Following Professor Patrick Lumumba’s lecture on Pan Africanism that was organized by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) amid the coronavirus on weekend, a few pan-Africanists in the country have lashed out at the lecture.
Speaking via live stream from Nairobi, Kenya, the Pan Africanist scholar warned Africans about the challenges that they are likely to face during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. He said he hoped that president Cyril Ramaphosa, who is also the Chairman of the African Union (AU), could lead Pan-Africanism in building a better and united continent.
But Pan Africanist Congress of Azania’s (PAC) Ekurhuleni Regional Committee secretary Vumani Makhanya says Lumumba’s lecture did not meet his expectations on Pan-Africanism elements such as honesty, decency and independence. Makhanya said he does not deny the fact that Lumumba is indeed rhetorician and an orator who attracts large audiences, but that he holds serious reservations about him as a Pan-Africanist because he believes the lecture was from an academic perspective.
“This is enough proof on the point we always make that those Pan-Africanism elements do not exist in academia. He said nothing about Pan-Africanists in Azania, but insinuates that Ramaphosa, Jacob Zuma, as well as the late Nelson Mandela are Pan-Africanists, which is incorrect without a shadow of doubt.”
Makhanya says the three statesmen have always subscribed to the Freedom Charter that sold the country to the Apartheid government. He says he would have preferred it if Lumumba rather referred to Pan-Africanists such as Robert Sobukwe, John Nyathi “Poks" Pokela and David Bambatha Sibeko.
“I believe he has either not read the history of Azania or has read different material. The lecture he conducted was a lecture on independence and nationalism, not Pan-Africanism. (He speaks of) African nationalism, continental unity and Socialism, (and) often made the mistake of speaking as if Africa is independent and not under imperialism to date.
This leaves me [wondering] if he has no problem with capitalism as an economic content of the current African continent,” said Makhanya.
Makhanya concluded by saying Lumumba’s ‘unity of Africa’ has no economic content.
“Of course we want a united Africa and the formation of the United States of Africa. We must first unite to build Africanist, socialist and democratic order. We borrow democracy from the West and borrow socialism from the East, as Sobukwe said. We must also unite to destroy imperialism and capitalism.”
Cover image: josephmuciraexclusives.com
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