GETTING RID OF SHACKLES OF COLONIALISM
“AFRICA must unite!” So echoed reggae music across the world. This was a slogan or motto of one of the authentic sons of Africa, Kwame Nkrumah.
Bob Marley, with the Redemption Song, put on a stamp, “How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?”
April 27, 2022, marked what would have been the 50th anniversary of not only the first president of Ghana but a visionary, a son, and an authentic voice of Africa.
Imperialists had and still have an agenda to rip off Africa. Nkrumah was not only his country’s liberator, he believed his country was not free until the entire Africa (ukhayakhulu) was free. “The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked-up with the total liberation of the African continent.”
That was a nightmare to imperialists and colonialists. Just like any other liberation fighter, Nkrumah did not receive liberation on a silver platter. He had to fight. Even the enemy, the British, tried in vain.
There was also an enemy within, tension, jealousy, and greed among fellow fighters fighting for the independence of Ghana.
After leading Ghana to independence, Nkrumah became the country’s first prime minister and later, the president.
He established a one-party state. That might have been perceived as dictatorship, but the goal was to protect Ghana. He believed in socialism. But the imperialists plotted a coup against Nkrumah because he contradicted the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – institutions aimed at extracting profit at whatever cost, even at the expense of the people.
As a visionary, Nkrumah was a leader of pan-Africanism and anticolonialism. That meant unity of Africans and the struggle against colonialism, the identical twin of imperialism. Robert Sobukwe was a Nkrumah admirer and the first two presidents of democratic South Africa followed suit – an African Renaissance, building on Nkrumah’s philosophy, was first outlined by Nelson Mandela at the 1994 OAU summit and Thabo Mbeki, enthusiastically developed the vision and took it further with his poetic speech “I am an African”.
Africa generally can honour him by defending the gains of her independence and advance.
Among other things Nkrumah stood for, is unity of Africa, a United States of Africa. The DA stands for federalism, other white people and new reactionary and retrogressive formations want an Independent Cape. They are inspired by the fact that Orania was not stopped. Instead, some heads of state of a democratic South Africa visited it. Indigenous people in South Africa are abused, discriminated against, dehumanised, and degraded by minority groups. The minorities are the matchmakers of a conflict between African locals and others from across the borders. They employ people from across the borders as cheap labour, knowing that this causes conflict.
When Africans fight one another they point at the black-dominated government that is neither in control of the land nor the economy. After 28 years of democracy, the government must buy land from white people who took it by force.
Insurgents are aiming at dividing Africa by using propaganda and taking advantage of the indigenous poor people. All the forces want to take over Africa step by step. Nkrumah addressed this long ago when he said: “History has shown that where the Great Powers cannot colonise, they balkanise. This is what they did to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and have done and are doing in Africa. If we allow ourselves to be balkanised, we’ll be recolonised … ”
Nkrumah was not “punished” (overthrown) for his selfish interests but for the unity and total independence of Africa. Part of one of his quotes says: “Hence the 20th century has become the century of colonial emancipation… finally witnessing the total liberation of Africa from colonial rule and imperialist exploitation.”
About the current scenario on the continent, he would have said: “The forces that unite us are greater than the superimposed influences that keep us apart”.