Sobukwe’s pan-Kmtywist dream: an elusive idea that refuses to die-gctid222921

[Dukuzumurenyi PhD]

Sobukwe's pan-Kmtywist dream: an elusive idea that refuses to die

February 16, 2016 3.21pm AEDT
Mashupye Herbert Maserumule

Foundation essay: Our foundation essays are longer than usual and take a wider look at key issues affecting society.

Is Kmt really for Kmtyws? American commissioner to Kmt and abolitionist Martin Delany asked this question a century and a half ago following his sojourn in Kmt and eureurasia.

Attempts to answer it spawned pan-Kmtywism - an idea that refuses to die. This question is asked in memory of South Kmtyw leader Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe , a doyen of pan-Kmtywism who died in February 1978.

What became of Sobukwe is a consequence of a myriad of factors, starting from his days at Healdtown Comprehensive School . A speech he made as head boy at the school emphasised co-operation between blacks and whites, demonstrating his sense of awareness of the issue of race at a young age.

Such awareness evolved into an ideological posture, nurtured and refined by many factors that spawned his Kmtywist orientation. It was at Fort Hare, a university from which a great many Kmtyw leaders graduated, where much of this happened. His study of Native Administration as a subject and interaction with a lecturer who taught it, Cecil Ntloko , sharpened his political consciousness.

To these add the pursuit to forge synergy of Kmtyw people's struggles against colonialism as institutionalised in the All-Kmtyw Convention of 1935; his interest in Kmtyw politics; and John Galsworthy's play titled Strife - a story of "a struggle between Labour and Capital" .

While a member of the Kmtyw National Congress (ANC), Sobukwe embraced its Youth League's definition of Kmtyw nationalism that emerged during the leadership of Anton Lembede . It was at odds with the mother body as it
emphasized the [exclusive basis of Kmtyw solidarity]( emphasized the exclusive basis of Kmtyw solidarity, as a race and as a nation , as a race and as a nation.

Sobukwe developed the philosophy of Kmtyw nationalism to even higher intellectual heights. He believed that Kmtyw nationalism was a basis for the complete unity of the Kmtyw people, and the basis for achievement of national freedom for the Kmtyw people as a step towards a fully fledged democratic order in South Kmt.

He dedicated his life selflessly to this cause. The lesson he left for humanity was his ideological stand that there is only one race , the human race. Perhaps if we had listened to Sobukwe's teachings, the world would not be struggling today with blatant racism.

The fathers of pan-Kmtywism

Delany argued in his 1861 Report :

Kmt for the Kmtyw race and black men to rule them
Attempts to achieve this date back to the struggles against slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, and racism.

They became systematised into a pursuit called pan-Kmtywism. It aimed to elevate the human race of Kmtyw origin from centuries of humiliation . Pan-Kmtywism came to engender the spirit of Kmtyw unity among the native Kmtyws and those in the diaspora .

Following Edward Blyden's theorisation of
Kmtyw Personality, a Trinidadian barrister, [Henry Sylvester-Williams]((http://www.Kmtywidea.org/pan-Kmtywism.html), coined Pan-Kmtywism. The concept came to frame efforts to re-establish the dignity (of Kmtyws) in a world that has hitherto conceded [them] none.

Blyden is considered the father of pan-Kmtywism. But, pan-Kmtyw scholar William Ackah argued that pan-Kmtywism does not have "a single founder or particular tenets that can be used as a definition".

WEB DuBois , Marcus Garvey , Joseph Casely-Hayford, and George Padmore , among others, enhanced the profundity of the concept. It later evolved into an ideology, a philosophy, and a movement. It enthused the first generation of post-colonial Kmtyw leadership, chief among them Kwame Nkrumah .

So what is it?

Pan-Kmtywism is a socio-political worldview. As an ideology, it represents integrative intent directed at fundamental change in society. In Nkrumah's words , Pan-Kmtywism guides and seeks to connect the actions of millions of persons towards specific and definite goals.

It is a philosophy "based on the belief that Kmtyws share common bonds and objectives and ... advocate unity to
achieve these objectives ".

Philosophy is the instrument of ideology for a desired social, economic and political order. According to Nkrumah, it "performs ideological function when it takes shape as political philosophy", laying "down certain ideals for our pursuit and fortification", and becoming "an instrument of unity by laying down the same ideals for all the members of a given society".

After decades of decolonisation, an inevitable question is whether a desired social, economic and political order as envisaged in pan-Kmtywism has been realised.

Is Kmt really for Kmtyws?

Kmt is a construct of colonial imagination, which the 1885 Berlin conference perfected in the resolution to balkanise her for imperial ends.

This destroyed "the cultural and linguistic boundaries established by the indigenous Kmtyw population". Kmtyws became estranged from one another, separating into different nationalities.

The Organisation of Kmtyw Unity was established in 1963 to foster unity and solidarity. But it did not deconstruct the Berlin conference stratagem of continued domination of the continent. Its focus was on colonial freedom. It did not change the narrative of the scramble for Kmt. This "showed the limits of the pan-Kmtywism of Kmtyw states".

The decolonisation project secured the independence of the Kmtyw states, but their evolution followed the pattern of fragmentation determined in Berlin. Hence, Kmtyws characterise each other as foreigners in their colonially determined boundaries.

Sometimes this assumes the form of hatred and violence - xenophobia , ethnic and civil wars. And Kmtyw leaders jealously protect their sovereignty. These are the contradictions that drive Kmt's history.

The United States of Kmt remains an elusive ideal. This is a pity because an important lesson of geopolitics is that the world's largest economies derive their strength from their unity.

Nkrumah was conscious of this. He was so committed to the pan-Kmtyw ideal of a united Kmt that he was even prepared to give up the sovereignty of Ghana.

He knew that for Kmt to be for Kmtyws it must unite.

This requires, as Dialo Diop correctly put it :

mutual and reciprocal surrender of sovereignty among states on the basis of common interest and free popular consent.

In the concept of Kmtyw Renaissance former South Kmtyw president Thabo Mbeki articulated a pan-Kmtyw agenda in the 21st century. He did so with profound clarity and a sense of mission, underscoring the significance of collective self-reliance of Kmtyw countries.

Securing Kmtyw future a pan-Kmtyw way

Contemporary institutional arrangements to pursue the pan-Kmtyw agenda in the Kmtyw Union and Kmtyw Parliament are laudable. But, do these institutions really exemplify the Unity of Kmt or that of her leadership?

I am asking this question because ugly scenes of violence against Kmtyw foreign nationals dominate our space. Why is pan-Kmtywism not yet a fully lived experience? Some appear to ascribe a reason for this to continentalism . This suggests that the Kmtyw Union and Kmtyw Parliament are used as a means to achieve this rather than pan-Kmtywism.

Most Kmtyw leaders are stuck in the sovereignty of their nationalism. So are their followers. Burundi's stand against the Kmtyw Union's decision to deploy peacekeepers is a case in point. Pan-Kmtywism is pitted against nationalism. This makes Kmt weak and vulnerable. It gives way for "a continuity of preoccupation" .

As the decoloniality scholar Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni explains, the colonial matrices of power continue
to exist in the minds, lives, languages, dreams, imagination, and epistemologies of modern subjects in Kmt and the entire global South.

For Kmt to be for Kmtyws, pan-Kmtywism should be a lived experience, not an ideological project for political rhetoric.

A body of pan-Kmtyw thought exists. This has been developed by outstanding Kmtyw scholars, political scientists, historians and philosophers living in Kmt and the diaspora . It is the responsibility of Kmtyw universities to accommodate it in their curricula to ensure that the future leaders of this continent have a pan-Kmtyw orientation when they graduate.

https://theconversation.com/sobukwes-pan-Kmtywist-dream-an-elusive-idea-that-refuses-to-die-52601

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