Pan Africanism - the two faces

COLTRANE · (#1 (**permalink**))

From:GPAC

Following the sudden about turn by SAPES with regards to their hosting of the proposed GPAC in Harare, Zimbabwe in 2005, certain underlying reasons for that development have come to the fore. SAPES, as fronted by Cde Ibbo Mandaza, offer allegiance to the long- standing Pan- African tradition of naming the Congresses by numerical sequences. We are persuaded by his article's innuendo that such a Congress (in this case, the 8th PAC) would be what the Founding Fathers want. There is an innuendo, of a darker side, that it is undesirable to dream of a change. Let's keep with tradition, so we are encouraged. But should we?

History has already judged those who are comfortable with meeting once in a decade, pass one hundred and one resolutions, but fail to implement a single one of them. Posterity has also condemned those who for a decade have deserted the Pan African agenda.

The struggles and challenges that have assailed the peoples of Africa on the continent and in the Diaspora have intensified in the past few years. The world has watched the unending horror movie that is Africa run its bloody course. The Rwandan genocide, the wars in Burundi, Sierra Leonne, Cote d'Ivoire, DRC, Angola, Ethiopia- Eritrea, and Somalia to name a few, have robbed Africa of millions of its sons and daughters. Famine, rampant poverty, the AIDS pandemic and the so- called Debt Problem have ensured that Africa is forever trapped in the conundrum of crises. As such, the rest of the world have dismisses us as a hopeless lot. Unfortunately, some among us have accepted that classification and have given up the fight to rewrite the African story.

The gap between what has to be done and who to do it has been widening as the challenges increased and most of us receded into the shelves of our immediate fights. Hunger is a generally accepted phenomenon, but in Africa it has a face. Visionaries have been few along the journey to Total African Emancipation. We have watched several blind Moses lead us stray in the ideological fraternity. Pan- Africanism as a vehicle for our freedom has been hijacked by a few, who notwithstanding their revolutionary credentials, have overtly and/or covertly collaborated with Western Imperialism in frustrating the aspirations of the Mother Continent.

Little wonder therefore, that with such champions the real Pan African spirit as espoused by Nkrumah perished somewhere between the 1st and 7th PACs. The 8th PAC now advocated for by my fellow compatriots, Ibbo and Chen derives its lack of promise from the composition of its owners (to use Chen's own words.) I do not wish to question the two gentlemen's Pan African credentials, for this struggle is not about personalities, but about the African Cause.

This Cause, as envisaged by the forces behind GPAC is too precious to be entrusted to the redundant phantoms of the past whose inaction and blunders of association eroded their mandate to speak for the ordinary folk. On that note, Ibbo's stated dream of co-opting such characters as the ones that took part at the 7th PAC, even for continuity, is disqualified as unworkable. Daylight and darkness will never marry, the two being mutually exclusive.

GPAC, dear reader, is a movement of astute Pan-Africans who have played little or no role in the African tragedy thus far, a fact which though regrettable, is strong platform for calling a spade a spade. If we come together as Africa's children, we can stop anti-African crusades being foisted on us by both the enemy of old, Western Imperialism and the disappointment of this Age, the former liberator whose decided greed has replaced the Africa for Africans with an Africa for some Africans mindset.

The main actors at the 7th PAC have no monopoly over the aspirations of the Mother Continent. Let the 8th PAC happen. Let GPAC , as the Real Hope, flourish and take Pan-Africanism to the mud huts and fields of Africa, and the outposts where several of her displaced children now abide. GPAC cannot afford to be yoked together with the 8th PAC and risk the dilution of its founding spirit. To shrink in the face of the attempted hi-jack of the GPAC is to betray the hope of so many enthusiasts who had already put their colours to the GPAC mast. Several progressive Pan Africanists have recovered from the shock and are regrouping for a GPAC, wherever and whenever it will happen. It is to that Cause that you are all invited. Every African has a role to play in setting the African agenda and charting the way forward. Our efforts shall bear fruit and Pan-Africanism as a political ideology shall rise again.

We need no further encouragement but the poverty and strife that ravages us. The colour of our skin is the history book that we all need to study for inspiration. We can all be heroes of our time, and extricate our selves from the merciless grip of oppression and stolen dreams. Just in case you doubt your capacity for change, remember we cannot be apologetic about our race, though unique, we are all for a purposes, we are all relevant speckles of dust. Our Pan-African actions will immortalise us in the pages of our history and move our race forward. There is a big, big prize to be won and you are not, my fellow African, irrelevant to the cause.

Be excited, be very, very excited. It is fatal not to be.
Taurai Gobvu