Fanonist ‘pitfalls’ in the pan-African movement since 1945

Abstract

The impediments to the creation of Pan-Africanism or African unity since Africa’s so-called independence from the 1960s onwards, are interrogated in this article, by drawing parallels with Fanon’s famous chapter, ‘The Pitfalls of National Consciousness’ in his The Wretched of the Earth. It is argued that a myriad of pitfalls continue to undermine the Pan-African Movement (PAM). Among them are: patriarchal attitudes; conflict over the question, ‘Who is an African?’; generational cleavages; xenophobia and ethnic conflict; neo-Garveyite vs neo-Marxist perspectives; criticisms of the African Union and the commitment of African governments to African unity; exclusion of ‘Afro-Latinos’; anti-LBGTI and cultural nationalist positions; whether Pan-Africanism as a concept has been supplanted in the last two decades by the terms Afrocentrism; Global Africans and African Renaissance. Ultimately, a precondition for forging Pan-Africanism is the political education of the African people – both on the continent and in the Diaspora, regarding the meaning of Pan-Africanism and an understanding of the African past.