PAN-AFRICANISM MOVING FORWARD
The AU should take Pan-Africanism to schools, universities and markets,
Recent events have given Pan-African politics a shot of adrenalin. Egypt used hosting AFCON football fiesta to hug Africa even as her Arabist propagandists seek to collude with European racists to cut the umbilical cord of Black Africa’s creation and ownership of the great civilization of the Pharaohs. The increasing volume of monies earned from tourism built around pyramids and treasures in their chambers, has fuelled this cultural robbery. Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, the East African Community countries and Congo continue to remain indifferent to calls to boost a trans-African participation in the economy of scholarship, research and investment in infrastructure around their heritage in a civilization that saved Europeans from barbarism.
The year of Egypt holding the chairmanship of the African Union should also celebrate the genius of the Senegalese Egyptologist who, as a researcher in France’s Nuclear Research Institute, demonstrated the ‘’African Origin of Civilization’’. Research workers in Medicine, Nutrition, Archaeology Astronomy and Space exploration, Mathematics and Information Technology in universities and research centres in Africa should claim participation in Egyptology during President El-Sisi’s leadership of African diplomacy.
The vigorous intervention by Prime Minister Ahmed Abiy of Ethiopia in bloody convulsions for the birth of democracy and nationhood in Sudan put Egypt in the nasty dilemma between serving brutal appetites in Saudi Arabia for crushing Sudan’s renaissance, and going along with a new culture of democratization bubbling in Africa, notably: in South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya and even a bleeding Cameroon.
The delayed return of Laurent Gbagbo to his native Ivory Coast raises the issue of El-Sisi pushing France out of a putrid swamp of intensive exploitation of former colonies. Napoleon Bonaparte invaded and looted Egypt’s resources including treasures and embalmed bodies of Black African Pharaohs. A significant section of the country’s elite continue to engage with French culture and scholarship. He should drive the elimination of ugly structures of France’s relations with former colonies.
The capture of 85 per cent of the foreign exchange of these countries by France’s central bank (thereby denying their economies from investing the funds locally), is producing poverty and unemployment. The attack on Gbagbo’s security forces with helicopters and ground troops was punishment for his rejection of France’s command that all contracts awarded by Ivory Coast must first be offered to French companies. It is only when they show no interest that other countries can bid.
The African Union during Egypt’s captainship must take up the wrath by Italy’s Foreign Minister against France practicing impov
erishment in former colonies that drives desperate unemployed youths into nets of ‘’human traffickers’’ with no qualms when thousands drown in the Mediterranean Sea in desperate hope for jobs in Europe’s economies.
Like all countries, France must promote her economic prosperity. The ‘’Yellow Vest’’ protests in her cities show that robbing citizens of welfare and adequate income breeds rage and wastes creativities. In her former colonies, this rage crosses the Sahara Desert and often drowns in the sea before it makes demands at Macron’s doorstep. The African Union must go beyond blaming vulgar racism among Libyans and help France creatively purge herself of a legacy which her own distinguished writers have condemned as centuries of genocide against African peoples.
This matter must also push relations with the United States. On 30th March, 2019, CNN interviewed a scholar of Richard Nixon’s Presidential Library over a racist dialogue between Governor of California, Ronald Reagan, and President Nixon. They were infuriated by Ambassador Salim Ahmed Salim of Tanzania dancing inside the United Nations General Assembly when the scoreboard showed that friends of China had won the vote to withdraw the membership of Taiwan. Both politicians affirmed to themselves that African diplomats were ‘’monkeys’’ waving their tails on American soil. The scholar linked their racist views to their policies towards Africa, including support for Apartheid across southern Africa.
In 2010 I interviewed Ambassador Salim in Nairobi about his recollection of his legendary diplomatic jig along an isle inside the UN General Assembly. He was defiant. He had no apologies over what he does in the service of Africa’s interest. Chou Enlai, as China’s foreign minister had founded the Non-Aligned Movement with Kwame Nkrumah, Jawarhlal Nehru of India and Abdel Nasser of Egypt. China was supporting liberation struggle in Africa and built the Tanzara railway line linking Dar es Salaam port to Ndola on Zambia’s copper-producing zone; and broken a plot to strangulate Zambia as punishment for supporting freedom fighters.
Egypt should organise an ‘’anti-racism dialogue between Africa and the Americas in the 21st century’’. The African Diaspora is under attack by racist governments and groups in Brazil, Honduras, Argentina and Peru. Africa must not be silent and indifferent.
Youths in Sudan and Algeria – including militant young women – have painted the glory of defiant visionaries. They have carried forward the spirit of liberation struggles of the 1960s and 1990s. There was, however, little evidence of youths from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and ECOWAS trekking to join these struggles for new politics. The AU must take PanAfricanism forward to schools, universities and markets.
THE AFRICAN UNION DURING EGYPT’S CAPTAINSHIP MUST TAKE UP THE WRATH BY ITALY’S FOREIGN MINISTER AGAINST FRANCE PRACTICING IMPOVERISHMENT IN FORMER COLONIES THAT DRIVES DESPERATE UNEMPLOYED YOUTHS INTO NETS OF ‘HUMAN TRAFFICKERS’