How Africanist ideology misses the point Thabo Thwala, The New Age, Johannesburg, 4 March 2015 The speech made by the Africanist Robert Sobukwe to the inaugural Convention of Africanists in 1959 – an excerpt of which was published in The New Age (February 27, 2015: –Africa must not be split by power blocs) – while generally written in well-polished English, exposes the serious shortcomings of the Africanist ideology. It is clear from his speech that he acknowledges the power and brutality of capitalism, and by extension acknowledges the existence of the capitalist class, but goes on to implicitly deny the existence of classes. He does not talk about classes, but only talks about Africans as if the only race capable of exploiting another is the white race and never the black. His struggle, and those of his fellow Africanists, begins and ends with Africa. Terrible! Sobukwe claims that “Africanists reject totalitarianism in any form and accept political democracy as understood in the West”. When he talks about the “West” he chiefly refers to the US. But this is a serious contradiction! The democracy of the US was, and still is, a democracy for the few. It is democracy for the exclusive benefit of the capitalist class. How could Sobukwe miss such a simple fact? For Africanists to claim that they “reject the economic exploitation of the many for the benefit of a few” while at the same time salivating over the democracy of capitalists is as foolishly naïve as to believe that the capitalist class will one day agree to benevolently cut its profits so as to feed poor Africans. The problem with the Africanists’ proposition in this regard is the assumption that the US is the owner of democracy and no one else. These Africanists could not even advocate for democracy as seen in the African continent in pre-colonialism epoch, especially through the important principle of ubuntu. No, they want none of that! All they want is democracy as seen in the great imperialist state; the US. What a letdown! It is because of the short-sightedness of the Africanist theory that we have seen the demise of the PAC, Azapo, and other like parties. The next is the EFF. It is precisely because of the blind worship of Africanism that former African liberation movements have crumbled. Africanism as an ideology cannot stand on its own and therefore fails to analyse society as a whole. It is clear Africanism is too limited a theory. The various Africanists that have come through history have made it worse by being anti-communist – while at the same time accepting a great deal of capitalist teachings. Sobukwe should have come out clear that the world is torn into two large camps; the capitalist class and the working class. His “neutral” stance that there was a “scramble for Africa between US and Soviet bloc” is wrong because the Soviet Union, in the support of African struggles, supplied African revolutionaries with military training and support of everything one could think of. They gave academic training, producing doctors and also provided food. They did this for free. Such cannot be said about the US whose democracy the Africanists worship. • Thabo Thwala is a researcher at Mapungubwe Institute of Strategic Reflection (Mistra) -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
