The Pan-Africanist Way

[RWalker]

"In 1947, the bourgeoisie of Ghana called Nkrumah to do some political
organizing work because they, too, could see that they needed political
organization to arrive at independence. Nkrumah accepted, after seeking
advice from Padmore. And having established a base in London, he
immediately sailed for Ghana, where under the bourgeoisie he was given
the job of organizing for political independence.

"Of course, the people Nkrumah worked with were speaking not of
organizing the masses, since they feared them more than they feared the
British. They were speaking merely of using negotiations and tea
parties to arrive at independence.


"There arose inevitable conflict, political conflict, between the two,
and they had to part ways. Nkrumah immediately set up the Convention
People's Party (CPP). The CPP wanted independence now, while others
asked for independence as soon as possible. The CPP looked to the masses
of Africans as the major factor, the major motivating force and the
major weapon in the anti-colonial struggle. Thus we can see that Nkrumah
clearly understood that the African struggle was mass in character and
that there must be mass organization. Therefore, the CPP was a mass
party.


"This is one of the first points at which we want to stop and
acknowledge Nkrumah's genius. If we look at all the struggles for
independence prior to that time, what we see is that they were carried
out at best by "vanguard" parties.


"These were the parties that did not touch the masses. Whether these
vanguard parties were revolutionary or reactionary, they did not touch
the masses. The vanguard revolutionary masses would organize themselves
with the most conscious elements of the given society. Then through
liaison with the masses, they would come to arouse the masses and
direct them to certain action. But having a mass party in which the
masses themselves directly participated was unheard of. Therefore, the
mass party came to represent a means and method of struggle against
colonialism. And Nkrumah gave the mass party a fundamental basis with
the CPP


"Nkrumah was consistent. If we go to Nkrumah's book, The Handbook of
Revolutionary Warfare, in which he outlines the unification process of
Africa, we see how he showed Africa coming together.


"So this idea of the mass party has continued. But the idea of the mass
party itself Nkrumah would tell all, came from the Honorable Marcus
Garvey, who injected the mass character into the Pan-African struggle
with the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which was a mass
organization worldwide. And Nkrumah now used the CPP, a mass party, as
an instrument for the independence of Ghana. For Nkrumah, Africa's
independence meant everything. Class struggles should be submerged
until independence arrived on the scene for the African continent."
from "Kwame Ture on Kwame Nkrumah" by Kwame Ture




Now, here Nkrumah and the CPP of that day, and later with the rise, through
political conquest over the imperialists, of Ture and the PDG to the level of
state coordination and administration in Conakry - Guinea, we have a principled
model we can emulate; should emulate; must emulate. And of course constantly
adapt to the changing circumstances of the socio-political terrain of the
specific area, Africa as a whole, the African world in general and the world in
general.

The mass party concept gives us modern-day communal, that is popular, collective
ownership and control of large-scale industry and essential agricultural
processes, it gives the people themselves direct, by means of their organization
and representation, control of managerial processes and thus over the political
economy in place.? This guarantees the economy would reflect the interests of
the organized peoples, as opposed to an organized elite, even a well-meaning
elite, which believes it can usher in socialism and ultimately communism by dent
of vanguard structures and precepts.? This would be the highest possible form of
democracy and the absolute closest approximation of primitive, ancient and early
forms of general human communalism and the specific, though varied, African
forms of communalism. Such a party by definition would usher in the proper form
of African Union government, one that was the instrument and cultural creation
of the African peoples themselves.

It would facilitate what Nkrumah referred to as the inculcation of the positive
ethics, mores, traditions and approaches of the African communal tradition in
the frame and context of a modern highly technological (that is cybernetic,
nanotechnology, automated, robotic, atomic powered, knowledge and
information-driven) society.

In short it would give Africa scientific socialism with an African face and
accent; it would give the world the blessings of Pan-Africanism.

So, might I suggest that we seriously consider the benefits of a mass, aggregate
party for Africa (that is an aggregation of the mass parties fighting
imperialism and its manifestations into an apex party) and that we step up our
programs and general efforts to promote this concept, by shrewd and efficient
political branding techniques (using all forms of media from paper based
products ranging from flyers to books; to digital forms, encompassing everything
from videos on CD or DVD to social networking structures, and everything any
between and complementary to these devices. We must have an aggregate party
because it is the only organizational form sufficient to cope with the global
reality of African and general human society and social systems (including
political, but also economic, military, diplomatic, commercial and so forth).

That is the only way we will progress.? That is the only way forward for us.?
There is no HOPE in capitalism; there is no possible advancement in the schemes
now proffered by some of the emergence of a new kind of capitalism..a capitalism
based on entrepreneurship, which in fact is extreme reaction, as it advocates
that the solution to the problems we now face created by the
monopolist/financial capital can be resolved by embracing the
pre-monopoly/financial capital form of entrepreneurship -- essentially the
theories of Schumpeter masquerading as the era of free trade...but as they are
the theories of Schumpeter, they include the very monopoly aspect that it is
supposed to replace.? And even if the Schumpeter elements were to drop
Schumpeter's insistence on monopoly as an essential ingredient of capitalism,
you still would be faced with the fact that free trade, which in its essence is
the logic best represented by Adam Smith, cannot ever return by the dent of the
fact that human society has long since outgrown that form...which is why
monopoly capital arose in the first place.? So, to go back to Adam Smith
capitalism is nothing more than a fantasy form of reaction...to try to disguise
monopoly capitalism as simple innocent entrepreneurship, as the adherents to
Schumpeter are doing. is dishonest and sheer fakery.?

Our only sane option is socialism, the only way we can have socialism that is
truly scientific is that the political and economic levers of control are in the
hands of the organized people as a whole, as a safeguard against the development of elites of any kind.

Celebrate/commemorate the Pan-African victory over Portugal - NATO during the month of November.....