Pan Africanism

Neha Khatwani

Seminar Questions

• To what extent was Pan-African Nationalism an American political construct?

• What was the role of 'Africa' in Pan-Africanism?

• What is the difference between Pan-Africanism and Pan-African Nationalism?

Pan Africanism vs Pan African Nationalism

• Pan Africanism: Eurocentric:

• “The Pan African movement aids the promotion of national self determination among Africans under African leadership for the

benefit of African themselves”. – W.E.B. Du Bois

• “Pan- Africanism is a manifestation of fraternal solidarity among Africans and peoples of African descent” – George Padmore

• All of these definitions lack the notion of African Resistance and revolution – Kwame Natambu

Ali A Mazrui

• Mazrui divides Pan Africanism into five broad geographical categories:

• Sub-Saharan• Trans-Saharan• Trans-Atlantic• West Hemispheric• Global Pan Africanism

• This is a troubling view because it reinforces the notion of European divide and rule

Pan Africanism and Slavery

• At its inception Pan Africanism was racially inspired…Thus Pan Africanism was a racially conscious movemnet born

outside of Africa” – Julius K Nyerere (Former President of Tanzania)

• Pan Africanism expanded in the 15th century – Clarke

• Pan Africanism was about creating a necessary African identity in a world with increasing European contact. It is

about a common experience of exploitation. - Walter Rodney

Afrocentric Pan African Nationalism

• Pan African nationalism has had a deep history beyond slavery.

• 3200 B.C. – first act of Pan African Nationalism:– Pharoah Ara of Ancient Kemet (Egypt) united upper

and lower Kemet into one nation to fight external aggressors

– Africans in Ancient Kemet fought against several invaders, European and Non European such as the assyrians in 666 B.C.

Redefining Pan African Nationalism

A Nationalistic, unified struggle and resistance of African peoples against all forms of foreign aggression, in the fight for nationhood and

nation building. (Kwame Natambu)

Is Pan African Nationalism and American Political construct?

• No - Pan African Nationalism has had a long history beyond slavery

• No nationalism draws its strenghts from outside sources. – George Shepperson

• However, that is not to say that African Americans did not have a significant influence in shaping the Pan African movement.

American Influences

• 1900 – Henry Sylvester Williams organised the first Pan African Conference in London

• He essentially coined the term Pan Africanism. -Tony Martin

Marcus Garvey

• 1920s: Back to Africa movements and massive propaganda for pride in Black skin left a significant mark on African nationalists everywhere. – George Shepperson

• UNIA “awakened a race consciousness that made Harlem felt around the World”.

Marcus Garvey

• He had a direct influence on emerging African nationalists such as Ghana’s first president Kwame Nkrumah, who went to Garveyite and West Indian nationalist meetings as a student in New York. – Tony Martin

William Du Bois

• “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour line – the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Africa and Asia, in America and the islands of the sea. It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War” (Souls of the Black Folk)