The 9th Pan African Congress: postponed or cancelled?
Many of us at Toward Freedom were disappointed to learn that the long awaited 9th Pan- African Congress, to be held in Lome,Togo on October 29 to November 2, 2024 was postponed…or cancelled. Scant information has been available to clear the air. We are pleased to publish this backgrounder written by Siphiwe Baleka who has studied the history of Pan African Congresses and was closely involved in trying to work thru some of the knots that bedeviled the planning of this Congress. Siphiwe has been involved with many Pan African groups: the Republic of New Afrika (PGRNA), West Africa Region of the Pan African Federalist Movement (PAFM), NCOBRA to list just a few. You can reach him at: [email protected]
We invite others to respond to this commentary. Is there, as Baleka asserts, a rising tide of popular revolutionary Pan Africanism on the continent? What are your thoughts for next steps in the Global Pan African movement? Write to us at [email protected]
Robin Lloyd interim editor
Commentary: THE UNFINISHED BUSINESS OF THE PAN AFRICAN CONGRESS
By Siphiwe Baleka
“The generation of young African people of today ask: Does the Pan African Movement have an institution that represents all of us, is SUPPORTED by all of us and speaks with one recognized voice? Where do all the Pan African Organizations register and coordinate their activities? What is the mechanism through which all Pan African organizations can work together?
Three separate Pan African Congresses were being organized for 2024: one that was first called by H.E. Ambassador Arikana Chihombori Quao scheduled to take place in Zimbabwe, one called for by the Global Pan African Movement (GPAM) to take place in Kampala, Uganda, and one called for by the Republic of Togo. If all three are successful, we will have succeeded in creating three very high-level and well respected entities with the same vision, objectives and agendas with separate, uncoordinated structures competing with each other for both popular support and African Union recognition.
Moreover, other entities and initiatives outside of the Pan African Congress legacy format are also pursuing the same vision, objectives and agendas, particularly concerning the establishment, governing and administrating for the African Union 6th Region in Diaspora. Not only is this a waste of resources in duplicate and redundant efforts, it will further show that the Pan African movement and the African Diaspora 6th Region does not fully understand itself and the potential of the moment, and is incapable of organizing and managing its own affairs.
How can the Pan Africanists demand a “One Africa” when it cannot set the example of a “One Pan African Secretariat” that is supported by all Pan Africanists that can speak with one voice? How can the African Diaspora demand a “One Africa” when it cannot set the example of a “One African Diaspora 6th Region” with a high council that is supported by all Africans in the Diaspora and can speak with one voice?”[1]
As we know now, all three Pan African Congresses scheduled for 2024 have been postponed. This is nothing new. The 6th PAC was postponed for two weeks before it finally opened on June 20, 1974, in Nkrumah Hall at the University of Dar es Salaam. The past General Secretary of GPAM Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem tells us that “The 7th Pan African Congress took place in Kampala, Uganda, 3-8 April 1994. It was originally scheduled to take place in December 1993 but had to be rescheduled, at the last minute, due not only to logistical problems of travel but also because certain objectives and subjective obstacles surfaced in the first weeks of December when the decision was taken by the International Preparatory Committee (IPC) for the Congress.”
But why was the 9th Pan African Congress, scheduled from 29 October to 02 November 2024 in Lomé postponed? The official communique did not offer any explanation. I was told it was because of a “logistical adjustment. . . to better cater to the guests.” Rumor has it that renovations to the conference site were not completed on schedule. Still others speculated that widespread opposition to the manner in which the Congress was organized thwarted a sinister plot by neo colonial interests to seize the Pan African Movement and ignore, discredit or neutralize established Pan Africanists, many of whom refused to attend on the grounds that the 9th PAC was “illegitimate”. At issue were the same themes that emerged at the 6th PAC and continued ever since. The great Guyanese Pan African historian Walter Rodney expressed it back then:
“The African radicals of 1958 are by and large the incumbents in office today. The radicals of today lead at best an uncomfortable existence within African states, while some languish in prison or in exile. The present petty bourgeois regimes would look with disfavor at any organized program which purported to be Pan-African without their sanction and participation. None of the progressive African regimes, which are already isolated and exposed to internal and external reaction, would dare to host a Congress which brought together only those who aggressively urge a unity of the African working masses and the building of a Socialist society. Such a Congress would have to be held in a metropolitan center, and would thus condemn itself to serve primarily as a forum for alienated intellectuals. In the light of the above considerations, any African committed to freedom, Socialism and development would need to look long and hard at the political implications of participation in the Sixth Pan-African Congress.”[2]
Ditto for today’s 9th Pan African Congress! This was expressed by Gen Kahinda Otafiire, Chairman of the International Committee of the GPAM in its May 20, 2024 letter, “GPAM Position on Togo Government’s Decision Re: 9th PAC Event Under its’ Decade of African Roots and Diasporas Agenda”:
“The call for the Pan African Congress coming from a state government is unprecedented in the entire history of the Pan African Movement Congresses (1900-2022). This unprecedented action reflects the apparently unilateral and cavalier reinterpretation or revision of what the AU heads of state actually said in their endorsement of the Togo initiative for 2021-2031 the ‘Decade of African Roots and Diasporas.
This action in conjunction with the state controlled, top down manner of organizing, selecting participants, and predetermined agenda setting by a state government is tantamount to a usurpation or hijacking of an African people’s, African citizens’ global movement and its Congress.
This whole situation has also provoked objections that what is being proposed and the manner in which it is being organized amounts to a defacto undermining of the history, legacy and practice of the Congresses being an instrumental extension of the mass based Pan African Movement. . . . the narrowness of agenda, the stated purpose and the top down approach is the antithesis of the reasons and purpose of the regional preparatory meetings. It contradicts the heritage and practices of the Pan African Movement’s inclusive popular driven processes of the previous Congresses.
In the face of a rising tide of popular Revolutionary Pan Africanism on the continent and in the diaspora there is fear that this is an attempt to commandeer the movement, turn it into a cultural heritage return to your roots ‘tourists Development Project’ and a government centric appendage of AU member states – in this case the Governments of the 15 member ‘High Committee’ led by the government of Togo with Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, The Gambia, Ghana, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Tanzania South Africa, Angola and Namibia.
The manner the ‘High Committee of the AU Decade of African Roots and Diasporas, comprising 15 African governments, has established an agenda for a ten (l0) year program that is primarily focused on the African Diasporas for mobilizing resources, including using Reparations Payments for pursuing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 within the rubric of the AU Decade of African Roots and Diasporas. This program as the foundation of the agenda and objectives for the so called 9th PAC is tantamount to these states, and by implication, the AU, taking over or appropriating and placing the Pan African Movement and the Pan African Congresses under its control. This is unacceptable! . . . It should be noted that the AU in its resolution regarding the Togo Africa Roots and Diaspora initiative and its call for ‘an event’ never mentions or designates the event to be the 9th Pan African Congress. The AU, and the earlier Organization of African Unity, via a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) recognizes the GPAM and its secretariat, together with the mass based popular foundations of organizing the Congresses and setting the agenda. . . . Therefore, neither the AU, nor any of its member states, based on principles and respect of the peoples’ movement, can nor should do anything to commandeer the movement of which the Congresses are part and parcel and transforming it from a popular African people centric movement into a component of a self-serving government centric ‘development program’. Unfortunately, this is defacto to the essence of what the Togolese government is doing by organizing a 9th Pan African Congress under the auspices of the state and its agenda of the AU the 2021-2031 Agenda, “Decade of African Roots and Diasporas”. Consequently, the Secretariat and Governing Council of the Global Pan African Movement will not participate in any capacity in these activities being organized and convened by the Togolese government as a 9th Pan African Congress.”
CONCLUSION
So, 2024 will not be the year of Pan African organizational unity, as I and so many people, especially young people, had hoped. From the above, I think I have shown that the “9th PAC in Lomé” has a deficit of legitimacy. Many credible, SERIOUS Pan Africanists from around the world decided they would not attend despite various attempts made by myself and others to mobilize and coordinate their support and assistance in developing the agenda and promoting the event. The manner in which this Congress was organized ensured from the start that significant numbers of serious Pan Africanists would not be in attendance and further divided the movement. This is the problem I attempted to solve back in February of 2023.
On one side were those, who, like me, agreed with the view expressed by GPAM, but nevertheless saw a greater interest in attending. On the other were those who wanted to boycott the Congress, and by the absence of so many Pan Africanists, completely de-legitimize the Congress. This group also had serious security concerns given Togo’s relationship with France.
I advocated that all those who were opposed should come anyway, that they should leverage the effort and resources given by the Togolese government to organize the event, especially since they, the opposition group, proved that they did not have the capacity to convene an alternative Congress. The indefinite postponement of the Congresses in Zimbabwe and Uganda are a testament to just how difficult it is to get a host government to follow through with such a politically-charged and economically significant task as convening the community of African activists committed to changing the world order. Togo has set the table, why not have the full force of Pan Africanists come forth and crash the party, seize the agenda and set the narrative? After all, I reasoned, the event is going to happen anyway (so I believed!), and without the strong voice of the protesting opposition to correct the agenda, it would go down in history as a fait accompli whose outcomes and narratives would dominate the media and greatly influence the current and next generation of Pan Africanists. I didn’t see how that would be useful to those who wanted to boycott Lomé.
The postponement of the “9th PAC in Lomé”, however, has provoked a serious conversation among the opposition: what do WE do now? Where can we hold a 9th Pan African Congress that is not seen as an African state and political elite takeover of the Pan African Movement? The postponement has provided space for an Indaba – a virtual meeting to discuss this serious topic. Indeed, it has already begun in several network forums. It provides a space for the organizers of Lomé and of GPAM, as well as other non-aligned Pan Africanists, to embrace the vision of a Pan African Organizational Unity, to practice Ubuntu, and to host in 2025 a congress organized in a manner acceptable to all. As Head of Research and Strategy for the Pan African Federalist Movement, I have made a case for the Republic of Burkina Faso to hold a Congress as it is seen as the current champion of Pan Africanism on the continent and is fast becoming its focus as the movement’s new headquarters.
Perhaps I am just too much of an idealist, but I am thinking and speaking not just for myself, but for young Africans everywhere who are tired of talk of unity without its real demonstration. Pan African elder Baye Kesbamera (Duane Bradford), past Kichwa (President) of the Pan-African Associations of America and author of Reflections on 21st Century Pan-Africanism, and the Envisioning of the Pan-African Congresses and the Development of the 6th Region of the African Union[3] told me that in the early 1990’s he sat on a bench with the great Pan Africanist John Henrik Clarke who told him, “I’m afraid that we only have about a 50 year window of opportunity for Pan Africanism to fully mature or else that window will forever close.” That was thirty years ago. We either get it right now, or it’s everyone for themselves.
FOR THE COMPLETE BACKGROUND TO THE EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE PLANNING AND POSTPONEMENT, CLICK HERE
For more information, follow Franics Kokutse, a freelance journalist based in Accra. https://www.modernghana.com/news/1350881/togo-has-taken-up-the-challenge-to-revive-pan-afri.html
