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Africa and Arabia: Cooperation Or
Conflict
Gamal
Nkrumah, Akram Hawas, Helmi Sharawy, Mammo Muchie
Zola Zonkosi, Bankie Foster Bankie,
M.O. Ené, Garbo Dialo
A ChickenBones Review
London based, African Renaissance is a
highly welcomed and necessary journal on African affairs (history,
culture, politics, and economics). Its editor Dr. Jideofor Adibe
has done an extraordinary job in pulling together the resources
and writers to produce excellent and informed writing of interest
to Africanists the world wide. According to Adibe, African
Renaissance was inspired by Thabo Mbeki's speech "I Am an
African" (1996), in which Mbeki raised questions on African
identity, history, culture, and politics and spoke of a vision of
an African Renaissance.
In his introductory essay "Enter the
African Renaissance," Adibe further explains the impact of
Mbeki's speech: "Our interest in the theme led to the setting
up of Adonis & Abbey publishers in 2003."
A keen interest in African development,
stability, and the obstacles that thwart African economic and
social progress, Adibe and colleagues (in Africa and abroad) are
developing mechanisms to heighten quality discussions on these
vital topics : "Our aim was to build a credible global book
publishing outfit, which would help to ensure that no voice is
muffled in the development debate on Africa, and that different
cadences. storylines, and narrative forms are properly represented
in the debate."
They have now added three journals: African
Journal of Political and Social Research (AJPSR), African
Journal of Economic and Business Research (AJEBR), and African
Renaissance. the former two will make their entrance sometime
in 2004. With the difficulties of publishing, such an adventure is
indeed an extraordinary enterprise. For success, Adibe and his
colleagues will need support of university libraries
and individual support by Africans at home and abroad.
The first issue of African Renaissance
(June/July) has already made its debut and it is indeed highly
informative and exceedingly useful for high school and university
libraries. Personal libraries on Africa will also benefit from
this journal's broad and in-depth view of current African
affairs.
There are two other aspects of African
Renaissance I like and will stand out for the average educated
reader. Though these are scholars and professionals, the writing
is "a cross between academic research . . . and higher-end
magazine or newspaper."
Two, African Renaissance aims "to create a
non-ideological and non-sectarian platform, where serious
exchanges can take place among Africanists." It is the
hope that the journal becomes "one of the most credible
reference sources for policymakers, policy professionals, and
stakeholders in Africa."
African Renaissance bi-monthly issues
each will have a separate theme. The first issue deals with the
theme "Africa and Arabia: Cooperation or Conflict."
There are seven essays on the topic, including the opening
background piece "The Golden Age of Africa-Arab
Relations" by Gamal Nkrumah, the son of Kwame Nkrumah. If one
is interested in understanding the Sudan/ Darfur Conflict and the
current deteriorating relations of Africans and Arabs, these seven
essays are crucial.
Below are a few insightful comments by African
Renaissance writers:
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Gamal Nkrumah
"The Israeli and far right bodies
in the United States and the West have been fanning
anti-Arab and anti-Muslim resentment among African
Americans and the predominantly Christian and non-Muslims
parts of Africa. Africa may have its own grievances with
the Arab world. But these grievances are not medieval, and
certainly not atavistic."
"Nkrumah . . . had a . . . vision
of the African world. In his Consciencism: Philosophy
and Ideology for Decolonization, Nkrumah says that the
African personality draws upon three major elements: The
African, the Western Christian, and the Arab Islamic.
Nasser's the Philosophy of the Revolution, echoes
the same sentiment."
Akram Hawas
"The revolutionary Nasser of Egypt
considered his country's identity as partly African. In
the so-called circles of belonging, Nasser saw African
culture as the next source after the Arabic, and then
followed by the Islamic. Nasser and other Arabic leaders
supported many African countries in their struggles
against direct colonialism. the campaign against the
apartheid system in Rhodesia (Zimbawe) and South Africa
was at that time led from Cairo. Nasser worked together
with may African leaders -- Nkrumah, Admed Sekou Toure,
and Lumumba to stand up against imperialism. But Nasser's
main concern was Israel. he wanted African help against
Israeli occupation of Palestine and Arab land. Nasser
considered Arab Nationalism as the core in combating
imperialism as well as he considered Israel as the
frontier between the imperialist powers and the
imperialised peoples. In this way, one may say that he was
trying to Arabise the African concerns and
attitudes."
Helmy Sharawy
"The Pan-African movement was
conceived in the Diaspora, and the 'other' in its view was
not colonialism in particular, but the oppressor, which
gave rise to various tendencies within the movement that
were not directly related to liberation from colonialism.
Such tendencies appeared with Garvey, or Blyden, or the
leaders of the Negritude or francophone movements, who did
not take a clear anti-colonial attitude except after the
development of the National Liberation Movements after the
Second World War. Although Du Bois and R. James were
clearly anti-colonial, unfortunately they were not the
most vocal within the movement, and this condition still
persists till today. This may partly explain its weak
influence among the peoples of the Continent. we may even
contend that weak anti-colonial stand at the inception of
the African movement led to its weak relation with the
Arab movement, which was openly anti-colonial from the
start."
Mammo Muchie
"Gamal Abdel Nasser was attacked
for wishing to pursue an Arab national agenda which was
neither pro-USSR nor pro-USA. Similarly Kwame Nkrumah got
overthrown for trying to pursue an African national
agenda. The US ruling circles will fight any attempt by
any state or political figure of any repute who tries to
be out of reach and control in assisting them to implement
their exclusive agenda, such as, for example, the war on
Iraq. Such a narrowing of perspective is too self-serving
and does not do justice tot he aspirations of some 80 per
cent of the world population who are primarily interested
in their work and their families."
"The message is loud and clear
from Washington DC and London. If the ex-colonised peoples
will not do what the Washington-London axis wants them to
do, they run the risk that the might of the US military
will rain its B-52 bombs, cruise missiles,
oxygen-depleting weapons, cluster bombs, daisy bombs,
microwave bombs, bunker-buster bombs, and
uranium-depleting weapons on their largely undefended
populations. Iraq is the guinea pig -- the showcase for
others to learn the lesson and change their conduct if
they had aspirations to do things differently from those
assigned by the chief cop of the western empire."
Zola Zonkosi
"The conflict in Sudan started at
independence when the British colonial power handed power
tot he minority Arab elite -- a step in line with the
British policy of divide and rule. People from the Middle
East who had settled in Sudan from the seventh century
aligned themselves with the British colonialists against
the the indigenous African inhabitants. The Arab minority
constitutes less than 39% of the estimated populations of
more than 37 million inhabitants."
"Similar tot he situation in
southern Sudan before the peace talks, the Darfur people
have accused the military regime of marginalising them
politically and economically and using the blockade to
force them into either submission or death from hunger and
disease. The Sudan regime has not honoured the various
peace agreements it signed with the SLM/A last year. The
Darfur people want a free and democratic Sudan with
guaranteed rights of self-determination for all and
respect for human dignity."
Bankie Forster Bankie
"Adwok notes that the slavery of
black people in the Nile Basin began in earnest with the
defeat of the Mamelukes of Egypt by the Ottoman Empire in
1517, and that the commodification and merchandisation of
the slaves' route down the Nile to Southern Europe,
Arabia, Persia, and China is traced to the first quarter
of the nineteenth century.
"Under Arab slavery, men were
castrated and women used as sex-machines so that over
generations, the offsprings of the enslaved women merged
into general Arab society, albeit into an inferior
caste-type class of sub-species. Today we have slave
descendants across the Sahara such as the Harantines in
Mauratania. . . . This is because
the slaves were so many that the slavers could not
ethnically dilute them into café au lait. Castration and
male culling was practised."
"Arab slavery is still going
on-going in Africa in the Afro-Arab Borderlands. Much of
the attention to contemporary Arab slavery of Africans
focuses on Sudan and Mauritania but from Mali, Algeria,
Niger, Libya, and Chad filter through reports about slave
practices."
"In the Sudan, more than anywhere
else, profession of Islam and speaking the Arabic language
made one an Arab. Many African ethnic communities in
Sudan, such as Borgo, Berti and Maali fell victim to this
deception. In the 1960s these zealous African Muslims were
used to fight the Southern Sudanese. The relentless
struggle of the Southern Sudanese against oppression,
including enslavement by northerners, has spread to other
marginalised and peripheral peoples in the West, centre,
and east of Sudan."
M.O. Ené
"Ignorance can be
bliss, but it is also the common cause of chauvinism. It
is ironic that a country of Black people is experiencing
excruciating events precipitated by the "Arab"
section of the population. (Sudan is from bilad
al-Sudan -- Arabic for "land of the
blacks".) . . . . It should therefore be inculcated
in all Sudanese that they are all descended from noble
Nubians and Kushites before them, regardless of the
injection of the genes of recent immigration."
"The Darfur debacle
[by the military regime of lt. General Omar Hassan Ahmed
al-Bashir] shows how easily the demons of ethnicity can be
awakened from the wrongly wired network of artificial
geopolitical regions despite the supposedly binding
influence of revealed religions. muslims descending on
each other because of ethnic dissimilarities and slight
skin contrast shows that the seeds that sprout senseless
slaughters in Africa are soil deep. The seeds cannot be
extracted by long speeches, documentaries, memorials, and
momentary reflections. The only language evil understands
is the force of law. Darfur is just one more atrocity too
many." |
But African Renaissance
contains more. There is an interactive section in which the
writers on the particular theme can comment on each other's
positions or statements. This is a novel turn that breaks down the
isolation among the writers and should be helpful in the long run
of establishing intellectual relationships and vigorous and honest
debates in other sectors.
A book-size journal of over 200
pages, African Renaissance has other sections that deals
with vital issues in other regions of Africa. There are sections
on South Africa, Nigeria, the Mano River
Basin (primarily Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, but also the
Ivory Coast), Zimbawe, the francophone countries, the topic of
AIDs. The journal concludes with a Philosophy section.
I'm looking forward to the
second issue of African Renaissance, which has the theme of
African Identity. Dr. Adibe discovered my essay In
Search of an African Identity
on ChickenBones: A Journal and requested permission to use
it -- which I gave immediately. This issue will also contain
commentary by
Mammo Muchie, Garbo Diallo, and Steven Friedman; as
well as comments by me on the writings of several Africans
including Thabo Mbeki. It should be out sometime this September. I
also understand the third issue is already in the planning and
deal with wars and conflicts in Africa.
African Renaissance is
changing the method and approach to our discussion of Africa --
post-USSR and the fall of the Berlin Wall, post-ANC ascendancy in
South Africa; post-Rwanda and the dismantling of Zaire;
post-Liberian civil war; post-Libya-USA-London agreements; post
Nasser. Its writers are mature, highly educated, engaged in work
to reshape Africa and historical, cultural, and political thoughts
on Africa. This journal is a necessity for all Africanists who
want to carry on informed and insightful discussions on current
events in contemporary Africa.
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African Renaisance per copy (retail price) is £19.99
(+p&p) -- The American edition is:US$14.90 and Can$19.35 --
Subscription: for companies/organisations etc: £250 PA (6 issues)
-- Individuals (UK and Europe £120; Rest
of the world £150).
The next edition is for September/October.
The change in format was distributors' preference.
The European edition of September/October
edition will be out about 15 September, and about 20 Sept for the
American edition.
Editor:
Jideofor (Patrick) Adibe, Ph.D
Adonis & Abbey Publishers
Ltd.
SouthBank House
Black Prince Road
London SEI 7SJ
UK-Europe
jideofor.Adibe@adonis-abbey.com
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