AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY

Happy African Liberation Day! It’s an annual call to action, a time to renew our commitments to the struggle for liberation and unity. Some people wrongly think it celebrates the founding of the African Union. It was actually started in support of African national liberation struggles against settler or Portuguese colonialism in the 1960s and 1970s. And it still has huge relevance today. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have formed the Alliance of Sahel States to push back against French neocolonialism. Resource-rich DRC, Sudan and the diaspora in Haiti are other examples where Africans continue to be oppressed.

While some refer to it as ‘Africa Day’, we’ll refer to the full noscript until the continent has freed itself from imperialism. To learn more about African Liberation Day or to see if there is an event near you, check out africanliberationday.net.

Are you observing African Liberation Day this year? Let us know how in the comments.

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FIFA WEIGHS ISRAEL BAN

A footballing ban against Israel is on the cards. World governing body FIFA is seeking legal advice over a Palestinian request to bar Israeli teams from international matches. FIFA members will decide what action to take at an extraordinary council meeting to be held within two months.
It’s hard to imagine why they wouldn’t sanction Israel. Palestinian football chiefs say nearly 200 Palestinian players are among the thousands dead following Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Sporting infrastructure in the Strip has been obliterated. Even before the massacre, Palestinian players have faced years of discrimination and travel restrictions by Tel Aviv. However, up until now, FIFA has failed to act. Surely, isn't this the moment to take a stand?

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WALTER RODNEY’S AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY SPEECH

At an African Liberation Day event held in San Francisco in 1972, the great Pan-African Marxist historian Walter Rodney delivered a clear message to his African brothers and sisters. The Guyanese-born author of ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ makes it clear: Africans of the diaspora are indeed Africans!

While Rodney was born in the Caribbean and educated in Jamaica and the United Kingdom, he identified strongly with Africa and chose to spend a formative part of his career in Tanzania. His scholarship has long served as a bridge linking Mama Africa to her scattered children across the world.

Continued….. African Liberation Day was the perfect occasion for him to diffuse his message and connect with the people. The event was founded in 1963 to support the ongoing armed national liberation struggles unfolding at that time across southern Africa, as well as in Guinea-Bissau. For decades, African Liberation Day has served as an occasion to show pride in African heritage and the fruits of the African liberation struggle.

Have you read Rodney?

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF PAN-AFRICAN CONGRESSES

The historic struggle to liberate and unify the African continent dates much further back than many people may realise.

In this 1996 video clip, @aaprpinternational co-founder Kwame Ture traces the history of Pan-African conferences and congresses, starting in 1900. The foundation for the movement had already been laid by the end of the 19th century, when the term ‘Pan-Africanism’ was first coined. As early as 1887, the Kansas African Emigration Association stated its goal of establishing the ‘United States of Africa for the elevation of the African.’

Continued….. According to Ture of @aaprp, the most important of the congresses was the fifth held in 1945 in Manchester, United Kingdom. For the first time, African workers and students participated alongside intellectuals. They hailed from various parts of Africa as well as the diaspora. The congress impacted Kwame Nkrumah, who returned to his native Ghana to lead his country to independence. Ghana then became a symbol and hub for the global Pan-African struggle.

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UNITE OR PERISH: THE BATTLE FOR AFRICA

Today is African Liberation Day! And it is also the anniversary of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the precursor to the modern African Union. So you might think the former is somehow connected to the latter - correct, but it’s no mere celebration of the founding…

The OAU came about as a form of compromise between two rival factions in the early days of African flag independence. For the progressive Casablanca Group, Africa’s destiny lay in total liberation and unification under a socialist economy.

Continued….. But the more conservative Monrovia Group fiercely guarded their micro-national sovereignty, not wanting to give up independence for the states carved out by European colonialism. They advocated for capitalism and close relationships with European states.

While the Organisation of African Unity represented the looser and vaguer form of unity advocated for by the Monrovia Group, it still issued some radical resolutions - including the founding of African Liberation Day, which was meant as a show of support for the ongoing national liberation struggles unfolding in Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe at the time. The Liberation Committee within the OAU was the most militant wing of the organisation as it lent support to armed anti-colonial struggles in multiple African countries.

However, once that phase of the struggle had ended, the OAU and later the African Union ended up largely submitting to the conservative and neo-colonial orientation of the Monrovia Group. African states continue to struggle with economic development, a just distribution of resources and the safety and security of their people - all issues that could be addressed through a unified Pan-African state. For this reason, Pan-Africanists continue to recognise African Liberation Day and call for the complete liberation and unification of the continent.

How are you marking the occasion?

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LONGTIME DIASPORA ACTIVIST SEEKS PAN-AFRICAN UNITY IN BURKINA FASO

New Afrikan organiser Siphiwe Baleka (@siphiwebaleka) recently visited the Thomas Sankara Centre (@burkinabooks) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, seeking to connect the struggle of African peoples in the diaspora with the fight waged on the continent.

He used his family’s history starting from the European Slave Trade to bridge Africa and the Americas.

Baleka travelled to Burkina Faso with the African Diaspora Development Institute (ADDI), meeting with President Ibrahim Traoré to discuss the importance of defending Africans in the diaspora, supporting a potential reparations case at the International Court of Justice, and granting diaspora Africans citizenship in Burkina Faso. Former African Union Permanent Representative to the United States Arikana Chihombori-Quao is ADDI’s founder and president.

Continued…. Baleka identifies as a New Afrikan instead of as ‘Black American’ or ‘African American.’ The former term describes a descendant of enslaved Africans in the United States seeking to reclaim a historical land base in the US South, where their ancestors were forced into labour. The term signifies a collective identity rooted in shared experiences, acknowledging the unique history, culture, and struggles. Some have noted the contradiction in claiming land unceded by the region’s indigenous peoples.

Baleka also represented the Pan African Federalist Movement (PAFM) West Africa Region, of which he is Head of Research and Strategy. The organisation seeks to create a federal ‘United African States’ to benefit the diaspora, potentially granting citizenship in a new Pan-African superstate.

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HOW THE UAE BACKS GENOCIDE IN SUDAN

Independent climate reporter Rachel Donald (@planetcritical) breaks down how the United Arab Emirates (UAE) might be behind the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Sudan's Darfur region through what she describes as the UAE's proxy, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Donald explains the importance of Sudan's rich mineral deposits and location as motives for the UAE to work with the paramilitary force that, until 15 April 2023, worked alongside the Sudanese army as part of a civilian-military council to transition the country to civilian rule. Now, for more than a year, the RSF has been battling the army in the streets, creating a humanitarian crisis for 25 million—more than half the population—and displacing over 8 million Sudanese.

Continued…. Moreover, Donald links Russia, the US, and the European Union in profiting off the UAE's actions in Sudan and ignoring civil society groups that have called for those governments to hold the UAE accountable for its blood money.

All in all, a complicated game of realpolitik has cost more than 15,000 lives in Sudan over a year of conflict, according to US estimates. Plus, the UN recently said about 700,000 children in Sudan will suffer from acute malnutrition. 

This video is over 6 minutes long but worth watching until the end.

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SLAVERY DIDN'T STOP AFRICANS FROM BEING AFRICAN

As African people scattered across different countries and continents, we often get caught up in diaspora wars. We may argue about who has the right to which cultural representations and the distinctions between Jamaicans, Brazilians, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Haitians, Africans in the United States, and so on.

But how often do we reflect upon European conquest, enslavement and colonisation stripping us of our right to choose our identities and national affiliations?

Pan-Africanism is the ultimate act of self-determination because it rejects the colonial borders Europeans have imposed on Africans and allows us to define ourselves on our terms.

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