AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY MAY 25TH 2020.
Pan Africanism African Liberation: Yesterday Today and Tomorrow
Speech presented by Prof. Ikaweba Bunting
Pan African Congress North American Delegation
View the African Liberation Day Tele-Conference
Speech presented by Prof. Ikaweba Bunting
Pan African Congress North American Delegation
View the African Liberation Day Tele-Conference
Political Independence, Economic Liberation, Mental Liberation and Cultural Self-determination and Continental Political Union comprise the Pan African Liberation agenda.
May 25th is commemorated officially by the African Union as ‘Africa Day’. However fewer than 50% of AU member states celebrate it as a public holiday. While I do appreciate the fact of the African Union’s official recognition of a shared history of Africa as a single entity by collectively commemorating the anti-colonial independence struggles and African culture and heritage, I am concerned about the exclusion of the word Liberation.
With the exclusion of the word Liberation, the new designation ‘Africa Day’ is somewhat innocuous, safe, devoid of intent and intensity. Whereas, having ‘Liberation’ as the focal point of the commemoration of shared struggles, history, culture, and heritage it becomes dynamic and intentional. It demands responsibility to continue the unfinished revolution to vanquish imperialism, racism and, capitalism, it calls attention to the unfinished Pan African revolution and the liberation project.
‘Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’ Indicate A Continuum As Opposed To Three Separate Historical Periods.
The focus of the movement and its objectives as well as the nature of opposition to the liberation agenda occurs in that historical continuum. as a function of the objective and subjective realities relative to the social dynamics of a particular moment in the African Liberation continuum that focus may shift. It is not a break however or a separate phenomenon. The liberation agenda of the present day and projected into the future is our imagined vision of Africa substantiated by the historical Pan African Liberation agenda which we must work to make it a living reality.
Currently within Africa, and when I say Africa, I am referring to the global Pan African Family. Wherever communities of African peoples live is Africa! Africa in north America, Africa in south America, Africa in the Caribbean, Africa in Europe, etc. This perspective substantiates the ‘Sixth Region’ formulation of the African Union Constitutive Act.
In Africa, there are four interlocking elements of the pan African liberation agenda that are unfinished and are at various stages of being addressed. I must point out however, that these elements are often conceptualized with conflicting notions and contradictory substance. Policy and practice reflect these contradictions and variances amongst African people and states. A key challenge relative to the conceptualization of what African Liberation means, what it entails, and the intensity of implementation is formulating a strategy and method for organizing a broad based Global Pan African social movement that facilitates the translation of dynamism of the Pan African liberation agenda into public policy.
Economic Liberation, Mental Liberation/Intellectual Independence, Cultural Self-Determination, and Continental Political Unity.
Political independence, technically speaking, has been accomplished. The former African colonial possessions and ‘protectorates’ of Europe are nominally sovereign African nations. Contemporary liberation discourse includes Economic Liberation, Mental Liberation/Intellectual Independence, Cultural Self-Determination, and Continental Political Unity. How these are conceived of and responded to, depends very much on whether one is a member of government bureaucracy, part of the political class, the economic elite or part of the workers, farmers, urban semi-proletariat (often referred to as ‘the informal sector’) and members of a progressive movement for social justice, economic democracy and African Unity.
Let us look at Economic Liberation to begin with. Currently Economic Liberation is part of the political agenda of the AU, EAC, SADC, ECOWAS, and individual states. The rhetoric of Economic Liberation is mentioned in numerous press releases, declarations, and protocols of cooperation emanating from these bodies as well as community-based organizations. How it is conceptualized and perceived is articulated in the treaties and economic policies of the regional groupings and the different African governments. Examining these policies, treaties, and protocols it is apparent that essentially ‘economic liberation’ is conceptualized to mean greater integration into the world economy i.e. a bigger share of global markets and attracting Foreign Direct Investment etc. Basically, the economic policies, treaties, and protocols within African nations, amongst Regional Economic Communities, and African Union and many individuals are conceived of and formulated within the neo-liberal paradigm AKA Free Market Democracy.
That paradigm is the antithesis of what is needed for African Economic Liberation. It is a formulation that is neo-colonial at best, perpetuating continued dependency, exploitation of African people’s labor and net transfer of wealth out from Africa.
This situation does not exist simply because the leadership and management class are all acting with conscious ill intent. Nor does it mean governments and economic institutions are overwhelmed by self-serving reactionary servants of global capitalism and western culture. Though these descriptions do characterize some prominent features of African socio-economic reality relative to the relationship between governments, the private sector and international capital, they are, none-the less, characterizations. They are not the cause. They are not the essence of the reality, but rather symptoms. A great many government officials of African states, including the states in the Caribbean together with African members of the private sector community operate within the neo-liberal free-market democracy envelop with the belief that their actions and policies are in the best interests of their individual nations, Africa and the global African family as well. These ideas and beliefs are articulations of worldview, education, and training.
Ubuntu Economics
There is a deafening absence of voices challenging the usurpation of the essence of the meaning of ‘economic liberation’ and changing it to mean free-market enterprise, multiparty electoral politics, individual accumulation of wealth and conspicuous consumption. The onus is on the Pan African Movement to fill the vacuum of silent inaction with a strategy and plan of action that will liberate African economic policy and African workers, farmers and public servants from the neo-liberal, neo-imperialist, free-market democracy Great Oppression. The plan of action must substantively define Economic Liberation within the anti-imperialist paradigm of economic self-determination and equitable distribution of resources. Ubuntu Economics!
This leads us to the second element ‘Mental Liberation/Intellectual Independence and Cultural Liberation’.
My premise is quite straight forward. In the mid 1980’s throughout the 90’s an assault on institutions of higher learning including management training institutions was launched by the policy think tanks of the, corporate power economic elite and their politicians tasked with maintenance of the global status quo. It was inspired by the re-emergence of the Ayn Rand, ‘selfishness is a virtues neo-conservative philosophy’ being embraced and promoted by the same economic global power elite.
Transnational corporations working in sync with western governments induced and funded the inculcation of the neo-conservative business management culture into the educational administrative practices of the academic institutions and curriculum around the world. Africa was not excluded. The purpose of the academy became the production of service employees, workers, and managers with a mindset, absent of critical thinking disconnected from the emancipatory purpose. with skill sets sufficient only to fulfill transnational corporate labor needs. Neo-liberal Business Administration culture permeated the educational institutions and governance policy landscape and smothered the critical emancipatory underpinnings of African educational institutions.
The current political leadership and management cadre within the civil service and private sector in Africa are products of that neo-colonial, neoconservative colonization, and takeover of educational agenda. That agenda promotes acquiescence to the white Eurocentric supremacy, Black African inferiority cultural paradigm and the frustration of innovative self-determination in thought and action.
The task before the Pan African movement is the deconstruction of that academic discourse and the curriculum. Replacing it with one that is African centered and emancipatory. A Pan African Mental liberation educational paradigm to deconstruct the belief that scientific excellence, intellectual ability, knowledge construction and political organization must be legitimated by values, and criteria of western institutions and people of European descent to be considered as valid or sufficient to our purposes.
Having said that, however, it is most important for me to highlight the fact that there are pockets of promise and tendencies of resistance that are gaining momentum; Especially amongst the youth who are marginalized but interconnected as Africans globally through African social media networks and community survival and cultural heritage groups. Though fragmented and lacking coordinated strategy they embody the hope for creating the critical mass of global Pan African social justice activists that will reinvigorate the movement and take us to the next level in our struggle.
Lastly Continental Political Union and global unity of African peoples. The rhetoric of unity is expressed at all levels of the political and economic policy spectrum on a regular basis. However, tactical methods such as integration of commercial and financial markets and inter-state trade and communications seem to become an end in themselves and replaced the emancipatory purpose of ‘unity’, the unity of African people, power, the control over our resources and the goal of a continental union government.
The absence of active peoples’ participation and popular ownership of the Pan African continental unity enterprise is a major flaw depriving the institutions of the very energy and life force needed, the Pan African Political culture needed. Many of our agreements, treaties, and protocols remain to be assented to, signed, domesticated, or implemented. There urgent need for a popular movement for Pan African Unity. Our task is to reassert the primary objective and essential factor for success of the Pan African Unity liberation agenda is popular participation of the global Pan African family.
In closing I would like to share an anecdote. Preparing this I was reflecting and thought, that someone listening to this might think the situation for the Global Pan African family is at its darkest hour. (Especially if you include what is happening to African peoples in the US, Brazil, Ecuador). However, reflecting on this, ‘Darkest Hour’, the adage of the darkest hour comes right before sunrise came to mind. But then I recalled my journey to Uhuru peak the top of Mount Kilimanjaro some years ago. You know I found out the adage does not exactly hold true, at least not from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. From Uhuru peak one witnesses the sunrise from below. And the sky changed through a color spectrum from purple, to red, to orange to sunshine brightness. So, I thought Africa, the global African family is not going through its darkest hour hoping for sunrise. The global African family is in the later stages of purple becoming red. We have moved beyond just hope, we can see the change coming and we must work to make it happen we cannot be spectators.
Ikaweba Bunting
