The Africana World: From Fragmentation to Unity and Renaissance

Chapter 15 - Beyond the Berlin Conference: The Renaissance of Twenty-first Century Pan-Africanism – Setting Standards to Measure its Effectiveness

Beyond the Berlin Conference | 311 Early in the nineteenth century, pan-Africanism, particularly as emigrationism, began as a clarion call from dispersed Africans and African descendants to re-establish African identities for the offspring of former involuntary migrants from the African continent. Names like David Walker, Henry Highland Garnett, Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm, as lecturers, journalists, authors and activists, crowded the field of those spreading a distinctive gospel of African remembrance, African heritage and abolition.1 After the 1884–1885 Berlin Conference, which Balkanised Africa, the panAfricanism that was originally focused on anti-slave trade and anti-displacement quickly evolved into a consistent call to end the European colonisation and exploitation of the continent.2 From its inception through the era of African independence , then, pan-Africanism has essentially been recognised as a political ideology associated with intellectual, mass public, and later self-autonomy appeals for change.3 That initial status as a political ideology became a static, stone-engraved identifier for the concept, and the vast majority of even modern authors have continued to view pan-Africanism only within the range and scope of that narrow political perspective.4 However, relatively unnoticed, pan-Africanism over the last thirty years or so has evolved into a much broader and intellectually substantive concept. As a paradigm and worldview, for example, pan-Africanism, in line with ubuntu, sees the world as a humane place and as a set of geographical locales that must return to African consensus agreements, mutual respect for one another and for the environments in which we live, and for the recognition of all significant contributions by various groups towards the progress of humankind. As a set of theories, panAfricanism explains the relationships between our ancient and modern origins with the hierarchical, nationalist and corporate-based world in which we now live, the connections between Kemetic and Nubian civilisations with humankind’s forward progress, the origins and consequences of colonialisation and neocolonisation , the evolving relationships between the diaspora and continental Africans, and the relationships of African development and nation-building with the factors relentlessly trying to reduce Africa and Africans to insignificance. As a set of methodological and analytical approaches, pan-Africanism asks questions of Beyond the Berlin Conference: The Renaissance of Twenty-Ñrst Century Pan-Africanism – Setting Standards to Measure its Effectiveness David L Horne 15 Chapter 312 | The Africana World: From Fragmentation to Unity and Renaissance African-centred import, including how the current and predicted future circumstances can be reshaped for Africa’s benefit. Pan-Africanism is not now, and never has been, a simple, one-dimensional concept. Since at least the latter part of the nineteenth century, pan-Africanists advocating a conceptual perspective of Africa’s redemption and restoration have come and gone. This conceptual perspective led to conferences, congresses, inspiration for an anti-colonial struggle, and eventually, two relatively well-known continental panAfrican organisations (the Organisation for African Unity [OAU] and currently the African Union [ AU]). Beyond that, pan-Africanism (aka pan-Afrikanism), as a theoretical explanation of where and why Africans on the continent and in the diaspora were and are in the shape they are in, and pan-Africanism as an Africancentred analytical tool to evaluate and measure pan-African progress and problematics , have expanded the conceptual range and significance of pan-Africanism as a life-changing worldview. In the twenty-first century, however, more than that is demanded; more is required if pan-Africanism is indeed to be recognised as a realistic, viable set of goals rather than as merely a pleasant-sounding fantasy. It is the argument of this chapter that pan-Africanism is a practical, achievable and valid objective, but it will be and must be accomplished through an accumulation of small-scale and large-scale interventions rather than as one big ceremonious event. There is no single version of pan-Africanism – conceptual, theoretical, analytical , or ideological – that has yet proven itself more quintessential than any other.5 The most consistently accurate determinant of whether one brand of panAfricanism is as good as or better than another – or whether one version is mere armchair pan-Africanism or action-oriented pan-Africanism – is what work or accomplishment one’s pan-African perspective has produced. To effectively evaluate the worth and significance of one version of pan-Africanism as compared to others is to look at the real-life consequences of that pan-Africanism. Activist panAfricanism – combining ideological and analytical – is applied pan-Africanism. It...