Let
the Nkrumah Statue Stand and Let Other Statues
Flank and Accompany It
Ghelawdewos Araia Phd.
February
18, 2012
When
the new African Union Conference Center (AUCC),
built and financed by the Government of China, was
inaugurated on January 28, 2012, I watched it live
on the Ethiopian Television (ETV). I had company
that day - family members who also watched it with
me, and while we were watching one amongst us
said, �whose statue is that?� We were unable
to decipher it at first glance, because the
resolution of the broadcast was not clear enough.
But I said, �I guess it is Nkrumah�s
statue,� and to my delight my intuition sensed
it right because in just moments we found ought
� via the ETV report � that it was indeed
Nkrumah�s statue. In reaction, thus, I said,
�I am elated that the Africans honored Kwame
Nkrumah.�
Soon
after, the Nkrumah statue stirred controversy
among Ethiopians in Ethiopia and in the Diaspora.
Some scribbled �Haile Selassie, not Nkrumah is
the founder of the pan-African movement� (which
is incorrect); others suggested, let Haile
Selassie�s statue stand along with that of
Nkrumah (which is fair); still others seem to
favor the knocking down of the Nkrumah statue if
that of Haile Selassie is not erected in front of
the AUCC building, which I believe is an extremist
position and does not even consider options for
negotiation and compromise.
In
any event, notwithstanding the inaccuracy with
respect to the pan-African movement and the
founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU,
renamed African Union �AU � in 1999),
controversies in whatever form presented, and
insofar they are substantive, are healthy and must
be encouraged. In the latter spirit, thus, I like
to join the chorus but only with a fervid
intention of presenting a scholarly-cum-historical
synopsis of pan-Africanism, a powerful movement
that incidentally paved the way for the founding
of the OAU.
In
1999, I wrote an article entitled �The
Historical and Ideological Foundations of Pan-Africanism�
and it was published in African Link magazine;
subsequently I presented the same topic for an
annual conference of �Reemergence of Pan-Africanism
in the 21st Century: Implications for
Empowerments of Black Educators and Students in
the African Diaspora� held at the Central
Connecticut State University, where I teach
graduate courses. Readers interested in a detailed
and full account of the Pan-African movement can
make reference by linking to www.africanidea.org/pan-Africanism.html
In
the above-mentioned article, I have
chronologically and thematically highlighted the
roots of the pan-African movement as well as the
prominent leaders who played a major role in the
making of the Movement and later the founding of
the OAU. It is true that the Emperor Haile
Selassie of Ethiopia deserves credit in the
establishment of the pan-African organization and
the Charter that 31 African leaders signed in
Addis Ababa on May 1963. However, as will be
demonstrated below, many other leaders including
Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Jomo Kenyatta of
Kenya, Sekou Toure of Guinea, Julius Nyerere of
Tanzania have played a crucial role not only in
forging unity but also in struggling for
independence, but above everybody else Nkrumah
stands out because he was a protagonist in the
pan-African movement before even these leaders
came into the picture of establishing an
all-Africa organization. Nkrumah, in turn, was a
student of prominent leaders of pan-Africanism
such as George Padmore, C.L.R. James from Trinidad
and Marcus Garvey from Jamaica.
In
fact, the idea and movement of pan-Africanism was
not ushered in Africa; it was born in the
Caribbean and the father of the Movement and who
also coined the concept of Pan-Africanism was the
Trinidadian barrister Henry Sylvester Williams,
and he was the first to organize a pan-African
conference in London on July 23-25, 1900. Although
Williams initiated the first pan-African
gathering, he was not alone; the African
Association in London that included West Indians,
West Africans, South Africans, and some White
sympathizers in fact assisted him.
By
the time these Diaspora Africans and other leaders
from the Continent gathered in London, the Emperor
Haile Selassie was eight years old. He was a young
boy and he would not know of what was going on in
Africa, let alone of pan-African ideology. Even
when the Movement matured in the 1930s and 1940s,
he was not part of it, although, as indicated
above, he would make important contributions after
the first pan-African conference in Accra, Ghana
called upon by Nkrumah in 1958.
Henry
Sylvester Williams, to his credit, founded a
paper, The Pan-African, in 1901 and other papers
in Africa like the Lagos Standard and the Gold
Coast Chronicle followed the footsteps of
Williams� initiative and carried pan-African
news and views on their respective issues.
Meanwhile, a Nigerian student at Edinburgh
University, Bandele Omoyini, wrote a book entitled
Defense of the Ethiopian Movement in 1908.
In a similar vein, Casely Hayford of the Gold
Coast (now Ghana) authored Ethiopia Unbound.
Later, in the 1930s Marcus Garvey would supplement
and galvanize the legacy of the early harbingers
in the pan-African struggle via his organization,
the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
that he founded in 1916. Garvey�s UNIA national
anthem included �Ethiopia, land of our
fathers.�
In
1919, the Pan-African Congress that convened in
Paris declared a resolution in regards to the
African people under the yoke of colonialism and
demanded that �a) the Allied and Associated
Powers establish a code of law for the
international protection of the natives of Africa,
similar to the proposed international code of
labour; b) the League of Nations establish a
permanent Bureau charged with a special duty of
overseeing the application of these laws to the
political, social, and economic welfare of the
natives.�1
Most
importantly, the Pan-African Congress in Paris
emphasized the right of African people in the
decision making process of the colonial
governments: �The natives of Africa must have
the right to participate in the Government as fast
as their development permits, in conformity with
the principle that the Government exists for the
natives, and not the natives for the
Government.�2
All
of the pan-African leaders were inspired by
Ethiopia because they were all aware that Ethiopia
triumphed over the Italian invading forces at Adwa
in 1896 and managed to preserve its independence.
When Italy, for the second time attempted to take
over Ethiopia in the 1930s and in fact occupied
the country between 1936 and 1941, Marcus Garvey
and George Padmore were at the forefront against
the Italian aggression. In West Africa, major
newspapers like The Sierra Leone Weekly,
the Nigerian Daily Times, Vox Populi of
Gold Coast, The Gold Coast Spectator, and
the West African Pilot all expressed
the fury of the African people against Italian
attack on Ethiopia. Jomo Kenyatta, who served as
honorary chair of the International African
Friends of Abyssinia, wrote �Hands off
Abyssinia� in Labour Monthly of 1935.
Nine
years after Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, the
Pan-African group met in Manchester and this time
prominent leaders like W.E.B Du Bois from the
United States joined the movement and the
conference resulted in forming the Pan-African
Federation in 1944. The Federation created a
special secretariat and included the following
famous pan-Africanists: Dr. Peter Millard of
British Guiana as chairman, R. T. Mekonnen
(formerly Peter Griffith) as treasurer; George
Padmore and Kwame Nkrumah as joint secretaries;
Peter Abrahams of South Africa, publicity
secretary; and Jomo Kenyatta as assistant
secretary.
The
first congress of the Federation attracted 200
delegates from all over the world, and for the
first time it bridged pan-Africanism and the
liberation struggle in Africa. It was also for the
first time a majority of continental Africans
attended the Congress. The Manchester Congress was
a radical departure from pan-African ideals to a
concerted action for the total liberation of
African colonies. Out of this Congress also
evolved the West African National Congress in
august 1946 with Kwame Nkrumah as its outspoken
leader.3
The
Manchester Congress was called upon 25 years after
the Paris Congress and its declaration, quite
obviously, would be markedly different from the
latter. In 1945, the Congress, thus, declared both
to the colonial powers and colonial people, and in
no uncertain terms stated, �We are determined to
be free. We want education. We want the right to
earn a decent living, the right to express our
thought and emotions, to adopt and create forms of
beauty. We demand for Black Africa autonomy and
independence, so far and no further than it is
possible in this One World for groups and peoples
to rule themselves subject to inevitable world
unity and federation.� �We affirm the right of
all colonial peoples to control their own destiny.
All colonies must be free from foreign imperialist
control, whether political or economic. The people
of the colonies must have the right to elect their
own Governments, without restriction from foreign
powers. We say to the peoples of the colonies that
they must fight for these ends by all means at
their disposal. �We also call upon the
intellectuals and professional classes of the
colonies to waken to their responsibilities. By
fighting for trade union rights, the right to form
cooperatives, freedom of the Press, assembly,
demonstration and strike, freedom to print and
read the literature which is necessary for the
education of the masses, you will be using the
only means by which your liberties will be won and
maintained. Today, there is only one road to
effective action � the organization of the
masses. And in that organization the educated
colonial must join. Colonial and subject peoples
of the world, Unite.�4
Twelve
years after the Manchester Declaration and eleven
years after Nkrumah founded a regional federation
of the Congress, on March 1957 Ghana became
independent and the first pan-African Conference
of independent states (then only eight of them)
was held in Accra, Ghana from April 15 to 22, 1958
under the leadership of Nkrumah. Accra was
embellished with flyers, billboards, and placards
that read �Africa Must Unite!� In the
conference several other prominent leaders in the
struggle for African independence like Patrice
Lumumba were also present.
This
first conference agreed to launch pan-Africanism
in Africa; to promote economic cooperation; to
appreciate one another�s culture. Above all, the
conference participants agreed on the total
independence of the continent and declared war on
apartheid. They have also agreed to meet every two
years, and decided the second conference to be
held at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1960. African
states expected to attend the Addis Ababa
conference were Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana,
Guinea, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,
Madagascar, Congo Kinshasa (as it was known then),
Mali, Nigeria, and Somalia. But, while Morocco and
Congo stayed away due to internal crisis, Mali,
Togo, and Madagascar decided not to participate
due to pressure from France and their own
indifference to pan-Africanism.
Quite
clearly, Africans were not united as the Accra
conference anticipated and on the contrary
dissension and division among Africans was
apparent following the 1960 Addis Ababa
conference. By April 1961, thus, three African
groups were formed, namely the Casablanca Group
(CG), the Brazzaville Group (BG), and the Monrovia
Group (MG). The CG, known as the radicals
constituted Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, Algeria
(represented by the Provisional Government),
Libya, and Egypt; the BG, considered as
conservative and pro-French, comprised of
Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Central African
Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, and
Senegal; the MG, labeled as the �moderate
group� in fact consisted most of the Brazzaville
bloc and countries like Nigeria, Sierra Leone,
Liberia, Togo, and Dahomey (now Benin). The MG,
however, was influenced by what I would call the
neutral bloc that could also include countries
like Ethiopia. Eventually, in the political
literature of the times, the contending blocs were
the CG and the MG and the BG was virtually omitted
and dropped.
On
May 8, 1961, the pan-African conference met in
Monrovia to resolve their differences and the
proposal was put forth by Leopold Sedar Senghor
(the Dakar recommendation) of Senegal: Form a
six-state sponsoring committee, Liberia and
Nigeria from the neutral group; Cameroon and
Brazzaville from the BG bloc; and Guinea and Mali
from CG. But not all African states attended the
conference. Morocco stayed away, because, this
time, it resented Mauritania�s presence with
which it had territorial dispute; Ghana, Guinea,
and Mali wanted to postpone the meeting on the
grounds of �ill preparation� by the
conference; and for unknown reason, Sudan and
Egypt declined to attend.
Despite
the grim scenario that bewitched the post-colonial
states of Africa in their endeavor to find a
common ground for African unity, however, eighteen
African countries fully participated in the
forthcoming Lagos conference of January 1962. In
this conference, the Dakar recommendation and the
proposal presented by Ethiopia, Liberia, and
Nigeria were accepted, and after a long and
arduous deliberations, the African states agreed
to set up an inter-African and Malagasy
organization with an assembly of heads of states
and governments, a council of ministers, a general
secretariat and commissions. This resolution,
named The Lagos Charter, was a milestone in the
annals of African history, and the CG and MG
reconciled their differences, and it is at this
particular juncture that Ethiopia in general and
Emperor Haile Selassie in particular played a
crucial and pivotal role in ironing out the
differences that prevailed among African leaders
while at the same time, laying the cornerstone for
African unity.
At
the Lagos Conference, Emperor Haile Selassie made
the following memorable speech:
�We
are told that Africa has been split into competing
groups and that this is inhibiting cooperation
among the African states and severely retarding
African progress. One hears of the Casablanca
group and the Monrovia group, of the Conakry and
Dakar declarations, and we are warned that the
views and policies of these so-called groups are
so antithetical as to make it impossible for them
to work together as partners in an enterprise to
which all are mutually devoted. But do such
hard-and-fast groupings really exist? And if
certain nations sharing similar views have taken
measures to coordinate their policies, does this
mean that, as between these nations and others,
there is no possibility of free and mutual
cooperation? �Ethiopia considers herself a
member of one group only � the African group.
When we Africans have been misled into
pigeonholing one another, into attributing rigid
and inflexible views to states which were present
at the conference but to another, then we shall,
without reason or justification, have limited our
freedom of action and rendered immeasurably more
difficult the task of joining our efforts, in
harmony and brotherhood, in the common cause of
Africa�No wide and unbridgeable gulf exists as
between the various groupings which have been
created�We urge that this conference use this as
its starting point, that we emphasize and lay
stress of similarity and agreement rather than
upon whatever disagreements and differences may
exist among us.�5
By
the end of 1962 and early 1963, thus, preparations
were underway for the formation of the pan-African
union. By the end of December 1962, there were 32
independent African states and on March 1963
Ethiopia invited African heads of states and
governments to convene in Addis Ababa on May 1963.
This was not however a simple invitation; it was
rather a mobilization effort on the part of
Ethiopia to make sure that all 32 leaders converge
in the Ethiopian capital, which soon was going to
be the African capital. The mobilization task was
assigned to the then abler foreign minister Ketema
Yifru and he was to travel to all African
countries and meet with the heads of states, just
to convince them to come to Addis Ababa. But
Ketema Yifru was not just an envoy that would have
talks with the African leaders at the behest of
the Emperor; in fact, it was him who advised the
Emperor early on to cement relations with African
leaders (Ethiopia to have an Africa-oriented
policy) and especially to strengthen ties with
leaders like Sekou Toure.
The
sojourn of Ketema Yifru was successful; he
returned to Ethiopia with an olive branch, because
all African leaders, without exception, and now
out of the deluge of differences, confirmed their
coming to Addis Ababa. Thus, foreign ministers
began meeting on May 15, 1963 and when they ended
their meeting, they appointed a sub-committee
composed of Algeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana,
Guinea, Madagascar, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Tunisia
to draft a charter. Beyond this, however, the
foreign ministers meeting did not achieve much,
but it certainly paved a way for the summit
conference of the 32 independent African states.
This would be a historic conference because, as
pointed out above, the Casablanca and Monrovia
groups ironed out their differences and sat
together.
In
his opening address, Emperor Haile Selassie
reiterated the urgency of the formation of African
unity and said, �This conference cannot close
without adopting a single African charter. We
cannot leave here without having created a single
African organization�If we fail in this, we will
have shirked our responsibility to Africa and to
the peoples we lead. If we succeed, then, and only
then, we will have justified our presence here.�6
Other
important leaders like Sekou Toure suggested for
the implementation of the Lagos Charter and hence
the unity of Africa; Senghor entertained a
slightly different idea and he was in favor of
gradual unification; and Nkrumah vehemently
opposed �gradual unification� and he proposed
an All-Africa Committee of Foreign Ministers to
work on the total unity of the continent. Despite
these minor differences, the Addis Ababa summit
was successful because all African leaders signed
the Charter (with the exception of Togo, whose
leader, Sylvanus Olympio, was assassinated before
the Addis summit took place) and the Organization
of African Unity was born.
The
next significant conference of the OAU took place
at Cairo, Egypt on July 19, 1964 and in this
meeting of the African heads of states, Nkrumah
was the dominant political figure. He delivered a
historic speech, �The Need for a Union
Government for Africa,� in which he underscored
again the total unity of Africa. �In the year
that has passed since we met at Addis Ababa and
established the Organization of African Unity, I
have had no reason to change my mind about the
concrete proposals which I made to you then, or
about the reasons I gave for my conviction that
only a Union Government can guarantee our
survival. On the contrary, every hour since then,
both in the world at large and on our own
continent, has brought events to prove that our
problems as individual states are insoluble except
in the context of African Unity, that our security
as individual states is indivisible from the
security of the whole continent, that the freedom
of our compatriots still in foreign chains and
under colonial rule awaits the redeeming might of
the African Continental Government.�7
Some
commentators wrongly accused Nkrumah for his
ambitions to transfer the OAU headquarters from
Addis Ababa to Accra. On the contrary, this is
what Nkrumah said in the Cairo Summit: �it has
been suggested from this rostrum, and it is on our
agenda also, that we should decide at this
Conference as to the location of the Permanent
Headquarters of the Organization of African Unity
and appoint a permanent Secretary-General. If, as
I hope, we agree in principle, at this conference
to move on to the establishment of a union
Government of Africa, we shall require quite a
different set of criteria for selecting the
Headquarters of the organization and the permanent
officials. We should also be careful to avoid
being drawn into discussions at this stage which
could lead to a clash of interests as to which
country should have the Headquarters or provide a
Secretary-General. This could harm the very unity
which we are trying now to establish. I feel very
strongly that the status quo should remain�I
would like to express on behalf of Ghana our
sincere thanks to His Imperial Majesty Haile
Selassie I and to the Ethiopian Government for
maintaining the Provisional Secretariat up to now.
I feel, however, that before we rise we should
make appropriate contributions from our various
States for the upkeep of this our Organization.
The burden should not be Ethiopia�s alone. I
would like to state in this connection that Ghana
is not interested in either the Headquarters or
the Secretary-Generalship of the Organization.�8
Another
important African leader who was very much
committed for the unity of Africa was Julius
Nyerere of Tanzania. I have read some remarks made
by flyer-type superficial newspapers in regards to
the United States of Africa concept and giving
credit to Muamar Gadaffi but this is entirely
false. The United States of Africa terminology was
actually coined by Julius Nyerere. In 1999, I
critiqued the false claim in an article I wrote on
Juilus Kambarage Nyerere, and her is what I stated
then: �Like Kwame Nkrumah and Sedar Senghor,
�African unity� was the prime agenda in
Nyerere�s political portfolio. While Senghor
emphasized Negritude (African pride) and
Pan-Africanism mainly in the cultural realm,
Nkrumah underscored the primacy of political unity
of the Continent, hence �Africa Must Unite�
motto. Nyerere advanced the idea of �United
States of Africa� without major departure from
the former two. Incidentally the recent call by
Muamar Gadaffi for a �United States of Africa�
comes 36 years after Nyerere inaugurated it as its
harbinger.
Many
of the great African leaders of the late 1950s and
early 1960s, the founding fathers of African
Unity, and the many unsung heroes who also equally
contributed for the liberation of the continent
and the unity of its peoples deserve a huge
acclaim and credit. They all must find a space on
the hall of fame in the newly built Africa
Conference Center. It is appropriate to honor
Kwame Nkrumah by erecting his statue in front of
the AUCC; it would be equally appropriate to honor
the other African leaders like Haile Selassie,
Sekou Toure, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Nyerere, but
it would still stir controversy if we only salute
few of them and forget the others and betray the
history of the OAU itself. We must render justice
to all the founding fathers by either erecting a
mural behind the Nkrumah statue, or let the
Nkrumah statue stand and let other statues flank
and accompany it.
Notes:
- Pan
African Congress Resolution, Paris, 1919, in
Molefi Kete Asante and Abu S. Abarry
(editors), African Intellectual Heritage,
Temple University Press, 1996, p.517
- Ibid
- Ghelawdewos
Araia, The historical and Ideological
Foundations of Pan-Africanism, www.africanidea.org/pan-africanism.html
see also African Link, Vol. 6, No. 1,
1997
- Asante
and Abarry, op cit, p. 520-21
- Addis
Ababa Summit 1963,
Publication and Foreign Language Press
Department
- Adenkule
Ajala, Pan-Africanism: Evolution, Progress,
and Prospects, Andre Deutsch, 1974, p. 10
- Kwame
Nkrumah, The Need for Union Government for
Africa, Cairo Summit Conference, July 19,
1964, in Asante and Abarry, p. 559
- Kwame
Nkrumah, Ibid, p. 567
- Ghelawdewos
Araia, �Tribute to Mualimu Julius Kambarage
Nyerere,� African Link, Fourth
Quarter, Vol. 8, No. 4, 1999
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