Introduction
German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel occupies a notorious place in African and Black studies for his infamous claim that Africa was stuck in ‘the conditions of mere nature.’Footnote 1 This colonial narrative, which assumes that Africans have ‘no culture, no civilization, no ‘long historical past,’Footnote 2 is deeply entrenched in historical and contemporary discourses of, and on, Africa. For instance, addressing an academic audience in Dakar on 26 July 2007, then French President Nicolas Sarkozy remarked that ‘the tragedy of Africa is that the African man has not quite entered history.’Footnote 3 The speech received immediate, widespread condemnation from Africans and students of Africa, from popular audiences as well as from scholarly and policy circles.Footnote 4 The common point in these reactions was condemning the infantilizing, silencing, and colonial narrative of the speech. Exacerbating the colonial logic underpinning this rhetoric, Sarkozy’s speech was given at the Cheikh Anta Diop University, named after one of Africa’s well-known (if controversial) historians, whose core goal was to centre African agency in history and to denounce Eurocentric bias in knowledge production. Sarkozy’s perspective reflects a broader silencing of African epistemic agency in International Relations (IR). While the African continent has been largely framed as a site of extraction and intervention in the discipline, theoretical contributions from African epistemic registers have remained largely discounted, including from debates on an emerging decolonial turn in IR. Of course, Sarkozy’s speech is nothing new. He was long preceded by Hegel, who wrote in 1837 that Africa ‘is the Unhistorical, Undeveloped Spirit, still involved in the conditions of mere nature.’Footnote 5 Centring African Political Thought in IR has therefore been seen as an essential way to address this unequivocal construction of Africa as not only lacking history but also lacking creative systems of knowledge to guide its future.
Ironically, the very act of evoking Sarkozy’s infamous quote may be said to be an act of centring Western thought (in this case, centring Europe) even as the aim is to centre Africa. In contrast, evoking an African figure who has long centred Africa in all their discourses and practices could be a better way to start. Sembène Ousmane, for instance, known as the father of African cinema, once gave this memorable response to a journalist who asked whether his films are well understood in Europe: ‘Europe is not my centre. Europe is a periphery of Africa.’Footnote 6 He continued: ‘After 100 years, they did not speak my language. I speak theirs. For me, the future does not depend on being understood by Europe. I wish they would understand me. But it makes no difference to me. … Why be like the sunflower that follows the sun? I myself am the sun.’Footnote 7 This article questions whether the act of centring Africa within discourses on Africa is enough to address the notion that discourses on/of Africa remain trapped in a Western epistemological order, a paradox that Mudimbe has called the ‘colonial library,’Footnote 8 perpetually replicating Western epistemic registers. The question is whether it is possible to centre African systems of political thought in the world outside Western epistemic orders. Can we conceive of African political thought beyond positioning them as mere counter-narratives of Western thought, which, in countering Western systems of thought, speak the latter’s language? In other words, to engage Sembène Ousmane’s earlier retort, how do we conceive of African political thought outside the orbits of a (Western) sun? This article aligns with the view that too often, pronouncements of resistance that seek to centre African epistemic agency still operate within Western rules of engagement. As Mudimbe points out, when it comes to the study of Africa, ‘Western interpreters, as well as African analysts, have been using categories and conceptual systems which depend on a Western epistemological order.’Footnote 9 For instance, in providing counter-narratives to Western narratives in IR, the ultimate question to address is whether we do centre the West by the very act of focusing so intently on countering it. Do we not therefore unwittingly ‘follow the [Western] sun’ in so doing?
The article examines the ideas of Pan-Africanism and Black internationalism as African political thought and especially frames them as core concepts in IR that take significant meaning through their framing as political activism. Pan-Africanism has been understood as an idea and a movement for African peoples’ self-determination and solidarity worldwide and has increasingly been linked to the concept of internationalism, specifically Black internationalism.Footnote 10 Both concepts call for solidarity between Africa and its diasporas worldwide, and they both evoke the ideals of self-determination and Black liberation. In recent times, the two concepts have sometimes been used in parallel, in contrast, as complements, or even as synonyms, not without controversy. For instance, Adi prefers the term Pan-Africanism and denounces what he views as arbitrary distinctions between Pan-Africanism and Black internationalism, particularly emerging in American scholarship,Footnote 11 whereas Burden-Stelly and Horne contend that Black internationalism remains ‘a conceptual framework that illuminates anti-capitalist enunciations of Pan-Africanism as one facet of a broader insurgency against Euro-American domination.’Footnote 12
It is no secret that, despite being a fundamentally internationalist project, much of IR scholarship has had little to say about Pan-Africanism and its contributions to shaping international dynamics. Yet, as Abrahamsen argues, Pan-Africanism has always played a key role in shaping the international system, including the construction of the liberal international order.Footnote 13 This article suggests that the framework of Black internationalism is embedded within the vision of Pan-Africanism. This is to say that Black internationalism necessarily emanates from the political vision of Pan-Africanism, as both projects pursue Black self-determination and solidarity. The analysis seeks to move beyond the latter iterations of Pan-Africanism as centred on continental states (especially through the projects of the Organization for African Unity and its successor, the African Union), by centring the historical roots of Pan-Africanism. This certainly involved important contributions not only from state leaders but also from activists, whose primary mission was Black liberation at a transnational level, and beyond the realm of the state. Black internationalism has always centred this very same mission of transnational Black solidarity and liberation as its core agenda. In this framing, Pan-Africanism and Black internationalism are manifestations of African political thought through political activism. Both concepts reject any dichotomy between activism and theory and position activism as theory.
This analysis is informed by Mudimbe’s ‘meditation on Africa in theories of difference,’Footnote 14 whereby he views decolonial and postcolonial discourses on African systems of thought as constructions of African difference. This construction of African difference represents a ‘will to truth,’ expecting it to be a truthful discourse for oneself and discovering that, by the logic of its own requirements, such a discourse, true or false, is also and necessarily a discourse for others.Footnote 15 These theories of difference on Africa represent what I suggest are perpetual counter-narratives, paradoxically centring the very language through which these counter-narratives are validated. The rest of the article is divided into two main parts. First, it offers an overview of what is understood by African political thought and discusses how conceptualizing Pan-Africanism as African political thought echoes Mudimbe’s concern of it becoming a ‘discourse [constructed] for others.’ Second, I discuss whether and to what extent the idea of Black Internationalism also represents a ‘discourse for others.’ In both sections, I argue that at their core, and beyond the focus on political thought, both Pan-Africanism and Black Internationalism are fundamentally driven by political activism. Through this angle, the paradox of speaking to others through their discursive and epistemic orders can become a productive one, highlighting African political thought as fundamentally activist.
Pan-Africanism as African political thought
Conceptualizing Pan-Africanism necessarily evokes the norms of self-determination, solidarity, and resistance.Footnote 16 Although a clear, consensual definition remains elusive, Pan-Africanism represents a dynamic system of political thought and a movement that aims to counter Western colonial systems of thought and practices. It does so by bringing African peoples and peoples of African descent into a movement of solidarity, which is fundamentally rooted in praxis. Solidarity in this context speaks to Black liberation, which calls for acts of resistance. To be liberated requires collective resistance, and specifically structural resistance, which goes beyond discourses. Reiland Rabaka astutely captures this dynamism when he defines Pan-Africanism as ‘simultaneously an idea and a movement, a kind of intellectualism and activism, a theory and a praxis.’Footnote 17 Three key traits can be highlighted in the conceptualization of Pan-Africanism. First, Pan-Africanism is a collective mission. Second, it aims to not only counter but also create. It is this creative, productive aspect of Pan-Africanism that I would like to highlight when thinking through the concept of African political thought. Third, Pan-Africanism goes beyond mere discourses and speaks to practice, namely, political activism. It is through this activism that Pan-Africanism has become such a powerful movement.
In the conceptualization of Pan-Africanism, ideas and political activism operate in tandem and explain why most of the well-known leaders of this movement were not only influential intellectualsFootnote 18 but equally impactful world leaders, practitioners, and community organizers, who enacted concrete actions that pushed the movement forward. In this context, women, who have always been present and active throughout the history of the movement, have often been erased from the literature.Footnote 19 Different foci on different contributions highlight different sets of women from the continent and the diaspora, with the latter being more recognized in existing literature, such as Amy Ashwood, Amy Jacques Garvey, Alma La Badie, Audley Moore, Dara Abubakari,Footnote 20 Alice Kinloch, Jeanne Nardal,Footnote 21 or the less discussed but highly instrumental Ida Gibbs Hunt.Footnote 22 The transformative leadership of women from and across the continent, through key figures such as Aoua Kéita and Jeanne Martin Cissé, among many others, has received even less coverage in extant literature, even as African women created and shaped powerful transnational movements such as the Pan-African Women’s Organisation (PAWO).Footnote 23 On the other hand, men, both within and beyond the continent, have remained much more celebrated throughout history and have been the main focus of analyses of Pan-African leadership. Indeed, much of the existing scholarship has focused on Pan-Africanists who were statesmen. For instance, in terms of prominence, other than W. E. B. Du Bois and George Padmore, most other figures were state leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Michael Manley, and Nnamdi Azikiwe.Footnote 24
Mudimbe’s concern that African systems of thought necessarily represent discourses of difference aimed at others can be seen through Pan-Africanist discourses. Specifically, Pan-Africanism as African political thought represents ‘a will to truth’ turned towards future discourses and practices aimed at countering dominant Western perspectives. Mudimbe sees the construction of theories of difference on Africa ‘between an alienated present and its invented glorious antecedent achievements.’Footnote 25 Paying attention to these interconnected temporal dimensions can help locate African political thought and better understand how the evolution of Pan-Africanism can be seen as a powerful counter-narrative to Western thought, rooted in self-determination, solidarity, and liberation. For example, on the question of whether there is such a thing as African philosophy, Onyewuenyi answers with a resounding yes, countering Western denial of abstract thought in Africa, and pointing to distinct, unwritten codes, in contrast with European materialism.Footnote 26 On the same question of African philosophy, however, Bodunrin cautions against ethnophilosophy and the romanticization of African political thought as unique and as inherently positive.Footnote 27 The alienated present, on the other hand, suffers from structural legacies of colonialism, including colonial borders, political instability, and a confrontation of value systems.Footnote 28 To resist these romanticized visions of African political thought that are rooted in theories of difference, some scholars have called for a more global outlook, beyond centring theories of difference on Africa.Footnote 29 Beyond the limits of counter-narratives that unwittingly seek validation from the very Western systems of thought they seek to counter, locating African systems of political thought within their global contributions can perhaps escape the binary of Africa versus the West. Evoking Pan-Africanism through its global praxes is therefore a way to resist ethnopolitical theory that centres African difference and construct productive counter-narratives. In this context, does it matter whether Pan-Africanism or Black internationalism is evoked?
Pan-Africanism as Black internationalism: evoking African political thought as discourse and practice
As with transnational processes of institutionalization, the emergence and evolution of Pan-Africanism have not been linear, homogenous, or tension-free affairs. Involving different perspectives, cultural backgrounds, and experiences of oppression from the continent and from the diaspora, even as the goals of self-determination, solidarity, and resistance remained core to the Pan-Africanist vision, how to reach this goal was not always clear. At the first Pan-African Congress, held in 1919 in Paris following the 1900 Pan-African Conference in London, conflicts of interest emerged between various parties. Notably, key figures such as ‘Blaise Diagne, the Senegalese Deputy to the French Parliament; and Gratien Candace, the Guadeloupe Deputy to the French Chamber; both men had some political clout in Paris.’Footnote 30 They had assimilationist and pro-colonial visions, as they sought to negotiate a better citizenship status for themselves and their constituents.Footnote 31 On the other hand, most representatives from the diaspora were expectedly more focused on prioritizing the Black liberation agenda at the time.Footnote 32
Scholars have noted two key strands of Pan-Africanism throughout its evolution. The first focused on Black liberation as a unified response (from the continent and the diaspora) to transatlantic enslavement and its enduring legacies of structural racism. The second ‘emerged in the context of anti-colonial struggle on the African continent in the period after 1945,’ thus focusing more on the position of African states in the international system, while still promoting solidarity with the diaspora.Footnote 33 Existing scholarship on African state agency in the international system reflects the marginalization of African states following the period of decolonization, with international legal structures aiding this continued marginalization.Footnote 34 It is no surprise, therefore, that in its latter iterations, Pan-African visions have largely focused on continental African agency, especially symbolized through the African Union – formerly Organization of African Unity.Footnote 35 Still, this is not to say that the focus on Black liberation was primarily from the diaspora. All participants in the early days of the institutionalization of Pan-Africanism (through the various iterations of the Pan-African Congresses), continental and diasporic Africans, agreed on the core vision of the movement. The creation of the Pan-African Association, which was led by Henry Sylvester Williams at the 1900 Pan-African Conference in London, shared, alongside the core goals of self-determination and solidarity, a core goal of Black freedom: ‘to approach Governments and influence legislation in the interests of the Black races; and to ameliorate the condition of the oppressed negro in all parts of the world.’Footnote 36 Thus, the project of Pan-Africanism has not only always been an internationalist project but also long centred Black liberation and interests at its core. It was no surprise, therefore, when the term internationalisme noir (Black Internationalism) emerged in the inter-war period, coined by the Martinican intellectual and activist Jeanne Nardal in 1928.Footnote 37 The concept played a key role in the emergence of the Négritude movement at the time. In coining this concept in her article published in an issue of the newspaper La Dépêche Africaine ,Footnote 38 a year after the fourth Pan-African Congress in New York City, Nardal and her allies from the négritude movement, which has mostly been associated with the works of figures such as her fellow Martinican, Aimé Césaire, made their central focus on Black self-determination and liberation unequivocal.
In recent times, particularly in North American academic discourses, the concept of Black internationalism has often replaced that of Pan-Africanism in discussions pertaining to Black liberation, solidarity, and self-determination for peoples of African descent.Footnote 39 Some scholars denounce the increased focus on Black Internationalism and argue that the distinction between the latter and Pan-Africanism is arbitrary and somewhat unhelpful,Footnote 40 while others embrace the conceptualization of Black Internationalism as a productive framework emanating from Pan-Africanism and anchored within anti-capitalist modes of analysis.Footnote 41 On these divergences, given the evolution of the concept of Pan-Africanism, which saw different agendas from various actors shape different periods of the movement, it is crucial to remember that historically, its core, unifying mission was always about Black liberation, within and beyond the continent. In considering the paradox of counter-narratives on the discursive and epistemic orders they seek to counter, Black Internationalism has perhaps gained prominence because it does what contemporary iterations of Pan-Africanism do not always explicitly do in dominant discourses, by pronouncing the discursive orders at play within a lexical field of IR scholarship. For instance, in highlighting Blackness and Internationalism, while aligning with the ethos of Pan-Africanism, Black Internationalism embraces the paradox of constructing a ‘discourse for others,’ namely a response to the silences of Blackness as a powerful variable within international dynamics, in a way that is unequivocal. In contrast, if there is one thing that scholars of Pan-Africanism seem to agree on, it is that it is a concept that is hard to define.Footnote 42 The core goals of Black Internationalism are already embedded within Pan-Africanism. Yet the latter remains a counter-narrative of dominant thought, therefore engaging in existing rules. To acknowledge that counter-narratives use existing discursive and epistemic orders is not to diminish their contributions, including within the realm of the international. Quite the contrary, and as scholars in IR as well as political theory increasingly argue, Pan-African actors have greatly contributed to the international system, from shaping the liberal international order,Footnote 43 to enacting ‘worldmaking’ through state sovereigntist aspirations,Footnote 44 to constructing counter-hegemonic worldviews centred on regional governance such as the African Union.Footnote 45 However, the resistance to existing dominant structures cannot be romanticized without careful, nuanced analysis of an ‘African agency’ still caught within global power dynamics while navigating enduring Western norms and structures.Footnote 46 Counter-narratives can be powerful narratives of resistance and self-determination, and are at the core of both Pan-Africanism and Black Internationalism as ideas, movements, and frameworks for active engagement. Rather than view the dominant discursive orders in which these concepts operate as necessary limitations (though this indeed speaks to the project of decolonizing discursive and epistemic orders), counter-narratives allow for a focus on political activism.
This is not to say that political activism addresses the issue of the epistemic and discursive orders within which counter-narratives remain constricted. Scholars such as Ogunnaike, for instance, criticize the danger of imposing Western frameworks onto non-Western philosophies, as this may obscure or distort their true nature.Footnote 47 In the African context, notable critics such as Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o have spoken out against the colonizing nature of Africans continuing to use colonial European languages even through decolonizing projects.Footnote 48 Others have proposed the creation of an ‘African language.’Footnote 49 One scholar making such a proposition envisions it as a unified, common language, which would be illustrative of different African linguistic structures and would be a collaborative effort between African linguists, philosophers, and scholars to create a common, African language, termed ‘Afrolingualism.’Footnote 50 While the idea of common languages has been ongoing, including from Pan-African perspectives, the discussion here is concerned with conceptual and epistemic languages. For instance, concepts such as ‘international,’ ‘state,’ and ‘sovereignty’ are often deployed in a way that had long been imposed by outsiders to various, layered, complex, and sometimes conflicting African experiences, continentally and diasporically, in a homogenous manner that lacked essential contextualization. This has led to pathological and misconceived treatments of both African and African-descent actors in the international system.Footnote 51 In this sense, operating within existing discursive and epistemic orders in a way that remains subversive, such as by being able to enact actions of resistance through these same epistemic orders, supplants the discursive language deployed. Thus, evoking Pan-Africanism or Black Internationalism should be seen as mutually constitutive. As activist-driven African systems of thought, they can be evaluated by the extent to which their discourses support political activism in transforming these ideas into powerful movements.
To consider Pan-Africanism and Black Internationalism as systems of African political thought rooted in an activist mode is to think of both concepts as movements that are embedded in praxis, with global Black liberation being their historical, common goal. Lea Ypi aptly conceptualized ‘activist political theorists’ as comparable to politically engaged artists, in that both sets of actors ‘seek to interpret the world around them as well as try to change it.’Footnote 52 Through this view of political activism, theory and praxis are intertwined rather than co-existing in a binary, an understanding that echoes what Pan-Africanist and revolutionary leader Amílcar Cabral maintained at the peak of the independence movements of the 1966s: namely, that ‘nobody has yet made a successful revolution without a revolutionary theory.’Footnote 53 In this sense, Pan-Africanism and Black Internationalism are equally rooted in political activism.
However, the extent to which – and the timing around when – Pan-Africanism and Black Internationalism may have started to diverge in their world interpretations and goals for change remains in question. Indeed, while Black internationalism has remained decidedly transnational and has continued to decentre state actors from organizing, later iterations of Pan-Africanist organizing appear to have been more continentalist, more formal, and more state-driven. Consider, for instance, the evolution of the Pan-African Congresses (PAC) over the past decades, in terms of both the geographic sphere and the actors involved. There seems to have been a more statist and continentalist turn to the PACs, especially following the creation of the state-led Organization of African Unity (1963–1999) and its successor, the African Union (since 2002). For example, following the Pan-African Conference in London in 1900, it took until 1974 for the 6th PAC to be officially held on the continent, in Dar es Salam (Tanzania). While other conferences with comparable goals, such as the All-Africa People’s Conference (AAPC), were held in Ghana in 1958, convoked by Nkrumah, all previous PACs had been held in Europe and once in the United States (1927 in New York). Since the 6th PAC in Dar es Salam, iterations of PAC have tended to remain on the continent, possibly in an attempt to address the earlier PACs’ having been exclusively held outside the continent.
There are also ongoing promises to hold a 9th PAC in Lomé, Togo (following multiple postponements).Footnote 54 This is not to suggest that goals of transnationalism and continued shared activism between the continent and the diaspora are no longer a priority. In fact, the summit is expected to include both continental and diasporic actors, as they highlight the expected participation of ‘African leaders, politicians, academics, legal experts, and civil society representatives in the Togolese capital, alongside members of the African diaspora.’Footnote 55 Themes of diasporic ‘return’ and engagement with the continent remain prominent, including discussions of reparations for Africa and its diasporas. Yet, with a pronounced focus on Pan-Africanism’s role in multilateral institutions as the announcement suggests, contemporary visions of Pan-Africanism remain more state-centric than those of contemporary visions of Black Internationalism. Moreover, the continued engagement of the Pan-Africanist movement with the whole continent goes beyond a focus on Black liberation to include all African countries, a clear tension that Black Internationalism perhaps seems to eschew with its focus on Blackness.
While unresolved, this tension had certainly been taken up by pioneering Pan-Africanist figures. For instance, Souleymane Bachir Diagne notes that ‘Senghor conceive[d] of Africanity as an assemblage of Arabness and négritude’ Footnote 56 and that Anta Diop perhaps moved beyond ‘Blackness’ as a sign of ‘Africanity.’ According to Diagne, and contrary to Hegel’s geographic separation of North Africa from what he called ‘Africa Proper,’ ‘the entirety of Cheikh Anta Diop’s considerable body of work can be read as another philosophy of history, in reaction to the Hegelian negation’ as he reinscribed ancient Egypt back into the continent.Footnote 57
These tensions speak to the ongoing, complex evolution of Pan-Africanism and Black Internationalism, respectively. Yet they do not negate their fundamental activist aspiration for the liberation of peoples of African descent globally, nor the fact that they remain deeply interconnected. Whether the two movements might continue to diverge in how they ‘interpret the world’ and what they seek to change (to use Ypi’s understanding of an ‘activist mode’ of political theory) may well depend on the extent to which they move beyond ‘discourses for others’ as they continue to engage with each other.
Conclusion
Pan-Africanism is a system of thought and a movement that is anchored in self-determination for, and solidarity between, peoples of African descent globally. As both an idea and a movement, Pan-Africanism is a manifestation of African political thought within an internationalist perspective, and one that is also fundamentally driven by action, making it both political thought and activism. Locating Pan-Africanism in this way does reveal the paradoxical process of producing a ‘discourse for others’ to use Mudimbe’s words, whereby a theory of difference reveals a counter-narrative to the dominant world order. Pan-Africanism is a counter to a profoundly unequal world, one embedded in structures of imperial, colonial, and racist continuities. Yet the constant act of constructing African systems of thought by countering Western systems of thought and Western epistemic orders necessarily focuses on speaking to the West, unwittingly seeking validation within the Western orbit, to use a provocation inspired by Sembène Ousmane’s earlier retort that he ‘[is] the sun.’
This article sought to understand the implications of Pan-Africanism being pronounced as ‘discourses for others,’ by evoking it as African political thought on the one hand and as Black Internationalism on the other hand. The analysis showed that these two concepts are mutually constitutive rather than exclusive of one another, or even interchangeable with one another. Still, both Pan-Africanism and Black Internationalism ultimately represent ‘discourses for others,’ orbiting around Western discursive and epistemic orders through the very act of countering Western narratives. Beyond centring the notion of the ‘international,’ the most productive trait shared by both discourses lies in the fact that, at their core, political activism drives these two concepts into powerful movements. Whether conceptualized through Pan-Africanism or Black Internationalism, embracing the self-othering discourses within the sphere of IR still leaves space for centring political activism in both frameworks. Thus, African political activism is African political thought, with both spaces constituting an important avenue through which to turn the paradoxical counter-narratives into productive discourses.
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