Africa Must Unite - Feint & Margin

1 Africa must UniteKWAME NKRUMAHFREDERICK A. PRAEGER, Publisher New YorkBOOKS THAT MATTERP ublished in the United States of America in 1963 by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publisher 64 University Place, New York 3, rights reserved ( ) Kwame Nkrumah 1963 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-184621 Printed in Great BritainDedicated to G e o r g e P a d m o r e(1900-1959)and to the African Nation that must beCONTENTSI ntroductionpageixi The African Background12 The Colonial Imprint93 Colonial Pattern of Economics204 Society Under Colonialism325 The Intellectual Vanguard436 Freedom First507 Achieving our Sovereignty578 Problems of Government669 Bringing Unity in Ghana7210 Our Ghanaian Constitution7911 The Administrative Instrument8712 Reconstruction and Development9713 Towards Economic Independence10714 Building Socialism in Ghana11815 Towards African Unity13216 Some Attempts at Unification141 Economic and Political Integration.

2 Africa s Need 15018 Neo-colonialism in Africa17319 Africa in World Affairs19420 Examples of Major Unions of States20521 Continental Government for Africa216 Index223 INTRODUCTIONF reedom! Hedsole! Sawaba! Uhuru!Men, women and children throughout the length and breadth of Africa repeat the slogans of African nationalism - the greatest political phenomenon of the latter part of the twentieth before in history has such a sweeping fervour for free dom expressed itself in great mass movements which are driving down the bastions of empire. This wind of change blowing through Africa , as I have said before, is no ordinary wind.

3 It is a raging hurricane against which the old order cannot great millions of Africa , and of Asia, have grown im patient of being hewers of wood and drawers of water, and are rebelling against the false belief that providence created some to be the menials of this century there have already been two world wars fought on the slogans of the preservation of democracy; on the right of peoples to determine the form of government under which they want to live. Statesmen have broadcast the need to respect fundamental freedoms, the right of men to live free from the shadow of fears which cramp their dignity when they exist in servitude, in poverty, in degradation and contempt.

4 They proclaimed the Atlantic Charter and the Charter of the United Nations, and then said that all these had no reference to the enslaved world outside the limits of imperialism and racial in the course of fighting for their own freedom, they had, like Abraham Lincoln in fighting America s civil war, to enlist the aid of the enslaved, who began to question the justice of their being dragged into wars for the freedom of those who intended to keep them in bondage. The democratic enunciations of the world s statesmen came under the critical examination of the colonized world. Men and women in the colonies began toXINTRODUCTION regard them as deceptions; clearly they were not to have uni versal realization was breaking upon the vast world of subject peoples that freedom is as much their inalienable right as it is of those who had set themselves over them on the pretext of bringing them Christian light and civilization.

5 The ideas of freedom and democracy, which the Western world was busily propagating to engage support for their cause, were being eagerly absorbed by those to whom freedom had been most strenuously denied. A boomerang to those who broadcast them, and dangerous in those to whom they were not intended to apply, they were feeding the will to freedom in the overseas areas of the world where their meaning was most deeply felt and by the nationalist leaders to the interests of the struggle for political emancipation, they have helped to foment the revolt of the majority of the world s inhabitants against their oppressors.

6 Thus we have witnessed the greatest awakening ever seen on this earth of suppressed and exploited peoples against the powers that have kept them in subjection. This, without a doubt, is the most significant happening of the twentieth the twentieth century has become the century of colonial emancipation, the century of continuing revolution which must finally witness the total liberation of Africa from colonial rule and imperialist exploitation. The independence of Ghana in 1957 opened wide the floodgates of African freedom. Within four years, eighteen other African countries achieved independence.

7 This development is the unique factor in world affairs today. For it has brought about significant changes in the composition of the United Nations Organization, and is having a momentous impact upon the balance of world affairs generally. It has resulted in an expanded world of free nations in which the voice of Africa , and of the reborn states of Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean will demand more and more careful expanding world of free African nations is the climax o f the conscious and determined struggle of the African peoples to throw off the yoke of imperialism, and it is transforming the continent.

8 Not all the ramparts of colonialism have yet fallen. Some still stand, though showing gaping rents from the stormy onslaughts that have been made against them. And we who haveINTRODUCTION xibattled our way to independence shall not stand quiet until the last stronghold of colonialism has been laid to the ground in we have dedicated ourselves to the attainment of total African freedom. Here is one bond of unity that allies free Africa with unfree Africa , as well as all those independent states dedicated to this cause. My party, the Convention People s Party, fervently upholds, as an unquestionable right, the burning aspirations of the still subjected peoples of our continent for freedom.

9 Since our inception, we have raised as a cardinal policy, the total emancipation of Africa from colonialism in all its forms. To this we have added the objective of the political union of African states as the securest safeguard of our hard-won freedom and the soundest foundation for our individual, no less than our common, economic, social and cultural my Autobiography, and to some extent also in another book of mine, I Speak of Freedom, I tried to show how, and why, the struggle for independence developed and succeeded in the then Gold Coast. My purpose now is to trace briefly the African background and the effects of centuries of colonialism on the political, economic and social life of Africa as a whole; to place developments in Ghana in the broader context of the African revolution; and to explain my political philosophy based on my conviction of the need for the freedom and unification of Africa and its The following are the islands of Africa : (i) Canary Islands Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Las Palmas, Ferro, Fuerte-Ventura, Lanzarote, Spanish; (2) Cape Verde Islands (Sto.)

10 Antao, Sao Tiago), Portuguese; (3) Madeira with Selvagens, Portuguese; (4) Arquipelago dos Bijagos (Caravela, Roxa), Portuguese', (5) Los Island, Guinea; (6) Fernando Po, Spanish; (7) Principe, Portuguese; (8) Sao Tome, Portuguese; (9) Annohon,Spanish; (10) Ascension, British; (11) St. Helena, British; (12) Tristan da Cunha with Gough, British; (13) Prince Edward and Marion, South African; (14) Malagasy, Independent; (15) Bassas da India, French; (16) Europa, French; (17) De la Reunion, French; (18) Mauritius, British; (19) Rodriguez, British; (20) Archipel des Comores (Grande Comore, Moheli, Anjouan, Mayotte, Banc du Geyses, Glorieuses), French; (21) Seychelles (Bird, Denis, Silhouette, Praslin, Mahe, Platte, Amirante, Desroches, Bijoutier, Alphonse, St.