Africa: Nyerere's Last Advice to Black Africa Retreat From Continentalist to Sub-Sahara Pan-Africanism

Africa: Nyerere's Last Advice to Black Africa Retreat From Continentalist to Sub-Sahara Pan-Africanism Chinweizu 14 August 2009 OPINION

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Kwame Nkrumah was famous for advocating a Government for the entire continent of Africa; for what he projected as the United States of Africa, and sometimes referred to as the Union Government of Africa or a Union of African States. His slogan was "Africa Must Unite". That was his public position until he died in 1972. However, it was reported by no less a figure than Amilcar Cabral that Nkrumah was thinking of modifying his position before he died in exile. It is significant that, before he died, Nkrumah told Cabral: "Cabral, I tell you one thing, our problem of African unity is very important, really, but now if I had to begin again, my approach would be different."

Since we have no record of actual changes in Nkrumah's approach, we must hold that his unmodified position was his last position on the matter. So Nkrumah lived and died a continentalist; an advocate of the United States of Africa. With Nyerere, it is different. There is the evidence of his own words that he was a continentalist in 1963, just like Nkrumah; and that in 1997, two years before he died, he retreated in public from continentalist Pan-Africanism to sub-Sahara Pan-Africanism.

1. 1963: Nyerere, recollecting in 1998, said: "Kwame and I met in 1963 and discussed African Unity. We differed on how to achieve a United States of Africa. But we both agreed on a United States of Africa as necessary."--Ikaweba Bunting's (1998) 'The Heart of Africa. Interview with Julius Nyerere on Anti-Colonialism' quoted in "African unity: Feeling with Nkrumah, thinking with Nyerere", Chambi Chachage (2009-04-09)
   
2. On his 75th birthday speech in 1997, Nyerere stressed the following points:
   

a) "North Africa is part of Europe and the Middle East."

b) "Africa south of the Sahara is on its own. . . . African leadership, the coming African leadership, will have to bear that in mind. You are on yourown. . ."

c) "The small countries in Africa [south of the Sahara] must . . . come together. . . . If we can't move towards bigger nation-states, at least let's move towards greater cooperation."

d) "Africa south of the Sahara is isolated. Therefore, to develop, it will have to depend upon its own resources basically. Internal resources, nationally; and Africa will have to depend upon Africa. The leadership of the future will have to devise, try to carry out policies of maximum national self-reliance and maximum collective self-reliance. They have no other choice. Hamna! (You don't have it)"

Nyerere gave a wise elder's parting advice to Black Africa to be self-reliant and go it alone; to not rely on the Arabs or the Europeans or the Americans or the Japanese or the Indians or on any other people whatsoever, as none of them have it in their self-interest to help develop Black Africa. That we are on our own means that Black Africa should organize itself, by itself and for itself.
In other words, because of our separate and unique situation in the world, Black Africans should, in effect, extricate ourselves from the problem and confusion Nkrumah created 40 years earlier by joining us in an embrace with the Arabs of North Africa in his quest for continental unification. An implication of Nyerere's advice is for us Black Africans to withdraw from the Afro-Arab AU, US of Africa, etc. and organize our own Blacks-only collective outfit to solve our peculiar problems.
In 1963, Nyerere, just like Nkrumah, regarded the entire continent of Africa as a single geo-political unit, and the North African Arabs together with the south of the Sahara blacks as one single constituency. But in 1997, Nyerere made it clear that he considered the south of Sahara Africa, black Africa, a distinct geo-political unit, quite separate in its identity and its destiny from Arab North Africa.
In that 1997 speech, Nyerere repeatedly emphasized that he was speaking about Africa south of the Sahara, and not of the entire continent. And his reason for considering the North African Arabs as a people apart, a people with a different identity and destiny is this: "North Africa is to Europe what Mexico is to the United States. North Africans who have no jobs will not go to Nigeria; they'll be thinking of Europe or the Middle East, because of the imperatives of geography and history and religion and language. North Africa is part of Europe and the Middle East." What, we may ask, led him to change his view? His reason, as stated in 1997, is purely geo-political and based on the likely realities of the 21st century. It has nothing to do with whether Arabs love or hate blacks; nothing to do with past historical relations between Arabs and Black Africans. So, even those who think that Arabs are our "brothers" and best friends, have to consider Nyerere's final position on the matter of Afro-Arab unity or alliance.

Even if, indeed, they are our "brothers" and best friends, it is in our enlightened geo-political self-interest not to cling to them in the 21st century. Their history, their circumstance, their aspirations and their destiny are different from ours. It is significant that Nyerere's argument for our separately taking care of our own business is not based on the history of our relations with the Arabs.
There are some Black Africans who feel that because of the Afro-Arab anti-imperialist alliance in the second half of the 20th century, an alliance whereby Arabs gave help to Black Africa during the liberation struggles, we should, in gratitude, treat the Arabs as part of ourselves, or at least as our permanent friends and allies.
Nyerere knew about the Arab help better than anybody else since he coordinated that help in his position as Chairman of the OAU Liberation Committee. But despite all that, Nyerere is indicating that our interest in the 21st century demands that we give up that idea of relying on or identifying with the Arabs. We must recognize no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only our permanent interests. And our interest in the 21st century, Nyerere urged, is distinct from the interest of the North African Arabs.
We must accept that fact and draw the necessary conclusions and act on them. Whatever help the Arabs gave to the anti-colonial struggles in Black
Africa, it does not require that we ignore the reality of the divergence of interests in the 21st century. Nyerere is pointing out a key aspect of our reality that must be made the foundation of our behavior: There is a time to be on one's own. And that time for Black Africa is the 21st century. We are blessed with the fact that Nyerere lived long enough, and spoke his mind towards the end, so that we don't have to speculate on where he would have ended up on this issue.
With the wisdom of experience and at the end of a long life, he arrived at the conclusion that we must go our own way and self-reliantly. And that, I think, is what we should do if we are sane. But Is Nyerere Likely to Be Heeded?

Certainly not by the nigger crazies whose inferiority complex makes them pathologically terrified of Blacks-only associations. To understand why Nkrumahists and other Continentalists are unlikely to accept Nyerere's advice, we need to appreciate the psychological yearning that continentalism satisfies. Continentalism is the political counterpart of social integrationism, and both belong to the same complex of pathologies as skin bleaching and hair straightening: all are desperate attempts to desert the now powerless black race and join the now more powerful white race.

Continentalists, like all compulsive integrationists, are psychological victims of the white supremacist dogma that blacks cannot achieve anything without white guidance. As Amos Wilson explained, they have been intimidated by Eurocentric history; by the inflated European achievements. All this talk about the great achievements of the Europeans, of the great white race, has intimidated them. And they subconsciously say to themselves: "Hey we'd better hang in with these white people because if we lose them we're going back into barbarism and primitiveness. Blacks can't be on their own!"

Subconsciously, they are driven to seek white company, and to fear and flee from any blacks-only group.Lacking self-confidence and lacking confidence in the black race, they are pathologically grasping at any white straw to keep themselves from drowning.

If Europeans are not available, then they go for the next best thing: the white Arabs. Hence their craving for continentalism. Their negrophobic subconscious is insistently telling them "Without whites we can't take care of our own business. We can't be on our own. We can't go it alone. We'll mess it up." That's the negrophobic message they get from their niggerized subconscious; the message that drives them to cling desperately to whites. That is the mindset that will prevent Continentalists from taking Nyerere's advice about Black Africans being on their own.