Due to the political fragmentation of the continent of Africa, Pan-Africanism is the spirit of unity of the African, with its indigenous strong identities – Arts and Culture, science are an integral part of the African Culture, and Africans at home and abroad are constantly being represented by many prominent personalities in a significant number of disciplines, including Nobel prize laureates etc.
The culture of Pan-Africanism and events surrounding its existent, holds the ideology that Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds solidarity of between all people and diasporas of African descent Based on a common goal dating back to the enslaved people of Africa during the Atlantic Slave trade, the movement extends beyond continental Africans with a substantial support base among the descendants of Africa worldwide.
Pan-Africanism can be said to have its origins in the struggles of the African people against the partition of Africa since 1884 at the Berlin Conference in Germany.
At its core, pan-Africanism is more than just a belief that “African people, both on the continent and its descendants in the Diaspora share a common history and a common destiny.” Pan-Africanism is merely seen as a political movement in which all Africans and its descendant are classified as belonging to a race or otherwise sharing cultural unity. Pan-Africanism often is vividly said that Africans and its enslaved Descendants, hold a sense of a shared historical fate, centered on the Atlantic slave trade and the western European influences ton the continent of through the Roman-Dutch culture.
For this purposes, Pan-African events are described to be key components whose meaning is subjective and emphasis of this concept seems to have
Pan-Africanism seeking for the need for “collective self-reliance”. Pan-Africanism in this context, exists as a governmental and standard grassroot movements which is struggling to unite Africans through Pan-African advocates such as Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henri Christophe, François Duvalier, Aimé Césaire, Haile Selassie, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, Robert Sobukwe, Ernest Wandji, Ahmed Sékou Touré, Kwame Nkrumah, King Sobhuza II, Robert Mugabe, Thomas Sankara, Kwame Ture, Dr. John Pombe Magufuli, Muammar Gaddafi, Walter Rodney, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, grassroots organizers such as Joseph Robert Love, Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X, academics such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Anténor Firmin and others in the Diaspora. It is said that these Pan-Africanists believe that solidarity will enable the continent to fulfil its potential to independently provide for all its people. Crucially, an all-African alliance would empower African people globally.
That the realization of the pan-African objective would lead to “power consolidation in Africa”, which “would compel a reallocation of global resources, as well as unleashing a fiercer psychological energy and political assertion … that would unsettle social and political (power) structures…in the Americas”.
This concept holds that Advocates of pan-Africanism—i.e. “pan-Africans” or “pan-Africanists”—often champion socialist principles and tend to be opposed to external political and economic involvement on the continent. Some critics have accused this ideology as racist, biased and backward. They also point to the difficulties of reconciling current divisions within countries on the continent and within communities in the Diaspora.
Pan-Africanism to Africans is a way of life, the culture of the African people which is embedded in the philosophy of Ubuntu – the humanness of the people of NTU. This spirit resides in every African and cannot be described as a concept or movement, events such as the creation of the organization of the African Unity (OAU) reemerge as African leaders met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia seeking solutions to build back the spirit of unity that was shattered through the Partition of Africa. The Partition of Africa has been described by Africans as an “Invasion” of the continent of Africa by the European Powers, who were scrambling their governments through Africa’s resources. The invasion led to Africa being divided into smaller countries in what is described as a system of “divide and conquer” the more they were broken into smaller countries, the easier it was the conquer the then Kingdoms of Africa. For Africans that was the event that lead to the broken spirit of Africa, and thus the Kingdoms and Fons who resisted and fought the colonizers, upon defeat were captured and taken to the Americas as prisoners of war, causing a split of families on the continent who found themselves as captives or slaves out of the continent and these are those described by the descendants of Africans in the Americas – The African Diasporas!
The Partition of the continent of Africa, created another culture on the continent of Africa, a culture that diluted the indigenous native cultures and traditions of the people, their kingdoms and the way of life. These broken spirits is what is gradually finding its way back to become one again, as it was in the beginning of creation. Therefore every African is a Pan-Africanist by default.
Take for example the construction the Berlin wall during the cold war, the wall was built in 1961, a year after the independence of most African countries, and was brought down in 1989 at the end of the cold war. During this period, many German families were split and since then Germany is constantly struggling to reunite its citizens worldwide. Those families scattered across the world, recognize Germany as their roots regardless were they reside, most of them suffering identity crisis. Reason why the quest for a strong German identity was fundamental to the reconstruction of their identity.
