African Crossroads: Whither Africa?

by Ikael Tafari - Africa is today at mid-course, in transition from the Africa of yesterday to the Africa of tomorrow. Even as we stand here we move from the past into the future. The task on which we have embarked, the making of Africa, will not wait.

We must act, to shape and mould the future and leave our imprint on events as they pass into history. We seek, at this meeting, to determine whither we are going and to chart the course of our destiny. It is no less important that we know whence we came. An awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our identity as Africans. – Emperor Haile Selassie I, Address to the 1963 African Summit

The laying of a historic foundation on May 25, 1963, with the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) at the summit held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, under the inspired chairmanship of Haile Selassie, provided the platform for a loose, working unity among the 32 African states that were independent at that time.

Moderate and radical regimes could thus for the first time speak with one voice, enabling Africans to rid themselves of the last vestiges of colonial occupation on the soil of the Motherland. Within a decade, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique had joined the community of sovereign African states. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia followed, and finally, by the close of the century, with the fall of the white minority government in apartheid South Africa, the long procession to political independence across an entire continent was complete.

Since then, against the tide of formidable challenges, especially continuing Western economic domination, the leaders of Africa have gradually moved forward, establishing an African Union of 53 nations in July, 2002 – a vital second floor in the edifice of continental power. The African Union (AU) welded member states into a tighter unity, and has sought to embrace black people in the West by identifying the diaspora as the sixth region of Africa. But while much has been achieved, there is still a long way to go towards the creation of a fully unified and economically self-sustaining Africa.

During the first week of July this year, the AU came face to face with its destiny. It was the revolutionary black psychiatrist from Martinique, Frantz Fanon, who wrote that every generation has its mission – to fulfil or betray. But as today’s African leaders met for their Summit of Heads of State and Government in Accra, Ghana – birthplace of the great Pan-Africanist, Kwame Nkrumah, under whom Ghana became the first African country to regain its political independence 50 years ago – what was at stake was not just the fate of the AU, but the very future of Africa and her children everywhere. The sole item on the agenda was a United States of Africa.

No one can deny that full political integration of the continent is imperative if Africa is to escape recolonisation, just as in our Caribbean context, the survival of the region hangs in the balance depending on the outcome of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy and CARICOM’s recently endorsed Commission. In both cases, the growing powerlessness of member states, their marginalisation in global trade and finance, and the depressing fact that so many states in Africa – and a few in the Caribbean – are at the bottom of human development indices, has underlined the crucial need for wider and deeper political and economic integration.

But how many Africans, at home or in the diaspora, are aware of the critical moment in history which is fast overtaking us? How many care? And among those who care, how many are mobilised to influence events?

I once read a poem by the Jamaican novelist, Roger Mais. It was a while back and the memory is no longer fresh. But what I recall is:

All men come to the hills Men from the depths of the plains of the sea Where a wind in the sail is hope . . .

Africa is once again at the crossroads. But there is hope. In this series of articles – as Barbados prepares to facilitate the world in a Bicentennial Global Dialogue – I will try to show where it may lie.

*Dr Ikael Tafari is director of the Commission for Pan-African Affairs.

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