A few years ago, during a conversation with a Nigerian friend, I asked naively, ‘why can’t there be [a] united states of Africa’? Marvin looked me up and down and laughed for what seemed like a full five minutes.
Me, I just stood there wondering what did I say?
My question did not seem to be absurd to me; after all, there is the United States of America, and although Europe had thousands of years of tribal wars and genocides before they decided that pillaging Africa, Asia, and the Americas was a better use of their time, they now have the European Union.
The EU is not the same as the United States, but there are mutual benefits derived by member states that would not normally exist outside the Union.
After Marvin was done laughing at me, he stood up straight and asked me in his best Nigerian accent, ’ Mike, do you know that in my village where I was born, there are like six different languages and dialects”? But, he went on, ‘if we cannot agree on a single language in one village, much less across Nigeria, how is Africa going to come together as one nation”?
Well, that didn’t go well; I certainly felt stupid.
But isn’t that the point, that from before the Portuguese set foot on the continent, tribalism made it possible for Europeans to exploit Africa displacing hundreds of millions, killing, raping, maiming, dismembering just as many?
Despite Marvin laughing at me years ago, I cannot shake the idea that the United States of Africa can become a reality.
If the beautiful mosaic that is the African Nations all were to come under one Democratic governance, imagine the possibilities. Despite hundreds of years of plunder, murder, rape, and other acts of genocide perpetrated by European Nations, Africa’s potential is still untapped.
Imagine 206,139,589 Nigerians,114,963,588 Ethopians,89,561,403 of the Congo,59,308,690 South Africans,59,734,218 Tanzanians,53,771,296 Kenyans,45,741,007 Ugandans,31,072,940 Ghanaians, and all of the other nations coming together as one powerful black nation?
Yes, I continue to dream about that possibility.
It would mean China’s exploitative lending practices a thing of the past; It would mean American Military bases out of Africa. Finally, it would mean Egypt fully annexed to the continent and its 102,334,404 people part of a great Democratic nation.
Our own illustrious First National hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey had a vision of a united Africa under the umbrella of pan-Africanism.
[In the 19th century, early Pan-Africanists included Martin Delany from the US and Edward Blyden from the Caribbean. Delany, an abolitionist, writer, and medical practitioner welcomed the ‘common cause’ that was developing between ‘the blacks and colored races.’ He clearly stated his policy: ‘Africa for the African race and black men to rule them.’ Blyden, a politician, writer, educator, and diplomat, has been seen as one of the key thinkers in the development of Pan-Africanism. He emigrated to Liberia and became a strong advocate of repatriation to Africa from the diaspora and ‘racial pride.’ His newspaper, Negro, was specifically aimed at audiences in Africa, the Caribbean, and the US.
In 1958 a notable event in the history of Pan-Africanism organized by two leading Pan-Africanists, Kwame Nkrumah, who had led Ghana to political independence in March the previous year, and George Padmore, a Trinidadian writer and activist, who Nkrumah had appointed his Advisor on African Affairs, the conference brought together representatives from across the continent and the diaspora] (Historytoday.com)
It is 2021, and it seems that the idea of the United States of Africa is no closer today than when the idea was first broached.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.