Re-define pan-Africanism to ward off violent extremism

Across the world, peoples of African descent are gearing to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Fifth Pan-African Congress held in Manchester on October 15, 1945.

The ideology of pan-Africanism is still as vibrant and galvanising today as it was 70 years ago when African leaders like Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta joined 87 other delegates representing 50 organisations in the historic town hall meeting that has shaped modern Africa. This unflickering spirit of Manchester was re-dramatised in the Eastern Africa Region Pan African Congress in Nairobi this week.

But the continent on the cusp between the optimism of “Africa rising,” soared by the prospects of the continent as the new frontier of economic growth, and the pessimism wrought by spiralling violent extremism linked to the parochial clan and ethnic ideologies and radical Islamic terrorism.

It was Charles Darwin who famously said that “It’s not the strongest who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Africa’s future depends on how pan-Africanism is going to adapt and redefine itself vis-à-vis the hydra of parochial and extremist ideologies that now threaten Africa.

Pan-Africanism is Africa’s greatest intellectual innovation in the last millennium. 

What has made the ideology of pan-Africanism attractive is not the mere belief that unity is pivotal to economic, social, and political progress of the people of African descent. Rather, it is its inclusivity: the bold assertion that the African people on the continent and in its sprawling diaspora not only share a common history but their destiny is inextricably intertwined.

COLOUR-LINE

Long before Manchester, the African intellectual, W.E.B. Du Bois, had declared that “The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the colour-line.” The systems of slavery, colonialism and apartheid imposed on Africa by generations of white extremists were laced with racism. 

To confront the “colour-line” in a world polarised by the ideological Cold War between the Soviet-led Communist East and the American-led Capitalist West, George Padmore and Kwame Nkrumah, the co-Secretaries of the Manchester Conference, defined the ideological trinity pan-Africanism as nationalism, socialism and non-alignment. They elevated the liberation of Africa from colonialism and apartheid into the most crucial agendum in the 20th century.

A half-century later, by 1994, the embers of nationalism that pan-Africanism stoked in 1945 had swept through entire Africa, replacing colonial and apartheid regimes with 54 independent African states loosely organised around the OAU and its successor, the AU.

With the collapse of the “colour-line” and the triumph of liberalism over communism/socialism, pan-Africanism was redefined in the context of what South African Presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki popularised as “African Renaissance.”

Liberalism replaced socialism as one of the key ideological tenets of refurbished pan-Africanism, which now underpins Africa’s Agenda 2063 on pan-Africanism and African Renaissance.

Explicitly, the prompters of the African Union defined the problem of the 21st century as insecurity that undermined socio-economic progress and development. In the post-Cold War era, the security problem has linked to violent conflicts involving rival identities (clans and ethnic groups) and radical terrorism.

IDEOLOGICAL COUNTER

Africa must now redefine pan-Africanism to secure development from the threat of ethnic parochialism and violent extremism. We need to redefine and revitalise pan-Africanism as an ideological counter to two threats to African democracies today. 

First, we need to redefine pan-Africanism to neutralise “political tribalism” or the unprincipled and divisive competition for state power by members of the political class who claim to speak for unified ethnic communities.

In fighting political tribalism, we need to contrast it with what the British historian, John Lonsdale (1994), described as “moral ethnicity.” This is a benign force that seeks to harness the solidarity and unity of a group to promote the welfare of citizens. “Political tribalism” promotes parochial ethnic citizenship; moral ethnicity ideals of civic citizenship in Africa’s multi-ethnic and often poor societies. Political tribalism is the greatest threat to peace, democracy and prosperity of the African people.

Inversely, a revamped pan-Africanism is pivotal to counter the minority-majority problem in African democracies that President Obama addressed in his recent visit to Kenya. This problem manifests itself in two ways: on the one hand, pan-Africanism is needed to counter the tyranny of minorities exemplified by Burundi under President Pierre Buyoya where the “superior” Tutsi minorities tyrannised the “inferior” Hutu majority.

Inversely, we have the tyranny of the majorities exemplified by Rwanda under President Juvenal Habyarimana where the Hutu majority dominated the minority. But there are the exceptional cases. Although a minority in many countries of the Horn, the Somali political class has adeptly played on their multiple identities of clan, marginalised tribe and Muslim religion to mobilise huge political and economic power by uniting under their wings Somali clans, Arab-Swahili groups and non-Somali African Muslims in Kenya.

Regionally, pan-Africanism will help Africa forge cooperation in the fight against violent extremism and terrorism by such radical groups as the Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram. Manchester confirmed pan-Africanism as Africa’s most effective ideological tool in fighting back global threats to its interests.

Professor Peter Kagwanja is the Chief Executive of the Africa Policy Institute and former Government Adviser.