"All people of African descent, whether they live in North or South America, the Caribbean, or in any other part of the
world are Africans and belong to the African nation."
- Kwame Nkrumah
"You show me one of these people over here who has been thoroughly brainwashed and has a negative attitude
toward Africa, and I'll show you one who has a negative attitude toward himself. You can't have a positive attitude
toward yourself and a negative attitude toward Africa at the same time. To the same degree that your understanding
of and attitude toward Africa become positive, you'll find that your understanding of and your attitude toward yourself
will also become positive. And this is what the white man knows. So they very skillfully make you and me hate our
African Identity, our African characteristics."
- Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks
WE ARE AFRICAN PERIOD
Africans born/living outside of Africa have been deliberately kept ignorant of Africa and her achievements by European capitalism for centuries. The purpose of such action was to paint a picture of Africa as a savage land and to force Africans to disassociate themselves front their homeland. After being removed from our homes and made into slaves we have been afraid to admit even to ourselves that we are AFRICANS.
Thus, we are the only group in the world who deny ourselves, preferring to be known as Negroes, West Indians, Jamaicans, Afro-Americans, Afro-Brazilians, African-Americans, anything rather than AFRICANS. And all of these names by which we define ourselves have been forced upon us by European enslavers who sought to rob us of any collective identify, so that they could more easily oppress us.
Africans born inside of Africa, while recognizing that they are Africans, have identified with the state or colony that they were born in (i.e., Nigeria, Malawi, Morocco, or Togo). This is micro-nationalism, seeing the part as more important than the whole of Africa. This micro- nationalism is part of the "divide and rule" tactic which keeps Africans attached to small countries, governments and life styles where we were born or live rather than identifying ourselves as one nation.
All peoples are identified by the land from which they come. Land is the basis of economic freedom for all people. From land comes food, raw materials for making clothes, building houses, schools, factories, and all supplies that are needed to maintain a society. Without land there can be no economic freedom. Without economic freedom there can be no independent development.
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS
We Are African Period. Everywhere in the world Africans have the same social and economic problems. They include starvation or inadequate diet; no jobs or low paying jobs; poor healthcare, and inferior education, or worse yet, miseducation. Mis-education through the schools and/or the media add to the confusion as to who we are, whether we should fight for Africa and our people. Backwards thinking as a result of Capitalist indoctrination which sees money and property as more important than people. Under these conditions, no people can harness and meet their full potential.
The same companies that exploit Africans in Africa also exploit Africans in the Caribbean, North, South, Central America and Europe. Texaco, Exxon, Shell, Barclays Bank, Alcoa, Ford Motor Corporation, IBM, and Nestle are just as familiar to Africans at home in Africa as they are to Africans living outside of Africa.
By exploiting our labor, our minds, and the rich resources of our homeland, the world's greedy capitalists live a life of
splendor. By keeping us divided, disorganized, confused and living under stifling conditions, they try to halt our progress
towards the total freedom of Africa and our people.
European capitalists use the principle of "divide and rule" to keep us oppressed so that they can continue to exploit our labor and our land. The strategy they employ is designed to ensure that we stay confused about our identity thus preventing us from seeing the broader picture of oppression and exploitation of Africans throughout the world. In order to accomplish this, capitalism divides us in two ways:
We Are African Period. Africans have been victims of centuries of anti-African propaganda from Tarzan to Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America (radio broadcasts organized by the imperialists to project negatively Africa and Africans).
The goal of capitalist propaganda is to instill within Africans everywhere a hatred for Africa and a love for anything European. Propaganda is carried out through newspapers, radio, television, films, and the educational system.
In the Americas, the occupied land of the Indians - a slave ship drops an African off in Florida and drops another African off in Jamaica - one picks cotton while another cuts sugar cane. Both are victims of capitalism and both think they have more in common with Europeans than with each other.
An African colonized by the French is led to believe they are French. An African colonized by the British is led to think they have more in common with the "Queen" than they do with their African sisters and brothers. This is confusion - confusion created and maintained by the enemy - capitalist imperialism. No oppressed person can have the same interest as their oppressor. The imperialist's anti-African propaganda is aimed at achieving three things:
THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES
"The determined and conscious resistance to penetration and foreign domination, we have seen, is a constant
feature in the drive for the assertion and preservation of African people. The people possess a rich tradition of
fighting, of armed opposition and of socio-cultural resistance to colonial rule ... domination has never been
- Ahmed Seku Ture
We Are African Period. We know this instinctively, for example, when we see Africans in Azania/South Africa being attacked we get angry; when we see Africans suffering in Ethiopia - we feel their pain; when we see Africans addicted to crack in Harlem - we know these are our people. Unfortunately, instincts only lead us to reaction, to spontaneous rebellion, it will not lead to a solution.
In the 1980's Africans had riots in Braxton, England, and Miami, Florida, against police brutality and in Azania/South Africa we had major uprisings. African youths with sticks and stones battled South African troops in the streets. Combined Angolan, Cuban, and SWAPO forces handed South Africa a crushing defeat in southern Angola. Led by SWAPO, the Namibian people have liberated their territory from South Africa.
While these courageous events remind our people that we can never be defeated, African people continue to suffer
everywhere. The primary problem is that our struggle is not coordinated, while our enemy works in concert against
While 50% of Africans in the USA live on or under the poverty line, $8 billion is sent to Israel; which is used to oppress the Palestinian people. The Western imperialists, led by the USA, funnel money and military weapons through Israel to South Africa to slaughter our children. Imperialism operates on a global perspective. Secret agencies of Britain, France, Israel, South Africa, USA conduct joint military action against Africans - acts such as the invasion of Grenada a country of 110,000 African people or the bombing of Libya, a state in northern Africa.
No small group of Africans can defeat imperialism, no matter how good their intentions. Only the working, struggling African masses can do it. But to do so, we must be organized and bound together by a common goal and guided by correct ideas. In other words, the masses must be correctly organized!
NECESSITY OF ORGANIZATION
Organization is necessary because without organization there is no way to channel all the energies of all the people who want to work for our betterment and improvement. Organization is necessary because without it we leave ourselves open to the oppressors' tactic of "divide and rule." Organization is necessary to ensure that we as a people respond quickly when the situation dictates it.
Organization is necessary because oppressed people have never defeated the enemy (oppression) without it. If our problems were temporary then our solution could also be temporary; but our problem is ongoing and in order to solve it once and for all we must have a permanent On-going solution. Pan-Africanism, is the only solution for Africans scattered and suffering worldwide.
The solution to our problems as a people is Pan-Africanism - The Total Liberation and Unification of Africa under Scientific Socialism. As Kwame Nkrumah said:
"It is an objective which, when achieved, will bring about the fulfillment of the aspirations of Africans and people of African descent everywhere. It will at the same time advance the triumph of the international socialist revolution..."
Pan-Africanism solves the problem of micro- nationalism; which prevents us from seeing beyond the boundaries of the islands or countries in which we were born. It lets us see Africa as our nation - a nation that is abundantly rich in resources which can be harnessed for the suffering African masses scattered throughout the world. With a liberated, unified and socialist Africa, poverty, the lack of housing, inadequate diet, poor healthcare and irrelevant education become things of the past.
All Africans will work, produce and receive the things that are needed to survive and develop. There will be no more privileged few while the masses suffer. This also means an African society with no exploitation. Women, the same as men, will work to reconstruct our societies. The purpose of production will be the improvement of the quality of life for all - unlike under capitalism where production is for maximization of profit for the few at the expense of the masses.
THE NEED FOR IDEOLOGY
Pan-Africanism is not an objective that can be achieved by simply snapping one's fingers. To achieve Pan- Africanism, we must be organized and guided by an ideology, a system of thoughts, beliefs, and values which helps us to view the world properly and directs us toward our goal. Through ideology, we learn how to organize our society and our very lives. This ideology is NkrumahismTureism, named after Presidents Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Seku Ture.
Nkrumahism-Tureism is the only correct and scientific ideology for the African Revolution. Nkrumahism-Tureism takes it name from the consistent, principles, practices, and policies followed, implemented and taught by Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Seku Ture. This ideology is articulated in their speeches, writings, actions, achievements and life.
Nkrumahism-Tureism provides Africans with a set of uncompromising principles, a scientific, revolutionary view of Africa and the world. It also gives Africans a scientific methodology and a set of analytical tools which will enable the masses of African people to correctly interpret, understand, redeem and reconstruct Africa.
An ideology alone is not sufficient We must have an organization as a vehicle through which our ideology can be put into practice, hence the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP). At the moment we are a small but growing organization seeking to organize the 900 million Africans throughout the world into one organization in order to struggle for Pan-Africanism. As an independent, mass political Party, we want to organize Africans into the A- APRP.
We also have a Women's wing inside our Party, the All-African Women's Revolutionary Union (A-AWRU), who's chief goal is to educate and organize ' the whole Party around women's emancipation from sexism.
Membership in the A-APRP is open to all Africans who understand and accept the Party's ideology (NkrumahismTureism), and its objective (Pan-Africanism). Members must undergo a rigorous process of political education, requiring members to:
We urge everyone to join a political organization seeking to advance the African Revolution. If you are already in an organization we urge you to work to heighten the level of political education inside your organization and advance the unification and liberation of Africa.
The identity question is a critical one. The imperialists understand this. Whenever and wherever imperialist powers go they attempt to destroy the national identity of occupied peoples. This is to give the illusion that the people and the land they occupy never existed.
We would like to suggest that you join the All-African Peoples' Revolutionary Party. We invite you to join and help build the A-APRP. Yes, it is time we drop the hyphenated identity and come to identify ourselves as AFRICANS PERIOD!
For more information:
A. A. P. R. P.
P. O. Box 4681
St. Louis, MO 63108
(314)725-0040 or 534-4630
Attend African Liberation Day May 27-28, 1994 Cincinnati, Ohio