Onwuchekwa Jemie
1. Which Africa?
For avoidance of doubt and deadly confusions, it is necessary for each Pan-Africanist to specify which Africans, and which Africa, is the constituency of concern. This is very important because the African continent is no longer racially homogeneous. Many millennia ago, before the Ice Age, before raciation in Europe and Asia produced the non-black races, Africa, and indeed the whole world, was populated by blacks only. Even until the era when whites began to infiltrate and settle in Africa, some four thousand years ago, Black Africa was coextensive with Africa, the continent. And “Black Africans” and “Africans” would have been synonymous terms. For that era, it is not necessary to speak of Black Africans, as all Africans were black. But now, when white invaders-Arab and European-with their assorted non-black camp followers from Asia have settled in large chunks of the African continent, it has become important to indicate which Africans, and which Africa, one is committed to.
It is therefore necessary to talk of “Black Africa” or “sub-Sahara Africa” when referring to the territory still remaining in the possession of Black Africans.
Glibly talking of Africans without specifying whether the term is being used for the indigenous blacks or for whoever now lives on the landmass is sloppy, and has been a source of political confusion and potential disaster for the Black Africans.
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Some Pan-Africanists object to the use of the term Black Africa. Some do so claiming that imperialists have imposed terms like “Black Africa” and “sub-Saharan Africa” to drive a wedge between the Black Africans to the south and their Arab African “brothers” to the north.
Of course that is just nonsense. There are no Arab Africans, only Arab invaders of Africa. The deep racial and cultural and political divide between the Arab settler colonizers now in North Africa, and the indigenous Black Africans is no fiction, no invention of the imperialists. It is a deluded continentalist doctrine that prevents some from recognizing that long-standing fact of life. It is our duty to ourselves to recognize it. We gloss over it to our peril, like a fool who insists that a python has become his brother by taking over part of his family compound.
Some others object to the terms “Black Africa” and “sub-Saharan Africa” on the ground that, by so restricting our designation, we concede to the Arab invaders the northern part of our continent. They say the entire continent is ours and we must keep the designation to remind us of our duty to recover the enemy-expropriated lands.
That is a fine sentiment, but premature, since we are still losing land to the Arabs. The job we should undertake now is to stop any further Arab expropriation of our lands. When we stop losing more land to the Arab expansionists, and have recovered our entire continent, that would be time enough to drop the term Black Africa. For, by then, all of Africa would once again be co-extensive with Black Africa, making the qualifier superfluous. Until then, let the qualifier keep reminding us that we have a duty to recover the parts of our land seized by Arab and European invaders.
BLACK AFRICA
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2. Pan Africanism of the late 20th Century: Negritude, African Personality, Cultural Unity
AFRISCOPE: Kwame Nkrumah had opposed his concept of ‘African Personality’ to the concept of ‘Negritude.’ Are both concepts antithetical or do they converge anywhere?
DIOP: They converge in the sense that both deal in generalities! We must get down to the facts, to the objective apprehendable realities
–Great African Thinkers, p. 270
Comment: Yes, Diop is right. We must get down to the realities, especially to the power realities. As far as the fundamental reality of Black Powerlessness is concerned, the Negritude and African Personality schools (as well as Diop’s cultural unity school) are all alike in evading the crucial question of Black Power. Pan-Africanists of the Negritude and African Personality schools are wont to complain about things like skin bleaching and hair straightening; about those who are addicted to European or Arab attire; about those who are addicted to Arab or European religions, languages or cultures in general. Unfortunately, they fail to notice that these anti-African manifestations are only the cultural symptoms of African powerlessness, symptoms of centuries of Black powerlessness; symptoms that can only go away after we have created enough Black Power to restore prestige to things African.
Cultural Pan-Africanism is fine, but it isn’t the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is Black Power. If you are incensed by disrespect shown to Blacks in their own country by Lebanese, Indians or Europeans, the remedy is not to be found in trumpeting the glories or the unity of African culture but in building Black Power. The Lebanese, or Indian or European, who is a business front for the local Black President, has no reason to respect his black customers. He knows he cannot be sanctioned by anyone for treating his customers or employees like scum. He knows the President is under his economic thumb, and therefore he can, with impunity, behave as disrespectfully to blacks as he likes.
Pan-Africanism today is about building a black superpower in Africa or it is about nothing. Any project that cannot be justified by its contribution to building this black superpower is not worth investing a moment in. Herein lies the gross inadequacy of the various strands of late 20th century Pan-Africanism-be it the Negritude of Senghor, the African Personality of Nkrumah, the Cultural Unity doctrine of Diop, or the continental union project of the OAU/AU. None addresses the vital question of building Black Power.
3. The problem of names-Negro, African, etc.
We, the indigenous black population of the African continent, are a people without a name. We have been plagued by names bestowed by our enemies: to every one of these names, some of us do object, and with good reasons. We, or our homelands have, among other names, been called Negro/Black, Sudan, Zanj, Africa/African, Moor. The name “African”, though not objected to hitherto, has caused a lot of confusion, given the fact that it derives from the name of a continent some parts of which are now occupied by non-indigenous enemies of the indigenes, and some of these non-indigenes are even insisting that they too are Africans.
‘Negro’ and ‘Black’, terms which allude to the black skin-color of the indigenes, have a whole load of problems of their own. Strictly speaking, all black-skinned people, whether indigenous to Africa or elsewhere (like India, Australia, Papua New Guinea, or the Pacific Islands) qualify to be called Negro.
Let us now operationally define who we are. First, let’s agree on the criteria for membership, for deciding those that belong in our group, and then we can choose a name-tag for our group.
What historical experiences apply to us and uniquely to us?
First, our ancestors were indigenous to the continent called Africa and never
voluntarily migrated out after the Ice Age.
Second: In the last 2000 years, we were targeted for enslavement, on the basis of our black skin color, by whites from West Eurasia-i.e. Arabs, Europeans, Persians, etc.
Anybody today who has an ancestor for whom these two criteria both hold, belongs to the group we are seeking to name.
If the aforesaid population, the indigenous peoples of the African continent, had given themselves a collective name some 2000 years ago, all these problems of defining ourselves wouldn’t have arisen. But, alas, they didn’t. It now falls on us to do just that.
Let’s suppose they’d called their land Zubanda, and themselves Zubandans. We today would be calling our homelands Zubanda, and ourselves Zubandans. And we would be advocating Pan-Zubandism, and a Zubanda League from which Arabs and Europeans in Africa would exclude themselves and be automatically excluded.
Now, before white settlers from Europe, Arabia, Persia, etc. came to Africa, Zubanda was co-extensive with Africa. But that is no longer the case. Today, Zubanda would, at most, be equivalent to sub-Sahara Africa.
Just as Indians are a people within Asia; and Gujeratis, Bengalis, Tamils, etc. are linguistic subgroups of Indians; and just as Chinese are a people within Asia, and the Cantonese, Hunanese, etc. are subgroups of the Chinese; so too would Zubandans be a people within Africa; and the Zulu, Amhara, Hausa, Igbo, Wolof, etc. would be subgroups of Zubandans. And neither the Boers nor the Arabs in Africa would count as Zubandans.
Maybe we should seriously consider finding and adopting a name for ourselves from an indigenous African language.
