Pamela Ankunda
Pan-Africanism is a way of life that is based on the belief that African people share common bonds and objectives, which calls for greater unity to achieve these targets.
However, the Black race is largely misconstrued as a race of shame, of poverty, of no ideology or vision, forming the false assumption of the notion of “third world.”
This mentality spreads into the falsehood about Pan Africanism as well. Now, before I started attending the Friday gatherings at the Pan African Movement office in Kamwokya, I had shamelessly never really gotten the pulse of Pan Africanism. Every Friday, people come together to discuss topical issues concerning Africa regardless of party affiliation.
Pan Africanism is an everyday calling, and therefore, the call for a greater East Africa and African Union is not new. The issue of climate change has been here for a while, and it is best summed up in the award winning documentary of the 2007 Nobel Prize winner; Al Gore, the former Vice President of the United States.
While there was a call in the papers for Members of Parliament to go watch Al Gore’s Award winning documentary an Inconvenient Truth, there we were, already watching it at PAM. What then has Pan African Movement got to do with the climate? If we love Africa as much as we want to believe, then there is no better way to treat Africa as a True Pan Africanist would; practicallydoing what’s best for Africa in dealing with all issues even yes; the environment.
I have discovered that Pan Africanism is celebrated more than Black history. For the documentary to show at the Pan African Movement, meant that we need Pan Africanism in dealing with floods, insurgency in northern Uganda, Chogm, issues of health, wealth distribution, disasters and HIV/Aids, and even the environment. Pan Africanism believes in what is right for Africa, through bravery and that is the way to go.
That means, that people who swindle from one African brother to fulfill their individual needs in whatever sector-political, economic and social are betraying the cause of Pan Africanism.
On the journey to Pan Africanism, I nothing takes the central part of our lives and our humanity like celebrating the cause to realise Africa’s potential. Africa has so much dignity lying underneath the greed and instability. We just have to shake those off.
Kwame Nkrumah said “until the whole of Africa is free, independent and united, there will be no lasting peace in the world...” and again, that “Africa is on the march, there is no turning back.”
He didn’t lie, only that we have been on the march much too long with the endless wars and poverty and diseases, to which scholars and celebrated lawyers and assuming staticians, civil societies and political hungry leaders blame those in power-always without taking stock of their own contribution to developing Africa!
pankunda@gmail.com
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3 comments:
I am writing about your blog, our world in the 21st century. I have been worried over the direction and the future of Panafricanism in the 21st. everybody seems to be very sure of their position when it comes to the issue of Panafricanism.
But what worried me is that, the world has changed and continues to change since the birth of the movement, leading into the era of Marcus Garvey to that of Nkrumah.
My concern is that Africans and the Africa leaders both in the continent and in the diasporas need to realize that to achieve the greater objective of Panfricanism, We will need to change our strategy in realizing the common good and unity that we all dearly aspires.
This is so because, the ideology of Marcus Garvey was rooted in that time, and that if Nkrumah was also related to the time and circumstances of the Environment.
The present day challenges and Environment faced by the black nation of the world is in a different dimension, when compared to that of Garvey and Nkrumah.
That now gives way to the question of, what is the way forward in the 21st century Panafricanism.
Comment by,
Ovwighose Anthony
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