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Conclusion: the “Penalty of Failure”?1 1 CONCLUSION: THE “PENALTY OF FAILURE”? With Nkrumah’s overthrow, the NLC announced that Ghana had been freed forever from the former regime and that the new government would not follow in the footsteps of the deposed president. Accra would collabo- rate with those same governments Nkrumah had threatened in former years. Immediately after the coup, backed by Western powers, the NLC launched an anti-Nkrumah campaign in order to legitimize their putsch and counteract any residual influence of the former government in Africa. This operation began with an exposure of Nkrumah’s subversive activities, the evidence of which was presented in the two booklets Nkrumah’s Subversion in Africa and Nkrumah’s Deception of Africa. The publica- tions—both produced in 1966 and based mostly on the papers of the BAA—presented Nkrumah’s Pan-African project as a way of concealing his real plans of ruling the entire continent.2 Nkrumah’s Pan-African pol- icy was described as contradictory, especially since the Ghanaian president had strongly opposed the OAU, the only organization that could actually embody Pan-Africanism. According to the NLC, the worst crime of Nkrumah’s regime had been to work against the governments of other independent African states, thereby threatening their newly gained independence. 1 “The Penalty of Failure” is the title of the concluding chapter of Thompson’s Ghana’s Foreign Policy and it is a quotation of a writing of Adu to Thompson himself. 2 NLC, Nkrumah’s subversion, p. iii. © The Author(s) 2018 333 M. Grilli, Nkrumaism and African Nationalism, African Histories and Modernities, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91325-4 334 CONCLUSION: THE “PENALTY OF FAILURE”? Both publications focused especially on the activities of the Bureau of African Affairs, the African Affairs Centre, and the Kwame Nkrumah Institute, presenting them as the most effective instruments of Nkrumah’s subversive plans in Africa. Few references were made to Nkrumah’s sup- port to African liberation movements, and when the question was dis- cussed, the work of the BAA was described as counter-productive if not detrimental. Quoting from Nkrumah’s Subversion in Africa: The arrogance that Nkrumah himself displayed towards other Africans was closely reflected in the Bureau’s attitude towards refugees from dependent and independent countries. People who had come to Ghana for help were so provoked as to become openly hostile. […] As a result of this kind of treatment, by 1963 few leading African nationalists remained in Ghana. Most of those who did stay on were opportunists tied to Nkrumah by dependence on him for small handouts of cash and occasional gifts.3 A few years later, Thompson supported these views by quoting from an interview he had conducted with Ofori-Bah, the last director of the Bureau. According to the latter: None of them took him [Nkrumah] seriously. They came here, shouted slogans about Nkrumaism and union government, picked up their checks, gave their duty speech in praise of Nkrumah elsewhere – so that he could see that he was getting his money’s worth – and then they just did the Highlife. In the last years even the most apparently devoted followers, like Mokhehle, had seen through him.4 In contrast with the accounts quotated above, I argue that African nationalists in Accra cannot be reduced to mere opportunists and mer- cenaries. The anti-Nkrumah attitude in NLC publications needs no explanation, as the booklets had the exact political motive of erasing the influence of the deposed Osagyefo. Ofori-Bah’s surprisingly harsh criti- cism against the former regime can instead be understood in a post-coup context, where many Ghanaians tried—and some succeeded—in dissoci- ating themselves from the former regime. Many of the personalities interviewed by Thompson were clearly interested in polishing their image in front of the new political order and claimed that they had always openly or secretly opposed Nkrumah, Padmore and Barden. 3 Ibid., p. 3. 4 Thompson, Ghana’s Foreign Policy, p. 432. CONCLUSION: THE “PENALTY OF FAILURE”? 335 Quite clearly, Thompson did not even begin to consider this possibility. As a result, narratives like that of the NLC and Thompson’s could only allow one word to define Nkrumah’s foreign policy, namely “failure”; a word that is also used by other authors when describing Nkrumah’s internal policies. Yet, historical evidence paints a different picture. The relationship between Nkrumah’s Ghana and African liberation movements at the time of the coup was far from being cold. In early 1966, the most influential liberation movements still had their offices of representation in Accra, even if their headquarters were in Dar es Salaam, Lusaka, or Léopoldville, that is, closer to the battlefields of the liberation struggles. Despite the opposition of the greater part of the African independent states, Nkrumah could still claim a solid support base among African nationalists. Even the ANC, for many years kept out of Accra due to Barden’s hostility towards it, had reopened its office in Ghana in late 1965. On the eve of the coup, the liberation movements with offices of representation in Accra—exclud- ing opposition parties and including a representation of the so-called République Populaire du Congo5—were: PAC, BCP, NNLC, MLSTP, the National Unity Democratic Organization (NUDO) of South West Africa, MPLA, PAIGC, IPGE, the All-African Convention and Unity Movement of South Africa, ANC, COREMO, BPP and ZANU.6 Paradoxically, fur- ther proof of a still strong presence of African nationalists in Ghana can be found in NLC’s Nkrumah’s Subversion in Africa. According to the book- let, at the time of the coup 136 nationalists were hosted at the AAC, a high number when compared with the maximum number ever registered at the Centre (170).7 The PAC openly accused the “mutineers” (NLC) and the West of having orchestrated the coup, for destroying the “Mecca of the African freedom- fighters” and supporting instead the “racist axis” of South Africa, Portugal 5 The République Populaire du Congo was what was left of the so-called “Simba” rebellion of 1964 which had briefly revived a Lumumbist government in the Eastern part of the coun- try. At the time, the formation had an office of representation also in Cairo. See NAZ, FA/1/55, Letter from the Conseil Supreme de la Revolution to Kenneth Kaunda, 13 November 1965. 6 GPRL, BAA/RLAA/9, “Nationalist Organisations Representatives in Accra” undated, but referable to February 1966. Founded by Kerina and others in September 1965, the party—which mainly represented the Herero people—used the exact same symbol of the first version of the heading of VOA (see Fig. 4.1). 7 NLC, Nkrumah’s subversion, p. 4. 336 CONCLUSION: THE “PENALTY OF FAILURE”? and Southern Rhodesia.8 The influence of Nkrumah on the PAC proved to be enduring and it is evidenced in the PAC’s symbols, slogans and ideology. Similarly, other liberation movements in Southern Africa recognized and continue to recognize the links with the Pan-Africanist and socialist ideol- ogy expressed by the Ghanaian leader. This is the case, for instance, for Kenneth Kaunda’s UNIP, Ntsu Mokhehle’s BCP and Ambrose Zwane’s NNLC.9 ZANU and SWAPO, especially through their leaders Robert Mugabe and Sam Nujoma, were also very vocal in the next decades about Nkrumah’s contribution to the liberation struggle. Mugabe and Nujoma, both hosted in Ghana, not only praised Nkrumah for his practical help but included him among their main sources of ideological influence.10 This does not, however, explain away the fact that Nkrumah had not succeeded in achieving his ultimate goals in Ghana and in Africa more broadly. A continental African government did not see the light, and Nkrumah’s ideas and influence were soon challenged by strong anti- Nkrumaist campaigns, starting with Ghana. For decades, a sort of damna- tio memoriae was cast on Nkrumah’s ideas and policies and the word “failure” was constantly associated with his political experience. But can Nkrumah’s Pan-African policy be considered, tout court, as a “failure”? As this book has shown, Nkrumah’s Pan-African policy and the spread- ing of Nkrumaism left an enduring imprint among several African nation- alist parties and countries. African leaders like Kaunda, Mokhehle, Zwane, Cabral, Obote, Leballo, Nujoma, Touré, Mugabe and Lumumba at differ- ent times openly praised his ideas and included him among their main sources of influence.11 The influence of Nkrumaism on African nationalism proved more enduring than Nkrumah’s adversaries and critics had antici- pated. In fact, the influence of Nkrumaism on African nationalism cannot be assessed on the number of countries (other than Ghana) that declared themselves “Nkrumaist”, since the answer is clearly “none”. Instead the question should be: how many liberation movements and independent 8 ICS/PP/SA/PAC, vol. 2, Press Statement by Potlako Leballo, “How the Coup in Ghana Will Affect African Liberation Struggle”, 14 April 1966. 9 Interview with Kaunda, 9 October 2017; Interview with Koelane, 28 September 2017; Interview with Mokitimi, 29 September and 6 October 2017; Interview with Dlamini, 22 October 2017. 10 On Nujoma see Biney, “The Legacy of Kwame Nkrumah”, p. 132. On Mugabe see Ahlman, “Road to Ghana” and Mazarire, “ZANU’s External Networks”. 11 See Ama Biney, “The Legacy of Kwame Nkrumah”, p. 132; Mazrui, Nkrumah’s Legacy, pp. 44–45. CONCLUSION: THE “PENALTY OF FAILURE”? 337 countries adapted and adopted elements of Nkrumaism in their own struggle and nation-building projects? How profound was the influence of Nkrumah’s ideas in the sense of Africanness, a continental sense of belong- ing, amongst African nationalists? How important, in many nationalist parties, were the experiences brought about by having sent members to Ghana? While it’s difficult to provide simple answers to these questions, Nkrumaism and African Nationalism provides evidence that Nkrumaism influenced the organization and political thought of several liberation movements in Africa.
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