When Teodora Gomes, an immortal leader within the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau (PAIGC), spoke there most likely wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Comrade Teodora was speaking to a room full of voting delegates present at PAIGC headquarters in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, for the first Party Congress for the All African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP). There was A-APRP participation within the room from chapters and organizing areas in Guinea-Bissau, Azania (South Africa), Kenya, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Canada, and the U.S— a pan-African vision in the making. Widely regarded and respected within the PAIGC, A-APRP, and . . .
Pan-Africanism
Star Spangled Blackness
There’s always been something about Black people wrapped in the American flag that has made me uneasy. For me, it’s a symbolism indicative of the intimate bonds we have with our oppressor, and the way it results in a longing to be accepted by those whose survival is predicated on our destruction. So, when I heard of the 1619 Project, I had immediate reservations. I’m well aware that 1619 was the year that the first recorded enslaved Africans came to the shores of the British colony, which would later become the state of Virginia. I support the need for African . . .
An Exercise in Dialectics
In both classical physics and quantum physics dialectics involves the propensity of material and immaterial things to move. This motion is responsible for the development of both the material and the immaterial and their transformation from one state to another. Motion is the mode of existence of all real things. This motion is the result of struggle and contradiction between the positive and negative forces within everything. The resulting motion is of two types: movement through time/space and movement or transformation from one state to another. In classical physics, a thing is what it is: a plant, a rock, or . . .
South Africa, Why Are You Scared of White People?
The incident that took place at the Bloemfontein Maselspoort resort complex on the afternoon of Christmas 2022 reminded me of Julian Kunnie’s inquiry on democratic South Africa when he quizzed, “Is apartheid dead?” At the resort, two teenage boys of African descent were involved in a racist scuffle with several seemingly Dutch descendants [Afrikaners/ white people] about the use of a swimming pool that was ‘exclusively segregated for whites only’. Social media was abuzz about the incident and the New York Times strangely got hold of the story and video footage of the incident. Most members of the society condemned . . .
The Murders of Malcolm X & Pio Gama Pinto
On the 21st of February, 1965, Malcolm X was killed in the Washington Heights neighborhood while speaking to an audience in Harlem, New York. Malcolm had just formed a new movement, the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), having left the Nation of Islam the previous year. He was 39 years old. Three days later, on the 24th of February 1965, Pio Gama Pinto, a socialist revolutionary in Kenya, was assassinated outside his home in Nairobi. He was 38 years old. The assassination of both Pinto and Malcolm X in the same week has long raised serious questions and conspiracy theories . . .
African Nationalism and The World Cup
During World Cup season, billions of people around the world have a new dose of entertainment to take their minds off the horrors of widespread economic stagnation, environmental degradation, as well as lower economic prospects for the working class than ever before, it is almost as if there isn’t an ongoing war in eastern Europe…strange times. As sports create an ‘us versus them’ atmosphere, it is also a key tool for soft power, diplomacy, and nationalism. National identity is also fostered through sports, meaning flagship events like the World Cup in Qatar are key opportunities for countries to exhibit national . . .
Reject the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit
The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) recognizes the “U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit” — scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C. December 13-15th — as nothing more than collusion between neo-colonial powers and U.S. attempts to advance and maintain dominance over the continent. Liberal elements of U.S. civil society will preoccupy themselves with the issues they think should be addressed at the Summit, claiming to act in the best interest of Africa or, as with the Summit of the Americas held earlier this year, attack those who they say do not deserve to be invited. Such dispositions presume the U.S. has honest . . .
Steps to a Socialist Pan-African Movement
A recently published book by Vita books publishers Essays on Pan-Africanism edited by Shiraz Durrani & Noosim Naimasiah contains essays on Pan-Africanism written by Pan-Africanist intellectuals at various times. In its preface, Prof. Issa Shivji says writings on Pan-Africanism never become dated for the desire of Africans globally for freedom continues burning, sometimes dimming into a flicker, at other times shining bright but never stuffed out however strong winds. The book has diverse chapters dating back to Karim Essack’s publication in 1993. Nevertheless, there is an important chapter on the necessity of building a Socialist Pan-African movement by Shiraz Durrani . . .