I congratulate your efforts in Pambazuka News to celebrate and promote the Pan-African symbols like Nyerere and Nkrumah.

You may not know that I listened to Kwame Nkrumah's speech in 1960, as member of Egypt's Nasser delegation, at that time headed by his assistant on African Affairs.

We really felt the revival of Pan-Africanism after the independence of Ghana 1957.

I remember all that now, when reading on your innovated celebration of these spiritual events. Best wishes for all.

© While many African leaders have aspired to inherit Nkrumah’s mantle as the visionary and driver of Pan-Africanism and continental unity, writes Yao Graham, a gaping political leadership vacuum remains at the heart of the continent’s collective expression. From an age when there were a number of outstanding African leaders, among whom Nkrumah was preeminent, Graham argues that the African Union’s election of Gaddafi as its leader is a statement of a collective failure of leadership and underlines the crisis in which the Pan-African project is currently mired at the inter-state level. Where, asks Graham, are the African leaders who see opportunities for change in the current crisis, and who are ‘ready to dare and look beyond guaranteeing the sanctity of aid flows?’

cc Pan-Africanism gave rise to the civil rights movement in the US and to independence and anti-imperialist movements in Africa, writes Salma Maoulidi, but what is Pan-Africanism to the average African today? To a large extent, Maoulidi argues, it remains a global phenomenon that has focused on global political agendas and less so on struggles on the ground. What is missing, suggests Maoulidi, is ‘a popular expression of Pan-Africanism and a matching consciousness such that the concept does not appear surreal, abstract and out of touch with reality and the populace, particularly the youth who are the inheritors of its future.’

 The debate on how to unite African states has not changed significantly since Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere locked horns on the matter in the early 1960s, writes Chambi Chachage. Exploring Nyerere’s ‘step by step’ approach to building African unity in relation to Nkrumah’s desire to ‘fast track’ the creation of a Unites States of Africa, Chachage concludes that while Nkrumah’s Pan-African vision remains powerful, his approach is unrealistic even today.’ ‘To that end, I will feel with Nkrumah, yet I shall think with Nyerere’, he writes, ‘Africa must unite, albeit pragmatically’.

Fahamu Books is pleased to announce that Issa G. Shivji's . In celebration of this collection of Shivji's essays on a wide array of topics – from the Pan-Africanist emancipation project to multiparty politics – this edition of Pambazuka News features a chapter from the book entitled 'Pan-Africanism or imperialism? Unity and struggle towards a new democratic Africa'. A record of the Second Billy Dudley Memorial Lecture delivered at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, on 27 July 2005, the chapter outlines Shivji's reflections on globalisation as imperialism and the inextricable links of African nationalism to the broader Pan-Africanist liberatory movement. Drawing upon Julius Nyerere's poignant reservations around territorial nationalism as 'the equivalent of tribalism within the context of our separate nation states’, Shivji eloquently surveys the evolution of Pan-Africanist thought and sets out its contemporary role in articulating the continent's path towards democracy and liberation in the post-Cold War era.

cc With Dar es Salaam on the verge of hosting the Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival Week from Monday 13 April, Issa G. Shivji, Mwalimu Nyerere Professor of Pan-African Studies at the city's university, offers his reflections on the pan-African struggle. Though Africa has undoubtedly suffered from the neoliberal onslaught of the past two decades, Pan-Africanism as a progressive ideology is now firmly back on the historical agenda, Shivji states, uniting in the process the continent's dual quest for unity and liberation.

Japan, the world's second largest economy, is calling for global initiatives to reactivate financial flows to Africa, including government grants, concessional loans and lines of credit. This is the crux of a message Prime Minister Taro Aso is carrying to the G20 summit in London Thursday, Japan's ambassador Takahiro Shinyo to Germany told German parliamentarians last week.

Capitalism by its very nature encourages and rewards corruption in its many different forms, like low wages, for example. That is corrupt because it robs the worker in Africa of the value of his/her labour and transfers the wealth that that worker produces to the corrupt financial centres in Europe and America. This wealth passes through the hands of an enabling political class that is corrupt in its dealing with the working populations they govern and in its collaboration with the corrupt financial institutions. As Africa embraces free-market neo-liberal (unregulated) capitalism there is an inherent by product of increased opportunities and rewards for corruption

In an open letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Haiti-based hotel owner Richard Morse warns that in its current state, HOPE, a textile act that Ki-Moon has expressed support for, will simply enrich Haiti's wealthy elite, without making any significant difference to the country's poorest. What's more he adds, its likely to spark further migration from rural to urban areas, unless economic growth is also stimulated in the countryside.

Kwantlen Polytechnic University invites you to participate in the Kwame Nkrumah International Conference: August 19-21, 2010 at its beautiful Richmond campus in British Columbia, Canada. The Conference will commemorate the centenary of the birthday of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Africa’s Man of the Millennium, and bring scholars and students from Canada and from the around the world to share research and ideas on Africa’s place in the global community, and to discuss the life, achievements and shortcomings of Africa’s foremost Pan-Africanist.

Following his involvement in a recent joint ECA–CODESRIA conference, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem reflects on his growing convictions around the importance of every individual doing their part to root out corruption in Africa. Suggesting that a collective policy of zero tolerance will be ultimately necessary, Abdul-Raheem urges Africa to look to many Asian countries for examples of how potential punishments can serve as effective deterrents.

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is to launch the Pan African Alliance on E-Commerce to intensify cooperation and initiate common projects of interest in African countries, as part of a two-day workshop on Trade Facilitation and Aid for Trade which ends in Addis Ababa today.

Plans for the JULIUS NYERERE INTELLECTUAL FESTIVAL WEEK April 13th to 17th, 2009 have now been finalised. We are expecting some 35 guests from outside, including, hopefully, Frantz Fanon’s son, Olivier, and Kwame Nkrumah’s son, Gamal. Professor Wole Soyinka will deliver the inaugural Nyerere Annual Lectures, 2009. A strong delegation from our pan-African research organisation CODESRIA is expected.

Financial turmoil is penetrating markets the world over, writes Ronald Elly Wanda. The impact, the author explains, will be seen in east Africa most notably in the fluctuating levels of financial aid, tourism and food pricing. Exploring the current economic situation in the UK and east Africa, Wanda suggests capitalism will never be the same again.

Reflecting on some of the troublesome statistics around maternal mortality for sub-Saharan Africa, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem urges greater support for the continent’s women. Arguing that these statistics need to be humanised to fully illuminate their severity, Abdul-Raheem laments the lottery of geographical proximity in determining people’s access to effective healthcare, along with the tendency of the politically powerful to wholly ignore the needs of their citizens. Stressing that a bleak statistical picture is far more reflective of deficiencies in policy than an absence of resources, the author invites readers to join the UN’s Millennium Campaign.

With Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez having successfully won voters’ backing through a referendum on the removal of official term limits, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem considers the dangers of allowing leaders of revolutionary clout to remain in power indefinitely. As a marked contrast from the country’s former imperially-backed political leaders, Abdul-Raheem points to the Chávez administration’s great achievements in health and education and continuing popularity with the poor. But if democracy is truly to function and sustain itself, the author argues, presidents must not be permitted to simply entrench themselves in power.

Remarking on the apparent strangeness of electing a figure renowned for intolerance towards differences of opinion within his own country and support for militia groups around the world, Tim Murithi stresses that Muammar al-Gaddafi’s new appointment as chairperson of the African Union reflects internal competition within the union over the extent of its influence over its member states. Highlighting African leaders' ambivalence in electing a head of government not known for his commitment to democratic governance, Murithi wonders whether those voting for the Libyan leader were tacitly heralding ‘one of their own’, and concludes by arguing that instead of interminable debates over integration, the continent’s figures of authority should prioritise addressing their peoples’ impoverishment.

 Following the recent attacks on Gaza, Abayomi Azikiwe examines the sentiment of the African-American population against Israeli aggression and the support of this violence by the US. Azikiwe argues that a direct correlation exists between the Palestinian and Arab struggle for independence, the plight for African liberation during colonialism, the Atlantic slave trade, apartheid, and African-American movements in the US. By highlighting the connection between imperialism, colonialism, and Zionism, Azikiwe affirms the need for oppressed peoples worldwide to speak out against Israel’s aggressive policies and actions, and for the media to disseminate accurate information concerning the impact of the Israeli occupation upon the people of Gaza.

Following Muammar al-Gaddafi’s election as the African Union’s new chairperson, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem calls upon the long-time Libyan leader to promote genuine strides towards greater pan-African unity. Noting Gaddafi’s traditional support for minority groups and left-wing political causes across Africa and around the world at large, Abdul-Raheem argues that substantive achievement will rest on the ability of the new leader and the AU to effectively engage with pan-Africanists at all levels outside of the corridors of governmental power.

Reflecting on her visit to Washington during Obama’s inauguration, Karen Chouhan discusses how the new president has transcended traditional divisions around race and gender. Saluting Obama’s campaign for never resorting to personal attacks or disparaging remarks, Chouhan hopes that the momentum generated behind the message of change will bear fruit in the form of progressively greater equal opportunities, opportunities which are the responsibility of all of us to work towards.