Panafricanism

This article explores the attitudes and policies of the International Missionary Council (IMC) concerning Africa and African Americans. It aims to revise historical scholarship that views the ecumenical missionary movement as originating in white Western missions and guided by the goals of post-war internationalism. It argues that the IMC, founded in 1921 as the central institution for coordinating Protestant missions around the world, developed an ecumenical definition of pan-Africanism. This definition cast African Americans from the US south in the role of ‘native’ leaders in the formation of indigenous churches in Africa. With this racialized version of Christian indigenization, the IMC excluded African Christian groups that sought to form their own churches. It promoted, instead, European colonial projects and missionary societies that aimed to use African American missionaries to counter the incendiary ideas of pan-Africanism.

PANAFEST est un webdocumentaire à propos de duatre festivals panafricains majeurs des années 1960 et 70 : le premier Festival mondial des arts nègres (Dakar 1966), le premier Festival culturel panafricain (Alger 1969), Zaïre74 (Kinshasa1974) et Festac77 (Lagos 1977). A travers cinquante-quatre entretiens menés sur trois continents (Afrique, Amérique du Nord, Europe) par une équipe transdisciplinaire de chercheur.e.s, via des cartographies interactives, des documents d’archives, des textes, il propose une version ouverte, autre de ces quatre événements fondamentaux. 

Beckles' " Britain's Black Debt: Reparations for Slavery and Native Genocide " is a very informative work that helps us to understand the indigenous genocide and black enslavement in the Caribbean, predominantly Barbados. It is written based on the idea of reparative justice. This  book is divided into two parts. In the first part,  the author discusses the importance of reparation as " legal, political and moral right " . Beckles  cites prominent scholars like  C.L.R James, Michael Manley, Walter Rodney and the like as a source of encouragement to finish this daunting task. It is a very precious book that should get the attention of any pan-Africanist . It is one of the many efforts to tell the truth about the misery of Blacks by digging out valuable evidence and letting them known to the international community about the factual information behind the Slave trade and colonialism. There was a crime against humanity. The author tries to show us how the British colonial mode of capital accumulation downgraded the Back race through harsh forms of exploitation and mass killing starting from Jamaica in the north to Guiana in the southern extreme of the Caribbean.

In the dominant neoliberal context, the question of decolonization - in its material sense - often remains peripheral to anti-racist politics. However, as radical Black feminist movements remind, the question of decolonization is central to struggles against racism. In this spirit, my article addresses the anti-colonial dimension of the Black women's movement in Germany: how does it link gendered manifestations of anti-Black racism to the question of neocolonial border regimes grounded in heteropatriarchal anti-Black structures? It shows that the pan-African legacy of transnational Black feminism inscribes anti-colonial praxis within Black feminism in Germany. Here, the border feminism practiced by Black refugee women, lesbians, non-binaries, queers, inter and trans people play a crucial role. Their situated critique of border regimes proves to be indicative for an anti-colonial Black feminist praxis and promotes the unfolding of the Black Mediterranean as a space of resistant solidarity.

Zusammenfassung

Im dominanten neoliberalen Kontext gerät die Frage der Dekolonisierung – im materiellen Sinn – oft in den Hintergrund antirassistischer Politiken. Wie radikale Schwarze feministische Zusammenhänge historisch sowie gegenwärtig einfordern, ist die Frage der Dekolonisierung in Kämpfen gegen Rassismus jedoch zentral. In diesem Sinne behandelt mein Artikel die Frage der antikolonialen Ausrichtung der Schwarzen Frauenbewegung in Deutschland: An welchen Stellen werden vergeschlechtlichte Manifestationen anti-Schwarzen Rassismus mit der Frage neokolonialer Grenzregime, die an der Basis heteropatriarchaler anti-Schwarzer Strukturen ist, in Verbindung gebracht? Es zeigt sich, dass das panafrikanische Erbe des transnationalen Schwarzen Feminismus antikoloniale Praxis fest in die Schwarze feministische Bewegungsgeschichte in Deutschland einschreibt. Insbesondere der Feminismus der Grenze, den Schwarze geflüchtete Frauen, Lesben, Non-Binarys, Queers, Inter und Trans aus afrikanischen Kontexten praktizieren spielen hier eine tragende Rolle. Ihre situierte Kritik Grenzregime erweist sich für eine antikoloniale Schwarze feministische Praxis als richtungsweisend und befördert die Entfaltung des widerständigen solidarischen Raums des Schwarzen Mittelmeers.

Afro-Amerikan Müslüman lider Malcolm X'in (El Hacc Malik El Şahbaz) birçoğu ilk kez Türkçeleştirilen ve dönemine damgasını vurmuş, üniversite öğrencilerine hitaben yaptığı konuşmaları içeren Amerika'ya Meydan Okurken kitabının ilk baskısı 2017 Ekim ayında Pınar Yayınları'ndan çıktı.

Cette étude est une approche navale de la diplomatie marocaine en Afrique. L'objectif est de montrer que la vocation africaine du Maroc ne peut s'étudier en faisant abstraction de sa vocation maritime. Dans un contexte où les relations internationales africaines sont marquées par un redéploiement stratégique du Royaume Chérifien en Afrique, l'auteur interroge la contribution de la diplomatie navale à la mise en oeuvre de sa politique et de sa stratégie africaine. À partir d'une démarche de géostratégie des océans, l'analyse révèle l'ancrage de la politique et de la stratégie africaine du Maroc dans la diplomatie navale et la nécessité pour le Royaume de s'inscrire dans les exigences actuelles de la diplomatie navale basée sur la présence et la projection des forces pour une diplomatie navale au service de l'émancipation stratégique du continent. Abstract : This study is a naval approach to Moroccan diplomacy in Africa. The objective is to show that the African vocation of Morocco can not be studied by disregarding its maritime vocation. In a context where African international relations are marked by a strategic redeployment of the Sherifian Kingdom in Africa, the author questions the contribution of naval diplomacy to the implementation of its African policy and strategy. Based on an ocean geostrategy approach, the analysis reveals the anchoring of Morocco's policy and strategy in naval diplomacy and the need for the Kingdom to fit into the current requirements of naval diplomacy based on the presence and projection of forces for naval diplomacy at the service of the strategic emancipation of the continent.

Le panafricanisme est né au Nouveau Monde, aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, à la faveur de la lutte de libération des Noirs contre la domination et l’exploitation des Blancs. Son idée et son  projet se développent dans les luttes pour la libération et l’émancipation des Africains, opprimés et exploités, à travers le monde en suivant le chemin Amériques, Europe puis Afrique. Les objectifs initiaux du panafricanisme se sont manifestés à travers les luttes qui conduit à des organisations de congrès jusqu’en 1945 à Manchester. Les congrès n’étaient qu’un mouvement politique et culturel qui considère l’Afrique, les Africains et les descendants d’Africains à l’étranger comme un seul ensemble et qui vise à régénérer et unifier l’Afrique ainsi qu’à encourager un sentiment de solidarité entre les populations du monde africain. Ils sont très nombreux les adeptes de ce projet politique. Parmi les figures dominantes de ce mouvement, réellement révolutionnaire, nous avons retenu les contributions de Henry Sylvester Williams, de Marcus Aurelius Garvey, de William Edward Burghardt Du Bois et de George Padmore. Ces figures sont les concepteurs du «panafricanisme originel». Ainsi le contexte de la naissance du panafricanisme, ses objectifs initiaux  et ses principaux apôtres indiquent sans nul doute que le Panafricanisme n’est-il réellement une idéologie d’initiative proprement africaine. Il est né puis s’est développé d’abord hors du continent.

In terms of revolutionary movements in Africa, Sankara’s stands out not only because it occurred well after independence but also because of the ambition of its vision. Sankara was a militant economic revolutionary who aimed to achieve social justice at home through a prioritization of food justice while recalibrating Burkina Faso’s place in the international system. Unlike most of the African leaders of his generation and those preceding him, Sankara did not author books that captured or guided his political philosophy in any systematic way. Indeed, Sankara refused to give an ideological name to the revolution. Our task, then, is to trace Sankara’s words and actions to synthesise his radical and comprehensive approach to social transformation, self-sufficiency, decolonization, and freedom.

V. Y. Mudimbe
Appropriations, transmissions, reconsidérations

de Gilbert KISHIBA FITULA (dir.)
Avec Germain NGOIE TSHIBAMBE
& Antoine Tshitungu Kongolo

Préface de Guy MBUYI KABUNDA

This essay presents some brief reflections about “Africa and the production of knowledges at the globalization era” (theme of the international conference for which it was originally prepared) and suggests some possible connections with the same problem in Latin America. This will be done in dialogue with the works of the Congolese academic Valentin-Yves Mudimbe, one of the more important thinkers of the global periphery. To deal with this theme, we must think about African and Black identities, and Mudimbe is essential to do that. He is one of the main critics of the essentialism present in the construction of the notions of “black” and “Africa”. He highlights that they are inventions and they are produced mainly from outside. “Black” is an invention of the “White”, the “European”, the “Western”, like “Africa” or “Orient”, built negatively for the self-assertion of a superior identity. At the same time, he produces some of the more interesting reflections about the ways for an epistemic decolonialization of Africa (Ngoie Tshibambe, 2017).

Title: African Culture its Trends and Effects

This paper discusses traditional African culture: its nature, characteristics, and the main factors that affect it, its values and worldview. Among those factors are: Christianity, Islam, colonialism, capitalism and recently globalization. Since culture is seen as the sum of the peculiarities shared by a people, and Africa being a vast continent with over (2000), varieties of languages, this paper has adopted the holistic view about the African culture. Also, some current transmitters of the cultural changes were discussed here, such as the Francophonie movement and the internet and social media networks, as well as some of the African responses to the foreign cultural influences such as: The Pan-Africanism, Negritude, the Kemit, the Afropolitan movements, the emerging African intellectuals that graduated from Arabic higher learning institutions known as the ‘Arabisants’, and some NGOs, etc. The
African governments are not seen here as positive promotors or protectors of the African culture. However, it is argued here that, for the African culture to withstand the imposed imperial acculturation, Africa must, first of all, inevitably cling to the core elements of its culture. This is to articulate the process of the natural acculturation of the African culture with the rest of the world cultures. In addition to clinging to its cultural values, it is argued here that Africa cannot face the predatory imperial cultures alone, it is imperative on the African culture to join forces with its neighboring cultures that face the same treat and are struggling to secure their self-determination. Here, the triple heritage of Africa is invoked, namely: its traditional religion and values, Christian and Islamic cultural values and the Arabic culture. African culture has been a good contributor to each of the afore mentioned cultures. So, it is logical that the African culture returns to those constituents of its strength in order for Africa be an active and positive partner in the global cultural interactions.

Liberia is the country in Africa where the United States has the most extended history of military engagement, and each intervention is layered on the experience of previous interventions. Over the years, the interventions have become more comprehensive and sophisticated, and Liberia can be considered an essential case for the general study of US military interventions in Africa.

This book reviews the history of the United States-Liberia relations from the early 1820s to 2015, with particular attention paid to the role of the US armed forces. Contrary to most literature on the genesis and development of Liberia, this book demonstrates how US military power has been the primary influence shaping Liberia's history. This includes the role played by the US military in the founding of Liberia, the protection of the country during the European formal colonial era, multiple covert operations in securing US-friendly administrations in Liberia, and direct military interventions when necessary to secure American interests in the region

Motion picture technology developed at the dawn of the 20th century, just as the formal colonization of Africa was launched at the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885. While it took a few decades for cinema houses to spread in West Africa, by mid-century the colonial administrations began to use film as a means for conveying colonial culture to African subjects. For the British and French colonials, film was a means to shape public opinion. Both British and French colonial administrations criminalized indigenous filmmaking for fear of the subversive potential of anti-colonial messages—film communicated in one direction only. When West African nations became independent in the late 20th century, these restrictions vanished and Africans began to make films. This process played out differently in Francophone Africa than in Anglophone countries. France cultivated African filmmakers, sponsored training, and funded film projects. Talented and determined filmmakers in Anglophone Africa also struggled to produce celluloid films, but unlike their counterparts in former French colonies, they received little support from abroad. A significant number of excellent celluloid films were produced under this system, but largely in Francophone Africa. Though many of these filmmakers have gained global recognition, most remained virtually unknown in Africa outside the elite spaces of the FESPACO film festival and limited screenings at French embassies. Though West African filmmakers have produced an impressive body of high-quality work, few Africans beyond the intellectual elite know of Africa’s most famous films. This paradox of a continent with renowned filmmakers but no local film culture began to change in the 1990s when aspiring artists in Nigeria and Ghana began to make inexpensive movies using video technology. Early works were edited on VCRs, but as digital video technology advanced, this process of informal video production quickly spread to other regions. The West African video movie industry has grown to become one of the most prominent, diverse, and dynamic expressions of a pan-African popular culture in Africa and throughout the global diaspora.

This dissertation advances the discourse on Africa’s substantive values and priorities in conflict resolution. This is done by exploring the principles of ‘African solutions to African problems’, particularly in conflict resolution, and the implications of the identified ‘African solutions’ for the African Union’s conflict resolution efforts. The thesis is premised on the background that the maxim ‘African solutions to African problems’ was developed in the context of growing misgivings about the reliability, motive and efficiency of external interventions in Africa. This is coupled with the belief among African thinkers and politicians that the lasting solutions to Africa’s challenges can only be secured by African-oriented solutions. However, there have been inadequate explorations of what constitutes African solutions and its influence on Pan-African conflict resolution interventions.
Using a constructivist framework and a qualitative methodology with reliance on interview data from African peace and security experts as well as literary discourses on African indigenous conflict resolution, this dissertation explores the substantive value of the maxim ‘African solutions to African problems’ and the implications for the interventionist outlook employed by the African Union. The research employs the case study of the African Union’s intervention in Somalia to assess the achievements, challenges and prospects in the application of African solutions.
The findings of the dissertation highlights that ‘African solutions’ in conflict resolution does not refer to unique elements. Rather they refer to Africa’s prioritized values in conflict resolution that may be in consonant or discordant with those of other geopolitical regions, but significant enough to advance self-determination, local ownership and the quest for sustainable solutions in Africa. Although it emerged from the misgivings about external impositions and interventions in Africa, the maxim ‘African Solutions to African problems’ indicts African actors for their failure to exhibit appropriate agency in terms of advancing context-sensitive solutions to the continent’s challenges. In line with the theoretical framework of constructivism which argues that the international system is influenced by prevailing ideas, the ideals of African solutions obliges Africa to critic and enhance its values and priorities, and negotiate them within the prevailing theory and practice of conflict resolution without being constrained by the dictates and approaches of dominant powers.

Afro-Amerikan Müslüman lider Malcolm X'in (El Hacc Malik El Şahbaz) birçoğu ilk kez Türkçeleştirilen ve dönemine damgasını vurmuş, söylev, söyleşi, gazete yazıları ve mektuplarını içeren Biraz Aksiyon-Rahat Durmayacağız kitabının ilk baskısı 2018 Ocak ayında Pınar Yayınları'ndan çıktı. Amerika'ya Meydan Okurken adlı çalışmanın devamı niteliğindeki kitapla birlikte, Malcolm X'in kitleleri harekete geçiren ünlü konuşmalarının birçoğu ilk kez kitaplaştırıldı ve bugüne dek yapılmış en hacimli çalışmalardan biri olarak yayımlandı.

A R Vasavi interviewed Keith Hart in Pretoria, South Africa in December 2014.
A maverick scholar who was the first to define and identify the “informal economy”, Keith Hart is now developing a perspective on the “human economy”. The term has the potential to go beyond rigid theoretical frameworks on economic practices and provide an inter- disciplinary approach to understanding how complex and plural economies are embedded in a variety of societies. Having been trained in the classics (Greek and Latin) at the University of Cambridge, he now rereads Kant for our times and con- siders subjectivity to be central to human history. A prolific writer, his commentaries on varied topics such as the rise of the internet, the role of land reforms and the future of the European Union complement his seminal volumes on money, the human economy, and the market.

Many of my Afro-Centric scholars seem to refer to everything Egyptian as the basis of their spirituality. They seem to suggest that the current religious traditions are Johnny-come-lately religions that ripped off their Ideas from the Solar Cult in Egypt. There are others that seem to suggest that Monotheism evolved from polytheism as man progressed from primitive hunter gatherers to the modern man. I aim to refute both these ideas and will argue that the opposite is true. That in fact Islam pre existed Muhammad & even Egypt.

À l’issue de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, la pérennité du système colonial est largement questionnée. Parmi les affrontements idéologiques et les débats intellectuels vifs des années 1940-1960 autour de l’avenir de la colonisation et du continent africain, un thème récurrent fait consensus : l’artificialité des frontières africaines. Utilisé concurremment par des auteurs aux parcours et aux convictions résolument opposés, ce thème est alors déjà un lieu commun sur le continent africain. Développé dans les années 1930 par plusieurs experts reconnus dans le cadre des sciences coloniales, le thème de l’artificialité des frontières africaines a en effet rapidement dépassé ce cadre étroit et s’est diffusé largement et notamment chez les leaders nationalistes et panafricains. Ce papier a pour objectif de dégager le sens d’un trajet discursif qui mène ce thème de l’humanisme colonial, souhaitant refonder la relation coloniale, aux discours nationalistes, anticolonialistes et tiers-mondistes rejetant en bloc le colonialisme, ses concepts et ses modes de pensée. L’examen de l’évolution de ce thème permet d’observer que si ce discours stéréotypé persiste jusqu’à aujourd’hui sous une forme quasi inchangée, les objectifs selon lesquels il est mobilisé n’ont cessé d’évoluer. Néanmoins, de ce discours transparaît une vision de l’Afrique fondée sur l’exceptionnalité de ce continent où n’existerait qu’une territorialité identitaire, exclusive de toute définition politique du territoire. L’artificialité des frontières contribue ainsi à la redéfinition théorique du continent africain dans une irréductible différence.

The Decolonization of a Commonplace
After the Second World War, the future of the colonial system is widely questioned. During the 1940’s to the 1960s’s, among the ideological confrontations and intellectual debates about the future of colonization and Africa a recurring theme arises as consensual : the artificiality of African boundaries. Used concurrently by authors from various backgrounds and political beliefs, this theme is at this time already a commonplace on the continent. Developed in the 1930’s by several experts in colonial sciences, the theme of the artificiality of African boundaries has indeed rapidly exceeded the narrow scope of science and has spread widely, particularly among nationalists and Pan-African leaders. This paper aims at retracing the path of a discursive journey that leads this theme from colonial humanism, seeking to rebuild the colonial relationship, to nationalist, anti-colonial and Third World rhetoric, rejecting colonialism its concepts and methods of thought. This theme persists until today in a stereotyped form. The theory of the artificiality of African borders offers a vision of Africa based on the continent’s exceptional character where there is only a territorial identity, excluding any political definition of territory. This discourse contributed to redefining the continent as something radically Other.

A importância de José Abdias do Nascimento para a formação da intelectualidade brasileira consiste em uma inspiração à luta antirracista da população negra brasileira. A sua produção intelectual problematizou as nuances do racismo anti-negro no Brasil e articulou formas de resistência diante do apagamento da história negro-africana brasileira. Partindo de tais teses relacionamos com a proposta de descolonização de Nkolo Foé em oposição ao epistemicídio direcionado à filosofia africana. Com isso, no primeiro momento, o enfoque consistirá na concepção de Pan-africanismo através de teóricos como Marcus Garvey e Kwame Nkrumah. Por fim, retomar o pensador brasileiro através das teses presentes no Quilombismo para pensar em conjunto com a filosofia africana de Nkolo Foé a resistência política-filosófica ao racismo anti-negro. Palavras-Chaves: Descolonização; Epistemicídio; Pan-africanismo; Quilombismo; Racismo anti-negro. PANAFRICANISM IN ABDIAS DO NASCIMENTO AND THE PROPOSAL OF DECOLONIZATION Abstract: The importance of José Abdias do Nascimento for the formation of the Brazilian intelligentsia is an inspiration to the anti-racist struggle of the Brazilian black population. His intellectual production problematized the nuances of anti-black racism in Brazil and articulated forms of resistance to the erasure of Brazilian black-African history. Based on these theses we relate to Nkolo Foé's proposal for decolonization in opposition to the episthemicide directed at African philosophy. Thus, at first, the focus will be on the conception of Pan-Africanism through theorists such as Marcus Garvey and Kwame Nkrumah. Finally, to resume the Brazilian thinker through the theses present in Quilombismo to think together with the African philosophy of Nkolo Foé the political-philosophical resistance to anti-black racism.

Perhaps no decolonized African state in the mid-twentieth century has received more scholarly attention than the transitional government of President Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana. Historians consider Ghana under Nkrumah and the CPP the exemplar narrative of the folly of rapidly industrializing economies in post-independence Africa. Despite its rich foreign exchange reserves and the strength of Ghana’s agricultural export industry, these historians agree that Nkrumah’s economic programme was over-reaching given the severe lack of Ghana’s infrastructure and the paucity of foreign capital investment. In this paper, I examine Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s plans for Ghana’s development in the dual context of Anglo-American neo-colonialist intervention and domestic political economy. I argue the relationship between Nkrumah’s economic policies and his Pan-African ideology developed over the course of his political career both intersected in the elaboration of his agenda regarding the Ghanaian government, the working population, and multinational corporations. While Nkrumah’s projected development goals were lofty, his attempts to get aid and remain politically non-aligned demonstrate the economic constraints and opportunities available to a post-colonial regime.

Barg el-Lil (1961) was the first historical novel in Tunisian literary history and the first Arabic novel to have a black slave as protagonist. I argue that Bachir Khreyif’s choice needs to be read in relation to Negritude and pan-Africanism, the ‘afrotopian’ momentum, Habib Bourguiba’s colour-blind policies, debates about ‘committed literature’ (adab multazim), a term hotly debated in Arabic literary circles and periodicals across the Third World in those decades, and against the backdrop of Tunisian state feminism and the implementation of the new Personal Status Code (PSC) in 1956. These discussions and movements offer a specific angle on Cold War struggles.

Just how exceptional Barg el-Lil was in its time is even more apparent considering the new generation of Maghrebi and Arab writers who have started to break the silence around the history and legacies of trans-Saharan slavery, also in the context of the movements and discussions opened up by the Arab Springs and strengthened by the 2020 global anti-racism protests.

El artículo examina la circulación de discursos contra el apartheid sudafricano (1948-1990) en el ámbito literario y cultural cubano y latinoamericano, tomando como caso de estudio dos textos de la autora afro-caribeña Nancy Morejón: el poemario Baladas para un sueño (1989) y el ensayo-crónica “Viaje a Suráfrica” (1995). Dichos textos prácticamente no han recibido, hasta ahora, ninguna atención por parte de la crítica, ni tampoco existe un corpus crítico que haya examinado la inclusión de discursos contra el apartheid en el continente. El artículo es producto de una investigación colaborativa que examina el modo en que el apartheid fue utilizado fuera de Sudáfrica para enmarcar imaginarios políticos. En este contexto, evalúo la obra de Nancy Morejón dentro del movimiento cultural internacionalista anti-apartheid, desde la práctica decolonial cubana y latinoamericana. El análisis de texto se centra en un estudio intertextual pertinente que identifica un campo intertextual atravesado por discursos de resistencia política provenientes de diversos momentos histórico-literarios.

The article examines the circulation of discourses against apartheid in South Africa (1948 1990) in the Cuban and Latin American literary and cultural fields, taking as a case study two texts by the Afro Caribbean author Nancy Morejón: the collection of poems Baladas para un sueño (1989) and the chronicle essay “Viaje a Suráfrica” (1995). These texts have not yet been the object of research. The article contextualizes the
anti apartheid internationalist cultural movement in an innovatory fashion, and its relationship with the Cuban and Latin American decolonial culture. The analytic approach is focused on the study of the intertextuality of these works and identifies an intertextual field composed of radical discourses of various historical literary moments. The work leads to the conclusion that the texts by Morejón reinforce the author's PanAfricanist poetic identity.

African Renaissance is a term which is used to describe new era in African his- tory and strongly serves propaganda reasons. The aim of the article is to analyse the role of this notion in terms of Ethiopia, i.e. how the term is being employed in Ethiopian politics and propaganda. It is stressed that even though the term it- self is a new introduction, the idea of building a strong state on the basis of grand tradition has been used in Ethiopian history on several occasions. Nowadays, the best examples of references to Renaissance by the state’s propaganda are to be found in symbolical meaning of the widely discussed and controversial project of construction the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on Blue Nile. Other as- pects of how the term is being employed can be seen in a propaganda film mate- rial produced by the Foreign Ministry of Ethiopia in 2015 with the view to ad- vertise the achievements of the government.

In the second half of the twentieth century, during the rise of Third World
internationalism, a series of conferences and festivals took place on both
sides of the Atlantic, which were fundamental for the articulation of a Pan-
African global community that linked the continent with its diaspora. These meetings provided spaces of encounter and circulation of ideas among artists and intellectuals, who were able to connect the struggles and emancipatory imagination of Afro-descendant peoples beyond national boundaries. This article focuses on the Négritude et Amérique latine conference, held in Dakar in 1974, under the ideological and political patronage of Léopold Sédar Senghor. It discusses the role of Négritude both as an ideological and political movement that sought to extend solidarity networks between Africans and Afro-descendants and served as ideological grounding of Senghorian politics. The author considers the Dakar conference as a trigger for an international cultural diplomacy articulated on the idea of a “racial fraternity” and Third World solidarity, which gain strength during the cold war in particular and constitutes a fundamental episode of the formation of the Global South not only as a geopolitical but also as a historical concept.

This review was quite a challenge given that
Peter Karibe Mendy is an internationally
renowned historian, former director of the nation‐
al research institute Instituto Nacional de Estudos
e Pesquisa (INEP) in Guinea-Bissau from 1994 to
1998, and currently professor of African history at
Rhode Island College.[1] His research covers mod‐
ern and contemporary African history, the history
of slavery, and transatlantic relations, and he has
written extensively on the subject under consider‐
ation. Being Guinea-Bissau-born myself, a histori‐
an and academic who graduated reading Mendy’s
works and who has engaged with topics closely
linked to those of the book, I found the challenge to
be even greater. So is the responsibility to review
his latest political biography of Amílcar Cabral
(1924-73), an iconic national figure who led
Guinea-Bissau to independence. I consider myself
part of the “younger generation” engaged with na‐
tional and Pan-African causes—to whom this au‐
thor
dedicates this book—the so-called Cabralistas.[2]

This rather fervent, if self-denuding, compendium is for the author who seeks to reach deeper than technical agility and fashionably irreligious agitprop.

"Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (Matthew 7: 13-14).

Brutal Anatoly Lunacharsky, head of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's "enlightened" Education Ministry, had a remedy for narrow gates and narrow minds. Like Comrade Alexander Bogdanov, a member of the Soviet state-fed "god-builders" - богостроительe - it was massive blood transfusions done on self. Both men died of their Bolshevik Narkompros. "Many are called, but few are frozen" is still the parody from "cognitive scientists".

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight" (Proverbs 3:5).

Man, who no longer knows humility from pride, shall not be humbled by "this lacrimarum vale". Like sci-fi Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, or Abulurd Harkonnen II, he will do the inhuman to avoid humiliation - especially the ultimate affront of being found to be in error. The enlightened, masked, artist-god will point a camera - or syringe - at himself, and shoot.

Onder invloed van debatten uit het buitenland ontstond in Suriname tussen 1900 en 1930 een culturele emancipatiebeweging onder de zwarte bevolking. Aan de hand van onderzoek naar de Surinaamse tak van de internationale, panafrikanistische organisatie UNIA en naar toespraken gehouden op 1 juli-vieringen ter herdenking, wordt gekeken in hoeverre er sprake was van één emancipatiebeweging, waarbij Suriname in een transnationale context wordt geplaatst. De denkbeelden van emancipatoren zoals onderwijzer Comvalius, prediker Rier en straatprediker Rudolf Rijts kenden overeenkomende wortels uit het internationale panafrikanisme met een gemeenschappelijke focus op raciale trots, op religieuze uitverkorenheid en op de verbetering van de maatschappelijke positie van de Afro-Surinamers. 40 jaar na de afschaffing van de slavernij meenden zij dat ware emancipatie pas plaats zou vinden met een betere maatschappelijke positie van de zwarte bevolking. De beweging kende twee flanken: Comvalius en Rier waren op zoek naar acceptatie door de koloniale overheid, en sloegen vergeleken met panafrikanistische tijdgenoten in de Verenigde Staten en elders een gematigde toon aan. Aan de andere kant speelde de Surinaamse tak van de garveyistische beweging UNIA, een van de casussen van deze scriptie, met de 'back to Africa'-ideeën die die tijd elders in de Cariben, in de VS en in Afrika in zwang waren. De banden tussen de UNIA in Suriname en in de Verenigde Staten zullen daarbij directer blijken te zijn dan tot dusver is gebleken. Tegelijkertijd kende het bestuur achter deze beweging vele dwarsverbanden met de organisaties waar Comvalius en Rier deel van uitmaakten, waardoor er wel degelijk kan worden gesteld dat er sprake was van één beweging. De panafrikanistische ideeën in deze creoolse gemeenschap hadden een specifiek Surinaamse karakter, waarbij zowel plaats was voor internationale solidariteit met de Afrikaanse diaspora als voor loyaliteit aan het Nederlandse koningshuis en het koloniale systeem. In vergelijking met andere Caribische landen gaf de koloniale overheid van Suriname op haar beurt het panafrikanistische discours en met name de garveyistische UNIA in Suriname relatief veel ruimte. Een uitzondering vormt de strijd die in de jaren 1920 ontstond rond het gebruik van de publieke ruimte tussen de garveyistische Johan en Rudolf Rijts en de overheid. Deze broers veroorzaakten met hun straatpreken en –pamfletten onrust die de overheid met politiemacht en psychiatrische opnames probeerden in te perken. Tegelijkertijd was Rudolf Rijts tevens voorzitter van de UNIA, en is het de vraag in hoeverre er sprake was van werkelijke gekte of van dissidente stemmen waarvoor in Suriname geen plaats was.

A human economy places living people at the centre of economic theory and practice. We must also think of humanity as a whole, since making a viable world society is an urgent necessity. This entails learning how to combine small-scale humanism with large-scale bureaucracy. How to rethink the world? The anti-colonial revolution of the last century offers rich material. Its leading intellectuals persuaded the masses to fight for a post-racial society. I consider here the visions of some Pan-Africanists and Gandhi. Connecting people to the project of remaking world society requires us to reassess the relationship between religion and economy. Mobilising solidarity, belief and hope is the task of religion more than political science.

This article examines Big Bird (1965) by Frank Bowling in the context of its first-prize victory in the category of painting at the exhibition Tendances et Confrontations. This juried display of contemporary work by African-descended artists appeared at the 1966 Premier Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres, a celebration of Black creativity held in Dakar in the name of Senegalese President Leopold Sedar Senghor’s theory of negritude. I argue that the context of Tendances et Confrontations granted Big Bird a site-specific capacity to critique the social, racial and intellectual connotations accompanying representational and non-representational art, respectively.

This article’s contributions are twofold. First, it intervenes in prior literature examining works created during Bowling’s time in London, which have primarily been understood with reference to the artist’s biography. This essay argues, however, that by strategically deploying visual tropes associated with well-known American abstractionists, Big Bird and other works that Bowling created in the mid-1960s engage in critical appropriation and institutional critique.

This article also contributes to discussions linking negritude theory to the visual arts. Whereas prior literature has worked to identify the visual transposition of negritude theory through iconographical and stylistic analysis, this article suggests that a more substantive relationship between negritude theory and the arts can be accessed by examining artistic operations, such as strategic appropriation and recontextualization.

Apresentação no Seminário do Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (CEA/UEM), Maputo

"Esse trabalho retoma a discussão do conceito de "negritude". Trata-se de um longo debate no pensamento africano, e mais que tudo na diáspora negra onde efetivamente o conceito se originou. Se essa corrente foi incontornável em meados do século XX para a construção de identidades negras e projetos descolonizadores e emancipatórios, ela foi perdendo espaço na medida em que sofria críticas crescentemente mais acerbas."

Worker self-management has proliferated at key historical moments, worldwide, since 1917. In the wake of decolonization and the national liberation movements of the mid-20th century, unprecedented levels were attained across the globe. By examining the major cases of worker self-management that began in 1952–1979 in the periphery and semi-periphery, I highlight the varied historical trajectories leading up to state suppression or absorption of worker self-managed firms. Management literature predicts that all states would respond more favourably to profitable rather than less profitable enterprises; Marxist approaches predict that socialist states would be more likely than capitalist states to favour workers' control, and world-systems analysts would expect states in the semi-periphery to be more hospitable than states in the periphery to worker self-management. I show that none of these theoretical predictions are empirically sustained. Instead, I employ an inductive historical analysis and find that states are equally likely to terminate profitable and unprofitable enterprises, whether in socialist or capitalist states, and in periphery or semi-periphery. To explain this phenomenon, I propose an alternative theory – focused on social unrest and the balance of class forces – for states in the Third World having by and large called a halt to the experiment of worker self-management.

1) À partir d’un double terrain, situé dans un même espace géographique – la ville de Bruxelles – mais s’intéressant à des espaces sociaux différents, cet article met en lumière la diversité des réponses collectives apportées par la « diaspora africaine » de Belgique à la situation d’impuissance relative à laquelle elle doit globalement faire face. Les auteures décrivent et analysent d’une part, des associations dites « panafricaines » nées avec l’ambition de représenter politiquement les intérêts de cette « diaspora » et, d’autre part, des regroupements qualifiés de « bandes urbaines » qui investissent l’espace public d’une tout autre manière. En usant de la reconnaissance comme d’un concept interprétatif, les auteures montrent dans quelle mesure les répertoires d’action et les formes discursives empruntées par ces deux types de collectifs issus de l’immigration subsaharienne se rejoignent et tranchent les uns par rapport les autres.


2) This paper, based upon two fieldworks that both took place in Brussels but that explored different social spheres of the city, sheds light on the various ways the Belgian 'African diaspora' collectively faces its relative powerlessness. On the one hand, the authors describe and analyse self-called 'pan-African' associations aiming at politically advocating in favour of the interests of the 'diaspora.' On the other hand, they analyse groups that are often called 'urban gangs' and that enter the public sphere in a very different way. Using recognition as an interpretive concept in a comparative perspective, the authors show the degrees of convergence and divergence of the various repertoires of action and discursive forms used by those different kinds of groups of Sub-Saharan African origin.


3) Basándose en dos campos de investigación situados en un mismo espacio geográfico – la ciudad de Bruselas – pero interesándose en ámbitos sociales distintos, este artículo pone en evidencia la diversidad de las respuestas colectivas dadas por la “diáspora africana” de Bélgica frente a su impotencia relativa a la cual debe, globalmente, hacer frente. Por una parte, las autoras describen y analizan asociaciones “panafricanas” que se dedican a la defensa política de los intereses  de la “diáspora”; por otra parte, analizan grupos designados generalmente como “bandas urbanas” que ocupan el espacio público diferentemente. Utilizando al reconocimiento como concepto interpretativo, las autoras muestran las convergencias y divergencias de los repertorios de acción y de las formas discursivas usados por ambos grupos.

Independent Tanzania became a prominent frontline state in the struggle against white minority regimes in the early 1960s and remained committed to the total liberation of Africa until South African repatriations in the early 1990s. For three decades the country was a hub of Pan-Africanism and saw an extraordinarily high involvement of Tanzanians in supporting the southern African liberation movements in ways that went beyond TANU/CCM’s primary directions. While some research has been done on the daily interactions, relationships and tensions in the ANC/MK and SWAPO settlements and military training camps as well as in the nearby towns and villages that hosted them, this article shifts the focus from the camps and their surroundings to the forging of solidarity and transnational connections in urban leisure spaces, particularly the music scene. It seeks to bring to light both the enduring and fleeting intimate relations and everyday forms of conviviality between South Africans and Tanzanians which were produced in Dar es Salaam’s nightclubs. The central argument is that artistic collaborations with South Africans outside the camps not only amplified and solidified Tanzanians’ ability to transcend the idea of the national, but were key to the shaping of a specific form of grassroots pan-Africanism that I will call ‘convivial transnational solidarity’. The latter is intended as a practice rather than as an ideology. As I will show, the urban soundscape was central to its emergence. The article first charts how national politics – a key aspect of which was the duty to embrace transnational solidarity – extended into the lower echelons of Tanzanian society through the airwaves, the press and liberation songs. Following the trajectory of the Tanzanian band Afro-70 and its leader Patrick Balidisya, it then examines the everyday acts of welcoming that unfolded in Dar es Salaam’s music scene during the brief historical juncture between 1969 and 1977, which coincided with ujamaa and with Afro-70’s rise and demise. The last part of the article problematises the process of total liberation and the idea of transnational solidarity by exposing their fragility.