You cannot understand what happened in Africa in 1958 unless you take your mind back to the 6th of March 1957.
The ‘Gold Coast’, without firing a shot, had become the independent state of Ghana. Our independence was celebrated with a great deal of imagination. A beautiful English Duchess, the Duchess of Kent, came to represent the Queen. And our Prime Minister, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, danced with her at a ball.
The euphoria we felt was so overwhelming that it took some of us in all sorts of – crazy – directions. For instance — and here, let me speak for myself! – on descending from the Press Bus that was taking us newsmen to the VIP areas where the ordinary populace were not allowed, I did something absolutely lunatic, and probably dangerous. I saw Richard Nixon, whose face I had often seen in Time Magazine, in the flesh. Without thinking twice, I walked over to him and – gave him my hand. “Welcome, Sir!” I said. He took my proffered hand, I shook his, and went on my way. What would his Secret Service bodyguards have made of that incident?
Fortunately for me, my reading at that time had not taken me across any assassins and terrorists. I thought if I smiled, the whole world would smile back at me!
Suffice it to say that I was not the only Ghanaian that thought we could DO ANYTHING. The euphoria injected huge quantities of adrenalin in us, and set our imaginations wild. The adrenalin was still working in us one year later. The one-year anniversary of our independence, celebrated in March 1958, saw us still inebriated from the adrenalin shot of the year before. Again, world dignitaries had been invited, but this time, the emphasis was on Africans who were still living under colonial rule. Our Prime Minister had declared, on the day we achieved independence, that “the independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the whole African continent.”
And so, a lot of Africans living under British, French or Portuguese rule were invited to share our joy on the anniversary of our independence. When they heard that Ghana was to host a Conference of the Independent States of Africa, the very next month, a buzz went round Accra. What about a Conference for the people of the countries still living under colonial rule?
George Padmore, who had been Joint Secretary with Prime Minister Nkrumah of the Pan-African Congress in Manchester in 1945, was now installed as Adviser to the Prime Minister of Ghana on African Affairs. And he had brought with him, his huge address book – compiled from many years of organising politicians and trade unions across the United States, the Soviet Union and Europe. Even as the Conference of Independent African States was getting underway, word went round that an All-African People’s Conference would be held in Accra in December 1958.
The venue chosen was the Accra Community Centre, on High Street. By coincidence, there was a huge sign, in English, Ga and Twi, extolling what a good thing it was for brethren to get together. Taking their cue from this, a huge sign was hung across the road, close to the Conference Centre, saying “HANDS OFF AFRICA!” This was also written large behind the high table of the Conference itself, where another telling slogan, “WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS!” had joined it.
Inside the Conference Hall, some of the delegates had come dolled up in their national costumes. I remember, in particular, the colourful headgear of Mr. Oginga Odinga of Kenya. Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere, Ntsu Mokhele were also among the more recognisable faces. But the face that was to captivate the whole of Africa two years later, that of Patrice Lumumba, was hardly noticed at all. Padmore’s man in the Belgian Congo was Joseph Kasavubu.
I was very determined to follow the goings-on at the Conference very well. I had the luck of finding that two Angolan writers, with whom I’d once travelled across the Soviet Union and China were among the delegates. So I got briefed about the debates that were going on at the Accra Community Centre, behind closed doors. It was through them that I learnt that Dr Kwame Nkrumah had become something of a “problem” to some of the delegates, for good host though he was, he was espousing a doctrine of “moral power” exerted through peaceful resistance, whereas, in the Portuguese territories, for instance, slave labour was going on which would never end, unless armed resistance was undertaken. Look at people like Dr Verwoerd of South Africa, Roy Welensky of the Central African Federation and others. Did they know what conscience was at all? Had they even heard of Mahatma Gandhi?
I was told about the huge impact the delegate of the Algerian National Front, Frantz Fanon, had made on the delegates by tearing to pieces, with a cold dissection of what was actually taking place in Algeria, all the myths about the way European “Christian” colonialists were supposed to be teaching “civilization” to “primitive” Africans. Algerians were being shot and killed from the air by the military planes of the French, for demonstrating with FLN flags in hand. French soldiers went from house to house in the casbahs picking up household heads and shooting them in the streets to teach men and women that when the French said they should end their strikes and go back to work, they should do so. “And you want Algerians to continue getting themselves killed?” Fanon asked.
Fanon won the day. The South Africans; the delegates from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland; the Angolans and the Guinea – Bissau and Cape Verde delegates, all refined their own arguments about resisting colonial rule with force if necessary, at the All-African people’s Conference. Of course, we in the media only carried the speeches that were made in open session, and could not report on any of the hot debates that took place.
But by the time the Conference ended, the evocative words of the Conference chairman, Tom Mboya, namely, “In 1884, the colonialists engaged in their “Scramble for Africa.” Well, we are telling them that the time has come for them to “Scram from Africa”, had been imprinted on the minds of all those who heard the words.
Within about three years, almost every French African territory was free. Sharpeville had happened in South Africa. Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, regarded as the most heroic of African freedom fighters, was also nearly out of jail.
The AAPC was followed up with other Conferences, and other happenings, some perhaps more effective in terms of hastening the African Independence movement than the AAPC. But in my view, the AAPC was the Mother Conference that led directly to African Emancipation.
I often get asked the question, “You’ve seen it all. Looking at the state of Africa today, was that entire hullabaloo about independence worth it?”
My answer is an unequivocal YES! Human rights are not negotiable. All people have the right to manage or mismanage their own affairs. Okay many Africans have died unnecessarily at the hands of an Idi Amin or Emperor Bokassa. We have the unmatched brutality of the massacres in Rwanda in 1994. There is misery in many African homes caused by extreme poverty, at the same time as rulers steal huge amounts of money to buy luxurious private jets, yachts and expensive cars. Some housesbuilt by the nouveaux-riches in Africa are execrable because of the shameless opulence they display.
But has anyone ever suggested that Britain, Russsia, France, Germany or the United States should be colonised because politicians in those countries have killed scores of millions of people in two World Wars? Is the misery caused by poverty, which is directly caused by the way the international economic system cheats the producers of raw materials by setting prices for both their product and their purchases from the industrialised countries, not as murderous as the guns of any dictator in Africa?
No – evil is evil, in whatever shape or form. The struggle for a better world continues. So long as humans are equipped with reasoning powers, there will be people of goodwill who cannot rest until there is justice for everyone that has been put on this planet through no fault of their own. And the All-African People’s Conference of Accra, December 1958, will for ever be counted as one of the events that loosened the chains of evil with which the world has been bound for so long.
cameronduodu.com
BY CAMERON DUODU