Prof PLO Lumumba on the Past, Present and Future of Pan Africanism.

thank you very much let me start by congratulating you all assuming as i do that you participated in elections some of you and that you are elected and also aware that some of you have been appointed to serve as ministers in the new administration congratulations and also permit me to thank the office of the prime minister for inviting me to share my thoughts with you on a subject that i think is very important not only to the federal government of ethiopia but to the people of ethiopia and by extension the continent of africa my presentation has been summarized in writing and will be available for your reference later let me start by saying that the subject of pan-africanism is one that remains as important today as it was in my view many years ago those of you who are familiar with the struggle for pan-africanism will remember [Music] its story particularly through the activities of african synthetic diaspora you'll particularly remember that prior to the much more famous meeting held in 1945 in manchester in the united kingdom into africans diaspora particularly in the caribbean in trinidad and tobago in jamaica were very particular about having connection with the continent of africa you'll remember that they had many meetings and you will be familiar with some of the names such as sylvester williams from trinidad and tobago such as marcus garvey and his call for africans to go back to the mother continent and you will also remember such as wbe dubois who was very active in the process of liberating the african-american from the clutches of slavery and discrimination and we also played a very critical part in the struggle for decolonization culminating in the 1945 meeting which for the first time was attended by africans who later played a critical role in the struggle for decolonization of course ethiopia does stand out to the extent that it was never successfully colonized there was limited occupation and you are familiar with that history therefore it is not mine to educate you on your own history but you are familiar with it but it must concern us particularly at this time and i hope during this conversation i'll be able to demonstrate why in order for us to understand the present we must understand the past which will also enable us to have a glimpse on what the future holds and one of the speeches which is seldom referred to is a speech that was delivered in the year 1906 in the month of april by a south african called pixley kaisaka semi and it is instructive that pixley kaiser kasemi was the first president of the african national congress when it was founded in nineteen hundred and twelve when pixley kaiser kasemi delivered that speech as a student at the university of columbia his title was the regeneration of africa and what he was talking about at that time was an africa that had burned the brand of slavery and was laboring under the pain of colonization pixley kaiserka semi reminded his audience on that day that when the european powers assembled in violin in 1884 through to 1885. they agreed to divide africa into spheres of influence for purposes of exploitation that the germans had their share if you remember the germans who are present in what we now call namibia they were present in what we now call benin but was then known as dahome they were present in what is now a part of ghana which was then the togoland the volta area the belgians were present in rwanda and urundi and they were also present in what is now the democratic republic of congo they italians to the extent that they could try to occupy ethiopia and eritrea and were present in a portion of somalia the british who are present of course in uganda in kenya in nyasaland in rhodesia and in nigeria and in many other places the french of course were also present and all these powers even the spaniards were present in equatorial guinea as were the portuguese and the whole idea was to use the resources both natural and human of the african continent so that the petition of africa was one that was designed to benefit the european powers the petition was arbitrary if you look at the nation states that we now have or is it states that we now have with many nations in them every other african country that we are talking about now is struggling to be a state all of them without exception all of them and this is what is what pixley kaiser kasem was saying how will we regenerate this continent and is instructive that he was talking at a time when the entire continent of africa was under colonization excluding liberia and ethiopia all of them and therefore when in 1945 africans who are represented in manchester kwame nkrumah was present at that meeting marcus garvey was present at that meeting jomo kenyatta was present at that meeting obafemi oliver was present at that meeting the drive was to decolonize africa and one of the things that amazes me is that at that time these individuals did not have the internet they did not have whatsapp they did not have the kind of communication that we have now but it is amazing at how they were communicating even air transport was not as it is now i was just recently reading the activities of one of the greatest africans who in my view ever lived and whom many people do not know about the great ghanaian james emman squadri agri normally referred to as agri of africa and how he traveled from the united states and went to many countries in africa traveling by sea and talking about why africa should be united and that was pan-africanism for the pan-african spirit at that time of course we then went into the era of decolonization and the spirit again was one which was consistent you had people from the caribbean participating in the struggle in that regard have people like w.b dubois saying that africa must be free a little later people like martin luther king jr and people like malcolm x talking of george padmore talking about how africa should be liberated and we should work with people in the diaspora and then the agitation was there that we must regain our independence and famously in 1949 ghana's kuala luma is saying he fast the political kingdom and the rest will be given unto you and i dare say that the rest has never been given to us and even if it is coming it is coming too slowly but it is instructive that at that time the spirit was about the continent of africa we were conscious the leaders were conscious that africa decolonized without unity would remain weak of course africa is weak the weakest continent on earth is this continent in which we are our continent so the struggle for independence was everywhere across the world across the country the continent of africa so when on the sixth day of march ghana regained her independence as ghana it was then gold coast i think the most eloquent and the most passionate warrior for pan-africanism was rumor he said on that day and again later that the independence of ghana means nothing if the rest of africa is not free and he meant it because when ghana regained independence in 1957 one year later guinea regained our independence a year later the french sudan or what we now called we call mali regained her independence they signed a pact to create what they call the african union they thought at that time that that would be africa in her embryonic days and they invited patrice emery lumumba in 1961 but of course emily lumumba was then assassinated in the month of january 1961. and he warned this is this is one of the things that that that is always turns out in my mind that nakama of all leaders at that time was able to see that if we were not united we would go nowhere so in 1958 he summons a meeting in accra ghana of the then independent african countries and tells them if we don't unite now the neocolonialist is going to ensure that we remain disunited and we remain small and they are going to ensure that the new york colonial project continues in 1961 on the first day of january again in casablanca morocco he tells his audience let us unite now before each one of our leaders began begins to get used to power because power is easy to get used to you who have been elected will know once you become a minister and you begin you become used to people saluting you and opening your doors if it happens for one month you will find it very difficult if you lose your ministerial position when there is nobody to salute you and to open your house that is how attractive power can be and he warned the people then but the colonial project was alive and well because as they were meeting in casablanca morocco there was another group that was meeting in monrovia in liberia that is how africa started splitting creating two groups the casablanca group and the monrovia group the casablanca group which comprised i think famously kwame kuruma was there from ghana gamal abdel nassar was there from egypt ahmed ben bella was there from algeria madibo keita was there from mali they took the view unite now the monrovia group comprised of william tubman at that time emperor hill silasi was also in the monrovia group was in the monrovia group they took the view we want to unite but gradually let's let it be so that when emperor hale silasi of ethiopia convenes a meeting in addis ababa on the 23rd through to the 25th day of may 1963 there are two groups already the pan-african agenda is already being watered down there is the casablanca group and there is the monrovia group and the creation of the oau was a product was a victory for the monrovia group and i want you to there were 32 heads of states and government who met in addis ababa ethiopia on the 23rd through to the 25th day of may the year 1963 and i want you to listen to all of those speeches or the compilation of them there is a compilation of them that was made in the year 9 2013 when we were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the organization of african unity and listen to all the speeches and i pick out a speech from the leader of central african republic david dako david says central african republic is so small that if we are not a part of an african union the french will come again and they have come again when the immunity of tanzania says we are not here in order to remind ourselves of how important unity is we are here to talk about the unity of africa the host emperor haley silasi of ethiopia says it is important for us to realize that we must make sacrifice for the future because the disunited africa will never realize our potential but the most passionate speech again was that of coming room he tells them let us not live here with one without one government without one army without one currency and without having chosen a capital and i propose that the capital of the new africa either be located in banghi in central african republic or leopoldville now kinshasa in the democratic republic of congo but i'm open to any other suggestion and let us leave here once we have put together a council of foreign ministers in order to begin to work towards an african union that is kwame nuku roma nobody listened to him we ended up with the oau and the story of the oau can be told and retold some say that it was a toothless bulldog others say that it was not even a dog but whatever it was it cannot be denied that it made a contribution to the process of decolonization of the continent in many ways complete with the establishment of the liberation unit of it which was headquartered in darshalam in the united in the united republic of tanzania which was spearheaded the decolonization of quite a number of countries at that time but the point that i'm making is that the pan-african spirit at that time was about a united africa because you will remember at that time that france never wanted to live and has never left it is always instructive that when the french left they formed an organization called organization for french-speaking countries the british also created their own commonwealth of independent nations but what is instructive is that the queen is always the head of those independent nations i've never understood that perhaps the presidents do the portuguese of course you know never left easily until 1980 when i was an adult they were still fighting in mozambique in kept varied in guinea bissau in angola and in mozambique the apathetic regime of course only left in 1994 and i wonder whether they have left that is africa for you so that the fears of kwame nuku ruma that if you are not united we would have problems started haunting us he said that if we are not united in the pan-african spirit what is going to happen is that the imperialist is going to control us they are going to emphasize our ethnic differences and they are going to ensure that we begin fighting amongst one another and as we do so they are going to exploit us and they started in january 1961 they assassinated patrice emery lumumba and congo has never been the same again in 1963 they assassinated sylvanus olympia in togo and togo has never been the same again then they were kuditas kwame nkrumah himself in 1966 eliminated via kudita all his writings all his speeches burned never to be read never to be listened to until 1972 when ignacio's couture champion rehabilitated him ahmed ben bella in algeria gone in nigeria namdi azikiwe and abubakar tafawa bale are gone in mali modificator gone in child everywhere could it have here in ethiopia 1974 if i'm not wrong could it and the emergence of the drug regime in east africa uganda could return mutinies in kenya uganda tanzania in 1971 all orchestrated because we were disunited and we were weak the predictions of our forefathers and founding mothers that disunited we would remain weak came true that is the history of it so that today when we talk about the african continent and we talk about pan-africanism we must understand it in the context of that history and you will remember that it is not as if africa never realized or never recognized that our weakness would be in our disunity we did we did because regionally we were trying to integrate we were in the east african community we were creating the east african community in south africa we were creating sadaq in west africa we were creating echoes in central africa we were creating the organization of central african communities in the north we were creating the maghreb even in this region we were converting egard into something in the nature of an economic community we were creating commercial we were aware that africa could only operate and operate meaningfully if we were integrated we are not trading with one another intra-african trade is not anything beyond 15 percent the lowest anywhere in the world if you look at all our sectors and look at them look at our agriculture almost all african countries are not food importers there is not a single african country that is in meaningful technology not a single african country produces a mobile phone yet the single most important ingredient in mobile telephony is to be found in the democratic republic of congo not a single african country produces a car other than assembling completely knocked down kids there is no meaningful production of pharmaceutical products in africa and if there was any doubt covered exposed it all african countries the 55 of them are waiting to either receive a sign of act from china sputnik from russia astrazeneca johnson or madonna and we don't even know what they are because our bureaus of standardization don't know if you ask the ethiopian bureau of standards what they are asking us to be injected with they do not know they just believe it is a vaccine because the americans have said so or because the chinese have said so africa is weak so that even this magnificent edifice i suspect has not been erected by ethiopian engineers when i see the signage in chinese i suspect it is the chinese that is how weak we are that is the reality of our mother continent it is because we are politically weak we are economically weak socially we are disorganized culturally and spiritually we are confused that is the continent in which we are today and the question therefore what would we do continentally in terms of trade in 1980 under the lagos plan of action and some of you have been ambassadors some of you you are now serving cabinet ministers you will grapple with this on a daily basis under the lagos plan of action africa sat down in lagos and said we are going to improve trade amongst ourselves 1980 legos plan of action did we do it no we did not do it we did not do it because the european union was in state engaging us under the african caribbean the loma convention of 1975 or the cottonwood convention of 2000 africa remains the only continent which is described as anglophone so in kenya or uganda where possibly only 20 percent speak the english language we are anglophone in french former french colonies they are francophone in former portuguese colonies they are lucifer in some arab countries they are a rabophan that is who we are so when the oau met in 2013 they asked the question what happened to the pan-african spirit and when therefore they met in sirte in libya under the tutelage at that time of mama al-gaddafi it was resolved in 1999 that the oau be and be renamed to as the african union and it was relaunched launched as you know in dublin south africa in the year 2000 but one of the most important things on the in the 20th 2013 was the speech of the then chairman of the way you can cause zuma here in addis ababa in ethiopia and i want you to read that letter which i'll paraphrase in which she writes an imaginary letter to carmen kuruma he turns and apologizes to kwame telling kwame we apologize to you because we did not listen to you we are weak because we did not listen to you we are divided into 54 55 depending on whether the moroccans agree that saharawi is a country nobody cares about us and brothers and sisters if you want to know how weak we are and we are weak look at how we are treated last month the world met in new york the general assembly when african heads of states and government are speaking the hall is empty nobody bothers because they are saying nothing and even if they are saying something it is something that can be ignored compare when an african head of state and government is speaking and when the prime minister of little israel is speaking they will listen because we are weak and disunited so we have a weak continent because the spirit of pan-africanism disappeared so the question that we can ask what is the state of pan-africanism as we speak today the african union which is weak says the right things and does the wrong things nine out of ten times and what are the critical areas in which we are weak we are weak politically because nobody listens to us on the third day of march 1900 on the sixth day of march 1997. malimu julius kambarage of tanzania speaking in accra ghana on the occasion of the 40th 40th anniversary of the independence of ghana said the speech is entitled we unite or we perish and malimu says i want to apologize to kamen kuruma those of us who believed in gradualism were wrong kuruma was right but nukrumah also did not appreciate the level of suspicion that existed amongst the leaders at that time our generation he says fought for the liberation of africa it is the duty of the new generation to carry the torch forward he says in his plea he says that i do not believe that the tribe can be the basis of mobilization in africa and he said that as i travel along across the world people do not care about our tanzanian-ness or our ghanaian-ness or our kenyanness or our ethiopian-ness in their eyes we are all africans and perhaps that is what we should use as the building block in order to talk about african unity but we are not being naive about that unity because sometimes when we talk about pan-africanism and about african unity people think we are being too simplistic about it no it is not being simplistic and being naive it is recognizing that as long as we remain the way we are then africa in the next 25 years will be recolonized you know what is the state of africa as i speak what is the state of our your continent as we speak now because of our disunity because when we are disunited then it is good for europe and america and china progressively look at the state of your continent as i speak conflicts of one kind or another and name the countries just for you to know how bad it is because that is how it is go to northern mozambique the gas that is there cannot be produced because there is conflict northern mozambique go to somalia conflict here in your motherland conflict god is south sudan conflict god is sudan conflict god will live libya conflict go to central african republic conflict go to the democratic republic of congo conflicts go to bukin afaso conflict go to mali conflict go to child conflict go to niger conflict go to cameroon conflict go to nigeria conflict do i go on that is the state of the continent so that even when we talk about intercontinental trade you tell me can you drive from addis ababa to daca in senegal unless you are there for himself which group will not kidnap or ambush that is the state of the continent because we are weak and disunited i fly from nairobi kenya for one and a half hours i come from the chilling zone i go into the beer 33 currencies in africa 33 currencies none of which is used to conclude transactions anywhere i come to addis ababa ethiopia and i show my shilling they say what is this but let me show the dollar oh this is it let me show the euro this is it 80 percent of transactions in africa are concluded outside of the continent in dollars so you may have the central bank of the federal bank of ethiopia or mickey mouse you may have the central bank of kenya mickey mouse you may have all these 54 central banks useless because we are not playing in the real league we are playing in the small league that is why when the chinese president summons all our president and they summon them the letters may be polite but his summons they go to beijing tails between their legs and they are told then the chinese president gives them gives africa 60 billion dollars 60 billion dollars what is 60 billion dollars george bezos has more than that given to our whole continent that is the state of the continent so as you have the honor and privilege of serving in the government of ethiopia and as you think about integration that is the continent in which you are now weak two weeks ago i watched in great pain on television in bama komali young malians celebrating in the streets that the government of mali had entered into successful or possible successful negotiation with wagner which is a russian mercenary group to replace the french and they are saying how beautiful it is now and i said a slave celebrating the departure of one slave master and the arrival of another slave master that is the state in which we are i watched a woman from nigeria who had been rescued from the mediterranean around lampedusa saying i will not go back to africa even if i die in the mediterranean i'll try again and again what is it that can make a human being say that i do not want to go back to my home because the natural instinct of a human being should be that you want to go home is because we are weak so we are invited to beijing then we are invited to tokyo the japanese african conference then we are invited to europe then we are invited to the united states and lately even the arabs invite us because we are weak that is africa now but let me conclude by looking at africa in the future what is the state of pan-africanism africa finds ourselves in a very difficult situation what nukrumah feared today many african leaders have gotten used to the trappings of power and those who speak about power right power corrupts our absolute power corrupts absolutely i remember in 1997. i think i may be wrong about the year 1995 i think i was serving as an intern at the malimu foundation in salaam and i had the privilege and honor of driving with mali munire in dan salam and he had only one guard and a driver and he stopped at the few traffic lights and only moved when the traffic lights moved and i asked him how did you leave power he said oh when i said i wanted to leave office there was no shortage of people telling me don't leave us as orphans it is very rare to find those in positions of leadership in africa today who would live willingly leave office power in africa is now sought by hook and crook and retained by who can crook because the trappings of power are good and permit me when i am gone even if i irritate you in fact perhaps my intention is to irritate you so that you reflect upon what i'm going to say and this is a personal thing i'll give you an example when i was appointed as the director of the anti-corruption commission i drove in the morning in my car with my driver in the evening when i was leaving there were three cars mine what was allocated to me and another one in front and another one behind me and 12 individuals and i asked who are these fellows these are your security i said i don't need my security i don't need two cars i only need one car because this thing you call security this is spectacle and throughout the period that i served out only one security and one car and i say this because it is in the nature of power to make you use the things that you don't need and once you get used to them then without them you feel empty and lonely and you will find them you'll be told and many of you will love them they are good when doors are open for you they are good when you occupy front seats it is good when you are dressed you your excellency it is good when you eat the best food it is good when you have security it is good but it can also dehumanize you it can also monsterize you i am asking you today that part of the problem of africa is that we found human beings and we monsterize them writing in 1983 nigeria's chinook cheby writes in a book which i commend to you the trouble with nigeria which could as well be the trouble with africa it says the trouble with nigeria is simply and squarely a problem of leadership as we look at africa today i hope that this administration which has now committed itself to the pan-african movement will think in that direction and this brings me brings me to what i think should be contemporary pan-africanism if you look at the treaty of the east african community the treaty of the east african community says that there shall fast be a common market then a common currency and political federation which which ought to have happened in the year 2010 east africa community should have had his first president in 2010 that is now 22 years 10 years later there is no such thing in echoes it ought to have been the same in sadaq it ought to have been the same i hope that with your population of 120 million because ethiopia is is an economic powerhouse potentially potentially you know pan-africanism the new pan-africanism must have an economic component of it that is how i understand africa agenda 2063. africa agenda 2633 says that by the year 2063 africa will be will have pulled up her people into a middle level economy on seven pillars economically politically and otherwise and the african continental free trade area suggests to me that will have broken all the tariff and non-tariff barriers will we be able to achieve those in the spirit of new pan-africanism will we have one currency will we have one passport we have already said so under the kigali agreement that we are going to have one passport will we have one telephone code we have 55 telephone calls you move from nairobi 254 you come here you have another one you go to a refrigerator eritrea you have another one there is no connectivity in the 21st century how can you be taken seriously those of you in the united states of america you fly from boston massachusetts to san francisco in the west 6 hours 40 minutes the court is won the tariff is won the coveted test is one i moved from nairobi to addis ababa coffee test if i don't travel this evening i'll be subjected to another covet test i go to tanzania coffee test uganda coffee test your nose will begin debating with you in the united states of america you take one coffee test from miami and you don't take it as you go to saint louis in missouri do you i'm talking about very practical things i come here and i have to go through an immigration my passport has to be stumped somebody in the united states of america does not have to do that somebody in the european union across 27 countries does not have to do that in china which is of course 1.4 billion does not have to do that until we change all those things we are going nowhere so that we have only one telephone code so that we have only one currency so that we have only a single immigration so that we eliminate all these armies you know you look at some african countries and they have an army which which was complete with five star generals who have never even quelled a street riot and they are generals you money goes into maintaining militaries maintaining embassies that you don't need you see why africa is poor all these 55 countries have embassies if we were one there would only be one ambassador for africa in the united states of america there would only be one army with regional policing am i being naive or simplistic yes we can create a single africa with a loose government a confederal government dealing only with foreign affairs and defense and monetary policy and general policy formulation with different governance systems that is the only way in which these tribal narrow tribal instincts will be dampened but as long as and now i want to conclude if we only see pan-africanism as sentimentalism as a romantic idea about which we debate and we remain as we are then this is the africa that i see this is the africa that i see in 25 years time many africans either legally or otherwise will break into different autonomous countries many of them will have more than 100 countries in africa each claiming self-determination and is already beginning to happen because we will be looking at narrow ethnic agenda as the only way of defining our affairs ethiopia will break down kenya will break down nigeria will break down south africa will break down and look at south africa only last week the whites in western cape in south africa have delivered a petition to the government in pretoria saying they want to create their own country the democratic republic of congo will break down libya will break down the only way in which we can immunize ourselves against all those things is to create a pan-african nation which allows for self-determination within the nation and we must redefine terms such as self-determination self-determination must mean the ability of a people within a bigger unit to enjoy their culture to enjoy their tradition to speak their language they do it on a smaller scale in switzerland those of you are familiar with switzerland and we de-emphasize the presidency with the emphasize the prime minister's office pixley kaiser kasemy said and i conclude with him africa is diverse some people say that because of our diversity she cannot unite she can because unity in diversity is possible if we understand what human beings need in the nature of things human beings need security in the nature of things human beings need food human beings need medical services they need infrastructure if you have a government that allows that he said then it reminds me of the piano if you press the black button of the piano it produces some sound if you press the white one it produces some sound but if you press both the black and the white it produces melodious music and i think that the new pan-africanism must look to that and you who have the honor and privilege of thinking and working in government it is your duty to start that journey it is not going to be easy but it is an intergenerational journey play your part for it can't be done and it must be done

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Published: Mon Oct 11 2021