On May 28 and 29, a newly
established Pan-Africanist alliance of student associations and left political
parties convened the Pan-African Youth Summit in Dakar, Senegal. The theme of
the day was “Toward a Second Wave of Liberation Struggle.”
The event took place after months of preparation and ideological work to ensure
the outcome was a progressive seed for a new anti-capitalist and
anti-imperialist advance-guard alliance in the region.
 Thomas Sankara: ‘we must dare to invent the future’ |
The summit was an overwhelming
success, with over 120 individuals present consisting of students and activist
representatives from throughout Senegal and other West African countries. The
summit was a timely response to the increasing pace of foreign militarization,
poverty and inequality threatening the popular classes of the region.
Despite having normative
multiparty systems and regular elections, the shell of democracy in West
African countries has been used by military juntas and comprador elites to
enrich themselves and their cronies off the region’s mineral and oil resources.
Interference from foreign powers
The grip of internal corruption
has been strengthened by interference from foreign powers in the political and
economic affairs of the region. In recent months, the U.S. military has been
training soldiers in West Africa for a confrontation with “jihadists” under a
new U.S.-Africa command.
The motive of these mobilizations is to establish client states in the region
that can secure strategic natural resources and promote American military and
corporate interests. The relationship between internal elites and foreign
imperialist powers in West Africa today is exactly what Ghanaian President
Kwame Nkrumah forewarned as neo-colonialism, a system of domination designed to
“perpetuate colonialism while at the same time talking about freedom.”
The central coordinator of the
Pan-African Youth Summit, Masake Kane, believes the gathering was one
significant step in the right direction by voicing the need to resist
imperialist strategies in West Africa.
“I thought the summit was
successful in bringing together a lot of young people and creating a space for
them to ask questions about the responsibilities of being revolutionaries in a
West African context,” he said. “This was an important step in building strong
and effective movements on both a national and regional basis.”
The summit highlighted the need to
expose linkages between political officials and existing state bureaucracies
aligned with transnational corporations and foreign military bases. In this
way, struggles for popular democracy and the redistribution of mineral wealth
must be directly linked to a political confrontation with the system of
imperialism.
New regional alliance
After the event, coordinators
agreed to establish a new regional alliance known as the League of
Revolutionary Pan-Africanists. The central task of the League is to raise
political awareness among youth that only an organized popular struggle against
the neo-colonial state can liberate the region from the thieves in power.
The unequal material conditions of
West Africa are favorable to vibrant political and social struggles against domestic
elites and their external financiers. However, many young Africans lack
revolutionary consciousness around the necessity of mass organization and
direct action to construct a new society. Decades of military dictatorship,
crony capitalism and government collusion with foreign imperialists have
fostered a political culture of apathy and alienation among many young Africans
who believe there is no alternative to the status-quo.
Veteran revolutionary parties from
Senegal provided a historical perspective of anti-imperialist and socialist
movements in the region’s past with examples from the generally progressive
anti-colonial period. Several summit discussion panelists urged young
revolutionaries to develop a mature dialectical perspective of social change in
their countries and not to become disillusioned.
Perhaps, the most lively group
discussion of the summit came during the final panel session on the potential
impact of a revolutionary Pan-Africanist movement on the international fight
against imperialism and global financial capitalism. The discussion touched on
the Bolivarian Revolution in Latin America, peasant revolts in South Asia and
the continuing significance of the Cuban Revolution. Panelists included a
leader from the German-based Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and a representative
from the Senegalese-Cuban Friendship Association.
After the summit, dozens of youth
expressed interest in joining a core leadership of West Africans committed to
sparking a second wave of liberation struggles. In the coming weeks,
coordinators look forward to opening a path toward general membership and
coordinating political education study groups. The Pan-African Youth Summit was
in every way a re-commitment to the vision of former Burkinabè revolutionary
Thomas Sankara, who urged the young generations of Africa that “we must dare to
invent the future”!
