Contemporary Africa and Pan-Africanism
cc Pan-Africanism gave rise to the civil rights movement in the US and to independence and anti-imperialist movements in Africa, writes Salma Maoulidi, but what is Pan-Africanism to the average African today? To a large extent, Maoulidi argues, it remains a global phenomenon that has focused on global political agendas and less so on struggles on the ground. What is missing, suggests Maoulidi, is ‘a popular expression of Pan-Africanism and a matching consciousness such that the concept does not appear surreal, abstract and out of touch with reality and the populace, particularly the youth who are the inheritors of its future.’
Recently I was in the audience listening to a talk hosted by the African Studies Association and the Centre for African Studies at Rutgers University in the US, featuring Paul Tiyambe Zelesa, entitled [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.
NOTES
[1] The same can be said of the governor general of Canada, Michäelle Jean and black woman or Diane Abbott and Paul Boateng from Britain