Ghana
Looking to Nkrumah -
Change-Making And The Political Economy
18 June, 2009 | by Kofi Mawuli Klu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With a view to wresting Ghana and Africa at large from the entrenched
control of neocolonial institutions, Kofi Mawuli Klu looks to Kwame
Nkrumah's legacy for inspiration.
African community regeneration'.
We must proceed from our Nkrumaist standpoint of the clear
recognition of Ghana today as a mal-developed and still under-
developing neocolony firmly lodged in the capitalist stranglehold of
globalising European imperialism. It is important to always bear in mind
that American imperialism, which does not originate from, nor serve the
strategic interests of, the indigenous peoples of the Americas nor of
Africans in the Americas, is a creation, and indeed, an indispensable
part, of European imperialism. Knowing very well our own African
people worldwide, and knowing also 'the enemy' in terms of the world
strategy of imperialism - as explained by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah in
one of his classics, 'Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare' (1968) - will
emphasise to us the imperative of seriously approaching the political
economic tasks of progressive people-centred change-making in Ghana
today from an Nkrumaist standpoint on the basis of the Osagyefo's own
exhortation that: 'Truth must always be told. It is a proof of strength,
and even the hardest truth has a positive aspect which can be used.'
PRESIDENT MILLS AND CHAIRMAN RAWLINGS:
DIFFERENCES IN GOING TO THE IMF AND WORLD BANK
To those who have raised the valid question of what are the differences
between President Fiifi Atta Mills and his government of the National
Democratic Congress (NDC) on the one hand and, on the other,
Chairman Flight-Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings of the Provisional
National Defence Council (PNDC), when approaching the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), the so-called World Bank and similar thinktanks
and neoliberal zombie deployment institutions and agencies of
imperialism, I dare say the possibilities of a difference may lie in the
following:
- The Mills presidency is operating, with a considerable degree of 'rule-
of-law' decency so far, within a multiparty liberal framework of
bourgeois democratic governance, while Chairman Rawlings and the
PNDC had operated quite arbitrarily within a no-party authoritarian
framework of military-bureaucratic tyranny that was cleverly
manipulated, through the mechanisms of neocolonialism, to serve the
global capitalist system of the bourgeois dictatorship of imperialism. In
spite of deserving commendation for maintaining Ghana as an oasis of
relative peace in West Africa, Rawlings as the first president of the
Fourth Republic of Ghana only made cosmetic reforms that kept his
Bonapartist reign intact within this framework.
- The Mills presidency appears so far to be giving due respect to the
independence of various actors on the Ghanaian political scene, pro-
imperialist as well as anti-imperialist, including those of us endeavouring
to adhere to a true Nkrumaist Pan-African revolutionary socialist
orientation. The voices of the progressive forces of many tendencies are
still being allowed to be freely expressed in the country, without
insistence upon co-opting progressive elements into governmental and
other institutions, structures and mechanisms of the neocolonialist state
machinery of imperialism in Ghana today. Though not certain about the
disposition towards repression of progressive forces by the security
agencies and other bodies and organs of the state, we share the view
that the Mills presidency is most unlikely to allow itself to be misused
for harassing progressive activists, chasing them out or brutally forcing
them to flee out of Ghana simply for carrying out their own independent
politico-ideological and organisational activities.
- Progressive forces are not being obstructed by President Mills in
publicly raising awareness, educating ourselves and the masses and
organising from the grassroots to enable people to know the truth about
imperialism in the colonial and neocolonial experiences of Ghana and
Africa and about the workings of the IMF, the so-called World Bank
and similar other institutions and agencies in the mechanisms of
imperialism, as explained by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah in his book,
'Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism' (1965). Indeed, pro-
Nkrumah forces have, within the first 100 days of the Mills presidency,
been given the huge advantage in the declaration to make the birthday of
Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah the national founder's day of the republic of
Ghana! In so doing, President Mills has demonstrated his readiness to
boldly take risks and to not hesitate to even gamble for the progressive
cause of our Pan-African revolution for global justice by daring, so early
in his tenure of holding office, to stake his political career on open
identification with the foremost Pan-Afrikanist freedom-fighting man of
destiny. To appreciate the remarkable bravery in this feat of President
Mills, we must always bear in mind that the politico-ideological legacy
of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah is still being deemed by most reactionary
as well as opportunistic forces not only on the Right, but also on the
pseudo-Left of the political spectrum, throughout Africa and the rest of
the world today, as the most dangerous pan-Africanist revolutionary
weapon for effectively combating imperialism and definitively winning
global justice for 'the wretched of the earth'. Nobody who seriously
identifies openly with the Nkrumah legacy, particularly at the helm of
the neocolonialist state machinery of imperialism in Africa as we have in
Ghana today, will have a smooth ride in any governmental office.
These hugely important factors make it greatly possible for a
qualitatively different type of relationship to be imposed by our
progressive forces between the government and people of Ghana on the
one hand, and the IMF and the World Bank and their global capitalist
bosses of imperialism on the other. We can do so by working our
hardest in building principled unity, eschewing sectarianism, careerist
opportunism and self-defeating egomania. This will enable us to pool our
resources and our rich diversity of mass organisations, networks and
campaigns locally, nationally and internationally together so as to
establish an impregnable, formidable and powerful watch of emergent
revolutionary-democratic people power over transactions between the
government of Ghana and the IMF and World Bank and all other
external and internal forces of reaction, with a view to ensuring the
transparent defence of the best interests of the masses of our Ghanaian
people at home and abroad. This is mostly what our progressive forces,
objectively taking our real strengths and weaknesses into account, can
do amidst our current circumstances today and into the near future.
One thing some of us, from the knowledge we have gained in our
modest acquisition of revolutionary theory and engagement in
revolutionary practice at home and abroad for decades, must now
candidly say out loudly, truthfully and clearly, particularly to the hearing
of new generations of the seekers of freedom, justice and progress
throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa, is this: No government,
whatever its radical pedigree of leadership and even with the most
revolutionary-sounding rhetoric and programmes of action, is going to
be able to successfully steer countries such as Ghana away from dealing
with the vampire-likes of the IMF and World Bank and following, to a
greater or lesser extent, the neocolonialist diktat of imperialism along the
dependent capitalist road of under-development and mal-development,
without the proper revolutionary-democratic conscientisation of the
masses of our wretched of the earth to rise up to its defence. The
institutions and agencies of imperialism cannot be ignored by any kind
of government in Ghana until progressive forces have successfully done
their mass conscientisational work to the extent that, rising up with their
own conscious strength, in their own rich diversity of various forms of
organisation and in various modes of resistance, the wretched of the
earth are able to self-determinedly propel themselves into the front ranks
of a genuine anti-imperialist alliance and enable the best of their own
freedom-fighters to become the spearhead and vanguard of the struggle
for their own self-emancipation.
PROGRESSIVE FORCES IN GHANA TODAY: AN OVERVIEW
Ghana today has progressive forces of various tendencies which are
striving to better organise themselves. Nevertheless, such progressive
tendencies so far exist as organised activists only in small groups of
mostly petty-bourgeois elements working in cabals. This includes even
those with socialist and other revolutionary-sounding names that are
largely declarations of intentions in terms of what they are wishing to
grow into eventually. They still are very much divorced and, sometimes,
even grossly alienated from the masses of our wretched of the earth,
unable to seriously combat their own liberalism, and therefore steeped in
sectarian cabalist intrigue-weaving, fractious competition and
undisciplined amateurism. No wonder, therefore, that they cannot yet be
taken seriously as the force capable of victoriously waging the
necessary anti-imperialist struggle in Ghana for the true Nkrumaist kind
of Pan-African revolution that will triumphantly propel our country
successfully towards 21st century socialism.
Until we can get our revolutionary organisational tasks correctly done,
and demonstrate that with the proven results of drawing millions of the
masses of our wretched of the earth from the grassroots into
independent revolutionary struggle, transforming revolutionary ideas into
the material force of masses in motions of revolutionary practice, with
the expression of their own revolutionary creativity in a rich diversity of
various forms of organisation and modes of resistance even beyond our
preconceived thoughts, top-down control and scholastic drawing board
prescriptions, the small groups of activists of various progressive
tendencies among Ghanaians at home and abroad will have to face the
realities of our circumstances as they actually are in our here-and-now.
That must embrace the very clear recognition of the need for us to have
a multi-pronged approach, including the prioritisation of grassroots mass
conscientisational work, alongside giving our critical support to like-
minded elements whenever they happen to be in pro-democracy regimes
with some considerable doses of genuine patriotic fervour and justice-
leaning 'rule-of-Law' decency, such as we now appear to fortunately
have in Professor Fiifi Atta Mills and John Mahama at the helm of the
new NDC Government in Ghana today.
POSITIVE ACTION POINTS FOR CHANGE-MAKING IN
GHANA'S POLITICAL ECONOMY
Having drawn attention to these factors, we proceed to now candidly
put forward the following positive action points of working in the
sphere of political economy towards change-making in Ghana from an
Nkrumaist perspective. We do so, by way of reminder, with the
strongest emphasis on the above-mentioned exhortation of Osagyefo
Kwame Nkrumah, which AmÃÂlcar Cabral also reiterated as: 'Claim
no easy victories. Tell no lies.' The positive action points are as follows:
1) Recognition of the economy of Ghana as an integral part of the
African domains of the colonial and neocolonial capitalist exploitation of
the world, mainly by globalising European imperialism, which now has
updated its European Union's grand policy of a global Europe, and
competing in the world in order to exert an even tighter neocolonial
capitalist stranglehold upon Africa in the wake of its currently
escalating, multidimensional crisis.
2) Effective, durable change can only happen when radical
transformation in Ghana becomes part of an all-African people's national
democratic revolutionary process to complete the Pan-African national
liberation revolution by gearing it towards a true socialist orientation so
as to be able to thoroughly eradicate the vestiges of colonialism and
overthrow the neocolonialist domination of imperialism throughout the
continent and the diaspora of Africa. This means changing towards the
direction of 21st century socialism the entirety of our politico-
ideological, economic and socio-cultural development, with the
commanding heights of the economy of Ghana and most of the
continent and diaspora of Africa being put, under the leadership of the
true All-Afrikan People's Revolutionary Party (AAPRP) envisaged by
Nkrumah, in the people power control of a new state machinery of
people's revolutionary democracy. This shall function primarily to unify
the efforts of African progressive forces all over the world into
concertedly building a super powerful Union of People's Democratic
Republics of Afrika, which some of us choose to call
MAATUBUNTUMAN. This must be understood in the light of the
Nkrumaist axiom of seeking first the political kingdom, in order to first
and foremost secure in Ghana and/or some other 'liberated zones'
throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa, the authentic people
power of the African personality with which the other battles for a
genuine people-centred economy and other things can effectively be
won for an irreversible victory of our Pan-African revolution for global
justice, geared towards the successful achievement of 21st century
socialism.
3) Work towards MAATUBUNTUMAN in Ghana today demands giving
truthful Nkrumaist critical support to the pro-Nkrumah tendency of
President Mills, not only in words but more so in deeds, and doing so
strategically and tactfully in order to consolidate the principled unity of
all genuinely progressive tendencies within and beyond the NDC around
Professor Mills and John Mahama. That is why some of us have
decided to support the initiative of the Operation GHANADIKAN which
is seeking to rally the widest possible array of the masses of our
Ghanaian people, together with all other interested progressive forces at
home and abroad, so as to inject grassroots dynamism into galvanising
support for President Atta Mills in his change-making endeavours,
particularly in the socio-economic and cultural spheres. We share the
view of those who deem such initiatives to be very much needed now,
in order to draw greater numbers of the masses of our Ghanaian people
at home and abroad into working together with progressive forces
within and beyond the NDC, towards fulfilling the Nkrumaist vision of
Ghana's strengthening herself, through African personality
empowerment, into becoming the impregnable bridgehead of Pan-
African community regeneration for sustainable world development in
furtherance of global justice for all.
4) Without a thorough grasping, in its wider meaning, of the Pan-
Africanist revolutionary conceptualisation of the struggle for global
justice as it elucidates Nkrumah's axiom about seeking first the political
kingdom in terms of starting to lay the strongest possible foundations
for building true people power in enemy as well as contested zones
throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa, there can be no
successful change of anything in the economy, let alone other spheres
of life, in Ghana today. Moreover, this is a prerequisite for any attempt
at a radical departure from the implementation of the policies dictated to
Ghana as one of the peripheral neocolonial domains of the metropoles of
European imperialism through its institutions, agencies and networks of
capitalist globalisation such as the IMF and the so-called World Bank.
Any premature attempt of wishful thinking to spontaneously depart from
implementing the prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank and
similar institutions of the global capitalist diktat of imperialism to Ghana
and other African countries, without the necessary mass organisational
work at local, national and international levels by progressive forces, will
only result in terrible disasters even worse than those caused by
previous misadventures such as the Ethiopian experience with the Derg,
the Sankara experience in Burkina Faso and the Ghanaian experience of
the so-called '31st December' revolutionary process. Indeed, some of us
do entertain fears that any reckless adventurism which allows agent
provocateurs from the mushrooming pseudo-revolutionary cabals within
and beyond the pro-Nkrumah movement to do the neocolonialist dirty
work of imperialism by undermining the presidency of Professor Atta
Mills, as the opportunistic taking advantage by those who recently tried
in vain to cause mischief with the so-called Yahuda Security Company
Palaver had threatened to do, may only plunge Ghana into the
reactionary bloodbath of a situation such as what occurred under
President Salvador Allende in Chile in the 1970s.
5) There must be a full grasping of the most vitally important of all our
points: the conscientisation of the masses of our wretched of the earth,
including the independent revolutionary democratic organisation of the
workers, poor peasant-farmers, impoverished women, destitute youth
and students and all other Mmoborowa sections of our population, and
involving not only political but also collectivising economic production
formations such as cooperatives, community and other social
enterprises as well as a wide range of not-for-profit ventures in
grassroots enterprising creativity, as part of the plans of Operation
GHANADIKAN. These must be pursued vigorously with immediate
urgency from now on and made by progressive forces to take off well
before any pressure is mounted upon President Fiifi Atta Mills to stop
giving priority to dealing with the IMF and the World Bank and similar
institutions and governments of imperialism. Indeed, it is my own
candid opinion that, until our progressive forces at home and abroad
have done what is expected of us as spelt out above, we must actively
encourage President Mills and his government to prioritise neocolonialist
fire-fighting dealings with all the powers and institutions of imperialism,
upon the indispensable condition of doing so with as much transparency
as can possibly be agreed upon with them so as to shed local, national
and international limelight on such transactions in the full glare, not only
of the masses of our Ghanaian people, but also of the entire world,
particularly of all the Pan-African and other contingents of the global
justice movement. Otherwise, it will be the height of agent provocateur
incitement to disaster, which shall certainly play into the dirty
neocolonialist hands of imperialism, as witnessed to some extent in
Zimbabwe, to go into headlong confrontation with imperialism,
especially on economic matters, without having prepared well in
advance for it locally, nationally and internationally. The most vital of all
such preparations is facilitating the genuine people's democratic
revolutionary conscientisation of the masses from our African
personality perspective, including the galvanisation of the politico-
ideological, economic and cultural reorganisation of the masses for their
own community self-defence in its broadest possible manifestations. By
this we mean reorganisation in terms of modernising our traditional
Asafo formations into better equipped communities of resistance for self-
defence ideologically, geopolitically, economically, culturally, morally,
psychologically, spiritually and more within the context of Pan-African
community regeneration for sustainable world development in
furtherance of global justice.
The initiative in this comprehensive grassroots reorganisation of the
masses for holistic community self-defence, in the present
circumstances of Ghana, must be seen as the revolutionary duty of
independently self-organising progressive forces, in the first and
foremost instance, rather than the priority responsibility of President
Mills and his government. Of course, we must strategically and tactfully
exert pressure upon President Mills and his government to give due
recognition, advice and support to the self-reliant economic
organisational creativity efforts of the masses of our Mmoborowas in
particular, demanding provisions such as favourable small credit and
loan schemes, appropriate technological facilitation, capacity building,
global citizenship educational link-networking and other
conscientisational and logistical support, as for example is being
requested by the likes of the peasant-farmers' networking leader,
Asafobaatan Komla Dwamena of the NGOYISUSU-Adieyiekuafo
Brigade part of the newly emergent ADIEYIEMANFO Movement of
Positive Action Networks.
This is the time to correct one of the biggest mistakes most of us have
been making as far as organising for revolution in Ghana and other parts
of the continent and diaspora of Africa is concerned. Most of us have
focused more upon the need for political organisations and have ignored,
oftentimes even denied, the importance of and the need for, other forms
of organisation, particularly economic, cultural and faith-spiritual forms
of organisation. We have glossed over the fact that all freedom-fighting
political organisations that have successfully battled to spearhead
victorious revolutions, more so those of socialist orientation, including
the Bolsheviks and the communist parties of China, Vietnam and Nepal,
have always had, even during periods of armed struggle, a wide array of
economic, cultural and even sports formations to support their political
organisations, usually in an arrangement of concentric circles! The
necessity for economic and cultural formations to enhance the strength,
mass outreach and multi-tasking efficiency of revolutionary political
organisations cannot be denied, particularly within our African context.
AmÃÂlcar Cabral has made one of the best cases for revolutionary
formations of Pan-African resistance culture to strengthen freedom-
fighting political organisations in his brilliant Eduardo Mondlane
Memorial Lecture on 'National Liberation and Culture', which he
delivered on 20 February 1970 at Syracuse University, Syracuse, in
New York, USA. The case for economic forms of organisation as an
integral part of the broad concentric circular networks of our movement
of resistance to the colonial and neocolonial exploitation of imperialism
now has to be strongly made. We do not have to wait to build such
economic forms of organisation until after the victory of our revolution.
Indeed, collective forms of economic organisation, such as cooperatives
and community and other social enterprises, can themselves become
very powerful schools of the theory and practice of revolution,
experiential lifelong learning schools of revolutionary socialism, in
addition to helping to raise funds, to generate resources and to build the
political economy of our resistance movement. The case for building
such collectivising forms of economic organisation as revolutionary
schools to enhance not only the political might but also the ideological
strength of our freedom-fighting movement, particularly in the most
decisive times of the heated contest for power between our new order
of the revolution and the old status quo of reaction, can be illuminated
also in terms of the following pertinent axiom of Osagyefo Kwame
Nkrumah: 'Revolution has two aspects. Revolution is a revolution
against an old order; and it is also a contest for a new order. The
Marxist emphasis on the determining force of the material
circumstances of life is correct. But I would like also to give great
emphasis to the determining power of ideology. A revolutionary ideology
is not merely negative. It is not a mere conceptual refutation of a dying
social order, but a positive creative theory, the guiding light of the new
emerging social order.' (Kwame Nkrumah, 'Consciencism: Philosophy
and Ideology for Decolonization', 1970)
CONCLUSION
Now, therefore, is not the time for our progressive forces to be
demanding of President Mills to stop dealing with the IMF, the so-called
World Bank and other similar institutions and agencies of imperialism.
Now is the time for our progressive forces, particularly those of true
Nkrumaist orientation, to help in diverse ways and means in the
organisational, politico-ideological, economic, cultural and spiritual
arming of the masses of our wretched of the earth not only in Ghana
but also throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa, indeed all over
the world, in accord with our contemporary demands of pan-African
community regeneration for sustainable world development in
furtherance of global justice. Doing so effectively will inevitably lead to
the time when the long-suffering masses of our Mmoborowas, at their
own chosen moment, shall begin, with their own strength of true people
power, to make it not only unnecessary, but also impossible, for
anybody in government throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa
to prioritise dealing, in typical neocolonialist fashion, with the
institutions, agencies and networks of imperialism, with a view to
obtaining foreign prescriptions as solutions to the developmental
problems of Africa and the worldwide community of African people.
Then will they set themselves in irreversible motion along the
revolutionary path charted by the likes of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah
towards MAATUBUNTUMAN in the 'Forward ever, backward never'
pursuit of genuine pan-African community regeneration for sustainable
world development in furtherance of global justice for all!
* Kofi Mawuli Klu is the chief executive commissioner of
PANAFRIINDABA, the All-Afrikan People's Community Consultative
Commission in Europe.
Looking to Nkrumah -
Change-Making And The Political Economy
18 June, 2009 | by Kofi Mawuli Klu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With a view to wresting Ghana and Africa at large from the entrenched
control of neocolonial institutions, Kofi Mawuli Klu looks to Kwame
Nkrumah's legacy for inspiration.
- While broadly optimistic
about Ghana's potential
under President John Atta
Mills, Klu cautions that
achieving effective change
will rely on supporting
progressive forces through
both words and deeds and the
ability to involve the
country's masses in an
ongoing process of
'conscientisation'. If country
and continent are to liberate
themselves from external
influence, the author
concludes, the focus must be
on drawing on the cultural,
organisational and politico/
African community regeneration'.
We must proceed from our Nkrumaist standpoint of the clear
recognition of Ghana today as a mal-developed and still under-
developing neocolony firmly lodged in the capitalist stranglehold of
globalising European imperialism. It is important to always bear in mind
that American imperialism, which does not originate from, nor serve the
strategic interests of, the indigenous peoples of the Americas nor of
Africans in the Americas, is a creation, and indeed, an indispensable
part, of European imperialism. Knowing very well our own African
people worldwide, and knowing also 'the enemy' in terms of the world
strategy of imperialism - as explained by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah in
one of his classics, 'Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare' (1968) - will
emphasise to us the imperative of seriously approaching the political
economic tasks of progressive people-centred change-making in Ghana
today from an Nkrumaist standpoint on the basis of the Osagyefo's own
exhortation that: 'Truth must always be told. It is a proof of strength,
and even the hardest truth has a positive aspect which can be used.'
PRESIDENT MILLS AND CHAIRMAN RAWLINGS:
DIFFERENCES IN GOING TO THE IMF AND WORLD BANK
To those who have raised the valid question of what are the differences
between President Fiifi Atta Mills and his government of the National
Democratic Congress (NDC) on the one hand and, on the other,
Chairman Flight-Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings of the Provisional
National Defence Council (PNDC), when approaching the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), the so-called World Bank and similar thinktanks
and neoliberal zombie deployment institutions and agencies of
imperialism, I dare say the possibilities of a difference may lie in the
following:
- The Mills presidency is operating, with a considerable degree of 'rule-
of-law' decency so far, within a multiparty liberal framework of
bourgeois democratic governance, while Chairman Rawlings and the
PNDC had operated quite arbitrarily within a no-party authoritarian
framework of military-bureaucratic tyranny that was cleverly
manipulated, through the mechanisms of neocolonialism, to serve the
global capitalist system of the bourgeois dictatorship of imperialism. In
spite of deserving commendation for maintaining Ghana as an oasis of
relative peace in West Africa, Rawlings as the first president of the
Fourth Republic of Ghana only made cosmetic reforms that kept his
Bonapartist reign intact within this framework.
- The Mills presidency appears so far to be giving due respect to the
independence of various actors on the Ghanaian political scene, pro-
imperialist as well as anti-imperialist, including those of us endeavouring
to adhere to a true Nkrumaist Pan-African revolutionary socialist
orientation. The voices of the progressive forces of many tendencies are
still being allowed to be freely expressed in the country, without
insistence upon co-opting progressive elements into governmental and
other institutions, structures and mechanisms of the neocolonialist state
machinery of imperialism in Ghana today. Though not certain about the
disposition towards repression of progressive forces by the security
agencies and other bodies and organs of the state, we share the view
that the Mills presidency is most unlikely to allow itself to be misused
for harassing progressive activists, chasing them out or brutally forcing
them to flee out of Ghana simply for carrying out their own independent
politico-ideological and organisational activities.
- Progressive forces are not being obstructed by President Mills in
publicly raising awareness, educating ourselves and the masses and
organising from the grassroots to enable people to know the truth about
imperialism in the colonial and neocolonial experiences of Ghana and
Africa and about the workings of the IMF, the so-called World Bank
and similar other institutions and agencies in the mechanisms of
imperialism, as explained by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah in his book,
'Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism' (1965). Indeed, pro-
Nkrumah forces have, within the first 100 days of the Mills presidency,
been given the huge advantage in the declaration to make the birthday of
Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah the national founder's day of the republic of
Ghana! In so doing, President Mills has demonstrated his readiness to
boldly take risks and to not hesitate to even gamble for the progressive
cause of our Pan-African revolution for global justice by daring, so early
in his tenure of holding office, to stake his political career on open
identification with the foremost Pan-Afrikanist freedom-fighting man of
destiny. To appreciate the remarkable bravery in this feat of President
Mills, we must always bear in mind that the politico-ideological legacy
of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah is still being deemed by most reactionary
as well as opportunistic forces not only on the Right, but also on the
pseudo-Left of the political spectrum, throughout Africa and the rest of
the world today, as the most dangerous pan-Africanist revolutionary
weapon for effectively combating imperialism and definitively winning
global justice for 'the wretched of the earth'. Nobody who seriously
identifies openly with the Nkrumah legacy, particularly at the helm of
the neocolonialist state machinery of imperialism in Africa as we have in
Ghana today, will have a smooth ride in any governmental office.
These hugely important factors make it greatly possible for a
qualitatively different type of relationship to be imposed by our
progressive forces between the government and people of Ghana on the
one hand, and the IMF and the World Bank and their global capitalist
bosses of imperialism on the other. We can do so by working our
hardest in building principled unity, eschewing sectarianism, careerist
opportunism and self-defeating egomania. This will enable us to pool our
resources and our rich diversity of mass organisations, networks and
campaigns locally, nationally and internationally together so as to
establish an impregnable, formidable and powerful watch of emergent
revolutionary-democratic people power over transactions between the
government of Ghana and the IMF and World Bank and all other
external and internal forces of reaction, with a view to ensuring the
transparent defence of the best interests of the masses of our Ghanaian
people at home and abroad. This is mostly what our progressive forces,
objectively taking our real strengths and weaknesses into account, can
do amidst our current circumstances today and into the near future.
One thing some of us, from the knowledge we have gained in our
modest acquisition of revolutionary theory and engagement in
revolutionary practice at home and abroad for decades, must now
candidly say out loudly, truthfully and clearly, particularly to the hearing
of new generations of the seekers of freedom, justice and progress
throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa, is this: No government,
whatever its radical pedigree of leadership and even with the most
revolutionary-sounding rhetoric and programmes of action, is going to
be able to successfully steer countries such as Ghana away from dealing
with the vampire-likes of the IMF and World Bank and following, to a
greater or lesser extent, the neocolonialist diktat of imperialism along the
dependent capitalist road of under-development and mal-development,
without the proper revolutionary-democratic conscientisation of the
masses of our wretched of the earth to rise up to its defence. The
institutions and agencies of imperialism cannot be ignored by any kind
of government in Ghana until progressive forces have successfully done
their mass conscientisational work to the extent that, rising up with their
own conscious strength, in their own rich diversity of various forms of
organisation and in various modes of resistance, the wretched of the
earth are able to self-determinedly propel themselves into the front ranks
of a genuine anti-imperialist alliance and enable the best of their own
freedom-fighters to become the spearhead and vanguard of the struggle
for their own self-emancipation.
PROGRESSIVE FORCES IN GHANA TODAY: AN OVERVIEW
Ghana today has progressive forces of various tendencies which are
striving to better organise themselves. Nevertheless, such progressive
tendencies so far exist as organised activists only in small groups of
mostly petty-bourgeois elements working in cabals. This includes even
those with socialist and other revolutionary-sounding names that are
largely declarations of intentions in terms of what they are wishing to
grow into eventually. They still are very much divorced and, sometimes,
even grossly alienated from the masses of our wretched of the earth,
unable to seriously combat their own liberalism, and therefore steeped in
sectarian cabalist intrigue-weaving, fractious competition and
undisciplined amateurism. No wonder, therefore, that they cannot yet be
taken seriously as the force capable of victoriously waging the
necessary anti-imperialist struggle in Ghana for the true Nkrumaist kind
of Pan-African revolution that will triumphantly propel our country
successfully towards 21st century socialism.
Until we can get our revolutionary organisational tasks correctly done,
and demonstrate that with the proven results of drawing millions of the
masses of our wretched of the earth from the grassroots into
independent revolutionary struggle, transforming revolutionary ideas into
the material force of masses in motions of revolutionary practice, with
the expression of their own revolutionary creativity in a rich diversity of
various forms of organisation and modes of resistance even beyond our
preconceived thoughts, top-down control and scholastic drawing board
prescriptions, the small groups of activists of various progressive
tendencies among Ghanaians at home and abroad will have to face the
realities of our circumstances as they actually are in our here-and-now.
That must embrace the very clear recognition of the need for us to have
a multi-pronged approach, including the prioritisation of grassroots mass
conscientisational work, alongside giving our critical support to like-
minded elements whenever they happen to be in pro-democracy regimes
with some considerable doses of genuine patriotic fervour and justice-
leaning 'rule-of-Law' decency, such as we now appear to fortunately
have in Professor Fiifi Atta Mills and John Mahama at the helm of the
new NDC Government in Ghana today.
POSITIVE ACTION POINTS FOR CHANGE-MAKING IN
GHANA'S POLITICAL ECONOMY
Having drawn attention to these factors, we proceed to now candidly
put forward the following positive action points of working in the
sphere of political economy towards change-making in Ghana from an
Nkrumaist perspective. We do so, by way of reminder, with the
strongest emphasis on the above-mentioned exhortation of Osagyefo
Kwame Nkrumah, which AmÃÂlcar Cabral also reiterated as: 'Claim
no easy victories. Tell no lies.' The positive action points are as follows:
1) Recognition of the economy of Ghana as an integral part of the
African domains of the colonial and neocolonial capitalist exploitation of
the world, mainly by globalising European imperialism, which now has
updated its European Union's grand policy of a global Europe, and
competing in the world in order to exert an even tighter neocolonial
capitalist stranglehold upon Africa in the wake of its currently
escalating, multidimensional crisis.
2) Effective, durable change can only happen when radical
transformation in Ghana becomes part of an all-African people's national
democratic revolutionary process to complete the Pan-African national
liberation revolution by gearing it towards a true socialist orientation so
as to be able to thoroughly eradicate the vestiges of colonialism and
overthrow the neocolonialist domination of imperialism throughout the
continent and the diaspora of Africa. This means changing towards the
direction of 21st century socialism the entirety of our politico-
ideological, economic and socio-cultural development, with the
commanding heights of the economy of Ghana and most of the
continent and diaspora of Africa being put, under the leadership of the
true All-Afrikan People's Revolutionary Party (AAPRP) envisaged by
Nkrumah, in the people power control of a new state machinery of
people's revolutionary democracy. This shall function primarily to unify
the efforts of African progressive forces all over the world into
concertedly building a super powerful Union of People's Democratic
Republics of Afrika, which some of us choose to call
MAATUBUNTUMAN. This must be understood in the light of the
Nkrumaist axiom of seeking first the political kingdom, in order to first
and foremost secure in Ghana and/or some other 'liberated zones'
throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa, the authentic people
power of the African personality with which the other battles for a
genuine people-centred economy and other things can effectively be
won for an irreversible victory of our Pan-African revolution for global
justice, geared towards the successful achievement of 21st century
socialism.
3) Work towards MAATUBUNTUMAN in Ghana today demands giving
truthful Nkrumaist critical support to the pro-Nkrumah tendency of
President Mills, not only in words but more so in deeds, and doing so
strategically and tactfully in order to consolidate the principled unity of
all genuinely progressive tendencies within and beyond the NDC around
Professor Mills and John Mahama. That is why some of us have
decided to support the initiative of the Operation GHANADIKAN which
is seeking to rally the widest possible array of the masses of our
Ghanaian people, together with all other interested progressive forces at
home and abroad, so as to inject grassroots dynamism into galvanising
support for President Atta Mills in his change-making endeavours,
particularly in the socio-economic and cultural spheres. We share the
view of those who deem such initiatives to be very much needed now,
in order to draw greater numbers of the masses of our Ghanaian people
at home and abroad into working together with progressive forces
within and beyond the NDC, towards fulfilling the Nkrumaist vision of
Ghana's strengthening herself, through African personality
empowerment, into becoming the impregnable bridgehead of Pan-
African community regeneration for sustainable world development in
furtherance of global justice for all.
4) Without a thorough grasping, in its wider meaning, of the Pan-
Africanist revolutionary conceptualisation of the struggle for global
justice as it elucidates Nkrumah's axiom about seeking first the political
kingdom in terms of starting to lay the strongest possible foundations
for building true people power in enemy as well as contested zones
throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa, there can be no
successful change of anything in the economy, let alone other spheres
of life, in Ghana today. Moreover, this is a prerequisite for any attempt
at a radical departure from the implementation of the policies dictated to
Ghana as one of the peripheral neocolonial domains of the metropoles of
European imperialism through its institutions, agencies and networks of
capitalist globalisation such as the IMF and the so-called World Bank.
Any premature attempt of wishful thinking to spontaneously depart from
implementing the prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank and
similar institutions of the global capitalist diktat of imperialism to Ghana
and other African countries, without the necessary mass organisational
work at local, national and international levels by progressive forces, will
only result in terrible disasters even worse than those caused by
previous misadventures such as the Ethiopian experience with the Derg,
the Sankara experience in Burkina Faso and the Ghanaian experience of
the so-called '31st December' revolutionary process. Indeed, some of us
do entertain fears that any reckless adventurism which allows agent
provocateurs from the mushrooming pseudo-revolutionary cabals within
and beyond the pro-Nkrumah movement to do the neocolonialist dirty
work of imperialism by undermining the presidency of Professor Atta
Mills, as the opportunistic taking advantage by those who recently tried
in vain to cause mischief with the so-called Yahuda Security Company
Palaver had threatened to do, may only plunge Ghana into the
reactionary bloodbath of a situation such as what occurred under
President Salvador Allende in Chile in the 1970s.
5) There must be a full grasping of the most vitally important of all our
points: the conscientisation of the masses of our wretched of the earth,
including the independent revolutionary democratic organisation of the
workers, poor peasant-farmers, impoverished women, destitute youth
and students and all other Mmoborowa sections of our population, and
involving not only political but also collectivising economic production
formations such as cooperatives, community and other social
enterprises as well as a wide range of not-for-profit ventures in
grassroots enterprising creativity, as part of the plans of Operation
GHANADIKAN. These must be pursued vigorously with immediate
urgency from now on and made by progressive forces to take off well
before any pressure is mounted upon President Fiifi Atta Mills to stop
giving priority to dealing with the IMF and the World Bank and similar
institutions and governments of imperialism. Indeed, it is my own
candid opinion that, until our progressive forces at home and abroad
have done what is expected of us as spelt out above, we must actively
encourage President Mills and his government to prioritise neocolonialist
fire-fighting dealings with all the powers and institutions of imperialism,
upon the indispensable condition of doing so with as much transparency
as can possibly be agreed upon with them so as to shed local, national
and international limelight on such transactions in the full glare, not only
of the masses of our Ghanaian people, but also of the entire world,
particularly of all the Pan-African and other contingents of the global
justice movement. Otherwise, it will be the height of agent provocateur
incitement to disaster, which shall certainly play into the dirty
neocolonialist hands of imperialism, as witnessed to some extent in
Zimbabwe, to go into headlong confrontation with imperialism,
especially on economic matters, without having prepared well in
advance for it locally, nationally and internationally. The most vital of all
such preparations is facilitating the genuine people's democratic
revolutionary conscientisation of the masses from our African
personality perspective, including the galvanisation of the politico-
ideological, economic and cultural reorganisation of the masses for their
own community self-defence in its broadest possible manifestations. By
this we mean reorganisation in terms of modernising our traditional
Asafo formations into better equipped communities of resistance for self-
defence ideologically, geopolitically, economically, culturally, morally,
psychologically, spiritually and more within the context of Pan-African
community regeneration for sustainable world development in
furtherance of global justice.
The initiative in this comprehensive grassroots reorganisation of the
masses for holistic community self-defence, in the present
circumstances of Ghana, must be seen as the revolutionary duty of
independently self-organising progressive forces, in the first and
foremost instance, rather than the priority responsibility of President
Mills and his government. Of course, we must strategically and tactfully
exert pressure upon President Mills and his government to give due
recognition, advice and support to the self-reliant economic
organisational creativity efforts of the masses of our Mmoborowas in
particular, demanding provisions such as favourable small credit and
loan schemes, appropriate technological facilitation, capacity building,
global citizenship educational link-networking and other
conscientisational and logistical support, as for example is being
requested by the likes of the peasant-farmers' networking leader,
Asafobaatan Komla Dwamena of the NGOYISUSU-Adieyiekuafo
Brigade part of the newly emergent ADIEYIEMANFO Movement of
Positive Action Networks.
This is the time to correct one of the biggest mistakes most of us have
been making as far as organising for revolution in Ghana and other parts
of the continent and diaspora of Africa is concerned. Most of us have
focused more upon the need for political organisations and have ignored,
oftentimes even denied, the importance of and the need for, other forms
of organisation, particularly economic, cultural and faith-spiritual forms
of organisation. We have glossed over the fact that all freedom-fighting
political organisations that have successfully battled to spearhead
victorious revolutions, more so those of socialist orientation, including
the Bolsheviks and the communist parties of China, Vietnam and Nepal,
have always had, even during periods of armed struggle, a wide array of
economic, cultural and even sports formations to support their political
organisations, usually in an arrangement of concentric circles! The
necessity for economic and cultural formations to enhance the strength,
mass outreach and multi-tasking efficiency of revolutionary political
organisations cannot be denied, particularly within our African context.
AmÃÂlcar Cabral has made one of the best cases for revolutionary
formations of Pan-African resistance culture to strengthen freedom-
fighting political organisations in his brilliant Eduardo Mondlane
Memorial Lecture on 'National Liberation and Culture', which he
delivered on 20 February 1970 at Syracuse University, Syracuse, in
New York, USA. The case for economic forms of organisation as an
integral part of the broad concentric circular networks of our movement
of resistance to the colonial and neocolonial exploitation of imperialism
now has to be strongly made. We do not have to wait to build such
economic forms of organisation until after the victory of our revolution.
Indeed, collective forms of economic organisation, such as cooperatives
and community and other social enterprises, can themselves become
very powerful schools of the theory and practice of revolution,
experiential lifelong learning schools of revolutionary socialism, in
addition to helping to raise funds, to generate resources and to build the
political economy of our resistance movement. The case for building
such collectivising forms of economic organisation as revolutionary
schools to enhance not only the political might but also the ideological
strength of our freedom-fighting movement, particularly in the most
decisive times of the heated contest for power between our new order
of the revolution and the old status quo of reaction, can be illuminated
also in terms of the following pertinent axiom of Osagyefo Kwame
Nkrumah: 'Revolution has two aspects. Revolution is a revolution
against an old order; and it is also a contest for a new order. The
Marxist emphasis on the determining force of the material
circumstances of life is correct. But I would like also to give great
emphasis to the determining power of ideology. A revolutionary ideology
is not merely negative. It is not a mere conceptual refutation of a dying
social order, but a positive creative theory, the guiding light of the new
emerging social order.' (Kwame Nkrumah, 'Consciencism: Philosophy
and Ideology for Decolonization', 1970)
CONCLUSION
Now, therefore, is not the time for our progressive forces to be
demanding of President Mills to stop dealing with the IMF, the so-called
World Bank and other similar institutions and agencies of imperialism.
Now is the time for our progressive forces, particularly those of true
Nkrumaist orientation, to help in diverse ways and means in the
organisational, politico-ideological, economic, cultural and spiritual
arming of the masses of our wretched of the earth not only in Ghana
but also throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa, indeed all over
the world, in accord with our contemporary demands of pan-African
community regeneration for sustainable world development in
furtherance of global justice. Doing so effectively will inevitably lead to
the time when the long-suffering masses of our Mmoborowas, at their
own chosen moment, shall begin, with their own strength of true people
power, to make it not only unnecessary, but also impossible, for
anybody in government throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa
to prioritise dealing, in typical neocolonialist fashion, with the
institutions, agencies and networks of imperialism, with a view to
obtaining foreign prescriptions as solutions to the developmental
problems of Africa and the worldwide community of African people.
Then will they set themselves in irreversible motion along the
revolutionary path charted by the likes of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah
towards MAATUBUNTUMAN in the 'Forward ever, backward never'
pursuit of genuine pan-African community regeneration for sustainable
world development in furtherance of global justice for all!
* Kofi Mawuli Klu is the chief executive commissioner of
PANAFRIINDABA, the All-Afrikan People's Community Consultative
Commission in Europe.
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