African Scientific Socialism vs the US Economic Crisis

[MsLioness]

Originally Posted by Langalibalele

Nkrumah's contribution in the area of theory is great but his commitment lacked a political component in the real world; that is, Nkrumah made blunders which actually harmed the African liberation movement

Nkrumahism includes....?

Concrete and direct terms please.

i think rebel might have something to say on this. (is that better, rebelafrika? *wink*)

[rebelAfrika]

Originally Posted by MsLioness

Nkrumahism includes....?

Concrete and direct terms please.

...I think rebel might have something to say about this

If you wanted me to talk a little about what "I" know about Nkrumahism-Tureism...I would have went about asking in a different manner. Never the less...

Nkrumahism-Tureism is an ideology. Very few people adhere to an ideology consciously...although ALL people adhere to ideology (whether it be consciously or unconsciously). The "application" of Nkrumahism-Tureism is simply a means toward guiding our actions. For example...it is because "ideologically" I am an Nkrumahist-Tureist, that my "objective" is Pan-Africanism.

[rebelAfrika]

Originally Posted by Langalibalele

Nkrumah's contribution in the area of theory is great but his commitment lacked a political component in the real world; that is, Nkrumah made blunders which actually harmed the African liberation movement

Nkrumah's "problems" were united snakkkes imperialism and european imperialism...but these were not "blunders" that he created. In fact...within the last 10 years...there have been several published works that expound on this. In fact...the united snakkkes government THEMSELVES have confessed to their "interference" in the African liberation movement...PARTICULARLY in Ghana (in recent books about C.I.A. history).

[XXPANTHAXX]

Originally Posted by Langalibalele

Nkrumah's contribution in the area of theory is great but his commitment lacked a political component in the real world; that is, Nkrumah made blunders which actually harmed the African liberation movement

Comrade do tell about these perceived blunders, asante sana in advance

[Langalibalele]

Originally Posted by XXPANTHAXX

Comrade do tell about these perceived blunders, asante sana in advance

Peace, comrades. Kwame Nkrumah has extended the theory of Imperialism, and his contribution in that area is expansive. However, Nkrumah made a critical blunder when he assisted Patrica Lumumba in the Congo. It was this contingent, under the leadership of a white (South African Communist Party?) general, which captured Lumumba instead of helping him, and turned him over to his executioners.

Nkrumah also did not pay attention to rising consumer prices in Ghana, which affected the stability of the working class; that was one of the reasons given by the leaders of the 66 coup.

[XXPANTHAXX]

Originally Posted by Langalibalele

Peace, comrades. Kwame Nkrumah has extended the theory of Imperialism, and his contribution in that area is expansive. However, Nkrumah made a critical blunder when he assisted Patrica Lumumba in the Congo. It was this contingent, under the leadership of a white (South African Communist Party?) general, which captured Lumumba instead of helping him, and turned him over to his executioners.

Nkrumah also did not pay attention to rising consumer prices in Ghana, which affected the stability of the working class; that was one of the reasons given by the leaders of the 66 coup.

Please share your sources in regards to Lumumba.

Comrade as you well know the 66 coup was orchestrated by imperialism, neo-colonialist involvement started long before the actual coup was implemented, those stooges you referred to as "leaders" were merely puppets doing their masters bidding.

[MsLioness]

When I think of Lumumba and assassination, I think of TSHOMBE/TSHOMBAY.

Dark Days in Ghana tells the story of what happened on Feb. 24, 1966.
Those men were not leaders, they were maniacs...they had no political regiment.

[Im The Truth]

The Congo: How and why the West organised Lumumba's assassination
Review of two BBC documentaries: Who Killed Lumumba?, and Mobutu
By Linda Slattery
10 January 2001
The Congo: How and why the West organised Lumumba's assassination Review of two BBC documentaries: Who Killed Lumumba?, and Mobutu

Use this version to print

Later this year the Belgian parliament is due to report on the murder of the Congo's first prime minister after independence, Patrice Lumumba in January 1961. The circumstances of Lumumba's death have been shrouded in mystery for forty years, but as the Congo's vast mineral wealth is once again becoming a focus for imperialist rivalries, documents long hidden in official archives have been brought to light.

Last year, the BBC ran two documentaries on the tragic history of this central African state. Who Killed Lumumba?, was screened as part of the channel's Correspondent series. It drew heavily on the forthcoming new book by Belgian historian Ludo de Witte (The Murder of Lumumba, Verso Books, ISBN: 1859846181, published June 2001). De Witte has put together the facts of the case from official Belgian archives and the documentary also used archive film footage and interviewed surviving witnesses, to show that Lumumba was murdered in a plot masterminded by Western governments.

Mobutu, from the BBC's Storyville documentary series, reveals how the Western powers put Joseph Sese Seko Mobutu in power after the death of Lumumba, keeping him there for 32 years while he systematically looted the country. Mobutu became the west's main Cold War ally in Africa, and the Congo formed the staging post for CIA operations against Soviet-backed African regimes.

The film reveals the very close personal and political relationship that existed between Mobutu and several Western leaders. We see film clips of Mobutu being embraced by Jacques Chirac (now President of France), and sitting next to the British Queen in the royal carriage. For many years, until he fell out of favour at the end of the Cold War, Mobutu remained a friend of the Belgian king, but his closest friends were President George Bush Snr. and his family.

Between 1885 and 1908, some five to eight million fell victim to King Leopold of Belgium's personal rule over the Congo, under a barbarous system of forced labour and systematic terror. In 1959, the Belgium government finally decided to grant the Congo independence. The first elections brought Patrice Lumumba to power as prime minister. But his government was an unstable coalition of regional interests, and collapsed within a week. Sections of the army mutinied and the mineral rich province of Katanga seceded.

Who Killed Lumumba? featured important new material about the Katanga secession. Ludo de Witte has uncovered documents in the Belgian archives showing that Moise Tshombe, who led the secession, acted on orders from the Belgian government, which has always claimed that it only sent troops into Katanga to protect Belgian lives and property. De Witte's researches have shown that the Belgians plotted to dismember the Congo.

US Documents released last August reveal that President Eisenhower directly ordered the CIA to assassinate Lumumba. Minutes of an August 1960 National Security Council meeting confirm that Eisenhower told CIA chief Allen Dulles to “eliminate” Lumumba. The official note taker, Robert H. Johnson, had told the Senate Intelligence Committee this in 1975, but no documentary evidence was previously available to back up his statement.

Larry Devlin, the CIA's man in the Congo at the time, told the BBC filmmakers how he had been told to meet “Joe from Paris”, who turned out to be the CIA's chief technical officer, Dr Sidney Gottlieb. “I recognised him as he walked towards my car,” recalled Devlin, “but when he told me what they wanted done I was totally, totally taken aback.” Gottlieb gave him a tube of poisoned toothpaste, which Devlin was to smuggle into Lumumba's bathroom.

He claims he never did so, because “I had never suggested assassination, nor did I believe it was advisable.” Instead, “I threw it in the Congo River when its usefulness had expired.”

The “usefulness” of the poison expired rather quickly because Lumumba was murdered very soon afterwards, at the hands of Belgian agents.

Eisenhower was not alone in coming to the conclusion that Lumumba must die. A British Foreign Office document from September 1960 notes the opinion of a top ranking official, who later became the head of MI5, that, "I see only two possible solutions to the [Lumumba] problem. The first is the simple one of ensuring [his] removal from the scene by killing him." What steps, if any, were taken to put this plan into action remain unknown.

De Witte's work reveals the steps that the Belgian government took to remove Lumumba. Belgian military chiefs made nightly visits to Mobutu, then head of the army, and President Kasavubu, to plot Lumumba's downfall. Colonel Louis Maliere spoke of the millions of francs he brought over for this purpose. The plot to kill Lumumba was called “Operation Barracuda” and was run by the Belgian Minister for African Affairs, Count d'Aspremont.

The Belgium government ordered Kasavubu to sack Lumumba, who turned to the new parliament and won two votes of confidence. Mobutu then lead a coup d'état and Lumumba was placed under house arrest, from which he escaped only to be captured by troops loyal to Mobutu.

Contemporary film shows UN troops standing by while Lumumba is first beaten in front of Mobutu, then paraded through the streets of Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) and finally beaten again. When taken to Thysville prison, he almost provoked a mutiny among the guards.

Count d'Aspremont ordered him be taken to Katanga province and certain death. On the flight there, he and two supporters—Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okite—were beaten so badly the pilot complained the plane was in danger of crashing. All three were shot by a firing squad commanded by Belgian officers and watched by Moise Tshombe.

The Belgian commander of the Katangan police force, Gerard Soete, was given the grisly job of destroying the bodies. Enlisting the support of a friend, they chopped up the corpses before dissolving them in acid. Soete recalls that they were drunk for the two days because, “We did things an animal wouldn't do.”

Both these films do a valuable job in bringing to the attention of a wider audience the new evidence about Lumumba's death and in revealing the way in which the imperialist powers supported Mobutu's dictatorial regime. However, what neither of them fully explains is why the West acted as it did. They present the assassination of Lumumba and the installation of Mobutu as simply part of the Cold War rivalry between the West and Moscow.

The central mystery of Lumumba's death remains. Why was he killed? Why was the might of at least three Western powers bent on eliminating this one man—even as he was held prisoner, reviled and beaten by his captors and was without military or political power. Some say the answer is that he posed a threat to the West because he was a committed Pan-Africanist, and since his death he has certainly taken on the status of a Pan-African martyr.

By late 1959 Britain and America had concluded that, far from representing a threat, Pan-Africanism offered the best chance for preventing revolution in Africa. And Pan-Africanists of much longer standing than Lumumba, such as Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Nyerere, Obote and Azikiwe had also come to power around this time.

The experience of the Congo, with its million-strong working class the largest on the continent outside South Africa, was a powerful factor in bringing them to that conclusion. When strikes and demonstrations broke out in 1959 as the mineral boom ended, the Belgian government decided to grant its colony independence. Their repressive apparatus was geared up to brutalising a divided and dispersed rural population, not an increasingly well-organised working class that was losing its local and communal loyalties.

When Lumumba showed that he could not be relied upon to control the Congolese working class, his fate was sealed. The West decided to make an example of him to the masses and to other African leaders, to show what would happen if they opposed imperialist dictates. Mobutu, who had impressed the CIA on his brief visits to Brussels as Lumumba's secretary, was chosen as the better candidate to safeguard Western interests. Through a mixture of brutality and political guile, Mobutu succeeded in ensuring that the Congo (renamed Zaire) did not become the flashpoint for an African socialist revolution.

See Also:
Belgium's imperialist rape of Africa: King Leopold's Ghost —A story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa
[6 September 1999]
Congo

[Im The Truth]

Originally Posted by Langalibalele

Peace, comrades. Kwame Nkrumah has extended the theory of Imperialism, and his contribution in that area is expansive. However, Nkrumah made a critical blunder when he assisted Patrica Lumumba in the Congo. It was this contingent, under the leadership of a white (South African Communist Party?) general, which captured Lumumba instead of helping him, and turned him over to his executioners.

See the article above.

Originally Posted by Langalibalele

Nkrumah also did not pay attention to rising consumer prices in Ghana, which affected the stability of the working class; that was one of the reasons given by the leaders of the 66 coup.

Why should we listen to the enemy? Why should we respect any criticism of reactionary anti-revolutionary criminal elements who'd love to have killed Kwame Nkrumah and other high ranking members of the CPP? Why should their opinion carry any weight? To me it's like respecting fox news' opinion on Assata Shakur.

[MsLioness]

Originally Posted by Majadi

I have been flirting with the A-APRP since I was in the Lost-Found Nation Of Islam, perhaps I need to make a date with the organization. When I hear revolutionary however, I actually think revolution so I will see for myself...*hint hint*. See sista' you think you slick don't ya'? LMAO

Are you saying that the A-APRP is not revolutionary?

[RWalker]

Here is my quick reply to the confusion that is being spread about Nkrumah, Scientific Socialism in Africa and Nyerere:


FIRST You must go and research the fact that on his death bed, Nyerere himself admitted that he was incorrect and Nkrumah was correct...a little late as the damage had already been done...and was the basis of this rift between the two?

Let us start with a quote from one neo-colonialist -- a man who openly supports the recolonization of Africa -- the anti-Pan-Africanist Mazrui defending his fellow traveler Nyerere:


"Nyerere's credentials as official host to liberation movements
were put into question in 1964 when he was forced to invite British troops
to put down a mutiny of his own army. The more radical African heads of
state, like Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, regarded Nyerere's use of British troops
as "neo-colonial" and unworthy of an official host to liberation movements
elsewhere. Nyerere defended himself and continued his liberation role,
successfully most of the time.

"Mwalimu's rise to power"
By ALI MAZRUI

News Analysis

Sunday, October 17, 1999

http://www.nationaudio.com/News/Dail...Analysis8.html

It was not just Nkrumah who denounced Nyerere's neo-colonialism...he was joined by other notable African leaders such as Seku Ture and Abdel Nasser...they did so because of this particular overt anti-African, anti-Tanzania, anti-revolutionary action, one of many errors or mistakes or treasonous betrayals of Nyerere (such as the pushing of the western agenda in the OAU -- regionalism, go slow, moderation politically and economically and so forth -- a situation that we have to fight to this very day!)


You must study Nyerere's history more closely, and Nkrumah's as well.

Let us start with the fact that it was Nkrumah who started the armed struggle a few years after he came to power in Ghana, it was he and his CPP government that set up the training camps for the national liberation movement, even BEFORE there was an "independent" Tanzania (or Tanganyika for that matter, as Tanzania was one of the states "given' independence by the colonialist in their desire to swamp Africa with states that were not Pan-Africanist...what Nkrumah called Sham Independence.")

Indeed, one of the goals of the imperialist in overthrowing Nkrumah was to destroy the training structure used by the African liberation movement...after these were destroyed in Ghana, some of the movements went to Guinea Conakry, others to Tanzania and that is how Tanzania got involved as base for the southern African armed liberation movement .. note that the bases in Ghana included those fighting against neo-colonialism; the camps in Nyerere's Tanzania never included forces fighting neo-colonialism...think about that...indeed not only did Nyerere refuse to host anti-neo-colonial fighters, it was his pressure on ZANU that forced them to take the UK and US offer of the Lancaster Agreement, which they immediately sabotaged, specifically on the issue of the land question, which Nkrumah always said was a primary objective, as he wrote we must take back every inch of our land including the mines and businesses attached thereto...you can see the results of the fatal acceptance of the Lancaster Agreement in Zimbabwe today...fortunately, Mugabe and ZANU have more intestinal fortitude than some and have resolved to go back to the Nkrumah position and fight imperialism over the land which is the secret to the independence of Africans, and therefore the possibility of building socialism.

It was Nkrumah who, through the Conference of Independent African States and the All-African People's Conference started the organization of the general struggle in Africa...and led to the OAU --- which sprang from his Conference of Independent African States, but was unfortunately sabotaged by people like Nyerere, indeed he was a ringleader in turning the OAU away from Pan-Africanism and toward regionalism, inviolability of colonial borders and general acquiescence with the policies of our common enemies, more on that later in this reply. It was Nkrumah who stated without any hesitation that Africans in the US, Africans in the diaspora generally, were and are part of the African nation something Nyerere never would have stated, a position that was emphasized by his actions prior to the 7th PAC meeting in 1974 (in the capital, Dar es Salaam ) when Africans in Tanzania who were born in America, suffered a cruel group imprisonment, based on the evidence provided to TANU that there was an element of Africans from the US who wanted to overthrow the TANU government, after the fact, Nyerere apologized and claimed that they had simply over-reacted. Compare and contrast this to insistence of Nkrumah, who until his dying day still insisted that Africans in the diaspora, including the US, were African peoples, and were thus part of the African nation, even though a negro from the US, the Ambassador to Ghana at the time of the coup, played a hand in the coup...he did not then say all Africans from the US are guilty...by the way this negro had went to Lincoln with Nkrumah, and was sent to Ghana precisely because Nkrumah considered him a close friend.

Did you know that it was Nkrumah's government that gave financial support to the PDG government of revolutionary Guinea when the French tried to destroy it, that they also gave financial support to the Congo under Lumumba? Did you know that Nkrumah's advice to Lumumba was not to put his confidence in the United Nations but to immediately form a union government with Ghana, which Lumumba eventually agreed too (the Congo-Ghana Union agreement) but too late to save his administration and his life?


Dr. Kwame Nkrumah had high hopes that Africa would be able to construct a socialist Union Government for Africa, most of the states in OAU were, at least nominally, in support of the general Union government concept and thus a plurality of the votes in the OAU were for the concept, but they were not enough to create the required voting majority. Unfortunately there were sufficient hostile elements -- led by Nyerere in fact, doing the bidding of our enemies to construct roadblocks to these noble intentions and plans.

In the words of Nkrumah (the comments in brackets are mine):


"...Let it be said that at Cairo we put them (Africa's enemies) to greater shame by agreeing to the establishment of a Union Government of Africa. Have you noticed, Brother Presidents and Prime Ministers, that as soon as we achieved this measure of agreement at Addis Ababa, (OAU 63 inaugural meeting) the neo-colonialists and their agents proceeded to sow new seeds of disruption and dissension among us?

"They became particularly active and vocal in preaching the new and dangerous doctrine of the 'step by step' course toward unity (which Nyerere championed). If we take one step at a time, when they are in a position to take six steps for every one of ours, our weakness will, of course, be emphasized and exaggerated for their benefit. One step now, two steps later, then all will be fine in Africa for imperialism and neo-colonialism. To say that a Union Government for Africa is premature is to sacrifice African on the altar of neo-colonialism." Nkrumah's Speech at the 64 OAU meeting, Revolutionary Path, p 286

The African reaction, at the behest of their imperialist masters, blocked the call for Union government and stabbed the whole African world in the back. And now the struggle of progressive Africa, such as the Republic of Zimbabwe, is faced with an even harder task.

The reaction, which included Julius Nyerere, played the roles of counsel, advocate, agent and all around mouthpiece for imperialism and neo-colonialism.

Nyerere spoke for the reaction in demanding that the colonial borders had to remain as they were. He opposed every element of true African Federal Government proposed by Nkrumah and supported by the progressives in Africa. Although the votes were in favor of Nkrumah's proposals, it did not have the required majority according to OAU procedural rules.

This is the reality of Nyerere's so-called family based socialism, ujaama, and his supposed support for African Unity -- which was anything but real umoja.

You will note, that although Nyerere had insisted that the colonial borders were inviolable at the 64 meeting, he was one of only three African heads of states that recognized the break-away Biafra entity in 1966. He cited his reason as his desire to set up a Christian state in Africa...as a devout Roman Catholic who held up the Vatican and the UK as the model states for his rule in Tanzania.

At the 64 meeting, the OAU agreed to further consider the creation of an African Union government in the 1965 OAU meeting in Accra, Ghana, but could take no other action. This led Nkrumah to observe that

"...while African disunity and balkanization continued, virtually no improvement was being made in the living conditions of the African masses. Only foreign interests, and with them, the interests of the African bourgeoisie, flourished.

"In the light of all that had taken place since the foundation of the OAU, I was more than ever convinced that the creation of a Union Government for Africa provided the only solution for Africa's continued political instability and underdevelopment. The OAU as established in Addis Ababa in 1963 had been shown to be unable to deal effectively with the problems facing it, and was by its very ineffectiveness blocking the advance of the African Revolution, and thereby aiding the forces of reaction. The whole purpose of my Address to the Conference on the 19th July was, therefore, to stress the urgent need for the immediate setting up of a Union Government for Africa...

"To my great disappointment, it was clear from the speeches of some of the Conference members that there were some who were still not ready for such a radical step to be taken. There was general agreement on the need for a Union Government, but it was decided that the whole matter should be examined by specialized commissions of the OAU, and that the question should be discussed again at the next summit conference which it was agreed should be held in Accra in 1965."
Revolutionary Path, pages 276-7

Note that when he wrote, from the speeches of some of the Conference members, he was referring to the late President Nyerere, in particular.

In the 65 OAU (Accra) meeting, the French-speaking reactionary bloc of Ivory Coast, Upper Volta, Dahomey and Niger, called the Entente States, plus Togo, boycotted the meeting at the behest of their imperialist masters. Their claim was that the CPP government of Ghana was harboring armed elements intent on overthrowing their governments. This led Nkrumah to ask every national of these countries who had sought sanctuary from the neo-colonialist governments in their country to leave Ghana. But these states ignored this gesture and boycotted the meeting anyway.

The Ghana government was aware that the imperialist states had launched a vigorous campaign prior to the Accra meeting in these particular countries and others they hoped would be susceptible to their pressure, advocating that they boycott the meeting. The imperialist knew that they could not win the vote so they tried to create procedural problems that would handicap the meeting, make it impossible to conduct productive sessions.

Although this boycott was only nominally effective it did succeed in playing a role in the sabotage of the quest for true Pan-Africanism -- Union Governent

It is important to recall that this was not a question of all the French speaking states versus the English and Arabic speaking states, as French-speaking Mali and Guinea did come and continued to advocate the idea of Union Government.

This is how Nkrumah described the imperialist and neo-colonialist efforts:

"As soon as the decision was taken to hold the 1965 OAU Summit Conference in Accra, enemies of the African Revolution set to work to try and prevent the conference taking place in Ghana. Imperialist and neocolonialist agents did all they could to split the OAU, and whipped up vicious press campaigns. A deputation was sent to visit OAU States in an attempt to persuade them to boycott the conference if it was held in Accra..." Revolutionary Path, p. 298

With the boycott of the meeting and the continued anti-Union postures of a tiny handful of the government in attendance the 65 Accra meeting could do no better than the 64 Cairo meeting. The majority of those in attendance, 75 %, supported and voted for Nkrumah's compromise proposal for an OAU Executive Council, to act as a governing arm of the OAU...thus giving Africa the preliminary form of a Union Government without calling it as such.

However, even this modified approach did not come to fruition because, even though 28 states had voted for it, only 22 voted for immediate creation of the Council. And according to the OAU rules there had to be 24 votes, or two thirds of those voting for the proposal to go into effect. So, the best Nkrumah and the majority could do was to put the subject on the agenda for the next meeting of the OAU in 1966.

As you may know Nkrumah was overthrown before that 66 meeting...and Pan-Africanist Guinea boycotted the meeting in the face of the OAU granting recognition to the illegal coup-makers government in Ghana. A government which was 100% the creation of the US and the UK, the very same forces leading the charge against Zimbabwe and Africa today. Those who do not learn from history...and of course the training camps for the guerrilla movements was one of the first thing they destroyed,

As for Nkrumah not leaving an organizational presence, where have you been? If you look at PAC of Azania for example, their emblem is an African Continent with a star shining out of Nkrumah's Ghana; Nkrumah's All-African People Revolutionary Party still exists today and is actively working for the African revolution...INDEED this very forum is led by many cadre of that party...there are even forces who are involved in the revival of the Convention Peoples Party itself, and many many others who are advocating that they are the heir to Nkrumah and are trying to build the socialist party, Africa and world he foresaw...one of Nkrumah's son, Gamal, heads at least two Nkrumaist organizations the Pan African Association and the Kwame Nkrumah Pan African Culture Centre, there is a press and book retailer agency operating in London, PanAf which is a creation of supporters of Nkrumah and so on.


As for Nyerere, we have already touched on a number of his most grievous faults, but let us now take them all together.


Why did his government and he personally try to dismember Nigeria in 1966, (one of only three African states that supported the break up of Nigeria), even though he objected to any changes in boundaries inside of the OAU in the 1964 meeting when Nkrumah raised the issue of union government? In fact why did he bring in the British murderers against the people of Tanzania, specifically against the Tanzanian army, which led Nkrumah, and others to publicly denounce him as a neo-colonialist?

Did you know for example that the CIA openly proclaimed that they considered Nyerere the best African leader because of his policies and posture toward the west? The CIA mind you, the same CIA that killed Lumumba and overthrew Nkrumah, loved Nyerere. Why did the CIA say he was the best African leader of all... why were all the university's in America at the time pushing Nyerere and attacking Nkrumah? Why did journals such as the US News and World Report consider Nkrumah, Ture, Nasser, Ben Bella, Lumumba as dangerous individuals, but nothing like this kind of campaign was ever launched against Nyerere?

Why did Nyerere denounce Pan-Africanism, and call Nkrumah and Lumumba failures, because as he put it they were to "radical" and should have been like him, what he called a "moderate"....can this be the profile of a true African revolutionary a true scientific socialist? A man who held up the British state and the Roman Catholic church as the models of his state...this isn't even good African nationalism, and certainly has nothing in common with Pan-Africanism or Scientific Socialism, which, as Nkrumah correctly pointed out, are one and the same.

On the question of Scientific Socialism and Nyerere.

As we see in his own words, Julius Nyerere defines what he called socialism, as ujamaa, which as he points out is a swahili rendering of "family".... that is a so-called specific "African socialism" based on the family structures, which he held to be am appropriate way for Africa to approach socialism, as opposed to scientific socialism, championed by true leaders of the liberation movement such as Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah.

Nyerere, one of the personality who arose into prominence because of his participation in Nkrumah's All African People Conference, along with much more principled individuals such as Sobukwe, Mugabe, Robeson, Neto, came to power as part of the period that Nkrumah called the era of "sham independence" that is the crop of states gifted their "independence" in 1960 by colonialism so that they could be used as a leverage against Revolutionary Africa.

As we have seen Nyerere led the anti-Pan-Africanist bloc in the OAU, saying that he opposed the plans of Nkrumah, Sekou Ture and Nasser because they would mean the dissolution of the colonial borders, they were too radical, they were ill timed and so forth...yet he found no problem supporting various imperialist actions against Africa, such as when the US, Britain, France, Israel and the rest fomented and funded the Biafra war, to seize Nigerian oil, Nyerere was one of only three African leaders who sided with the western bandits and supported the dismembering of Nigeria...only two + years after he used the inviolability of the colonial border as a primary excuse to oppose the concept of an All-African government put forth by Nkrumah!

Maybe you don't think that is so bad, since Nyerere openly criticized Nkrumah and Lumumba for being radical and upsetting the west, and proudly claimed his moderate position was superior to their commitment to revolution; and that he declared that he considered the British state and the Vatican the best models for states...and openly said he was building Tanzania based on that...the British of the infamous British Empire, the Vatican of the Roman Catholic church, both critical elements of the African slave trade, by the way. How is this progressive, less known revolutionary, and no where near Scientific Socialist.

My next question is this: Do you really understand the foundation, and the objective, of Ujaama, Nyerere's form of African socialism? Take for example Nyerere's use of the extended family concept.

"The foundation, and the objective, of African socialism is the extended family. The true African socialist does not look on one class of men as his brethren and another as his natural enemies. He does not form an alliance with the "brethren" for the extermination of the "non-brethren." He rather regards all men as his brethren--as members of his ever extending family. that is why the first article of TANU's creed is "Binadamu wote ni ndugu zangu, na Afrika ni moja." If this had been originally put in English, it could have been "I believe in Human Brotherhood and the Unity of Africa."

"Ujamaa," then, or "familyhood," describes our socialism. It is opposed to capitalism, which seeks to build a happy society on the basis of the exploitation of man by man; and it is equally opposed to doctrinair e socialism which seeks to build its happy society on a philosophy of inevitable conflict between man and man.
Julius Nyerere, "Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism"

First right off we see the reality of Nyerere's dishonest, corrupt and criminal betrayal of the African Liberation Movement, he says that he opposes fighting other Africans; then why did he kill and imprison so many Africans in his pogroms against the Moslems of Zanzibar? Why did he support the imperialist proxy war against Nigeria? Why did he imprison Malcolm's great comrade Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu ... the man who negotiated the TanZam railroad with the Chinese? Why did he have all the Africans born in the US living in Tanzania, rounded up and thrown in jail just before the convening of 6th PAC? --And then subsequently said that they -- TANU had over reacted? Why did he agree with the western imperialist to try and keep Cuba out of the armed struggle of Africa against imperialism...even though Cuba is a predominantly African island and is one of the most revolutionary state in the world then and now?

His concept of ujaama is bogus socialism, it is anti-socialism; it opposes central planning, it denies that socialism must be based on revolutionary theory and practice that is universal, and denies that it should be based on science. Hence, how can someone who claims to be speaking for Scientific Socialism, even begin to think that he should hold up Nyerere as the example of socialism in Africa? He says in his own words, that he opposes, note OPPOSES, not advocates, Scientific Socialism.

Take ujamaa 's central rationalization according to Nyerere, that is being based on "family" it is more African, and therefore, more appropriate for Africans, more in line with African traditions, customs, history, social structures and general culture.

But this is patently false and anyone who understands true African history can easily demonstrate this. For example, one of the eternal myths underpinning not only much of African culture, but indeed world culture is the legend of what the west calls Osiris, Horus and Isis. (what we know as Heru, the son of Ausar, the father and Auset the mother) yet the contradictions that wrecked the civilization that Ausar and Auset sought to institutionalize amongst the people of the world, not merely Africa, was disrupted, combated and momentarily destroyed by forces led by the brother and uncle of the holy trinity of Ausar, Auset, and Heru, Set, Seth.... and the rest of the names he is known by...what are the ancient Africans telling us about family here?

Simply this, the dynamics of dialectics are at work even inside the family....the family is not immune to contradiction...and it certainly can not be said to be a unit more conducive to the adsorption of fundamental technical and scientific knowledge, indeed the family is to some small degrees an impediment to social development by its very parochialism, narrowness and emphasis on sentimentality rather than scientific knowledge...so what is Nyerere ujamaa really good for?

Nothing but the continued rule of the imperialist capitalist, who by the way according to his own death bed confession and his whole history as a political "leader", as well as his bogus neo-colonial theories, was and therefore is,. nothing more than a lackey of capitalist imperialism....

I close my presentation on the subject of this criminal approach championed by the late Pres. Nyerere with the testimony of none other than Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah:

The term "socialism"� has become a necessity in the platform diction and political writings of African leaders. It is a term which unites us in the recognition that the restoration of Africa's humanist and egalitarian principles of society calls for socialism. All of us, therefore, even though pursuing widely contrasting policies in the task of reconstructing our various nation-states, still use socialism� to describe our respective efforts. The question must therefore be faced: What real meaning does the term retain in the context of contemporary African politics? I warned about this in my book Consciencism (London and New York, 1964, p. 105).
And yet, socialism in Africa today tends to lose its objective content in favour of a distracting terminology and in favour of a general confusion. Discussion centres more on the various conceivable types of socialism than upon the need for socialist development.
Some African political leaders and thinkers certainly use the term socialism as it should in my opinion be used: to describe a complex of social purposes and the consequential social and economic policies, organisational patterns, state structure, and ideologies which can lead to the attainment of those purposes. For such leaders, the aim is to remold African society in the socialist direction; to reconsider African society in such a manner that the humanism of traditional African life re-asserts itself in a modern technical community.
Consequently, socialism in Africa introduces a new social synthesis in which modern technology is reconciled with human values, in which the advanced technical society is realised without the staggering social malefactions and deep schisms of capitalist industrial society. For true economic and social development cannot be promoted without the real socialisation of productive and distributive processes. Those African leaders who believe these principles are the socialists in Africa.
There are, however, other African political leaders and thinkers who use the term socialism� because they believe that socialism would, in the words of Chandler Morse, smooth the road to economic development�. It becomes necessary for them to employ the term in a charismatic effort to rally support for policies that do not really promote economic and social development. Those African leaders who believe these principles are supposed to be the African socialists.
It is interesting to recall that before the split in the Second International, Marxism was almost indistinguishable from social democracy. Indeed, the German Social Democratic Party was more or less the guardian of the doctrine of Marxism, and both Marx and Engels supported that Party. Lenin, too, became a member of the Social Democratic Party. After the break-up of the Second International, however, the meaning of the term social democracy altered, and it became possible to draw a real distinction between socialism and social democracy. A similar situation has arisen in Africa. Some years ago, African political leaders and writers used the term African socialism in order to label the concrete forms that socialism might assume in Africa. But the realities of the diverse and irreconcilable social, political, and economic policies being pursued by African states today have made the term African socialism meaningless and irrelevant. It appears to be much more closely associated with anthropology than with political economy. African socialism� has now come to acquire some of its greatest publicists in Europe and North America precisely because of its predominant anthropological charm. Its foreign publicists include not only the surviving social democrats of Europe and North America, but other intellectuals and liberals who themselves are steeped in the ideology of social democracy.
It was no accident, let me add, that the 1962 Dakar Colloquium made such capital of African socialism but the uncertainties concerning the meaning and specific policies of African socialism� have led some of us to abandon the term because it fails to express its original meaning and because it tends to obscure our fundamental socialist commitment.
Today, the phrase African socialism� seems to espouse the view that the traditional African society was a classless society imbued with the spirit of humanism and to express a nostalgia for that spirit. Such a conception of socialism makes a fetish of the communal African society. But an idyllic, African classless society (in which there were no rich and no poor) enjoying a drugged serenity is certainly a facile simplification; there is no historical or even anthropological evidence for any such society. I am afraid the realities of African society were somewhat more sordid.
All available evidence from the history of Africa up to the eve of the European colonisation, shows that African society was neither classless nor devoid of a social hierarchy. Feudalism existed in some parts of Africa before colonisation; and feudalism involves a deep and exploitative social stratification, founded on the ownership of land. It must also be noted that slavery existed in Africa before European colonisation, although the earlier European contact gave slavery in Africa some of its most vicious characteristics. The truth remains, however, that before colonisation, which became widespread in Africa only in the nineteenth century, Africans were prepared to sell, often for no more than thirty pieces of silver, fellow tribesmen and even members of the same extended family� and clan. Colonialism deserves to be blamed for many evils in Africa, but surely it was not preceded by an African Golden Age or paradise. A return to the pre-colonial African society is evidently not worthy of the ingenuity and efforts of our people.
All this notwithstanding, one could still argue that the basic organisation of many African societies in different periods of history manifested a certain communalism and that the philosophy and humanist purposes behind that organisation are worthy of recapture. A community in which each saw his well-being in the welfare of the group certainly was praiseworthy, even if the manner in which the well-being of the group was pursued makes no contribution to our purposes. Thus, what socialist thought in Africa must recapture is not the structure of the traditional African society� but its spirit, for the spirit of communalism is crystallised in its humanism and in its reconciliation of individual advancement with group welfare. Even If there is incomplete anthropological evidence to reconstruct the traditional African society� with accuracy, we can still recapture the rich human values of that society. In short, an anthropological approach to the traditional African society is too much unproven; but a philosophical approach stands on much firmer ground and makes generalisation feasible.
One predicament in the anthropological approach is that there is some disparity of views concerning the manifestations of the classlessness� of the traditional African society�. While some hold that the society was based on the equality of its members, others hold that it contained a hierarchy and division of labour in which the hierarchy and therefore power was founded on spiritual and democratic values. Of course, no society can be founded on the equality of its members although societies are founded on egalitarianism, which is something quite different. Similarly, a classless society that at the same time rejoices in a hierarchy of power (as distinct from authority) must be accounted a marvel of socio-political finesse.
We know that the “traditional African society� was founded on principles of egalitarianism. In its actual workings, however, it had various shortcomings. Its humanist impulse, nevertheless, is something that continues to urge us towards our all-African socialist reconstruction. We postulate each man to be an end in himself, not merely a means; and we accept the necessity of guaranteeing each man equal opportunities for his development. The implications of this for socio-political practice have to be worked out scientifically, and the necessary social and economic policies pursued with resolution. Any meaningful humanism must begin from egalitarianism and must lead to objectively chosen policies for safeguarding and sustaining egalitarianism. Hence, socialism. Hence, also, scientific socialism.
A further difficulty that arises from the anthropological approach to socialism, or African socialism, is the glaring division between existing African societies and the communalistic society that was. I warned in my book Consciencism that our society is not the old society, but a new society enlarged by Islamic and Euro-Christian influences�. This is a fact that any socio-economic policies must recognise and take into account. Yet the literature of African socialism� comes close to suggesting that today's African societies are communalistic. The two societies are not coterminous; and such an equation cannot be supported by any attentive observation. It is true that this disparity is acknowledged in some of the literature of African socialism�; thus, my friend and colleague Julius Nyerere, in acknowledging the disequilibrium between what was and what is in terms of African societies, attributes the differences to the importations of European colonialism.
We know, of course, that the defeat of colonialism and even neo-colonialism will not result in the automatic disappearance of the imported patterns of thought and social organisation. For those patterns have taken root, and are in varying degree sociological features of our contemporary society. Nor will a simple return to the communalistic society of ancient Africa offer a solution either. To advocate a return, as it were, to the rock from which we were hewn is a charming thought, but we are faced with contemporary problems, which have arisen from political subjugation, economic exploitation, educational and social backwardness, increases in population, familiarity with the methods and products of industrialisation, modern agricultural techniques. These as well as a host of other complexities can be resolved by no mere communalistic society, however sophisticated, and anyone who so advocates must be caught in insoluble dilemmas of the most excruciating kind. All available evidence from socio-political history discloses that such a return to a status quo ante is quite unexampled in the evolution of societies. There is, indeed, no theoretical or historical reason to indicate that it is at all possible.
When one society meets another, the observed historical trend is that acculturation results in a balance of forward movement, a movement in which each society assimilates certain useful attributes of the other. Social evolution is a dialectical process; it has ups and downs, but , on balance, it always represents an upward trend.
Islamic civilisation and European colonialism are both historical experiences of the traditional African society, profound experiences that have permanently changed the complexion of the traditional African society. They have introduced new values and a social, cultural, and economic organisation into African life. Modern African societies are not traditional, even if backward, and they are clearly in a state of socio-economic disequilibrium. They are in this state because they are not anchored to a steadying ideology.
The way out is certainly not to regurgitate all Islamic or Euro-colonial influences in a futile attempt to recreate a past that cannot be resurrected. The way out is only forward, forward to a higher and reconciled form of society, in which the quintessence of the human purposes of traditional African society reasserts itself in a modern context-forward, in short, to socialism, through policies that are scientifically devised and correctly applied. The inevitability of a forward way out is felt by all; thus, Leopold Sedor Senghor, although favouring some kind of return to African communalism, insists that the refashioned African society must accommodate the positive contribution� of colonial rule, such as the economic and technical infrastructure and the French educational system�. The economic and technical infrastructure of even French colonialism and the French educational system must be assumed, though this can be shown to be imbued with a particular socio-political philosophy. This philosophy, as should be known, is not compatible with the philosophy underlying communalism, and the desired accommodation would prove only a socio-political mirage.
Senghor has, indeed, given an account of the nature of the return to Africa. His account is highlighted by statements using some of his own words: that the African is a field of pure sensation; that he does not measure or observe, but lives a situation; and that this way of acquiring knowledge by confrontation and intuition is negro-African�; the acquisition of knowledge by reason, Hellenic. In African Socialism [London and New York, 1964, pp.72-3], he proposes that we consider the Negro-African as he faces the Other: God, man, animal, tree or pebble, natural or social phenomenon. In contrast to the classic European, the Negro-African does not draw a line between himself and the object, he does not hold it at a distance, nor does he merely look at it and analyse it. After holding it at a distance, after scanning it without analysing it, he takes it vibrant in his hands, careful not to kill or fix it. He touches it, feels it, smells it. The Negro-African is like one of those Third Day Worms, a pure field of sensations... Thus the Negro-African sympathises, abandons his personality to become identified with the Other, dies to be reborn in the Other.20He does not assimilate; he is assimilated. He lives a common life with the Other; he lives in a symbiosis.�
It is clear that socialism cannot be founded on this kind of metaphysics of knowledge.
To be sure, there is a connection between communalism and socialism. Socialism stands to communalism as capitalism stands to slavery. In socialism, the principles underlying communalism are given expression in modern circumstances. Thus, whereas communalism in a non-technical society can be laissez-faire, in a technical society where sophisticated means of production are at hand, the situation is different; for if the underlying principles of communalism are not given correlated expression, class cleavages will arise, which are connected with economic disparities and thereby with political inequalities; Socialism, therefore, can be, and is, the defence of the principles of communalism in a modern setting; it is a form of social organisation that, guided by the principles underlying communalism, adopts procedures and measures made necessary by demographic and technological developments. Only under socialism can we reliably accumulate the capital we need for our development and also ensure that the gains of investment are applied for the general welfare.
Socialism is not spontaneous. It does not arise of itself. It has abiding principles according to which the major means of production and distribution ought to be socialised if exploitation of the many by the few is to be prevented; if, that is to say , egalitarianism in the economy is to be protected. Socialist countries in Africa may differ in this or that detail of their policies, but such differences themselves ought not to be arbitrary or subject to vagaries of taste. They must be scientifically explained, as necessities arising from differences in the particular circumstances of the countries themselves.
There is only one way of achieving socialism; by the devising of policies aimed at the general socialist goals, each of which takes its particular form from the specific circumstances of a particular state at a definite historical period. Socialism depends on dialectical and historical materialism, upon the view that there is only one nature, subject in all its manifestations to natural laws and that human society is, in this sense, part of nature and subject to its own laws of development.
It is the elimination of fancifulness from socialist action that makes socialism scientific. To suppose that there are tribal, national, or racial socialisms is to abandon objectivity in favour of chauvinism."

End of quote

Everyone must choose; real socialism or working with/and even for the imperialists, as unfortunately our brother, Nyerere too often did.

[Majadi]

Originally Posted by MsLioness

Are you saying that the A-APRP is not revolutionary?

I just noticed your reply sistren sorry, no intention to avoid the question. Nooooo! I was just saying that having never fully investigated the organization, I would be remiss to speak on that which I do not know!!! I believe in what I can verify for my self, science whether Revolutionary or Spiritual or Economic. I must verify these things for myself otherwise I am speaking falsly on that which I do not know!

[IrishRepublicanSocialist]

the analysis and articles posted in here are excellent. will they be made available in pamphlet form to distribute? I'm always looking for literature that applies scientific socialist theory to current events in a useful way, not just academic or slogan-based.

[RWalker]

Nkrumah advised Lumumba to go for the Pan-African solution and avoid the UN, because Nkrumah understood that the UN was completely controlled by the western powers, as it is to this very day...look at what is happening to the Congo this very moment and the role of the UN there, as well as in other areas such as Haiti.

Lumumba and President Joseph Kasavubu requested United Nations military assistance, and Sec. General Hammarskjöld lobbied the UN Security Council to intervene. But he also denied Lumumba's government help in ending the Katanga secession from the Congo. (Hammarskjöld was subsequently killed in a suspicious plane crash on one of his trips to the Congo).


One of the main reasons Nkrumah advocated that Lumumba should abandon the UN route, was the fact that all forces in the Congo ostensibly in the country to help the legitimate government of the Congo, were under the command of the UN -- including Ghana's forces.

Nevertheless as Lumumba pleaded with Nkrumah to stay engaged in the UN efforts, because he felt that Nkrumah was his best "voice" in the UN, Nkrumah agreed to go along with him. Nkrumah's main allies in the matter, Nasser's Egypt and Ture's Guinea pulled out of the UN effort as they saw it was going no where good, but Nkrumah did not want to abandon Lumumba so he acceded to Lumumba's wishes...now, when Ghana remained a part of the UN effort, as you may or may not know their army was still under the command of General Alexander, a European from the UK, and even the African officers were more loyal to Britain than to Ghana or Africa, they had all been trained at Sandhurst for example...the UN commanded the Ghana troops to seal off the radio station, or more precisely prevent Lumumba from using the radio station. On the cloak of the UN command, which was in fact the same thing as the US and its NATO and other allies, the Ghanaian army was used as a tool to further weaken Lumumba...this in when Nkrumah moved against Alexander and decided to form a separate military force in Ghana that was not tainted by their colonial masters...please remember that this all happened less than three years into Ghana's independence.

Lumumba subsequently saw the logic in Nkrumah's position, and that is when they signed the Ghana-Congo Union agreement, but it was way too late as the Lumumbaist forces had no possibility of defeating the UN disguised forces of Pan-European imperialism...essentially there was nothing left of the true Congolese patriotic structures in the Congo to actually unite with Ghana...it was a bitter lesson for all of Pan-Aficanism and cost us the life of the great leader Lumumba and millions of others, and set Pan-Africanism back for years.

However, the truth of the matter is that Nkrumah was right from the very beginning, the solution lies in Pan-Africanism, not institutions, such as the UN, which are essentially the hand puppets of the US and its allies,

I would suggest that people read Nkrumah's book, Challenge of the Congo, where he lays out the whole diplomatic and military situation of the sad period, if they really want the truth.