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liberation. Consequently, in many ways, Cabral represents “the zenith” of twentieth-century Pan-African revolutionary theory and praxis. 2 Third, and finally, Cabral’s writings and reflections provide us with a series of unique contributions to radical politics and critical social theory, which – with those of W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R. James (see Morris and Cudjoe in this volume), Claudia Jones, George Padmore (see Duggan in this volume), Aimé Césaire, Léopold Senghor (see Irele on Césaire and Senghor in this volume), Louise Thompson Patterson
the work I had chosen. 2 – F RANTZ F ANON F RANTZ F ANON WAS BORN into an upper-middle-class family on 20 July 1925 in Fort-de-France, capital of Martinique, which became a French overseas department from 1946. He rose to become a major Pan-African philosopher, revolutionary and diplomat whose short intellectual and political career (he died at the age of 36 on 6 December 1961) is remarkable for the insights it throws on the complex
empire’ and this resulted not only in an increase in the numbers of black residents but also the spread of a diasporic black consciousness through pan-Africanism and Garveyite black nationalism. With the ‘race riots’ in Britain and elsewhere in 1919 a stronger concern over the ‘colour problem’ emerged that continued throughout the period. 25 This growth of black unrest was
would have contributed to in Caribbean, Pan-African, and African solidarity and socialist circles in London following Rodney’s death, 4 nor does this view diminish the originality of the poem in any way. Rather, my point is to highlight the interplay between his poetry, Rodney’s politics, and James’s assessment of Rodney’s praxis, intriguing connections that help to situate a poem in which Rodney’s life becomes a political metaphor for exigencies of revolutionary politics. Rodney and Johnson were active in the same
and non-material interests. The idea of pan-Africanism and how it shaped regional interests along with the collective experience of the African region under colonialism and immediately after independence, in addition to advocacy by African leaders, played a major role in determining the norms chosen at the advent of the OAU. Likewise, the normative shifts within Africa cannot be seen as largely attributable to shifts in global politics or the influence of major states or international institutions. The transformation of the understanding of pan-Africanism, the
satiric, a joint venture of acidic creativity coloured by a gallows humour that characterises much of Mengestu’s work. 19 As Yogita Goyal notes, ‘even as they parody the dream of African freedom in this macabre game, their friendship also evokes a pan-African tradition, albeit in ambiguous fashion’. 20 In his ‘sober hours’, Joseph is working on a cycle of poems that tries to elaborate another kind of African history, one attuned to the legacies of colonialism and imperialism. His work traces ‘the history of the Congo from King Leopold to the death of Patrice Lumumba
more concerned with the content than the context of historiography.12 As such the work can be seen as a genuine sample of African historical studies in the second half of the twentieth century. In line with pan-African ideology, moreover, contributing authors came from all parts of the continent as well as the diaspora.13 The pan-Africanism practised in the GHA included Arabic North Africa. The historians who led the project came together as the ‘International Scientific Committee for the drafting of a general history of Africa’ (ISC). This ISC was thirty
capacity across her oeuvre to engage with continental Africa and its diaspora that marks Emecheta’s work out as Pan-African in its vision and scope. Within the different societies that she explores, there are recurrent thematic concerns: dislocation, displacement, and the sense of not belonging. We see her characters – primarily black females – struggling against the constraints that patriarchal society has placed upon them, as they seek to find a place to call home and a supportive community of their own. Given that many of her texts incorporate migration narratives
the notion of diaspora. The appearance of the notion of diaspora within reggae lyrics echoed its elaboration within the Rastafari movement, and took place in the 1970s, although Marcus Garvey had based his ideology on its existence; the increasing interest in the North American struggle and the African movements of independence and against apartheid in reggae songs is an indicator of a progressive construction of a concrete diaspora in reggae music. African independences and the struggle against apartheid As Zips (1994: 56) points out, “African identity, pan-African
-ACL). To the discerning, the alignment with Pan-Africanism and the scale of its ambition were announced in that title. In contrast to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which was an unashamedly top-down organisation run primarily by a tertiary-educated light-skinned elite (who in African-American scholar David Levering Lewis’s words aimed to achieve “civil rights by copyright” 4 ), the UNIA was a bottom-up organisation presided over by energetic activists and amateur scholars with an appeal to poor working-class black people