Professor Lumumba’s Take

Whenever I travel or speak at conferences, people always walk to me and ask “but Prof, what does Pan-Africanism mean”?. Well, today, in this piece, I want to share with you all a few thoughts regarding the history and significance of Pan Africanism.

I define Pan-Africanism in its broader context to mean the creation of an Africa which is borderless. An Africa whose sons and daughters will have the ability to move from Djibouti to Dakar, from Tunisia to Cape Town without the hindrance of borders; an Africa which is proud in itself.

As a Kenyan, an African and a staunch believer in Pan Africanism, I look forward to the Africa that I have so vividly dreamt of. An Africa that will not only birth political stability and social cohesion but also steer economic development for all Africans.

History of Pan-Africanism and its early voices

As I further delve into the intricacies of Pan Africanism, I have to start from the beginning. It starts early back when our lives were disrupted by the Arabs and Europeans who participated in the slave trade, leaving East Africa and West Africa ravished.

Even as I mention abolition, I am being very guarded, because even as I speak to you now, there is some form of slavery that is taking place in countries such as Sudan and Libya, which are in the public domain, so I talk about abolition knowing that there are vestiges of slavery that are still alive and well.

Resources lacking for the Europeans are what led to colonization and thereafter neo-colonization. These two, I believe lead to the birth of active Pan-Africanism. It is here that the question of who the early voices of Pan Africanism were is asked and this is where people like Marcus Garvey, W.E.B Dubois, Kwame Nkrumah, George Padmore, Haile Selassie, Mwalimu Nyerere and Kenneth David Kaunda  must be mentioned. It was not only in the political arena. As early as 1906, a young South African spoke at the University of Columbia. Pixley Ka Isaka Seme talked about the renaissance of Africa. So you had pan Africanism being articulated at the level of politics but it’s not just at the level of politics. We saw it in the arts, in literature, the writings of people like Walter Rodney, Aime Cesaire, people like Léopold Sédar Senghor.

In later years, Pan Africanism was seen in music through people like Bob Marley and Miriam Makeba. So, by the time that some of us are being born, the spirit of pan Africanism is alive and well. The very reason why, in those days, people like myself are named after Patrice Emery Lumumba. We were named after him because of his pan Africanist conventions. People were named Nkrumah, Obote, Nyerere, and Bantu Steve Biko. Later, much later, people were named Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, Sékou Touré and others. All this was appreciating that there was something that transcended the mere boundaries that were artificially created. That there was something that was African.

Each of us should open our eyes to the fact that colonization and slavery succeeded. It is not lost to me that even as I speak we have many conflicts which are manufactured from outside to the detriment of Africa. Because it is when we are at conflict, that we are easiest to exploit.

Divided into little countries

I am often asked how Pan-Africanism has affected my  journey. I got drawn to the whole idea of regaining our self esteem due to my studies in both literature and African National Movements and living outside the continent.

When you travel outside of this continent, Africa is not seen in its diversity. We are all seen as one. So it is in that context that I have personally taken the view, that Africa will not be present at the dinner table of human civilization on an equal footing with other civilizations, as long as we are divided into little countries.

I believe we must in our diversity work in unison, so that we are able to confront the European Union, the Chinese and other Powers. As it is now, we are so weak and divided and therefore easy to exploit. And this is why I have taken it, in my view, as a crusade to use the resources that I have to shout from the rooftops about Africans giving value to Africa and gaining self-esteem.

How do we as Africans join the crusade you ask? Easy; for starters, we must be proud of our own. We must enjoy our movies, we must not have Hollywood define for us what a movie is. Nollywood in Nigeria produces the second highest number of movies after Bollywood. Yet, if you ask a typical African, who are the lead actors from Nollywood they do not know and they do not care. I seldom watch movies made in Hollywood because of the artificiality and the obvious fact that they don’t relate to what we are doing. Why is it that Kiswahili is not an official UN language?

We must be proud of our languages. I hold the view that it is important and we must have African languages being authentically recognized languages and that is only going to happen if young people are involved.

Pan - Africanism and African millennials

History has demonstrated that whenever young people are appropriately animated and they have a focus, they change their societies! Because it is they who have the energy, the enthusiasm, the daring, in Kiswahili we say “wana uku…!!” the daring!! I personally believe that for Africa, young people are the game changers.

Looking at modern history, there were the so called young Turks who changed the Ottoman empire in 1908. Looking at South Africa, in 1960 in the Sharpeville massacre when people like Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe are in the forefront, you see young people again. Once again in 1969 and then in 1976 in Soweto, it was school children who led the marches.

If you go to other civilizations in France in 1968, you go to Korea in 1980, you go to Tienanmen square, you go to the launch camps movement in 1963 in the United States of America, it was young people who were in the launch campers. Even more recent is Tahrir square in Egypt, the revolt against the regime was led by young people.

Pan Africanism as a weapon against conflict

Pan African-ism if harnessed among African millennial’s can also help us eliminate unnecessary conflicts. Right now, there are many live conflicts across the continent, and who dies? Young people.  Whether they are men or women, they are the ones who are dying. I am of the view that all these conflicts can be eliminated if our young people are charged in the right direction, so that, that energy is canalized to preach about Africa. Look at the young people behind this publication that is in the business of creating a pan African publication and media can have your headquarters in Bangui, Central African Republic or Mogadishu! And, in the next ten years, you are able to beam out to the entire African continent. Can it be done? Yes! Look at Aljazeera.