‘LET US RALLY AROUND THE FLAG’: FOOTBALL, NATION-BUILDING, AND PAN-AFRICANISM IN KWAME NKRUMAH'S GHANA

2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Darby
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
African Unity ◽  
World Cup ◽  
Cultural Form ◽  
Kwame Nkrumah ◽  
Pan African ◽  
Pan Africanism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific

AbstractThe nationalistic fervour that greeted Ghana's performances in the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa powerfully evoked memories of an earlier period in the history of the Ghanaian state that witnessed Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of independent Ghana, draw on the game as a rallying point for nation-building and pan-African unity. This article uncovers this history by analysing Nkrumah's overt politicisation of football in the late colonial and immediate postcolonial periods. This study not only makes a novel contribution to the growing historical and social scientific literature on what is arguably Africa's most pervasive popular cultural form but also deepens our understanding of one of the continent's most significant political figures.

The Wages of Blackness

Jah Kingdom ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monique A. Bedasse
Keyword(s):  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Pan African ◽  
Pan Africanism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Independent States ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Newly Independent States

When Rastafarians began to petition the Tanzanian government for the “right of entry” in 1976, they benefitted from a history of linkages between Jamaica and Tanzania, facilitated largely by the personal and political friendship between Julius Nyerere and Prime Minister of Jamaica, Michael Manley. This is the subject of the third chapter, which provides essential context for the repatriation. The chapter begins by unearthing the pan-African politics of Michael Manley, which he constructed after appropriating Rastafarian symbols and consciousness into his political campaigns. It also puts a spotlight on the extent to which African leaders of newly independent states helped to define the pan-Africanism of this period by detailing the impact of Julius Nyerere on Manley’s thinking. Finally, it juxtaposes Manley’s acceptance in pan-African circles across Africa with his personal struggle over his own perceived distance from blackness, as a member of Jamaica’s “brown’ elite. In the end, Rastafari was absolutely central to generating the brand of politics surrounding race, color and class in the moment of decolonization. The history of repatriation transgresses analytical boundaries between state and nonstate actors.

Beyond the African Unification Debate: Why is Pan-African Unity Still a Distant Dream?

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-21
Author(s):  
Sengulo Albert Msellemu ◽  
Hamisi Mathias Machangu
Keyword(s):  
African Diaspora ◽  
African Union ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Kwame Nkrumah ◽  
Pan African ◽  
The Future ◽  
Organization Of African Unity

The idea of the Unification of Africa is not one that should be easily discarded. It is an idea, however, that has experienced major difficulties for those seeking to implement it. Originating in the African Diaspora, it was taken up by figures such as Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere. In its first decades, the project of African unity was institutionalised in the Organization of African Unity. The OAU passed through many vicissitudes and was always a conceptual and political battleground divided between those who wanted swift and speedy unification of African states, and those who favoured more cautious approaches. In a period where the OAU has given way to the African Union, the authors make an impassioned plea for the continuation of the unification projection into the future, even if in a more sober manner more attuned to the complexities of a diverse continent.

Nkrumahism: past and future of an ideology

1966 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald G. MacRae
Keyword(s):  
West Indies ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
African Unity ◽  
The West ◽  
People's Party ◽  
Kwame Nkrumah ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
Pan Africanism ◽  
Military Revolution ◽  
The Military

On the morning of 12 February 1951 Kwame Nkrumah was freed from James Fort Prison in Accra. On the 14th he was invited by the Governor of the Gold Coast to form a government. He and his party, the Convention People's Party (CPP), remained in office through the transition to political independence on 6 March 1957, when the Gold Coast changed its name to Ghana, until the military revolution of 24 February 1966. This event formed the fifth of a series of army coups in Negro Africa which had begun on 25 November 1965 in the Congo, and it is probably the most important. Not only had Nkrumah held power for fifteen years, he was, for all the small size of his country, almost certainly the most influential politician south of the Sahara, and for what it was worth the only serious non-Muslim ideologist of the whole continent. Ghana had led the movement to African independence. So far as there was a common political creed its items and aspirations were Nkrumah's and the aspirations, however ineffective, to African unity, were based on his Pan-Africanism and not on the potentially alternative concept of négritude which had spread from the West Indies into French Africa's attitudes and politics.

scholarly journals Pan-Africanism in the 21st century: African union and the challenges of cooperation and integration in Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-311
Author(s):  
Sharkdam Wapmuk
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Free Trade Area ◽  
African Union ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Economic Community ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Trade Area ◽  
Pan African ◽  
Pan Africanism ◽  
Agenda 2063

The paper examines the extent to which Pan-Africanism and Pan-African vision of promoting African unity, cooperation and integration has been achieved under the African Union (AU) in the 21st century. It also assesses the challenges of cooperation and integration under the AU. The paper adopted a qualitative approach, while data was gathered from secondary sources and analysed thematically. It notes that the quest for African cooperation and integration is not new, but dates back to philosophy and vision of Pan-Africanism and Pan-African movement from the 1950s and 1960s. This movement later took roots in the continent and championed the struggle of Africans and peoples of African descent for emancipation and the restoration of their dignity, against slavery, colonialism and all forms of racism and racial exploitation, and to overcome developmental challenges. After independence, the Pan-African movement found concrete expression in the establishment of the Organization of Africa Unity (OAU) in 1963, and later transformed to the African Union (AU) in 2002. These continental organisations have served at platforms for the pursuit of Africa cooperation and integration and addressing post-independence challenges with varying successes. The paper revealed that AU’s Pan-African agenda in the 21st century including the African Economic Community (AEC), AU Agenda 2063, and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), are not without challenges. Addressing these challenges holds the key to achieving the continental goal of unity and achieving the vision and goals pan-Africanism in the 21st century in Africa.

scholarly journals Pan-Africanism: A Quest for Liberation and the Pursuit of a United Africa

Genealogy ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Malisa ◽  
Phillippa Nhengeze
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideas ◽  
Kwame Nkrumah ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Pan Africanism ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cultural Movement ◽  
Thabo Mbeki ◽  
Independence Movements

Our paper examines the place of Pan-Africanism as an educational, political, and cultural movement which had a lasting impact on the on the relationship between liberation and people of African descent, in the continent of Africa and the Diaspora. We also show its evolution, beginning with formerly enslaved Africans in the Americas, to the colonial borders of the 1884 Berlin Conference, and conclude with the independence movements in Africa. For formerly enslaved Africans, Pan-Africanism was an idea that helped them see their commonalities as victims of racism. That is, they realized that they were enslaved because they came from the same continent and shared the same racial heritage. They associated the continent of Africa with freedom. The partitioning of Africa at the Berlin Conference (colonialism) created pseudo-nation states out of what was initially seen as an undivided continent. Pan-Africanism provided an ideology for rallying Africans at home and abroad against colonialism, and the creation of colonial nation-states did not erase the idea of a united Africa. As different African nations gained political independence, they took it upon themselves to support those countries fighting for their independence. The belief, then, was that as long as one African nation was not free, the continent could not be viewed as free. The existence of nation-states did not imply the negation of Pan-Africanism. The political ideas we examine include those of Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. Du Bois, Kwame Nkrumah, Maya Angelou, and Thabo Mbeki. Pan-Africanism, as it were, has shaped how many people understand the history of Africa and of African people.

Julius Nyerere: from a Territorial Nationalist to a Pan African Nationalist

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-332
Author(s):  
Ng’wanza Kamata
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Pan African ◽  
Pan Africanism ◽  
African Nationalism

Abstract Africa has largely experienced two types of nationalism namely territorial nationalism and Pan Africanism. Both territorial and Pan African nationalism were anti-imperialists but the former’s mission was limited to attainment of independence from colonialism. Few nationalist leaders who led their countries to independence transcended territorial nationalism; one of them was Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. Nyerere was a Pan African nationalist although he began as a nationalist concerned with the liberation of his country Tanganyika. He spent most of his political life championing for African Unity believing that it was the only instrument to totally liberate Africa. How did his ideas and practices which initially placed him in the ranks of territorial nationalists advance into Pan Africanism? This article examines this question and explores Nyerere’s aspects of Pan Africanism.

scholarly journals Fluid Mobilities? Experiencing and Responding to Othering in a Borderless West Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-72
Author(s):  
Akosua K. Darkwah
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
The Other ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Free Movement ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Pan African ◽  
History Of ◽  
Free Movement Of Persons

This paper seeks to interrogate the processes of othering that takes place in Ghana, acountry with a long history of migrants from the region now known as Nigeria. Thepaper draws on Spivak's (1985) concept of othering and explores both the ways inwhich Ghanaians othering of Nigerians is made manifest as well as the ways in whichNigerians respond to these processes of othering. Ultimately, I argue that until bothGhanaians and Nigerians recognize othering as a problem worthy of redress, the fullimport of the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement of Persons will be lost on thesetwo groups of West African citizens. For, while people can and do move across the 16borders of West Africa, they do not necessarily move freely. Migrants are oftenreminded of their status as the other even in a country where our founding fathersought to establish a strong sense of Pan African unity.

The Pan-African Movement: A History of Pan-Africanism in America, Europe and Africa

1976 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roderick J. Macdonald ◽  
Immanuel Geiss ◽  
Ann Keep ◽  
Adekunle Ajala
Keyword(s):  
Pan African ◽  
Pan Africanism ◽  
History Of
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