Pan-Africanism, Women’s Rights and Socialist Development - Part 4

University of Wisconsin-trained economist Ann Seidman working alongside Reginald H. Green at the University of Ghana-Legon from 1962-66 sought to provide an academic framework for the Nkrumaist vision of African Unification and Socialism.

Understanding the significance of rejecting the western orthodoxy of economic theory and its applicability to Africa, Seidman and Green worked to provide the empirical data to verify that integration of continental states was a prerequisite to genuine growth and development.

Of course this viewpoint fell into institutional disfavor after the CIA and State Department engineered coup of February 1966. Moreover, the failure to recognize imperialism as the central impediment to African unification and progress hampers any assessment of why the First Republic efforts were thwarted. After 1966, even Seidman and Green in their published 1968 book “Unity or Poverty?:

The Economics of Pan-Africanism”, attempts to dislodge the imperatives of African integration from its political and ideological basis. The systematic underdevelopment of Africa is a direct result of the centuries-long legacy of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism. In order for Africa to advance economically the basis of its continuing exploitation and oppression must be overthrown.

These are clearly political questions that lead to economic visions and solutions and not vice-versa. Without a strategic outlook informed by an anti-imperialist ideological orientation the concept of African unity and economic integration can never come into view.

Furthermore by ignoring or even denying the role of the principal architect of neo-colonialism and imperialism in the second half of the 20th century extending to the first two decades of the 21th century, leaves the African workers, youth and farmers without the ideological underpinning to challenge the status quo.

The inability of African states to develop sustainable economic growth and transformation cannot be explained solely from the perspectives of technological, managerial and skill deficiencies. All former and currently existing Socialist states have been plagued by the same challenges and have overcome them as in China, Democratic Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and other areas where advancements have been made even without the realization of a Socialist society, as in African states breaking the chains of European domination.

Seidman in co-authoring a paper on “State Farms in Ghana” with Marvin P. Miracle concludes correctly in the first instance saying: “In sum, Ghana’s state farms programs strongly suggests that for any large-scale farming projects to succeed in Africa there must be careful prior research, adequate numbers of managerial personnel, and trained technicians, and availability of all the complementary resources and marketing facilities.” Nevertheless, these two scholars unfortunately fall into a “technocratic” mode of analysis that nullifies the conceptual basis for Pan-Africanism and Socialism in Africa by stressing that “Initially, at least, such projects should probably be limited to those tree crops and industrial raw materials associated with given processing facilities. Where possible, efforts should be made to stimulate private production of additional supplies.” (p. 46)

From an ideological standpoint this form of economic logic leads right into providing a rationale for what became known as “Neo-Liberal” reforms which took hold when the so-called National Liberation Council” was installed by the CIA and State Department after the police and military coup. Seidman and Green emphasize that:

“In the last analysis, all the financial resources of the state (and of Ghana were, for Africa, extensive) are not adequate to meet all the expanding food and raw material needs of a developing economy by means of state-owned projects. If the Government of Ghana had used the same amount of money and organizational talent that were expended on the state farm program to develop techniques and provide incentives for small farmers, there would probably have been a far greater increase in domestic food production.”

As recent as 2014, in a paper published by Gerardo Serra on the work of Seidman and Green in Ghana before and after the CIA and State Department backed coup, entitled “Continental Visions: Ann Seidman, Reginald H. Green and the Economics of African Unity in 1960s Ghana”, the author makes what can only be interpreted as a political attack on Nkrumaist Pan-Africanism by claiming:

“The Kwame Nkrumah Conference Center (of Job 600, as it came to be called since it was the six hundredth project realized by the Ghana National Construction Corporation) estimated to cost between 8 million and 10 million British pounds at a time where foreign exchange reserves were exhausted and shortages of basic goods were plaguing the economy ‘became the symbol of all Nkrumah’s foolish prestige projects’. Amidst this atmosphere of increasing popular discontent at home and isolation from other African leaders, Nkrumah was overthrown in February 1966. Although the reasons behind the his overthrow had more to do with the mismanagement of the Ghanaian economy than with the tension pervading the Pan-African scene, the revolutionary dream of a Union Government and a continental plan ended with the fall of Nkrumah, while the crowds in Accra were cheering and smashing statues of the former leader.”

In following this clearly pessimistic outlook on the capacity of Africans to determine their own destiny and failing to mention the well-documented plotting, machinations and execution of a police and military coup by the CIA and State Department, not only distorts the political history of Africa but also conveniently dismisses the ongoing role of imperialism, led by Washington and Wall Street, in blocking and reversing any gains made during the course of the African Revolution since the beginning of the post-World War II period.

The army and police officials who took charge of the government formed an alliance with the opposition forces many of whom campaigned against national independence in 1957 saying Ghana was not prepared for liberation under a unitary political system. Those Ghanaian nationals and expatriates that worked within the context of the CPP-led revolutionary government were rendered unemployed forcing many into poverty and exile.

Graham Du Bois was placed under house arrest and soon left the country for Egypt. First Lady Madam Fathia Nkrumah was transported back to her Egyptian home in a plane sent by the government of President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

African Americans such as Julian Mayfield and other progressives from the U.S. were forced to abandon projects established by the Nkrumah government. The ideological orientation of the so-called “National Liberation Council” was clearly pro-imperialist since they owed their existence to the extra-legal actions of the CIA and U.S. State Department.

John Stockwell, a former CIA operative, said of the American involvement in the coup in 1966 that: “Howard Bane, who was the CIA station chief in Accra, engineered the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah. Inside the CIA it was quite clear. Howard Bane got a double promotion, and was awarded the Intelligence Star for the overthrow of Kwame. The magic of it was that Howard Bane had enough imagination and drive to run this operation without ever documenting what he was doing and there wasn’t one shred of paper that was generated that would name the CIA hierarchy as being responsible.“(Quote printed in Ghanaweb.com from author of In Search of Enemies, 1978)

The overall status of women in post-coup Ghana was catastrophic with the dismissal of parliament and the removal of cabinet ministers. Most of the women involved in the CPP remained barred and alienated from Ghana politics.

Consequently, the domestic and international influence of women declined. Whereas under the Nkrumah government as early as 1959, African American artist and writer Elton C. Fax wrote in the New York Age of his meeting with Federation of Women Secretary General Dr. Evelyn Armarteifio in Ghana who asked him why Blacks in the U.S. continued to refer to themselves as “Negroes” when the term Afro-American was more appropriate. This sentiment was reflected in the CPP press where the term “Negro” was generally not used.

Such an encounter by Fax while he sketched this woman leader who said to him that she had lived and studied in the U.S., was deemed significant enough by veteran Barbadian-born Socialist and Nationalist leader Richard B. Moore of Harlem to utilize the quote from the New York Age article in his book entitled “The Name Negro: It’s Origins and Evil Use”, published in 1960. (p. 92)

Six years later in 1965, the Assistant Director of the National Council of Ghana Women, Agatha Dumolga, visited the U.S. as a representative of the Nkrumah government. She was one of 15 women selected to visit over a period of 11 weeks.

Making an impression on the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper journalist Elinor Kelley when Dumolga visited this Southern city in July 1965, an article featuring her begins by stating: “Women are taking on more responsibility in running at least one country and they’re getting plenty of help from their parliament. Social welfare is the big area where women are making their presence felt in the government of Ghana on the West African coast.” (July 15, p. 15)

Kelley reported that Dumolga was visiting supermarkets “to see how food was displayed. She will be in Memphis one week visiting welfare agencies, Juvenile Court, hospitals and talking to women’s groups in an idea exchange program. Miss Dumolga said 30 of the 114 members of Ghana’s parliament are women. ‘The women speak for the women and the men speak for the men’, she said.”

The writer noted Dumolga was adorned in traditional attire from Ghana as her picture appears in the Commercial Appeal wearing a dress made of kente cloth, carrying a fashionable purse and wearing her hair in a similar style as many African American women would in 1965. Dumolga was quoted as saying: “We have all these things—homes for children, juvenile courts, hospitals, in my own country. But I want to compare the way things are done here and at home.”

This same article surmises that: “In Ghana, Miss Dumolga does work that might be compared with a home demonstration agent in the United States. She goes from town to town, teaching women about balanced diets, gardening and sewing. Women are best suited for this. It’s easier to make contacts with the women because they take care of the whole house. If they have the understanding they can pass it on to the family.”

The report ends noting that Dumolga was the guest of Mrs. Emalyn Myles of 1390 Chadwick Circle, who was a member of the African American women’s sorority Delta Sigma Theta, which was co-sponsoring the tour with the African Women’s Corps.

Although some of the myths fostered by the NLC and its imperialist backers were that Ghana faced bankruptcy, the deployment of troops to fight in Rhodesia and egregious theft of public resources by Nkrumah himself, these allegations were never proven. The economic conditions inside the country deteriorated in the post-coup period and the clout that Ghana held within Africa and the entire African world has never been retrieved after five decades of both military and civilian rule.

After February 24, 1966, Nkrumah settled in Guinea-Conakry where he was appointed Co-President by the Secretary General Ahmed Sekou Toure of the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG), a fraternal organization. Nkrumah wrote several pioneering theoretical works during the 1966-1971 period while in Guinea. His writings remain an inspiration to revolutionaries throughout the continent and the international community.

President Toure hosted Nkrumah until 1971 when he was flown to Romania for medical treatment after which he was diagnosed with cancer. Nkrumah died on April 27, 1972 and was given a state funeral by the Guinea government.

Based on certain negotiated conditions, President Toure agreed to send the remains of Nkrumah back to Ghana after being requested for burial by a newly-installed military regime which took power in January 1972. Nkrumah was entombed in his village home of Nkroful in the Nzima region. During the early 1990s, his remains were taken to Accra for burial.

Economic conditions in Ghana had so declined by the mid-1980s that it became the first country to impose the dreaded Structural Adjustment Plans (SAPs) in Africa. The SAPs enacted draconian cuts in education and social services, resulting in the decline of currency values and the further privatization of public assets.

 

Today the African Union (AU) has passed resolutions mandating the participation of women in the political, economic and educational affairs of member-states. Although progress has been made in several states, there is much to be desired. Africa remains under the domination of international finance capital and any movement towards genuine unification and continental socialist development can only occur after a fundamental break with world capitalism.

The Nkrumah years of transition from 1951-1956 and the independence period of 1957-1966, set the standard for African development and political imperatives related to inter-state integration and Women’s affairs. In 1999, former Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi hosted an OAU Summit in Sirte, which drafted resolutions that would bring about the transition from the old continental group to the AU. Many of the aims and objectives of Nkrumah’s Ghana were adopted, if only on a symbolic level, at Sirte in 1999. Subsequently, the first U.S. president of African descent, Barack Obama, serving the interests of the ruling class and the Pentagon, led in the military and economic destruction of this state which was bombed for seven months in 2011 with the approval of the UN Security Council.

Libya, like Ghana before it, illustrates the dangerous nature of imperialism in Africa. Nkrumah in last book published while he was in office entitled “Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism”, correctly identifies the U.S. as the principal enemy of Pan-Africanism and Socialism.

In 2016, with the decline in commodity prices and the increasing military and intelligence penetration of Africa, a struggle must be waged to guarantee the sovereignty and economic independence of the continent. This will prove to be the major challenge of the initial decades of the 21st century not only for Africa but for all oppressed nations and peoples of the world.

Other Parts of this article

1. Pan-Africanism, Women’s Rights and Socialist Development
2. Pan-Africanism, Women’s Rights and Socialist Development - Part 2
3. Pan-Africanism, Women’s Rights and Socialist Development - Part 3

The original source of this article is Global Research. Copyright © Abayomi Azikiwe, Global Research, 2016