CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 2&3, 2021 Page 7

Introduction: Pan Africanism and the Reparative Framework for Global Africa

A revolutionary future is taking place that is transforming almost every aspect of society on a global level. Africa has been engulfed by this revolutionary transformation as well as the entire African Diaspora. Of course, this means that Pan-Africanism, the discourse and action that links together Africa and the African Diaspora, is being transformed in the digital age. (Alkalimat and Williams) (this Bulletin page 49)

Introduction movement from the independence period to the end of apartheid. It he new digital technologies Horace G. Campbell is clear that radical Pan-African have offered great pos- Syracuse University transformations involve far more Tsibilities for humans and New York, USA than the Africanisation of imperial at the same time great dangers institutions. for dehumanisation. In her book, Algorithms of Oppression (2018), Global political shifts in relation to the deployment of economic Safiya Umoja Noble warns of the planet. This is the context for the power, investment capital and the bigoted assumptions and ideas new Pan-African struggles around projection of telecommunications that inform the mindset of the questions of life, health, peace and networks, artificial intelligence mainstream technicians who are environmental repair (Campbell capabilities, cloud computing, programming the systems for 2016, 2017). machine learning and artificial e-commerce and mobile payment intelligence. The pandemics If the end of the Second World systems, surveillance technology, of racism, militaristic police War had provided the conjuncture smart cities and other high-tech killings and unequal health care for clarity on the dead-end of areas have demonstrated the internationally have also brought the European colonial project, limits of military power without attention to the ways in which high- so the coronavirus pandemic is harnessing human capital. Humans performance computing (HPC) exposing the end of the militarised have reached a new conjuncture has given an advantage to those management of US imperialism. and the citizens of Global Africa countries with supercomputers One component of this military represent a rich prize to be courted to be able to understand new management has been the in the new international alliances. strains of viruses and the complex weaponisation of rules relating to The Pan-African movement is interactions of the human body. intellectual property to ensure the catching up with this new world Vaccine apartheid has been the dominance of US corporations. It and African youths are voting with immediate outcome of this world is from Africa and other parts of their feet to escape the strictures of high-performance computing, the global South that calls have of political leaders who imprison artificial intelligence and the come for a temporary waiver of them in neocolonial structures. genetic technology that allows certain TRIPS obligations in the The continuing devastation researchers to fast-track many World Trade Organization (WTO) unleashed by the pandemics of stages of vaccine research and in response to COVID-19. That capital impose a certain urgency development. It is now in the era of an African woman from Nigeria, for African peoples globally to SARS 1 and II that it is clearer that Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has become intervene to harness those aspects of there exist solutions for particularly the Director-General of the WTO the current converging technologies recalcitrant diseases, such as reinforces to humans everywhere to serve the needs of humans rather tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. the idea that transforming global than global capital. Abdul Alkalimat Calls for democratising access to power relations requires far more and Kate Williams sum up the the research and therapies are now than representation. This has been future of Pan Africanism in the being echoed from all parts of the the lesson in the Pan-African CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 2&3, 2021 Page 8 digital era in their contribution to force and coercion, which description of the activities of the this Bulletin of CODESRIA. It is in serve as the need for collective organ called African Descendants the context of the emerging digital and united struggle for the of Slavery (ADOS) should remind infrastructures for the post-COVID emancipation and liberation us of the role of firms such as Bell world that their intervention on Pan of all blacks. One can argue Pottinger and Cambridge Analytica Africanism serves as a warning. the principal tenets of this in psychographic targeting, to idea are a shared experience, Globally, African peoples must plan demobilise and confuse. It was a collective struggle, and a for the sweeping transformations black global consciousness. the heritage of the culture of Pan- that are being unleashed in the Blacks not only share common African intellectuals that was context of Third Technological ancestry, but a common history the first line of defence against Revolution. Instead of lamenting the in the context of the slave this cognitive hacking on an current digital divide, these authors trade, slavery, colonialism and international scale. call on the youth to embrace the neocolonialism which have new technologies while promoting created a shared experience for The article by Carol Boyce Davies three fundamental values that are all blacks. (West 2005) in this collection brings together both desirable and possible. These the issue of reparative knowledge The concept of ‘Global Africa’ relate to: and the unfinished business of has become more acceptable than decolonising knowledge. Her 1. Cyberdemocracy: Everyone has the term ‘African diaspora’, in contribution on reparations and to be included in the digital age; contradistinction to the diaspora the future of African institutions 2. Collective intelligence, digit- of peoples who later expropriated of higher learning (the decolonial alising knowledge in Africa and lands from other peoples. university) complements the making it available to all; and Progressive Pan Africanists have contribution of Adom Getachew, 3. Information Freedom: The new registered their solidarity with whose focus on the work of information technologies produce the peoples of Palestine and Kwame Nkrumah is a welcome and distribute information in such now support the global Boycott, return to the ideas of revolutionary a way that drives its exchange Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Pan Africanism. Both Davies and value down towards zero. movement in order to bring Getachew critique the hierarchy attention to the occupation of This special issue of CODESRIA of knowledge in which African Palestinian lands. Deploying is already part of the digital peoples’ experiences still remain the formulation ‘Global Africa’ future, in seeking to reach a wider at the bottom. In my own work in the dictionary of radical Pan constituency, and promises to take on Ubuntu and fractal thinking, Africanism is now an expression CODESRIA surging to the forefront I have highlighted the centrality of self-identification with the base of the innovative transformations of African knowledge systems of African freedom, the unification that are to be unleashed by joint to anchor the project of African and reconstruction of Africa. action and collaboration in Global liberation. Pan-African organs, such as the African Mathematical Africa. This is one component of the The delicacy of the refinement Union, have been striving to bring reparative aspects of Pan Africanism of this ‘diaspora’ concept has to the curriculum the richness in the twenty-first century. become apparent in the context of mathematics in Africa as it is of the struggles for reparations in The articles expressed in everyday life. the United States. Since the era The articles of this special bulletin of the transatlantic slave trade, African scientists, such as come from leading Pan-African calls for reparations have been a the late Professor Calestous scholars in all parts of Global continuous Pan-African demand. Juma, have remarked that the Africa. One of these contributors, At every turn, imperial planners extant knowledge of the village Michael West, had previously have worked to derail the global community could be a force in defined the notion of ‘Global push for reparative justice. The bypassing the destructiveness of Africa’ as: contribution of Jessica Ann Western industrialisation. Carol Mitchell Aiwuyor highlights the Boyce Davies. in her contribution. an idea and belief that Africans divisive disinformation campaigns hammers home the point that, ‘In and those of African descent through social media that threaten have shared similar experiences every discipline, one is confronted to disorient and create chaos among of oppression, exploitation, with a production of knowledge that dispersed Africans in the US. Her assumes European epistemologies, CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 2&3, 2021 Page 9 ideas, timelines as the defining Alkalimat and Williams’s primarily ‘biomass’ plant matter frameworks for intellectual work.’ contribution stresses that the most such as woodchips, agricultural Progressive African scientists and powerful manifestation of Pan- plants and algae. The bioeconomy biologists are holding the line Africanism is collaboration and is associated with wider application against complete surrender to joint action between countries in of modern biotechnologies in areas European frameworks and have the African continent, involving such as agriculture, medicine and been digging deep in the village governments, institutions, move- industry. community to harness indigenous ments and people in general. research methodologies. Bagele Cyberpower involves all of this. It was Calestous Juma who argued Chilisa and Malidoma Somé Zoom conferences and discussions that African progressive scientists are two scholars whose work hosted by CODESRIA in the era of hold the key to ensuring that on African knowledge systems COVID have opened one avenue Africa leapfrogs the old forms of deepens the arguments that Boyce towards future collaboration industrialisation into the digital Davies makes in a wider terrain. with conscious, digital, Pan- revolution. He noted that it is not African experts. necessary to build new paths of Thus far, African decision-makers industrialisation in the bioeconomy have been seduced by the Stages It is now known that the based on the past production of of Growth theories of Western transformation away from the primary products. In the maturation capitalism and have eschewed centralised digital platforms of the of the bioeconomy the convergence planning for an era beyond the Western tech giants’ platforms is the of nanotechnology, information climate catastrophes unleashed by wave of the future (Vergne 2020). technology, biotechnology, robot- Western concepts of domination, Youths of the sunrise movement ics and cognitive sciences will especially domination over nature. internationally, and African youths provide a new basis for African The African Union’s Specialised struggling against environmental reconstruction and transformation. Technical Committee on Education, racism, are clued in to the need Science and Technology has not for global networking. Activists All the contributions echo that taken on board the contributions from the Niger Delta in Nigeria transformative education is of scientists and researchers. At who teamed up with lawyers and urgently needed in Africa. Accord- the African Academy of Sciences environmental activists in Europe ing to Joyce King: (AAS) of the African Union have opened a new space for Pan- Transformative education ... is (located in in Kenya), the incentives African organising. One of the the production of knowledge for supporting African scientists in limits of this bulletin is the absence and understanding people the context of the Kwame Nkrumah of a robust contribution on Pan need to rehumanise the world Award for scientific innovation Africanism and environmental by dismantling hegemonic remain polluted by the activism justice. Many of today’s youths are structures that impede of Western foundations linked to not aware of the arguments made such knowledge. Alternately, British and US companies. more than thirty years ago, that education for submission, it was more economical to dump recapitulates knowledge which has been used as a tool of white The decision of CODESRIA to toxic waste in Africa because mount this special bulletin on Pan- imperialist hegemonic rule. It African lives were less valuable is a deliberate and aggressive African renewal opens avenues than other lives (Bassey 2012). for this organisation to mobilise means of perpetuating the the networks of African scientists An emerging front for Pan-African disenfranchisement of the masses. (King 2005) beyond the geographical space mobilisation is the opposition of the continent of Africa. In a to destructive mining practices, African languages hold some of context where the brain-drain bleeds especially in the fossil fuel industry. the key signposts of cognitive Africa of many of its scientific In the new struggles to combat technologies that can be a buffer and intellectual cadres, a major global warming, Africa has a huge against mind control and the step forward in the Pan-African advantage in an era when industrial psychological warfare against project would be for scientific and production moves from the use of Africans. Those who are studying educational networks of the AU to fossil and mineral resources (coal, the transformation of human become truly Pan African, to include petroleum and natural gas) towards cognitive skills over the millennia the dispersed children of Africa. living biological raw materials, of transformations have been CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 2&3, 2021 Page 10 toying with initiatives such as the Pan Africanism and the whole we want our peoples to have Human Cognome Project and The unification of African the right to move, settle, work, Genographic Project to tap into the and live without visas or passports peoples African knowledge of the oldest from Cape Town to Cairo.’ This people alive in East Africa. There From the rebellions against dictum of Pan-African citizenship is now an effort to reverse engineer enslavement to the current was the call of Marcus Garvey one the human brain by studying rebellions of the Black Lives hundred years ago in the demand of both its structure and function, in Matter movement, the Pan-African Africa for the Africans at home and order to fully understand mental currents have informed concepts abroad. Such an understanding of processes, also known as cognition of dignity and humanity that have the Global African would elevate (Kaku 2012). That Facebook, not been present in the European the African person from being a Google and Microsoft and other conception of humans. Within the member of a ‘minority’ to being big tech companies are looking United States, the concept of the part of a global community of into the cognitive skills of the citizen was not accorded to African humans. Daley is drawing from the African youth in order to harness descendants. In that democratic Garvey, Tajudeen and Nkrumah their creativity is now being state, Africans were considered position on citizenship, mobility demonstrated with investment three-fifths of a person. Not and migration to reassert the Pan- plans and the location of hubs in even the so-called democracies Africanist approach to freedom strategic African cities. Innovative that rolled out the Universal of movement across borders. She software applications such as Declaration of Human Rights in begins by contextualising migration Ushahidi and M-PESA in Kenya 1948 considered that Africans had practices historically, tracing the have awoken global capital to the the right to live freely on planet evolution of depictions of African digital creativity of African youths. Earth. The apartheid government migration as a problem, especially of South Africa was one of the the origins of this view in European It has been more than twenty years signatories of the UDHR but it was modernity, and its links to African since biological anthropologists the global anti-apartheid struggles enslavement, the pseudo-science of traversed the African towns and that forced the South African state racial hierarchies, and colonialism. the countryside on behalf of global to implement the constitutional She notes: capital to study the potentialities of changes that gave Africans in Africa and Africans for this digital Europe’s offshoring and that society full democratic era. Pan-African intellectuals outsourcing of its border rights. After the global struggles have been labouring to reverse work make African states to defeat entrenched racism, the hierarchies of knowledge that complicit in its racialised international foundations and think inspire the investments of the big restrictive policies that involve tanks deployed more than USD 1 criminalisation, containment tech companies. Drawing from billion to divert the youths of that and detention, perpetuating the the ideas and teachings of African society from the emancipatory dehumanisation of Africans. scholars, such as Walter Rodney, ideas of Pan Africanism. Political The adoption of detention Kwame Nkrumah, Wangari leaders in South Africa who once in transit countries as a Mathaai and Claudia Jones, the embraced the concept of an African preventative strategy violates global Pan-African movement renaissance deployed apartheid the human rights of Africans is moving from the posture of concepts of xenophobia against seeking a better life. defensiveness to a clear articulation other Africans without grasping of what reparative education Daley then proposes how a Pan- the important intellectual future must look like in the twenty- Africanist understanding of mi- that would be gained from moving first century in all disciplines. gration can humanise and dignify Ubuntu from the philosophical Boyce Davies uses the definitions those whose mobility is forced level to the level of practical of the Caribbean Reparations or voluntary, drawing inspiration investments for human fulfillment Commission and its ten-point from historical moments of and wellbeing. programme to anchor her analysis African independent actions within a clear political project Patricia Daley, in her contribution on emancipatory migration. from one corner of Global Africa. on Pan Africanism and migration, Subsequently, Pan Africanists can quotes Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, assess critically the continuing who wrote that ‘For Africa as a relevance of the global North’s CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 2&3, 2021 Page 11 understandings of human mobility the injustices of enslavement, Systemic Racist Police Violence to explain migration in Africa and bondage, colonial plunder and Killings of Blacks in the United the diaspora. neocolonial theft. Just as it is States has reminded us of the ideas understood that enslavement did of reparative justice that were spelt Daley’s work is seeking to catch not end with formal emancipation, out in the third World Confer- up with the reality on the ground so it is also understood that racial ence Against Racism (WCAR) in where African peoples choose capitalism can be transcended with Durban in 2001. freedom of movement. Since the atonement of reparations and the launch of the African Union, reparative justice. The anti-racist agenda of repara- presidents have declared their tive justice is one common thread intent to create the legislative Racism and police terror in through the contributions. In ad- environment for free movement, Global Africa dition, they discuss the unifica- but imperial hangover ensures tion of the peoples of Africa, the that many African governments This issue of the Bulletin was be- self-emancipation of the working enforce Europe’s offshoring and ing prepared as the world watched peoples of Africa, how Africa will outsourcing of its border work. The the pandemic of police killings in respond to the new Biden-Harris images of the deaths of Africans in the United States intensify with the Administration in the United States the Mediterranean Sea have been graphic lynching of George Floyd and two perspective of the strug- some of the most dehumanising for in Minnesota. These public killings gles for reparative justice in the era Africans globally. and the general dehumanisation of of global warming, economic cri- black bodies are painful reminders sis, health pandemics and the pan- Pan-African scholarship has of the devaluation of black lives in- demic of white supremacy. reiterated the demand for Pan- ternationally. This writer, as a Pan African mobility and freedom of Africanist, agrees with the findings Cheryl Hendricks of the Africa In- movement in a free and united of the International Commission of stitute (AI) of South Africa discuss- Africa. This mobility and freedom Inquiry that, ‘the systematic killing es Pan Africanism within the con- should not only be continental but and maiming of unarmed African text of the new administration in applied equally to the children of Americans by police amount to Washington. She poses a question Africa scattered by the transatlantic crimes against humanity that should that is being raised in all parts of slave trade, colonialism and be investigated and prosecuted un- Global Africa. Does the new Biden the continued disruptions and der international law’ (Internation- Administration hold out the possi- dispersals inspired by racial al Commission of Inquiry 2021). bility that a renewed Pan African- capitalism and imperialism. ism could underpin the Africa–US Temporarily, the African Union has Pan-African co-operation and mo- relationship, and if so in what form? gestured towards the recognition bilisation across all continents as a of these dispersed children by result of the police killings in the She answers her own query by fo- including a sixth region of the US ushered in a new era of political cusing on the key question for Glob- AU, but the intellectual investment consciousness and new tactics in al Africa, that of peace and recon- and planning for real engagement an intergenerational and multina- struction. By reminding the reader with this region has been lacking, tional movement against systemic of the excessive racist direction of beyond the dream of tapping into racism. The re-imagination of free- the Donald Trump Administration, remittances. dom in this new mobilisation has Hendricks draws attention to the pushed new ideas and new lead- pledge of the African Union to si- Whether it was the Pan Africanism ers to the forefront of the Global lence guns by 2020. She argues that of the villages and streets or Pan-African struggles (Ransby the search for a better life in Africa the Pan Africanism of major 2018). But despite the massive cannot be found through more mili- conferences, it was always clear publicity about the opposition to tarism on the continent as manifest that only the unification of the racism, many African academics in the promotion of the US–Africa African peoples beyond the and institutions have not taken on Command: ‘… extremism also re- Berlinist enclaves could usher in board the struggles against racism, sults from the search for a better a period of dignity and renewal. xenophobia and related intoler- life—real or imagined. These con- Such dignity would be unleashed ances. The Report of the Interna- ditions cannot be addressed through in the process of transcending tional Commission of Inquiry on increased militarisation.’ CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 2&3, 2021 Page 12

From this assessment she delves rich intellectual traditions of schol- cess to medicines, protective health into the efforts to establish the Af- ars such as Adebayo Adedeji, Than- equipment and vaccines (Washing- rica Continental Free Trade Area dika Mkandawire, Eskor Toyo and ton 2008). The societies of Cuba (AfCFTA) as one of the Pan-African Samir Amin. and Vietnam have exposed the su- goals of greater economic co-opera- periority of public, well-managed, tion in Africa. There is a clear con- In his work, Delinking: Towards health-care systems. tradiction between the goals of Pan- a Polycentric World (1990), Amin African trading linkages across the argued forcefully that developing Towards the united peoples length and breadth of Africa and the countries dealing individually with and societies of Africa push by the US government to sign the US on questions of health, cur- bilateral trade agreements with spe- rencies or financial technologies Just as the realities of COVID sharp- cific African countries to undermine would be in a no-win situation un- ened the awareness of Asian coun- Pan-African trade and economic re- less they acted collectively. More tries that, despite their differences, lations. In the specific case of the se- than forty years ago, in the era of there is an urgent need to collec- cret negotiations between the US and Thatcher and Reagan, economists tively work for the health and secu- Kenya, concerned African scholars promoted the idea that ‘government rity of their citizens, so in all parts are calling on Kenya and the wider is the problem’. This was and con- of Global Africa the pandemic has African community to closely study tinues to be the outdated mantra of reawakened the awareness of the and ‘learn from the experience of neoliberal thinking and action. dead-end in the ideas of possessive individualism, petty nationalism other countries that have signed an Neoliberalism promotes the and neoliberalism. Long before the FTA with the U.S. in order to avoid market and individual res- mistakes that could prove to be cost- ponsibility as the solutions to outbreak of this current pandemic, ly including in the arena of public racial inequality. Neoliberal Samir Amin had warned of the de- health and specifically in relation to ideology and the neoliberal structiveness of viruses, whether in- access to medicines’ (Ogendi 2021). state justify and guarantee tellectual ones (such as liberalism) capital accumulation through or biological ones (such as Ebola That the political leadership in Ke- privatization, racialized state and COVID). His study on liberal- nya is negotiating a Free Trade violence, and dismantling ism and militarism in The Liberal Agreement with the US without re- social protections by making Virus is even more salient in seeking gard to the implications for the fu- public goods and public to understand the thrust for radical ture health of Africans runs counter institutions synonymous with Pan-African responses to imperial- to the goals of African economic continuously racialized and ism and racism (Amin 2004). independence. The countries of the demonized people of color. (Edwards 2021) ASEAN bloc have demonstrated that Among peoples globally working for a New International Economic only collective and multilateral trade Whereas the orthodoxy of liberal Order (NIEO), COVID has sharp- relations with the US can overcome capitalism frowned upon massive ened the understanding of the forces the bilateral muscle that it deploys government expenditure, Western that drive the global political econ- by weaponising trade and finance. It capitalist states are now unleashing omy. The individual approaches of is the COVID-19 pandemic that has money in unprecedented amounts. the mini states in Africa, in seeking crushed the neoliberal ideas about Within a period of less than five to negotiate better terms with global individualised access to health care months the Biden Administration capital, contrast sadly with the real- and hastened the new global allianc- has rolled out initiatives worth more ity demonstrated by a country such es to break from the Bretton Woods than USD 6 trillion. The same deficit as Indonesia, with over 270 million institutions. For the past thirty years, spending that the US gives itself is de- persons, which understands that it CODESRIA has been at the fore- nied to humans who are suffering un- is in its best interest to be part of a front of delegitimising the ideas of der the heel of imperial domination. structural adjustment. Following the larger economic arrangement, such lead of the spirit of Bandung and the The world’s primary multilateral as the ASEAN system. Similarly, an calls for a New International Eco- financial institutions—the Inter- economic powerhouse such as the nomic Order (NIEO), the economic national Monetary Fund and the Federal Republic of Germany un- imperatives of the emancipation of World Bank—are taking the lead derstands that its political and eco- Africa run throughout the articles. In to entrench the medical apartheid nomic future lies in a larger union this sense the articles carry forth the that is now manifest in unequal ac- of capitalist states in Europe. These realities inform the contribution CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 2&3, 2021 Page 13 of Adom Getachew on ‘Kwame on international markets ty. The major theme of Diop’s writ- Nkrumah and the Quest for Inde- and reorient their economic ings is that precolonial Africa had pendence’. Her intervention inter- relationships towards other a cultural, economic, political, psy- rogates the question of Pan Afri- African states. Having broken chological and linguistic unity. His canism and the total independence the political and economic call for linguistic unification on a of the African peoples at home and boundaries that separated territorial and continental scale, them, African states could abroad. She underscores a key fact with a single African cultural and … collectively achieve a of the contemporary world—that purchasing and bargaining governmental language, was a cen- no one African state can compete power to rival other regions and tral aspect of his view on regaining in the current international order. international powers. the independence of Africa. Hence, she concludes that for Af- rican independence to be consoli- As such, ‘Independence means Getachew steers clear of the confu- dated it will be necessary to work much more than merely being free sion that is circulating about feder- towards political and economic to fly our own flag and to play our alism or a unitary government in so links that would create a United own national anthem’, Nkrumah far as her objective is to draw at- States of Africa. argued. Independence required a tention to the revolutionary possi- ‘revolutionary framework’, enacted bilities that await those who follow Refreshingly, Getachew brings her both nationally and internationally. the Nkrumist path. The day-to-day incisive analysis to bear in critiqu- experience of the youth informs ing the recent work of scholars It is this demand for a revolution- them that only the progressive dis- who are imprisoned by the Euro- ary framework for the unification mantling of the legal and coercive centric concept of a ‘nation-state of Africa that informed the later structures of empire can unleash for Africa’. Kwame Nkrumah was writings of Nkrumah after the the unification project. What is clear that the borders of Ghana had imperialist-inspired coup d’état in lacking in higher education in Af- been artificially created and that 1966. Notwithstanding the clarity rica is a research agenda guided the peoples and ethnic groups of that is embedded in his work, Rev- by the ideas and practices of de- Ghana had long historic linkages olutionary Path (1973), there are colonising, patriotic, progressive, with all peoples of Africa. This Pan Africanists who have sought indigenous and transformative ju- awareness inspired his advanced to generate a tendency calling for risprudence. Progressive African Pan-African ideas, which he sig- a federation of the current states. students have been in the vanguard nalled all across Africa on the night This tendency has now reappeared of social change, from Soweto in of independence in 1957, when he within the discussions by Ethiopi- the 1970s to the students of the Su- insisted that Ghanaian indepen- ans on the need for a Confedera- danese uprisings of 2019. It is clear dence ‘is meaningless unless it is tion of the States of Eastern Africa now to the youth that the unifica- linked up with the total liberation (viz Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and tion project must be part of the pro- of the African continent’. Eritrea) (Milkias 2021). cess of the African Revolution.

Federation of states or the These ‘federalists’ have mobil- Michael West’s article on the Pan- ised the text of Cheikh Anta Diop, unification of peoples African contributions of Walter Black Africa: The Basis For A Fed- Rodney brings the question of Af- The book by Kwame Nkrumah that erated State (1987), to promote a rican revolution to the centre of the came out of his plea for the Unifi- Pan Africanism that is based on Pan-African debate. Entitled ‘The cation of Africa in 1963 is entitled the current Berlinist states, such as Prophecy of Self-Emancipation: Africa Must Unite (1970). At that Senegal, Rwanda, The Democratic Walter Rodney and the Scholarship historical conjuncture, Nkrumah Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, and Praxis of Defiance in the Afri- put forth a minimalist position call- Egypt, etc. Without a close reading can World’, it describes the life and ing for the unification of indepen- of Diop’s Cultural Unity of Africa revolutionary work of Walter Rod- dent states. Getachew draws from (2000), there are those Pan African- ney to highlight the reality that the this text to remind the current gen- ists who have taken this text along Pan-African revolutionary must eration of scholars, that: with the very long interview with fight for all peoples of planet Earth. Carlos Moore to promote concepts Thus, West remarks that Rodney Organised on the continental of Black Africa and sub-Saharan was not only a Pan-African revolu- scale, African states could Africa that readily promote disuni- forego their dependence tionary, but a world revolutionary. CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 2&3, 2021 Page 14

There is a difference, and a cru- a transformed Africa could be, with that Africa needs a new kind cial one, between the prophet its massive resources. I conclude of citizen. Our task is to draw and the preacher. The preacher’s this introduction with extracts from from the positive memories task is largely one of reconcili- my essay, Lessons From Wakanda: while outlining the challenges ation—reconciling congregants Pan Africanism as the antidote to in the present period. to current reality, to the powers robotisation (Campbell 2018). that be. Soothing, encourag- Notes ing, bearing good news—such The lessons since the end of 1. Both COVID-19 and SARS is the mission of the preacher. apartheid point to the need to are caused by coronaviruses. The prophet, on the contrary, lay out a theoretical terrain The virus that causes SARS is is the bearer of bad news—but relating to social transforma- known as SARS-CoV, while the with this important caveat: the tions and the collateral ideas of virus that causes COVID-19 is news may be bad, but it needn’t peoples’ consciousness and po- known as SARS-CoV-2. There remain that way. A better world litical actions. In this sense the are also other types of human is possible. The prophet’s is a transformations towards unity coronaviruses. call to repentance, reparation, are linked to the conscious ac- 2. https://bdsmovement.net/what- reconstruction—in other lan- tivities of the producers who is-bds. guage, revolution. believe that it will be possible to transform the economic rela- 3. ASEAN countries comprise Revolution in the digital age tions in the process of elaborat- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the I started this introduction with the ing democratic political rela- tions in Africa. Philippines, Singapore, Thailand call from Alkalimat and Williams and Vietnam. for revolutionary transformations … This author has identified to unleash cyberdemocracy, collec- key areas of transformation Bibliography tive intelligence and information with the focus on the democ- freedom. Imperial planners who ratisation of access to water Alpern, S., 2018, Cambridge Analytica And The Perils of Psychographics, conceive of projects such as Cam- resources and the re-engineer- ing of the African landscape New Yorker, 30 March. Available bridge Analytica’s cognitive hack- to unify the African people. It online at https://www.newyorker. ing have inspired organs such as is a transformation where the com/news/news-desk/cambridge- the African Descendants of Slavery working people ‘who have eyes analytica-and-the-perils-of- (ADOS) in the US. Scholars whose and ears’ will choose to look psychographics. training falls outside of liberation back in order to look forward. Amin, S., 2004, The Liberal Virus: ideas fall prey to the machinations Looking back draws on the Permanent War and the of imperial planners to foment di- memories of transformative Americanization of the World, vision. Imperialist planners are moments of African liberation New York: Monthly Review Press. very aware of the potentialities of and draws inspiration from Bakir, V., 2020, Psychological global alliances that emerged with- these moments. The moment Operations in Digital Political in the context of the anti-apartheid of Haiti’s independence as well Campaigns: Assessing Cambridge struggle. The lessons of ADOS as the rapid decolonisation pe- Analytica’s Psychographic Pro- in the US are that Pan Africanists riod between 1956 and 1965 filing and Targeting, Frontiers were two such moments when cannot rely on imperial digital plat- in Communication. https://www. the explosive spread of the cul- forms that emanate from the Unit- frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ ture of independence temporar- fcomm.2020.00067/full. ed States to promote the Pan-Afri- ily silenced those who wanted can agenda. In a few African states, to colonise Africa for another Bassey, N., 2012, To Cook a Continent: governments are investing in smart one hundred years. Kwame Nk- Destructive Extraction and the cities, such as Konza Technopolis rumah was the leader of Ghana Climate Crisis in Africa, Oxford: in Kenya, without harnessing the at that transformative moment. Pambazuka Books. cognitive skills of the village com- We need to clarify the differ- Campbell, H., 2016, Challenges of the st munity. Creative artists are already ences between the project of Pan African Movement in the 21 inspiring African youths with the unity as inscribed within the century, Public Lecture, University of Nairobi. Available online at potentialities of African freedom. present political leadership and https://www.slideshare.net/RGeez/ The film Black Panther, set in the thoroughgoing push for freedom from those who crave prof-horace-campbell-lecture- the mythical village of Wakanda, a new concept of citizenship. on-challenges-of-the-panafrican- opened up the imagination of what We will agree with Nkrumah movement-in-the-21st-century. CODESRIA Bulletin, Nos 2&3, 2021 Page 15

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