THE struggle for Africa’s place and power in the world has been a long one. The victories have been short and those that have been achieved have been more symbolic than material.
As such, the relevance, power and importance of the continent in the New World Disorder remains a doubtful reality. That is not to say Africa has not been an important source of the world’s wealth that has chiefly benefited colonial and imperial powers.
Adam Smith might have been referring to Africa when he philosophised on how “the wealth of nations” of the West will be built on the exploitation of the resources and the labour of non-western people and places.
The Global South has been a source of the wealth of the Global North and its power.
Against this victimisation and exploitation by external powers Africa has fought liberation struggles and mounted fierce resistance.
It is no exaggeration that Africa can be called the fighting continent of the world that has found the world a difficult and very dangerous place. There have been religious understandings of Africa as a cursed place and its people as the cursed children of the biblical Ham. As titanic an African figure as Julius Nyerere, after observing many political and economic misfortunes of the continent, once loudly concluded that the devil’s headquarters must be located somewhere in Africa because every wrong thing that might happen seems to happen in Africa.
Besides the religious understandings of Africa as cursed there are anthropological understandings of the continent as a “heart of darkness” materially because of the skin colour of Africans and also metaphorically because of the dark happenings that befall the continent and define its condition and the experiences of its people.
The religious and anthropological descriptions of Africa as a place of the dark and the bad take place alongside the understandings of Africa as a sunny place and a rich source of natural wonders and resources.That is how paradoxical Africa is, troubled and coveted at the same time, and an object of wonder to itself and its enemies alike. Not only is the continent the “cradle of mankind” but it is also the source of humanity and humanness. Some of the kindest and loveliest things happen in Africa.
The Great Pan-African Experiment
Pan-Africanists know that before Pan-Africanism there was Pan-Europeanism and Pan-Arabism in the world. That African unity would be a weapon in the struggle for African liberation from slavery and colonialism was inspired by the unity of the Europeans and Arabs that Africans saw as the source of their power and prosperity. Unity as an ideology of liberation and development was not invented by Africans but Africans learnt it from others including their enslavers and colonisers.Europeans were even united and systematic in colonising Africa. The Berlin Conference of 1884-5 that cut Africa like a cake to be shared amongst Europeans was conducted in impressive Pan-Europeanism and spirit of sharing.
When it comes to eating Africa up and exploiting its resources the Europeans are united and systematic in their evil.
Pan-Africanism resulted from a realisation by Africans that they were colonised in European unity and so they needed to fight colonialism in African unity. Amilcar Cabral said as much in his important writings on “unity and struggle” in Africa. It is still a durable truism that only a united Africa, one Africa, will achieve victory and power in this chaotic world that we find ourselves in.
There is no need to wonder why Europeans, systematically, are afraid of Pan-Africanism. African unity scares neo-colonial powers and imperialists to the marrow because it has the potential to abolish coloniality in Africa.
It is sad that African leaders and intellectuals seem to have dis-invested from Pan-Africanism that only now exists as a political slogan and an academic buzzword. It is a tragedy of the centuries that Africans have lost all faith in Pan-Africanism.
The Great Bandung MomentThe Bandung Conference of 1955 was a giant step by African and Asians countries, 29 of them, that decided that bi-continental unity was a formidable way forward. The Conference was a titanic Global South Moment whose aim was to erect Asia and Africa as a centre of the world not a pathetic periphery of the imperial Global North. The Conference had the significance of generating the Non-Aligned Movement that was to be a stubborn refusal by the Global South to be a sphere of influence of any powers of Europe, West or East.
The Conference took a stand against colonialism and neocolonialism, proclaimed Afro-Asian unity and solidarity in things political, economic and cultural. Sadly, just like the Pan-African experiment the Bandung experiment does not seem to have delivered the rain that was expected from it. If Pan-Africanism scares the West, Afro-Asian solidarity terrifies the Global North.
The Euro-American Umpire invested immense political and other resources in ensuring that the Bandung moment does not achieve its goals that were going to make Africa and Asia a power in the Globe.
Does the Global South have a Future
Yes. Countries of the Global South only need to take themselves seriously. Combined, Asia and Africa, and Latin America have the greatest bounty of the world’s resources and opportunities. What scares the West when Africa and Asia appear to close ranks and achieve some unity is that prospect of an Afro-Asian Empire that might actually rule the world. I am not imagining Asia and Africa conducting reverse colonialism on Europe which would be to fight for liberation by imitating the conqueror, to decolonise suing colonial logic which is neither virtuous no ethical. Afro-Asian unity, the Bandung moment in world history, provides a window of opportunity for the Global South to seek and find power and liberation in the world. Afro-Asian solidarity can actually be a move that might liberate the world from its entrapment in the paradigm of war and the scramble for unipolar world that the USA is prepared to destroy the world pursuing.
Between themselves, Africans and Asians need to cultivate non-racial and non-imperial relations that are punctuated by mutual respect. Afro-Asian solidarity, therefore, needs to be cemented with opposition to Euro-American imperialism and the appetite for a multipolar world that will be punctuated with fair and just competition and conviviality. Another world is possible, a world led by Africa and Asia, a decolonial world of free humans that may take humanity back to liberation. For Africa, strengthening Pan-Africanism and “looking east” to Asia for solidarity might be a killer political strategy of all the centuries that might turn the fortunes of the continent for the better. Pan-Africanism married to Afro-Asian solidarity might be the key to Global South futures.
* Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from Gezina, Pretoria, in South Africa. – Sunday News
