Free Essay on Rise of Pan Africanism in the Colonial Early Post-Colonial Period

Pan-Africanism epitomizes the combination of the spiritual, scientific, artistic, cultural, and metaphysical legacies of the Africans from the ancient time to the present-day. Africans suffered the slave trade in the hands of the Americans and the Europeans. The white man traded Africans, transporting them through the Atlantic to the Caribbean. The white man took Africans from different ethnic groups to work as slaves in their countries.

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In the white man's land, the Africans were tired by the oppression they received from the white man and decided to unite and look for ways to communicate; they came up with a common language, which played a vital role in adjusting the slaves to the new environment they were. In the course of coming up with a common language, they created new characters, which led to the formation of Pan-Africanism. Following the history of African slavery and the creation of Pan-Africanism, this paper will discuss the rise of Pan-Africanism in the colonial and early post-colonial period.

Slavery and the trade of the confined Africans endured in several parts of Africa and America during the nineteenth century. The European colonialists in Africa increased their activities throughout the nineteenth century, leading to the scramble for Africa and the beginning of the period of colonialism. Africans suffered racism in the hands of the white man, which led to the rise of African activists who struggled to free the race and counter the beliefs of the inferiority of the Africans. The idea to counter the views that Africans were inferior was the primary theme in the inscriptions of the African activists. Some of the founding fathers of the pan-Africanism are Marcus Garvey, Martin Delany, Frederick Douglas, and Edward Blyden. These African activists had the determination to fight to end the legal slavery of the Africans and to acquire their rights in the United States of America, where they were formerly enslaved.

The formerly enslaved activists in the American and the European land, the idea of pan-Africanism was to give them insight into their commonalities as fatalities of racism. They discovered that they were enthralled because of their common origin and their racial inheritance. The first communication and the exhibition of pan-Africanism occurred in North America and the Caribbean. The pan-Africanists linked the African continent with freedom. The consolidated Pan-African association started with the formation of the African Association, which took place in London in the year 1897.

During the twentieth century, the primary concern of the Pan-Africanists directed by the Trinidadian Henry Sylvester Williams was to strengthen the unity of every person from the African ancestry to decipher the problem of racism. It was also to obtain political and civil rights for the Africans together with their offspring the entire world. The Pan-Africanists also aimed at struggling against their colonialization and the movements of Americans and Europeans in Africa. Pan-Africanism during the colonial period aimed at the African countries receiving their independence from the white man.

During colonialism, the African continent was apportioned at the Berlin-Conference resulted in the creation of the false African States, which was formerly regarded as an entire continent. Pan-Africanism postulated a philosophy for uniting Africans who were in diaspora and those back at home in opposition to colonialism, and the partitioning of Africa to colonial nation-states did not do away with the ideology of a united African continent. By the time the African nations acquired political independence, the Pan-Africanism had united them to offer support to the other African countries, which had not received their autonomy to gain it. Most of the inspirations of the Africans to fight for one another came from the Caribbean. Their first conviction was that Africa was not free until every African nation gained their freedom; they were to fight until they achieve this objective.

The idea of Pan-Africanism was primarily to give Africans hope that it will remain united and not overpowered by the colonialists no matter what happens. All through the African generations, Pan-Africanism supported a cognizance of Africa as the Black person's ancestral home, and an aspiration to fight for its freedom. Most of the Pan-African movements started in the United States, where the Africans fought for their culture and their nationalities as Africans. Pan- Africanism movement created by the Africans who lived outside Africa, and it later became a global movement, influencing Africans in all parts of the world.

Even though Africans had different circumstances during the period of colonialism, they did not give up on their primary objective, which was to end colonialism and slave trade, all African countries had the same purpose. However, the primary goal of Pan-Africanism was not only to fight for Africans to restore their lands and their independence but regain their respect from the Americans and the Europeans. After the Africans in Diaspora had started the movement in the European countries, they decided to ensure its spread to the African countries.

After the period of colonization, the Pan-Africanist movement was significantly affected by the idea of the Marxism-liberation and communism, as demonstrated in the works and life of the African scholars and advocates, for example, W.E.B Dubois, George Padmore, Hunton, Paul Robeson, and C.L.R. James. Initially, Europe was the epicenter of the Pan-African globally, during the period of post-colonialism, i.e., in 1945, the Pan-Africanist changed their attention of the activities of the Pan-African communities into the African continent after the holding of the fifth Pan-African conference in Manchester, England. During this era, the Pan-African conferences acted as significant involvements for the African national leaders who, during that time, presumed the responsibility and the ancient responsibility to ensure decolonization of the African continent and its integration.

After the conference in Manchester, England, new varieties of Pan-Africanists emerged, and they contributed so much in the liberation of the African continent from the colonialists. They have had the determination to organize and unite the Africans from the oppressors. The African leaders worked tirelessly to ensure that they drove out the Americans and the Europeans from their continent. Kwame Nkrumah significantly stirred up Pan-Africanism in African countries during the end of the British colonial regime in 1957 on the Gold Coast. After Ghana had gained its independence, Kwame Nkrumah became an inspiration and brought many Africans from the diaspora back into their African countries. The beaconing of Africans in the diaspora to come back to Africa resulted in the creation of a new Pan-Africanism movement, which was positioned on the continent of Africa. The new Pan-Africanism climaxed to the formation of other African movements such as the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

Other African leaders such as Julius Nyerere, Ahmed Ben Bella, and Sekou Toure also shared the vision Kwame Nkrumah had on liberating Africans for good. It took other African countries to achieve their independence, the Pan-Africanism in Africa aimed at helping African countries in the fight against the protracted battles of national freedom. During this period, Amilcar Cabral became one of the most influential leaders until his murder in 1973; his efforts resulted in the formation of the anti-colonial fight against Portugal.

The freedom of the African continent from the colonialists could not end without the culmination of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Nelson Mandela was one of the African leaders, who ensured that the Apartheid regime ended; he was imprisoned and tortured by the Europeans but did not give up on the main objective of the Pan-Africanism. After the end of the apartheid, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and became the most celebrated Pan-Africanist in South Africa and the diaspora; he was an icon for the liberation of Africans all through the African content and abroad.

The formation of the Organization of the African Union after colonialism gave the Africans a platform where they could discuss the common problems the Africans were facing and a platform where they could solve the controversial issues the African continent was facing. Even though the African states had no clear agreements after the post-colonial period, they were working with a similar objective on various questions that constituted the approach the Africans could take to deal with international issues. The Organization of the African Unity documented their approach to the issues, which reflected its determinations to abolish the last remnants of colonialism and the apartheid on the African continent.

The African leaders established a committee known as the African Liberation Committee, which had the role of distributing financial and military support to the members of the liberation associations, which we're aiming at defeating the colonialists and other minority rules in South Africa. The victory during the fight against the colonialists took time to come into realization because the African States were lacked an integrated strategy to the situation. The OAU fought against the Europeans who spent heavily in the gold mining and diamond industries in South Africa. Even though the African nations depended on the Europeans to fund their economic expansion programs, the OAU depicted its strength to the entire world. It was due to one accord of the African nations that led it to combat the remaining colonialists and the South African apartheid regime finally.

Even though the Organization of African Unity led to the freedom of the African nations, the African states found it difficult to manage their programs due to difficulties in economic liberation and political permanency. The African countries decided to adopt the Lagos Plan of Action in 1980 to solve their financial problems. The adoption of the Lagos Plan of Action aimed at reorganizing the Africans economic foundations, which they founded on the code of "collective self-reliance." The Lagos Plan of Action realized that the financial disaster Africans were due to the historical prejudice the Africans suffered under the colonialists and its prolonged dependence on the outside forces.

The exploitation of the African continent during the colonial era for two decades made Africa be the underdeveloped continent. The exploitation of the African states by the colonialists occurred via the neo-colonialists outside forces, which sought to affect the economic strategies and trends of the African nations. The Pan-Africanists developed a strategy response to practice an independent development by endorsing interior and regional assimilation structures and industrializing the African continent. The motivation that led to the developmental policy was to enable the African nations to reduce their dependency on the economy of the foreigners and to fortify their joint capability to negotiate with the economics of the superpowers of the world.

Conclusion

After colonization, the Pan-African states developed strategies that could help mediate, reconcile, and judge, this strategy was for resolving territorial and border clashes among its members. African countries suffered civil wars among themselves as from 1960 after colonization. The civil wars were bloody, and the wars resulted in vast numbers of African refugees within their continent. The civil wars did not only traumatize Africans, but it also destroyed the developing economic structures of an unfledged continent.