When in 1906, in his senior year at the Columbia University, a young Pixley ka Seme was awarded the Curtis Medal, Columbia's highest oratorical honor, he laid a foundation to what was to be known as Pan=africanism. His speech emphasized the fact that Africa was not someone’s political dormitory but a continent of the African people: that other nations ought to leave the running of Africa to Africans. At this time of history, the colonizers had abandoned the idea of slavery as in forcibly owning slaves as slave masters, but they did not abandon the idea of occupation of Africa as their colonies. Pan-africanism therefore was important for the Africans in Africa and the diaspora
“A culture is a total way of life. It embraces what people ate and what they wore; the way they walked and the way they talked; the manner in which they treated death and greeted the newborn.”
South Africa is a victim of social and political indoctrination which keeps the white folks’ culture and philosophy superior meanwhile dismissing everything and anything that is African as barbaric, uncivilized and inferior. That we now have “political power’ does very little to instill a political philosophy which is pan-Africanist in outlook and black conscious in attitude. How else do we explain the fact that as blacks first and Africans in particular have failed to implement an agenda that is pro-black notwithstanding being in control of the levers of political power.
The Chinese are today a successful nation by most acceptable means and yet in the 1970s had the highest number of poverty. They Chinese turned their fortunes around by first embracing their culture as their living philosophy. What Mao Zedong propagated as the driver of the socio-political order of China remained the same over time. Subsequent leaders of China continued where Mao ended and simply from time to time reconfigured areas of emphasis. The one thing that has always worked for them has been deliberately closing China off from the influence of foreign teaching not excluding religion. They developed what is sometimes referred to as “Socialism with a Chinese flavour”
The Fifth Pan-African Congress which was held in Chorlton Town Hall, Manchester, England from 15 - 21 October 1945 and was attended by many Africans from the diaspora, marked the historic moment when Pan-Africanism became an idea whose time had come.
The Congress was held soon after the Second World War. The purpose of the Congress was to discuss the decolonization of the African continent. It was important for the delegates in attendance to reposition the struggle against colonialism. There was an almost universal feeling among Africans and people of African descent, at that time that colonial liberation was the order of the day, and this struggle would be achieved by force if necessary.
After the war the imperial powers were under strong international pressure to decolonize. In Southern Africa, however, the transfer of power to an African majority was greatly complicated by the presence of entrenched white settlers. After an initial phase from 1945 to about 1958, in which white power seemed to be consolidated, decolonization proceeded in three stages: first, the relatively peaceful achievement by 1968 of independence by those territories under direct British rule:,the High Commission territories became Lesotho, Botswana, and Swaziland, and Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland became Zambia and Malawi; second, the far bloodier struggle for independence in the Portuguese colonies and in SouthernRhodesia; and, third, the denouement in South West Africa and in South Africa, where the black majority took power after nonracial, democratic elections in 1994.
Even at the end of the colonial period imperial interests still controlled the economies of the region. by the end of the 20th century South Africa had become the dominant economic power. Despite the multiparty democracy, violence, inequality, and poverty persisted throughout.
The 1945 conference reflected the new militant leadership in Africa who would make the fine words of the Congress. While the delegates included the likes of Kwame Nkrumah (future leader of Ghana), Jomo Kenyatta (future leader of Kenya) and Dr. Hastings Banda (Malawi). W.E.B. Du Bois chaired the Pan-African Congress. Absent were delegates from French speaking African colonies. It is becoming more and more obvious that most of those who adhere unconditionally to different Pan-African movements globally display vehement hostility towards the Christian religion in general and towards Catholicism in particular.
According to their way of thinking, Christian faith and Pan Africanism are two totally incompatible and antithetical realities.
The fundamental thesis of this incompatibility is based on the concept that, according to our Pan-Africanists, Christianity is a Western, colonial religion aimed at eroding the intellectual capability of an African child
Corruption of policy position
We however remain but a nation that has not fully embrace pan-africanism because we allowed pan-africanism to be highjacked into a party political ideology in its distorted form. When it became apparent that in order to fight subjugation of the African child by the white colonial rulers, we needed to have an attitude around which to mount our battle cry, an attitude in the form BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS emerged. The emergence of Black Consciousness, first at universities by students who felt they can better express themselves as black students outside the more liberal NUSAS. This was articulated well by people such as Steve Biko, Barney Pityana, Okgopotse Tiro and many more. The students then took this ideology into communities where it grew and was seen as dangerous to the extent that the apartheid regime clamped on it and those seen leading it.
It becomes therefore imperative that maybe the need to inculcate its attitude be the way to respond to the challenges facing our communities today. We should not underestimate how BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS can be the thread that binds the African majority as the main motive force of the NDR. We need it to make sure that those who were prepared to fight the raising fascism of pockets of the white minority.
The fact that one does not become Black Conscious simply because of the pigmentation of ones skin but by developing a state of mind that helps to bring about change about you situation. Black consciousness is a state of mind otherwise you are nothing but non-white-the opposite of being white. It is about time that Black consciousness finds expression in South African classrooms, airwaves , television channels , sports and culture, living conditions, developing critical thinking faculties.
One thing clear though is that in order for the South African child to realize total liberation, it is time that we discard the colonial educational system which does not teach an African child to be globally competitive.
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