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Interviw by GUME KUNDIRI NEW YORK (Gume): What is Pan-Africanism
to you? Mr. Joseph Genebo: For me, Pan-Africanism is a vision
that calls for African economic and political, as well as cultural
order; based on defined nationality, meaning articulated Black Nationalism,
a Black Nationalist framework that primarily advances the cultural
African peoples all over the world. Gume: Do you think the idea of Pan-Africanism
amongst Africans and especially Ethiopians has increased or decreased since Haile Selassie's
time, since he was really the one who introduced it
at that time? Mr. Joseph Genebo: Well, I think for Africans, it hasn't
died. I think instead it is mutating into a higher form. It's not
anymore restricted on official governmental level. There is a great
deal of the interfacing of African descendents within
that matrix. Africans in America are most often involved in
the Pan African activity. To me, especially to the young Africans
now in America, England,Australia and Europe, as
well as in Africa, who are doing linkages with the Caribbean community,
is more solid than superficial during old days time. I don't
think the Pan African idea during Haile Selassie was seriously attended
to. Gume: The big talk these days in the
African Community is the creation of the AU (African Union) which
is really being pushed by the Lybian leader Colonel Mouammar Khadafi
and other African leaders. How would they see themselves benefiting
from this union? Mr. Joseph Genebo: Basically, Most of the African governments are
really dysfunctional. They do not have a dramatic vision- the type
of vision we saw with Kwame Nkrumah(first president of Ghana), Abdel-Nasser(Egyptian
leader), Seku Toure(First president of Guinea) and Patrice Lumumba(First
president of the Congo, later assassinated). They don't possess
vision. They are oftentimes incapable of delivering the historical
task that is expected of African leaders. In fact, their allegiance
is really to Neo-Colonial forces as part of the intelligencia. The
African intelligencia have been victims of miseducation. Most of
these African leaders we see now come out of the western miseducation
and do not come from defying it. They do not come from forging a
new counter vision that is primarily geared to transform Africa.
So basically what you have is leaders that are crooked and without
vision, but who came about to power by force and therefore are truly
anti-development program, anti-true culture. These are governments
that live through money transfusions from the IMF and World Bank
and do not think independently, they are victims of global coordination
of imperialism. They instead act as police forces to reinforce this
global world of power that is to the disadvantage of Africa. So,
conclusively this African union is a diversion proposal to divert
people from looking at them for who they are- Dysfunctional governments. Gume: What kind of effect
will this 'African Union' have on African people? Mr. Joseph Genebo: I don't think anything will come out of it because
the African union is really of European influence. It is an imitation
of the European structure. It has nothing to do with the reality
of Africa. The OAU (Organization of African Union) has been in place
for a long time and anybody who genuinely cares about Africa and
the Pan African concept should have studied and scrutinized the
history of the OAU-where it failed, where it succeeded and based
on that appraisal, forge a new proposition that could lift us above
this dysfunctional existence into something dramatic. African countries
have not forged a national identity. On the other hand, Europe has
reached this stage of union through a logical metamorphosis because
they have ironed out their identity within their nation, something
that is yet to be seen in African nations. In Africa, we have not
finished the work of national union, we have been balkanized and
separated by Europe and United States. We don't even think we are
from the nation that we come from. We are regionalized on the basis
of ethnicity. So to me, the local work has not been done. The intellengicia
has not been brought into the picture, contributions are not asked
from anybody. It is just the leaders that got up together one day
and decided, thanks to Khadafi's money, to meet at Lusaka and have
an imitation of the European union in Africa. So basically, the
groundwork [for the AU] is not done. Gume: So you're saying Africa is not
ready to unite through the AU? Mr. Joseph Genebo: No because, to be part of a union, you have
to come from a very transformed society; To have a common parliament,
to have a common army, to abide by the rules and regulations that
entails to be part of a Pan African union. You cannot come from
illegitimate history where nationalism has still not been worked
out and enter into a union and tomorrow another military will come
to power in Nigeria or Ethiopia, etcetera, and negate everything
you have done. The democratic principles that you see in Europe,
with all their contradictions and shortcomings they have a transformed
democratic process. They know how to look out for each other's interest.
They have become literally boundary-less. They logically arrived
to this. In fact between most of Africans countries where we don't have common
commercial relationship and the border is strict as anything, how
can they begin to work together? Institutions in Africa are for
the most part dysfunctional. The local parliaments are not working.
One day it's in place, the next day it's abolished. Continuity is
never sustained. How can you be dysfunctional on the local level
and expect to be effective on the international or Pan-African level?
At all levels we are laughing stocks. The global world is taking
us for a ride because we have no voice, no government that represents
our interests. Environmentally, we are not represented right. In
the global-economic world, we are just to be exploited, no African
currencies have any weight in the global world economy. In the UN
we are not respected, we are not equal because we are come
from a legitimate united national boundary. I am for Unity, but
this kind of unity that is being shoved to us by these leaders is
not legitimate because the people have not had the chance to develop
within it. Mr. Joseph Genebo: In contrasting the two, this new 'African Union'
and the inauguration of the now extinct Organization of African
Union, the OAU made more sense to us because it was a steady developing
movement that enabled us to come to its making in 1963, which was
during the time of struggle against imperialism and colonialism
within the whole continent of Africa at which both leaders and the
people were behind one-hundred percent. The AU came about abruptly
and almost without notice to the majority of the African people.
It is only the few minority elites of Africa who are aware of its
conception. Gume: So what is the solution for
Africa? How can Africans do for themselves without getting caught
in the "let's follow what the Europeans are doing" game? Mr.Joseph Genebo: Africans need to basically re-invent themselves
through their own culture and ingenuity. If you go to Ghana, to
Nigeria, you can go to South Africa and Ethiopia the poor people
are inventing themselves. They go to the suburbs and sell whatever
is needed, they wait on the road and sell it. When tourists come
they fabricate innovative products with the little and few resources
available to them and find a way to profit from it. So in any endeavor,
you find ordinary Sudanese, Africans inventing themselves with
great ingenuity that boggles the mind. The poor people know how
to be innovative. The governments are not, and they do not recognize
the industriousness of all ordinary poor people. So therefore there
is a lack of true transformation in development, which I think when
not attended right, leads to disaster and rebellion from the people.
That is the first part. The second part to this solution is for
countries like Sudan,etc within their own country have to work with
all groups and define what they are. I think the redefining of the
identity all the different national groups in Sudan is necessary.
Not for political end, but to allow the cultural and economic insurgence
of all human beings in each national boundary is the key. This I
think is going to have a lasting and logical economic arrangement
for the continent. |
