1.1 PAN-AFRICANISM
1.1.2 The Pan-African 2atherin2s 1900-1994
1.1.2.10 The Sixth Pan-African Con2ress of 1974
The sixth Pan-African Congress was held in June 1974 at the University of Dar-es-Salaam and was attended by 52 delegations from African and Caribbean states, liberation movements, communities of Africans in North America, South America, Britain and the Pacific (Abdul-Raheem, 1996:8). The sixth Pan-African Congress was seen as a way to revive the Pan-African Movement and the Pan- Africa Congress series. It was not surprising then, that
The initiative for organising the sixth Pan African Congress came from a small group of Afro-Americans and Afro-Caribbeans who met in Bermuda and the United States in 1971 and 1972 (Abdul-Raheem,1996:7).
The ideological orientation ofthe group ranged from "African Liberationists", those whose primary aim is the political, economic, social and cultural liberation of people of African descent all over the world, to "African Avengers", those who are consumed by anger against and hatred for white people even though they try to concentrate on black pride and development. A number of the former were independent leftists in the tradition ofthe organisers ofthe earlier Pan-African Congresses while the latter came from some spin-off groups from the Garvey and student non-violent co-ordinating committee movements (Abdul-Raheem,1996:7).
Accordingly, the theme of the sixth Pan-African Congress was self-reliance, self-determination and unity of black people throughout the world (Abdul-Raheem,1996:7). The objectives of the organisers were that there was to be a progressive thrust to the Congress and emphasis would be placed on people's organisations as opposed to governments. The early 1970s represented the decade of a renewed onslaught by liberation movements in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Zimbabwe and South Africa against colonisation and settler minority racist rule. Therefore, the organizers wanted to provide concrete support for the liberation efforts (Abdul-Raheem,1996:7).
The organisers met with sympathetic response from the Tanzania African National Union (TANU)
government of President Julius Nyerere and from their first meeting in May 1972 the government and the ruling party of Tanzania threw their weight behind the initiative (Abdul-Raheem, 1996:7 -8).
This political supp·ort had both negative and positive elements in it. One ofthe negative aspects was that some of the initial mobilisers for the effort, such as the late C.L.R. James who wrote "The Call"
for the Congress and other Pan-Africanists in the Caribbean, could not attend the Congress due to the participation of governments they were fighting against from the Caribbean. However, individuals from the Caribbean who were then based in Africa, such as the late Walter Rodney, Horace Campbell and others, played crucial roles in the Congress (Abdul-Raheem,1996:8).
As to be expected, the Congress mirrored the global ideological and political struggles ofthe period and their manifestation within the Pan-African world (Abdul-Raheem,1996:8). Issues of the right to self-determination through armed struggle, and questions of imperialism and neo-colonialism, underdevelopment, Third Worldism, self-reliance in education and culture, continuing colonialism in the Caribbean, and the role of African women were addressed and analysed; and resolutions were adopted in spite ofthe different views and perspectives ofthe participants (Abdul-Raheem,1996:8).
Abdul-Raheem has this to say about this Congress,
The documents ... resolutions ... record both the disparity of views under played at the 6th Pan- African Congress and the relative strength which came to be exercised-despite predictions to the contrary-by the progressive forces. The lead, in many cases, was fittingly taken by the liberation movements (Abdul-Raheem,1996:8).
Perhaps the greatest weakness of the sixth Pan-African Congress was the inability to transform all the good resolutions into a concrete organisational and institutional framework of action. It is a mistake which the seventh Pan-African Congress sought to rectify by agreeing to set up a permanent secretariat in order to reverse the initiatives of the past (Abdul-Raheem,1996:8).
1.1.2.11 The Seventh Pan-African Con2ress of 1994
The seventh Pan-African Congress, held in Kampala, Uganda, from 3-8 April 1994 was organised to keep alive a tradition that has been around for about a century (Abdul-Raheem,1996:1). The Congress was to respond to and intervene in the rapidly unfolding global events; it was to be an all-
inclusive gathering, on the basis of "come one, come all", including opponents ofthe initiative; all African and Caribbean governments were to be invited but on the basis of equality with non- governmental groups, and finally, all delegates were to be equal and limited to a maximum of two per organisation (governments were considered as individual organisations) (Abdul- Raheem,1996:10).
In reality only 17 African governments were represented either by their diplomats accredited to Uganda or official ministerial delegations (Abdul-Raheem, 1996: 10). Yet more than 30 African countries were represented by different political forces and groups, especially opposition and pro- democracy groups and youth and women activists (Abdul-Raheem, 1996: 10-11). There was disagreement within Congress about the place of North Africa in the Pan-African Movement (Abdul-Raheem, 1996: 11). Certain delegates held the view that Africa is black, which is not a new current in the movement but is as old as the movement itself. However, the Congress in Kampala rejected as reactionary "blackism" this attempt to balkanise Africa behind the so-called Saharan and Sub-Saharan divide. It accepted as African any citizen (by whatever means acquired) of any of the countries of Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo and all her islands (Madagascar, Mauritius, Cape Verde, etc.) and also recognise anybody of African descent in the diaspora. While a majority of Africans are of Negroid origin, it is not true historically, factually or even politically that blackness is the only condition of Africanness. The Congress also reasoned that every government or organisation that was invited had asked and answered for themselves the question, "Who is a citizen?" (Abdul-Raheem, 1996: 11). Thus, Abdul-Raheem captures succinctly this congress' decision on who is a bonafide citizen of Africa, when he states that,
Therefore it was not our responsibility to decide who was more African than who. In fact being African alone (including being black) does not make one a Pan-Africanist. The Buthelezis, Mobutus, Abachas, Bokassas, Idi Amins, are as black as you can get but can we truly infer any Pan-African commitment from their ignominious acts? It is one's commitment and willingness to sacrifice for the unity and progress of Africa at home and abroad that is crucial; it is a question of consciousness and action. This is a progressive line within the movement that had been illuminated by Du Bois, James, George Padmore, K warne Nkrumah, Walter Rodney and many others. We believed that is the correct position but did not shut the door to others who believed otherwise and they were represented adequately at the Congress (Abdul-Raheem,1996:11).
The success of the Congress in April 1994 answered some of the issues raised while some other issues are continuing points of discussion, debate and confrontation in the movement as it gropes for a renewed relevance and clarity in these times (Abdul-Raheem, 1996: 13).
The broad theme of the Congress was Pan-Africanism: Facing the future in unity, social progress and democracy (Campbell, 1996:212). The Congress offered both analysis and practical solutions on how Africa can get out of its current crisis, reclaim the march of its history which was interrupted by slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism and the contemporary threat of recolonisation through International Monetary FundIW orld Bank structural adjustment policies imposed on our peoples, the debt crisis and the domination of our civil society by northern Non-Governmental Organisations to whom our African governments have only been too happy to surrender social welfare activities like education, health and even rural development (Abdul-Raheem, 1996: 13-14).
Neo-colonialism (political independence without economic independence) was also discussed at this Congress, and it was seen as threatening to give way to recolonisation,
More than ever in the past, Pan Africanism as a counter-force to imperialism is a necessary tool of analysis and organizational format for the whole Pan African world. That is why its general declaration, the Kampala Declaration, called on Africans to resist recolonization by organizing instead of agonizing, on the many fronts in which we are struggling to make true the libertarian and freedom-loving spirit that made our forebears to proclaim 'Africa for Africans' (Abdul-Raheem, 1996:2).
The role of women was also tackled at this Congress. Indeed what was significant about the seventh Pan-African Congress and that which makes it distinct from all previous Congresses is that African women did not only participate fully in the Congress, but they also formed the Pan-African Women's Liberation Organisation (PAWLO). In all previous Pan-African Conferences and Congresses, ifthere is a mention of women, they would have been there as subordinates (wives, lovers, secretaries, ushers, hostesses, etc.), but the seventh Pan-African Congress changed this. To ensure that this is permanent the women formed P A WLO, not as a rival to the global movement but as an equal partner, fighting together, while striking separately, in our joint struggle (Abdul- Raheem,1996:25).
This conference, being fully aware that the Pan-African movement is today faced with a number of responsibilities, went on to spell out the usual catastrophes of debt, war, food crisis, refugees, structural adjustment, the rise of racism internationally, with the question ofrecolonisation figuring prominently. Similarly, Horrace Campbell points to three ofthe tasks of the Pan-African Movement today. The first task, he believes, is to make an impact on the African people in the process of transforming the nationalist consciousness of the twentieth century. Second, Africans must make a decisive impact on world opinion with respect to Africans at home and abroad. And third, African people want to be able to realize the spirit of dignity for the renewal of the human spirit (Campbell,1996:213). Accordingly, he reminds us that death tendencies are manifest in wars, poverty, AIDS, racism, destruction of the environment and the devaluation of the lives of women and deforming the lives ofthe youth in Africa. He therefore argues that the objective of this period is to be able to discourage and isolate death tendencies and encourage life tendencies (Campbell,1996:213-4). Abdul-Raheem too argues that if Pan-Africanism is to have any future it must connect itself with the various struggles of today. Thus, he elaborates further that,
the deepening of the democratization processes, participatory development, women and gender, youth, students, workers, the poor, peasants, patriotic intelligentsia and other manifestations of social and other mass struggles and also the global anti-imperialist and popular struggles (Abdul-Raheem,1996:22).
Having analysed the Pan-African congresses from the first to the seventh, we move on to highlight a few aspects, before discussing the next renewal concept, namely an African Renaissance.