Garveyism not Continentalism is what Black Africa Needs

By Chinweizu 

1] The essence of Garveyism consisted of two projects: 

A] Black Governments:

Here is Garvey’s conclusion, a century ago, after traveling in the Americas and Europe and informing himself on the situation, world wide, of Blacks [Negroes]: 

I asked: “Where is the black man’s Government?” “Where is his King and his kingdom?” “Where is his President, his country, and his ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affairs?”  I could not find them, and then I declared, “I will help to make them.” [P&O,II:126] 

And he formed the UNIA to help do that. 

B] A Black Superpower in Africa:

      In the 1920s, Garvey diagnosed the global prospect of the Blacks and prescribed the remedy when he said: 

The Negro is dying out . . . There is only one thing to save the Negro, and that is an immediate realization of his own responsibilities. Unfortunately we are the most careless and indifferent people in the world! We are shiftless and irresponsible . . . It is strange to hear a Negro leader speak in this strain, as the usual course is flattery, but I would not flatter you to save my own life and that of my own family. There is no value in flattery. . . . Must I flatter you when I find all other peoples preparing themselves for the struggle to survive, and you still smiling, eating, dancing, drinking and sleeping away your time, as if yesterday were the beginning of the age of pleasure? I would rather be dead than be a member of your race without thought of the morrow, for it portends evil to him that thinketh not. Because I cannot flatter you I am here to tell, emphatically, that if we do not seriously reorganize ourselves as a people and face the world with a program of African [Negro] nationalism our days in civilization are numbered, and it will be only a question of time when the Negro will be as completely and complacently dead as the North American Indian, or the Australian Bushman. [P&O, II:101-102] . . .

      This is the danger point. What will become of the Negro in another five hundred years if he does not organize now to develop and to protect himself? The answer is that he will be exterminated for the purpose of making room for the other races . . . [P&O, I:66]

      [T]he Negro peoples of the world should concentrate upon the object of building up for themselves a great nation in Africa. . . .[ P&O, I:68]

      We [in the UNIA] are determined to solve our own problem, by redeeming our Motherland Africa from the hands of alien exploiters and . . .[by] the creating for ourselves [there] of a political superstate . . . a government, a nation of our own, strong enough to lend protection to the members of our race scattered all over the world, and to compel the respect of the nations and races of the earth. . . . [P&O, I:52; II:16; I:52]

      Go ahead, Negroes, and organize yourselves! You are serving your race and guaranteeing to posterity of our own an existence which otherwise will be denied them. Ignore the traps of persuasion, advice and alien

leadership. No one can be as true to you as you can be to yourself. To suggest that there is no need for Negro racial organization in a well-planned and arranged civilization like that of the twentieth century is but to, by the game of deception, lay the trap for the destruction of a people whose knowledge of life is incomplete, owing to their misunderstanding of man’s purpose in creation.

[P&O, II:16] 

2] Continentalism 

Continentalism is the doctrine and project of uniting the entire continent of Africa, uniting all the races that now live on it, black and white, Negro and Arab, preferably under one government that will rule the entire continent. This project has been going on since the 1958 Conference of Independent African States that was held in Accra, Ghana. It produced the Afro-Arab OAU, then the present Afro-Arab AU [Africa Unmanned/Arabist Underwear], which is on the brink of transforming into an Afro-Arab USofAfrica.

      By the end of the 20^th century, with the rise of black-ruled countries in Africa and the diaspora, Garvey’s first project was realized, but only partly so, since these black comprador governments remain fronts and agents for white supremacy and White power and none has become a Government of black people, by black people, and for black people.

      Moreover, none of these black-mask governments of White Supremacy has dared to embark on the second and vitally urgent Garvey project of creating a Black superpower that would be in the same power rank as China and the G-8. 

The dangers which Garvey pointed out in the 1920s are still with the black race. If anything, they have been intensified and augmented by such disasters as the AIDSbombing of Black Africa by the USA and the WHO; Arab expansionism and colonialism in the Afro-Arab conflict zone that stretches from Mauritania to Somalia, including the Afro-Arab war theatres in Chad, Darfur and South Sudan; UN Imperialism which, through the IMF, World Bank and WTO, has inflicted Debt Trap Peonage, economic maldevelopment, and deepening poverty on the Black countries of the world. Black powerlessness continues without letup. And the black extinction that Garvey alerted us to is already underway. 

Whereas Garveyism correctly focuses on our developing the Black Power we need to defeat these dangers and protect ourselves from all dangers; Continentalism says nothing at all about Power, let alone about Black Power. It doesn’t even offer to create Black Unity. Its focus is on unification of the entire continent, which translates into Afro-Arab unification. Since the Arabs have, for nearly two thousand years, been White invaders, exploiters and enslavers of Black Africa, Afro-Arab unification is like a unification of black lambs with white lions that eat lambs—a unification whereby the lambs end up in the stomach of the lions! The Arabs would naturally love, welcome and eagerly promote such unification. But isn’t it suicidal for the Black Africans to agree to it, let alone campaign eagerly for it—as some have done for the last 50 years?

      For that basic reason, Continentalism, with all its projects –OAU/AU, USofAfrica, is the mortal enemy of Black Africans.

      Those Blacks who are deluded into thinking that Afro-Arab unification would be good for Black Africans would do well to find out just how rosy life has been for those blacks who have lived under Arab colonialism since the 1950s, and especially in Darfur and South Sudan, where the blacks have taken up armed struggle to escape Arab colonialism and racism. 

3] The Garveyite Black Survival Project 

      We do not need to politically integrate or federate all the 53 Arab and Black African neo-colonial states on the African continent to produce a Black African superstate that can protect all Black Africans wherever they are on earth.

      To implement the Garvey idea, what we need, above all, is just one Black African country, big and industrialized enough, and therefore powerful enough to be of G-8 rank, a country that could serve as the core state-- protector and leader—of Global Black Africa.

      We also need a Black African League that shall be the collective security organization of Global Black Africa, our equivalent of NATO and the defunct Warsaw Pact. These are the two things we need in this 21^st century to implement the Garvey requirement for Black African survival. 

For building a Black African superpower, as urged by Garvey, an ECOWAS or SADC Federation, or some equivalent in East or Central Africa is more than enough. Just one of them, if integrated and industrialized by 2060, would meet the need. ECOWAS or SADC is big enough in territorial size, population and resource endowment to become an industrialized world power provided its neo-colonial character is eliminated.

      Let us look at the numbers:  

ECOWAS, with 16 states, 6.5m sq. km and nearly 200m population; or SADC, with 11states, 7m sq km and some 130m population--would be a country of sub-continental size, and in the megastate league, in territory and population and resources, to which belong the USA—with 9m sq. km and some 260m people; Brazil—with 8.5m sq. km. and 156m people; and Russia, India etc. ECOWAS or SADC, if properly integrated, industrialized, and thoroughly decolonized, would be a megastate of the type Black Africa needs. So why don’t we get on with the task of building each into a power of G-8 rank? Why set off on the false, diversionary and dangerous mission of Arab-Black African state integration of the impotent neo-colonialist OAU/AU/USAfrica type?

      Of course, ending their neo-colonial character is anathema to the Black colonialists who now misrule the Black African countries. These compradors would rather set off on the quest for an unjustified USofAfrica that would still have the neo-colonial character that suits the comprador interest and temperament.

      The second component of the Garvey project is to replace the OAU/AU with a proper collective security organization for Global Black Africa, an organization to which the Black African Diaspora countries and communities will rightfully belong.  It is one of the blemishes of Continentalist Pan-Africanism that it is embodied, at the interstate level, in an OAU/AU from which the Diaspora originators of Pan Africanism have long been excluded whereas the Arab enemies of Black Africa are, not only members, but the dominant bloc. The Black African Diaspora are only now being brought into the OAU/AU structures as an afterthought and as no more than second-class members. That is not how it should be.

      The history of Black Africans demands that we replace the Arab-castrated OAU/AU with a blacks-only collective security organization, and not with yet another Arab-castrated outfit called the USofAfrica. 

Unless the members of a group are keen for their group to survive, the group will most probably not survive; for its members will fail to do what must be done for their group to survive. And any such group does not deserve to survive.

      If Black Africans wish to survive, they must profoundly change their priorities: Not slothful consumerism here on earth, not paradise for their souls in the hereafter, but collective security here on earth must become their ruling passion.

      Those Black Africans who are keen for the Black African people to survive in the 21^st century and beyond will have to ensure that the Garvey Black survival project is accomplished in the shortest possible time, starting yesterday. They have two paramount tasks to accomplish simultaneously: (1) They must, by all means necessary, politically integrate, and complete the abandoned decolonization of, ECOWAS and SADC, and effect their exit from maldevelopment by industrializing them into powers of G-8 rank. (2) They must build a Black African League that will organize the collective security of the Black African World.

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Robot  # 1 | 03.06.2007 10:50

Whereas Garveyism correctly focuses on our developing the Black Power; Continentalism says nothin...Read the full article.

Johntina  # 2 | 03.06.2007 18:22

I am happy to know that there are other individuals who share my view about Black unity and not African unity which means lumping ourselves with people who are smarter than us! I believe we need to withdraw from this world, build our own world (a Negro before we can then come out to participate in either continental or global issues... John

DeepThought  # 3 | 03.06.2007 18:29

which means lumping ourselves with people who are smarter than us! Johntina, Care to shed more light on yours above? Thanks

Hamattan  # 4 | 04.06.2007 02:27

=DeepThought;180685>Johntina, Care to shed more light on yours above? Thanks Johntina your above statement really needs explanation. Everything else made sense to me but that. So I join DT to ask for more light on it.

Johntina  # 5 | 04.06.2007 06:24

Maybe, saying that others are smarter than us may sound like demeaning our people, but the fact that Arabs, white Africans and others are far more organised than us means that they are smarter than us. Black individuals might be mentally and physically stronger than individuals of other races, but group wise, we are the most foolish. The fact that only Black people among all major racial groups have no organised or successful society anywhere on this planet means that we a the least of all and we must appreciate this hard fact to be able to find our way out! The mistake we often make is to fail to understand that our outstanding individual successes have to translate to group success by way of building successful societies like the Asians have been doing since their independences before we can say that the Black race is succeeding. The only time we would begin to gain real respect as equal human beings and ultimately be able to defend ourselves against extermination is when we are able to understand ourselves as a group...

Eja  # 6 | 04.06.2007 06:30

By Seshatasefekht7 on the AfricaSpeaks board. peace and hotep, 'if you do not understand white supremacy(racism)------what it is, and how it works-------everything else that you understand, will only confuse you.' ...neely fuller jr. According to neely fuller jr., there 3 types of people in the known universe: 1. white people 2. non-white people 3. white supremacists (racist) Explanation: 1. 'white' people are people who classify themselves as 'white', and have been classified as 'white', and who generally function as 'white' in all of the nine major areas of activity, including economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex, and war. 2. non'white' people are people who have been classified as non'white', and/or who generally function as non'white' in their relationships withe each other, and withe people classified as 'white', in all of the nine major areas of activity, including economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex, and war. 3. white supremacists(racists) are people who classify themselves as 'white', and who generally function as 'white', and, who practice racial subjugation (based on 'white'-non'white' classifications) against people classified as non'white', at any time, in any place, in any one, or more of the nine major areas of activity, including economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex and war. Two basic problems among the people of the known universe: 1. Lack of knowledge and understanding of the reason for existence, and/or for non-existence. 2. Racism (white supremacy). Explanation: Every 'problem'among the people of the known universe can, today, be traced to: 1. A lack of knowledge and understanding of the reason for existence and/or non-existence, compounded by and promoted by 2. The practice of racism(white supremacy). This is true in all areas of activity among people, including economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex, and war. Two basic "classes" of people in the know universe: 1. the powerful 'class'(white supremacist) 2. the powerless 'class'( all non-white people, and those white people who are not white supremacists) Explanation: Since the establishment of white supremacy(racism)among the people of the known universe, the terms 'upper class', have become so meaningless that to use such terms to describe any people does not promote justice, but serves only to promote great confusion. It is therefore best not to use such terms to describe any people now in existence int the known universe. Under white supremacy, and/or, as long as white supremacy exists, the best and most accurate way to describe people by using the category of 'class' is to describe their power relationship to each other, By so doing, all white people who practice white supremacy(racism) must be recognised as the only people in the known universe who are the 'powerful class". All non-white people, being subject to the 'powerful class' are, therefore, the 'powerless class'. In addition, those 'white' persons who do not practice white supremacy are also the 'powerless class'. These 'white' people who do not practice white supremacy are not subject to the white supremacists ('the powerful class'). The fact that no 'white' person is subject to white supremacy(racism) greatly confuses many non-white people. No 'white' person is subject to white supremacy. It is possible, however, for a white person to be 'powerless' to do anything that is effective against the practice of white supremacy. some examples of such persons are white people who are 'infantile', and/or, who are so 'senile' in mind and body that they are completely dependent on others for all of their care, and are completely incapable of doing harm to others. Since all of the 'white' people who practice white supremacy are 'the powerful class', it generally serves no useful purpose for a non-'white' person to worry about which individual 'white' person is 'more powerful' than another within that class. A white supremacist is a white supremacist (powerful person). How one white supremacist relates to another white supremacist at any particular moment should be of no major concern to a non-'white' person, since all white supremacists are committed to the practice of racism (white supremacy). In any event, the white supremacists, who are 'smarter' than many other white supremacists, will, in all matters involving the maintenance of white supremacy, give effective support to those who are 'not so smart'. This guarantees that all people classified as 'white' are automatically 'entitled' to receive benefits special only to people classified as 'white' in a world socio-material system dominated by white supremacists (the powerful class). Also, the very existence of white supremacy(racism) automatically eliminates the possibility of any non-white person being so-called 'upper-class' or 'middle-class'. how can they be? If they are 'upper-class', or 'midddle class', 'upper' or 'middle' of what----as compared to what? As compared to who? Certainly not white people, and definitely not the white supremacist. Though all non-white people are functional 'lower-class'---meaning they are all 'lower' in comparison to the white people of the known universe---it is better not to say that they are 'lower-class'. To do so would be to promote questions regarding the confusing terms 'upper-class' or 'middle-class'. Therefore, in referring to the 'class' status of all non-white people, it is better to that they are 'the powerless class'. As long as white supremacy exists, it is incorrect for any non-white person to pretend that he or she is any 'class' or person other than 'the powerless class'. freedomisahapislave Source

DeepThought  # 7 | 04.06.2007 22:03

Johntina, I appreciate calling it as it. I don't think many reasonable persons who call themselves "black" can be happy with the conditions in which we are in. No doubt, there is some truth in what you wrote. However this truth is mixed with a lot more lies. Your kind of argument has been made several times over the years on this board and when I have the energy, I'll dig through the archives and point you in the direction of how it has been debunked. That is if you care. Though its little consolation is probably easier for me to just briefly paraphrase the following: "Untill the lion is able to tell its own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter " @Eja I'm far more worried about black defeatists than any white supremacist.

Johntina  # 8 | 05.06.2007 04:13

=DeepThought;181022>Johntina, I appreciate calling it as it. I don't think many reasonable persons who call themselves "black" can be happy with the conditions in which we are in. No doubt, there is some truth in what you wrote. However this truth is mixed with a lot more lies. Your kind of argument has been made several times over the years on this board and when I have the energy, I'll dig through the archives and point you in the direction of how it has been debunked. That is if you care. Though its little consolation is probably easier for me to just briefly paraphrase the following: "Untill the lion is able to tell its own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter " @Eja I'm far more worried about black defeatists than any white supremacist. I will greatly appeciate if you could tell me specifically where I have lied. It should not take you resarching to tell the village where my lie lies at least! I only hope you are not like those who prefer to manufacture facts or dwell in unverifiable claims. I however believe as you do that Black people need to begin to tell their own stories, but we must not engage in manufacturing stories. Appreciating that we have faild must be our first step towards moving forward. JOhn

DeepThought  # 9 | 05.06.2007 21:44

Its not so much a case of you telling lies, rather its a case of you believing in lies told. There are many ways of telling a lie and the most effective way is simply by telling part of a story rather than the entire story.

igwe  # 10 | 16.07.2007 02:49

This is all good but in my opinion, it misses some essential points: --The viciousness of not just the Arabs, but even more dangerously, that of the West in scuttling any meaning development in Black Africa. For the West, as long as their interest is protected, the rest of Africa can go to hell, literally. I give two examples: Since 2003 Nigeria has been going through a cynical joke called elections. But the West is only interested in protecting their interests in the oil industry, among other things. Let the present administration undermine the least of that interest and you will see what I mean! It's happening in Zimbabwe right now. When Mugabe was slaughtering thousands of his fellow citizens in Matabeleland, the West, especially Britain, looked the other way. Then, he got crazy enough to attack the White farmers...the rest is history... In Apartheid South Africa, they called their colonialism "constructive engagement". Every brutal dictator in Black Africa has been supported by the West simply to undermine African development. From Boakassa to Eyadema to Bongo to Diya to Mugabe to Mobutu to Obasanjo, as long as the dictator protects their interest. If as much as one Westerner was killed in the genocide of Odi and Zaki-biam, the story would have been different. --The best strategy now, in my opinion at this stage is to conscientize Black Africans, the kind of conscientization Saro Wiwa did with his Ogoni compatriots. How I miss that guy. His murder was such a loss. Shortly after he was killed, a Briton let it slip through his mouth that the West was scared stiff about what could happen to their interest if Saro Wiwa had been allowed to carry on with his crusade. Conscientizing the people is the best way to go for now. The solution has to come from bottom up and not from top down as the article seems to suggest.

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