Pan-Africanism and nationalism

Sep 10, 2017 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

Pan-Africanism has its roots deeply embedded in two historical events. The first, the Trans-Atlantic Trade in Captive Africans, resulted in the forced removal of millions of Africans from the continent to the Americas over a period of more than four centuries.
The second, the Scramble for Africa, resulted in the invasion, occupation, division and colonisation of most of Africa’s territory from the late 19th century.
Enslavement and imperialism were based, broadly, on the domination of Africans by Europeans and were predicated, consequently, on the notion of racial superiority.
Resistance of Africans to such enslavement and imperialism represented a rejection of the notion of racial superiority and are the bases for the African peoples’ desire to reassert their dignity.
Pan-Africanism, at its very core, therefore, is about ensuring respect for the dignity and equality of Africans and people of African descent. It is both an ideology, or a set of ideas, and an institution which is based on the organisation and mobilisation of persons to support its ideas.
Pan-Africanism, at the institutional level, promotes solidarity amongst Africans around the world. The constituent elements of Pan-Africanism, as a set of ideas, could include:
– solving problems faced by Africans and people of African descent;
– supporting self-determination for all African peoples; and
– strengthening African cultural retentions and pride.
Pan-Africanism, in the pursuit of human dignity, is concerned with the conditions under which Africans, and people of African descent, find themselves in the world.
Pan-Africanism will remain relevant as long as there exists a need to address or redress the conditions of African people all over the world.
Pan-Africanism and the International Decade for People of African Descent
The Pan-African Movement (Guyana Branch) has been a clear and consistent voice calling for respect for the rights, the recognition of the condition and the retention of African-Guyanese culture.
The Movement has been toiling to improve the conditions and to promote greater consciousness of African culture in Guyana for almost three decades.
The Movement, expectedly, joined like-minded organisations to observe the International Decade for People of African Descent. The United Nations General Assembly, through Resolution 68/237 on 23rd December 2013, proclaimed the period – commencing 1st January 2015 and ending on 31st December 2024 – as the International Decade for People of African Descent.
The General Assembly, also, adopted on 18th November 2014, Resolution 69/16 which outlines a Programme of Activities for the Implementation of the International Decade for People of African Descent.
The ‘Programme’ called for the removal of all obstacles which prevent People of African Descent from the “equal enjoyment of all human rights, economic, social, cultural, civil and political, including the right to development.”
The pursuit of right to development, as prescribed by the ‘Programme’, cannot ignore the economic infrastructure – including acquisition of land, accumulation of capital, access to markets and training of labour – which are the bases upon which a person provides for his or her well-being and that of the family. It demands that steps be taken to enhance the economic empowerment of persons of persons of African descent.
Pan-Africanism and reparative justice
The Trans-Atlantic Trade in Captive Africans was the worst crime against humanity in the history of the world. The Trade involved the shipping of millions of Africans to the Americas (including Guyana and the Caribbean). The atrocities, brutalities, cruelties and indignities associated with enslavement are unmatched in human history. The Trans-Atlantic Trade lasted for more than four hundred years.
Pan-Africanism is an important means for mobilising public opinion at the personal, national, regional and international levels in the cause of ‘reparative justice’ for the crime. The case for reparation – in Guyana and the Caribbean – is based, principally, on three grounds:
– First, acts of enslavement and genocide are crimes against humanity under international law. There is no statutory barrier to prosecution for “crimes against humanity whether committed in time or war on in time of peace.” Crimes against humanity are prosecutable at any time.

– Second, the massive expropriation of the wealth – which was the patrimony of the Region’s people – enriched Europe during the commission of these crimes. That wealth was extracted through enslavement or forced labour. It impoverished those whose servitude generated that wealth.

– Third, colonisation and enslavement left a legacy of underdevelopment which can be corrected through corrective justice.

The Caribbean Region, as a consequence of European conquest, conflict and colonisation, became the weakest and most Balkanized region in the world. Its economic structures still bear the stamp of the ‘plantation economy’ with a high concentration on primary production for export to western markets, including Europe.

Pan-Africanism and economic empowerment
Programmes for the economic empowerment of Guyanese people of African descent could well originate in our villages which, famously, became the cradle of African economic empowerment after Emancipation in 1838.
African-Guyanese initiated the Village Movement. The freed Africans pooled their pooled and invested their savings to buy abandoned plantations. They converted those plantations into human settlements which stretched from the Corentyne to the Pomeroon Rivers. The Village Movement has been described as:
“the most spectacular and aggressive land settlement movement in the history of the people of the British Caribbean and a movement which seemed to one planter in British Guiana to be certainly without parallel in the history of the world!”
Villages are vital centers of human settlement and economic enterprise. Two out of every three Guyanese still live in villages. Villagers are repositories of accumulated knowledge and expertise.
Villages must be revitalized to provide the bases for small- and medium-sized enterprises, including cottage industries, to be established to provide employment and generate wealth.
Villages must be restored as incubators of entrepreneurial zeal. They have the potential, for increased agricultural, agro-processing and value-added production. Villages, also, can expand the range of services which they present provide for residents.
Pan-Africanism and Guyanese nationalism
Pan-Africanism is inseparable from Guyanese nationalism. It has, at its heart, the struggle for human dignity and equality. The pursuit of dignity and equality is based on respect for the cultural economic, human, social and political rights, including the right to development.
People’s right to a life of dignity and equality can be fulfilled only if their economic rights are respected. Organizations must mobilise for the task of economic empowerment, beginning in the villages.
The Pan-African Movement (Guyana branch) has a place in this country and a role to play in the economy in order to develop initiatives to reenergize our villages – one enterprise at a time.
It would be a fitting contribution to the national programme for the International Decade for People of African Descent. It will promote the economic empowerment of our villages. It will advance the pursuit of greater dignity and equality for Africans, the core values of Pan-Africanism in the Guyanese nation.