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The Time of History is NOW!
The Formation of:
A United States of Africa
Join the worldwide debate on the formation of a United States of Africa at: http://unitedstatesofafrica.blogspot.com/
Africa WILL Unite in July 2007
The African Union signaled its strongest intention yet to
pursue the dream of a United States of Africa by making the proposal the key
focus of its upcoming summit scheduled for Accra, Ghana—the cradle of Pan
Africanism—in the second half of 2007. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) –
African leaders Tuesday chose the theme, “An AU government: towards the United
States of Africa”, as the sole agenda item for the next
African Union (AU) summit scheduled next July 2007 in Accra, Ghana!
The Mission of USA4USAfrica: WWW.UnitedStatesAfrica.com is almost complete! READ THIS LINK
Mark Wood - Co-Founder March 8, 2007
We are witnessing the formation of a United States of Africa and Africa's
leaders and the African Union MUST NOT BE AFRAID to unite as one nation and
declare themselves a United States of Africa.
See: www.UnitedStatesAfrica.com
THIS is THE
Moment of the start of a New African History and we are depending on THESE
leaders to put aside their fears and doubts and for the 1st time in their
political careers, to actually LEAD the African people to a new era...
As the world press at large have finally caught on to the
fact that Africa CAN unite this July into a united federation of
nation-states, the main thing they want to report on is that Africans are
feeling doubt on following through on their greatest opportunity.
In other
words, they are afraid to save themselves and join together as one nation. That
they would rather debate and argue among themselves as they always have done
throughout history than dare to see a vision of a united Africa and take
advantage the opportunity act on it.
I assure
you, if the African leaders do not take heed and insure the destiny of all
Africans by taking the step to unify this July...
That they
will NEVER have this opportunity again in their history.
Africa will
give up on itself and the self imposed destruction of the remainder of Africa
will speed up exponentially.
Africa has
found a new piggy bank in the form of China and will put it's collective self in
hock again to a new master after the G-8 nations forgave most of their debt and
opened the door of opportunity for the nations of Africa to unite as one
collective nation.
A united Africa will not need to borrow, it will create it's own economy in the building of it's united infrastructure, payment of taxes to the new national treasury from the nations currently stealing it's resources who will now have to pay fair market value and attract investment from around the world because a united Africa is a sound business proposition and opportunity.
The concept of African unity embraces the fundamental needs and characteristics of African civilization and ideology, and at the same time satisfies all the conditions necessary for an accelerated economic and technological advance. Such maximum development would ensure a rational utilization of the material resources and human potential of our continent along the lines of an integrated economy, and within complementary sectors of production, eliminating all unnecessary forms of competition, economic alienation and duplication.
A United Nations of Africa
Pan-Africanism
5
His Dream will soon be realized...
Pan-Africanism is the total liberation and unification of Africa under Scientific Socialism.
United Republics of Africa
ACCRA, Ghana (Reuters) -- African leaders meet this weekend to debate a grand plan for a continental government, but they face pleas for urgent action now to halt conflicts in Darfur and Somalia and tackle enduring poverty.
A summit of the 53-nation African Union starting in Ghana on Sunday has at the top of its agenda a "Grand Debate" on creating a United States of Africa and a federal government to rule it -- a long-held dream of supporters of Pan-African integration.
Organizers are billing the three-day Accra summit as a tribute to Ghana's first post-independence president, Kwame Nkrumah, who became the standard bearer of Pan-African unity when he took over from British colonial rule a half century ago.
But sceptics doubt the practicality of a federal government for Africa after decades of wars, coups and massacres that often reflect ethnic and religious fault lines criss-crossing a vast continent artificially carved up by former colonial rulers.
While most Africans embrace the vision of a united, resource-rich continent of 800 million people able to speak with one voice to the world, campaigners say AU leaders must tackle more pressing problems at their doorstep.
"Darfur should be on the agenda, because it's really, really urgent," said Oury Traore, regional program manager for the West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), a non-governmental organization that promotes conflict resolution.
Traore's group wants the AU to make its top priority the protection of civilians in Sudan's western Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people have been killed in a conflict pitting Sudanese forces and allied militias against local rebels.
"We shouldn't allow room for this kind of insanity any more, in any state," she said.
Civil society groups urged AU leaders to act now to bring peace to Somalia by pressing for a political solution there, and some also urged them to look at Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe is accused of crushing opponents and ruining the economy.
But summit organizers defend the single-item agenda, and deny the plan for a
continental government is too ambitious.
"Yes, we have serious problems, people are dying in places like Darfur and Somalia. But people are dying elsewhere in the world, not just in Africa," Ghana's Foreign Minister Nana Akufo Addo said.
Addo said a continent that pooled its resources and spoke with one voice would command greater respect in the world and help Africa shake off the indignity of always being portrayed as a byword for chaos and poverty.
"In the last 20 or 30 years we have a continent that has been bedevilled by conflict of one sort or another, vast migration of many of our young people. That is the Africa we want to stop," he said.
But he recognized disagreements among the AU heads of state about how quickly a federal United States of Africa should be created and how it should be governed.
While some leaders like Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade are vocal advocates of a continental government, others, like South African President Thabo Mbeki, are believed to favor a more gradual approach.
Gaddafi, who often wears clothes emblazoned with the outline of the African continent, has travelled to the summit by land, drumming up support for his unifying vision, which includes a plan to create a 2-million strong African army.
He says Africans will only win respect if they act as a single continent -- a view shared by Nkrumah's son Sekou.
"I think ideally it should be a continental government. The problem is not how we get there, it is that we get there," Sekou Nkrumah told Reuters.
Scientific Socialism
Socialism in Africa introduces a new social synthesis in which modern technology is reconciled with human values, in which the advanced technical society is realized without the staggering social malefactions and deep schisms of capitalist industrial society.
The United States of Africa is a name sometimes given to one version of the possible future unification of Africa as a national and sovereign federation of states similar in formation to the United States of America, mirroring the idea of the United States of Europe. The idea has most notably been advanced by Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi at a 2000 summit.[1] in Lomé, Togo.
The concept recalls the ideals of Pan-Africanism and to lesser extent black nationalism.
African Union, the Dominion of Africa, United Africa...
Africa, Unite 'cause
we're moving right out of Babylon,
And we're going to our father's land.
How good and how pleasant it would be
Before god and man, yeah
To see the unification of all Africans, yeah
As it's been said already let it be done, yeah
We are the children of the Rastaman
We are the children of the Higher man
Unite for the benefit of your people
Unite for the benefit of your children,"
--- says the great Bob Marley.
Hear the "Ballad of The United States of Africa" in Real Audio performed by The Wood Brothers: CLICK HERE
Hear ALL tracks to the soundtrack at our main site:
http://unitedstatesafrica.com/
http://unitedstatesafrica.tripod.com/
http://unitedstatesofafrica.blogspot.com/
and: http://www.soundclick.com/blueturbanstone
Here are reports, comment and articles on the upcoming
A United States of Africa... on July 4th 2007!
African Delegates Agree to Form "United States of Africa"
Delegates from throughout the African continent and diaspora met in London from October 7-9, 2006 and laid out a program for building a single international organisation to forge a continent-wide "United States of Africa".
AU chief urges Africa to unite
African Union (AU) Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare said he subscribes to the idea of having the United States of Africa as one way of strengthening trade and in the process stop relying on overseas markets.
Gadaffi: ‘United States of Africa can become black giant’
Reviving his long-cherished dream of an 'United States of Africa', Gadaffi said: "Africa should have one identity, one nationality, one people, one currency, one army." He was speaking at a African Union (AU) gathering of African presidents and prime ministers marking the seventh anniversary of a 1999 summit of African leaders that went part way towards Gaddafi’s vision of unity by deciding to start the process of creating the AU. The union was finally founded in 2002. The 53-member body later set up several other agencies including a parliament as part of its efforts to forge closer unity on the continent.
Africa: Guebuza On the 'United States of Africa'
Pan-African
Nationalist Movement (PANM)
and the African Unity Movement (AUM)
These are the monikers for that association of African agents committed to the rapid evolution and revolution of a continent-wide autochthonous government and cultural institutions. These nationalists are to be distinguished from regionalists and micro-nationalists.
The African Liberation Movement (ALM) was subsumed for a while under the rubric of the PANM but with the assertion of an African Union the PANM was brought into clearer focus and distinguished from the ALM which sought nationalisms wedded to colonial borders. PANM speaks to those who promoted the establishment of Africa as one nation.
The African Unity Movement (AUM) was a broader movement that included the PANM and federalist ranging from those that would accept a Union or Federal form of continental unity. Some of the participants of the Casablanca Group were a part of this movement.
Support the movement by putting the WORD out. When people see you in United States of Africa apparel, engage them on the matter and have THEM join US as well... See:
The United States of Africa Collection at:
At this point The USA4USAfrica is seeking an African Corporation, Businessman, Media Company or group of individuals who can order 100,000 or more United States of Africa shirts, buttons, hats, or any combination to distribute to people in Africa's largest cities and particularly Accra, Ghana before the upcoming African Summit this July where the sole agenda item is the formation of a United States of Africa. This show of solidarity for a united Africa will hopefully find enough people photographed in the attire and thus appear in the major media that up to this point still refuse to give any coverage or press releases on the unification of Africa in major media publications ( except the BBC and now Vanity Fair ).
Africa's leaders and the African Union MUST NOT BE AFRAID to unite as one nation and declare themselves a United States of Africa.
for
example:
By Basil Okafor
From the Ghanaian Chronicle
19 April 2007
In the past nearly five decades since the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), many Africans have consistently called for closer ties between the nation-states that make up the continent.
After 38 years and feeling it had attained its main goal of African liberation, the 53-nation OAU transformed into an African Union, (AU), on October 15, 2001, to ostensibly give the body political and economic teeth, as a first step to greater continental integration and unity.
In furtherance of this ideal, there is a new suggestion to use the forthcoming July 2007 AU summit, to raise the stakes even higher. At the Accra gathering, proponents of the new African continental enterprise are to push for a United States of Africa. In the new arrangement, the entire continent, if the purveyors of this concept have their way, would fuse into one sprawling nation, with one army, one currency (much like the European Union) and free movement of people and goods, with no international borders, as they presently exist.
Clearly, the idea of a “United States of Africa” resonates with the
aspirations of Africans everywhere, (both at home and in the Diaspora) who
desire a better Africa. And predictably, the decision to push for a
USAfrica at the July summit has drawn spirited responses from the Pan-African
public. But it is also instructive to note the respective tones of the varied
responses.
In the first ten days of February, following the January 31announcement of the AU decision, Africans wrote in to a BBC World Service Forum on the topic: “Is African unity a dream worth pursuing?” Of the 32 contributors to the forum, none is actually opposed to unification.
However, they fall into 3 main camps in their attitudes and expectations,
namely: (A) The enthusiasts (12)-who so desperately want unification that they
appear blind to, or uninterested in the landmines on the way to it; (B) The
sceptics (5)-who don’t believe it will happen and, for assorted reasons,
dismiss it as a ‘mirage’; and (C) The cautious (16)-who want it but point
out some serious problems that need
to be disposed of before unification can succeed.
The 32 contributors to the Forum wrote in from: USA 8; Sudan 6; UK 4;
Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania 2 each; and 1 each from Cote d’Ivoire, Canada,
Cameroon, Liberia, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria and Seychelles.
It is significant that two-thirds of the contributors drew attention to the
obstacles to its attainment. Even more significantly, every Sudanese
contributor highlighted some obstacle to be overcome. And Sudan is where the
attempt to unite Arabs and Black Africans within one state has caused a bitter
race war that has lasted more than 50 years. Perhaps the rest of Black Africa
has much to learn from Sudan. Sudan has been an experiment in Afro-Arab
unification: its experience augurs badly for the USAfrica project.
A key issue raised by the two-thirds majority of the contributors who constitute the sceptics and the cautious, is that of identity. The issues they want to see addressed are as follows: Who is an African? Do Arabs in North Africa identify with Black Africans or with their white kith and kin in Arabia and the Middle East?
Other obstacles to the idea of USAfrica they raised were: Colourism: the
ingrained Arab contempt for Blacks; the conflict between Pan-Arabism and Pan-Africanism
and Arab ambitions to impose Islam on
Africans and to Arabise Black Africa. What principles will this USAfrica
follow? Would it be Christian, Muslim or other? Will Muslims accept to be
ruled by non-Muslims in the USAfrica? How will obstacles to unification -
including tyranny, tribalism, mutual distrust and corruption - be removed?
Contributing from Mahe, the Seychelles, Clement Kuol Biong writes, “A veteran Sudanese politician, once compared the Sudan Socialist Union of Jafaar Numeiri’s rule to a shadow tree where we come just to share the shade but what each person under the tree is thinking about is not necessarily the same.
“So how can Africa be united when we are still tribally fragmented and no African leader is interested in uniting his own people? How can African unity become a dream come true when different groupings of the AU have their own hidden agendas?
“The Arabs have never stopped their dream of imposing Islamic culture on African masses by the sword, a practice which is still widespread in Sudan up to today.”
Atina Ndindeng, from Manchester, England, summarises: “African unity is just a mirage because of greed, dishonesty and corruption among the executive whom we hold in such high esteem and who should be setting an example, but they are all failures and political demagogues. Shame to most African heads.”
On their part, the enthusiasts, who constitute one-third of the contributors, rest their hope on a dream that, “the United Africa will be a Green Superpower as opposed to a military superpower and eventually be a key player at the table of world affairs instead of a beggar.”
And, as Mark Wood, co-founder of USA4USAfrica, of Greenwood California, puts it, “A United States of Africa can prevent an African apocalypse on the horizon if unification does not happen NOW!”
But what good is any Green Superpower (if ever such utopia is possible for a united Africa) without the military muscle to even defend its farmlands from the sort of marauding invaders that the continent has known since the Arabs conquered and settled in North Africa between 640 and 1400 AD?
Some of the promoters of USAfrica regard their project as an already done deal. They insist that, despite opposing views, “Africa WILL unite, as one nation. As a matter of fact, it will happen this July at the upcoming African Union summit in Ghana.”
“The tide,” they maintain, “cannot be turned at this point as the unification of Africa is undeniably in motion all arguments opposing a united Africa are rendered moot at this point because Africans have finally mandated themselves that they will unite and work out the details from a united position as opposed to being divided.”
These promoters have already designed a flag for USAfrica and chosen its first president for us: “Our Mandate is for the African Union, in 2007, to form an official United States of Africa with Kofi Annan, (whose term ended December 31st 2006) departing UN Secretary General, being installed as the United States of Africa’s First President in much the same fashion George Washington was ‘installed’ as the first U.S. American President. God willing.”
As the promoters see it, all that is left for them to do is to propagandise and manipulate us like sheep to acquiesce. How? By, according to them:
1. “Organizing Town Hall meetings to get public support for the
Federation and to get ideas on how it could be created. “Town Hall meetings
should begin soon inside Africa and outside Africa. Town Hall
meetings are [to] provide suggestions on how to implement Continental Union
Government (United States of Africa). Not a discussion about the Federation,
but how to implement it.”
2. “Recruitment of celebrities to join the cause and give support and voice to the United States Of Africa. From America: recruit Oprah, Obama, Angelina Jolie, Danny Glover.”
3. Contacting “top hip-hop superstars to mobilise for the United States of Africa”.
By proceeding without a known and public mandate from the people of Africa and, especially, by drawing attention only to what they naively consider the potential benefits of USAfrica, and by trying to restrict their town-hall discussions to implementation alone, these promoters are behaving like a used car salesman who doesn’t want the customer to raise awkward questions about faulty aspects of the car.
However, the issues raised by the sceptics and the cautious, the two-third
majority on the BBC Forum, suggest that it is time for Black Africans to wake
up and do the hard thinking and ask-and honestly
answer-the tough questions we have avoided for 50 years about the sanity of
unifying Black Africans and Arabs under one continental government.
For example, why is a USAfrica necessary? What problems will it solve for Black Africa that the OAU could not and the AU cannot, solve? Who are the shadowy godfathers of this USAfrica project and what is their hidden agenda?
The Forum comments indicate that many ordinary Black Africans are doing some of this hard thinking. The AU presidents should follow suit and do, and be seen to be doing, the same. They should not rush to implement this shady project before they and the public have, together, thought things through and in the greatest detail.
There was no popular debate before the formation of the AU and the adoption of NEPAD by Africa’s presidents. Will there be a full and free debate by the people before this USAfrica project proceeds any further? Will the promoters, seen and unseen, of this USAfrica, allow it?
Regardless of the promoters, let us all debate it, every aspect of it, not just how to implement it. Let us all debate the merits and demerits of continental government and do so for the next five years, or till we arrive at an enlightened consensus.
Let us debate it in the light of Black people’s experience in Sudan,
Mauritania and the rest of the Afro-Arab borderlands. And, in light of the
four decades of the OAU/AU, too. Let the AU summit on it be
postponed for at least five years, while the people debate it.
Before we, the Black African people, instruct the AU presidents on how to vote, let us examine the motives, objectives, sponsors - overt, as well as covert - modalities and feasibility of this USAfrica and do so in the context of what Black Africa needs to survive and prosper in this century.
Caution should be our watchword for, as Abednego Majack - a contributor from Rumbek, Sudan - puts it, succinctly, “United States of Africa? The phrase sounds good but the question is, do we really see ourselves as African, regardless of our colonial boundaries, religions and regional groupings?
“The AU must be very serious when considering how to make African unity attractive otherwise the continent will still remain in two halves, sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa and problems will develop along that fault line.” Before this dream of continental union turns into a nightmare for us and our descendants, let us investigate its likely consequences for us, Black Africans. Prevention is better than cure, as they say!
Mark Wood - Co-Founder USA4USAfrica
United States of Africahttp://Founding Chapter - Coalition for a United States of Africa
The Ballad of The United States of Africa : IMC-SA
| I do agree with Mr. Mark Wood for
his comment (below) it is true that if African ... A United
States of Africa can prevent an African apocalypse on the ... www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/ Florence & Colin just got married on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
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EthiopianReview.com
Union
Government of Africa (UGA): what a nice vision!!! Read here the final proposal
from the Pan African Parlament (PAP) http://www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/images/uploads/Draft_PAP_Position_on_CG_-16th_April_2007.pdf
Africa will be one country and the current 54 national states will be reduced
to the status of only federal states: http://unitedstatesafrica.tripod.com/
The expected process is to forge Africa with:
- one transcontinental citizenship
- one currency
- one defence force
- one foreign department
- one policy of foreign trade
- one centeral government managing the above
- one pan-African parlament
- one African court of law
- univisum = people without border as Africans used to live before 1885
Scramble for Africa
- free from legacy of colonialism such as artificial borders which devided for
eg. Oromos in to two, Tigarus in to two, Afars in to three, Somalis in to
five...etc and slowly forge a working inter-Africa federal states. At the
begining the 54 current African countries will be the federal states in
USAfrica.
What is the impact for us "Ethiopians"? First Ethiopia will be one
of the federal states and slowly it will be changed to the fact that national
states like Oromia, Tigrai, Amharai, Afar, Somalia ...etc will be the
autonomous federal states in a USAfrica.
So the question to be asked is: why should Amharas cry for centeralization of
Ethiopia and Oromos for secession of Oromia?? Both these movements are against
the movement and policy of forging USAfrica.
I think CUD and OLF leaders who formed AFD are such far-sighted, so that they
agreed to struggle for the common agendas like Freedom and Democracy giving up
their illusion of eg. desmantling Oromia and decolonizing Oromia respectively.
Let's all take this vision of AFD and fight against Weyane fascists to forge
first a democratic and integrated Ethiopia with a genuine autonomy of Oromia,
Amharai, Tigrai, Afar, Somali...etc to pave the way for USAfirca as described
above.
Viva USAfrica!!!!!!
Visit also
http://unitedstatesafrica.com
http://unitedstatesafrica.50megs.com
http://unitedstatesofafrica.blogspot.com
Last edited by Meraraw on Fri Jun 01, 2007 7:20 pm; edited 11 times in total
| United States of Africa:
what a nice vision!!! Africa as one country and the current 54 ...
Mark Wood and Robert Wood, the Wood Brothers are
the pioneers! ... www.ethiopianreview.com/forum/viewtopic. |
| USA4Africas Mark Wood, comments: In
a United States of Africa, a citizen could freely travel
anywhere on the continent to seek education, opportunity, ... p.moreover.com/cgi-local/ |
Ministers give perspectives on United States of Africa
project =
Luanda - Tuesday, August 15, 2006 - 5:47:03 AM
http://www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=461941
Assilah, Morocco, 08/08 - African
Ministers have used the Assilah symposium on the United States of Africa to air
their views on the project, with the Cape Verdean Foreign minister Victor Borges,
dismissing the "everything for all" approach.
"We must start the African Union project with those who want to start,
whatever their number. The other countries will follow afterwards," he said
at the symposium here Saturday.
The Minister cited the European Union, saying it was "fundamental to put in
place strong but non-authoritarian States, to guarantee peace, security, and
good governance."
Senegalese Trade Minister, Mamadou Diop, expressed a similar sentiment, saying
it was essential "to move towards the creation of the United States of
Africa with those who want to see it happen."
"It`s now 40 years that the problem is being raised and no major
breakthrough has been made yet," he noted, blaming the delay on political
decision makers.
The Minister lamented that Africa`s share of international trade had fallen from
12% in 1986 to 02% today.
Burundi Foreign Minister Antoinette Batumbwira, cautioned: "We must move
slowly but freely" noting that the creation of a United States of Africa
must meet certain prerequisites, including the consolidation of regional
economic communities.
But Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, favours a quick creation
of the United States of Africa, saying: "We get involved first, and we
rationalise afterwards."
"Africa has missed several opportunities, the most important of which was
that of 1963 with the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU),"
declared Gadio, who said the problems facing Africa today could be traced to the
"victory of the minimalists" who ignored the ideas developed by the
pioneers of African unity.
He said there had been some 186 military coups in Africa, stressing that
"African leaders are lagging behind, when compared with other
continents."
"It is time to realise that Africa`s success depends on the political
unity," Gadio stressed.
The three-day symposium, organised within the framework of the Summer University
of Assilah Forum, ends Sunday.
Take a look at where Uhura was born, and as the late Beatle John Lennon once said; "Imagine".
Collectivist African Personality
This concept speaks to the Pan-African national culture. While close to the African world in meaning this concept is not essentially a race-based one but a race conscious one. More importantly, it is an ideologically and culturally based identity. It speaks to an "African People," which Nkrumah referred to as the African masses and which S. Touré often called the People's Class. It speaks to the behavior and character of organized entities in their attempt to establish an optimal zone for continued cultural development.
Composite African
Under a discussion of cosmological issues, Asante speaks to the concept of "composite African." "The fundamental assumptions of Africalogical inquiry are based on the African orientation to the cosmos. By "African" I mean clearly a "composite African" not a specific discrete African orientation which would rather mean ethnic identification, i.e., Yoruba, Zulu, Nuba, etc." (Asante 1992, 9) To these specific groups we will add, Nzema, Asante, Fante,[1] African American, and Ghanaian. The composite African is the foundation of Pan-African identity and the individual reflection of the African Personality.
Traditional Rulers[1]
'Traditional rulers', in this text, refers to those kings and local leaders who, before European colonial intervention, managed the affairs of polities throughout Africa. It is a broad and sweeping term including a host of traditional interrelated leadership groups and public officials. All seekers of political control sought the collaboration or annihilation of these rulers.
Nkrumah offered a philosophy to help with decolonization. It is an applied philosophy that takes the social milieu of the philosopher(s) into consideration. It upholds certain traditional values while synthesizing incoming experiences. Finally, it maps out the creation of liberated territories through the formulaic application of "positive action."
This movement includes the collection of African organizations and key personnel that cooperated to bring a cessation to the European classical colonialism. They sought to dismantle the colonial apparatus that dominated Africa from the latter part of the Nineteenth century through the latter part of the Twentieth century. Tactical unity within the movement existed on the ideas of socialism and unity.
As far as facts are concerned, we prefer accuracy above speed of distribution. Therefore, we will not serve as unfounded rumor pushers. We will try to triangulate information wherever possible.
Our policy is to distribute only that news that provides empowering information to our readers. Our hope is that our readers are those seeking to improve the life chances of humanity in general and the African People in particular. This is what drives our focus.
or purchase the soundtrack album at:
http://www.lulu.com/wood-mark and http://www.lulu.com/content/177070
Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
The challenge for the next generation of African people who are nationalists, pan-africanists, African-centered thought and others on the fringe of such thinking is to move beyond the pathological rhetoric of what African people should be doing to what am I doing?
Hear the original song November 18th 2020 in Real Audio : CLICK HERE -
| USA4Africa’s Mark Wood, comments:
“In a United States of Africa, a citizen could freely travel anywhere
on the continent to seek education, opportunity, ... www.news24.com/City_Press/ |
| ... of Africa Internet Coalition USA4USAfrica,
I started back in 1996 with Robert Wood ... Mark Wood
Founder, USA for USAfrica http://unitedstatesafrica.com ... smokeyspice.blogspot.com/2006/ |
| The United States of Africa By Mark
Wood ... Mark Wood, founder USA4USAfrica-
1996 ... Mark Wood GreenValleyReporter@Journalist.com
661 270 0798 ... www.afromerica.com/knowledge/ |
| File Format: PDF/Adobe
Acrobat - View
as HTML AU Leaders Gear Up For A United States Of Africa At July Accra Summit ... And, as Mark Wood, co-founder of USA4USAfrica, of Greenwood California, puts it, ... www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/index2. |
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This is the century of the African. The giant is waking up.
Clearly for those from 18 years of age to those in their forties there are possibilities that did not exist for those who came before them at the international level. Access to global Pan-African processes use to take a great deal of effort and financial discipline. Now at the push of a button this generation can be in direct contact with other African people in other parts of the world.
Yet even this generation is suffering from problem of terminal uniqueness. In other words it is assumed that the rest of the African world sits around waiting to read what our scholars have to say or waits to hear what our organizations think. The reality is that the rest of the African world doesn't know that we exist simply because there is not enough cross-pollination taking place in the first place.
Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
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Clearly this generation must GO to Africa if they plan on talking about Africa. This generation must TALK to real groups on the African continent. This generation must BE IN Contact with Francophone and Anglophone Africa which means it needs to develop its language skills.
This generation must become involved, actively, in the politics of the African Union and developmental groups in Africa. For every thought that entertains conspiracy theories there must be two thoughts that participate in political/economic and social structure development in Africa. The following are only a few websites that connect with Africa today. To know the African past and have no mastery of the Africa present is merely another form of self-anesthetizing. Those 18 years of age to 40 are responsible for the African future whether they want to take responsibility for it or not. Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
Africa is not one nation, and could never be. Africa does not need to be one Nation to be successful. Africa's nature has always been variegation and plethora: many different and unique entities sharing one space. The strength of Africa is in its diversity each with its own unique identity, yet, co-existing. What is required today is to return the individual and natural sovereignties and nationhoods of indigenous African peoples to the natural ethnicities who own them. As Africans, our natural loyalty and natural identity belong to our respective ethnicities. All the ruse and scheme to destroy such and have us belong to some "State" to which we transfer our citizenship and loyalty have failed: they are the cause of the ongoing turmoil in Africa today, as all the African so-called countries are in fact such States. Where colonialism stopped balkanizing Africa, religions has filled the gap and have a greater devastating effect (where Balkanization is used with its correct meaning, which is the forced, non-consenting, unnatural rearrangement of peoples for the sole purpose of benefiting the arranger and making the arranged weak and confounded). Both Christianity and Islam have eroded the true African spirituality. To speak of "one African nation" without considering the impediments and treachery and brutality of especially backward and vicious Islam in Africa is to demonstrate a lot of naiveté. What I see for Africa are independent sovereign ethnic-based nations coalescing with mutuality and respect into consensual sociopolitical and economic aggregates growing to the size of even regions. Borders can be porous in such arrangements, allowing for rapid and unimpeded exchanges; but inter-national borders there must be for the protection and security of indigenous groups and their resources, and for the implementation of effective leadership and efficient administrative structures instituted by their own people and responsive to their own people.
Thank you. Oguchi Nkwocha, MD
A Biafran Citizen
USA for USAfrica coalition for a
United States of Africa
July 4, 2007 *
The Message - The Movie
The Soundtrack
Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
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This 
or This 
Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
This 
or This 
Geography & People: The people of Africa are united geographically, but within that geography the borders of countries and carved-up pieces of territorial land have created disputes over territory. By unifying into one larger republic or dominion, similar in concept to the United States or the European Union, the people would be unifying themselves as a singular continent, and thus be a much greater force to reckoned with. Separated, the people can be ignored and kept isolated by other larger/more powerful countries like the United States. As a larger unified group of nations, Africa would have more international power over its territory.
Government: The republics of Africa would become more like individual provinces, governing over their own schools and their local economy. An unified federal government with a prime minister and multiple ministers from each republic. Thus a single group of leaders for all of Africa would be in place, and unlike a president, a prime minister can more easily be booted out of office due to corruption. Thus the system maintains its stability and fights corruption within its own ranks. This brand of democracy is already found in countries like Canada and Australia, where it has been proven to prevent widespread corruption.
Economy & a Single Currency: Importing and exporting amongst themselves, African countries suffer from a lack of internal and external trade. By uniting as a single entity Africa will boost its inter-continental trade, and boost its internal trade system. By switching to a single currency for all of Africa internal trade will no longer have exchange problems, external trade will become more stable and reliable, and the economy will be boosted by record growth.
Communications: There are two issues at stake here, one is electrical and the other is linguistics. Africa does not have an united language. 40% of the people in Africa speak English as their first language, but otherwise the languages are divided up into French, German and hundreds of native African languages and dialects. Those languages need to be preserved for historical reasons, but an official language will have to be recognized and taught in schools. For economical reasons, English would be the obvious choice, but a predominant African language (or several languages) might also be a good choice for cultural reasons, so that Africa is united under an indigenous African language. Scholarly, it would be possible to combine multiple African languages, plus some english into a new language and create an official African dictionary. It would be a linguistically challenge, but it is possible to do, and it would be a more patriotically unifying language.
An United Africa would finally be able to create a continental-wide communications system for cellphones, internet and an unified African television network to showcase African-made tv shows and African-made films.
Transportation: A better planned and transcontinental system of highways and railroads, along with better ferry services along coastal countries and on the Nile river. The end result would be to ease transportation, lower the cost of food and boost the overall economy of greater Africa.
Tourism: Africa suffers from racism from other continents and a lack of tourism as a result. Part of the stigma is partially true due to the fact that war and conflict breaks out regularly amongst African countries. As an Unified Africa, internal civil wars and territorial disputes would be stopped, guns and militias eventually made useless under the weight of diplomacy and an United African Army. The end result would be a more peaceful continent and a continent more open to tourism.
Military: An United African Army, an African Air Force, an African Navy, and perhaps the most important of all: An African Coastguard and a Federal African Police Network, to track smugglers and criminals within all of Africa. It would spell an end for criminal networks, militias and bring a sense of unity and pride to Africa as a whole. Plus, it would be cheaper to maintain a single larger military than to maintain many smaller military groups.
Territorial Disputes: All territorial disputes within the internal republics would be solved diplomatically or made null and void, because the disputes would no longer be necessary amongst countries which are now economic allies.
Disease: Controlling the spread of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDs would be a primary responsibility of an United Africa. Radical solutions may be needed, such as quarantined towns and cities where the infection rate is over 25%. Regular testing for diseases, a continental information network for controlling the diseases, and stronger federal programs to test for HIV and to promote the use of condoms in order to prevent HIV from spreading to others.
The USA Factor: The United States doesn't want Africa to unify because then Africa will become a nuclear threat. As an united continent, Africa will have the technology and resources to build and test nuclear missiles. Since the Cold War, the United States has been supplying arms shipments to African countries and militias in order to maintain instability in Africa so that it will never unify. The fear during the Cold War has been that if Africa did unify, it might become a communist republic. Thus, it was the fear of a communist republic with nuclear weapon capability. Racism is also certainly a factor in the case of the United States, for many people in the Republican Party are also racists and have no interest in helping Africa and would much rather hinder it. For this reason, one of the primary duties of an United Africa will be to stop arms trade with the United States. Those weapons are fuelling wars, not stopping them.
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Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
"There are no words to describe what I feel about the possibility of the achievement of The United States of Africa. The applause of the entire globe could not give this cause justice, and justice is what this cause will bring. I am sure that the US of Africa will mean the extinction of poverty and the promotion of world Unity. I know the day will come when its constitution is signed. It will be signed not with greed and power in mind, but instead with love and unity. My prayers and deepest salutations are with you all." – Jared
It is frightening to know that the behavior Ancestor Garvey described below is still applicable today. It also adds to the explanation of why we are in the condition we are in today. There is enough wealth among all of the professional athletes of African descent in every sport to underwrite each independent African school ten times over.
There are enough Hip Hop artists of African descent to do fundraisers for every nation building organization in addition to joining them to revolutionize the political direction of African Amerian youth to one of global revolutionary nation building.
To: undisclosed-recipients: > >Subject: Africa seeking to Integrate into a United States of Africa
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 2:17 PM > >BANJUL 28 June 2006
AFRICA SEEKING TO INTEGRATE INTO A UNITED STATES OF AFRICA
African ministers of foreign affairs started two days of talks Wednesday in preparation for this year's annual summit due at the weekend, organisers said.
The host country's foreign minister, Lamin Kabba Bajo, said "harmonising and synchronizing the activities" of existing regional economic and political blocs would be one of the focus areas at this year's summit.Diplomats say the aim would be to reduce the numbers of regional groups from eight to five to speed up the integration process.
"Those which can really come together, that's a step towards the actual unification," Bajo told AFP.
"Unless we find a better name we are working towards a united states of Africa," he said. Bajo admitted that the goal of a unified continent would not be attained unless Africa rids itself of perennial strife and conflict."Africa has been preoccupied with security issues, when we put out one fire, another crops up. This has disturbed us for many years in our bid to concentrate on developmental issues," he said. The crisis in Sudan's western Darfur region and the conflict in Somalia > >will be among the top subjects the summit cannot avoid this year. > > > South Africa's Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dhlamini Zuma, who chaired a meeting of the African Union council on peace and security late Tuesday said the AU was anxious to see a UN arms embargo on Somalia lifted to allow the deployment of a peacekeeping mission. The seven-nation east African regional grouping Inter- Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is planning to dispatch a peacekeeping force in Somalia - where Islamic militias have imposed Sharia law.But it has run into problems - chief among them, the UN arms embargo. "We are going to send a strong message to the UN in connection with the arms embargo, that we support the arms embargo but the peace support mission must not be affected by this embargo," said Dhlamini-Zuma. She said the arms embargo was also hampering the transitional government in Somalia in its effort to build national institutions like the police.The AU renewed its call for the lifting of the 14-year arms ban. Tension between Sudan and Chad will also come under the spotlight.Dhlamini-Zuma said the AU "will encourage both sides to work together, to cooperate and to meet possibly at the highest level to see how they can lower the tension there."The summit is also expected to check on progress in the preparation for elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the implementation of peace deals in Ivory Coast.
There are enough independently wealthy African American lawyers who could join such organizations, providing them with the legal counsel necessary to empower their work. Such individuals have more personal wealth than they know what to do with which goes to buying cars, homes, and celebrating themselves with extravagant parties as professional agents direct them to make themselves marketable to white society at the expense of empowering Black people.
It is not enough to give out scholarships, cars or makeovers. All people have the legal right to do whatever they want to with the wealth they accumulate but time and history are not kind to those who should have done more and avoided the responsibility. When the white world is no longer interested in them, what they have done for their people will determine who takes care of them as their suns set.
Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
World News
Progression towards United States of Africa continues
By A. Akbar Muhammad
Updated Jul 21, 2005, 10:11 pm
Serving as host for the summit, his remarks echoed his historic push for the establishment of the United States of Africa.
Invited to the conference by Col. Gadhafi, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan was the only representative for the Africans in the Diaspora. He said that he thoroughly enjoyed the conference. What was most inspiring was that, as each of the presidents came forward, they knew Minister Farrakhan and showed much love and admiration for his work in America. Many shared how happy they were to see him present, showing concern about how Africa moves forward in this critical time.
Historic visionary roots
In July 1998, Muammar Gadhafi, the leader of Libya, attended the Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit held in Algeria. In his 45-minute address before the member states, he stressed that Africa will have to unite in order to survive.
One of the foreign ministers present, who later talked to this author, observed that many initially dismissed Col. Gadhafi’s remarks and some even chuckled. That is—until the revolutionary Libyan leader invoked the names of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Sekou Toure, and reminded the summit participants of the core philosophies and aspirations of these heroic African heads of state.
Kwame Nkrumah, one of the foremost proponents of Pan-Africanism who organized the 1945 Pan-African Congress in England, led the former British colony the Gold Coast into independence as Ghana in 1957, becoming the country’s first prime minister and president. He was key in bringing the OAU into existence in 1963, as a part of his ultimate vision of “One Africa.”
Gamal Abdel-Nasser, the pioneer of Arab socialism and nationalism, was one of the founders of the military group that led the 1952 Revolution coup that eventually drove the British colonists out of Egypt, and became the country’s president in 1954. His domestic policies were heralded throughout the Arab world for lifting the majority of the Egyptian people out of poverty.
Ahmed Sekou Toure, a daring politician, led Guinea into independence from the French Community after winning a historic 1958 referendum, becoming the country’s first president.
Col. Gadhafi also referenced the formation of the European Union, saying it was seen as necessary among European governments in order to survive the current global environment. So, too, must Africa survive today, he maintained.
One year later, in Sirte, Libya, on Sept. 9, 1999, Col. Gadhafi invited the heads of state of the OAU to a meeting, wherein he issued the Sirte Declaration, which detailed the need for an African Union and its eventual evolution into the United States of Africa.
On July 9-10, 2002, the First Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union convened in Durban, South Africa.
Honorable exchanges
“How can we be free if we don’t produce and feed ourselves and sell the surplus to others? Are we saying that we can’t grow food and cotton, or make the clothes that we wear?” asked Col. Gadhafi during the recent Sirte summit.
AU President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is also the president of Nigeria, delivered brief remarks to the summit. AU Secretary-General Alpha Omar Konare, the former president of Mali, introduced the host of the summit, which was held at the Ouagadougou Hall, named after the capital of Burkina Faso.
The name was given in 1998 after African foreign ministers convening in Burkina Faso determined to disregard the UN sanctions against Libya by flying planes over the politically isolated country if the sanctions were not lifted by a certain date. The sanctions were not lifted, and the planes took to the air in support of the Libyan people and the value of the leadership of Col. Gadhafi to so many African countries.
In honor of that courageous stand, Col. Gadhafi renamed the hall after the capital of Burkina Faso. It is one of the most elegant conference halls to be found anywhere on the African continent.
Col. Gadhafi’s 35-minute speech covered aid to Africa, which he rejected as Africa puts itself in the position of beggars to receive it. With the Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan, sitting on the stage, Col. Gadhafi also stressed that the “democracy” that is pushed by western nations should start at the UN, and even went so far as to state that the UN should be reformed. Advancing the developing of the United States of Africa would include a common currency for Africa, a national passport for the member states of the African Union and an AU parliament, he further outlined.
At the conference, the staff that accompanied Minister Farrakhan distributed three of his messages recorded on CD to the leaders from every African country and foreign officials from the Far East, as well as Europe: his May 25 press conference condemning the abuse of the Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay detention center; his May 3, 2004 press conference on the war and occupation in Iraq; and his May 2, 2005 press conference launching the Millions More Movement in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March. Minister Farrakhan also held interviews with French TV, BBC, Libyan TV and Japanese and Chinese media. During his interaction with a host of presidents from across the African continent, he was invited to visit many of their countries.
At the close of the session, Minister Farrakhan journeyed to Tripoli where he was received by Dr. Muhammad Ahmed Sherif, the secretary-general of the Islamic Call Society. He met with the new president of Mali, Amadou Toumani Toure, as well as Dr. Mohammed ibn Chambas, secretary-general of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), a dear friend of Minister Farrakhan who while in school in America attended many Nation of Islam mosque meetings.
Col. Gadhafi expressed that he was very happy to see Minister Farrakhan in Africa after so many years and invited him to attend a special dinner as an honored guest among other heads of state.
Note: While this article is dated it is still important as it examines the world of Hip Hop, the message of Hip Hop and the messangers of Hip Hop. Hip Hop is composed of two dynamics. There is the vehicle of music and the message that is contained in its images and lyrics. The emergence of Hip Hop has been created by a generation projecting plenty of smoke but little fire.
The smoke has threatened something different but the fire has amounted to little intensity simply because it has been fueled more by ignorance and self-centeredness. Hip Hop has been the manifestation of children caught up in self-indulgence and overcompensation for feelings of personal poverty. Therefore it has lacked any kind of revolutionary message that would speak truth to power. While it has always had the potential, that potential has never been reached.
Even the messages that might speak to liberation have usually only been those of self-pity rather than collective social empowerment. Those in the different genres of Hip Hop have attempted to adjust to each other's existence without challenging the validity of each other's messages for fear of potential internal reprisals within the group. White male supremacy in the media has promoted mindless Hip Hop at the expense of Revolutionary Hip Hop, and those who have reaped personal profit from mindless Hip Hop have been used to neutralize Revolutionary Hip Hop which explains why we can have a store in Mawali called "Nigger".
At some point Revolutionary Hip Hop artists will have to draw a line in the sand with their peers who have become nothing but profitable tools of oppression for white male supremacy.
In the end if the artists do not check themselves, they will merely reflect a historical image of an "Uncle Tom" gangster, a buffoon clown of sexuality and an image of petty self-indulgence that a generation in the future will come along to brand as worthless to the liberation and self-determination of African people.
Note: We as an African people, especially in the U.S., have
been taught to dissociate from one another to such a degree that while those
African people in the music industry have complete freedom to express themselves
and consider themselves to be on the cutting edge of popular music yet are so
globally ignorant that they miss the constant opportunity to make music with
African people on the continent and in the Caribbean which would revolutionize
hip hop in the cross-pollination of sound and lyrics.
Will Smith Urges Rappers to Be Role Models
By RYAN PEARSON, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 14 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES -
Will Smith has one big introduction to make at Tuesday night's BET Awards: Gangster rappers, meet the rest of the world. Smith told The Associated Press he hopes to impress the global significance of U.S. black culture on the show's audience and artists.
"The kids that are making these trends, making these songs, don't understand the level of effect that black Americans have around the world," he said in an interview. " ... Black Americans are so elevated, it's almost worship."
Smith, co-host of the show (8 p.m. EDT) at Hollywood's Kodak Theater with wife Jada Pinkett-Smith, said he witnessed the phenomenon recently while in Africa. Touring a village in Mozambique, he came across a shack on which someone had scrawled the name of slain rapper Tupac
Shakur. "I was asking the kids: What is it about Tupac? Why is that there? I kept asking why. They were saying we want to dress like you dress, wear all the things you wear, talk how you talk."
"The impression is that black Americans are the dragon slayers.
Here we are 13 percent minority in a foreign land, and yet we can make laws, change laws. If
Jesse Jackson shows up at Coca-Cola, something changes." Smith, who won the first rap Grammy in 1988 for his squeaky-clean "Parents Just Don't Understand," said he wants hip-hop artists to recognize their importance and shift away from thuggish themes.
"It's real important to have balance of the imagery. Yes, there are people who fire guns in the street, but there's also doctors who go to work in those areas to feed their children."
The gangster lifestyle is celebrated in black communities for its strength, Smith said. "That's the image of survivors. The dude that sells the drugs or has the guns or is most willing to kill somebody is the dude that has the greatest potential for survival, or at least that's the perception. So that's what people strive for. "What I'm trying to present and what a lot of other artists are presenting is a different approach to survival and a more sound approach to survival. It's a more long-term approach based on intellect and skills that can't be taken away from you: The smartest dude survives the best."
Smith picks out Common and Mos Def as other artists "that really have something to say that don't necessarily fit on the `106th & Park' top 10."
Now more well-known as a movie star ("Men in Black," "Bad Boys," "Independence Day") than rapper, the 36-year-old Smith maintains on his latest album "Lost And Found" that his nice guy image has worked against him.
"Black radio, they won't play me though," he raps in one song. "Guess they think that Will ain't hard enough. Maybe I should just have a shootout ... just ignorant, attacking, acting rough. I mean then, will I be black enough?"
Though his current single "Switch" is a top 40 hit, the man once known as the Fresh Prince said he no longer worries about album sales.
"I'm an entertainer. I make it and close my eyes," he said. "Sometimes it sells 14 million, sometimes it sells 300,000. For me it's about just doing what I do, and hoping that my artistry makes a difference
"All of us may not live to see the higher accomplishment of an African Empire-so strong and powerful, as to compel the respect of mankind, but we in our life-time can so work and act as to make the dream a possibility within another generation."
Marcus Mosiah Garvey
We, the organizers are working under the following
premises:
That we are living in a world where the term globalization denotes exploitation
of labor and natural and human resources for the vast majority of the world's
population. For that reason, struggle in Africa finds itself at the world stage.
A local struggle must by necessity locate itself in the global struggle. The
international arena has become the theater of change. Therefore, those serving
change, whether as writers, historians, scholars, and/or political activists in
and for Africa have to be willing to serve, in word and deed, contemporary
struggles against continued marginalization elsewhere.
Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
Thus, we move forward as members of a generation that seeks to step up to history and answer the call that all previous generations have hearkened to: that Africa takes control of its economic, political and cultural livelihood. It is time for our generation to answer Frantz Fanon's call to action, saying: "Every generation must out of relative obscurity find its mission; fulfill or betray it."
We also recognize that there are a number of political activists who have taken individual or collective stands but still work in localized isolation. This organization, then, is geared towards bringing together conscious voices of all those struggling to bring change to their societies so that they can recognize in both word and deed, each others' struggles. We also hope to provide a forum by which a unified voice can generate a platform that is, in praxis, cognizant of struggle, not only in Africa, but in the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia.
Dr. Leary has also developed the African American Male Youth Respect Scale, a scale which measures the relationship between present and historical issues of respect in relationship to the use of violence among this population.
Dr. Leary's upcoming book "Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Injury and Healing" incorporates her research in both America and Africa, as well as her twenty years experience as a social work practitioner and consultant to public and private organizations.
In her book Dr. Leary first exposes the reader
to the conditions that led to the Atlantic slave trade and allowed the pursuant
racism and efforts at repression to continue through the present day. She then
looks at the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that our ancestors faced as the
result of the slave trade. Next she discusses the adaptive behaviors they
developed, both positive and negative, that allowed them to survive and often
even thrive. Dr. Leary concludes by reevaluating those adaptive behaviors that
have been passed down through generations and where appropriate, she explores
replacing behaviors which are today maladaptive with ones that will promote,
ensure and sustain the healing and advancement of African American culture.
Members of ones cultural/ethnic group,Cultural dissonance:
Mores associated with ones cultural/ethnic heritage
Physical characteristics associated with ones cultural/ethnic group
A feeling of disharmony and psychological conflict resulting from a loss of cultural identity and traditional customs, values and needs.Along these same lines, you should visit this link: The Nigger Email - [pdf] - or right click, save target as... and
David's Call to Action - [pdf] This link says as much about causing our own collective destruction as anything.
Also visit these expert web sites regarding the unification of Africa:
Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
and... http://www.panafricanarts.org/
and.. http://www.afrol.com/index.php
Also:
African Union Headquaters P.O. Box 3243 Addis Ababa Ethiopia Tel: (251) 1 51 77 00 Fax:(251) 1 51 78 44 website:
www.africa-union.org Webmaster :webmaster@africa-union.org
Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
To further understand what stands against the Unification of Africa, One must understand what prevents Black America from participating in efforts to unify Africa and that is the destruction of the Black Family structure here in the United States itself...
WILLIAM RASPBERRY THE WASHINGTON POST'There is a crisis of unprecedented magnitude in the black community, one that goes to the very heart of its survival. The black family is failing."
Quibble if you will about the "unprecedented magnitude" – slavery wasn't exactly a high point of African-American well-being. But there's no quarreling with the essence of the alarm sounded here last week by a gathering of Pentecostal clergy and the Seymour Institute for Advanced Christian Studies. What is happening to the black family in America is the sociological equivalent of global warming: easier to document than to reverse, inconsistent in its near-term effect – and disastrous in the long run.
Father absence is the bane of the black community, predisposing its children (boys especially, but increasingly girls as well) to school failure, criminal behavior and economic hardship – and to an intergenerational repetition of the grim cycle. The culprit, the ministers (led by Boston's Rev. Eugene Rivers III, president of the Seymour Institute) agreed, is the decline of marriage.
Kenneth B. Johnson, a Seymour senior fellow who has worked in youth programs, says he often sees teenagers "who've never seen a wedding."
The concern is not new. As Rivers noted at last week's National Press Club news conference, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan sounded the alarm 40 years ago, only to be "condemned and pilloried as misinformed, malevolent, and even racist."
What is new is the understanding of how deep and wide is the reach of declining marriage – and the still-forming determination to do something about it.
When Moynihan first issued his controversial study, roughly a quarter of black babies were born out of wedlock; moreover, it was largely a low-income phenomenon. The proportion now tops two-thirds, with little prospect of significant decline, and has moved up the socioeconomic scale.
There have been two main explanations. At the low-income end, the disproportionate incarceration, unemployment and early death of black men makes them unavailable for marriage. At the upper-income level, it is the fact that black women are far likelier than black men to complete high school, attend college and earn the professional credentials that would render them "eligible" for marriage.
Both explanations are true. But black men aren't born incarcerated, crime-prone dropouts. What principally renders them vulnerable to such a plight is the absence of fathers and their stabilizing influence.
Fatherless boys (as a general rule) become ineligible as husbands – though no less likely to become fathers – and their children fall into the patterns that render them ineligible as husbands.
The absence of fathers means, as well, that girls lack both a pattern against which to measure the boys who pursue them and an example of sacrificial love between a man and a woman. As the ministers were at pains to say last week, it isn't the incompetence of mothers that is at issue, but the absence of half of the adult support needed for families to be most effective.
Interestingly, they blamed the black church for abetting the decline of the black family – by moderating virtually out of existence its once stern sanctions against extramarital sex and childbirth and by accepting the present trends as more or less inevitable.
They didn't say – but might have – that black America's almost reflexive search for outside explanations for our internal problems delayed the introspective examination that might have slowed the trend. What we have now is a changed culture – a culture whose worst aspects are reinforced by oversexualized popular entertainment and that places a reduced value on the things that produced nearly a century of socioeconomic improvement. For the first time since slavery, it is no longer possible to say with assurance that things are getting better.
As the Rev. Jesse Jackson once said in a slightly different context, "What began as a problem has deteriorated into a condition. Problems require solving; conditions require healing."
How to start the healing? Rivers and his colleagues hope to use their personal influence, a series of marriage forums and their well-produced booklet, "God's Gift: A Christian Vision of Marriage and the Black Family," to launch a serious, national discussion and action program.
In truth, though, the situation is so critical – and its elements so interconnected and self-perpetuating – that there is no wrong place to begin. When you find yourself in this sort of a hole, someone once said, the first thing to do is stop digging.
Raspberry can be reached via e-mail at willrasp@washpost.com.
Underdevelopment, Oppression, Hypocrisy: The Wests' Crimes Against Africa
The deception of Africa owing anything to any country that has prospered industrially or otherwise from Africa's resources has become so ingrained in the minds of the world that no one can realistically see that Africa owes no one nothing. The world is indebt to Africa, chiefly the West, for use of its many precious resources, historical enlightenment, and great discoveries....... READ THIS
A new "Scramble for Africa" is taking place among the world's big powers, who are tapping into the continent for its oil and diamonds. Tony Blair is pushing hard for African debt relief agreements in the run-up to the G8 summit in Scotland in July. But while sub-Saharan Africa is the object of the west's charitable concern, billions of pounds' worth of natural resources are being removed from it...READ THIS
* A note from Mark Wood, Founder of the USA4USAfrica coalition and this website:
In 1996 we said Kofi Annan would broker the relief of African debt to the west as one of his first moves to position himself for election of the United Africa's first president. In the years since, we have seen Kofi Annan added to the character assassinations occurring with black celebrities of note worldwide and across the board, from sports stars to music stars to movie stars to politicians, including Kofi Annan.
Kofi Annan would not have brokered an agreement that gave the debt owed nations mineral rights and other consolidations that would leave the African nations when they DO UNITE, totally depleted in their own national resources from the debt relief brokered by Tony Blair of Britain - and would leave the United African Nations again in a position of debt.
The fact that Kofi Annan is being discredited on the world stage because of a job he brokered for his son for a job that barely paid $2600 per month ( not enough to even exist in greater Manhattan ) is evidence that a proven leader of Kofi Annan's stature can be nickel and dime'd out of leadership of the UN and a United Africa is part of a covert effort to make sure Africa never rises from it's knees on the world stage.
Notes from USA4USAfrica founder Mark Wood:
A major part of the unification of Africa, is that it's people need to VISUALIZE a United States of Africa or United Africa.
In trying to get a MOVIE produced regarding a United States of Africa and talking to Studio people, Hollywood has the same response as Rhett Butler in that American classic film "Gone with the Wind", Frankly my dear, WE JUST DON'T GIVE A DAMN!
For example as reported in the CSM:
'This is Africa," says an African to an American in "Sahara," set in Nigeria and Mali, "and nobody cares about Africa."
To a large extent, he's right. For proof, look at the movie itself - standard buddy fare about American salvagers seeking a Civil War ship that somehow wound up in an African desert. All the heroes are white, except Hispanic star Penélope Cruz, and African tribulations (tyranny, warlords, violence) serve as little more than an exotic backdrop.
Even the main crux of the plot - a plague of toxic pollution - galvanizes the characters mostly because it's headed for the Atlantic Ocean and thence to New York City's crowded coast. Why, people who buy multiplex tickets dwell there!
This sort of approach to Africa is common. Mass-market movies hardly ever set their stories there - and when they do, as in "Out of Africa" and "White Mischief," they're mostly interested in photogenic landscapes. Africa is almost as much of a "dark continent" for moviegoers today as in the past.
There's a grim irony in this, at a time when headlines about western Sudan are crying out to the world for attention, just as events in Somalia did a dozen years ago. It takes catastrophe of huge proportions to focus American minds on African issues.
Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
excerpts from Africa’s Futureby Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe |
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"On the structure of the United States of Africa, there appears to be no clear agreement yet among African nationalists. At the Accra Conference, Dr. Nkrumah stressed the necessity for such a communion of our own to give expression to the African personality... So it is an unitary constitution that PAC envisages for the United States of Africa, with all the power vested in a central government freely elected by the whole Continent on the basis of universal adult suffrage. In such a set-up, only continent-wide parties committed to a continental program, and cutting across sectional ties and interests, whether of a tribal or religious nature, are possible. A socialist government will in turn promote the idea of African Unity and the concept of free and independent African personality. The potential wealth of Africa in minerals, oil, hydro-electric power and so on is immense. By cutting out waste through systematic planning, a central government can bring about the most rapid development of every part of the state... ...In an United States of Africa, there will be no "racial groups", and I am certain that with the freedom of movement from Cape to Cairo, Morocco to Madagascar, the concentration of so-called minority groups will disappear. |
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The Educational Series
| The founding of the "USA for USAFRICA" movement calls for nothing less than the formation and conception of a "United States of Africa" as a way to insure the survival of a pivotal continent in the development and history of Mankind. | The position and purpose of the USA for USAfrica coalition is to lobby for Mr. Kofi Annan to be elected as the first President of a United States of Africa - ratified by the vote of all Africans in Africa's first continental election and action as a United Africa by the end Mr. Annan's second term as head of the United Nations in 6 years. |
The finished movie screenplay takes an
autobiographical view of the movement
from it's beginning at Muhammid Ali's Freemont Place home in 1987 Los Angeles
to the Internet birth of the movement in Valencia, CA. 1996, through it's "media boom"
born on the Internet, to it's gathering of supporters, famous 
( Muhammad Ali ) and everyday people of all backgrounds who after consideration, arrive at the conclusion, that a united Africa will not only spur a worldwide movement involving the largest number of people in history, but also spur mankind to pull together for peace in the world, "at last". |
Oscar winner, Morgan Freeman 
is being asked to play the role of Kofi Annan, and producer songwriter Babyface
 is being asked to play the
role of the USA4USAfrica co -founder, Mark Wood and Matthew Perry 
is being asked to play the role of co founder Robert Wood. |
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The movie takes place in several U.S. and African locations going through as many countries possible in the Soderberg "Traffic" movie/documentary style, interspersed with film and live video footage. Being an autobiographical version of a movement already in place, enough "liberties" can be taken with the screenplay and script to give the film enough buzz for green light status. The music portion of the film drives it even further with an all star soundtrack from artists featuring their most heartfelt songs of freedom and change. It's a concept that can not be denied. From rappers to freestyle poets, to the business and bankers who see untold opportunity if they could participate in a United Africa. The very debate of the idea will spur and grow the movement to the point where it actually happens.
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All movie's have to have an opposite factor, and it lies in the
reality that Libya's Kadafi  heeded some of the first e-mails sent by the
USA4USAfrica to the early African Internet of the mid 90's and has been actively
wooing African leaders into a United States of Africa led by himself! Yes this
is actually happening and if your media has not been presenting it to you, PLEASE
click on some of the links supplied on this web link: United
States of Africa? Thus our purpose of lobbying for U.N. leader Kofi Annan. |
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A latest addition : Everyday - can be heard HERE and
Hear one of the songs from the
soundtrack by clicking HERE.
As of August 4, 2004 we are adding tracks to be included in the film soundtrack and letting web visitors decide which tracks to include. Prince, Ziggy & Lenny: we are waiting for you to upload your track contributions as well. E-mail to wood-mark@sbcglobal.net Here are the first additions besides the tracks to the right. You can also hear considered tracks at: http://geocities.com/blueturbanstones/ Click HERE to listen to: This Day Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE. |
Let It Be...
Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
Prize Award Ceremony Kofi Annan receiving his Nobel Prize from Gunnar Berge, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Kofi Annan of Ghana is the seventh Secretary-general of the United Nations. The first Secretary-general to be elected from the ranks of United Nations staff, he began his term on 1 January 1997 and recently elected to a second 5 year term.
Kofi Annan has devoted almost his entire working life to the UN As Secretary-general, he has been preeminent in bringing new life to the organization. While clearly underlining the UN's traditional responsibility for peace and security, he has also emphasized its obligations with regard to human rights.
Click HERE
The United States of Africa: The Movie - Synopsis
Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
The movie is personal and autobiographical as well. It tells the story of how this particular movement for a United States of Africa was born from pure chance.
It details how the screenplay's author, Mark Wood came to Los Angeles from Milwaukee with hopes of the typical music and movie fame as a "Jimi Hendrix - Bootsy Collins" styled 1 man band in the tradition of Prince. This adventure that started at age 20, follows his path from the various companies he worked which connected him to meet many of the famous in music, television and film and realize that fame without meaning and a purpose for the betterment of humanity is, while comfortable, is meaningless in the "Big Picture" of Life.
A chance meeting with one of the most known living people on earth, Muhammad Ali and their discussions over 3 separate visits, not about boxing, but religions, humanity, philosophy and the state of black people in the world today and how they got there triggered my personal meaning of purpose.
Mr. Ali said he would like to see Africa as a united country in his lifetime or at least know the process was in place before he died. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made.
Being shortly after "We are the World" and Live Aid, Africa's starvation and misery was broadcast world wide and then forgotten until the next disaster. For all the money generated, in the present, Africa still cries the same tears and a "911" amount of people die EVERY day.
A united Africa is in my best interest, your best interest and most importantly, Africa's best interest. A united Africa is an Africa strong enough to heal it's own wounds and nourish itself from it's own STILL largely untapped resources.
A united Africa will involve the world's economies and in fact revive them. a United Africa will require debate and decision among Africans themselves, but how do you get the debate on the world and African stage for it to take place?
My idea is a movie, so people can visualize a United Africa, my other idea is the soundtrack to the movie with participation of various artists on a "We are the World" scale, all contributing songs and music themed on a Unification of Africa and why it should be...
Being a heavy smoker, I may not live to see it, but I made a promise to Mr. Ali that I would try to make it happen or start to happen in HIS lifetime and hopefully in MINE.
The rate of death in Africa is exponential and a United Africa must be in place by 2025 or there will be NO African people to unite.... What say ye?
The movie has alternate endings, one triumphant, one sad, then eventually triumphant.
The original song whose lyric included the line the movement was born from, predicts the leader of a United Africa surviving an assassination attempt in the year 2020, but recovering and surviving to lead and even more united new continent nation. Under the new federal Africa of united country states with open borders so any person born on African soil (any color ) could live in ANY area of Africa of their choice to live, educate, seek business opportunity and lifestyle. Starvation across the land mass would be eliminated from inter-continental highways and infrastructure. Finally Africa would realize the economic benefits of having the world's largest coastline and secure fair market price and profits for many of it's natural resources still mostly 98% undeveloped over the last thousand years. Potential, that would benefit all of it's people and the world as well.
Hear one of the songs from the soundtrack by clicking HERE.
AIDS and it's exponential death rate are finally under control and Africa is healing and drawing people from all over the world who can now travel the entire continent in safety and wonder. The smiles and health of children that have had their very lives saved and given a chance, the return of two parent families in ensuing generations, all this and more because Africa is one and self sufficient, from an idea, no one gave a chance.
With a need to be brief, the screenplay will be marketed to the major and independent film markets. The marketing and licensing possibilities all lead to growing the concept and movement into realization.
Otherwise, I ask you - where do you think the world is heading?
Archived
Video “World Economic Situation and Prospects 2002”.
Join the USA for USAfrica (United States of America for a United States of Africa)
How about this, The USA for USAfrica received a stunning e-mail revealing the FIRST mention of the concept of a United States of Africa, ( besides the first President of Ghana and the Wood Brothers in the 1996,) was from none other than the late Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the TV series Star Trek. The only black cast member, Uhura of the series was born where?
In The United States of Africa!
Apparently an Africa thoroughly involved in Education, Science, Opportunity and Freedom.
It's not a Dream, A United States of Africa is possible - envision it!
How It Began....
Mark Wood
Robert Wood
The Wood Brothers
The Internet concept for "USA4USAFRICA" came from a prophetic song written by The Wood Bros entitled "November 18th 2020". Among the song's predictions are the Continental earthquake on the western Pacific rim in the year 2013 and the the 1st leader of the United States of Africa in 2020.
The USA4USAFRICA was actually born from the quote of Muhammad Ali in 1987 in a personal meeting in which he revealed he would like to see the whole of Africa united in his lifetime. I never forgot those words and decided one day I would have a viable way to make it happen. Then came the Internet and in a moment of epiphany the movement was reborn as USA4USAFRICA.
In 1996 The Wood Brothers uploaded a song to the Internet at http://unitedstatesafrica.50megs.com/ called
( “November 18th 2020” ) predicting among other things, a United States of Africa in the year 2020.or http://www.geocities.com/blueturbanstones
While we understand the beginning of the USA for USAfrica may have an unusual genesis, the heart felt reasons behind the movement are unmistakable, and the need for a United States of Africa, is Undeniable.
No continent in the world is better positioned than Africa, ( a United Africa ) to contribute to the welfare of Mankind over the next thousand years. As an ABC Night Line reporter covering Africa noted, "Africa is 98% virtually the same as it was a thousand years ago." An incredible vast land of undeveloped potential both for it's people and the world.
In a United States of Africa, a citizen could freely travel from Gambia to South Africa to Algeria or anywhere on the continent to seek education, opportunity, commerce or the simple pleasure of tourist travel within their vast country.
A common African currency much like the EU model affords the ability to buy and sell throughout the continent with a reliable backed currency. A transcontinental citizenship throughout Africa will one day become the envy of the free world.
Much of Africa's third world debt could be relived if freedom and security of capitalism were able to thrive in any African country - state from taxes paid by companies involved in business in any African location. An immediate positive effect would arise from local, municipal and federal levels throughout Africa.
Any and all of these possibilities can only arise from what can take place in a United States of Africa. With national borders being no more restrictive than state borders, allowing transcontinental travel, commerce and opportunity for all African citizens.
A United States of Africa with the largest usable coastline in the world could one day be the country that enriches all of Mankind, feeds the world, heals the world, teaches the world and balances the world. There is so much more involved and the USA for USAfrica is not naive to the many levels that must be addressed, our point is the dialogue must begin at once, in the media, on the airwaves, in discussions and editorials.
The concept of a United States of Africa must immediately be brought into public debate worldwide and among Africans themselves.
Read more on the coming United States of Africa from these newspaper and media excerpts:
DREAMS OF A UNITED AFRICA
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Once again, Africans are dreaming of unity. But observers both on and off the world’s second largest continent say they will have to deal with some serious demons before a United States of Africa can ever become a reality. |
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The Organization for African Unity ended a counsel of ministers
conference July 2000 in Togo with its latest call for a formal union
of African countries. Desmond Orjiako, spokesman for the 37-year-old
alliance, told reporters that union was “easily one of the most
important issues to be discussed,” and declared that all the African
states have now accepted the idea in principle.
“We had two strong views on it,” said Orjiako. “Some delegates felt the union was very important but the formation process was just too fast. They wanted to have certain things ironed out first. Others felt the discussions should continue because they had made so much progress.” Not everyone is optimistic. Zimbabwe political scientist Tafadzwa Musekiwa says the biggest impediment to union is the reluctance of many African leaders—including in some cases harsh dictators—to give up power. “The idea of uniting Africa is a noble one,” says Musekiwa. “But I am afraid such an idea may not be realized, at least in [the next] thousand years.” SO MUCH MISERY Disunity and warfare both inside and among the continent’s 53 countries—about 30 percent of the world’s total—is often blamed for Africa’s many ills. Six African countries are perennially among the 10 poorest on Earth, according to the World Bank. This year an estimated 8 million people risk starvation in the Horn of Africa, a result of famine and war. Last year more than 3 million people in 15 countries were forced to abandon their homes because of war, insurgencies and repression, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees. Political violence in Congo-Brazzaville accounted for an estimated 800,000 refugees. A resurgence of Angola’s long-running civil war forced at least half a million people to flee. More than 400,000 others fled their homes in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 350,000 left because of the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Large populations also fled in Sierra Leone, Sudan, Uganda, Somalia and five other countries. Underlying many attempts to explain all this strife and suffering is the oft-heard assumption that Africa’s problems can be traced back to the way it was carved up by Europe’s 19th-century colonial powers. Seven countries—France, Britain, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Belgium—partitioned the continent at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85. Conference host Otto von Bismarck—the “Iron Chancellor” of the German Empire—famously declared: “My map of Africa lies in Europe.” The competing powers gerrymandered the landmass with their own political boundaries, which often divided language and cultural groups. The resulting ethnic fragmentation has been blamed for helping touch off some 50 successful political coups during the post-colonial period. Global competition during the Cold War further exacerbated strife, as governments in the East and West staged surrogate war and intrigue in Africa through adopted clients. BOUNDARIES TO BLAME? Now that the Cold War is over, one of the many colonial legacies that remain is language. French is the official language in 18 countries. In 15 others it’s English. In Cameroon and Seychelles, it’s both. Richard Roberts, director of Stanford University’s Center for African Studies, points to the “fascinating case”; of the border between Nigeria and Benin. “The line was drawn in the middle of the Yoruba state, in the middle of a coherent precolonial state. Now you have two national Yorubas. In Nigeria, where English is the official language, and in Benin, where French is.” Far from uniting, a number of countries periodically undergo secession crises sparked by language and ethnic differences. The black Christian and animist south of Sudan—geographically the largest African country—feels rejected by the Arab Moslem north, leading to a violent state of civil war for much of its more than four decades of independence. “All across the Sahara there are boundary disputes,” says Roberts. “The Senegal River was used as the border between Mauritania and Senegal, but there was a constant flow of people back and forth across the river. All of a sudden, they belonged to different countries.” “Almost none of the current boundaries relate to tribal boundaries,” says George J. Demko, geography professor and former director of Dartmouth College’s Rockefeller Center. “Anybody would have screwed it up, though, not just the Europeans. No matter who created the borders, they would have had to trample over some of those tribal lines. You couldn’t make states out of all those tiny tribal units.” Demko is one of many analysts who believe that redrawing national boundaries is not the answer to Africa’s many ills. “This business of being politically correct about boundaries is a little silly. I would argue that any attempt to restore boundaries that existed before the colonial period would cause nothing but more conflict.” Geography professor H.J. de Blij of Marshall University agrees. “Governments that find themselves in possession of territory are loathe to give it up, however reasonable the claims of their neighbors might be.” De Blij, Demko and others see far more important issues that need to be addressed if Africa has any hope of emerging from its seemingly endless misery, including what Demko calls a “failure of leadership.” “I really think the main cause of conflict is no longer boundaries,” he says. “It’s corruption, lack of education, and lack of enlightened political leadership and national cohesion.” Adds de Blij: “The truth is, Africa has not had any tutelage in statehood applicable to the kinds of states the colonial powers left behind. As a result, Africa has virtually no voice in international affairs. African countries are powerless: I think that’s really the key.” These difficulties make any prospect of Africa uniting under one national flag—much less of successfully dealing with tribalism and regionalism inside many of the separate states—unlikely anytime soon, in the view of many. In the words of a recent Zimbabwe newspaper editorial, the United States of Africa continues to be “a pipedream.” |
The Evolution of Pan-Africanism
The ultimate goal is "A United Africa". This is the final destination of the long journey but we should pause and ask several questions. The first of these is "where did the journey start?" as we can draw on lessons from the past for understanding of the issues we currently face. The second question; "where are we now?" places achievements and challenges in the movement towards unity in context, and gives us the necessary information to ask "Where do we go from here?"
The call for a " United Africa" has been around for a long time. A look back at history is needed to understand the evolution of "Pan-Africanism" which takes its roots from the slave trade, colonialism, oppression and exploitation. Pan-Africanism represented a reaction against the oppression of the black man and the racial doctrines that marked the era of slavery.
Pan-Africanism evolved from a movement of self-assertion and resistance to enslavement in those early days, to organized forces with cultural and political claims. After the Second World War, It took on a continental dimension and came to represent the quest for continental unity.
The continued survival of this movement and its functional relevance to this day underlines the validity of the political, economic and strategic consideration behind Pan-Africanism.
Series of Pan-African Congresses
The first Pan- African conference to address the problems of African people worldwide was held in 1900, when Mr Henry Sylvester-Williams convened a conference in London. The delegates talked of creating a movement to campaign for African people's rights. It achieved the idea of oneness in experience that has reconfirmed itself again and again.
Following the procedure adopted by Henry Sylvester-Williams, in connection with the 1900 Pan-African conference, W.E.B DuBois convened and presided over a series of Pan-African congresses between 1919 and 1945 which laid the ground for later successes. The fifth in the series, held in 1945, is considered to herald the beginning of a new era where for the first time, Africans from Africa, Africans from the Caribbean and Africans from the United States came together and designed a programme for the future independence of Africa. They proclaimed all dependencies must be free from alien control, both political and economic.
The Fifth Pan-African Congress (Manchester, England 1945)
Seen in retrospect, this Congress won the reputation as pacemaker for decolonization in Africa, which demanded an end to colonial rule and an end to racial discrimination. While it carried forward hopes and visions for a United Africa, the Fifth Congress injected a note of militancy, which was taken back to Africa and enhanced the struggle for national independence.
Ninety delegates attended, with twenty-six from all over Africa. These included Peter Abrahams for the African National Congress (ANC), and a number of men who were later to become political leaders in their countries, such as Hastings Banda, Kwame Nkrumah, Obafemi Awolowo and Jomo Kenyatta.
Independence Era
With the independence of African countries, the first significant step was taken in the continent's struggle for unity as it gained a much-needed base on African soil. Pan-Africanism remained in the realm of ideas until Ghana, under Kwame Nkrumah, became a sovereign state in 1957. The emancipation of Ghana served to pave the way for closer co-operation among African people. Thus, from 1958 onwards, the notion of Pan -Africanism moved into the realm of practical policies.
The Accra Conferences 1958
The national liberation struggles made Africans realize more and more that they faced common tasks and that unity had become a necessity. In April 1958, for the first time, leaders of independent African States met to discuss common problems with a view to working out common policies covering political, economic, cultural and social matters. The meeting was held in Ghana and was attended by seven other independent states, namely; Libya, Ethiopia, Liberia, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan and the United Republic of Egypt.
The All-African People's Conference
The broadest representation of the numerous political and public organizations in African countries was achieved through the All-African People's Conference. The first conference met at Accra, Ghana in December 1958 under a banner proclaiming "HANDS OFF AFRICA! AFRICA MUST BE FREE!"
The special Contribution of American and West Indians of African origin to the development of Pan-Africanism was noted at the First All-African People's Conference in Accra in 1958 by Dr. Nkrumah who said
".....Many of them have made no small contribution to the cause of African freedom. Names which spring immediately to mind in this connection are those of Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. DuBois. Long before many of us were even conscious of our own degradation, these men fought for African national and racial equality.
Long may the links between Africa and the peoples of African descent continue to hold us together in fraternity. Now that we in Africa are marching towards the complete emancipation of this Continent, our independent status will help in no small measure their efforts to attain full human rights and human dignity as citizens of their country."
An address entitled " the future of Africa" by DuBois who was at that time approaching 91 years of age and unwell, was given on his behalf by his wife. Among other things he said,
"If Africa unites, it will be because each part, each nation, each tribe gives up a part of the heritage for the good of the whole. That is what union means; that is what Pan Africa-means: When the child is born into the tribe the price of his growing up is giving a part of his freedom to the tribe. This he soon learns or dies. When the tribe becomes a union of tribes, the individual tribe surrenders some part of its freedom to the paramount tribe."
The second gathering was held in Tunis, Tunisia in January 1960 and the third in Cairo, Egypt in March 1961. From conference to conference there was a great desire for unity and on May 25 1963, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 32 African Heads of states and Government came together to form the Organization of African Unity (OAU), a crucial step in the movement towards integration.
United States of Africa?
Integration is a much-debated topic: The European Union will most likely decide this week that reforms in Turkey meet the Copenhagen criteria and European ministers will then vote on whether to allow Turkey to take the next step toward integration; America is constantly evaluating the success of NAFTA and debating its economic dependence on Mexican migrant workers and importation of cheap drugs from Canada. Even on the micro-scale at Cornell University, residential communities with special priorities like Ujamaa, Alice H. Cook House and the Center for Jewish Living are constantly engaged in striking a balance between forging a unique identity around their founding principles and vision and integration with the broader campus community.
However, to discuss integration in Africa, one needs to have a better understanding of the continent. At this time, one needs a healthy dose of optimism even to begin examining the problems that African countries face. The economic climate is characterized by widespread poverty, rampant unemployment, large foreign debt and a workforce crippled by HIV/AIDS, where it is estimated that in many countries, almost one in three young adults are infected by the virus. Then we have the worse examples of countries plagued by civil war and genocide. The inability of the Organization of African Unity to handle the atrocities in Darfur, Sudan and the exodus of refugees it has created just add to a long list of the continent's shortcomings, which include not providing clean water to most of its citizens; causing millions to die from preventable diseases and entire villages dying from starvation during floods and droughts because relief food can not be adequately distributed.
In examining the vicious cycle of African poverty, Mr. Ondeng notes that Sub-Saharan African countries transfer to their creditors several times more money than they spend on healthcare. Unfortunately, the transition from colonialism to corrupt post-colonial leaders, fueled by institutional and multinational corporate profiteers who were unabated by illiterate populations has left the continent in dire straits. Perhaps the malady of African leadership is illustrated by the recent talks aimed at providing some sort of government in war-torn Somalia. When the delegates of the Transitional National Government of Somalia realized that they were being hosted luxuriously in the city of Eldoret, they brought along three times as many cronies than they were permitted. Being cash-strapped, the organizers soon decided to move to a cheaper location in Nairobi, which immediately prompted boycott calls from the Somali leaders: It was contrary to their religious beliefs to be hosted in a city that had a zoo! With leaders who always put their personal comfort over the welfare of their people, there is no hope for progress on the continent.
It is within this African context that one must understand Mr. Ondeng's cautious optimism and the vision for a United States of Africa. Eyeing with envy the economic prowess of America and the European Union, to some a united continent is the Utopian solution to all Africa's problems. Proponents argue that countries in Africa were sliced up arbitrarily during the Berlin Conference, with borders cutting through tribal lines, leaving behind an odd mixture of people with strong tribal identities bundled together and expected to form a democratic state. For example, the Kenyan population is so comfortable with tribal politics that nobody raised an eyebrow when the columnists for the leading Kenyan newspapers demanded that after the death of former Kenyan Vice President Michael Wamalwa, his successor be chosen from the same Luhya ethnic community to preserve the tribal balance of power in the country; and indeed this is exactly what happened. In much of Africa, elections are more about tribal affiliations and alliances than they are about issues and ideology.
It is unlikely that a United States of Africa would solve any of these problems. If geography is the basis for integration, then Egypt is better off casting its lot with Syria and Israel than with Namibia and Madagascar; Algeria and Morocco should capitalize on their proximity to Europe rather than looking for common ground with Zimbabwe. More important, even regional integration like the East African Community had to be postponed for five years because it came with a whole host of problems. Allowing in geographically mobile and educated workforces from a neighboring country can only further exacerbate local unemployment with no guarantee that profits will not be repatriated back to the home country. Furthermore, expanded markets only benefit countries with a comparative advantage in manufacturing industries and with available capital, which again will benefit some countries to the short-term detriment to others.
Odeng counters that we should look at the long-term benefit. The wisdom of John Keynes replies that there is no such thing as the long run: "In the long run, we are all dead." Odeng rebuts that we should plant the seeds of integration, whose fruits will be reaped by a future generation. This discussion brings to mind a Kenyan proverb: We did not inherit the world from our parents, we merely borrowed it for our children.
Shaffique Adam is a graduate student in physics. He can be reached at sa234@cornell.edu. Alice in Wonderland appears alternate Tuesdays.
United States of Africa?
One of the most important subjects on the agenda at summit in Togo is the proposal to form an African Union - a pan-African body with strong political and economic ties intended to eventually take the place of the current Organisation of African Unity.
African leaders fear their continent is
becoming increasingly powerless in a tough global economic environment.
Many believe that unless Africa can talk and act with greater cohesion, it
will continue to be virtually ignored by the richer countries.
Beyond this general consensus, which is shared by all the 30 or so heads of
state in Lome, there are considerable differences about what is the best way to
proceed.
Gaddafi for union
At one end of the spectrum is Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who has
grabbed much of the attention here.
Colonel Gaddafi raised the idea of an
African Union, loosely modelled on its European counterpart, at an extraordinary
summit in Libya last year.
His ambition is that the union should come into existence, in some form, in
2001.
Colonel Gaddafi can count on support for this idea from several small
countries in Africa, like Burkina Faso and Togo, who have benefited from his
financial largesse.
Regional groupings
But some of the more powerful African countries are wary of losing their own
regional influence and concerned at any initiative that would weaken their
sovereignty or ability to act independently.
Nigeria, for example, enjoys its role as the dominant force in the existing
West African grouping, the Economic Community of West African States, Ecowas.
In recent years Ecowas has made significant
progress in easing travel restrictions in West Africa, and has started the
process of establishing a single West African currency.
In southern Africa, South Africa enjoys a similarly important role in SADC,
the Southern African Development Community.
Although SADC's effectiveness has been diminished in recent years, in part
because of political differences between South Africa and Zimbabwe, many
southern Africans would prefer to work towards regional integration first,
before looking at pan-African unity.
Likewise in East Africa, where Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have been working
to revive the old East African Community, which collapsed in the mid-1970s
because of political and ideological differences.
There are about 50 African states, and they trade far more with the rest of
the world than they do with each other.
Despite Colonel Gaddafi's plans, its hard to see how an African Union will
mean much in practical terms, at least in the short term.
But it is possible that new pan-African institutions, such as a parliament
and a court of law, will come into existence in the next few years - possibly
providing a basis for a more united Africa in the future.
"To build a successful union in such conditions will require great
stamina and iron political will," said Mr Annan.
He said that Africa must solve its problems before expecting Western leaders
to increase its aid or forgive debts.
This is the gist of Africa's latest development plan - the New Partnership
for Africa's Development (Nepad).
"They will respect us even more when they see us actually resolve the
conflicts that disfigure our continent. And I do mean, resolve them. Managing
them is not enough," he said.
But Colonel Gaddafi was not asking for Western aid:
"Those who want to assist us, we welcome. Those who want to impose
conditions on use, we don't want them," he said.
"We are not children who need to be taught. ============================================================================================ See: www.Africa2020.com
which is updated throughout the day with hundreds of news stories from the
United States of Africa. Their name was inspired by The Wood Bros. song on a
futuristic Africa called November 18th 2020
Mr
Annan said that integration was the way to develop Africa's economy but said
that its poor infrastructure, debt burden and many conflicts were sizeable
challenges.
Kadhafi
pleads for United States of Africa
Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - The leader of the Libyan Revolution, Colonel
Muammar Kadhafi has reiterated the need to form the United States of
Africa in order to give the continent more influence in the
world.
Kadhafi, who was addressing a videoconference on Thursday, asked
Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora meeting in Dakar, to
emphasise in their resolutions the creation of the United States
of Africa.
"No African country taken individually has enough bargaining
power to negotiate on an equal footing with big European or
American countries," he observed, adding that there are 18
African countries, which taken together, have the size of a city
like New York in the USA.
According to Kadhafi, it is therefore urgent for African
countries to unite and establish a strong government. "We need
one trade minister to negotiate for us and one foreign minister,"
he argues. This will help unify Customs codes, which is the only
way for Africa to have balanced relationships with the rest of
the world.
He said Africa also needs to break with consultative assemblies
and set up a Pan-African Congress that makes decisions.
He gave the example of the Libyan popular congresses, which are
the expression of the people's power.
Furthermore, Kadhafi urged Africans from the Diaspora to defend
the interests of the continent where they live.
"We have noticed that whenever an African holds a position of
responsibility in an important institution or a big country, he
forgets his origins and is sometimes more Catholic than the
Pope," the Libyan leader observed.
This is not the case for Jews, who take advantage of their
responsibilities in the American or European administrations to
defend the interest of Israel, he noted.
"I do not understand why Africans from the Diaspora are so shy
and unassuming? Why wouldn't they assert their rights in America
and in Europe, where their ancestors had been forcibly taken to
work as beasts in farms and factories," Kadhafi queried.
There is another disaster, which he feels that Africans should
correct. "We send our children to America and Europe to study and
be trained. After graduating, they chose to stay and serve those
countries instead of returning to Africa, turning deaf ears to
the tremendous sacrifice we made for their studies," Kadhafi told
intellectuals, urging them to find a solution to that problem.
Dakar - 08/10/2004
In July, in Lomé (Togo), the Organisation of African Unity summit approved the act establishing an African Union which should eventually replace the OAU. But the dream of a United States of Africa can only become a reality if a new model of multinational state is adopted, based on a social and democratic pact and rooted in Africa’s own traditions.
By Mwayila Tshiyembe
The United States of Africa remains a constant theme - the great dream cherished from the earliest days of pan-Africanism.. For many political leaders, the failure of the post-colonial state is the root cause of the marginalisation and upsurge in violence that is plunging whole swathes of Africa into chaos. They also think the failure is the source of the dramatic rise in poverty that now threatens the survival of tens of thousands of people. It is destroying what remains of social cohesion, and leaving the way open to the terrifying pandemics of Aids and malaria. Meantime managers are unemployed, have left the country or are closeted away in a bankrupt civil service, wasting the hard-won knowledge they acquired from western schooling.
But the purveyors of this gloomy analysis rarely raise the possibility of a new state model based on African traditions. Yet that is the absolute prerequisite if Africa is to emerge from the crisis, and it is the only chance of meeting the challenges of globalisation. Unless new life is injected into it, the concept of a United States of Africa will remain an empty shell. Africa will not have genuine constitutional states or sustainable development - never mind the intellectual revival and resolve it so desperately needs.
The failure of the post-colonial state reflects a questioning of the will to co-exist, and a loss of purpose and direction. The nations (or ethnic groups) are in fundamental disagreement about the community’s basic values. How are we to define a free society, authority that is properly conferred and shared, and law that seems to come naturally? State and society seem to have been in conflict ever since Africa’s plurinational societies saw their own model destroyed to make way for an enforced western caricature.
Although colonial domination disrupted the process of state building, African societies remain plurinational by nature. The pre-colonial nations - that marked out the identities of these multinational states - survived: even though they were parcelled out and often dispersed among several states, it was not impossible to reforge a societal link. An unexpected consequence of the crisis in the nation-state is that the concept of nation is no longer shackled by the law or by revolutionary mystique. The break-up of the Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia, the separation between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the Tutsi genocide and the chaos in Somalia are all proof of that.
From now on, it will be possible to distinguish between the legal nation - "state" - and the sociological nation - "ethnic group". The sociological nation is founded on shared traits (language, blood ties, religion and a common history) and an evident desire to live together. It is the bedrock of nationality of origin. But the post-colonial state merely notes its existence, having no historical or administrative memory of the people and countries juxtaposed, simply because colonialism willed it so.
Reinstating these nations will make it possible to bring to an end the crisis of national consciousness and identity that is ravaging Africa, and will prevent political manipulation of disputes over nationality. The kind of manipulation that has led, for example, to the banishment the Banyamulengue community to the east of Congo-Kinshasa, and the marginalisation of former President Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia or former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara in Ivory Coast. If the multinational state were established, the law would lay down that nationality is defined by consciousness and membership of a community of shared values (Akan, Mosi, Bamileke) and citizenship by consciousness and membership of a state (Ivory Coast, Burkina, Cameroon) (1).
This renaissance of the state can be rooted in Africanness. Contrary to received wisdom, black Africa, like Europe, created its own model of multinational state and nation-ethnic group: the empires of Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Songhay, Noupé, Ifé, Benin, Kanem-Bornou, the Congo, Monomopata and Zimbabwe date back to the African Middles Ages (2). In those societies, the political element came before the state, although it is traditionally assumed to have developed with the advent of the nation-state.
In contrast to the nation-state, with its monopoly on legislation, the plurinational character of African societies led them to establish two legislative areas within the constitution of the multinational state. The state is responsible for general legislation, and the national or ethnic area for specific legislation on land-ownership, inheritance, registration of births and deaths and so on. An individual basks in genuine pluralism of law, depending on the area of law that is relevant, as well as the kind of activity he pursues in it and the status he claims.
African law must therefore be rescued from the non-law or "customary" law to which it has been relegated because colonialism made it mimic other systems, and pluralism of law must be restored. The African Charter on Human Rights tried to reflect this special feature by including in its title the concept of "peoples’ rights"; but it failed to define the substance of those rights. The post-colonial state has thus retained absolute sovereignty, and peoples have been deprived of their own means of subsistence: the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta, for instance, Nigeria’s oil-producing region, or the Dioula people of Casamance who are rebelling against the Senegalese state.
Furthermore, in this model of a multinational state, the rights of minorities cannot be enforced against the rights of the majority. The state and the nations that make it up would have to respect the principles of equality and the right to be different, in order to achieve a common destiny. In return, these nations automatically enjoy the same rights and duties based on "founder rights", including the right to language, religion, culture and nationality. Consequently, the issue of minority rights is without political foundation in a multinational state.
A kind of integral federalism is thus emerging and, in it, power is allocated on the basis of a threefold federation of nations, citizens and localities. It operates on the premise that the state acts on behalf of several nations, scattered over a number of localities. In that sense, authority and political action can be exercised rationally and effectively only if power is accorded first by reference to nations and citizens, and only then by territory. In fact, the tribal districts, communes and autonomous provinces are politically significant only because they are the cradles of the nations and citizens concerned - the founders of the political system.
A major new feature of integral federalism is the transformation of these sub-ethnic groups into jointly-managed political areas that channel a mix of peoples towards a shared destiny, so avoiding any form of ethnic cleansing. The territorial federalism of the nation-state relies on the fundamental principle that since the nation is a single, indivisible entity, effective exercise of political authority depends on it being applied to the whole of the territory over which the population is dispersed. But integral federalism requires that power be structured according to the political division of the territory: into cantons, communes, federate state and so on.
A federation of localities implies moving beyond the European notion of "territory" and investing in the African concept of an area perceived as a framework for living. It contains networks, forms of interchange and memories that bind people to their locality and their environment. Often there is no correlation between political and socio-cultural area (3). A new social pact is vital if the multinational state is to be founded on the dual consent of nations and citizens, thereby reconciling citizenship (individualism) and multinationality (community) as two sources of state legitimization.
This is the principle of multinationality (4). Defined as the political area in which a new democratic pact is founded and mediated, it is legally binding on each of the nations and the state. Strict respect for equality and the right to be different pave the way to a common destiny. It is a different way of experiencing the state, in which political unity and national unity are not one and the same
Thus defined, the multination mobilizes two principles. The first is that nations and citizens are doubly representative as separate entities and, the second is that sovereignty can be divided or shared. Shared internally for the benefit of the nations and citizens, or externally for the benefit of the sovereign states. Examples of that are the economic and political integration in the European Union or the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), and, in future, among the states of southern Africa.
The multination means new political rights: the right to exist, to vote, to resist oppression, to ancestral lands, to a share in wealth and so on. This process of "republicanising" traditional power uses a series of mechanisms to reconcile the traditional and the modern. The local tribal authority (government and assembly), designated the basic local community, is restored, and above it come the autonomous commune and region. The tribal district is accorded powers in regard to the registration of births and deaths, primary health care, basic education, rural development and the establishment of voting rights for nations, enabling them to appoint their own representatives in the bicameral assemblies, at communal, regional and federal level.
That right to vote is exercised by representatives freely chosen by each village community, from among the professional classes on the basis of a specific electoral college. Political parties no longer have a monopoly on political activity, and the tribal government can mobilise the abilities of all citizens. That reform does not call into question either the state’s internal and external frontiers, or the balkanization of nations by the Berlin Conference (1878).
Unlike the nation-state, the multinational state does not take over citizens; citizens themselves appoint and dismiss governments according to commonly-accepted rules. The reversal of this dialectic relationship means that there are different forms of citizenship: single citizenship in a federal multinational state and dual citizenship in a confederal multinational state where it replaces the usual dual nationality. Citizenship of the EU, as defined in Article 8 of the Maastricht treaty, is based on that same approach.
In a radical departure from the traditional approach, a constitution based on the peoples - a "demotic" (5) or pluralist constitution - reforms the legal infrastructure because it takes account of the pluralism of society in addition to the multi-party system. The different elements in heterogeneous societies are given back their status as peoples or nations - a distinctive political and legal reality of the multinational state. Despite being straitjacketed into political entities carved out by colonialism, the mixed population groups continue to assert their identity. They do not present a unified and homogenised body within a contrived state-based nation, but reflect a diversity of sociological nations in search of the state for all peoples, if not all nations (6).
The purpose of a multinational state’s constitution is not just to accord status to the authorities and to citizens. Above all, it offers sociological or ethnic nations a political and legal status, allowing them to establish their inalienable right to legitimate the state and exercise power on the same basis as citizens.
In that sense, the constitution will establish - for the first time in post-colonial Africa - the legal status of a state that reflects, in terms of its democratic nature, its law, its history and its culture, the social logic of the plurinational societies that lend it substance and meaning.
In traditional societies, the fallibility of majorities is one of the principle rules of governance. Reintroducing that should act as a check on western-style democracy that gives power to the majority. The aim is to make everyone a winner instead of having winners and losers. That provides a form of democracy in which power-sharing reflects the actual balance of power, established at the ballot box. The majority makes great gains, but the minority makes some gains too. The aim is not to prevent an elected majority from governing but to separate out the power to govern and the power to control the administration of government. The majority exercises power and the parliamentary opposition monitors the exercise of that power.
For example, in the paradoxical societies of Rwanda and Burundi, in which the sociological duality of Hutu majority and sociological Tutsi minority seems insurmountable, civil peace is attained through a variety of mechanisms. The Hutus, Tutsis and Twas must be recognised as separate peoples. A new republican pact under which all state powers are allocated proportionally among the three peoples must be drawn up (within the civil service, government, diplomatic service, administration etc.), so that an electoral victory by the political parties does not threaten the right of each people to exist. Traditional authority must be republicanised. And the inalienable right of each people to live in peace in a multinational state of Rwanda and Burundi, within the existing frontiers, must be proclaimed.
The nation-state advocates nationalism, but the ideology of the multinational state is patriotic humanism. Humanist, it acts as a cradle to protect and promote human rights, citizens’ rights and peoples’ rights, regardless of their nationality, language, religion, customs and so on. Even if mandated to defend nationalism as the ideology of the nations of the country it administers, the multinational state is not entitled to claim paternity over it. As a homeland, it represents the union sacrée (7) of nations and citizens (federal state) and of the states (confederal state). It is anchored in the soil by the local lands that are a source of both memories and activities that embrace the living and the dead in a shared destiny.
The renaissance of a multicultural civil society requires several levels of citizenship: political, economic, social and cultural citizenship. Political citizenship is, admittedly, the best-known, though it is still of paramount importance that citizens’ rights be positively laid down in black Africa.
But even before citizenship takes full effect politically, it represents a societal link founded in solidarity, and is the catalyst for co-existence. Sociability and solidarity present an ongoing political challenge, involving economic, social and cultural issues. Indeed, the creation of these new forms of citizenship vitally challenges unemployment, the loss of identity and dislocation of the social link, civil wars and so on - all scourges that undermine every kind of citizenship. Given the problems of access to economic, social and cultural rights, all countries are potential powder kegs. The traditional view of these forms of citizenship, previously expressed exclusively by reference to the state, therefore needs a radical re-think.
Three changes are required. The state’s monopoly on the exclusive creation of economic, social and cultural rights must be broken. Citizens, nations and the state must be placed at the heart of the complex, by transforming economic, social and cultural rights into human rights and citizens’ rights, rights of nations and of the state. All sides must be given an active role in a three-way partnership comprising state, citizens and nations, in order to establish the bases for a new policy of wealth redistribution (8). The transformation of the subsistence economy into an economy based on the accumulation of wealth must reconcile economic efficiency and social cohesion, the mobility of capital and of work, the benefits of regulation and free enterprise. In that way, citizens, nations and the state will be able to re-assume responsibility for their own history. The emergence of new political, economic, social and cultural citizenships represents a vital challenge, given unemployment, loss of the social link and identity, and the civil wars that often undermine them completely.
The multinational state provides both a political organization - at the level of plural-national society - and a capacity for common action to tackle the issues and challenges of a shared destiny. Democratic, its authority is accepted and shared in by the nations and citizens. Post-national, it is based on the principle of unity within diversity. It thus provides an area that unites nations, languages, religions, cultures and localities, constants whose survival the state must guarantee.
This definition of the problem helps liberate the 10-year debate on Africa from the pseudo-democratization that has muffled it. But even though there have been welcome signs of a bolder approach, Ethiopia has merely transformed recognition of ethnic pluralism into a method of political domination instead of democratic revolution. Its fingers burned by the ethnic "tampering" of apartheid, South Africa has lacked the clear-sightedness and courage to recognize the plurinational nature of its society. And although some kingdoms have been restored in Uganda, this show of traditional authority has served only as a symbolic backdrop designed to legitimize the regime.
The problems of the multinational state bring Africa’s special traits within the sphere of globalization - a battlefield in which cultures clash head-on. Africa must make an effort here, if it wants to survive and experience a revival during the third millennium. In revenge for the past, Africa would could teach a lesson to a Europe focused on heterogeneity - of nations, languages, religions, standards, localities and so on - as a result of the crisis in the nation-state and enlargement of the EU.
Democratic and post-national in nature, the multinational state could provide the "ideal-standard" model for the constitutional, political and conceptual transformation of the pluralinational societies of the 21st century, be they sociological nations (in the case of black Africa), or legal or state-based nations (the EU, for example
Look at Africa this way, an Africa without borders, yet a United Africa with an incredible coastline capable of producing incredible economic commerce with all corners of the world. Indeed, a United Africa could be a leading nation, economic power, and land of opportunity for all citizens of the National Continent, free to travel their vast United New Nation of opportunity for all .
The USA for USAfrica began in 1996....
After several e-mail's and postings to African government, media and educational web sites and search engines, from 1996 – 1998 Regarding a call to begin the grass roots of a formal United States of Africa, the baton was picked by Khadafi of Libya and was covered at CNN.com in June of 1999.
The USA for USAfrica has never endorsed Khadafi for the leadership of the first United States of Africa, but does acknowledge him as being the first leader to react to the first e-mail's from the USA for USAfrica and get the first world wide press and recognition regarding a United States of Africa in the modern era as well as his bringing together the year 2000 conference on the matter.
Let the next African generation be Happy, Healthy and Wise. Help end the cycle of war, pain, famine and misery in this Millennium because it has to end now, there will not be another Millennium for Africa if a United States of Africa is not a reality...
Join the original chapter that stated the USA for USA movement. E-mail me if you feel the formation of a USAfrica is the only hope for Africa by e-mailing me at mark836@mail.com or GreenValleyReporter@Journalist.com
From the First World to a New World...
We are nonprofit and lobby worldwide for the formation of a United States of Africa.
The Founding Chapter of The USA for USAfrica
We are suggesting in advance the national capital of the new USAfrica be located in Ethiopia, because it was, as pointed out by the editor of Red Herring Magazine, the only African nation that has never been colonized.
Let’s discuss the formation in the chat room of the http://unitedstatesafrica.50megs.com/ web site.
Let's hear your views on this matter in the USA4USAfrica Coalition Chat Room:
Some samples:
What has to be understood here is that a united states of Africa
is now and has been a serious undertaking for decades starting with the pan-african
conference of 1900. Henry S. Williams,and
W.E.B. Dubois were profoundly instrumental in bringing into focus the plight of
Africans to the world. Also up to the 5th Pan-African congress of
1945, where it was decided that Africa would be free of settler colonialism
instituted by the western european powers of that time.Therefore the solution to
the existing problems of Africa,
is continental unity. It will be what Africans
define it to be free of western or white control.
Which means no puppet dictators controlled from
washington d.c, No C.I.A inspired coup d'etat or
nullification of democracy (like the kind the world stood by and witnessed like
the removal of Patrice Lumumba and the Congolese parliment). And how about the
overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah the President of Ghana. That was also a concerted
effort of the C.I.A. with the complicity of
the traitors that were in opposition to a united
atates of Africa. A united states of africa pre-
supposes continental independence to solve their own problems by bringing all
the territories and wealth of Africa to bear on recontruction for real
planned development for the length and breath of
Africa. The solution must be an African one.The
works of Nkrumah and Toure', Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko, Marcus
Garvey, W.E.B. Dubois
Franz Fanon, Kwame Ture, Amilcar Cabral and other
great contributors to a United States of Africa
ia evident that Africa will be united whether any
one likes it or not(and I know you don't).So your article was incorrect.
Sundiata Kambu
tarmsteads@aol.com
law student
sacramento,california
The Role of African Media
"Communication has always been the key to dissolving borders.The oral storytelling tradition was the way in which us Africans shared our news, preserved our history, ensured social cohesion and stability, and charted our future. We should see the media in Africa today as a continuation of our traditions. The African media is critical to fostering regional integration because it can enable the sharing of knowledge to people in different countries who are linked by common problems and common goals. New technologies like digital satellite radio can turn local content into regional programming. By its very nature, the Internet renders borders defunct, by providing a space for information sharing and dialogue that can unite people from different parts of the continent and the world. With advent of New Media, everyone -- from local communities to national publishers -- can share their news, views and issues with a wider audience. As the space for communication grows, so to do channels for raising awareness about the value-added of regional integration in all its forms. As more and more Africans become part of the communication loop, regional integration truly becomes a reality."
Peter da Costa
Media Specialst
Contribution of economic integration to the unification of Africa
"For about three decades following the wave of independence in the early 1960’s, Africa’s most advocated cause in continental forums has been the liberation of Africa from any form of political colonization, although development had always been on top of the agenda of the Organisation of African Unity. With the advent of an independent Namibia in 1990, no territory of Africa was any longer under external domination. Yet the unification of the continent has a long way to go. What can Africa’s economic integration contribute to this process?
As evidenced in the case of Europe, economic integration helps create a homogenous space and, to some extent, equalize living conditions. These appear to be prerequisites for a dialogue on the harmonization of political stands. Indeed, an economic space that is physically integrated; where goods and services move speedily and smoothly; where, besides, the mobility of factors (manpower, capital, energy, inputs) is not subjected to hindrances; where, finally, macroeconomic policies are harmonized, is likely to offer equal opportunities to all. Such a high degree of economic integration is not sustainable without a policy dialogue on issues that, at first, may not fall squarely under economic field; peace and security, defense, diplomacy etc.
In the case of Africa, it can be safely stated that, once the continent has achieved a significantly advanced degree of economic integration, its political unification will be greatly facilitated. It appears difficult to conceive a united Africa without strong economic links among countries of the continent."
Ngartando Blayo
Economic Affairs Expert, ECA
Resources:
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Others
Need more info and research to consider?
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The John Henrik Clarke Virtual Museum
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
African leaders: 'Let us unite' OAU summit ends in agreement to speed pace toward One Africa.
INVENTING THE MULTINATION Would a United States of Africa work?
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Mark Wood
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http://unitedstatesafrica.50megs.com/
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