The Kenya Palestine Solidarity Movement (KPSM) in coalition with organizations supporting Pan-African solidarity, recommits itself to this cherished value as we commemorate African Liberation Day on 25 May 2023. On this Day we gather yearly to take broad lessons of the struggles that our nation states undergo to grapple with the dangers that Imperialism poses in continent’s struggle for dignity and honour. Today we see brothers in arms in Sudan killing each other, as our enemy imposes its nefarious will, tearing away at Mother Africa. This dangerous enemy looms. Though the Imperialist enemy plots and plans to keep us down but we are confident that Africa shall rise with that torch lit by our earliest legendaries on to the Pan-African path of true freedom.

The Secretariat. Kenya Palestine Solidarity Movement (KPSM)

Kongamano la Mapinduzi (KLM) sends revolutionary greetings to all African people and progressive organisations on the continent and its diaspora on this 60th commemoration of African Liberation Day. KLM  – a coalition of diverse Kenyan individuals, organisations, initiatives and movements, generally identifiable as progressive within struggles for civil, political, social, cultural, economic and ecological justice and freedoms – also sends its fraternal greetings to all organisations and movements gathered here today, and especially those organising this event.

But as we wish you a progressive commemoration of this African Liberation Day, we concurrently ask that you all pause for a moment and think about the millions of African people facing repression, depression, war, ecological disaster, economic terrorism and the stripping of their dignity in whatever form it takes. We ask all Africans to stand with our brothers and sisters facing untold suffering and hardship on the continent – especially those affected this year by tropical storm Freddy which hit Malawi in March 2023, and most recently, those affected by the ongoing war in Sudan which began in April 2023. We additionally ask all African people, wherever they may be, to show solidarity to our brothers and sisters in the African diaspora who everyday face racism, including its systemic manifestations.

We arrive at this juncture with our people still bound by politics dictated from Washington and Brussels, as Patrice Lumumba, that beloved son of Africa, eloquently stated decades ago. We arrive at this moment with colonial patterns of economics still intact and prevalent across the continent – anchored majorly by a comprador class of sell-outs and their masters across the seas and oceans. We arrive at this moment facing ecological devastation. We arrive at this moment with the African liberation struggle still unfinished. 

We however also arrive at this moment with a re-awakening, a Mwamko. Our young people are meeting again – and they are telling stories of resistance. Stories of African unity, stories of justice, peace and dignity. Our organisation is today, here at the Kenya National Theatre, proud to join other organisations in calling for land, food and freedom. We however also remember that this national theatre was officially opened in 1952 – the same year that the state of emergency was declared – as a means of enabling British settlers escape the reality of Africans in revolt and resistance. History calls upon us to once again make it a theatre of the people.

Our movements are today calling for a borderless Africa. Our environmentalists are calling for ecological sovereignty. Our feminists are calling for gender equality. KLM reiterates that these calls are all important, and that they must be treated with the respect they deserve both within and without our organisations -in whatever spaces we find ourselves in.

Like floods of revolt, we arrive at this critical juncture of the unfinished African liberation struggle demanding for reparations and restitution of stolen lands. In essence, we demand for full political and economic independence. We also recognize that the only viable pathway to that which we demand is organisation and mass work. That is why KLM continues to organise the masses of our people.

Our immediate ask, however, is that all comrades should engage in continuous political education and action. For as Cabral reminds us, “no matter how hot the water in your well is, it cannot cook rice”. That rice needs fire to cook, and we at KLM re-affirm political education as the fire that fuels our resistance – and our revolution by extension.

 

A Luta Continua!

KLM Central Committee – Nairobi, 25 May 2023

Africa must UNITE!!!

On Africa Liberation Day, 2023 the Socialist Movement of Ghana (SMG) salutes the peoples of Africa.
Foreign exploitation, underdevelopment, and oppression of Africa continues to intensify in the 21st century. Africans in the Chagos Islands, in Western Sahara and in Ceuta still suffer colonial rule. We suffer an unjust and unpayable debt imposed by Western Banks and our traitorous spendthrift Neo-colonial political leaderships. We suffer the cruellest consequences of climate change even though we have not contributed to or benefited from the reckless capitalist industrialisation that has thrown the climate out of balance. Our continent is literally cut in half by warfare and conflict imposed by Imperialist armies and their client local militias. We suffer deficits in nutrition, healthcare and meaningful education leaving us uniquely vulnerable to scourges like Covid-19 while a tiny global elite continues to extract and expatriate the fruits of our collective labour for its own narrow, and bloated opulence.

Because exploitation and oppression continue, Africa’s centuries-long struggle for self determination, development, equality, and dignity also continues unabated. This struggle cannot be suppressed or hidden – no matter how much imperialism and its global corporate media seek to distort and demoralise.

The fight against disinformation is a key fight for Africans. Corporate and social media insist subtly that “Africans are our own worst enemies”, that “Africans are essentially and immutably tribal”, that “Africans lack the civic consciousness and fortitude to unite”. They tell us that African leaders are so hopelessly corrupt that we cannot change our landscape. They urge us to limit our aspirations and continue to seek outcomes consistent with continued subordination to the West. We must reject these and the many other imperialist stereotypes used to weaken our ambitions.

SMG believes that continental unity must be placed at the centre of Africa’s struggle for transformation.

Africa needs unity so we can together build the continental economic and political institutions that allow us to plan our continental development rationally and in our own interest.

Africa needs unity so we can sustainably and collectively own and deploy our vast natural resources (soils, waters, minerals, forests, oil and gas, biodiversity). Our resources cannot remain under the control of hereditary neo-feudal institutions that pull us backward into petty tribal political identities.

Africa needs unity so we can develop our immense human resource (soon to be the largest workforce in the world) to tackle our nutrition, healthcare, housing, education, and culture free from the domination of foreign profit or geopolitical interests.

Africa needs unity so we can defend every inch of our territory and expel foreign armies that are turning our lush lands into killing fields. Africa needs unity so we can participate in global affairs from a position of respect and non-aligned self-interest and not as surrogates for external interests.

As President Nkrumah declared famously on 24 May 1963 “So many blessings flow from our unity; so many disasters must follow on our continued disunity.”

Amid the darkness of our long struggle there are important signs that an anti-imperialist, pan-Africanist, and even socialist struggle is raging across our continent. For example, SMG applauds the foundation in December 2022 of a West Africa People Organisation (WAPO) comprising key actors in the Labour, Gender, Youth, Cultural, and political movements in our subregion.

WAPO is committed to remobilising West Africa’s masses into the fight for anti-imperialist Pan-Africanism. SMG also notes with pride the growing pushback in West and Central Africa against pernicious and anachronistic French Neo-colonialism. We hail the increasing tendency of militant leaders notably in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea towards national political unification as a key solution to the terrible problems of underdevelopment, instability and geopolitical conflict imposed on our people in these states. We have no illusions that this is a tremendously difficult challenge and that it will be opposed by the Imperialist world and by the Neo-colonial elites of the Region and their forum, ECOWAS. But it is a development that deserves and will receive the full support of Africans across the continent.

SMG calls on all Africans and especially Africa’s Youth to escalate the fight for an anti-imperialist revolution in Africa and to focus unwaveringly on continental unification. SMG stands with the all those fighting for a unified, anti-imperialist, and socialist Africa.

www.smghana.org
P.O. Box NT 272, Accra – Newtown Accra

 

Kwesi Pratt jnr
General Secretary
Accra