Pan-Africanism

Introduction

Introduction

This December marks the 60th anniversary of the All African People’s Conference (AAPC) in Accra, Ghana. The nearly weeklong event in 1958 convened some 200 people representing 60 organisations from 27 countries, including prominent pan-African personalities like Patrice Lumumba and Tom Mboya.

When the African Union (AU) met in Accra, Ghana in 2007, there was one item on the agenda: implementation of the plans for the full unification of Africa.

The following is an excerpt from Mazrui’s speech.

Western images of Black people in earlier centuries portrayed Africans as a people without history, incapable of poetry, too intellectually retarded to philosophise, and too mentally slow to be scientific.

I looked at the sign posted beside the ticket booth, somewhat confused. 5,200CFA (US $9) for non-Africans, 2,700CFA (US $5) for non-Senegalese Africans, and 1,500CFA (about US $3) for Senegalese adults to take a ferry to Gorée Island—the island housing the last slave outpost in Senegal.

For the US, African people globally have no economic value short of being unwitting consumers whose labour-use has expired, and whose resistance to social injustice must be repressed at all costs.

Previously on 9 July, a document was signed by the leaders of the Horn of Africa states in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea.

A fine performance in secondary school landed him at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) in July 1969. That was where I met him. Inspired by Mwalimu Nyerere, he had come imbued the spirit of Pan-Africanism and socialism.

Opening remarks