Pan Africanism Essay

tear apart-africanism has a dual character it is at the alike time (i) an international political driveway and (ii) a socio-political world-view, a philosophical and heathenish umbrella concept, which seeks to correct the historical and heathenishal outrage that Europe has perpetrated on the continent during the past several centuries.An international per diversityanceAs an international style, the depot denotes the progressive elements in Africa that have as their reciprocal goal the single of all Africans and the body waste of colonialism and white supremacy from the continent.The First Pan-African intercourse was held in London in 1900, and was followed by otherwises in Paris in 1919, in London and Brussels (1921), London and capital of Portugal (1923), and in New York City in 1927. These conventions were organized chiefly by W. E. B. Du Bois1 and attended by the North the Statesn and western hemisphere Indian black intelligentsia. These, however, did not propose i mmediate African independence, rather, they favored deliberate self-government and interracialism.In 1944, several African organizations in London joined to form the Pan-African Federation, which for the first time demanded African familiarity and independence. The Sixth Pan-African Congress was convened  in Manchester, England,  in 1945,  to which came future political leaders of Africa much(prenominal) as Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Kwame Nkrumah of the Gold Coast, S. L. Akintola of Nigeria, and Wallace Johnson of Sierra Le angiotensin-converting enzyme.  At the Manchester congress, Nkrumah founded the western get together States African National secretariate to conjure up a so-cal conduct unify States of Africa.Pan-africanism can in addition be considered as an intergovernmental relocation which was launched in 1958 with the First crowd of Independent African States in Accra, gold coast. Ghana and Liberia were the only sub-Saharan countries represented the relaxation method were Arab and Muslim.Thereafter, as independence was achieved by to a greater extent African states, other interpretations of Pan-Africanism emerged, including the marriage ceremony of African States (1960), the African States of the Casablanca Charter (1961), the African and Malagasy pith (1961), the Organization of Inter-African and Malagasy States (1962), and the African-Malagasy-Mauritius Common Organization (1964).In 1963 the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was founded to promote unity and cooperation among all African states and to pack an end to colonialism and by 1995, it had 53 members. The OAU struggled with smother disputes, aggression or subversion against one member by another, separatist front ends, and the prostration of order in member states. sensation of its longest commitments and greatest victories was the end of apartheid and the governing body of majority rule in southern Africa. Efforts to promote even greater African economic, s ocial, and political integration led to the mental institution in 2001 of the African Union (AU), a successor organization to the OAU modeled on the European Union. The AU richly superseded the OAU in 2002, after a transitional period.A socio-political world-viewPan-Africanism is also a sociopolitical world-view, which seeks to unify and peck both native Africans and those of the African Diaspora, as part of a global African community.As originally conceived by Henry Sylvester Williams of Trinidad, pan-Africanism referred to the unity of all Continental lightlessness African grows and countries. The concept before long spread out, however, to let in all obtuse African-descended volume worldwide, who had been dispersed to the united States of America, the Caribbean, Latin America and even parts of the Middle eastern and southwest fightd Asia through the trans-Atlantic and Islamic/ eastward African slave trades and, later, immigration.More recently, the term has expanded t o encompass the Dravidian Blacks of India, including the Tamil, Siddi, Kamil, Kanikar and others the Andamanese Island Negritos and the Black native Australian populations of Australia, New Guinea and Melanesia. Pan-Africanism as a movement actually began in the West Indies, not Africa. Williams coined the term at the 1900 Pan-African Congress. To date, the Afro-Jamaican Marcus Garvey2 has led the largest pan-African movement in world account statement with his UNIA-ACL organization that he founded in Kingston, Jamaica in 1912, and Garveyism quickly spread in the United States when he moved his headquarters to Harlem in 1914.Pan-Africanism in essence means the unity of all Black African descended slew worldwide irrespective of ethnicity/culture or nationality. The Rastafarian movement of Jamaica grew out of pan-Africanism, when Marcus Garvey declared look to Africa for the crowning of a Black king the Rastas looked to Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. (Ironically, Garvey criticized Selassie on many another(prenominal) issues). Also a branch of the pan-African movement is the Afro-centric movement, of whom Cheikh Anta Diop and his idealogical son Molefi Kete Asante are the champions. This movement centers on reexaming African biography from a pro-African opinion as opposed to the a pro-European one, a return to traditional African concepts and culture and often espouses the view that Egypt and some other civilizations were and should be acknowledged as having Black African origin. Also associated with pan-Africanism is Black Nationalism.During apartheid in sec Africa there was a Pan Africanist Congress that dealt with the oppression of Black South Africans under White apartheid rule. Other pan-Africanist organizations include Garveys Universal Negro return Association-African CommunitiesPan-Africanism is often criticized for overlooking the cultural and ethnic differences as well as opposite socio-political circumstances.Role of Pan-africanism in the modern history of AfricaThe role that pan African movement has played in minimizing inter-governmental conflicts and civil war- like situations in some African countries has been very significant. The restriction of the page rig for the essay does not permit me to go into the details of these conflicts. However, the pivotal role that the movement played in the proposals to reform the United Nations Organization deserves much than a passing(prenominal) mention.The campaign for the proposed reforms of the United Nations certificate Council (UNSC), dapple producing fireworks around the world, has also opened up old historical wounds and heightened regional rivalries in Africa.The hottest rivalries have been in Asia, particularly among India and Pakistan, and between Japan, South Korea and China, but Africa has also exhibited some kind of divisions along regional and language lines as countries scramble for ageless seats in the gage Council.African countries jockeying for the pe rmanent seats have been South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and Libya. To that list, Senegal has been the latest addition, The African Union (AU) is flummoxed as to which of its member states to endorse, and has yet to establish the criteria to be used for selecting African countries to the reformed Security Council. The entry of Senegal into the race has only change magnitude the dilemma, and is an indication of the AUs indecision. In creating this leadership vacuum, the AU is leaving the natural selection of who will represent Africa on the expanded UN Security Council to be determined by foreign busybodies and regional power struggles.A working group that was appointed in January 2005 during the Abuja Summit of the African Union to make recommendations on the proposed UN reforms presented its report to the impertinent Ministers on March 7, 2005 in Addis Ababa, but was deafeningly silent on the selection criteria for Security Council permanent seats.What the AU stands to gain f rom a reformed Security CouncilAccording to the Ezulwini Consensus, which was choose by the AU Foreign Ministers as Africas common position on UN reform, Africas goal is to be fully represented in all the decision-making organs of the UN, particularly in the Security Council, which is the question decision-making organ of the UN in matters relating to international rest and security.Many observers feel that the UNSC is now more important than ever to Africa, particularly concerning matters of discourse in the conflicts occurring within the region. A consensus as to the criterion of UNSC membership is the least evaluate of the African States. References Kadiatu Kann,   African Identities Race, Nation and finishing in Ethnography, Pan-Africanism and Black Literatures, ROUTLEDGE, LONDON, 1998.Kwame Anthony Appiah,   In My tiros House Africa in the ism of Culture, Oxford University Press, 1992