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voice of african migrants europe
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The campaign for the Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter was the climax to a decade or so of multifaceted and creative resistance to white minority rule and domination by a disenfranchised black majority. Coming shortly after the Defiance Campaign of 1952, it was a unique and imaginative response to an increasingly repressive and racist government that narrowed the scope for extra-parliamentary dissent and opposition. In the first instance, the campaign originated from the legal limits imposed by a repressive state. More fundamentally, the campaign responded to another need – that of developing the organisational and social bases of the Congress movement and clarifying its political policies and principles and social goals.
The campaign occurred in a phase of transition when the Congress movement experienced rapid growth and expansion in of both mass membership and organisation. In the three years following the Defiance Campaign, the formation of the South African Coloured People’s Organisation, the South African Congress of Democrats, the Federation of South African Women, the South African Congress of Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party. This remarkable organisational development and growth was loosely held together by a collection of individual leaders in the Congress movement and by a shared adherence to vaguely held policies and principles. The campaign for the Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter altered this state of affairs permanently. It served to consolidate and unify loosely associated political organisations into a principled alliance based on a coherent political programme. It enabled the Congress leadership to construct a structured relationship between the different components of the liberation forces in South Africa on a common and shared vision of an alternative and radically different social order.
For the very first time the Congress movement assumed a fully non-racial character, making it broadly representative of the South African population.
The crowd at the Congress of the People, Kliptown, 1955
Through the different components of the Congress Alliance, the Congress movement had come to represent the progressive and democratic interests of Africans, Indians, coloureds and whites as well as women, youth, workers, and to a lesser extent, peasants and agricultural workers. The campaign for the Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter transformed what was essentially an urban-based movement into a fully-fledged national movement. Organisational advances were made in the rural areas as a result of volunteers collecting demands and making invaluable political contact with influential rural people such as chiefs, priests, teachers or Advisory Board councillors.
The campaign also revived congress branches in the urban areas that had been weakened in the aftermath of the Defiance Campaign. The campaign led to the establishment of numerous local Congress of the People committees which drew in a range of social, cultural, religious, sports, educational, traders and non-political youth groups into the work and activities of the Congress movement. In some areas it also provided the stimulus for the creation of new ANC branches.
The campaign for the Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter introduced within the liberation movement a degree of ideological uniformity and cohesion that did not
exist previously. The campaign also succeeded in minimising ideological feuding and rivalry among black liberal-Christians, communists, conservatives and Africanists.
The new-found ideological cohesion that was established during the campaign marginalised the Africanists in the Congress Alliance and led to their defection shortly afterwards.
The Freedom Charter gave greater content and meaning to abstract goals such as “freedom”, “national liberation” and “self-determination of the African masses”. It gave concrete detail and substance to the Congress slogan, “Freedom in our lifetime”, by articulating what that freedom would mean in practical terms in various spheres of life in South Africa. The Charter provided a clear and concise set of policies, aims and objectives and principles of the Congress Alliance. It served as a vision of a post-apartheid South Africa, which was to be used as a mobilising and organising weapon in the struggle for democracy.
The most remarkable feature of this campaign was that it attempted to do what had never been done before in the history of South Africa – it allowed ordinary people, irrespective of race, language, sex, religion, class, educational standard, personal beliefs and values and organisational affiliation to speak about their hopes and dreams of the future.
The adoption of the Freedom Charter by the Congress of the People and subsequently by each component of the Congress Alliance signified a major break with the past traditions of the South African struggle. This was no longer a civil rights movement seeking to be accommodated in the existing socio-economic and political structures of society. It called for a fundamental restructuring of all aspects of South African society. The Congress of the People had placed the question of social transformation squarely on the agenda of the liberation movement in South Africa. Now there came into being a national liberation movement.
The campaign occurred in a phase of transition when the Congress movement experienced rapid growth and expansion in of both mass membership and organisation. In the three years following the Defiance Campaign, the formation of the South African Coloured People’s Organisation, the South African Congress of Democrats, the Federation of South African Women, the South African Congress of Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party. This remarkable organisational development and growth was loosely held together by a collection of individual leaders in the Congress movement and by a shared adherence to vaguely held policies and principles. The campaign for the Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter altered this state of affairs permanently. It served to consolidate and unify loosely associated political organisations into a principled alliance based on a coherent political programme. It enabled the Congress leadership to construct a structured relationship between the different components of the liberation forces in South Africa on a common and shared vision of an alternative and radically different social order.
For the very first time the Congress movement assumed a fully non-racial character, making it broadly representative of the South African population.
The crowd at the Congress of the People, Kliptown, 1955
Through the different components of the Congress Alliance, the Congress movement had come to represent the progressive and democratic interests of Africans, Indians, coloureds and whites as well as women, youth, workers, and to a lesser extent, peasants and agricultural workers. The campaign for the Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter transformed what was essentially an urban-based movement into a fully-fledged national movement. Organisational advances were made in the rural areas as a result of volunteers collecting demands and making invaluable political contact with influential rural people such as chiefs, priests, teachers or Advisory Board councillors.
The campaign also revived congress branches in the urban areas that had been weakened in the aftermath of the Defiance Campaign. The campaign led to the establishment of numerous local Congress of the People committees which drew in a range of social, cultural, religious, sports, educational, traders and non-political youth groups into the work and activities of the Congress movement. In some areas it also provided the stimulus for the creation of new ANC branches.
The campaign for the Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter introduced within the liberation movement a degree of ideological uniformity and cohesion that did not
exist previously. The campaign also succeeded in minimising ideological feuding and rivalry among black liberal-Christians, communists, conservatives and Africanists.
The new-found ideological cohesion that was established during the campaign marginalised the Africanists in the Congress Alliance and led to their defection shortly afterwards.
The Freedom Charter gave greater content and meaning to abstract goals such as “freedom”, “national liberation” and “self-determination of the African masses”. It gave concrete detail and substance to the Congress slogan, “Freedom in our lifetime”, by articulating what that freedom would mean in practical terms in various spheres of life in South Africa. The Charter provided a clear and concise set of policies, aims and objectives and principles of the Congress Alliance. It served as a vision of a post-apartheid South Africa, which was to be used as a mobilising and organising weapon in the struggle for democracy.
The most remarkable feature of this campaign was that it attempted to do what had never been done before in the history of South Africa – it allowed ordinary people, irrespective of race, language, sex, religion, class, educational standard, personal beliefs and values and organisational affiliation to speak about their hopes and dreams of the future.
The adoption of the Freedom Charter by the Congress of the People and subsequently by each component of the Congress Alliance signified a major break with the past traditions of the South African struggle. This was no longer a civil rights movement seeking to be accommodated in the existing socio-economic and political structures of society. It called for a fundamental restructuring of all aspects of South African society. The Congress of the People had placed the question of social transformation squarely on the agenda of the liberation movement in South Africa. Now there came into being a national liberation movement.
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voice of black african
EUROPEAN PAN-AFRICAN CONGRESS
Submitted by voice on Mon, 03/09/2007 - 13:13. English African Community
1st all african meeting in europa
1st Pan-African congress in europe
on bicentenary of slavery abolition and so call European year of equality of oportunities: About 600 leaders of African organizations within the European Union, will be in Bilbao, Spain, from 1 to 4 November, 2007, to attend to the 3rd pan-african congress which is the 1s black comunitty meetin in europe.
FEDERAZIOA PANFRIKANISTAK
FECHA: 01 de Noviembre 2007
HORA: 10:00
LUGAR: deusto university
CÓMO LLEGAR: bus Continental, bilabo sondika airport train RENFE
"Every where we are, Africans must take the responsibility to resolve their problems any means necessary"
Malcolm x University of Legon Accra 1964
THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT BY AFRICANS & BLACK COMUNITTY IN EUROPE
Call to all Africans to get our first European meeting to built Black Empowerment
On the Bicentenary of Slavery abolition1807-2007, 3 rd centenary of Equatorial Guinea 1777-2007, 50 th of Republic of Ghana 1957-2007, XX Anniversary of Thomas Shankara 1987-2007, 2nd anniversary of antiracist youth Riots in Paris and European year of equality opportunities for all 2007
1st Pan-African Congress in Europe - 1st- 4th November Bilbao Spain 2007
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
About 600 Africans immigrants -refugees and grassroots leaders from Berlin, Lisbon, Madrid, Rome, Barcelona, Budapest, Milano, Nuremberg, Almeria, Austria, London, Swiss, Sweden, Paris, Marseille etc...They will meet in the city of Bilbao (Basque Country) Spain to participate in this historical Pan-African Congress. The goals are to talk and find solution together to the millions of problems that Black Community face in the European Union day by day.
A recent European Union study warns that Black People are the most impoverished, invisible and oppressed community in the EUROPE. Indeed, despite the activity of thousands of NGOs, a visit to any African community within the EU shows that our people are living on the edges of poverty, alcoholism, dropping out of school, institutional racism and police brutality. We need to do more than just wait for others to solve our problems. The EU is making plans and establishing political, economic and social relations with Africa without taking into account the African diaspora in Europe. We blacks have been excluded from debates on and from the actual process of constructing the union, from cooperation and from the Millennium Goals, from the fight against racism. Hundreds of initiatives, which have to do with our children, are confided to NGOs and other institutions which have hardly anything to do with us.
This year the topic will be One Afrika one Nation: to fight for unity and visibility of Africans associative expression, Reparations, affirmative action, European Union policieson black community, Right Civil of Refugees and women, Tribute to Tomas Shankara, Police Brutality on Black Community , semi Slavery situation on Afrikan working class, criminalization of our youth or 2nd generation, students, gender, our position on attack of Babilon on Zimbabwe, the roll of Africans media, the roll of Africans embassies, the Roll of African elite (intellectual, sportsmen & artist ) on suffer of the African masses, the great contribution of immigrants workers in African Union economies, the impact of intercultural Mediation on Black Comunnitties and institutional racism in the so call European year of equality opportunities for all etc....
The Pan-Africanist Federation of Spain, following the advice of the voice of millions of inmigrants and refugees suffers in the pateras or the new concentration camps so call "centros de internamiento". In fact the craying of the Black mothers their children are killing by police brutality: to encourage the world's Africans to face their responsibilities, wants to invite you to the next 3rd Pan-Afrikan Congress in Spain which will now also constitute a Europe-wide event, because it will be the first meeting of black grassroots leaders in Europe.
As we said in the Anticolonialist conference in Germany 2 years ago: we have a responsability , the responsability of built a REAL African Reparation movement unity . Activists meeting at this congress share the same experiences in their struggle. We shall assume our responsibility for the black struggles and affirm our desire to seek joint and global solutions to the situation of enormous oppression, violence, impoverishment and institutional racism that concerns us all. The congress will also prepare an Afro-European summit of the European Union, to take place in Brussels -Hamburg in October 2008.
The congress ist not the begining of anything is the continuation of the strong figth of ITRAP for Reaparation, GAC African global congress, 2nd Pan-African congress in Spain, antiracist conference in Swiss 2006, ASI Conference london 2007 leading by Uhuru movement , the hundred of demostration here in Brussels by sin papales, the last youth conference in Amadora Lisbon and the tribute we must pay to thouse young brothers who were on Riots in Paris. We must united all this fronts to build a Right Civil Movements to get justice and reparation. So we will thus mark a new phase in the Africanist struggle in Europe.
I learnt from my mother that , there is no doubt that our search for justice has brought and will continue bringing challenges, and will require personal sacrifices. Although we want to establish joint strategies for goalf of millenium 2012, therfore this will not be a typical congress of black elite theorizing far from the suffering and the fight for black masses or the expression of African associations. This event will bring together African grassroots leaders seeking continuity in our struggle day by day.
We are inspired by the engagement and love of figures such as Garvey, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Ana Nzingha, Nkrumah, Winnie and Nelson Mandela, Sabukwe, Lumumba, Yeshitela, Sankara, Cabral, Zumbi, Toussaint and so many others who preceded us. We want to request and strengthen the responsibility of black grassroots associations in Europe as necessary points of reference and as the only valid representatives of their communities.
This congress invites us to meet in a spirit of unity, paving the way to the tremendous stroogle we have to do in the name of Africans in Europe, and as a contribution to the development of the rest of the world. This first European Pan-Afrikan Congress will act as a vehicle towards the liberation and empowerment of Africans. It is a great hope to to be able to unite Africans from all over Europe, and we need to fulfill this mission!
We thus ask for the cooperation of all Africans who love freedom to stage a strong congress in Bilbao, Euskadi (the Basque region), from 1 to 4 November, 2007. Africa is in the heart of Africans, wherever they are. The city of Bilbao has shown its engagement and hospitality to us in hosting this international event.
Future generations of immigrants and refugees will know that you were part of this process.We feel and belive that our mission and vision of african freedom cannot exist without a challenge.The history and our children are watching us. We have the opportunity and responsibility to do that in Europe today. As Africans your participation and your voice is the most important.
BROTHERS AND SISTER I m very happy to be here in this part of the city . And the only thing I can tell you its that we are forward to bilbao .I want to urge you to work in the communities in European cities to guarantee the success of this event, which is part of our dreams of freedom and the unity of Africa. This is, now, our responsibility as grassroots leaders and as persons of reference to our communities.
See you in Bilbao!
"Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave."
Frederick Douglass
Submitted by voice on Mon, 03/09/2007 - 13:13. English African Community
1st all african meeting in europa
1st Pan-African congress in europe
on bicentenary of slavery abolition and so call European year of equality of oportunities: About 600 leaders of African organizations within the European Union, will be in Bilbao, Spain, from 1 to 4 November, 2007, to attend to the 3rd pan-african congress which is the 1s black comunitty meetin in europe.
FEDERAZIOA PANFRIKANISTAK
FECHA: 01 de Noviembre 2007
HORA: 10:00
LUGAR: deusto university
CÓMO LLEGAR: bus Continental, bilabo sondika airport train RENFE
"Every where we are, Africans must take the responsibility to resolve their problems any means necessary"
Malcolm x University of Legon Accra 1964
THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT BY AFRICANS & BLACK COMUNITTY IN EUROPE
Call to all Africans to get our first European meeting to built Black Empowerment
On the Bicentenary of Slavery abolition1807-2007, 3 rd centenary of Equatorial Guinea 1777-2007, 50 th of Republic of Ghana 1957-2007, XX Anniversary of Thomas Shankara 1987-2007, 2nd anniversary of antiracist youth Riots in Paris and European year of equality opportunities for all 2007
1st Pan-African Congress in Europe - 1st- 4th November Bilbao Spain 2007
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
About 600 Africans immigrants -refugees and grassroots leaders from Berlin, Lisbon, Madrid, Rome, Barcelona, Budapest, Milano, Nuremberg, Almeria, Austria, London, Swiss, Sweden, Paris, Marseille etc...They will meet in the city of Bilbao (Basque Country) Spain to participate in this historical Pan-African Congress. The goals are to talk and find solution together to the millions of problems that Black Community face in the European Union day by day.
A recent European Union study warns that Black People are the most impoverished, invisible and oppressed community in the EUROPE. Indeed, despite the activity of thousands of NGOs, a visit to any African community within the EU shows that our people are living on the edges of poverty, alcoholism, dropping out of school, institutional racism and police brutality. We need to do more than just wait for others to solve our problems. The EU is making plans and establishing political, economic and social relations with Africa without taking into account the African diaspora in Europe. We blacks have been excluded from debates on and from the actual process of constructing the union, from cooperation and from the Millennium Goals, from the fight against racism. Hundreds of initiatives, which have to do with our children, are confided to NGOs and other institutions which have hardly anything to do with us.
This year the topic will be One Afrika one Nation: to fight for unity and visibility of Africans associative expression, Reparations, affirmative action, European Union policieson black community, Right Civil of Refugees and women, Tribute to Tomas Shankara, Police Brutality on Black Community , semi Slavery situation on Afrikan working class, criminalization of our youth or 2nd generation, students, gender, our position on attack of Babilon on Zimbabwe, the roll of Africans media, the roll of Africans embassies, the Roll of African elite (intellectual, sportsmen & artist ) on suffer of the African masses, the great contribution of immigrants workers in African Union economies, the impact of intercultural Mediation on Black Comunnitties and institutional racism in the so call European year of equality opportunities for all etc....
The Pan-Africanist Federation of Spain, following the advice of the voice of millions of inmigrants and refugees suffers in the pateras or the new concentration camps so call "centros de internamiento". In fact the craying of the Black mothers their children are killing by police brutality: to encourage the world's Africans to face their responsibilities, wants to invite you to the next 3rd Pan-Afrikan Congress in Spain which will now also constitute a Europe-wide event, because it will be the first meeting of black grassroots leaders in Europe.
As we said in the Anticolonialist conference in Germany 2 years ago: we have a responsability , the responsability of built a REAL African Reparation movement unity . Activists meeting at this congress share the same experiences in their struggle. We shall assume our responsibility for the black struggles and affirm our desire to seek joint and global solutions to the situation of enormous oppression, violence, impoverishment and institutional racism that concerns us all. The congress will also prepare an Afro-European summit of the European Union, to take place in Brussels -Hamburg in October 2008.
The congress ist not the begining of anything is the continuation of the strong figth of ITRAP for Reaparation, GAC African global congress, 2nd Pan-African congress in Spain, antiracist conference in Swiss 2006, ASI Conference london 2007 leading by Uhuru movement , the hundred of demostration here in Brussels by sin papales, the last youth conference in Amadora Lisbon and the tribute we must pay to thouse young brothers who were on Riots in Paris. We must united all this fronts to build a Right Civil Movements to get justice and reparation. So we will thus mark a new phase in the Africanist struggle in Europe.
I learnt from my mother that , there is no doubt that our search for justice has brought and will continue bringing challenges, and will require personal sacrifices. Although we want to establish joint strategies for goalf of millenium 2012, therfore this will not be a typical congress of black elite theorizing far from the suffering and the fight for black masses or the expression of African associations. This event will bring together African grassroots leaders seeking continuity in our struggle day by day.
We are inspired by the engagement and love of figures such as Garvey, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Ana Nzingha, Nkrumah, Winnie and Nelson Mandela, Sabukwe, Lumumba, Yeshitela, Sankara, Cabral, Zumbi, Toussaint and so many others who preceded us. We want to request and strengthen the responsibility of black grassroots associations in Europe as necessary points of reference and as the only valid representatives of their communities.
This congress invites us to meet in a spirit of unity, paving the way to the tremendous stroogle we have to do in the name of Africans in Europe, and as a contribution to the development of the rest of the world. This first European Pan-Afrikan Congress will act as a vehicle towards the liberation and empowerment of Africans. It is a great hope to to be able to unite Africans from all over Europe, and we need to fulfill this mission!
We thus ask for the cooperation of all Africans who love freedom to stage a strong congress in Bilbao, Euskadi (the Basque region), from 1 to 4 November, 2007. Africa is in the heart of Africans, wherever they are. The city of Bilbao has shown its engagement and hospitality to us in hosting this international event.
Future generations of immigrants and refugees will know that you were part of this process.We feel and belive that our mission and vision of african freedom cannot exist without a challenge.The history and our children are watching us. We have the opportunity and responsibility to do that in Europe today. As Africans your participation and your voice is the most important.
BROTHERS AND SISTER I m very happy to be here in this part of the city . And the only thing I can tell you its that we are forward to bilbao .I want to urge you to work in the communities in European cities to guarantee the success of this event, which is part of our dreams of freedom and the unity of Africa. This is, now, our responsibility as grassroots leaders and as persons of reference to our communities.
See you in Bilbao!
"Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave."
Frederick Douglass
Why African Voices in Europe
The European Commission (EC) is the 5th biggest aid donor in the world. It also plays an important role influencing how aid is spent directly by European Union member states - which together provide over half of all global aid.
African agriculture is in crisis, yet European aid to agriculture has declined. To date, EC aid to Africa has allocated only 7.5% of resources to food security and rural development, against 35% for transport and 28% to macro-economic support.
The EC's aid programme has the opportunity to transform the lives of millions of marginalized small-scale farmers and pastoralists throughout Africa. Instead it is leaving millions of people below the poverty line and on the edge of survival.
"The pastoralists [we had meetings with] were living on the edge; most were surviving off one meal a day. Are we going to wait until people are dying and need emergency relief before we start focusing efforts to support them?" (Linda McAven, MEP)
Whilst every context is unique, in Kenya and Zambia it is clear that EC aid for agriculture and rural development from 2000-2006 had no significant impact on poverty. Instead the following common features consistently arise:
Increased hunger and poverty
Increased marginalisation of small-scale farmers and livestock keepers
Increased need for costly emergency humanitarian interventions
More appropriate and better targeted support could begin to address their long-term needs.
Improving EC aid effectiveness
Research and dialogue throughout the project have thrown up number of opportunities for improving EC aid effectiveness.
African Voices in Europe is an urgent call for a new agenda to improve EC aid to Africa:
Aid based on genuine and meaningful consultation with communities
Aid that targets deprived and remote areas first and foremost
Aid that benefits not undermines the poorest farmers
Aid that supports long-term food security and disaster preparedness, through providing access to land, credit, water, advice, infrastructure, appropriate technologies, markets, and other essential inputs
Aid that reaches marginal farmers and pastoralists before they reach emergency status
This site presents African Voices in Europe's agenda for targeting Less Favoured Areas, offering opportunities for realizing such an agenda legitimately and effectively with all stakeholders on board.
This site is designed to provide a crucial resource to anyone wanting to know more about the crisis facing millions of small-scale farmers and livestock keepers across Africa and how EC aid could be better targeted to meet the needs of those who need it most.
Read the reports
Listen to African Voices on video
Read African Voices photostories
Understand EC Aid to Africa
For more information contact: Dr Stuart Coupe - stuart.coupe@practicalaction.org.uk
Dr Stuart Coupe, Practical Action, The Schumacher Centre, Bourton-on-Dunsmore, Rugby, UK, CV23 9BR
African Voices in Europe was funded by European Commission DG Development
The European Commission (EC) is the 5th biggest aid donor in the world. It also plays an important role influencing how aid is spent directly by European Union member states - which together provide over half of all global aid.
African agriculture is in crisis, yet European aid to agriculture has declined. To date, EC aid to Africa has allocated only 7.5% of resources to food security and rural development, against 35% for transport and 28% to macro-economic support.
The EC's aid programme has the opportunity to transform the lives of millions of marginalized small-scale farmers and pastoralists throughout Africa. Instead it is leaving millions of people below the poverty line and on the edge of survival.
"The pastoralists [we had meetings with] were living on the edge; most were surviving off one meal a day. Are we going to wait until people are dying and need emergency relief before we start focusing efforts to support them?" (Linda McAven, MEP)
Whilst every context is unique, in Kenya and Zambia it is clear that EC aid for agriculture and rural development from 2000-2006 had no significant impact on poverty. Instead the following common features consistently arise:
Increased hunger and poverty
Increased marginalisation of small-scale farmers and livestock keepers
Increased need for costly emergency humanitarian interventions
More appropriate and better targeted support could begin to address their long-term needs.
Improving EC aid effectiveness
Research and dialogue throughout the project have thrown up number of opportunities for improving EC aid effectiveness.
African Voices in Europe is an urgent call for a new agenda to improve EC aid to Africa:
Aid based on genuine and meaningful consultation with communities
Aid that targets deprived and remote areas first and foremost
Aid that benefits not undermines the poorest farmers
Aid that supports long-term food security and disaster preparedness, through providing access to land, credit, water, advice, infrastructure, appropriate technologies, markets, and other essential inputs
Aid that reaches marginal farmers and pastoralists before they reach emergency status
This site presents African Voices in Europe's agenda for targeting Less Favoured Areas, offering opportunities for realizing such an agenda legitimately and effectively with all stakeholders on board.
This site is designed to provide a crucial resource to anyone wanting to know more about the crisis facing millions of small-scale farmers and livestock keepers across Africa and how EC aid could be better targeted to meet the needs of those who need it most.
Read the reports
Listen to African Voices on video
Read African Voices photostories
Understand EC Aid to Africa
For more information contact: Dr Stuart Coupe - stuart.coupe@practicalaction.org.uk
Dr Stuart Coupe, Practical Action, The Schumacher Centre, Bourton-on-Dunsmore, Rugby, UK, CV23 9BR
African Voices in Europe was funded by European Commission DG Development
The African Personality and Europe
Identity Quandaries
The anticipation of political independence that greatly stimulated
African humanists brought forth a surprising consistency in their
message. We must reach back, most insisted, and use the past to
insure the future. Neocolonialism can be cultural as well as economic;
Europe can offer political freedom and still subject the soul of a
people. There must be a spiritual emancipation to accompany consti
tutional sovereignty and insure economic self-direction. And this free
ing of the African's essential nature rests upon the reaffirmation of
African culture, upon a resurrected African civilization that revives
the ancient qualities in forms that deal with the exigencies of the
present and the future.
But were they correct, these artists and musicians, writers, histori
ans, or educators, in arguing that the past contained its own merits, still
relevant in the modern world? Was David Balme wrong and Negritude
right? Was there a viable African civilization? Did the African per
sonality really exist?
The doctrines of Negritude came into prominence during the 1950s,
accompanying the prospect of political independence, and it was dur
ing these same years that Nkrumah enunciated his concept of African
Personality. Negritude stressed cultural singularity, even exclusiveness;
by African Personality, Nkrumah seems to have meant no more than
-201-
Identity Quandaries
The anticipation of political independence that greatly stimulated
African humanists brought forth a surprising consistency in their
message. We must reach back, most insisted, and use the past to
insure the future. Neocolonialism can be cultural as well as economic;
Europe can offer political freedom and still subject the soul of a
people. There must be a spiritual emancipation to accompany consti
tutional sovereignty and insure economic self-direction. And this free
ing of the African's essential nature rests upon the reaffirmation of
African culture, upon a resurrected African civilization that revives
the ancient qualities in forms that deal with the exigencies of the
present and the future.
But were they correct, these artists and musicians, writers, histori
ans, or educators, in arguing that the past contained its own merits, still
relevant in the modern world? Was David Balme wrong and Negritude
right? Was there a viable African civilization? Did the African per
sonality really exist?
The doctrines of Negritude came into prominence during the 1950s,
accompanying the prospect of political independence, and it was dur
ing these same years that Nkrumah enunciated his concept of African
Personality. Negritude stressed cultural singularity, even exclusiveness;
by African Personality, Nkrumah seems to have meant no more than
-201-
African Voices in Europe exposes the failures of EC aid to reach farmers and livestock keepers across Africa, and explores how EC aid could be more effectively targeted to achieve its objective of poverty reduction. More ...
.
.
