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Unscrambling Africa’s Future | 289 We believe in the rights of all peoples to govern themselves. We afÐrm the right of all colonial peoples to control their own destiny. All colonies must be free from foreign imperialist control, whether political or economic. The peoples of the colonies must have the right to elect their own government, a government without restrictions from a foreign power ... The object of the imperialist powers is to exploit. By granting the right to the colonial peoples to govern themselves they are defeating that objective. Therefore, the struggle for political power by colonial and subject peoples is the Ðrst step towards, and the necessary prerequisite to complete social, economic and political emancipation. – Kwame Nkrumah1 Africa – this vast continent of diversity – rises from a history of relating to ‘power’ in many different ways. Several constellations of words can be construed to define its many affiliations to the concept of power. Power-ful. Over-powered. Empowered. Power-struck. Disempowered. Power-less. And, to many, it is this last word, powerless , that seems to resonate most prevalently. Powerlessness in confronting challenges such as Africa’s positioning within the world economy and international politics, food distribution, peacekeeping, governance, resource management and health policies. Nkrumah’s statement, quoted as an opening to this chapter, awakens the sentiments of both hope and impatience in anticipation of Africa’s freedom. However, the message rings with a clearly ironic tone against the backdrop of present-day reality, many years after Nkrumah’s dream is said to have been accomplished. Was it really accomplished? Which power has the ‘colonial and subject peoples’ inherited, taken over or won? Africa has been dismissed as a continent void of power. And, too often, this assertion is made without interrogating its truth, or investigating how it could be that Africa, once associated with great civilisations, has been so firmly engraved in the human psyche as a peripheral continent. Peripheral, but obviously not insignificant , if the relentless efforts of rich nations to ‘get a piece’ of Africa is anything to go by. For, ‘getting a piece’ of Africa has been, and continues to be, the dominating factor in many African countries’ interactions with the rest of the world. Africa is one of the richest geographical areas in the world, abundant with minerals , flora and natural resources. Resources that, even by narrow definitions, should Unscrambling Africa’s Future: The Role of African Youth in Pan-African Empowerment Baba A Buntu 14 Chapter 290 | The Africana World: From Fragmentation to Unity and Renaissance constitute a foundation for a superpower. So, why is Africa not a superpower? And, moreover, why is Africa seen by many as nowhere close to becoming one? This chapter seeks to demonstrate and discuss some of the many root causes behind African powerlessness and will make some observations – and outline some recommendations – as to what empowerment processes should involve. Committed to a practical future orientation, we will see African youth as instrumental in this process, which we shall call unscrambling. The analysis will be broad and, when outlining some solutions, go from the general to the specific. While cognisant of the need to look critically at governance, nationhood and international policymaking , as fundamental aspects of power, our focus here, rather, will be on how issues of power can be invoked in African communities, both on the continent and in the Diaspora. 14.1 Contextualising History: The Race to DeÑne Africa The Scramble for Africa mostly refers to the process surrounding the Berlin Conference in 1884/85 where a handful of European nations divided Africa into colonial pieces. Although the Berlin Conference is often talked about as the beginning of the scramble for Africa, it was, in fact, the culmination of a scramble that started much earlier. Or, one should perhaps rather say, scrambles in the plural. Many foreign nations had, over the years, sought to seize ownership, governance and control over Africa’s resources and land. The Berlin Conference differed from other attempts to control Africa in that it divided the entire continent into smaller or larger states and assigned power over specific territories. These state borders have, to a large extent, remained unchanged in today’s map of Africa. The conference gave Europe control over most of Africa, including its hinterland. However, it could also be argued that the Berlin Conference marked the start of anti-colonial wars that would eventually lead to African independence some 80 years later. In...

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