The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science

and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan
State University Library. Find more at:
http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/

Available through a partnership with

Scroll down to read the article.

 Afr. j . polit. sci. (2003), Vol 8 No. 1

Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in

Africa? In Search of the Ideational Basis
of Afro-Pessimism
Abubakar Momoh*

In Lieu of an Abstract
As we come to the end of the twentieth century Africa remains a deeply
contested intellectual and ideological terrain; a continent that is perhaps
still as misrepresented and misunderstood as it was at the beginning of
the century. Ever since Africa's tragic encounter with Europe in the mod-
ern times, each generation's social imagery of Africa, especially in the out-
side world, but sometimes within Africa as well, has been dominated by
powerful metaphors and imaginary (sic) through which Africa is con-
structed and consumed, its histories and futures confiscated and con-
demned. To be sure the stereotypes that structure discourses about Africa
mutate, but each mutation carries with it past discursive genes, and the
prevailing social rhetoric always sets Africa up against the current con-
ceptions of western modernity. In the days of slave trade, African 'pagan-
ism' and 'primitivity* condemned millions of Africans to slavery. Later
African 'backwardness' and 'laziness' rationalised colonial conquest and
exploitation. After independence 'development' became the conduit for
neo-colonial interventions. Most recently, 'democratisation' has been
added to the ideological repertoire, with the West presenting itself as
Prospero to Africa's Caliban. Almost invariably, then, Africa is constructed
or reconstructed as a representation of the West's negative image, a dis-
course that, simultaneously, valorises and affirms Western superiority and
absolves it from its existential and epistemological violence against Africa.
The arrogant mobilisation and deployment of this discursive power in re-
cent years in Africanists scholarship has widened the rupture between
Africans and Africanists (Zeleza, 1997: iii).

Introduction
Let me begin with a disclaimer. This article is not about the historiography
of pan-Africanism. However, it is an attempt to animate the intellectual

*Dr Momoh is a senior lecturer. Department of Political Science, Lagos State University, Nigeria

B
1027-0353 2003 African Association of Political Science
32 Abubakar Momoh

basis for understanding the emancipative quest of the African toiling people
in the context of the multiple and hydra-headed crises afflicting Africa. At
the very outset, pan-Africanism was an ideology that had a solid intellec-
tual basis. That is why at its origin it was very elitist and idealistic as a
social movement. Although in practice it is quite difficult to distinguish
between the intellectual and political aspects of pan-Africanism. However,
this distinction is analytically useful for the kind of enterprise we intend to
undertake in this article. The intellectual aspect of pan-Africanism has
become subsumed in its political aspect and in the process, care is not taken
to sieve the various strands of pan-Africanism.
Today, however, pan- Africanism has come to occupy a statist platform ap-
propriated by African Heads of state (Diagne and Ossebi, 1996: 3). In this way
it has become a nebulous and perverted ideology which expresses and is an
outcome of failure, a defeated ideology. Pan-Africanism that set out to express
the hope and aspiration of Africans and African Diaspora became an ideology
of despair and lamentation. In the Diaspora, the ideology was meant to dignify
the black people and serve as a political and cultural link to Africa that they
sentimentally wanted to be united with. To Myers, "identifying self in this way
reflects the idea of holonomy, the being contained in each of the parts, which
is so characteristic of nature" (1987: 77). Whereas for Africans (on the African
soil), it served as a collective platform for self-definition and an onerous strug-
gle against colonialism. Such a quest did not obviate the fact that there were
cultural, social and class differences amongst Africans.

The African Impasse Problematised

My brief in this article is three-fold. First, I want to argue that there are
heuristic claims we can make in trying to understand the pan-African idea
and consciousness in relation to seeking its relevance in the definition of
Africa's current crises and how to transcend them. In seeking this under-
standing, I want to contend that being a pan-Africanist entails more than a
shared racial identity. Indeed, the affirmation rather than the denial of such
identity is important to transcending its racial undercurrent. Indeed,
racial/political identity (commitment and solidarity) is just one of the sev-
eral qualifications for being a pan-Africanist. After all, racism is hyper-
stereotype, a form of bio-psychologisation of people through the mediation
of social object (Goldberg, 1987: 59) and power relations. In other words it
characterises people on the basis of specie ontology and not social ontology.
Second, I will contend that there is need to re-tool us, in the Afrocentric
sense, to be able to grapple with the multifaceted and hydra-headed crises
confronting Africa. Afrocentricity is not and should not be seen as the flip
side of Eurocentricity neither is it a nebulous attempt to make a claim of
exceptionalism for the continent. Racial oppression finds its first meaning or
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 33

touch stone in politics or power relations - as the oppression of historically

oppressed people on account of control over political power. Afrocentricity
is or should be seen as the recognition of a humanist approach to an inves-
tigation of Africa from a sensitive, measured and sober intellectual and
political point of view; the issue of social location, context and specific
material and cultural differences in material and social production. And this
methodological approach is much more than a vocation as it requires com-
mitment and even sacrifice. Afrocentricity does not seek to transcend value-
judgement in analysis for the major thrust of the accusation of critics of
Eurocentricism is centred on their claim that the latter is a conscious
attempt to impose one cultural standpoint as the universal basis for reflect-
ing and understanding the rest of the world. All else is either meaningless
or unimportant. Afrocentricity seeks a more sober and humanist disposition
to analysis and commentary about Africa. The point here is how has the
African reality been interpreted? The first guinea pig of the Afrocentric
approach will necessarily be anthropology that, ontologically, is racially
constructed and racially pursued as a discipline. It begins with the unilin-
ear definition of culture and values and what standards of living are
civilised or uncivilised. There is also Political Science that came to define
what makes for a stable polity, what constitutes democracy and so on. The
crucial questions for us are; what are the multiple explanations offered
about Africa? In what ways do they reflect the objective conditions of the
African people and the struggles they are waging to transform this? Here,
our attempt is to challenge the Africanists and those discourses that seek to
absolutise knowledge-they alone make universalistic and monopolistic
claims to scientific knowledge!
Third, I intend to link the claim of pan-Africanism and the Afrocentric
perspective to the question of Afro-pessimism. The crucial question here is,
how come that Africa that started off with so much hope several millennia
past, has now become the pathetic victim of donors and charity organisa-
tions. Is the new humanitarium in Africa not a new way of continuing the
pillage and plunder of Africa? Is Africa really poor in the way the poverty
discourse is framed? How come that Africa whose most able-bodied citizens
were forcibly taken away in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as
slaves, today has able-bodied and skilled manpower that desperately wants
to emigrate to Europe and America, but this time against the wish of the
patrons of those countries? In the process many of those Africans become
victims of immigration laws and are consequently subjected to the most
bestial and inhuman treatment. Why is it that it is only famine, war, debt,
poverty, corruption, AIDS, witchcraft and authoritarianism that are associ-
ated with Africa? Indeed, the philosophical thrust of Afro-pessimism is
rooted in those latter set of questions. Afro-pessimism is a new ideology that
34 Abubakar Momoh

has a composite population. Its adherents include many of the Africanists,

the donor and charity community, international money-lenders, some neo-
liberal and post modernist African scholars and above all, some New Left
converts to what I elect to call revisionist liberalism (A la Anthony Giddens
et al). These converts view the crisis in Eastern Europe as marking the nunc
dimitis of the ideology debate and hence of the triumphalism of western lib-
eralism.
What went wrong and who benefits by this? What are the issues that an
Afrocentric perspective must address? What is or had been the character of
the intellectual contestation in Africa and what are the gains or significance
of the past and how do we bring them to bear in the understanding of our
current realities? What, for instance, is the place of the current advocacy for
African Renaissance and African Union, in the attempt to grapple with the
emancipation of the toiling people of Africa? What are the issues on the
front burner of the toiling people of Africa? An article such as this is cer-
tainly incapable of answering all those questions. My belief is, however,
that it is more useful to pose the right questions than to pose the wrong and
diversionary ones. I will, all the same, tentatively answer those questions in
a broad and totalising sense.
The crucial point for us is if Africa were that bad, poor and hopeless as
it is being portrayed, most of the MNCs and moneylenders could have left it
a long time ago. The point is Africa is poor because it is rich and Africa is
portrayed as a poor continent so that Africans will continue to be hapless
and hopeless about Africa. Put differently, Afro-pessimism is an invented
ideology. The way Africa is currently portrayed is part of an orchestrated
hegemonic ideology nurtured or inspired by the western world and repro-
duced by local African leaders. Afro-pessimism is therefore not a fair or cor-
rect political reflection of the mood of the people of Africa. Pushed to its log-
ical conclusion, coming from the West, Afro-pessimism is a racist ideology
that is a mere continuation of the "dark continent" thesis and the view that
"nothing good can ever come out of Africa". For the African leaders and rul-
ing classes, it is a portrayal of their callousness, irresponsibility, and their
political failure. But in this failure is to be found the institutional and struc-
tural bases for Africa's destruction. And this is for two reasons: the west
mentored those African leaders and they created the external environment
that nurtured their sustenance. Even when the African people found ways
to challenge their leaders and transform their political institutions, the West
have always found ways of subverting them. It is in this sense that we need
to understand the failure of democracy's "Third wave" or the democratisa-
tion process in Africa or what has been euphemistically referred to as "polit-
ical conditionality" for African leaders. This is what makes western solu-
tions suspect. For instance, some of the humanitarian agents in Rwanda will
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 35

lose their jobs as soon as there is no longer crisis in that country. Kofi
Annan has come out to admit that the genocide in Rwanda could have been
averted if the United Nations acted early enough and promptly. Bill Clinton
has come out to tender a similar apology. But the crucial question is, was an
early warning signal not sent out or not? Did the signals matter? What were
those states and forces that asked that the signals be ignored? What is the
people's understanding of the Hutu and Tutsi problem?
Today, Rwanda and Burundi have been turned into laboratories for the
experimentation of all sorts of absurd and racist projects; from the most sub-
lime to the most ridiculous. Much as we can say this for those institutions,
agencies and political leaders we can also say the same for so called human-
itarian agencies and Africanists whose survival depends on the existence of
the African tragedy. No other person than Goran Hyden best captures this.
In his Presidential Address to the African Studies Association in 1995, in
Orlando, Florida he states thus:
...Africanists need to be united. The marginalisation of the continent (Africa)
does also impinge upon the Africanist scholarship and makes it increasingly
threatened.... After all, the bulk of research on Africa is still being produced
on this side of the Atlantic. Certainly, it is our writing that reaches furthest
and in that sense helps determine intellectual trends (Hyden, 1996: 4).

Pan Africanism: From Do You Remember the Days of

Slavery' To 'Do Not Forget Your History'.
The starting point of most discourses on pan-Africanism is its origin in slave
trade and how the African Diaspora used it as a political weapon to con-
struct a rallying platform for identity and affinity with Africa. In this way
some writers have seen it as a sentimental ideology that only has meaning
for ex-slaves. Two points need to be made here. First, Africa was Diaspora's
patrimony and the issue of the recognition that slavery and slave trade were
wrong and objectionable actually started in Africa and not in the Diaspora.
Second, and this is the more important point and at the risk of repetition,
pan-Africanism actually started as an intellectual movement. It required
ingenuity and rigorous study to disprove that the Europeans were not supe-
rior to Africans. It required rigorous investigation of the past to disprove the
thesis that Africa had no past before the coming of the White people. Many
of the issues and things we take for granted today were never taken for
granted in the past and they were not only fought on the political level but
on the intellectual level too; the capacity and quality of the African inter-
vention in the interpretation of the current realities in Africa is weak and
this is a big challenge to the new African Renaissance movement? Do
Africans have an opportunity to interpret their own realities by themselves?
36 Abubakar Momoh

What are the political and structural handicaps to such interpretation and
transformation of the African realities? These are the fundamental issues
that require to be interrogated because the anti-Semitic strand of so-called
neo-liberalism and Rational Choice theory cannot be taken for granted in
the name of universalism and globalism.
DuBois has argued that "Africans in the Diaspora tend to look to Africa
as one united continent, one unit, mainly because they cannot trace their
particular roots" (Bankie, 1995: 1). This raises a fundamental issue about
the attitude of the African Diaspora and Africans on the African continent
in the definition of who is an African. What is more important - is it the
colour of the skin, world outlook or geographical location? What is the sta-
tus of the creolised Arabs of North Africa and the Asians and coloureds of
East and Southern Africa? (Mamdani,1998: 5). It is impossible to make an
essentialist and puritanist claim about Africa based on the specie-logic or
the pure Black race argument. This is because it remains to be seen
whether, for instance, the creolised people were also not the victims of the
history and ideology of racism, against which pan-Africanism was a
response. Indeed, the recaptives who were in the forefront of the anti-
Semitic ideology did not wage their struggles purely on account of being
Black. They interfaced race, ideology and (even) class. This is why it was
easy for some of them to have allies in the British Left and in Eastern
Europe. Indeed, there was no one worldview about what pan-Africanism
meant, there were various strands of it. This accommodative and flexible
approach should underline our attitude to the notion of Afrocentricity.
Two points need to be stated about the intellectual and political attempts
to promote the differences amongst Africans (pathetically, both North Africa
and South Africa fell for it.). Some elites from both regions are making a
claim of exceptionalism from the rest of (Equatorial) Africa. It should be
stated, and with emphasis too, that the claim of exceptionalism by these two
regions is meant to escape the epithets and characterisations that accom-
pany the study of equatorial or 'Bantu' Africa. Hence the World Bank Report
often talks of Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) and so on, in their studies or social
and economic indexation of the region. As Mamdani so eloquently argues,
while the White population of South Africa ranks 24th and next to Spain in
wealth or per capita income, the Black and Coloured population rank 123rd
and next to Congo in poverty (1998: 2). The latter population constitutes
over 70% of the total population of South Africa. It is also useful to begin to
factor in the poor whites of South Africa into the study of poverty in that
country. The question to ask is, what is the ideological motive of the case
for exceptionalism? Is it because Arab Africans do not want to relate or be
compared with the rest of Africa, in terms of those social and economic
indicators? But are these countries really exceptional in the terms in which
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 37

they are defined as exceptional? The first point to note here is that all coun-
tries in Africa where uniformly victims of colonial rule, except Ethiopia that
was never colonized throughout its history. All the colonised countries wit-
nessed oppression based on racism, political domination and economic
exploitation. During colonial rule, no colonial power distinguished between
the Arabs and the black countries. Afterall, the first principle and law of
colonialism and colonial rule was racial segregation. Indeed, when the
Algerians were fighting their war of independence against French colonial-
ism they saw unity in the cause of all African peoples and hence solicited
assistance from other African countries in the spirit of pan Africanism with-
out sensitivity of being black or Arab. It was in that same spirit that Frantz
Fanon, a major ideologue of the Algerian National liberation struggle and
the FLN, supported the Algerians. In South Africa, the colonial powers
decided to remain as settlers and used race as an ideology of privilege
against the blacks. Even in this latter regard, South Africa is not an excep-
tion because Zimbabwe also compares favourably to it, in terms of the expe-
rience of settler-colonialism and racial domination in the society. And the
major liberation movements mobilised support against apartheid within the
framework of pan-Africanism, no matter how it was defined. Then, the
Frontline states were the most strategic allies in this campaign At that time
nobody made allusion to boundary which the "Limpopo thesis" has created
in the claim of exceptionalism being made for South Africa. Apartheid was
the generic state of colonialism in Africa, its manifestation in South Africa
exemplifies the legacy of late colonialism. To criminalise apartheid is to
make a civilised, universal and humanist claim. In other words, South
Africans were fighting the exceptionalism imposed on them by a racist
white minority regime: by saying we are not different, we want to behave
like and/or to be linked to the rest of humanity and more particularly our
liberated African brethrens.
The point is that the claim of exceptionalism is based on the fact that
those minority white-dominated enclaves in Africa do not want to be asso-
ciated with the ideology of Afro-pessimism or its fall-outs. Hence Afro-pes-
simism can only be the product of black and 'Bantu' Africa! The claim is
rooted in the misleading principle that anything done or inspired by
Africans can not work (a la Africa Works). It should be stated and with
emphasis too that, if there is any country in Africa that qualifies to make a
claim to exceptionalism it is Ethiopia, a country without colonial experience
and whose rich history and culture predates Christianity. Yet, when Africans
talk about that culture and civilisation and especially of the Egyptian civil-
isation which was related to Nubia and which was a black civilisation,
Africanists and Western scholarship dismiss them as rumour-mongers and
myth-makers (Cf. Lefkowitz and Rogers (eds), 1996). Some Africanists have
38 Abubakar Momoh

engaged in and substituted impressionistic, armchair theorising, crude

empiricism and name-calling for scholarship in their attempt to deny the
study of Cheikh Anta Diop. Yet, none of them has provided persuasive
counter evidence to invalidate Diop's claims. Diop relied on sociological,
historical, and archaeological works for his study. He relied on radio-car-
bon dating, the use of the more scientific and generally acknowledged and
much more sophisticated method of inquiry such as ultra violet rays, and
oral tradition. What was considered as heresy by the eurocentnsts was the
provocative argument made by Diop to the effect that Egyptian civilisation
to which many Greek philosophers and writers alluded in their writings,
was actually a black civilisation and that the Arab occupation of that land
is a very recent event. The controversy here is that the Greeks of antiquity
that were the direct patrimony of western civilisation, were said to have bor-
rowed and learnt a lot from the Pharaohs of Egypt in such fields as philos-
ophy and mathematics. Writing in 450 BC, Herodotus stated that even the
names given to the ancient Gods of Greece came from Egypt. And the his-
tory of that famous kingdom dates back to 3400 BC as it came to be insti-
tutionalised under the Pharaohs of the "Double crown" (Davidson, 1994:
20). On the Egyptian controversy, it will be useful to quote Diop in extenso:
I related the fact that the Egyptians were Blacks because beyond the manner
in which they portrayed themselves in their monuments, beyond what we
made of their ethnic group, beyond what we would have wish them to be, if
they are removed from their sarcophagus, if the skin of the mummies is sci-
entifically scoured, the epidermis will be pigmented just like that of all other
Blacks of Africa.
What is presently found in the Sahara only goes to confirm what preceded.
The Stone Age activity discovered in the Sahara, and all the other cultural ele-
ments found in this region up to 7000 years BC, strictly point to a black world.
It is impossible to date the presence of Indo-European man in the Sahara
beyond 1500 years. I add that presently there is infallible scientific process
(ultra-violet rays, for instance) for determining the amount of melanin in pig-
mentation. Now, the difference between a White and Black from this point of
view comes from the fact that the organism of the white secretes enzymes
which reabsorb the melanin while the black organism does not secrete these
enzymes. The same goes for that of the ancient Egyptian. This is the reason
why, from prehistory to the Ptolemaic period, the Egyptian mummy has
invariably remained black. In other words, during all of Egypt's known his-
tory, the skin of all Egyptians of all social classes (from the Pharaoh to the
Fellah) has remained that of authentic blacks. The same goes for their bone
structure (Diop, 1996: 140-141). (emphasis added)
It is also instructive to take a cursory look at the works of Martin Bernal
(1985, 1987) who has received the most virulent attack from Lefkowitz et
al. Bernal tries to reconstruct the history and origins of the Greek in the con-
text of two contradictory models, the Aryan and the Ancient. The West
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 39

wants to discard the Ancient model because it is an account of the "colo-

nialists". The Aryan model talks more of the written word and a nuanced
method of data collection and analysis - in a word, the scientific approach.
Hear Bernal:
Proponents of the Aryan Model have not however based their claim for supe-
riority on quantity of information. For them what matters is not the amount
of information. It is true that Egyptologists can read Egyptian better than most
of the Greeks who went to Egypt. They cannot of course read it as Greeks,
modern historians cannot experience Ancient Egypt Society or question
Ancient Egyptians. Surviving written records from the Levant are negligible in
comparison to those we know to have existed 2,000 years ago. It is true that
archaeology has enabled us to know more about the material culture of Egypt
and Greece-though not Phoenicia-than any one in the past 1,500 years. This,
however, does not put us beyond the ancients themselves who lived at the end
of a period of extraordinary cultural continuity of 3,000 years (1985: 71).

Proponents of the Aryan model describe this account as incorrect and false.
Their argument is that facts and information gathered from that era need to
be subjected to a "scientific" test. "For them, just as the railways, steam-
ships and telegraphs transcended all previous means of transport and com-
munication, their scientific and skeptical historical approach or "method"
has put them on a categorically higher plane than all their predecessors,
especially the "credulous" Greeks" (Ibid). The quarrel over written and oral
sources of information/data is one means by which western scholars have
tried to deny African knowledge and indigenous ways of knowledge pro-
duction. However, Abdullahi Smith has so persuasively shown how oral
sources of history are so important to both written history and the pre-
historic world. He also demonstrated that oral history has its own method,
rules and mode of self-verification. Eurocentric scholarship has no patience
about studying or discovering this.
The major claim between the Aryan and Ancient models lies in the issue
of proof - documentary versus oral. Even some anti-Semitic proponents of
written accounts that fall outside the framework of the Ancient model (pe-
riod) do not want to rely on alternative evidence particularly Semitic evi-
dence. This is why in spite of current evidence about Egyptian and black in-
fluence on the life of Greek towns and cities, and above all, epistemology,
very little of this is accepted by many western scholars. At best, some of
them advise that we should forget about the past and think about the future.
But we are talking about a millinerian past in which Africans were described
as inglorious and sub-human. It is not easy to forget such a past - it needs
to be interrogated, reconstructed and re-interpreted. Herodotus is associated
with the school of thought which challenges this gross denial, for that rea-
son he was described as a liar by some Greek philosophers including
40 Abubakar Momoh

Plutarch in the Second century A.D. (Bernal, 1987: 100). The point is that
anti-Semitists do not want anything that will associate Greeks with a culture
of borrowing from others, particularly from Egyptians and the
Phoenicians-specific form of borrowing which in their view makes the
Greek culturally inferior to those people. This new thinking is a product of
a late history that was constructed about Africa particularly from 500 A.D.
That history is highly embedded in the politics of colonialism which in turn
was instrumental in the underdevelopment of Africa. This is the major
source of the Aryan account, beginning from about 500 A.D. The history of
the Ancient Model which lasted from about 500 B.C to 500 A.D is better re-
flected or captured in Egyptian and Phoenician sources. There is little in
western sources to rely on for that era. Many western scholars however
dismiss the Aryan model because it contradicts many of their claims sug-
gestive of racism.
Diop's work is caught in this controversy and contradiction. Africanists
ahistorically used the current underdeveloped status of Africa to deny
Africa's past and teleologically deny its future; and as such dismissed Diop's
investigations and path-breaking study as a delusion, propagandist and a
tissue of lies. The claim that Africa has no written history before the com-
ing of the white people covers up a lot. It was indeed proven that Africa had
written history that was first fossilised and later destroyed with Bantu civil-
isation. In any case, having written evidence is not a proof of correctness or
authentic knowledge, as there are many views on any issue so there are
many written materials. It is not all written records that are factual and cor-
rect. Furthermore, there is a wide gulf between evidence and proof. The
point here is that the dismissal of oral tradition and the obsession with writ-
ten records do not say much in the discussion of centuries of human history
and civilisation. At any rate there is evidence of the existence of the Kemetic
library at Amarna in 1300 BC and the Royal library in Alexandria in 3 BC
(Bethel, 1993: 7). What materials did they contain and how many western
scholars bothered to acknowledge the evidence as authentic? Many Africans
scholars have not taken up the challenge to uncover African history. The
few who have attempted this have been victims of Africanist intimidation.
The basic reason is that the west never wants Africa to make allusion to any
glorious past. Hence they denied the existence of such a past. Second, while
the west link their civilisation to Greece, there is ample evidence to suggest
that Greek civilisation borrowed from Africa, in particular, Egyptian civili-
sation which at the time in question was occupied by blacks and not Arabs.
Western scholars find it difficult to accept what is contained even in the
Bible about Africa. They tried to deny the existence of a black African civil-
isation so that they can defend their claim of racial superiority. Yet they can-
not find any historical claim for that other than by examining Africa's cur-
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 41

rent history camera obscura and by beginning that examination of African

history from where they came in contact with Africa and what happened in
their interaction with Africa, as perceived from their own selfish point of
view or enlightened self-interest. They did not study Africa from the point
of view of where Africa truly was or what Africans knew of themselves. To
illustrate my point, a few examples will suffice. For instance, there lived
King Taharqa of Nubia (710-664 BC) who fought and defeated the Assyrians
in defence of Israel. This King ruled in Nubia at the age of 16 years and his
reign lasted for 25 years over an empire that spanned south of the
Mediterranean sea through the Sudan covering over 1,500 miles. This King
is mentioned in the Old Testament at Isaiah 37:9 and 2 Kings 19:9. Will the
Africanists also claim that the Bible is wrong?
How come that there are black Jews? What is the origin of the Falashasl
What is the history of Queen Sheba and what was her relationship with the
Biblical Solomon?
In all books on post-Newtonian science that exist, virtually all those men-
tioned as scientists that made discoveries are Europeans. Nowhere is
Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) or Jan Ernest Matzeliger (1852-1889)
mentioned. German philosophy is widely acknowledged to be a major influ-
ence on modern western philosophy. Yet when works are written on
German philosophy nothing is said about the Ghanaian philosopher,
Williams Amo, who was a Professor in a German University and whose
views were well respected by philosophers such as Immanuel Kant.
These are the kind of issues that make an Afrocentric discourse all the
more important and necessary. All this makes a reconstruction of Africa's
historiography an inevitability.
The crucial point is to accept that the Arabs and South Africans and such
other people of Asian origin are Africans; while noting that a claim to "one-
ness is not sameness" (Mamdani, 1998: 9). There is another significant
sense in which it will be wrong to make a case of exceptionalism for the
Arabs of North Africa and the South Africans. The Arabs have interacted
and indeed have been on the continent of Africa for several centuries.
Accounts by Ibn Khaldun in his Muqqadimah which was an attempt at a
social theory of understanding of how societies exist; Abi Yaqub composed a
chronicle or Tarikh in 871 AD and his report covered such countries as
Kanem-Bornu in present day Nigeria. These were all intellectual attempts
to engage North and West Africa. There is also Al-Bakri who wrote on
Ghana in 1067 AD. By the seventeenth-century there existed the detailed
chronicles of Timbuktu written by Mahmud Kati in his Tarikh al Fattash
and Abd al-Rahman al-Sadi through his Tarikh al-Sudan (Davidson, 1994:
31). The latter scholars wrote in Arabic which had become the main
medium of study at the Sankore University in Timbuktu. This university is
42 Abubakar Momoh

600 years older than the University of Oxford and Ulamahs from the East
came to teach in that university. Some of them also came from the Azhar
University in Egypt, a university that is 800 years older than University of
Oxford. Again, Africanists may dismiss Davidson as a rumour-monger. Yet,
he remains one of the very few Europeans who have taken the study of
Africa seriously and diligently and with the commitment it requires,
debarred of racial prejudice.. The same Africanist scholars easily forget that
civilisations rise and fall. Hence it is possible to talk of the Greek civilisa-
tion, Roman civilisation and the Ottoman empire which are now all part of
history. It is also possible to talk of the rise and fall of an African civilisa-
tion. What is important is proof. And for Africa such a proof is partly oral,
written and fossilised in the earth. History can neither be studied nor appre-
ciated by using the stereotype and binary of 'traditional versus modern'.
There is a methodological and epistemological concern that arises from all
this, namely the need to study Africa as an integrated whole and from a
trans-disciplinary approach. This has implications for the politics of African
unity and pan-Africanism. How is it that Europe that was so fragmented and
divided consistently for over 600 years and fought a 30 years war which
culminated in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1638, is now integrated under the
European Union (EU)?
The question of what pan Africanism actually meant produced deep dis-
agreement between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. For instance,
DuBois saw the African Diaspora in the context of working people who
were part of the major plank of the development of American capitalism
although he was reluctant to socially differentiate the black community. He
advocated the unity of all oppressed people and argued for the organic unity
of their cause, "...so long as black labourers are slaves, white labourers can-
not be free" (Aptheker, 1987: 114). This was where he disagreed with
Washington who saw the role of the blacks as that of merely getting trained
for vocational jobs; and also with George Padmore who saw communism as
dogmatic and dividing, and thus posed the alternative as "pan Africanism or
communism". DuBios viewed this latter call as a no-option because he
believed in pan Africanism with communism. Hence his view that democ-
racy should be at the heart of the pan African clarion call. To him, more
democracy will strengthen the pan African movement (DuBois, 1980).
Garvey, on the other hand, saw no future for the African Diaspora in
Babylon hence the movement back to Africa. According to Campbell,
Garveyism was the profound response of the masses to racism, war, lynching,
and the imperialist partition of Africa, colonialism and the economic conse-
quences of white supremacy....The Garvey message was "Africa for the
Africans at home and abroad" (1993: 31).
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 43

Garvey's pan-Africanism had the most profound and electrifying impact

on Kwame Nkrumah. According to Nkrumah, Garvey's ideas "fired" his
political enthusiasm.
As we hinted at the outset, it is analytically useful to separate pan
Africanism as an intellectual concept from pan Africanism as a social move-
ment. In this way it is possible to study and critique the main ideas and guid-
ing forces behind pan Africanism. Diaspora Africa realised that their struggle
required to be given well-articulated and defined meaning for it to be coherent
and enduring. It is not an accident that DuBois who more or less became the
doyen of the movement in America was the first African to obtain a doctorate
degree from Harvard University in 1895. The title of his thesis is "The sup-
pression of the African Slave trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870".
It was the first systematic and scientific study of Afro-American history and the
conspiracy of the U.S. government during the era of slave trade.
There was also the case of Henry Sylvester Williams (1869-1911). He
convened the pan African conference in 1900. He was a Trinidadian who
studied at University of Dalhousie and King's College, University of London.
He obtained a degree in Law. He later went to the Cape Colony in South
Africa where, along with Mahatma Gandhi, became the first non- whites
that were allowed to practice law in South Africa. Their right to practice was
granted only after a failed contestation and litigation by the Cape Law
Society. Williams left the Cape and returned to London in 1905 (Bankie,
1995: 21). He was convinced about, and preached the breaking of racial bar-
riers by black people.
The role of the 'recaptives' is very useful in the understanding of the
intellectual basis of pan Africanism on the soil of Africa. Dr. J.A.B. Horton
was the first West African on the soil of Africa who first systematically chal-
lenged the idea that Africans were inferior to the Europeans. In 1868, he
published a book titled, A vindication of the African Race. He used anthro-
pological arguments and his background as a Surgeon, to debunk racist
biases against Africans. By the 1870s, Dr. E.W. Blyden made use of histori-
cal accounts to show the human dignity of the African and he was the first
person to use the concept of "African Personality". He began to canvass
vigorously for Africa's independence.
By 1896, Casley Hayford wrote several books including biographies of
prominent African persons. His most famous book is titled Ethiopia Unbound.
In that book, he urged Africans to appreciate their values and intrinsic worth.
He particularly urged for unity between the Ashanti and the rest of the Gold
Coast people. Some of his ideas influenced the formation of the Aborigine
Rights Protection Society (ARPS). Hayford forged on by asking for the forma-
tion of a pan African movement in the West African sub-region. This culmi-
nated in the formation of the National Congress of British West Africa
44 Abubakar Momoh

(NCBWA). By 1906, Mensah Sarbah started to campaign against the use of

such terms as "natives" in describing Africans. He saw the term as derogatory
and objectionable. About that time too, Kobina Sekyi, one of the earliest
Africans from the Gold Coast to attend the University of London, began to
campaign against colonialism and for a return to pre-colonial mode of political
system and education. He was on the executive of both the ARPS and NCBWA.
By 1898, the A.M.E Zion Church was founded in the Gold Coast and it had
Trans- Atlantic contacts with the Diaspora brethrens. It exploited opportuni-
ties for further education for blacks. Here, Lincoln University and (then much
later) Howard University, became the traditional universities for blacks.
Majola Agbebi and Herbert Macaulay were among the second generation
pan Africanists with strong intellectual inclination. Two points need to be
stressed here. First, the condition of colonialism in Africa and racial oppres-
sion in the Diaspora were automatically given the same connotation and
contextualisation by the pan-Africanists. It was therefore impossible to
oppose those oppression and prejudices without being pan Africanist. The
second point to note is that the articulation of the pan African ideas nor-
mally translated into the formation of movements that were to be the har-
bingers or carriers of the banner of the struggle for the realisation of such
ideas. It is in this context that the various pan African meetings and con-
gresses held between 1900 and 1945 should be viewed.
During the pan African conference held in Manchester in 1945, there was
a large African presence or representation. The future leaders of Africa
began to adopt the language of pan Africanism to express or interpret the
conditions and aspirations of their people, in their respective countries. And
as each of those leaders went back to their respective colonial homes they
began to filter and domesticate those ideas into the struggles of their peo-
ples. For Senghor it was Negritude, for Kenyatta it was Harambee, for
Nkrumah it was Consciencism, for Nyerere Ujamaa, for Kaunda it was
Humanism. These ideas were an admixture of cultural and political types.
There was no one view of what pan Africanism was or should be. However
there was a consensus about the need to end colonialism, racial oppression
and to make "life more abundant" for the Africans. Those ideas became part
of state ideology after independence. Popular forces and resistance move-
ments were defeated or subordinated and incorporated into the working
politics of state ideology. This created fundamental problems. Statist pan-
Africanism which took over after independence in Africa was not an ideol-
ogy of progress or mobilisation of the people but an ideology of conser-
vatism, co-optation, disempowerment and repression. On the intellectual
plane, it was an ideology of cultural revivalism.
Pan-Africanism was conceived as a movement for political change with
deep emphasis on the identity and oneness of Africa. Henry S. Williams was
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 45

the convenor of the first pan African conference in London in July 1900.
The general issues discussed were the strategy for the struggle against
racism, rights for the black Diaspora and freedom for the African colonies.
The first pan African meeting however held in February 1919 in Paris at the
instance of DuBois who was its leading force. The core issues discussed
there were slavery, dignity for the black working class and Africans' rights
to participate in government.
The second pan African congress held simultaneously in London, Paris
and Brussels. Its approach was more all-encompassing and radical. It adopted
the "London Manifesto" perhaps following the pedigree of the Communist
Manifesto by Marx and Engels. The emphasis of that manifesto was on the
rights of the Negro people. The third pan African Congress took place in
London, in November and December 1923. The emphasis of the resolutions
of the meeting was on land rights, and control over produce and the right of
political representation of the black people. The fourth congress held in New
York in August 1927. Its resolutions reinforced those taken at the previous
(Third) congress and this time there was a slight inclination towards the
USSR. This was partly due to the influence of DuBois. The fifth congress was
the most famous. It took place at Charlton Hall, Manchester in October 1945.
At its core were George Padmore and Kwame Nkrumah. Nationalists from
various parts of the African continent (most of whom were also students in
Europe) attended that congress (Esedebe, 1980: 161-180). So did trade
unions and other mass organisations. They took far-reaching decisions in-
cluding strategy on how to confront colonialism. The impact and effect of the
Second World War and the Atlantic Charter greatly influenced their clamour
for rights and freedom. In 1958 Nkrumah called the first pan African meet-
ing on the soil of the Africa continent, in Accra. It was called "All African
Peoples Conference". DuBois, in a note to Nkrumah, said that for the first time
pan Africanism has come to Africa where it truly belonged. DuBois himself
could not attend the meeting. His wife represented him at the conference.
Way back in the United States, the Government was already questioning the
right of DuBois to an American passport. This was in light of a law that
banned all communists from being issued or allowed to carry an American
passport. DuBois later went to settle in Accra to work for independent Ghana,
his American passport was not renewed on the ground that he was a com-
munist and there was a law in America that banned the issuance of American
passports to communists! He died and was buried in Ghana, so also was his
wife (his first wife died and he re-married) who was cremated.
The sixth pan African Congress held in June 1974 in Dares-Salaam with
52 delegates in attendance mainly from the African Diaspora. Walter
Rodney who was then at the University of Dar-es-Salaam was central to its
organisation. He could not attend the conference due to ill health. His
46 Abubakar Momoh

speech had to be read on his behalf. An earlier attempt by people such as

Boutros Ghali to convene the Congress failed. The issues addressed at the
Dar-es-Salaam meeting included, class struggle, neocolonialism, imperial-
ism and underdevelopment. However the machinery to confront all those
problems was not put in place (Abdul-Raheem, 1996: 8).
The seventh congress held in Uganda in 1993 amidst two contending per-
spectives: whether pan Africanism should be encouraged from above or
from below, whether African leaders still have relevance or stake in the pan
African discourse/project, given their relationship with imperialism and the
donor clubs.
According to Campbell, there are three major tasks that should guide,
and that indeed informed the meeting at Uganda, thus:
The first task is to make an impact on the people in the process of transform-
ing the nationalist consciousness of the twentieth century. Second, we must
make a decisive impact on world opinion with respect to Africans at home and
abroad. And third, we want to be able to realize the spirit of dignity for the
renewal of the human spirit. Western European narrative of modern and post-
modern variants devalued the spirit of dignity... (Campbell, 1996: 225).

The other issues that Campbell raises relate to youth, women and religion.
He concludes:
pan African liberation is not only linked to the quest for a new social system,
but also one in which the development of productive forces is not simply
linked to the production of goods but also to the creation of new human
beings. This perspective of the transformation of gender relations, free men,
free women and children, of cultural freedom, of harnessing the positive
knowledge of the African past now forms part of the conception of the strug-
gle for pan African liberation in the twenty-first century (Ibid: 217)

There are two points to be made here. First, Afrocentricity was always the
intellectual thrust of the pan African struggles of old. However, this mode
of knowledge and consciousness is to a large degree, and in spite of the fact
of the variants of it, not racist; although the racial question is a cardinal
issue on its agenda. The second point to be made is that Afrocentricity,
which derived from pan African struggle and indeed complemented it, is an
ideology of hope and not despair, of inspiration and not lamentation. Part of
the reason for this is because pan Africanism was an ideology of struggle
and Afrocentricity in this sense helped to delimit and shaped the contours
of that struggle. Afro-pessimism did not have a place in that equation.

Afrocentricity Since the Second World War

Two things happened after the Second world war. The first is that the an-
thropological, sociological and historical construction of black people as a
backward race had gained ground and was already institutionalised in syllabi
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 47

of schools. The ideology of fascism or more particularly Nazism, reinforced

this. But the rethink on Africa was given consideration as Africa came on the
verge of decolonisation; and the shift of attention was to how the ex-colonies
will 'modernise'. Along with this there was interest in Area Studies, in terms
of what constitute the peculiar problems of backward societies in the post in-
dependence period, typically defined as ethnicity. This was how the
Africanist school emerged from about 1960. The point is that the prejudices
of old were not discarded, instead, they were reinforced by many of the
Africanists. It will not be fair to homogenise the Africanists especially their
non-African component.
As Zeleza surmises, "By Africanist I mean the entire intellectual enter-
prise of producing knowledge based on the western epistemological order in
which both educated Africans and non-Africans are engaged" (1997:v).
Some of the Africanists are sympathetic to a more sober and honest aca-
demic study of Africa, while some are arrogant and bask in their over-
bloated prejudices against Africa and Afrocentric (not necessarily African)
intellectuals.
The dominant Africanist perspective is devoid of commitment to Africa.
It is informed or directed by availability of research grants, by the brief of
home Governments and donor-Foundations and climate (e.g. winter,
tourism and so on). Many Africanists work from the answer to the problem
and not from the problem to the answer. They view Africa as a zoo con-
taining animals and they experiment on Africa in the true tradition of vivi-
sectonomy. They collect their data in haste and over a few days or weeks.
They seldom update the data, which they recycle through decades. They
prey on the systematic deterioration of the living standards of their African
academic counterparts and whom they often (ab)use, in the conduct of
fieldwork. They often employ senior African scholars as field assistants and
data gatherers, with utter disrespect for their status or rank in the Academy.
Such African "compliant collaborators" (Mkandawire, 1997) are offered
token sum and space in books or journals edited by these Africanists, who
also serve as gatekeepers (referees, peer reviewers and so on). In collabora-
tive work, the African compliant collaborators are offered junior status no
matter their academic rank, at home or abroad. When given posts in uni-
versities in the west, they are dumped in African studies, generically so
composed, and they are seen as constituting a "ghetto" in western academy.
Most Africanist studies obscure rather than illuminate, distort rather than
uncover, do analysis-by-analogy rather than by concrete investigation of the
peculiar or specific conditions of the various systems, cultures and peoples
of the African continent. Africa is viewed as a country and not a continent and
its people are not conferred with the status of agency. I am not generalizing
this assertion. But the dominant and most vocal tendency in Africanist
48 Abubakar Momoh

scholarship is certainly guilty of this. This partly explains why Africa falls
within the ambit of "Area studies".
Seen in this context, the Afrocentric discourse has two objectives. First is
to continue with the same pan African intellectual orientation of the
activist-past and second, to transcend Africanists distortions by inspiring
and sustaining hope and confidence in the African people; in re-telling and
reconstructing their history based on endogenous and indigenous modes of
understanding and tools in the reconstruction of African historiography.
Quite naturally therefore the doyen of modern or post-Second World War
Afrocentricity is Cheikh Anta Diop. Famous for his "cradle" theory, he argues
that worldviews should develop their own theories and epistemology, as they
are consistent with their cultures. In other words, that there is need to find a
cultural basis for all claims to knowledge (Henderson, 1995:83). Although
there are several limitations to his work, however, Diop provided a framework
of a new discourse that holds out its own and that knocked off the moral and
epistemological basis of Africanist scholarship. There are two major schools of
thought in this new epistemological quest. These are the Temple and Howard
schools of thought (Gocking, 1993:42-43). They are the most renowned for
their adherence and commitment to the Afrocentric worldview as a distinct
subject of thought. According to Gocking, "Afrocentricity is fundamentally p a n
African in its inspiration" (1992:3). Whilst to Mazrui, Afrocentricity entails
constructing methods of inquiry that investigate Africa and it tries to under-
stand the role and place of Africa in world history, by noting and saying,
"That's an African event" (1993: 8). He distinguishes between "Gloriana
Afrocentricity" i.e. those who romanticise or glorify the African past, and
"Proletariana Afrocentricity": i.e. those who put the people (constructed as the
proletariat) as the motive force of history.
To Asante, the African psychology will be derailed without
Afrocentricity-it is the definition of the entire life and being of the African.
To him, "Afrocentricity is the belief in the centrality of the Africans in post
modern history. It is our history, our mythology, our creative motif and our
ethos exemplifying our collective will...." (1988:6). The major characteris-
tics of this worldview are six; skin recognition as black, personality aware-
ness, commitment to black culture, conscious waging of struggle with mind
and body for liberation and environmental recognition of the abuses of
blacks. We caution that being black is not a qualification for being
Afrocentric. The ideology and consciousness of the African people and a
humanist disposition to the oppressed blacks on account of the quest for a
more just world order is even more persuasive qualification.
To Myers, the objective of Afrocentricity is not to capture the spirit of the
ancient world but to try and live with its inward coherence so that our out-
ward materiality will "take shape" (1987:78) Afrocentricity means under-
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 49

standing the old world of Africa in a new sense (Myers, 1988; Oyebade,
1990). ToPrah,
Afrocentricism is not and should not be gross myth making dressed up as
knowledge. What constitutes an Afrocentric approach is the situation or loca-
tion of Africa and the African society at the centre of the way Africans view
themselves and the rest beyond their social and cultural words. It is not facts
(which have universal validity) which need to be reworked, it is rather the
relationship between facts which need Afrocentric attention (1998:29).
On his part, Karenga contends that "...Afrocentricity is essentially a quality
of perspective or approach rooted in the cultural image and human inter-
ests of African people.... It is supportive of the just claims African people
have and shared in common with other humans in terms of freedom from
want, toil, and domination, and freedom to realize one's self in one's
human fullness..." (Karenga, 1988: 404).
As may be discerned from the foregoing there are as many interpretations
and definitions of Afrocentricity, as there are Afrocentric intellectuals. But
what seems to undergird all that they have in common is the production of in-
digenous knowledge, reinterpretation and understanding of Africa from a per-
spective that informs the African being and above all waging struggles in the
context of a shaped Afrocentric perspective. There is the curious question
whether the method of inquiry of Afrocentric scholarship should conform to
western standard. It does not have to be, because this will neither obviate their
scientific status nor will it vitiate their reliability (Methinhoue, 1997: 44-49).
Anybody can be an Afrocentric scholar so long he or she is committed to
Africa and treats Africans as human beings by sharing in their hopes, aspira-
tions, anxieties and tribulations. Those who claim to be Afrocentric scholars
today have not been in the most critical intellectual and political tradition.
Asante, Mazrui and so on, do not belong in the same school as Issa Shivji,
Archie Mafeje, Nzongola-Ntalaja and Wamba dia Wamba.
The Afrocentric discourse in post colonial Africa has resulted in the intel-
lectual and political contestation over neo-colonial knowledge and activi-
ties in Africa: the ideology of developmentalism, non-alignment and impe-
rialism. These were not just empty sloganeering as they formed part of the
concrete attempts to deal with the realities of Afrocentricity in a new con-
text. This is why it becomes impossible to dismiss the Dar es Salaam, Kenya
and Zaria debates (Tandon, 1982; Beckman, 1983; Sil, 1993, Cowen and
MacWilliam, 1996). At the heart of those debates was the question of the
role of the toiling people in liberation. Why is the social condition of the
people deplorable? Who is responsible and what is to be done? Those
debates addressed the specific and concrete ways in which the people repro-
duced their lives and sought to explain how they interpreted their realities;
and how they are mobilising themselves to resolve the contradictions that
50 Abubakar Momoh

define their daily existence. The ideology of that era was the ideology of
hope and not of despair. This was so because in spite of the limitations of
the ideology of developmentalism, it had at its core the social responsibility
of the state to citizens. But the essence of adjustment reforms is non-inter-
ventionism, which implies the state's abdication of its social responsibility
to citizens, hence the freeing of more wealth to the ruling class or taxing
the poor and subsidizing the rich. The ideological shift by African leaders
is succinctly captured in a Swahili metaphor, "The leaders of Africa have ate
the fruits of independence, now they are eating independence itself".
Sklar is partly correct when he avers that:
The idea of Afrocentricity and its methodological corollaries have been mis-
understood and trivialized by polemicists, who have either endorsed or dis-
paraged highly debatable arguments for the...African origins of various other
civilizations.... Essentially, methodological Afrocentricity ordains that those
who interpret Africa should acquire a sympathetic understanding of African
thought and values (1993: 99).
Although some of the assertions of Sklar about Afrocentric scholars are con-
testable, they, however, draw attention to the need for caution in homogenis-
ing or taking an absolutist position about those who are either accepted as
Afrocentric or rejected as Africanists. Certainly as Sklar asserts, race and cul-
ture should not be the qualification but commitment to the African and hu-
manist cause. In this regard, for instance, Thomas Hodgkins, Basil Davidson
and Bjorn Beckman, are the better examples to cite as being qualified to be
tagged Afrocentric scholars although they are non-Africans. Their qualifica-
tion stem from their methodology and commitment to Africa. They view
Africa not as a zoo or garden but as being inhabited by human beings.
The final point to be made about this claim relates to the African contri-
bution to the generation of knowledge about themselves as Africans. Ideas
or knowledge production is a social and collective enterprise. It is first cul-
turised or is rooted in a specific cultural milieu before it can be univer-
salised. The cultural context of Afrocentricity cannot deny its universalism.
Indeed, a culturised-universalism is far more scientific than a universalised-
culturalism. This is the major argument against Eurocentric scholarship
which refuses to accept the European and cultural contexts of such schol-
arship and which urges the rest of the world to uncritically behave and imi-
tate the west! In doing so, as a matter of course, they should abandon their
own cultural context in order to do things the western way.

The Transition into Afro-Pessimism: the Price of life

Versus the Value of Death
The introduction of adjustment reforms in the early 1980s, the wars,
famine and hunger that besieged Africa, the mounting economic and par-
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 51

ticularly the debt crisis and above all the end of the cold war marked an-
other era in Africa's quagmire. It saw the arrogant celebration of neo-lib-
eralism as heralded by the works of Fukuyama (1989) and Huntington
(1993). Rational choice theorists and post modernists reinforce this. All
this took place in the context of the current political and economic malaise
in Africa and the deepening crisis of, particularly, the educational sector in
Africa. This has created a new social configuration and re-alignment of so-
cial forces. All explanations of the African milieu provided by many
Africanists have failed, if anything, they have complexified an under-
standing of the crises in Africa. The new cliche is, Africa is a hopeless con-
tinent whose problems defy solution or cannot be solved except by some
providential or fatalistic means. Afro-pessimism is a product of the failure
of western models to explain the political, social and economic character of
Africa. This is because many of them never understood the real meaning of
Africa. Afro-pessimism also marks "the end of history" for some
Africanists, many African governments and their mentors in the North.
Rather than accept their failure, however, these Afro-pessimists turned to
the toiling people of Africa, who have been victims and guinea pigs all
these years, by placing the blame on them. The Africanists and the donor
community sparingly chastised the African leaders. They often abused
them as "corrupt", "authoritarian", "hedonistic", "patrimonial", "preben-
dal" or "criminalised". Little wonder that the state in Africa has also ac-
quired such descriptive epithets. All of these concepts do not explain any-
thing about the character of the social and political systems of Africa.
Worst, they do not pose any threat to African leaders.
According to Molobi, "...Afro-pessimism is interpreted differently by dif-
ferent people. For the regimes in power, it justifies the selective economic
austerity which is imposed on them and which they put into practice. For
the opposition, it justifies their struggle for power..." (1991: 534)
Thabo Mbeki's "African Renaissance" has offered the specific political
response to the challenge of Afro-pessimism. However, a cursory look at the
thrust of that neologism shows that it is a mere cliche with only economic
component and not social and political parts (Meek, 1998 and 1998b). The
economic arguments made do not take us too far; they are not different from
the market-driven economic logic. Mamdani (1998) has responded to the
ideology of Renaissance, particularly with an eye on the case of South
Africa. For him, there is no intellectual component to that new cliche. But
what is clear is that Renaissance, as such, is not new in pan African and
Afrocentric discourses. However, its usage in the past had been original,
mobilisational and people-focused (Azikiwe, 1975:161-169). The current
call for Renaissance is essentially, though not exclusively, economic and
market focused. Although the current renaissance was meant to address the
52 Abubakar Momoh

renewed crises on the continent, however, it is too deeply obsessed with the
theology of the market or market fundamentalism.
A leading Afro-pessimist, Ali Mazrui, in total resignation and despair,
proposed that small African countries needed to be re-colonised by the big
ones such as Nigeria and Kenya (1994). His views understandably raised
serious objections (Mafeje, 1995; Adejumobi, 1995).
Ahluwalia best captures the meaning of Afro-pessimism. He states thus:
The ascendancy of Afro-pessimism... has a tendency to homogenize the
'African Tragedy', concluding that Africa has neither the political will nor the
capacity to deal with its problems. The African condition, it is claimed, is
largely of Africa's making and therefore there is little or no hope for improve-
ment. Afro-pessimism resonates in metropolitan centers where both former
colonial powers and the United Sates, in the aftermath of the Cold War, are
seeking ways to disengage themselves from Africa. This is a convenient way
for the West to wash its hands of a problem largely of its own making.
This does not mean that Africans and in particular their leadership can be
absolved of the responsibility for the crises (2000: 30).
An emancipative pan-African discourse must begin to focus on how the
people produce and reproduce their lives, gender roles, the issue of child
and youth rights, the urban poor and an inclusive political system. There
are threats to the right to education of the youth, the incomes and livelihood
opportunities of the working people, the reproductive health of women. It
must address issues of marginality, victimhood, social and political exclu-
sion and equity. Such a discourse must pose the following questions: what
kind of education do Africans need? How does their past reflect on their
future? What is the implication of state commodification of social policy and
individuation of social relations? What does democracy mean to the toiling
people and how can they be agents (catalysts) in shaping their own des-
tinies? What is the nature and character of the household economy? How
do they sustain livelihood? What does information technology mean to the
toiling people?
In a sentence, how can we construct a new mode of politics through eman-
cipative discourse for the people? To get on the tract of Afrocentric discourse,
there is need to begin to interpret the realities of the African toiling people
from the way they materialise, understand and appreciate their realities: their
hopes, aspirations and anxieties. An Afrocentric discourse must pose the issue
of gender relations in Africa (Imam, Mama and Sow, 1997). It must interro-
gate issues of citizenship and migration in Africa; it must also discuss the is-
sues of basic social and economic rights and political empowerment.
The fundamental intellectual dilemma in Africa is that it is too often
assumed that the toiling people are "ignorant" and "backward' and as such
are not perceptive- they are not a thinking mind, they do not have a mind
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 53

of scientific curiousity. Hence they can not input into policy or state pro-
grammes or indeed determine what policy they want. This is clearly wrong.
The peasant may not know where the office of the IMF is situated; he or she
will however perceptively analyse the implication of devaluation on his/ her
children or produce; its consequential effect on prizes of fertilizers, pesti-
cides and insecticides. The peasants understand the politics of land or the
land question from Tanzania to Zimbabwe and South Africa; and they
appreciate the contestation for social and economic space which they have
to go through with Agri-business. On a generic note, in spite of all the
name-calling the peasants provide food for most of the people of Africa. The
Agri-business supplement what the peasants supply. This is so despite the
colossal sums of money spent by African states in the various World Bank-
financed agricultural projects.
Conclusion
If anything, it is African leaders, palace intellectuals and their mentors that
have failed the African toiling people. These latter people have not failed
themselves. The leaders fail to make sacrifices while calling on the people
to do so. The toiling people subsidise the extravagance of the ruling class.
There can be no meaningful African Renaissance where the children of the
poor cannot have access to knowledge because it has been priced out of
their reach; where every day the poor are impoverished and humiliated;
where the poor continue to subsidise the state and its retinue of hangers-
on. Afrocentricists will need to have confidence in the people and explain
and interpret their realities. What is the rationality in having a situation
whereby through human decision over 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu
where killed in Rwanda in 1994, and massacres went on in Somalia,
Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Liberia and so on. Above all, Afrocentric
intellectuals are expected to combine scholarship with activism, this is a
challenge for both diasporic and African-based Afrocentrists. They must
struggle with the working people. This was the original position of the
doyens of pan-Africanism; it is a position whose truism is transhistorical.
Africa is now in the twenty-first century as a beggared neighbour. This
was not what the toiling people sought. Theirs can not be the original sin.
Although they are represented in various UN reports on Human
Development Index (HDI) as scoring low, and in spite of the recklessness
and insensitivity of African leaders, they still have hope in themselves and
the future of their children. This is a new century, unlike DuBois claim over
the last century that the "color bar" will be a critical element, this century
is going to be challenged by the clamour and struggle of humanity against
oppression by the network of international economic forces who combine
technological, military and information might to rule the world. This is
54 Abubakar Momoh

already taking place by the attack on the Brettonwoods institutions even by

the youth of the North. It happened in Quebec, Guttenberg and Seattle.
These uprisings are urging for reforms, for a better and humanist world
than what was conceived in the New International Economic Order (NIEO).
But these reforms cannot come about until there is a new social outlook,
social movement and a "new mode of politics".
According to Wamba-dia-Wamba,
In Africa, we must move away from the unpatriotic 'territorial nationalism' of
compradore modernizers, a process of 'nation-building-from-above', rooted in
colonial legacy and insisting on political unanimity (national unity). This
process has blocked people's creativity and mass enthusiasm and complicated
the treatment of differences among the people by the people themselves. We
must move away from developmentalism which is based on a mere transfer of
economic, cultural, political and social models arrived at through an outside
controlled process of decision-making. We must de-construct the colonial
legacy and the fixity of traditions (traditions invented or imagined by colonials
and claimed to be African and adopted by Africans); these 'traditions' are used
to justify, embellish and make bearable, the post-colonial state which we have
to de-imperialize. Thus, we must move away from the process of 'de-indige-
nizations' of 'traditional society' and 'indigenization' of the colonial state. Our
economies have continued to be 'denationalized' i.e. privatized by interna-
tional capital, keeping them away from the possible control by the people
through their 'democratic state' yet to be constructed. We must have control
over our integration into the world economy. We must democratize the knowl-
edge process now completely dominated by the outside. Without a new his-
torical mode of politics, a new vision of politics, which would de-marginalize
the large masses of people (women, youth, workers, poor peasants, people
without-identity, the invisible majority), de-freezing their creativity and allow-
ing them to move themselves to the center stage of history-making in our
countries, we cannot succeed (1994:257-8).

At the risk of repetition, Afro-pessimism is not a feeling shared by the

African toiling people. However to emancipate those people, to get them
started and involved in politics will require a new form of social organisa-
tion of politics and power. Again we fall back on Wamba-dia-Wamba:
Our starting point must be: in Africa..., people think and this is the sole mate-
rial basis of politics. We must investigate the internal content of what they
actually think. It is through an analysis of these forms of consciousness that
we will grasp the forms of political consciousness characterizing the antago-
nism with the existing overall socio-political order (Ibid: 259).
The African Union project has been consummated with the signing of the
treaty by many African Heads of State. It is however on a cautious note that
the Union is being welcome by the African toiling people. This is because
there is nothing in many of the states presided by those leaders that suggest
that they are genuinely working for Africa's integration or union-politically,
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 55

economically and socially. If the concept of the African Union is squandered

on the alter of opportunism of African Heads of State, then it will become
nothing more than it predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity
(OAU).This leaves a lot of room and challenge for the African Renaissance
movement.
The toiling people of Africa yearn for transformation in spite of globali-
sation. They are optimistic about their future and the future of their chil-
dren. This is why the ordinary toiling people of Africa, the street parlia-
mentarians, urban and rural poor, youth, women, and workers, are the
most critical of government and its programmes and not the opposition
politicians. Social movements and civil associations have done more in
reforming African politics than the opposition politicians. Afro-pessimism
has no historical pedigree in Africa. The will to struggle and survive is very
strong among the toiling people of Africa.
References
Abdul-Raheem, T. (1996) "Introduction: Reclaiming Africa for Africans" in Tajudeen
Abdul-Raheem (ed) Pan-Africanism: Politics, Economy and Social Change in the
Twenty-First Century, London: Pluto Press.
Adejumobi, S. (1995) "AH Mazrui and his African Dream" CODESRIA Bulletin No. 4
Ahluwalia, P. (2000) "Towards (Re)Conciliation: The Post-Colonial Economy of
Giving" Social Identities, Vol. 6, No.l
Aptheker, H. (1987) "W.E.B. DuBois and Africa" R. A. Hill (ed) Pan African
Biography, Los Angeles: University of California, African Studies Centre
Asante, M. K. (1988) Afrocentricity, Trenton, New Jersey: African World Press
Azikiwe, N. (1975) "Africa in Renaissance" in G. C. M. Mutiso, and S.W. Rohio
(eds.) Readings in African Political Thought, London: H.E.B.
Bankie, B.F. (1995) Pan Africanism or Continentalism, Cape Town: Africa Opinion
Series No.4.
Bathel, K. E. (1993) "Afrocentricity in Arrangement of knowledge" Paper presented
at 36th Annual Meeting of ASA, Boston, Dec 4-7.
Beckman, B. (1983) "Marxism and Underdevelopment: A Critique of Claude Ake".
Paper presented to the conference "Marxist Africa: A Hundred Years After". A
National Centenary conference, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. March 14-18.
Bernal M. (1987) The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, London: Vintage
Books
Campbell, H. (1993) "Pan Africanism and African Liberation: The History and the
Challenge", Social Change and Development No. 31
Campbell, H. (1996) "Pan-Africanism in the Twenty - First Century" in T. Abdul-
Raheem (ed.) Pan-Africanism: Politics, Economy and Social Change in the
Twenty-First Century, London: Pluto Press
Cowen, M. and S. MacWilliam (1996) Indigenous Capital in Kenya, Helsinki:
Interkont Books 8
Davidson, B. (1994) The Search For Africa, London: James Currey
56 Abubakar Momoh

Davidson, B. (1992) The Blackmail's Burden, London: James Currey

Diagne, S. B. and H. Ossebi (1996) "The Cultural Question in Africa" CODESRIA
Working paper 3/96.
Diop, Cheikh Anta (1996) Towards the African Renaissance, London: Karmak House
Diouf, M. and M. Mamdani (eds) (1994) Academic Freedom in Africa Dakar:
CODESRIA
DuBois, W.E. B. (1980) The World and Africa, New York: International Publishers
Esedebe, P. 0.(1980) Pan Africanism, Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishers
Fukuyama, F. (1989) "The End of History?". The National Interest (Summer)
Gocking, R. (1992) "Afrocentricity? Implication for South Africa?" Paper presented
at the 35th Annual Meeting of the ASA, Seattle, Washington, Nov. 20-23.
Gocking, R. (1993) "Afrocentricity: Implications for South Africa?" Africa Insight
Vol.23, No.l
Golberg, D. (1987) "Raking the field of Racism" Journal of Black Studies Vol.18,
No.l, 1987
Huntington, S.P. (1993) "Clash of Civilisations" Foreign Affairs Vol. 72, No. 3.
Hunderson, E. A. (1995) Afrocentricism and World Politics Westport, Connecticut:
Praeger
Hyden, G. (1996) "African Studies in the Mid-1990s: Between Afro-Pessimism and
Amero-Skepticism" African Studies Review, Vol. 39, No.2
Imam, A., A. Mama and F. Sow (eds) (1997) Engendering African Social Sciences,
Dakar: CODESRIA.
Karenga, M. (1988) "Black Studies and the Problematic of Paradigm: The
Philosophical Dimension" Journal of Black Studies Vol. 18, No. 4
Khoza, R. (1994) "The Need for an Afrocentric Approach to Management" Business
Alert No. 151, Jan., 1
Lefkowitz, M. R. and G.M. Rogers, eds., (1996) Black Athena Revisited, Chapel-Hill
and London: University of North Carolina Press
Mafeje, A (1995) "Benign" Recolonisation and Malignant Minds in the Service of
Imperialism" CODESRIA Bulletin, No.2
Mamdani, M. (1990) "A Glimpse at African Studies, Made in USA" CODESRIA
Bulletin
Mamdani, M. (1997) "Africa and African Studies" in N. Cloete, J. Muller, M.W.
Makgoba and D. Ekong (eds.) Knowledge, Identity and Curriculum
Transformation in Africa , Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman
Mamdani, M.(1998) "There can be no African Renaissance Without an Africa-
Focused Intelligentsia". Paper delivered at the African Renaissance Conference
Johannesburg, 28 Sept.
Mazrui, A. (1993) "Afrocentricity versus Multiculturalism?": A Dialectic in Search
of a Synthesis" James Smoot Coleman Occasional Paper Series, May 5
Mazrui, A. (1994) "Decaying Parts of Africa Need Benign Colonisation"
International Herald Tribune, August 4
Mbeki, T. (1998a) "The African Renaissance: Opportunities and Challenges for Asia"
Address at Luncheon hosted by the Hong Kong Centre of the Asia and the South
Africa Business Forum in Hong Kong, 17 Feb.
 Does Pan-Africanism Have a Future in Africa? 57

Mbeki, T. (1998b) "The African Renaissance, South Africa and the World" Speech at
the United Nations University, April 9
Metinhoue, G. P. (1997) "Methodological Issues in the Study of Traditional
Techniques and Know-How" in Paulin Hountondji (ed) Endogenous Knowledge:
Research Travails (Dakar: CODESRIA)
Mkandawire, T. (1997) "The Social Sciences in Africa: Breaking Local Barriers and
Negotiating International Presence" African Studies Review Vol. 40, No.2
Molobi, F.R. (1991) "The Pan-African Conference of the African Association of
Political Science" Development Southern Africa Vol. 8, No.4
Myers, L. J. (1987) "The Deep Structure of Culture: Relevance of Traditional African
Culture in Contemporary Life" Journal of Black Studies Vol. 18, No.l, Sept.
Myers, L. J. (1988) Understanding an Afrocentric Worldview Dubuque, I A:
Kendall/Hunt.
Oyebade, B. (1990) "African Studies and the Afrocentric paradigm" Journal of Black
Studies Vol. 21,No.2
Prah, K. (1998) "African Scholars and Africanist Scholarship" CODESRIA Bulletin,
Nos.3&4
Sil, N.P. (1993) "Nigerian Intellectuals and Socialism: Retrospect and Prospect"
Journal of Modern African Studies
Sklar, R. L. (1993) "African Frontier for Political Science" in R. H. Bates, V.Y.
Mudimbe, and J. O'Barr (eds) Africa and the Disciplines, Chicago and London:
The University of Chicago Press
Tandon, Y. (ed) (1982) Debates on Class, State and Imperialism, Dar es Salaam:
Tanzanian Publishing House
Wamba-Dia-Wamba, E. (1994) "Africa in Search of New Mode of Politics" In Ulf
Himmerstrand et al (eds) African Perspectives on Development London: James
Currey
Zeleza, P. T. (1997) Manufacturing African Studies and Crises, Dakar: CODESRIA