Kwame Nkrumah Quotes
"Common territory, language and culture may in fact be present
in a nation, but the existence of a nation does not necessarily
imply the presence of all three. Common territory and language alone
may form the basis of a nation. Similarly, common territory plus
common culture may be the basis. In some cases, only one of the
three applies. A state may exist on a multi-national basis. The
community of economic life is the major feature within a nation,
and it is the economy which holds together the people living in
a territory. It is on this basis that the new Africans recognise
themselves as potentially one nation, whose domination is the entire
African continent." Class Struggle in Africa"
***
"...I have often said, the party and the nation are one and the
same, namely: the Convention People's Party is Ghana and is Ghana
the Convention People's Party."
"...a very grave responsibility lies on the shoulders of us all,
not only as Ghanaians, but also as members of the Convention People's
Party which, no matter what may be said by our detractors, remains
right in front of the struggle for the total liberation of Africa
and the union of the independent African states..."
"the Convention People's Party must mobilize our total manpower
for the industrial, economic, technological and scientific reconstruction
of Ghana, so that we can produce the necessary conditions which
shall mean an abundance of every good thing for our people and the
greatest welfare of the masses." The CPP Twelfth Anniversary: A
Message by Osagyefo 1961 (Accra, Ghana Government Printer)
***
"Party is the rallying point of our political activity. Without
the Party there would be no force through which to focus the needs
and desire of the people. The Convention People's Party is this
force. The Party, therefore, is the hard core of those who are so
dedicated to its ideology and program, that they make their membership
the most serious business of their lives. The Party is nothing but
the vanguard of the people, the active organ of the people, working
at all times in the service of the people." Speech at the
conclusion of the Civil Service Commission Referendum, Evening
News, Feb. 4, 1964
***
"In the very early days of the Christian era, long before England
had assumed any importance, long even before her people had united
into a nation, our ancestors had attained a great empire, which
lasted until the eleventh century, when it fell before the attacks
of the Moors of the North. At its height that empire stretched from
Timbuktu to Bamako, and even as far as to the Atlantic. It is said
that lawyers and scholars were much respected in that empire and
that the inhabitants of Ghana wore garments of wool, cotton, silk
and velvet. There was trade in copper, gold and textile fabrics,
and jewels and weapons of gold and silver were carried." Autobiography
***
"Besides, political independence, though worth while in itself,
is still only a means to the fuller redemption and realization of
a people. When independence has been gained, positive action requires
a new orientation away from the sheer destruction of colonialism
and towards national reconstruction It is indeed in this address
to national reconstruction that positive action faces its gravest
dangers. The cajolement, the wheedlings, the seductions and the
Trojan horses of neocolonialism must be stoutly resisted, for neocolonialism
is a latter-day harpy, a monster which entices its victims with
sweet music. In order to be able to carry out this resistance to
neo-colonialism at every point, Positive action requires to be armed
with an ideology, an ideology which, vitalizing it, and operating
through a mass party with a regenerative concept of the world and
life, forge for it a strong continuing link with our past and offer
to it an assured bond with our future. Under the searchlight of
an ideology, every fact affecting the life of a people can be assessed
and judged, and neo-colonialism's detrimental aspirations and sleights
of hand will constantly stand. In order that this ideology should
be comprehensive, in order that it should light up every aspect
of the life of our people, in order that it should affect the total
interest of our society, establishing a continuity with our past,
it must be socialist in form and in content and be embraced by a
mass party." Consciencism - Philosophy and Ideology
for De-Colonisation
***
"Internally"
"The capitalist imperialist states face serious economic and social
difficulties. Rising prices, balance of payments problems, widespread
and repeated strikes are only a few of the symptoms of the general
malaise. In the United States, the grave domestic situation is aggravated
by the massive counter-attacks of the African-American revolutionaries.
Almost everywhere, behind the smoke screens, the social and economic
situation is unhealthy, and particularly in the second class capitalist
states. And these mounting economic crises mean heavier dependence
on the exploitation of the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America."
"The need for self-critical objective diagnosis."
"If imperialists are faced with so many external and domestic difficulties,
how then can they afford to step up their aggression in Africa?
To answer this question, it is necessary to examine the internal
factors which make our continent so vulnerable to attack, and particularly
to look closely at the whole question of African unity. For this
lies at the core of our problem. There are three conflicting conceptions
of African unity which explain to a large extent, the present critical
situation in Africa:"
"1. The mutual protection theory: that the OAU serves as a kind
of insurance against any change in the status quo, membership providing
a protection for heads of state and government against all forms
of political action aimed at their overthrow. Since most of the
leaders who adhere to this idea owe their position to imperialists
and their agents, it is not surprising that this is the viewpoint
which really serves the interests of imperialism. For the puppet
states are being used both for short-term purposes of exploitation
and as springboards of subversion against progressive African states."
"2. The functional conception: that African unity should be purely
a matter of economic co-operation. Those who hold this view overlook
the vital fact that African regional economic organizations will
remain weak and subject to the same neo-colonialist pressures and
domination, as long as they lack overall political cohesion. Without
political unity, African states can never commit themselves to full
economic integration, which is the only productive form of integration
able to develop our great resources fully for the well-being of
the African people as a whole. Furthermore, the lack of political
unity places inter-African economic institutions at the mercy of
powerful, foreign commercial interests, and sooner or later these
will use such institutions as funnels through which to pour money
for the continued exploitation of Africa."
"3. The political union conception: that a union government should
be in charge of economic development, defence and foreign policy,
while other government functions would continue to be discharged
by the existing states grouped, in federal fashion, within a gigantic
central political organization. Clearly, this is the strongest position
Africa could adopt in its struggle against modern imperialism."
"However, any sincere critical appraisal of past activities and
achievements of the OAU would tend to show that, as it is now constituted,
the OAU is not likely to be able to achieve the political unification
of Africa.
"This is obviously why imperialists, although against the idea
of political union, will do nothing to break the OAU. It serves
their purpose in slowing down revolutionary progress in Africa.
This state of affairs is mirrored both in the discouragement of
freedom fighters in the remaining colonial territories and South
Africa, and in the growing perplexity amongst freedom fighters from
neo-colonized territories.
"The struggle for African continental union and socialism may
be hampered by the enemy WITHIN, - those who declare their
support for the revolution and at the same time, by devious means,
serve and promote the interests of imperialists and neo-colonialists.
"Examination of recent events in our history, and of our present
condition, reveals the urgent need for a new strategy to combat
imperialist aggression, and this must be devised on a continental
scale.
"Either we concentrate our forces for a decisive armed struggle
to achieve our objectives, or we will each fall one by one to the
blows of imperialism in its present stage of open and desperate
offensive." Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare
***
"...when automation and cybernation aided by nuclear energy
reach their highest form of development, the forces of production
will have been developed to a point at which there could be the
classless society which Marx predicted could come only under communism."
Class Struggle in Africa
***
"Africa is one continent, one people, and one nation. The notion
that in order to have a nation it is necessary for there to be a
common language, a common territory and common culture has failed
to stand the test of time or the scrutiny of scientific definition
of objective reality... The community of economic life is the major
feature within a nation, and it is the economy which holds together
the people living in a territory. It is on this basis that the new
Africans recognise themselves as potentially one nation, whose dominion
is the entire African continent. " Class Struggle in Africa
***
"Psychological attacks are made through the agency of broadcasting
stations like the BBC, Voice of Germany, and above all, Voice of
America, which pursues its brainwashing mission through newsreels,
interviews and other "informative" programmes at all hours of the
day and night, on all wavelengths and in many languages, including
special English. The war of words is supplemented by written
propaganda using a wide range of political devices such as embassy
bulletins, pseudo revolutionary publications, studies on
nationalism and on African socialism, the literature
spread by the so-called independent and liberal publishers, cultural
and civic education centres, and other imperialist
subversive organisations.
"The paper war penetrates into every town and village, and
into the remotest parts of the bush. It spreads in the form
of free distributions of propaganda films praising the qualities
of western civilisation and culture. These are some of the ways
in which the psychological terrain is prepared. When the target,
a certain country or continent, is sufficiently softened,
then the invasion of evangelist brigades begins, thus perpetuating
the centuries old tactic whereby missionaries prepare the way for
guns. Peace Corps divisions stream ins and Moral Rearmament units,
Jehovah witnesses, information agencies and international financial
aid organisations. In this way, a territory or even an entire
continent is besieged without a single marine in sight. A sprinkling
of political and little-publicised murders, like that of Pio Pinto
in Kenya, and Moumie in Geneva, are used to assist the process.
"A recent development in the psychological war is the campaign
to convince us that we cannot govern ourselves, that we are unworthy
of genuine independence, and that foreign tutelage is the only remedy
for our wild, warlike and primitive ways. Imperialism has done its
utmost to brainwash Africans into thinking that they need the strait-jackets
of colonialism and neocolonialism if they are to be saved from their
retrogressive instincts. Such is the age-old racialist justification
for the economic exploitation of our continent.
"And now, the recent military coups engineered throughout
Africa by foreign reactionaries are also being used to corroborate
imperialism's pet theory that the Africans have shamelessly squandered
the golden opportunities of independence, and that
they have plunged their political kingdoms into blood and barbarism.
Therefore the imperialist mission: we must save them anew; and they
hail the western-trained and western-bought army puppets as saviours.
The press, films and radio are last spreading the myth of post-independence
violence and chaos.
"Everywhere, the more or less covert implication is: Africa
needs to be recolonised. The fact that Africa has advanced politically
more quickly than any other continent in the world is ignored. In
1957 when Ghana became independent and the political renaissance
began in Africa, there were only eight independent states. Now,
in just over ten years, there are over forty and the final liberation
of the continent is in sight. Imperialists are not content with
trying to convince us that we are politically immature. They are
telling us, now that we are realising that armed revolution is the
only way to defeat neocolonialism, that we are inherently incapable
of fighting a successful revolutionary war. " Handbook of Revolutionary
Warfare
***
"Countrymen, the task ahead is great indeed, and heavy is the
responsibility; and yet it is a noble and glorious challenge - a
challenge which calls for the courage to dream, the courage to believe,
the courage to dare, the courage to do, the courage to envision,
the courage to fight, the courage to work, the courage to achieve
- to achieve the highest excellencies and the fullest greatness
of man. Dare we ask for more in life? " Address to the National
Assembly. 12 June 1965
***
"What other countries have taken three hundred years or more to
achieve, a once dependent territory must try to accomplish in a
generation if it is to survive. Unless it is, as it were jet
propelled it will lag behind and thus risk everything for which
it has fought. Autobiography, Preface
***
"Something in the nature of an economic revolution is required.
Our development has been held back for too long by the colonial-type
economy. We need to reorganize entirely, so that each country can
specialize in producing the goods and crops for which it is best
suited." Neocolonialism The Last Stage of Imperialism
***
"We have the blessing of the wealth of our vast resources, the
power of our talents and the potentialities of our people. Let us
grasp now the opportunities before us and meet the challenge to
our survival. " Address to the National Assembly. 26 March
1965
***
"We shall measure our progress by the improvement in the health
of our people; by the number of children in school, and by the quality
of their education; by the availability of water and electricity
in our towns and villages, and by the happiness which our people
take in being able to manage their own affairs. The welfare of our
people is our chief pride, and it is by this that my Government
will ask to be judged." Broadcast to the Nation. 24 December
1957
***
"The initiative of Ghanaian businessmen will not be cramped, but
we must take steps to see that it is channeled towards desirable
social ends and is not expended in the exploitation of the community.
The Government will encourage Ghanaian businessmen to join with
each other in co-operative forms of organization. In this way Ghanaian
businessmen will be able to contribute actively in broadening the
vitality of our economy and cooperation, and will provide a stronger
form of organization than can be achieved through individual small
businesses. " Speech at the launching of the Seven-Year Development
Plan. 11 March 1964
***
"We welcome foreign investment provided that there are no strings
attached to it, and also provided that it fits in with our plans
for national development and our socialist policy. And we insist
that foreign investment should not interfere or meddle with the
political life of our country. " Sessional Address to the National
Assembly. 1 February 1966
***
"It is said, of course that we have no capital, no industrial
skill, no communications, no internal markets, and that we cannot
even agree among ourselves how best to utilize our resources for
our own social needs.
"Yet all the stock exchanges in the world are pre-occupied with
Africa's gold, diamonds, uranium, platinum, copper and iron ores.
Our CAPITAL flows out in streams to irrigate the whole system
of Western economy. Fifty-two per cent of the gold in Fort Knox
at this moment, where the USA stores its bullion, is believed to
have originated from OUR shores. Africa provides more than
60 per cent of the world's gold. A great deal of the uranium for
nuclear power, of copper for electronics, of titanium for supersonic
projectiles, of iron and steel for heavy industries, of other minerals
and raw materials for lighter industries - the basic economic might
of the foreign Powers - comes from OUR continent.
"Experts have estimated that the Congo Basin alone can produce
enough food crops to satisfy the requirements of nearly HALF
the population of the whole world and here we sit talking about
regionalism, talking about gradualism, talking about step by step.
Are you afraid to tackle the bull by the horn?" Address
to the Conference of African Heads of State and Government,
May 24, 63, can be found at page 237 of the book Revolutionary
Path
***
"No independent African State today by itself has a chance to
follow an INDEPENDENT course of economic development, and
many of us who have tried to do this have been almost ruined or
have had to return to the fold of the former colonial rulers. This
position will not change unless we have unified POLICY working
at the CONTINENTAL LEVEL. The first step towards our
cohesive economy would be a unified monetary zone, with, initially,
an agreed common parity for our currencies...When we find that the
arrangement of a fixed common parity is working successfully, there
would seem to be NO reason for not instituting one common currency
and a single bank of issue." Address to the Conference of African
Heads of State and Government, May 24, 63 can be found at page
242 of the book Revolutionary Path
***
"While we are assuring our stability by a COMMON DEFENCE
system, and our economy is being orientated beyond foreign control
by a COMMON CURRENCY, MONETARY ZONE and CENTRAL BANK OF
ISSUE, we can investigate the resources of our continent. We
can begin to ascertain whether in reality we are the richest, and
not, as we have been TAUGHT to BELIEVE, the poorest
among the continents. We can determine whether we possess the largest
potential in hydroelectric power, and whether we can harness it
and other sources of energy to our OWN INDUSTRIES. We can
proceed to PLAN our industrialization on a CONTINENTAL
SCALE, and to build up a COMMON MARKET for nearly three
hundred people."
"Common Continental Planning for the Industrial and Agricultural
Development of Africa is a vital necessity."
"So many blessings flow from our unity, so many disasters must
follow our continued disunity, that our failure today will not be
attributed by posterity only to faulty reasoning and lack of courage,
but to our CAPITULATION before the forces of neocolonialism
and imperialism." "The hour of history which has brought us to this
assembly is a revolutionary hour. It is a hour of decision. For
the first time, the economic imperialism which menaces us is itself
challenged by THE IRRESISTIBLE WILL OF OUR PEOPLE."
"The masses of the people of Africa are crying for unity."
"It is this popular determination that must move us on to a Union
of Independent African States." Address to the Conference of
African Heads of State and Government, May 24, 63 can be found
at page 243 of the book Revolutionary Path
***
"The principle which I am on the other hand anxious to defend
states no condition for meaningfulness, but only establishes a sufficient
condition for identity of meaning. The central idea is as follows:
if there are two expressions such that precisely the same consequences
follow from the conjunction of the first with any other proposition
as follow from the conjunction of the second with the same proposition,
then the two expressions are identical in meaning." Consciencism:
Philosophy and Ideology for De-Colonisation
***
"The history of a nation is, unfortunately, too easily written
as the history of its dominant class. But if the history of a nation,
or a people, cannot be found in the history of a class, how much
less can the history of a continent be found in what is not even
a part of it - Europe. Africa cannot be validly treated merely as
the space in which Europe swelled up. If African history is interpreted
in terms of the interests of European merchandise and capital, missionaries
and administrators, it is no wonder that African nationalism is
in the forms it takes regarded as a perversion and neo- colonialism
as a virtue.
"In the new African renaissance, we place great emphasis on the
presentation of history. Our history needs to be written as the
history of our society, not as the story of European adventures.
African society must be treated as enjoying its own integrity; its
history must be a mirror of that society, and the European contact
must find its place in this history only as an African experience,
even if as a crucial one. That is to say, the European contact needs
to be assessed and judged from the point of view of the principles
animating African society, and from the point of view of the harmony
and progress of this society.
"When history is presented in this way, it can become not an account
of how those African students referred to in the introduction became
more Europeanized than others; it can become a map of the growing
tragedy and the final triumph of our society. In this way, African
history can come to guide and direct African action. African history
can thus become a pointer at the ideology which should guide and
direct African reconstruction.
"This connection between an ideological standpoint and the writing
of history is a perennial one. A check on the work of the great
historians, including Herodotus and Thucydides, quickly exposes
their passionate concern with ideology. Their irresistible moral,
political and sociological comments are particular manifestations
of more general ideological standpoints. " Consciencism: Philosophy
and Ideology for De-Colonisation
***
"The formation of a political party linking all liberated territories
and struggling parties under a common ideology will smooth the way
for eventual continental unity, and will at the same time greatly
assist the prosecution of the All-African people's war. To assist
the process of its formation, an All-African Committee for Political
Co-ordination (A-ACPC) should be established to act as a liaison
among all parties that recognize the urgent necessity of conducting
an organized and unified struggle against colonialism and neocolonialism
This committee would be created at the level of the Central Committees
of the ruling parties and struggling parties, and would constitute
their integrated political consciousness." Handbook of Revolutionary
Warfare
***
"In Africa where so many different kinds of political, social and
economic conditions exist it is not an easy task to generalise on
political and socio-economic patterns. Remnants of communalism and
feudalism still remain and in parts of the continent ways of life
have changed very little from traditional times. In other areas
a high level of industrialization and urbanization has been achieved.
Yet in spite of Africa's socioeconomic and political diversity it
is possible to discern certain common political, social and economic
conditions and problems. These derive from traditional past, common
aspirations, and from shared experience under imperialism, colonialism
and neocolonialism. There is no part of the continent which has
not known oppression and exploitation, and no part which remains
outside the processes of the African Revolution." Class Struggle
in Africa
***
"In Africa, where economic development is uneven, a wide variety
of highly sophisticated political systems were in existence over
many centuries before the colonial period began. It is here, in
the so-called developing world of Africa, and in Asia and Latin
America, where the class struggle and the progress towards ending
the exploitation of man by man have already entered into the stage
of decisive revolutionary change.
"The political maturity of the African masses may to some extent
be traced to economic and social patterns of traditional times.
Under communalism, for example, all lands and means of production
belong to the community. There was people's ownership. Labour was
the need and habit of all. When a certain piece of land was allocated
to an individual for his personal use, he was not free to do as
he liked with it since it still belonged to the community. Chiefs
were strictly controlled by counselors and were removable."Class
Struggle in Africa
***
"Class struggle is a fundamental theme of recorded history. In
every non-socialist society there are two main categories of class,
the ruling class or classes, and the subject class or classes. The
ruling class possesses the major instruments of economic production
and distribution, and the means of establishing its political domination,
while the subject class serves the interests of the ruling class,
and is politically, economically and socially dominated by it. There
is conflict between the ruling class and the exploited class. The
nature and cause of the conflict is influenced by the development
of productive forces. That is, in any given class formation, whether
it be feudalism, capitalism, or any other type of society, the institutions
and ideas associated with it arise from the level of productive
forces and the mode of production. The moment private ownership
of the means of production appears, and capitalists start exploiting
workers the capitalists become a bourgeois class, the exploited
workers a working class. For in the final analysis, a class is nothing
more than the sum total of individuals bound together by certain
interests which as a class they try to preserve and protect." Class
Struggle in Africa
***
"There is a close connection between socio-political development,
the struggle between social classes and the history of ideologies.
In general, intellectual movements closely reflect the trends of
economic developments. In communal society, where there are virtually
no class divisions, man's productive activities on outlook and culture
is less discernible. Account must be taken of the psychology of
conflicting classes." Class Struggle in Africa
***
"Now, Mr. Speaker, let me turn to other problems that affect the
position of the African and endanger world peace. The nuclear arms
race in the Middle East is now an open secret. Instability in this
area not only heightens world tension but jeopardizes the security
of the African Continent. " June 21, 1963 Ratification of OAU
Charter speech made to Ghana National Assembly
***
"How much more effective would our efforts have been if we had
spoken with the one voice of Africa's millions. With all our minerals
and waterpower and fertile lands, is it not a cause for shame that
we remain poor and content to plead for aid from the very people
who have robbed us of our riches in the past? How can Egypt, strategically
situated as is it, combat the imperialism and neocolonialism and
solve the pressing and urgent problems of the Middle East unless
it has the backing of a Union Government of Africa? Only a Union
Government can assist in the solution of the problems of the Middle
East, including the Palestinian question." Proposal For A Union
Government of Africa speech at the July 19, 1964 OAU Summit
Meeting
***
"A determined attack must be made on the entrenched position
of the minority reactionary elements amongst our own peoples. For
the dramatic exposure in recent years of the nature and extent of
the class struggle in Africa, through the succession of reactionary
military coups and the outbreak of civil wars, particularly in West
and Central Africa, has demonstrated the unity between the interests
of neocolonialism and the indigenous bourgeoisie." Class
Struggle in Africa
***
"...the problem is how to obtain capital investment and still
keep it under sufficient control to prevent exploitation; and how
to preserve integrity and sovereignty without crippling economic
or political ties to any country, bloc or system" Africa
Must Unite
***
"Capitalism is a development by refinement from feudalism, just
as feudalism is development by refinement from slavery . Capitalism
is but the gentlemen's method of slavery." Consciencism: Philosophy
and Ideology for De-Colonisation
***
"The foreign firms who exploit our resources long ago saw the strength
to be gained from acting on a Pan-African scale. By means of interlocking
directorships, cross-shareholdings and other devices, groups of
apparently different companies have formed, in fact, one enormous
capitalist monopoly. The only effective way to challenge this economic
empire and to recover possession of our heritage, is for us also
to act on a Pan-African basis, through a Union Government." "No
one would suggest that if all the peoples of Africa combined to
establish their unity their decision could be revoked by the forces
of neocolonialism On the contrary, faced with a new situation, those
who practice neocolonialism would adjust themselves to this new
balance of world forces in exactly the same way as the capitalist
world has in the past adjusted itself to any other change in the
balance of power." Neocolonialism The Last Stage of Imperialism
"While a racist social structure is not inherent in the colonial
situation, it is inseparable from capitalist economic development.
For race is inextricably linked with class exploitation in a racist-capitalist
power structure, capitalist exploitation and race oppression are
complementary; the removal of one ensures the removal of the other."
"In the modern world, the race struggle has become part of the class
struggle. In other words, wherever there is a race problem it has
become linked with the class struggle Slavery and the master -servant
relationship were therefore the cause, rather than the result of
racism. The position was crystallized and reinforced with the discovery
of gold and diamonds in South Africa, and the employment of cheap
African labour in the mines. As time passed, it was thought necessary
to justify the exploitation and oppression of African workers, the
myth of racial inferiority was developed and spread.
"Each historical situation develops its own dynamics.. The close
links between class and race developed in Africa alongside capitalist
exploitation. Slavery, the master-servant relationship, and cheap
labor were basic to it. The classic example is South Africa, where
Africans experienced a double exploitation - both on the grounds
of colour and of class.. Similar conditions exist in the USA, the
Caribbean, in Latin America, and in other parts of the world where
the nature of the development of productive forces has resulted
in a racist class structures. In these areas, shades of colour count
- the degree of blackness being a yardstick by which social status
is measured class struggle." Class Struggle in Africa
***
"The conflict between the rich and the poor has now been transferred
on to the international scale, but for proof of what is acknowledged
to be happening it is no longer necessary to consult the classical
Marxist writers. The situation is set out with the utmost clarity
in the leading organs of capitalist opinion. Take for example the
following extracts from the The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper
which perhaps best reflects United States capitalist thinking.
"In its issue of 12th May, 1965, under the headline of Poor
Nations' Plight, the paper first analyses which countries are
considered industrial and which backwards.
"There is, it explains, no rigid method of classifications.
Nevertheless it points out:
A generally used breakdown, however has recently been maintained
by the International Monetary Fund because, in the word of an IMF
official, 'the economic demarcation is the world is getting increasingly
apparent. The breakdown the official said is based on common sense.
In the IMF's view, the industrial countries are the United States,
the United Kingdom, most West European nations, Canada, and Japan.
Special category called " other developed areas' includes such other
European lands as Finland, Greece and Ireland, plus Australia, New
Zealand and South Africa. The IMF's less developed category embraces
all of Latin America and nearly all of the Middle East, non-Communist
Asia and Africa.
In other words the backward countries are those situated in the
neocolonial areas. After quoting figures to support its argument,
The Wall Street Journal comments on this situation:
The industrial nations have added $2 billion to their reserve,
which now approximate $52 billion. At the same time, the reserves
of the less-developed group not only have stopped rising, but have
decline some 200 million. To analysts such as Britain's' Miss Ward,
the significance of such statistics is clear the: the economic gag
is rapidly widening "between a white, complacent, highly bourgeois,
very wealthy, very small North Atlantic elite and everybody else,
and this is not a very comfortable heritage to leave one's children."
"Everybody else" includes approximately two-third of the
population of the earth spread through about 100 nations. This is
no new problem. In the opening paragraph of his book The War on
World Poverty, written in 1953, the present British Labour leader,
Mr. Harold Wilson, summarized the major problem of the world as
he then saw it:
"For the vast majority of mankind the most urgent problem
is not war, or communism, or the cost of living, or taxation. It
is hunger. Over 15,000,00,00 people, something like two-thirds of
the world's population, are living in conditions of acute hunger,
defined in terms of identifiable nutritional disease. This hunger
is at the same time the effect and the cause of the poverty, squalor
and misery in which they live.
"Its consequences are likewise understood. The correspondent
of the Wall Street Journal, previously quote, underlines them:
many diplomats and economists view the implication as overwhelmingly
- and dangerously - political. Unless the present decline can be
reverse, these analyst fear, the United States and other wealthy
industrial powers of the West face the distinct possibility, in
the words of British economist Barbara Ward, "of a sort of international
class war"
Neocolonialism The Last Stage of Imperialism
***
"In the era of neocolonialism, under-development is still
attributed not to exploitation but to inferiority, and racial undertones
remain closely interwoven with the class struggle.
"It is only the ending of capitalism, colonialism, imperialism
and neocolonialism and the attainment of world communism that can
provide the conditions under which the RACE question can
finally be abolished and eliminated." Class Struggle in Africa
***
"...with a decisiveness and force which can no longer be concealed
the spectre of Black Power has descended on the world like a thundercloud
flashing its lightning. Emerging from the ghettoes, swamps and cotton
fields of America, it now haunts the streets, legislative assemblies
and high councils and has so shocked and horrified Americans that
it is only now that they are beginning to grasp its full significance.
and the fact that Black Power, in other manifestations, is in confrontation
with imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, exploitation and
aggression in many parts of the world.
"In America, the Negro problem has been a more or less
polite conversation piece since the first African slaves were landed
in James Town in 1619. For three hundred and fifty years, however,
the subject of slave revolts has been tabooed and eliminated from
text-books. For the past thirty years stringent efforts have been
made to whitewash and obscure the real issue of the United States
Civil War: whether African slavery should be continued or not."
"After the Civil War, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the
United States Constitution did abolish African slavery and granted
citizenship rights to the freed men. Immediately, the majority of
states passed laws nullifying these rights, and in general, public
opinion all over the country supported their action. There were
some legislators who pointed out the injustice and even dangers
of this course, and in 1875 Congress passed a mild Civil Rights
Bill for the freed men. But in 1884 this Bill was repealed by the
United States Supreme Court, And so, down through the years, people
of African descent in the United States of America have been petitioning,
pleading, going to court and demonstrating for 'rights' freely granted
to every naturalized immigrant.
"As the United States grew richer, more powerful and imperialistic,
as it expanded and extended its influence and control throughout
Latin America and the islands of the Caribbean, its racialism, oppression
and contempt for the peoples of African descent became accepted
as an American way of life."
".until the organization of the Committee for Industrial Organization
(CIO) and the Second World War, African-Americans were regularly
excluded from labour organizations. The need for increased manpower
during this period encouraged immigration form the South of thousands
of black workers who crowded into northern cities finding jobs,
but no place to live except in slums amid conditions far worse than
the rural shacks they had left in the South.
"In spite of the long and untiring work in education and organization
of the pioneers of Civil Rights; in spite of the painstaking
effort made by African-American citizens of the United States to
educate their children, and by hard work to achieve 'acceptance'
in American society, African-American have remained only barely
tolerated aliens in the land of their birth, the vast mass of them
outside consideration of basic human justice.
"This is a fact which is now being called to the attention of
all those who through the years have had in their power the means
to order and fashion the world according to their interests White
interests controlled the economic wealth; white interest have been
able to establish the 'moral' standards by which Americans must
live; white domestic imperialism made all the laws, rule and regulations.
This was the modern world up to, and throughout, the first half
of the twentieth century " Spectre of Black Power
|
