Zimpapers Logo

Obi Egbuna Jnr Simunye
As Africans worldwide commemorated African Liberation Day (ALD) on May 25, 2016, no African can deny the role ALD has played in providing ideological clarity where confusion ran amok. It gave platforms to organised formations representing our genuine resistance to garner and solidify a broader support at crucial phases of their struggles to achieve their initial independence.

For this reason may the reminder of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah that defending liberated zones takes precedence even over waging struggle properly guide us when Africa’s most ruthless exploiters approach us at home and abroad propagating the notion that endorsing their regime change agenda towards Zimbabwe is a crucial step towards ushering in democracy.

In the final chapter of his third book Toward the African Revolution Frantz Fanon made the following statement:

“It is true that these Africans had vested interest in the murder of Lumumba, heads of puppet governments in a fake independence faced everyday by massive opposition from their peoples, it did not take long to convince themselves that the real independence would put them personally at risk.

“And there were other Africans a little less puppet, but who get frightened when it comes to disengaging Africa from the west”.

When the African Anti-Zionist Front was established in Tripoli, Libya in 1990 it was none other than one of the revolutionary Pan African movement’s able crusaders Kwame Ture who recommended the theme: “When Africa called Libya answered”.

As this year marks the 5th anniversary of US-EU horrific and genocidal invasion of Libya under the guise of NATO, let African heads of state have the integrity and temerity to admit the blood of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and thousands of Libyan children, women and men, is not only on the hands of our former enslavers and conquers alone.

The countless and valuable lessons we can learn collectively from our most bitter historical episodes, best serve us when we make the strongest commitment not to repeat fatal mistakes.

Whether at home on our sacred ancestral soil or languishing in the diaspora this luxury can no longer be afforded.

For the people of Zimbabwe in particular and Africans in general ALD can serve as a historical and ideological guide. It helps us appreciate and embrace the path chosen by President Mugabe and ZANU-PF, instead of entertaining the baseless propaganda of US-EU imperialism.

When African Liberation Day was first introduced as African Freedom Day on April 15, 1958, President Mugabe happened to be in Ghana teaching at St Mary’s College in Takoradi.

This was a rather unique political and cultural experience, because it provided the brilliant young man the chance to breathe in the air of independent territory at a moment in history where his place of birth was still subjected to the daily and inhumane ills of settler colonialism.

The same year saw Kwame Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party (CPP) convene the very first All African Peoples Conference.

By 1961, 35 African countries had their initial independence confirming the potency of the dictum prescribed by Nkrumah and the CPP “Seek Ye First the Political Kingdom”. This year was a bitter-sweet period, mainly because of the tragic loss of Lumumba in the Congo who without question shaped our continental vision for many years to come.

It must never be forgotten that when the governments of Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola decided to defend the sovereignty of the DRC in 1999 they prevented US-EU’s bloodthirsty efforts to re-invade the Congo for the purpose of reestablishing neo-colonialism as there was under the brutal regime of Mobutu Sese Seko.

Only those Africans who treasure our history of genuine resistance saw this as a breakthrough. Not only because the memory of Comrade Lumumba was evoked, but it magnified the Congolese people’s current struggle to prevent exploitation of their precious resources like coltan.

In 1963 Africans witnessed the establishment of the OAU which resulted in the date of ALD officially becoming May 25.

Ironically, it is when US imperialism celebrates Memorial Day, a platform used to glorify their white supremacist invasions and war crimes against the peoples in Africa, Caribbean, Latin America and Asia; past and present.

For so-called African Americans this year is defined by the cowardly assassination of the human rights champion Medgar Evers in Mississippi and the imprisonment of Dr. King in Birmingham and of course his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

These events while very important in African history should not overshadow that this same calendar year saw President Mugabe and an emerging generation of Zimbabwean militants leave ZAPU to pursue what they deemed a more militant approach to liberating Zimbabwe from the clutches of British-Rhodesian colonialism.

The year 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of Kwame Nkrumah’s overthrowing at the hands of US-EU imperialism, but also Kwame Ture and Mukasa Dada introducing the concept of Black Power first expressed by Frederick Douglass and Richard Wright to the 60s generation.

We remember a few years ago when the former Assistant Secretary of African Affairs Ambassador Johnnie Carson instigated a shouting match with the former Zimbabwe Ambassador to the USA Dr Machivenyika Mapuranga at an annual function held in Washington DC commemorating African Liberation Day.

Those amongst our ranks who opt for sensationalism instead of a penetrating analysis, focused on Ambassador Mapuranga, calling Ambassador Carson a house slave. While this was rather bold, especially since Ambassador Carson provoked the episode, the main issue is African embassies in Washington religiously pay around $7 000 each towards this event annually, only to have the current US Secretary of African Affairs come and speak to them like children and colonial subjects.

One of the most militant ALD themes for this year was “Black Visibility Ain’t Black Power”.

It is for this reason our most wicked reactionaries at home and abroad fail to realise that President Mugabe and ZANU-PF represent revolutionary black power to the fullest.

Obi Egbuna Jnr is the US Correspondent to The Herald and the External Relations Officer to the Zimbabwe-Cuba Friendship Association. His email is [email protected]