states have truncated
these age-long entities so that they inhibit and prevent people-to-
people relations between groups that existed long before their
encounter with the West and colonialism. They have created scattered
and erased histories, divided cultures and fragmented memories.
Therefore the anti-imperialist expressions of Africans must mean also
the rolling-back of these hindrances that have been placed in the way
of the free interaction of people on the ground. This is why we say
that anti-imperialism must mean the challenge of those forces that
reinforce, locally, the constraining dispensations bequeathed by the
colonial powers, and at the same time the confrontation of the
external forces that support the locally based agencies of
restriction to people-to-people interactions. In other words,
imperialism operates through largely local allegiances in all spheres
of social life. Imperialism in the neocolonial era operates through
compromised neocolonial elites; elites who speak for themselves and
their masters, and not for the masses of the societies they lead.
This is why it is so spineless and misplaced to continue blaming
colonialists for our continued helplessness, fifty years after the
colonialists have left.

Self-determination must go with democracy. It cannot be a blanket
licence for chauvinist, anti-democratic or selective group
impositions on larger humanity. In South Africa, for example, the
idea of some formerly and currently privileged Boer groups that they
want to create a separate Boer state grafted and parasitic towards
wider society has been roundly considered as anathema by the larger
South African society.

In as far as African nationalism represents freedom for the
overwhelming majority of people in Africa and the mass-expression of
democratic ideals, it must be welcomed. This does not mean, and must
not mean that the collective social and cultural belongings of other
non-African national groups that are citizens of African states
should be trampled upon. All cultural and national affiliations
should be allowed to flourish and co-exist in peace, allowing for
free interpenetration and mixing of people and groups, without
restraint.

Diversity must not be dismissed or stamped underfoot in the name of
so-called unity of the state. When this has been said, it must also
be added that in the same way that European states or the European
Union are made up overwhelmingly of Europeans, or China of Chinese,
or India of Hindus, African states are made up overwhelmingly of
Africans and the African character culturally and socially must be
acknowledged. All sorts of cultural and national minorities exist in
Europe, but that has never stopped Europe from being pre-eminently
and openly culturally European. This is also true for the Arab world,
India or China.

ETHNICITY, CULTURE, LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY

Shivji rightly decries `ethnic power-bases' and `ethnic-based
politicking' in Kenya and Tanzania respectively. What should on this
count be appreciated is that political ethnicism (which is common in
many parts of the world, including the Balkans, parts of the Arab
world, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines)
occurs when political elites exploit cultural and ethnic sentiments
in their contestation for power. This danger is ever-present but is
particularly pregnant where democratic institutions ignore the
existence of cultural affinities and do not provide structures for
the democratic expression of such affinities, and/or where ethno-
cultural groups are located in different class positions. Under such
latter circumstances, socio-economic and class tensions are mirrored
as ethnic tensions. In either case it is the elites who
opportunistically mobilise ethno-cultural affiliations as easily
accessible constituencies. Instead of pitching their mobilisation on
contrastive policy issues, they resort to the volatile language of
ethnicism to garner the support of groups characterised by localist
sentiments and limited world views.

Shivji writes that:
`On the morrow of receiving the insignia of sovereign states, a few
of the `founding fathers' genuinely set out to build nations within
the colonially defined borders, which all of them, as heads of
states, unanimously agreed were sacred, although unviable. Others set
to build their power-bases on the colonially invented or re-invented
ethnic `identities'. Still others did not survive long enough to do
either, or something else, because they were overthrown (Nkrumah) or
assassinated (Lumumba) by imperialist machinations. Whatever the
case, they all failed to build viable, legitimate states and
nations.'
If these `founding fathers genuinely set out to build nations' then
it is difficult to understand how these endeavours, which
they `unanimously agreed were sacred,' could at the same time be
believed by them to be `although unviable.' Were they building what
they knew to be unviable? We are told that `others set to build their
power-bases on the colonially invented or re-invented
ethnic "identities".' The popular argument about `invented or re-
invented ethnic "identities"' in Africa has been driven to absurd
destinations by some scholars. It was substantially popularised in
the early years of post-modernism; all identities, especially ethnic
identities, became inventions for some. The irony of this absurdity
in a world of peoples and cultural diversities cannot be gainsaid.

In work that we have been doing at the Centre for Advanced Studies of
African Society (CASAS), one of our important findings has been that
on close examination, the so-called identities designated on the
basis of linguistic and ethno-linguistic criteria reveal that a great
number of these identities are actually sub-identities of different
degrees, and in no way constitute distinct or autonomous ethnicities.
For example, if you take the Bari-speaking people of East Africa,
they are divided between three borders, these being the Sudan, the
DRC and Uganda. They include the Nyangbara, Fajelu, Kakwa, Kuku,
Mondari and Bari. All these groups are found in the Sudan, but the
Kuku and Kakwa are also respectively in Uganda and the DRC. In any
strict sense of the word they should be regarded as sub-groups of a
larger ethno-linguistic group which for lack of a better term we can
classify as Bari. The Madi/Moru group also in East Africa, divide
into the same three borders. They include the Avukaya, the Logo, the
Madi, the Moru, the Kaliko, the Lugbara and Olu'bo. The Madi,
Lugbara, Olu'bo, Avukaya, Moru and Kaliko are in the Sudan; Uganda
has Madi, Lugbara and Logo, whereas the DRC has Logo, Avukaya, Kaliko
and Lugbara. All these people in fact speak dialectal variants of the
same `core language.' In other words, they are better seen as sub-
units of one large community rather than separate `tribes', as
Western colonialism elevated them to. Many more examples can be given
to illustrate this point.

They are no different from sub-units of the English like the
Yorkshireman, Geordie, Scouse, Cockney, the Devonshireman or any
other linguistically-based identity reflecting dialectal variance
among the English. If we identified these latter as separate tribes
then every European country would have scores of different `tribes.'
What is also interesting is the fact that, in the African case, all
these large clusters of mutually intelligible ethno-linguistic groups
are divided by so-called international borders arbitrarily drawn by
European colonialists. Luo-speaking people in East Africa who are
demographically one of the biggest groups in the whole of Africa are
split between six countries where they are always minorities.
Fulful/Pulaar speakers are in 13 countries, always as minorities.
People-to-people interaction would heal the wounds of such African
communities and histories. pan-Africanism would permit us to retrieve
our histories in more compacted and holistic terms. A pan-African
umbrella structure for all of us will permit a situation to emerge
where no one group, or groups, can represent a threat, whatever way
conceived, to others. What is also important for our argument here is
that these ethno-linguistic characteristics of communities on the
ground in Africa with recognisable and definable modes of livelihood,
ritual, customs, values and usages exist, I repeat exist. It is
futile to deny this or pretend that they are all inventions of the
colonialists.

In anthropological usage, ethnicity and culture tend to be
coterminous. Both are trans-class solidarities like language,
religious confession, kinship, ritual, customary usages, values and
other institutions which run vertically through society. In other
words, these solidarities run from rich to poor, highly placed to
lowly placed, privileged and underprivileged. Such attributes are
historically created and socially evolved, and provide cultural
bearings to both individuals and groups. Indeed, this is culture. In
wider usage culture includes all tangibles and intangibles created by
humanity or human groups and which provide them with a collective
environment in which they transact their everyday lives. The
tangibles include all elements of material culture or, if you prefer,
the material products of human fabrication which we use in our
everyday lives. The intangibles include customs, values, usages,
beliefs, attitudes and other non-material societal features which we
collectively share in groups and which operate both at the individual
and collective levels of social life. It is not possible to conceive
of any individual without a culture. Mutatis mutandis all human
groups defined by varying composites of these vertical solidarities
can be defined as cultural groups and cannot be seen as cultural
products outside the features which culturally define them. What this
also means is that while humans create culture but dialectically,
humans are also shaped and formed by culture.

Needless to say, culture is dynamic and ceaselessly changing. To see
African culture as `ossified custom or tradition' as we read in
Shivji's piece is not only an intellectual corruption but also in the
context, woefully misleading. `Ossified custom or tradition' belongs
to the museum, not to the daily and everyday lives of living African
people.

Another point, I would like to make is with reference to Shivji's
comment regarding the `rekindling the Arab-African cultural divide.'
There is a cultural divide between Africans and Arabs, and Chinese
and Indians, and Europeans and Japanese, and so on. Humanity consists
of very many different cultural groups. There is little to be gained
by denying cultural diversity within our common human community. What
is important is that no specific cultural group should impose on or
dominate any other. All of us need to be able to share this planet as
equals, allowing the free movement of people across cultural divides,
as and when they wish, without any constraint whatsoever. But, we
must acknowledge cultural differences. The problem with the African
and Arab cultural divide is that historically it has been marked
amongst many other things by domination, slavery and oppression of
Africans by Arabs. Till today in the Afro-Arab borderlands Arabs
enslave Africans. We must not pretend that this is not the case.

Furthermore, equally candidly, we know that Arabs want to achieve,
rightfully, Arab unity (el watan el arabi). I have always argued that
for as long as this objective is reached democratically all freedom-
loving people should support it. But equally, Africans will not
accept Arabisation. We have no wish to become Arabs. Africans want
African unity and, in equal fashion, for as long as that is achieved
democratically we would want all freedom-loving people to support it.
There are implications to these two aspirations. Because we are
direct and immediate neighbours on this continent, when either one of
the two or both projects of unification are achieved there would be a
border between the united Arab world and the united African world.
There is no harm in this, so long as minorities on both sides of the
border are treated as full citizens with respect for their political,
cultural and human rights on both sides of the border. If and when
Africans unite most of the geographical expanse of Africa will unite.
But it is not geographical unity that we in the first instance want,
or need. It is the unity of Africans.

The real challenge is to find a democratic dispensation which
recognizes diversity and difference and which creates a viable
framework for the peaceful co-existence of diversity. Nothing is to
be gained from denying their existence and pretending that they are
all `inventions and re-inventions.'

THE LIMITS OF COLOUR

A few years ago, at the opening of the Marcus Garvey Pan-Afrikan
Institute in Mbale, Uganda, I had in my keynote address explained
that it was useful to indicate that physical attributes would be in
no sense the key to understanding identities as objective factors in
societies. Another way of saying the same thing is that it is not
biology but culture that defines and identifies people; it is not
nature but nurture that separates or unites the tastes, values,
behaviour and customary usages of people. I have often remarked that
the racial definition of African is wrong and misplaced. Most
Africans, I assert, are black, but not all blacks are Africans and
not all Africans are black. Indian Dravidians, Melanesians and Native
Australians are black, but they are not Africans. What I mean is that
colour is no basis for defining an African in much the same way as
colour cannot define Arabs, who range from blonde to black, or Jews
who range from blonde to black, or Hindus who range from near white
to black. In fact, in the Sudan, for example, it is not possible to
always differentiate between Arab and African on the basis of colour.
The obsession with colour, particularly noticeable with Africans in
the diaspora arises on account of the age-long racism and oppression
Africans in the western diaspora have endured at the hands of white
westerners. But when that has been said, I must add that the
overwhelming majority of Africans are black and in the absence of
unifying cultural attributes like a literacy-based religion or a
common language, colour has been a fortunate reference point for
people of African-descent both on the continent and in the diaspora.
We can literally invariably recognise each other from afar.(3)

CULTURAL UNITIES

I need also to point out that there are certain attributes that
culturally unite and define Africans. Firstly, our religious systems
and rituals are fairly homogenous. These extend into the diaspora as
Candomblé, Santería, Voodoo, Obeah and other institutions in South
America, in Brazil in particular, the West Indies and North America.
The central character of these religious systems is ancestor
veneration and a fairly common structure of religious symbolism. All
these systems are underpinned by expressive visual art forms, dance
and recognisable rhythms. Secondly, our systems of kinship and
marriage are also fairly ubiquitous. These kinship systems in their
specific and general character often cross state borders. Thirdly,
the pre-colonial political systems that linger into present political
order were and have been interlocking and largely similar. Fourthly,
there is a sense in which the commonalities of our customs and
history make our aspirations similar. Fifthly, and very importantly,
our languages are broadly related and the degree of similarity among
them is much greater than meets either the eye or the ear.
Territorial contiguity characterises the habitat of the majority of
Africans. This is the African continent.(4) The cultural attributes
are not in all respects unique to Africa either individually or
collectively, but the mix and history of these cultural affinities
are sufficiently shared as typifying characteristics among Africans.
(5)

If cultural attributes constitute the predominant feature in the
definition of an African identity, it is language that lies at the
heart and is the principal pillar carrying culture. It is in language
that cultures are registered and transferred as legacies. Apart from
these cultural convergences, Africans generally display a recognition
and acknowledgement of other Africans as Africans. This extends
invariably into the diaspora. This recognition exists in spite of
considerable localism and the frequent promotion of ethnicism by
dominant elites.(6)

It needs also to be said that being African is an inclusive notion.
It is possible for people who are not African today to become African
in due course of time. But this is not achieved by opportunistic
claims based on expediency and formulae like `commitment to Africa.'
I have elsewhere argued that Verwoerd, Henry Morton Stanley, or Ian
Smith were all committed in their own ways to Africa, but can we say
they were Africans? If I arrive tomorrow in China and declare my
commitment to China, does that make me Chinese? Becoming African
involves immersion into African society and requires a certain degree
of acculturation into African society. At least it would require the
adoption and sharing of the values of African society. It is possible
therefore to creolise into Africa, but that involves also the
blurring of the cultural boundaries between the creolising community
and the wider African community. It has nothing to do with colour,
but all to do, to varying degrees, with cultural integration. In
other words, it is not possible to be African while one rejects
African culture and rejects the self-designation of being African. It
is not possible to be African, whilst one looks down on Africans,
maintains caste-like relations with Africans and refuses to mix with
Africans. As another English aphorism declares, `you cannot have your
cake and eat it.'

Finally, indeed with regards to the African diaspora, the
interlocking character of the history and sentiments attached to this
history and its subjective reference points have filtered into the
social and political histories of Africans on the continent and in
the diaspora, particularly in the last hundred and fifty years.
Africans on the continent feel profound fraternal bonds and intense
sentiments of attachment to the Africans in the diaspora. It is
worthwhile restating that, indeed, it is not possible to understand
pan-Africanism outside of the context of the diaspora. Much of the
theoretical foundations of pan-Africanism as political philosophy
were created and actively shaped by the diaspora.

(1) Basil Davidson. The Black Man's Burden. Africa and the Curse of
the Nation-State. James Currey. London 1992. p.162.
(2) Cover story, Africa Agenda.Vol.3. No.4.2000.
(3) African Knowledge Production, Language and Identity. Keynote
Address; Opening of the Marcus-Garvey Pan Afrikan Institute, Mbale,
Uganda, 9.6.2005
(4) Ibid.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Ibid.

* Kwesi Kwaa Prah is the director of the Centre for Advanced Studies
of African Society (CASAS) based in Cape Town, South Africa.
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