Black Africans Eye Arab African Muslims Warily

[Title edited]

At the risk of appearing to be insufficiently obsessive about Scott Thomas Beauchamp in the eyes of his defenders, here’s a post on something else in which I’m interested.

Last month, the African Union (AU), which is composed of 53 of the continent’s nation-states, held a summit in Accra, Ghana to discuss the possibility of forming a more permanent union--a United States of Africa. The location of the summit--the Ghanaian capital--was a symbolic nod to post-colonial Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah whose dream it was that all of Africa would federate under a singular government.

The staunchest proponent of a fully united Africa turned out to be Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi:

At the Accra summit we are going to get straight to the point. Let those who are hesitating, get out of our way! For 40 years all the summits have failed, our micro-states have no future.

However, many black Africans, heads of state and otherwise, viewed Gaddafi’s eagerness with a great deal of suspicion--and not simply because of the Gaddafi persona--and pushed for a more gradual approach to African unity. Some attendees at the summit were rather diplomatic about their reservations.

Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua

charged his colleagues "to focus more on the urgent task of strengthening and consolidating internal governance and growth structures at the moment", adding that Nigeria favours a "gradualist approach to the establishment of a Union Government in Africa." [SNIP]

"This brings me to another critical variable in this debate: the degree of our commitment to our continental body and the essence of our Africanness. To the extent that we continue to subscribe and owe more allegiance to extra-continental bodies to the neglect of the AU, our steps towards functional integration will remain faltering."

He further enjoined African leaders to channel their energies towards improving facilities that are fundamental to the integration of Africa such as transportation, communication, power, agricultural and education.

Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni:

"In Uganda, we are not in favour of forming a continental government now," he said.
"It will bring together incompatible linkages that may create tension rather than cohesion," the Ugandan leader continued. "This will especially be so if you bring together groups which want to impose their identity on others. I cannot give up my identity for anything.

"While economically I support the integration with everybody, politically we should only integrate with people who are either similar or compatible."

(All emphasis mine.)

Tanzanian Social Scientist Joseph Mihangwa Shinyanga of James Shikwati’s African Executive has little need for such niceties, however, and spells out the reasons which black Africans--even Muslims like Yar'Adua--are suspicious of the aims of Gaddafi and his Northern African allies--members of the extra-continental Arab League.

I am no racist, but it is true that Arabs of North Africa relate with [black] Africans the same way the Boers relate with Africans in South Africa. That is why their allegiance with the AU is suspect. They can’t serve the AU and Arab League at the same time because blood is thicker than water.

The Arabs invaded and captured Northern Africa around 639 BC. To date, they dominate Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. [SNIP]

African Arabs never regard themselves as Africans but rather as Arabs living in Africa. If they don’t change this perspective, Africa will never unite. This stand is evident in the late Gamel Abdel Nasser’s sentiments in Philosophy of the Revolution that “we live in Africa but we are not Africans.”

In the Accra Powers Conference, (1958), out of the eight independent nations that attended; Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan and Egypt, only Ethiopia, Ghana and Liberia defended pan africanism. The rest favored the Arab league, a stand they have not changed to date. These are some of the countries that were touting a one-government Africa.

The Arab league is out to front the Arab agenda through the AU over black Africans. The same Gaddafi who fronted for a united Africa in Accra, has been on the front line destabilizing Mali, Chad and Niger with a view of bagging them into the Arab League. Gaddafi armed Dictator Idi Amin of Uganda against Tanzania arguing that he was aiding a Muslim nation against a non Muslim one. In Darfur and Mauritania, African ‘Arab’ rulers are chasing black Africans away from their own land and bringing Arabs to take their place. Secret slavery is happening in Mauritania. Just recently, General Hassan of Sudan [President Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir] told the military: “we neither want to see these slaves (blacks) in Sudan nor need them. What we need is their land.”