Onwuchekwa Jemie
Several African leaders of the “independence” generation advocated or implemented what they called socialism. Prof. Prah reports that, “By the mid-1960s, practically all African heads of state, with the exception of Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Leon Mba of Gabon and V.S. Tubman of Liberia had at one time or the other espoused African socialism. Consistently, such ideologues have put a distance between what they variously defined as African socialism, and 20th century Marxian socialist formulae, with the emphasis on class struggle. Tom Mboya anchored his definition of African socialism on the pre-industrial communitarian ethos of Africa. . . . In Tanzania under Julius Nyerere, populist socialism was described as Ujamaa socialism.” [African Nation, pp. 80, 81]
The “African socialism” of many of these leaders was a prestigious misnomer for African communalism. Here is Tom Mboya’s exposition of it; his is quite representative of expositions by Nyerere, Kaunda, Senghor, Mamadou Dia, etc.
“In Africa the belief that ‘we are all sons and daughters of the soil’ has always exercised tremendous influence on our social, economic and political relationships. From this belief springs the logic and the practice of equality, and the acceptance of communal ownership of the vital means of life-the land. The hoe is to us the symbol of work. Every able-bodied man and woman, girl and boy, has always worked. Laziness has not been tolerated, and appropriate social sanctions have developed against it. There has been equality of opportunity, for everyone had land-or rather, the use of land-and a hoe at the start of life. The acquisitive instinct, which is largely responsible for the vicious excesses and exploitation under the capitalist system, was tempered by a sense of togetherness and a rejection of graft and meanness. There was loyalty to the society, and the society gave its members much in return: a sense of security and universal hospitality.
“These are the values for which, in my view, African Socialism stands. The ideals and attitudes which nourish it are indigenous, and are easily learnt, for they have been expressed for generations in the language of the soil which our people understand, and not in foreign slogans.
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“All African leaders who have written on this subject are agreed on these points. President Nyerere has said: ‘My fellow countrymen can understand Socialism only as co-operation.’ And President Senghor of Senegal, speaking at the Dakar conference in December 1962, on the ‘African roads to Socialism’, said: ‘Socialism is the merciless fight against social dishonesties and injustices; fraudulent conversion of public funds, rackets and bribes…’
“I have, I hope, given some idea already of the reason why Africans call these attitudes ‘African Socialism’, and not just ‘Socialism’. . . . There is a positive desire, arising out of what may start as a negative reaction, that whatever is of value in Africa’s own culture and her own social institutions should be brought out to contribute to the creation of the new African nation.
“I wrote earlier about the task of reconstructing the economy in the days after Independence. In the effort to do this, new values have to be established in place of colonial values and we have to decide what part the traditional African social and cultural structure can play in the country’s economic development. Its main difference from the European structure, which was of course the one officially favoured during the colonial era, is that it is communal by nature. Most African tribes have a communal approach to life. A person is an individual only to the extent that he is a member of a clan, a community or a family. Land was never owned by an individual, but by the people, and could not be disposed of by anybody. Where there were traditional heads, they held land in trust for the community generally. Food grown on the land was regarded as food to feed the hungry among the tribe. Although each family might have its own piece of land on which to cultivate, when there was famine or when someone simply wanted to eat, he merely looked for food and ate it. . . .
‘When money was introduced, the African came to work for wages; but he still maintained contact with his native land as the only source of security to which he could look in old age or in sickness. He was secure in his mind that he could go back to his home and be taken care of by his people. It was a social security scheme, with no written rules, but with a strict pattern to which everyone adhered. If someone did not adhere to the pattern, and did-not take on the obligations inherent in the system, he found that, when he next got into trouble, he received little or no attention.
“He was expected to live harmoniously with others in his community, and to make his contribution to work done in the village. . . .
“The practice of African Socialism involves trying to use what is relevant and good in these African customs to create new values in the changing world of the money economy, to build an economy which reflects the thinking of the great majority of the people. . . . The challenge of African Socialism is to use these traditions to find a way to build a society in which there is a place for everybody, where everybody shares both in poverty and in prosperity, and where emphasis is placed upon production by everyone, with security for all. . . . In his booklet UJAMAA-the basis of African Socialism, Julius Nyerere brings out clearly the essential difference of African from European Socialism. He writes:
“‘The foundation, and the objective, of African Socialism is the Extended Family. The true African Socialist does not look on one class of men as his brethren and another as his natural enemies. He does not form an alliance with the “brethren” for the extermination of the “non-brethren”. He rather regards all men as his brethren-as members of his ever-extending family.
“‘UJAMAA, then, or “Familyhood”, describes our Socialism. It is opposed to Capitalism, which seeks to build a happy society on the basis of the Exploitation of Man by Man. And it is equally opposed to doctrinaire Socialism, which seeks to build its happy society on a philosophy of Inevitable Conflict between Man and Man.'” (Tom Mboya, “African Socialism” in J. Ayo Langley, ed. Ideologies, pp. 508-513).
Nkrumah differed from all the others. Nkrumah, a self-declared Marxist, espoused Marxism, which is also known as “scientific socialism”. He declared “Pan-Africanism and socialism are organically complementary. One cannot be achieved without the other.” [Revolutionary Path, p. 127].
Is that claim true? Nkrumah merely asserted but did not bother to demonstrate this dogma of his. Unfortunately, it is false, as false as his many fallacious claims about what “only a continental union government” could achieve for Africans. It is like his opportunistic and Canute-like nonsense that “if in the past the Sahara divided us, now it unites us.” [p.129]. Marxism (Scientific socialism) has as much organic or historical or cultural connection with Africa as Hinduism, Taoism or Shinto. Marxism in Africa, just like Christianity, is an alien, imperialist import. For either of them to be organically connected to Pan-Africanism, European cultural imperialism would have to be organically connected to Africa, which is not the case.
As Prah pointedly asked: “What is the relevance of ‘scientific socialism’ to the notion of African unity? [African Nation, p. 63] If it has no relevance to the objectives of Pan-Africanism or to African history and culture, how can it be correctly said to be organically complementary to Pan-Africanism? That Nkrumah was both a Pan-Africanist and a Marxist, is only a fortuitous coincidence in his intellectual life. It does not make Pan-Africanism and Marxism organically related in any way.
Furthermore, Ayi Kwei Armah has argued, correctly in my view, that “Marxism, in its approach to non-Western societies and values, is decidedly colonialist, Western, Eurocentric and hegemonist. . . . Marxism, in its approach to the non-Western majority of the world’s peoples, is demonstrably racist – racist in a prejudiced, determined, dishonest and unintelligent fashion. Western racists hold that Western art is art, but African art is primitive art. . . . what makes Western art civilized and modern is that it originates in the West; what makes African art primitive is that it originates in Africa.
“Racism is luxuriously illogical. That is partly why, for Marx and Engels, communism is modern, civilized and serious when it appears in Europe (even if it has only a spectral form).The same communist phenomenon, when it manifests itself in the non-Western world, is dismissed as primitive communism, even though it appears there not as a fuzzy liberal specter but in human form – vigorous, pushing toward birth in societies familiar for ages with communism as a lost tradition and a real hope, often aborted, sometimes fleetingly realized.” (“Masks and Marx”, pp. 41-42).
Since Pan-Africanism is anti-racist, anti-colonialist and anti-Eurocentric, Nkrumah cannot be correct in claiming that Pan-Africanism and a racist, colonialist and Eurocentric Marxism, a.k.a. “scientific socialism”, are organically complementary and that one cannot be achieved without the other.
