Rev Left Radio - African Revolutions and Decolonization: Intro to Pan-Africanism (Guerrilla History)

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

With this episode of Guerrilla History, we launch into Pan-Africanism as a great additional starting point to our series on African Revolutions and Decolonization.  We bring on two marvelous guests, Prof. Layla Brown and Jacquie Luqman, to discuss the history, theoretical currents, and modern expressions of Pan-Africanism.  This is a 2+ hour masterclass, you certainly won't want to miss a moment of it!   Also subscribe to our Substack (free!) to keep up to date with what we are doing:  guerrillahistory.substack.com   Layla Brown is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology & Africana Studies and affiliate faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Brown’s research focuses on Pan-African, Socialist, and Feminist social movements in Venezuela, the US, and the broader African Diaspora.  She is a member of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC), and can be found on twitter @PanAfrikFem_PhD.  She also cohosts the Life. Study. Revolution podcast alongside Charisse Burden-Stelly.   Jacquie Luqman is a radical activist, journalist, and is a coordinator with Black Alliance for Peace.  You can follow some (but not all!) of her writings at Black Agenda Report, and watch her show Luqman Nation on Black Liberation Media. She is on twitter @luqmannation1. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

Hello, everybody. So today we are going to put on our feed, today and tomorrow, a couple episodes from our good friends and comrades over at guerrilla history. They're doing a series on African revolutions and decolonization and extensive series that I think is really important and really interesting, historically, theoretically, and just conceptually for those of us on the left to understand revolutions and decolonization movements in Africa in particular. And they're doing this really, really cool series on African resistance revolution and decolonization that we wanted to promote on our RSS feed and give people an episode or two to listen to and hopefully we'll then migrate over, subscribe to guerrilla history and listen to the other episodes in this growing series. And they wrote a little short little article kind of promoting the African Revolution and decolonization series that I want to read for you so you can get an idea of the the series and what they're trying to do with it. So founders of the militant podcast, guerrilla history, Henry Hakamaki, and Adnan Hussein

introduced their new series on African revolutions and decolonization. Focusing on African struggles and revolutions, they invite listeners to encounter radical perspectives from the continent and beyond, challenge their assumptions about history, and learn about the struggles of those who dared to resist depression in Africa. Hakamaki and Hussein argue for a nuanced understanding of the revolutionary movement, that define Africa's past and continue to shape its future. In a world decisively shaped by the legacies of colonialism, imperialism, and the extension of capitalism, the importance of studying African revolutions and the process of decolonization cannot be overstated.

The guerrilla history's upcoming 30-part series, African Revolutions and Decolonization on the Guerrilla History podcast, endeavors to illuminate the complexities surrounding these topics, combining case studies of revolutionary struggles, as well as thematic and theoretical explorations of political and economic processes across the continent and its place in the global system. By engaging deeply with historical examples and vital intellectual currents, guerrilla history aims to forge a rich understanding of the revolutionary dynamics that have shaped Africa and the world. The significance of this undertaking is multi-layered. First and foremost, examining African revolutions is critical for understanding the broader narratives of global resistance against colonial and imperial forces. The revolutionary movements that emerged throughout the continent from Algeria's struggle for independence in the 1950s to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa

offer invaluable insights into the mechanisms of resistance, solidarity, and the fight for self-determination. These experiences are not confined to the annals of history. They resonate culturally and politically, in contemporary society, informing current struggles against neocolonialism and globalization. Recognizing how these historical narratives inform today's socio-political landscapes can empower current movements seeking justice and equality. In addition to highlighting the specific case studies of revolution, this series will focus on the thinkers whose ideas have been instrumental in articulating revolutionary theory and praxis. The work of figures like

Franz Fanon, Samir Amin, and Walter Rodney challenged dominant narratives and provide frameworks for understanding the complexities of colonialism, identity, and resistance. By delving into their critical writings and analyses, we uncover the philosophical underpinnings

that have guided revolutionary thought in Africa, as well as challenge Eurocentric and hegemonic narratives of the imperial core. These intellectual legacies are fundamental, as they not only critique the mechanisms of oppression, but also envision emancipatory futures, based on freedom, justice, and equality. Our engagement with these thinkers is not merely academic. It is a vital

exploration of the ideas that continue to inspire movements around the continent and world. One of the critical components of this series will be bringing guests from the African continent to contribute their voices, expertise, and lived experiences, engaging directly with scholars, historians and activists from Africa is an essential aspect of this project. This commitment arises from guerrilla history's appreciation that a usable past must incorporate narratives from those who have lived it and have a contemporary stake in changing their circumstances. Sadly, historical narratives are frequently shaped by external perspectives that can distort the realities of the people involved in revolutionary struggles. By ensuring that

guerrilla history is amplifying radical African voices throughout this series, they aim to represent the continent's revolutionary and decolonial history responsibly, while enriching our discussions with diverse perspectives that challenge Eurocentric interpretations. Moreover, hosting guests from across the continent serves to bridge the gap between theory and practice. The guests will provide firsthand accounts of revolutionary movements and the ongoing struggles against legacies of colonialism. Their contributions will help ground the discussions in experiences, which allow listeners to better grasp how these movements were not only struggles of the past, but are also relevant to the historical processes that play out in

everyday life and continue to influence contemporary political landscapes. We believe that by incorporating these voices, we can enhance our understanding of both historical contexts and the ongoing significance of revolutionary thought in navigating today's socioeconomic challenges. Furthermore, our focus on African revolutions and decolonization aligns with our broader mission as a podcast dedicated to anti-imperialist Marxist analyses. In a current geopolitical climate characterized by increasing militarization, economic inequality, and ideological conflict, it is imperative to revisit the lessons of past revolutions. The struggles against colonial rule and oppression offer critical insights

that can inform current approaches to solidarity and resistance. This series will not only highlight the historical struggles of the past, but will facilitate critical discussions on how these lessons can guide contemporary activism within and beyond Africa, as well as linking struggles throughout the global south and between revolutionary movements in the north and the south. By exploring these themes, guerrilla history aims to foster a deeper understanding of the revolutionary spirit that has pervaded African history. In doing so, they hope to contribute meaningfully to the academic discourse on African politics and history, while also engaging a broader activist audience in the complex

complexities of revolutionary theory and practice. This series is an invitation to listeners, to rethink the narratives they have encountered, challenge their assumptions about history, and honor the struggles of those who dare to resist oppression. Through guerrilla history, they aspire to promote a nuanced understanding of the revolutionary movements that define Africa's past continue to shape its future. By engaging deeply in the complex realities of African revolutions and decolonization, guerrilla history endeavors to help listeners grasp the interconnections between historical movements

and contemporary social justice issues fostering a global community committed to supporting and learning from revolutionary thought and action. As guerrilla history presents this journey into the heart of African revolutionary history, they invite scholars, activists, and curious minds alike to engage with these critical discussions and contribute their insights to this vital field of study. So that is their introduction to the series that I think is really well said and incredibly important. Like I said, we're going to release just two of these episodes and a growing and ongoing series just to let listeners on Rev Leff know that it exists, give them a taste of the series and urge people to go over, subscribe on your preferred podcast

app to Gorilla History, and you'll continue to be able to explore this series, African history, revolutions, decolonization movement. etc. And I think it's incredibly crucial. Africa is a crucial continent, historically, presently, and into the future. And it's one of those areas of revolutionary struggle that aren't covered as much as it should be. And so I think anybody who dedicates the time and energy to listening to this series, learning from African voices, you know, incorporating that history into their knowledge base, I think will benefit immensely, not only as a thinking, feeling human being on the planet, but also as a revolutionary. So go check out guerrilla history, subscribe to them on your preferred podcast app, and we will play the first episode of their series right now, and tomorrow we'll release another one. And then after that, go over to guerrilla history, subscribe, and listen to all the other ones. This is a really exciting project, and I love what Henry and Adnan are up to over there.

Enjoy. No. The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The prince had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to guerrilla history, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckimacki, which you may not have known because of my voice today, but yes, I am still Henry Hukimaki, joined as usual by my co-host, Professor Adnan Hussain, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. It's nice to see you today. Good to be with you, Henry. Great to see you. Looking forward to this conversation.

Absolutely. A terrific conversation. And episode two of our series on African Revolutions and decolonization a really, really excellent topic that we have planned. Another somewhat introductory topic after our previous conversation, the introduction to African revolutions and decolonization that we did with Mamadu Tull. This one is a much more conceptual and theoretical episode, but you'll see when we get to it. We have two excellent guests today, people that I am really, really proud to call comrades

and whom I've known for many years at this point. But before I introduce them, I would like to remind you listeners that you can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And you can keep up to date with everything that Adnan and I are doing individually, as well as what the show is doing collectively,

by going to Gorilla underscore Pod on Twitter. Again, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A-U-L-A-U-S-Skod. So, without further ado, as I mentioned, We have two excellent guests who have Professor Layla Brown and we have Jackie Lukman. We'll start with an introduction of Professor Brown, who I'll call Layla from here on out. So Leila is an assistant professor of cultural anthropology and Africana Studies at Northeastern University and is also co-host of the excellent podcast alongside Cherise Burden Estelle, whom listeners of the show will be very familiar with of Life Study Revolution podcast.

Leila, it's nice to have you on the show long overdue, I must say. but can you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself? Thanks so much for having me, and I'm very happy to be back. As you said, I teach cultural anthropology, Africana Studies, and Women's Studies, but I think probably closer to my heart is my membership in the All African People's Revolutionary Party and my specific work as having been assigned to the All African Women's Revolutionary Union Secretariat. And so that is a lot of the capacity in which I am coming here today as a Pan-Afghanist, as a panachronist concern with questions of gender and gender equality. And so I'm happy to be here

and looking forward to this conversation. Absolutely, as am I. We're also joined, as I mentioned, by Jackie Lukman, who is a radical activist, journalist, co-founder of Lukman Nation, and a very good friend of mine going back, as I said many years. Jackie, it's really a pleasure to see you again. It's nice to have you on the show. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself? You bet. And I'm so happy to be back on the show. I appreciate the invitation and really, really happy to be here on this episode with one of my favorite people, Layla Brown. I'm just putting that out there because I fan girl all the time and I'm not even ashamed of it. So I am an organizer on the Coordinating Committee for the Black Alliance for Peace,

co-coordinator of the Mid-Atlantic region and the D.C. Citywide Alliance for the Black Alliance for the Black Alliance for Peace, journalists written for Black Agenda Report, Hood, Communist, and other outlets. And I'm a Pan-Africanist. And I am learning more about my own understanding of Pan-Africanism. I'm learning more about the history of it. And it's only deepening my commitment to Pan-Africanism. And my understanding that none of us will ever be free unless Africa is united and free under scientific socialism. So that's me. Absolutely. And as they mentioned, pan-Africanism is the topic of the day. This is our episode Pan-Africanism, a primer. Throughout this conversation, we're going to cover a lot of ground.

We're going to be talking about the various thoughts that constitute pan-Africanism. It's not just one line of thought, there are various thoughts that go within this broader umbrella of pan-Africanism. We're going to talk about leaders and movements. We're going to talk about development of these movements using pan-Africanism. We're going to talk about the importance of pan-Africanism on the continent itself, which is of course particularly apropos to the series that we're doing and that this episode is included in. But I think that we need to start with a bit of the early history. So let's start off by talking a bit about what What is Pan-Africanism? Where did it originate from? And now a lot of people will turn their attention to the first Pan-Africanist Congress in 1900, which was in London, and think of thought leaders around that time like W.E.B. Du Bois. But I think that there are definitely paths that can be traced far earlier than that, even if that origin point for many is particularly focused in that first Pan-Africanist Congress in 1900. So I'm going to turn it over to you, Jack.

and Layla, whoever wants to go first, to talk about kind of the early origins of what later became more formalized, and again, formalized in terms of, you know, it's a formalized term, even if it's not a formalized, particular line. What eventually led up to this conception of Pan-Afghanism that we then begin to talk about later. So I'll tap in first. I also just want to acknowledge my mutual respect for my my comrade, Jackie. I appreciate you very much. And so I appreciate that shout out. In preparation for this conversation, so I think one, I mentioned already that I'm a member of the All After People's Revolutionary Party, G.C. But what I want to share about that in terms of a little bit

more context is that both of my parents met as members of that party in the late 70s, early 80s. And so it's something that I was born into. And so a lot of my own conception of Pan-Afghanism comes from a particular orientation towards a political application of Pan-Afghanism. But, and I say that to say that, as you mentioned, Henry, there are multiple sort of strains and facets that sort of feed into what we understand to be pan-Afghanism. But in preparation for this conversation, I actually reached out to my father because I remember, I couldn't remember the specific speech and he couldn't remember it either. So hopefully maybe later on I can share it with you and it can be in the show notes. You referenced the speech of

Kwame Tare's, when Khami Torei was actually talking about Kwame Toree for some people formerly known as Stokely Carmichael. And he talked about the fact that as much as we have 1900 as a sort of starting point for the sort of political, intellectual, scholarly manifestations of Pan-Africanism, one of the arguments that he made was that because of the already existing nature of communalism on the African continent, that there are thoughts and ideas. is about the fact that the people of Africa, the peoples of African continent, were moving towards a bigger and a bigger and more developed sort of politically shared understanding of one another,

as humans tend to do, right? So not, this is not some kind of essentialist argument about who Africans were. But because communalism was a sort of essential form of organizing that already existed on the continent, and because as humans, we tend to form larger and larger structures of organizations, there are some people who could say that with that basis, understanding of Pan-Afghanism, which is the continental unity, that there was already sort of pre-modern understandings of a movement in that direction, right? Now, some people can say, will say things like the notion of an African in the sort of broader sense is something that really kind of comes into being with the history of the transatlantic slave trade, right?

And there was somebody who actually get who made an interesting point, the main coordinator of African stream, who's now based in Kenya. He was talking about, he was critiquing the idea that we call it the transatlantic slave trade rather than the European slave trade. Because the Atlantic Ocean has no bearing in the movement of people, right? But it was actually, you know, concocted and orchestrated by Europeans. So I will refer to it as a European slave trade at this point. But that because of the way African peoples were dehumanized and collapsed into, you know, people who did not. necessarily, they weren't distinguished between in terms of language, religion, culture,

whatever. There is, there are some understandings of Africanness coming into being on those ships, right, where people who don't speak the same languages, who don't have the same experiences, but by virtue of their shared experience of being enslaved, come to understand themselves as one people, right? And so then there are people who then talk about the sort of modern iterations of Pan-Africanism as being largely in response to that history of dehumanization, to that history, history of objectification, that history, that history of enslavement. And so this notion of creating a unified Africa under scientific socialism for some people is largely a response to what happens with the dehumanization of ourselves as people's,

as African peoples through the European slave trade. So I think in terms of like a kind of precursor to the 1900 moment, those are some things that I think are important in terms of context. Yeah, absolutely. And when we talk about what it is that pan-Africanism is or what we believe that pan-Africanism is, it is, even from a modern perspective, a recognition that in order to protect ourselves, from external forces that have caused this degradation of our people, the entire continent, we do have to unify as one people in order to expel and protect our people from those kind of outside forces. So like Pan-Africanism is not just, you know, this exercise or

kind of like a cultural exercise in this nebulous or generalized idea of unity. It literally is like it is a political response to a social and economic catastrophe that was committed against a people, right? So there are levels to pan-Africanism that are very interesting, even when we look at the formal coalescing of it as an ideology, to where even in the early days of like the first pan-Africanist Congress, the very thing that we talk about today, which is expelling the colonists from the continent, right? That is the focus of Pan-Africanism today, largely. So it's not now so much we need to be unified. Now we've identified, and correctly so, the primary contradiction to Africans, not just on the continent, but throughout the diaspora. and even recognizing that the diaspora exists because of Europeans, right, because of the European human trafficking of Africans.

So now Pan-Africanism, I think among those of us who do study the history, do understand that it is not a cultural call for just general unity. It is a political movement that is in response and in opposition to the continuing neo-colonial. now, that is going on not just on the continent, but throughout the diaspora. And I think that the modern examination of Pan-Africanism, the need for the unity, not just cultural unity, not just social unity, but also political unity. And in some, many cases, spiritual unity as well, but not in the traditional organized religion kind of sense to political forces, right? So I think that is where the scientific socialism part came in, because that was not a part of the original conception of Pan-Africanism in the first Pan-Africanist Congress, which actually

came out of, was organized in London in 1900. Du Bois, W.E.B. Du Bois attended that conference. And the call for Europe to get out of Africa was not actually a part of that Congress. They were not talking about ending colonization. They actually kind of tried to moderate their demands to because they knew that the Europeans were a bunch of savages because look at what they had done to our people. So they tried to deal nicely with these people in that first Congress. And the response, of course, was nothing. So then the tenor changed, I think, in the next Congress. Because it was clear after that first Congress, when the appeals were, listen, provide education to the people in the colonies because they're human beings, provide housing, because they're human beings, you know, stop overtly oppressing people and provide rights.

There was no call for get out of Africa, you know. And I think that was a strategic kind of move. It is not a call that we would make today. But in the first Pan-African Congress, I get the need to pull back a little bit and say, and not antagonize the very people who are already oppressing you, right? I get that as a strategy. But by the next Pan-African is Congress, there was no more of that. It was like, okay, listen, they need to go.

They need to go. need to be free and we need to get that done however we can. So I think that kind of, what do I want to call it, that kind of progression of Pan-Africanist thought in regard to what we do to protect ourselves is an indication of how the socialist part came into Pan-Afripanism. Because I think that part of Pan-Africanism, a one United Africa under scientific socialism, That scientific socialism part kind of rubs people the wrong way, but I think it is the natural progression because socialism is nothing more than the communalism that our communities have always pretty much carried out in our original environments before our original environments were interrupted by a capitalist exploitation. So this progression in Pan-Africanist thought that a lot of us don't know. happened, I think is very important to uncover because it helps us, I think, to be comfortable with

not understanding Pan-Africanism a lot and being comfortable with our own understanding, progressing and changing over time, which would deepen our understanding and our commitment to Pan-Africanism, I think. Well, that was a wonderful overview of some early beginnings and phenomena that contributed even before the formal conferences to, you know, a survey of the development of this kind of doctrine, ideology, way of resistance and its political orientation. There's a bunch of things I want, I think we'll want to kind of break down and come back to. But maybe to start back at the beginning, I was very intrigued by the discussions and the debates that may have come up about the pre-1900 histories, you might say, of these kinds of solidities and affiliations

that lead to identification of black and African peoples as a collective community with a political project. And Layla, you mentioned, you know, that is so connected in some people's minds with the history of enslavement. And Jack, as you were saying, responses to that, you know, then the political responses rather than just some cultural affiliation. As somebody who studies kind of the pre-modern Mediterranean world, the histories of enslavement, crusade, attempts at colonization that of course begin with, you might say, parts of Europe and then go beyond it by these Western Europeans, before they're even called Western Europeans, but they're kind of the Latin West, Western Christians. In Palestine, for example, they started, you

A lot of people don't know that they started trying to establish sugar plantations there. And they started doing them when they were kicked out in Cyprus. And that they then racialized slavery. It used to be more religious. Like if you're non-Christian, you could be, you know, enslaved. And then it transformed into something that came on to take racialization in the dehumanization, otherization, you know, process. And many of those structures then seems were exported into West Africa with European colonization, enslavement, and so on. And so some people argue, you were alluding to this, Leila, that some people argue that it's the sort of expansion of the slave trade and the particular way was conducted.

You like forge some kind of identity. And I would like to argue and actually suggest maybe it's worth thinking also about, oh no, not only that experience forged some kind of that consciousness and sense of solidarity, but also the history of resistance that brought people together from different parts of speaking different languages, from different religions, from different parts of, you know, the African continent, when they were brought and forced into this system of enslaved labor that was racialized in this proto-capitalist form of the plantation economy, that the resistance is also the history of pan-Africanism,

the Haitian revolution, slave revolts that we know go way back, far before the 1800s into, you know, well before that. And just wondering if we might think a little bit about resistance as a kind of genealogy of pan-Africanism as like just a first sort of thought. And then there's so many other things you brought up that we'll have to talk about and expand on. But I just wanted to put that there just to, do you have any responses to that and how we can

think of that? What are the implications of slave, anti, you know, oppression, and anti-colonial resistance in the diaspora, which is something you mentioned. You know, we're talking about pan-Africanism. Later, its history is much about these states and organizations and developing consciousness of African unity on the continent. But in some ways, there is also a real important history, not only of proto-regional and wider things on the continent, but also what gets forged in the diaspora, very kind of crucial in terms of resistance. Absolutely. I 100% concur. I'm going to start with something that's more modern to come back to that.

So when I teach intro to Africana Studies, I always walk through like a series of speeches by like Kwame Torei, Malcolm Mets. Frederick Douglass and Marcus Garvey with my students. But when we started talking about the civil rights era, one of the things that Kwamey Torei famously said was that civil rights was not for black people. Black people, we did not need to be convinced of our humanity. It was white people who were in control of these countries. I want to say that I meet Europeans, Western Europeans in the Americas,

South Africa, Australia, right? These settler colonies that needed to be convinced of our humanity, right? And so I say that to saying, some people who take issue with notions of Pan-Afghanism take issue with it on the grounds that somehow it collapses the myriad diversity of African peoples. And part of my argument with that is that we know that we are diverse people. We know that we speak different languages and we practice different religions and we engage in different customs and practices. We understand all of these things, right? But that through this experience of being dehumanized, being collapsed into one category, we had to recognize that our strength came from recognizing that we were being oppressed, dispossessed, dehumanized by virtue of something that by accepting that reality, we could become a more forceful entity of resistance, right?

And so accepting an identity as an African does not negate your ebonness, does not negate your kosanis, does not negate your post-colonial national identity as a Haitian or a Jamaican or an African-American, right? Understanding ourselves as African has to do with understanding what this, like, critical moment in history was that actually collapsed us into, you know, one people with a shared experience. that understanding that by virtue of the way they are oppressing us, our strength is in our numbers to respond. We're not going to, we're not going to be able to respond as individuals to our oppression, right? And so, you know, you mentioned the Haitian Revolution. One of the things that I think becomes very sort of evident, I think because of the history of like of Islam, the Quranic studies, we often know that in the Americas frequently enslaved people who were literate had come from Islamic territories, right? And so because of that, there are often

stories of people coming from Islamic territories in Africa who are literate, who are engaging in this process of teaching other enslaved Africans how to read. And this become, and then these processes of teaching one another how to read also become sites of organized rebellion. Because we understand the importance of being able to, okay, so, you know, the Bible, the Quran, begins to be utilized against us in these problematic ways, partially because we don't necessarily have our own readings of these texts, right? And so, you know, I also, so one of my other sort of areas of research is Afro-Latin American Studies. And in my class last week, we were discussing the hemidic curse.

And, you know, I'm not, I didn't go about medieval history. And so, you know, I didn't, I didn't grow up religious. And so I'm sure that either you Adnan or Jackie can do a better job of explaining what the omitted curse is. But my understanding of it being, right, that Noah's sons, Ham is one of Noah's sons, Ham is drunk, he's losing his stuff. His other two sons, you know, they somehow discover their father drunk, but modestly cover him up. But somehow him, who looks upon, gazes upon his father, is a terrible human being for having done. this, right? And now all of, so Canaan, who is, who was Ham's son, and also I think, if I'm correct me, if I'm wrong, also begins to be associated with the African territory, what we know as Africa. There is now this story that because of Ham, gazing upon his father, Noah, in his drunkenness, all of his dissidents are cursed to both blackness and servitude, right? And so then we have these theological, these biblical arguments about why black people, black people are. And so, are destined to be slaves from as it is ordained by God, right?

And so needing to then have ways of disrupting that, you need people who can then read and interpret those texts on their own, right? And to be able to do that, you have to be able to be literate. And so we see even with this kind of early contesting of biblical understandings of dehumanizing us as African people, that we begin to have shared spaces, right, where we speak, where we're saying, okay, well, this story is clearly not true. We need to be able to talk about this. We need to figure out ways to communicate with one another.

And so we begin to develop common languages. And that's why we have things like Haitian Creole, Jamaican Pactoire. We have, you know, African and American vernacular English. We develop these ways in the diaspora of communicating with one another that have elements of our native ethnic languages and have elements of the colonial languages, be they English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, whatever. But these are, I think, in terms of your point, I'm not about sites of resistance, these are some of the early, you know, kind of modular ways that we see people doing that work of saying, oh, no, we need to actually have the ability to contest our dehumanization. And that initial process, I think, of contesting our dehumanization also requires us to see one another as somehow connected to each other. And I think that that is a very sort of embryonic form of pan-Africanism. And let me just add, as the Jesus follower amongst us, I hate that. I hate that story so much. I hate that dumb curse of ham foolishness so much because when I finally read the Bible, because this is what Christians do. And this is, this is across the board. I don't care. I think I will reserve this judgment of Ethiopian Christians. Only because, only because they've got this.

the oldest illustrated Bible in the world that has the most intact books in the world. Okay, so but Westernized Christians, we do a lot of going into these churches with our Bible and our hand in the little cute Bible carriers that the ladies out, because we have, with all the highlighters and the sticky notes and it, and people don't actually read it. People do not actually read the Bible, and I would extend that to most people of most faiths. That it's, look, because these are big old thick texts that are translated from romance languages and sometimes in the case of the Bible, dead languages. They're very hard to get through. Don't really have a, it's not like, you know, a novel, right? It doesn't have a,

a single through line. So the texts are a little bit. dense, kind of hard to get through, but it's not impossible. I have to interrupt you, but when I was reading that, just those verses in class, I was struggling with them myself. So I understand. Right, right. So I contend that as a person of faith, if you can't understand your holy text, I think that there's a problem with some of the things you might be believing about your faith. But the curse of ham is actually a really great example of that kind of problem. Because this idea that Ham was cursed to be black is actually not in the book. That's not the curse. The curse is that Ham and his descendants

would be servants to his brothers and their descendants. Why is that a curse? Because Ham was the oldest. And his brothers were younger than him. So in ancient Aramaic society for the oldest not to receive the birthright and be in control of everybody else, the other siblings,

in order for that to have, and he had to have done something horrible. And in Han's case, the horrible thing that he did was didn't cover his father up when he was drunk. So this completely stupid, it doesn't make any kind of logical sense. And

the part about Ham being cursory, to be black is not in there at all. That is a white supremacist interpretation, misinterpretation of those scriptures that sadly has lived to this day still. And the reason it has lived to this day is because too many of us don't actually read our holy text. That's one of the easiest things to debunk. And we just don't because we don't read it. Yeah. Well, That is definitely a broader problem than just the people you're speaking about with the purse of ham doctrine, but it was obviously very crucial in substantiating for various communities, the dehumanization of peoples that they had enslaved to try and justify it.

And so that's why I think, Layla, you mentioned that the earlier roots of pan-Africanism really had to establish the humanity. That was like the first goal is we are human. We are part of the human family. Of course, we know that that's a very contingent thing because, you know, today we might wonder, like, who has human rights? You know, we see that it's very selectively applied and groups that thought that they had finally been recognized as fully human, you know, these can clearly be withdrawn in practical terms. Who's going to really defend? So that's a contested. That has never stopped needing to be contested. But, you know, following Ford, Jackie I was talking about, is that in addition to that kind

of sense of culture, sense of human, you know, dignity, there arose political demands. And so I want to, you know, come back and talk a little bit more about how the demand for an end to colonialism and what these earlier calls for independence of Africa, an African nations in the context of a colonial world in the early, you know, late 19th and especially the early 20th century when formal kind of gatherings and groups of peoples from the diaspora and from the African continent started to come together to voice political demands. So that first and second and third kind of conferences that lead up to, you know, basically World War II, that sort of period. How did that, you know, what would you say or the key

kind of features of pan-Africanism as it's developing there and particularly this sense of shaping a real genuine political agenda in the context of empires and colonial empires you know the first letter from that first conference was sent to queen elizabeth you know i mean because the british empire was the biggest colonizer in the world but there starts to develop you know something that's, you know, really conceptualizing not just we need to appeal within, you know, the British Empire, but a broader kind of sense of resistance and a broader sense of political, of the need to end colonialism and free Africa. So maybe we could talk a little bit about that. You know, what was Pan-Africanism in that, in that period? And how did colonialism and anti-colonialism

really shape the political agenda? And what did it mean to be independent? What were, what were people struggling for in that period. So Jackie already kind of alluded to this when she started talking about the history of the first Pan African, I want to get the language right, because I think the first, the first were Pan African conferences, and then there was the Congresses. And so in 1900, you know, the early, the sort of first half of the 18th century, I always do that. I always do that wrong, 18, 19th century, but the first half of the 1900s, those conferences were largely organized primarily by diasporic Africans and also diasporic-anglophone Africans. And

diasporic-anglophone Africans who were largely of, you know, upper-class positionality, right? And so you think about a Du Bois, you think about Edward Blyden, you think about George Padmore. Some of these folks are in the sort of early gestational stages of when we're thinking about pan-Africanism. So yes, very early on, I think even though it is crossing national boundaries, some of the diasporic manifestations of Pan-Africanism early on are very sort of limited to the Anglophone, Caribbean, and U.S. experience, right? And so you have these first set of conferences between 1900 and 1945 that none of which take place on the African continent. And even the 1945 conference doesn't take, it's in Manchester. It doesn't take place on the African continent either. but the 1945 conference is a major turning point, so I'll come back to that.

But from 1900 to 1945, we're mostly seeing people who have, who are absolutely experiencing the dehumanization that African peoples experience, but are not necessarily poor working people, right? They are intellectuals. And so when we see some of the, I think, these early appeals to the British monarchy, you know, to other sort of colonial power. hours, it represents, I think, a sort of limitation. And when I say this, I don't mean this in a disparaging way, but it represents a limitation and sort of imagination, but also it represents a response of the time. Because one other thing that we really see that occurs between 1945 and 1960 is that all of a sudden African countries start getting independence. And so what it

means to be independent, like people are really having to figure that out in a real way. That is different from, I think, the intellectual project of Pan-Afghanism. And also, I think the early, those first conferences between 1900 and 1945 have those kind of like problematic tingees of classism and also take on their own problematic renderings of Africans, of continental Africans, right? And so, like, you know, some people mistakenly look to the projects of Liberia and Sierra Leone as progressive political projects. And as much as that, they animate the imagination of repatriation, they are colonial projects. And they are colonial projects that are spearheaded by the formerly enslaved. And so that does not make it any

better, right? And so what begins to happen in 1945 is that the 1945 Congress that takes place in Manchester, England, has a distinctively working class character. Because Kwame and Krumah, who, you know, most people know, Kwame and Krumah was the first president of independent Ghana. But he actually had to spend about 10 years or so studying in the U.S. And this also is very crucial to even how we understand the sort of machinations of Pan-Afghanism. Because Kwame and Krumah as the subject of British Empire, because of the way colonialism took place on the continent, most of these African countries do not in the early 1900s have formal systems of, of education that allow people to develop in particular kind of way, right?

So I think, like, even in the Congo, when Patrice Lamont becomes the power, if I'm not mistaken, I think, like, only, like, single-digit numbers of people in, in the Belgian Congo had anything above a secondary education, right? And so if you think about that as, like, a population with the capacity to lead a country based on credentials, like, there isn't, again, to use Walter Warnies, an intentional underdevelopment there. And so in the case of Enchroma, he has to come to the U.S. He studies at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, which is a historically black college. Obviously, so Ho Chi Minh is considered a part of the Pan-African pantheon, even though he is not an African, right?

But Ho Chi-Men and Vietnam, because of their colonization in France, and he comes into contact with these other Francophone African leaders, right? And so there are these moments of, like, intense cross-pollinization before the, before the, like, era of decolonization. era of independence really sort of takes off where people are thinking about, okay, so this is our experience as Anglophone colonized folks. This is our experience as Francophone colonized folks. This is our experience as lucophone colonized folks. And there are commonalities here, right? And like our, so it's not even just that our enemy is the British. It's not just that our enemy is the French. It's that our enemy is European colonization. Our enemy is pushing back against this Balkanization that happens in the 1800s of the African continent for the benefit of

European wealth, European Empire, right? And so when the 1945 moment happens, we see a push towards a much more a class analysis that I think obviously takes into account, you know, Theckel-Turay of Guinea was very concerned with culture, right? And so some of his early text, he writes about the African personality. He writes about culture in the African context. But in this moment, we see a push towards, okay, it's actually possible, like Ghana becomes independent in 57. And then the All African People's Conference, Congress happens in 1958, I believe. And so we see because there's like this rapid development and expansion of what Pan-Africanism is, which is sort of beyond just the kind of initial impetus to prove ourselves as human beings,

beyond the kind of initial impetus to see ourselves with having a shared experience. But now we need to have an actual political agenda. And that political agenda needs to be one that allows us to fully realize our lives as human beings, which means education, which means health care, which means the right to self-determination, which means the ability to develop agriculture, which means, like, one of my, one of my favorite things that I want to do more exploration on is like when Kwame and Kroma, Sekul-Turay, and Madiubakata of Ghana-Ginni and Mali, form this sort of initial pan-African alliance, the Ghana-Ghidi-Mali alliance.

One of the things that they're trying to do in that moment is even as they're in the nascent stages of the independence, they are trying to say, but these national borders are irrelevant because one of the first things in Krumah says is the independence of Ghana means nothing without the independence of Africa. And so he's trying to model this through this Ghana-Ginney-Mali alliance. And obviously Ghana is colonized by the French. I'm sorry, Ghana is colonized by the British, Mali, and Guinea-Connor creed are colonized by the French. So, but then they're saying, okay, we're going to ignore these borders. We are going to try to create currencies that we can share.

We are going to try to, you know, create, you know, cross-border passports. But one of my favorite is to get rid of intellectual property rights. And to get rid of intellectual property rights is both anti-capitalists, but it's also a particular kind of declaration on what it means to be able to have fair and equal access to information and why that's important for a population. And so this, I think, these are some of the kind of like foundational elements of what some might call political Pan-Africanism, might call revolutionary Pan-Africanism, but this sort of democratizing of access to natural resources, to information, to understanding that an educated, and healthy population is essential to the flourishing of a kind of national project, right? This is what we start seeing happening in the mid-1900s. But again, it's no, we can't ignore the fact that the reason why there's this rapid expansion

is because independence is actually occurring. And so people are having to come up with concrete ideas about what it means to govern ourselves. And I think that even as much as there are these, you know, like there are ideas about the internal colony of black folks in the U.S., and this. brings up other questions, this brings up other questions about indigenity and land. And for me as a panachinist, there is no claim that I make on land in Turtle Island. There's no claim that I make for a new republic of Africa. There's no claim that I make for, you know, a set of states in the south that because we are the majority population that we make a claim on, because I believe in indigenous land rights claims. And so because I recognize that the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island are still here. I cannot make that claim, right, as a Pan-Afghanist. And I think that there are other lines of thoughts about that, but that is not one that I make as a Pan-Afghanist because I understand land as essential to

the question of Pan-Afghanism as indigenous people. And we are not indigenous to this land. We are indigenous to another land. Obviously, I can say more, but I'm going to stop there. Yeah, you know, I have something I want to throw in there. So you mentioned the Congo, and it brings up some statistics that I had annotated in a book. So I pulled out the book to grab my annotations. So of course, when you're talking about the Belgian Congo, the Belgian Congo had been under Belgian sovereign rule under the rule of King Leopold for decades, right? At the time of independence for the Congo, which was decades and decades and decades after colonization had taken place, there was only, and I cannot stress this number enough,

16 secondary school graduates. I'm going to underscore that point again. At the time of independence, there was only 16 secondary school graduates. At the time the population was 13 million. Okay, also sticking with Portugal for a moment, although outside of the Congo, if we look at Mozambique, the Portuguese, and I say sticking with the Portuguese, I understand I'm switching from

Belgium to Portugal, but, you know, colonizes, they all kind of blend together at some point. Anyway, Portugal had some role and kind of dominion over Mozambique for more or less 500 years. In that 500 year period of time, there was not a single doctor that was trained in Mozambique. And again, I'm going to underscore the point. there was not a single doctor trained in Mozambique under Portuguese colonization of the country. And if we look across all of Africa entirely as a continent, keeping in mind that the vast majority was colonized at this period of time, in 1960, at that point, there was only 50 university graduates per year and only one percent of people in school reached the secondary school level.

I mean, this is the legacy of colonialism that they had left behind. There is this narrative that comes forth that these countries were actually better off because they had been colonized by these enlightened, powerful countries that were bringing in ideas and infrastructure and technology. No, I am sorry. That's a complete falsehood. It's a complete lie. All one has to do is scratch the barest of surfaces to uncover the actual data, the actual information of what was being done in colonized Africa. And these numbers are just a few of many that I could cite, but my voice is really, you know, it's something today. In any case, the point is, is that when you look at the legacy of colonialism, this is the legacy of colonialism.

You know, you had mentioned Walter Rodney, and we have a Walter Rodney episode planned, the underdevelopment of Africa is an active process. This is not a passive process that happens due to chance. This is an active process that is carried out by the colonizers for a specific political and economic purpose. So, with that tangent out of the way, I do want to turn back to theorists for a moment. You know, you put out some names out there, Leila, in terms of people who were advancing various streams of pan-Africanist thought. And I know we had mentioned earlier that there were some, I don't want to say diverging pathways of pan-Africanism, but there were certainly some different conceptions of what pan-Africanism was that then became condensed, particularly,

and again, not into a single stream, but they did in some ways become condensed when this pan-Africanist thought that was, as you mentioned, mostly being theorized by the diaspora, then came back to the continent through people like in Krumah, as you mentioned. I know that we can talk about the various organizations that take place and are operating on the African continent, like the OAU, for example, was founded in 1963, which was a direct outgrowth of this influx of pan-Africanist thought back into the continent. And again, back into the continent, because as we had mentioned, the origins for this thought were always present. So I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about some of those diverging threads, the specific

theories and theorists that had these diverging threads of what they considered to be pan-Africanist thought. And then how some of these tendencies were then condensed in some ways. as they were taken back into the African continent and utilized in that struggle for decolonization and for, you know, these revolutionary movements against the colonizers and against neo-colonialism even in the independent era. So, again, I mentioned so early,

so early on, obviously, Du Bois, De Bois, Blyden and Padmore are some of like the kind of early, I don't know if you want to call it a trifectar or what, right? Early thoughts, right? And so, Du Bois, again, you know, this is the Du Bois of the Talented Tenth era, right? And so Du Bois is really still thinking along the lines of sort of, you know, the uplifting of the race, which means that, you know, we've been colonized. You know, obviously people who like to use enslavement on this side of the Atlantic and colonized on that side of the Atlantic.

the Atlantic, but I will also say that we had our own form of colonized mind, right? And so this, this, there was, there was an element of a civilizing mindset, a colonial mindset, to some of the earlier thoughts that were coming from, you know, the likes of Du Bois, right? But George Padmore, because of his involvement with the Communist Party, and then obviously Du Bois later on too, so I, so I do not want to limit Du Bois to who he was at this moment. I'm not doing that at all. He becomes, he not only becomes, but he is essential to our understanding of Pan-Afghanism throughout the entire duration, right? And I think that what I appreciate about Du Bois as a scholar, as a thinker, as an activist, is that he does progress and does so out loud and does so in public, right?

And so, you know, he very much goes from his kind of early origins of the kind of civilizing missions. that also Marcus Garvey was interested in, right? Some of, like, I'm bad at, like, pulling texts right off of my mind. So ideas remain, but text did not, right? And so there, when Amy, when Amy, is this Amy Jakes or Amy Ashway? It might have been Amy Ashway. Well, when she spent time in London early on, she was very much a part of some of these, like, West African civilizing missions.

She was working with students coming out of colonial West Africa. Africa, but still very much with that kind of colonizing mindset of the that of like the masses of African people, right? So like accepting that there are a subset of African folks who have had some kind of access to, you know, some kind of class ascension, you know, mechanisms, right? But then, but then with George Padmore, Judge Padmore's involvement with the Communist Party, later on divorce's, you know, involvement with the Communist Party, we begin to see a sort of influx of a particular kind of political economic economy critique

of what needs to what needs to be developed inside of Pan-Africanism. So again, this is not just a cultural nationalism. This is not just wanting to acknowledge our history as kings

and queens and pharaohs, right? Because the Pan-Africanism that has a class analysis will say that pharaohs and kings and queens are equally, whether they are African or not, are equally a part of the problem, right? because then the way in which they exist in relationship to the masses of people is still an exploitative relationship, right?

And so we begin to see that shift occur with more and more cross-pollinization with the Communist Party, right? But Encruma, who is, you know, one of the foremost sort of theoreticians of, I would say, Pan-Afghanism as a praxis as a political objective, is often touted saying that Garvey's kind of, Black Zionist ideas are very foundational to his early conceptual theorizing of what Pan-Afghanism is, right? Now, obviously, he kind of goes beyond that, but he literally says that Garvey is the single most important thinker to his own development of Pan-Afghanism. And I think what's interesting in that, and I think Jackie kind of made this point earlier, is that as we are wrestling wrestling with these ideas, we can come in at certain places, but we continue to learn and take from others, and we hone and develop what it is that we want to actually achieve, right? And so for me, when I, you know, people refer to Pan-Afghanism as an ideology, as, I don't

know, what are other ways, like, you know, a school of thought, a way of being, all these other things, right? But for me, as a member of the Al African People's Revolutionary Party, we refer to Pan-Afghanism as, first and foremost, a political objective. And that ideologically, we're actually not Pan-Africanist. Ideologically, we are in Crumis-Turais. Other iterations of the party may say Incumis-Turais Cabralist, right? And there are important, I think, distinctions that are made there because obviously, in Crumma study philosophy, right? He studied Marx. There's no, there's no denying that he's influenced by Marx and his, you know, understanding of class relations and how important that is, right? But some of the other things, But some things of Marxism didn't necessarily resonate on the African continent. And one of which I think maybe Jack and can speak more to is actually the question of spirituality, the question of spirit. Because for Encoma as a Christian and Sikoturae as a Muslim and recognizing that whether their populations were Muslim or Christian or some other local religious understanding, religious cosmology, that African peoples are largely a spiritual people.

And so the notion of religion, sort of being the opium, the masses, whether that's an accurate, you know, analysis is not going to work in terms of something to sort of methodologically implement for the masses of African peoples who are acquainted with spirituality in a particular kind of way. And I think what we also understand as Pan-Afghanists is that Marx was an observer of a place and a time. And he was able to condense his understanding of certain things based on what he was looking at that point in time. I don't even know that Marx, as much as he puts force this theory of sort of class antagonism, I don't even, I think that it is Marxists that take Marx in that way and behave as if that is supposed to be a universal way of understanding. There's a universal understanding of this sort of class antagonism, but context matters. And so for folks like Incrumah and folks like Thuray and folks like Cabral, the context of what life as African people looks like matters. And so this is also one of the things that I, one of the reasons why as much as Marxism becomes, I think, critical to some of the political understandings that Panaskism puts forward. Marx is not who we are saying we are putting forward. But scientific socialism as an organizing mechanism for society is, right? Because that doesn't belong to Marx. That doesn't belong to us, right? That is, that is a method of organizing a society economically, right? That is, which is separate from what it is that Marx is attempting

to acknowledge that he is recognizing and theorizing. And so then to me, this becomes the critical point where we recognize Pan-Africanism as a political project, right? And so, and I do think that, like, I tend to stray away from referring to Pan-Afghanism as an ideology because I think ideologically we, it is also our duty to understand our thinkers, our statesmen, our whoever, as having parity in thinking and theorizing, thinking about our realities as African peoples. Yeah, I definitely concur. And the part about, I always laugh at people who, you know, when you tell them that, you know, you are a Pan-Africanist. And I am a Pan-Africanist. And that, you know, that doesn't. just mean conceptually, I think, in my mind about Africans being united in a general sense. No, I do

mean colonists out, neo-colonists out, one united, free, independent Africa under scientific socialism, and that gets, you know, spread throughout the diaspora because that that's what we're talking about, all Africans everywhere, right? So it's funny when I tell people that, that the first thing they say is, oh, you're one of those Marxists. I'm like, no, I just told you. I'm up. I just told you. And then we have to have the conversation about, you know, what Marx said and what Marx didn't say. And I always tell people, I think Marx himself said, all I did was observe the phenomenon. I just took good notes. He just, he took really good notes. So the idea that African unity is always reduced, just like, you know, the unity and self-determination of

indigenous people, First Nations, Pacific Hawaii, you know, all the, the original inhabitants of the, when you get oppressed people together and they realize, wait a minute, we deserve to govern ourselves. We do not want to be wards of your state. We do not want to be citizens of the state you erected on top of our bones after you stole our land. You know, we do not want to be a part of the settler colonial project. We want our freedom. We want our freedom from you. And it's interesting that when the oppressed make that declaration and they go about taking the same steps without the genocide that the oppressors have taken, making the same arguments, right? Because freedom is freedom. We're talking about not oppressing people and people's freedom. We are generally

talking about the same thing until people start imposing into the conversation about freedom and self-determination, this question of nationality or nationalism to be specific. It's because nationality is not the problem. It is nationalism that can be a problem. So when you look at settler colonists who say the same things. You know, we want to be free from the, because isn't that what the Europeans said when they came to this country? We want to be free from the oppression of the British crown. And, you know, the true story was that they were trying to overthrow the British. And the British crown was like, get out. No. So, but they make the same arguments.

But when the oppressed make those arguments, which are nobody wants to be oppressed. Nobody wants to be controlled by another entity, right? Nobody wants to have their human rights denied. And nobody wants to be treated like property and chattel. But this is how oppressed people are treated in every system of oppression that has to do with capitalism and imperialism in this world. Right. So when the oppressed start to express the same aspirations for freedom that the oppressors

claimed when they chose to become oppressors of other people, then all of a sudden those aspirations for freedom and unity, they're illegitimate. And it's very interesting to me how when we talk about pan-Africanism and the pursuit of pan-Africanism as a political outcome as a result, as an end point on this journey, this struggle, this liberation, struggle. This is not just an ideology. It's not just a nice thing that we think about when we blacks get together and put on all our African garb and do our African dances. And we're just having a good time in the name of, you know, this cultural thing called Pan-Africanism. People are comfortable with that, right? People are cool with that. Like we, the Baptist just did a protest of the

Congressional Black Caucus's legislative conference. And there were plenty of those folks walking in and all kinds of beautiful, lovely African garb. Those people do not care about Africa at all because they vote every year to expand Africom to oppress and bomb Africans on the continent, just like they keep voting for more funds for militarized police in our communities here. Right. So the empire, the oppressors are fine with the ideological conception of liberation as a cultural kind of thing that oppressed people do to survive, right, to stay alive or somewhat sane and useful while they're still being oppressed in the colony. But unity and liberation as a political outcome, that automatically necessitates the end of their

existence among us. And they cannot have that. So as soon as we start talking about pan-Africanism as a political outcome with material consequences, both for the benefit of the people, but also to the detriment of the oppressors, then this conversation about political pan-Africanism becomes a threat, even though we're saying the exact same things that the so-called colonists blamed when they decided. decided to steal our stuff and oppress our people. So that, I think, lays the foundation and the groundwork for us to shift the conversation about Pan-Africanism from this cultural, nebulous thing to what we talked about in the beginning. No, this is a political response to our physical, political, real world every day. They're kicking our behinds and stealing our self-oppression. Pan-Africanism is the answer to that, and it is the outcome. come that we seek at the end and not even the end, right? Because once we achieve

pan-Africanism, then we've got to defend that forever. We look at Cuba and Venezuela and we look at Zimbabwe, you know, we look at Vietnam, we look at the Soviet Union, we look at China. So any victory, the people are able to realize we've seen throughout history that we have to defend that victory. And this is, I don't, I don't have a word that I'm comfortable enough using to describe the period after the victories against colonization on the continent. Because to me, that period is reminiscent of the reconstruction era here in the United States where the reconstruction governments were set up allegedly to rebuild the the South, and for the first time in the history of this country, black people, black men at that time, were able to vote and were elected to office. And what happened? Those reconstruction governments were destroyed. And by destroyed, I mean those people were murdered by the clan and their white allies. The same thing happened on the continent with the colonists who were kicked out of many African countries.

So this is why I tell people all the time when I talk about the realities and the victories and the practicality of pan-Africanism. This is not just a nebulous thing we have in our mind. No, we have a history of successes that we should be calling the successful revolutions against colonizing forces on African continents. Those are successes. We won. Our people won. What happened after those successes, though, is the response of the colonizers. Now, because the colonizers were able to come in and convince some compradors, some collaborators to turn against the revolution, that does not mean the revolution wasn't successful.

That doesn't mean that Pan-Africanism didn't work, which is what people tell me. all the time. You know, Thomas Sankar was assassinated. I guess Pan-Africanism didn't work. Why was Thomas Sankar? Why? Why was he a target? Because he won. Do you understand? So we have to really change the way. And this is my kind of personal thing. It drives me nuts to hear people talk about, oh, you know, we've never been unified. We've never won. What are you talking about? What do you mean? The empire, the various empires, suffered losses because we won. And because we won, we won because we fought on pan-Africanist, anti-colonial, anti-imperial, anti-capitalist principles. That is just because the French know they

would be destitute, destitute without Haiti. They had sets would be dark. Do you understand, France would be dark. Like, that's not even an exaggeration. It's more than 40% of France's electoral, electrical power comes from uranium mines in this. So without the uranium from Africa that France is still extracting through neo-colonial influence, France would literally be dark. And this kind of response to those successful liberation struggles is not just meant to secure, you know, to perpetually secure the exploitation of material and human resources in these countries, but it's also meant to do exactly what I just said people do, to dismiss and discredit the idea of political pan-Africanism. See, it couldn't have worked. Look at what we're

still doing to them, right? And we fall for it. And that drives me nuts. Drives me nuts. I mean, just because the devil is there, does that mean you don't have any faith? No, that's not what that means. Tell them, Jackie, the devil's a liar. Every day, every day. Amazing. You know, that was both of your analysis absolutely so sharp and illuminating. It opens up so many interesting thoughts. I mean, I had never really thought about connecting the history of reconstruction to the post-colonial. So-called, I mean, we say post-colonial, but it wasn't after any real colonial. I mean, the colonialism continues, different forms, etc. But that kind of comparison. really puts a lot into perspective. And of course, when you say that, you know, it was successful and this is why, because the political project of Pan-Africanism is what was so dangerous, but that's why these people were assassinated, their projects were undermined, you know, everything was done to destroy these movements that had achieved great political successes.

So you think, I mean, I think about, I've always thought that the, that the reason why, for example Malcolm X was assassinated, you know, was because he started talking about a pan-Africanist project and more than just talking about it. He was connecting the, you know, black struggle, African-American struggle in the United States. And you could say broadly the Americas to decolonization and liberation on the continent as part of a global, much broader pan-Africanist vision. That's one. And more than just talking about it, he went and he started forging connections and alliances. So that's why he became such a dangerous threat. And he became like Patrice Lumumba, like a Thomas Sankara, these sorts of figures. So that was just absolutely fantastic. I feel like maybe in some way we've covered some of what I wanted to ask,

which was just about this role that Pan-Africanism played in the actual decolonization struggle. But you covered a lot of that, Jack. I don't know if maybe there was more either of you want. to discuss, but it did when you mentioned the kind of problem, not of nationality, but of nationalism, which is, of course, a political ideology that is basically a very problematic one. It reminded me a little bit of what, you know, Layla had been talking about, how you have to understand scientific socialism in the appropriate context and how there were tensions trying

to adapt, you know, kind of theory written in the specific context of industrial capitalism in Europe versus, you know, what's happening in the colonies. And so you have a lot of like really generative rethinking from global South African, you know, scholars and intellectuals to kind of reframe this and talk about the particular conditions. One scholar who I always love so much is Franz Fanon, particularly because he was such a theorist of the decolonization process. And what you mentioned, Jackie, about the danger, you know, of nationalism as part of that case can be an outcome of the struggle because you're fighting in a particular location against those who are controlling a particular territory and part

of national consciousness that, you know, Fanon talks about is formed by that colonial administrative relationship. It has the pitfall, which he himself discussed and talked about, of then kind of replay, you know, it's liberation, but if it's only, framed within the context of that relationship and with that ideology of nationalism rather than some broader sense. I don't know if you really talked about it as scientific socialism, but that's essentially what he's saying is that you can't, you have to reframe the economic order, you have to reframe the political order. Otherwise, you're just going to be trapped in this neo-colonial process, which is exactly, of course, what ends up happening. And the people who

could warn about it, who would organize against it, so many of them were killed, murder. and undermined. So, but I don't know if you, you know, want to talk maybe a little bit more about what happened under, you know, through decolonization or if you want to take up what happened basically when you have these post-colonial nation states with their infrastructures, you know, and how that was was set up to perpetuate knee colonialism and divide people through nationalism that is so convenient for the global Western European. order. I would like to add in a little bit on that, if possible. So talking about nationalism is actually something that I was hoping that we could talk about resource nationalism as well and the idea of resource nationalism within a national context versus within a pan-Africanist context, but then also how this concept of resource nationalism plays into neocolonialism as well. So, and how neo-colonialism deals with, and I'm using this euphemistically, with this issue of resource nationalism on the African continent throughout various phases.

So in those earlier phases with people like Sankara, you know, they just, they get rid of him and I'll again use a euphemistic term. Or in Krumah, you know, they coo him when he's out of the country. Whereas in more modern day settings, we are seeing more and more states become. resource nationalistic, not necessarily within a pan-Africanist sense, although we are seeing some developments in this hell that might warrant further discussion as well. But we have seen for the last couple decades actually individual states within Africa take up this kind of post-colonial resource nationalist line. And the way in which the neo-colonists have dealt with it in more recent times is not necessarily through these explicit military coups or assassinating people,

but rather through disciplining. And again, I'm using this euphemistically, through institutions like the IMF and through the World Bank against these various resource nationalistic leaders, movements within individual countries with the explicit purpose of causing extreme deprivation on the people of the country and undermining any sort of nationalistic resource nationalistic ideas within the country, which then, you know, leads me to think, well, if you can't even foster some sort of resource nationalism within a state context, because you are being undermined by these neo-colonial institutions, how are you supposed to foster any sort of pan-African resource nationalism, which is.

is something that would be absolutely essential to throwing off the shackles of neocolonialism as a system. So I just wanted to throw in a couple of those extra little points onto what Adnan was talking about. I know that this is now a very large question, so I'll just end it here. That's okay. I love large questions because I'm sitting here thinking about all the things. So when you mentioned resource nationalism, the first thought I had was an opposing, thought, and that is resource imperialism, right? It's like, nationalism itself can have two different meanings. And one of those meetings is not a bad thing. You know, it's one of those meetings is that nationalism is just advocacy or support for political independence of your

country if you're being oppressed and colonized, right? Ireland is always, like, at the top of the It's, what I'm thinking, when I think of, of, of, of peoples who are pushing for nationalism, fighting for nationalism, it's always Africa and then I always think of Ireland, because people forget that the Irish colonized by the British, still, to the, and they're still fighting for political independence for the British. So the Irish are very nationalist, and I'm not mad at them. Good for them, you know. But then the other. definition of nationalism that is problematic is elevating the importance of your own country above everybody else. It's like it's advocating for it's not just advocating for

equality of your country or recognition, political recognition of your country or your people as a distinct, you know, nationality. That's fine. But when you're talking about what empires do. Britain was in an empire because they believed that Britain was better than every other country on the planet. So Britain had a right to run around the planet and colonize, subjugate, and steal from other countries. Because let's define these words that we're using. Everybody is talking about colonization today, right? There are words that people are using now that I didn't hear people use 20 years ago. People would not have said, you know, colonization. People probably wouldn't have said oppression. The only reason people said apartheid

was because we were fighting against apartheid in South Africa and Rhodesia. You know, so these are words that people are using now that are, it's like a part of the discomfort, the dis-ease in these conversations is because, oh, people are finally using words that we've been talking about are the primary contradictions for our people for decades. But we notice they're using them in a way that is not at all the way that they should be used. So people are looking at nationalism in the context of imperialist oppression as a good thing. Right. So you've got Christian nationalists in this country saying they're proud Christian nationalists because they don't see the subjugation and oppression of other people by Americans as a bad thing. They think that it's their God-given divine right to do

such a thing, right? So when we're talking about nationalism in that form, people will always use that definition when they respond to African nationalists. The problem is, like I said before, and it's not that there are never oppressed people who get a taste of freedom and then don't go, you know, right. I can't say left, because if they all go up, someone, come, Come on now. I can't say they go left because if they went left, we wouldn't be talking about them. They always go right. Yes, there are compradors. There are collaborators within every group of oppressed people who are like, I do not want to live like this anymore. Massa, please pay me to do something. You know, that is just true. So of course, there are Africans

who are collaborators and compradors with the oppressors. Yes. But when the rest of us talk about African nationalism. We are talking about recognizing the independence, the self-determination, the control of resources, and the development of Africa by and for Africans, without the influence or interference of any foreign entity that is not specifically invited in

for the benefit of the people. And I have to always add under scientific socialism toward the end because none of that stuff matters if capitalism is still in place, right? So that is why, from a political standpoint, under scientific socialism is incredibly important. So we get that, you know, that dynamic. Whenever we talk about African independence, African nationalism, folks are always like, well, you know, these leaders, they wanted African independence to the exclusion of other countries. Number one, that's a lie. Not true. Because Layla just told you about the alliance that Mali, Guinea, and Ghana attempted to enter

into, that was crushed mercilessly. And we look at today the alliance of the Sahel states. This is the same alliance that was attempted with the exception of one country. One country has changed, but the idea is the same. And I point this out because the criticisms of African nationalism or pan-African nationalism are not true because of the goals and the aims that this alliance was founded on. And what did Layla say? They said that these countries said these borders are BS. We need to trade amongst each other. We are one people.

We understand that, you know, we are from different ethnic regions and ethnic designations, but we are all African. And this is what we are building our unity on. We are not, we are shrugging off all of the colonial designations of everything. We all respect these borders. We're going to issue inter-country passports. You know, we're going to trade amongst each other. We're not doing this the way the colonists told us.

The alliance of the Sahel states right now, Mali, Guinea-Bissau, and these are exact same principles. So we have Ibrahim Trierre, who is the interim president of Burkina Faso. But he just nationalized a major mining operation. operation in the country. And he has also just survived 18 assassination attempts. 18. So when we're talking about the response of the colonists, the neocolonists, and the neocolonists today are the private corporations, the mining operations, the companies, the extraction corporations that are in league with these foreign governments that are all the former colonizers of these countries, their response is to do the same thing that the colonizers did the first time

around to try to get rid of these leaders with these crazy ideas that they have about resource nationalization of their own resources. So for the colonists, for the capitalists, for the imperialists, resource nationalism is not something they respect. They do not want the people in other countries to control their own resources. They want to control other people's resources. And that's always been the response, always.

And it always will be the response. So this is why I said that when we do reach that point of one United Africa and to scientific socialism, we will have to continue to fight. to defend that because these people are not going to give up those resources that easily, France does not want to be dark. And our response is France needs to stop eating so much avocado toast and stop, you know, buying Starbucks every day and save their money

and be resourceful and send their kids to school for STEM so they can figure out a way to create their own electricity. and get out of African countries still in their Euridium. That is for us, for Pan-Africanists. That is, what we understand that the pursuit of resources that didn't exist in Europe is very foundational to the European slavery project, to the colonization project, and it is still, foundational to imperialism.

Still, and that flies in the face, I think, of some conversations people have in regard to Afro-pessimism, in regard to our connection to Africa, in regard. But there's really no getting around the fact that Africa and the rape of Africa, the continued rape of Africa, resources and people, goes on because of, the greed for other people's resources because of resource imperialism. So the answer to resource imperialism as an aspect of pan-Africanism has to be resource nationalism.

It has to be, no, these are our minds, these are our resources. We are going to mine, this is our stuff. We are going to mine and process and sell these products to other countries for the benefit of our people, not for the benefit of a foreign country. So this kind of resource nationalism is not, we're keeping all our stuff to ourselves, and we don't care what happens to anybody else. No, it's we are going to control our own resources and handle them on the market with whomever we choose, under the conditions that we choose, and under the conditions that are the most beneficial,

for our people, not for the benefit or the profit of a third foreign entity. I just want to say that one of the contributions I was going to make, he was exactly what Jackie said about African nationalism. So I'm going to skip that and just say, preach on. But there were some things that you said before that I wanted to come back to and then I'm going to come back for the question of resource nationalism. So, you know, I think about you brought up the particular examples of like Thomas Ankara and I think about Patrice Lumumba as obviously in that same category,

but both two leaders, two post-colonial African leaders who are assassinated brutally, but had different approaches, right? And I think that what's important about, what's instructive about that is that it does not matter how we comport ourselves. It does not matter if we kindly agree to a peaceful transfer of power or if we say, get the fuck out. You know, it doesn't actually matter because what's at stake is not the sort of, you know, I forget, political, political norms and procedures. Yeah, that's not. Exactly. Exactly. Because, you know, by all intents and purposes, you know, by all accounts, there were actually disagreements with Incrumma and Toure with Lumumba about how he, you know, engaged in the, in the disaggregation. process from the Belgians, right? But that didn't stop him from chopping them up and setting them on fire, right? And whereas Thomas Sankar said, you know, we're going to, we're going to grow our own food. We're going to put our folks in our own clothes. We are going to not pay our state

officials, ridiculous amounts of money. Like, we're really going to, you know, double down this process. And so, like, it doesn't matter. And, like, to your point about, like, how people make this claim, right? So, like, everybody wants to walk around talking about Patrick Henry, give me liberty or give me death. But say what you're saying we prefer poverty. We prefer poverty and freedom than riches in slavery, right? And it's the same logic. But for some reason, for formerly colonized people, that that logic throws in people's faces, right?

And so there is, and also I think the question about African nationalism also is that there are stages of development that I think that we have to go through and that I do not know that we really fully. realized African nations, self-determined African nations with a long enough, with, you know, with enough longevity to be able to see what that really produced. Because at every turn, every moment where there was an attempt, it was taken away and broken down, right? Because, you know, like you mentioned, and Cromwell was on his way to see Ho Chi Men when they overthrew his government, right? You know, one of the examples that I think returned to with resource nationalism. And I think, you know, we don't, you know, the conversation about Pan-Africanism also means that we are always thinking about both what is happening on the continent and there is a primacy, a primacy of what is happening on the continent, but that there are instructive examples in the diaspora, right? And so again, I mentioned that I'm a, excuse me, an Afro-Latin Americanist. And so the research that I do was also predominantly in Venezuela, Cuba. And I've, like, recently been following Francia Marquez and in Colombia. be a little bit more.

But particularly in terms of this question about resource nationalism, right? So one of the things, you know, Venezuela discovered oil, like in the 70s, I think. And Venezuela has always, you know, problematically had a GDP that is overreliant on oil, right?

I think somewhere in the like upper 80s, low 90s, historically. But one of the things that Venezuela did do with nationalizing their access to oil is used that as a tool of leftist diplomacy, right? And they did that through Petro-Carib. And so recently, you know, at our university, we had a screening of this documentary,

The Fight for Haiti, which was about the Petro-Carid protests that occurred in Haiti in 2018. And when they were interviewing some of the, so there's a longer interesting history here, right? Even so, like, people like to think about, you know, Haiti as the first, you know, free back republic in the Western Hemisphere, but also people always want to talk about Haiti's, you know, contemporary political state, right?

They're sort of destitution that it's in because of the core group, because it was leading by the core group, because of the overthrow of ever seen, but also because of the sort of primordial sin of daring to fight for the fight and win, win their own independence, right? And so a lot of people talk about, you know, oh, we have to help Haiti. But one of the things that I always, and this is why I look at Venezuela as I don't want to, I don't make claims as if. the Venezuela nation is only African people, right? But I look at Venezuela as an iteration, a 21st century iteration of pan-Africanism because of some of the political projects that Chavez attempted to engage in, right? And one of which was always acknowledging that in spite of the current political state of Haiti, it is actually Venezuela. It is actually Colombia. It is actually Panama. It is actually Peru. It is actually Ecuador. It is actually those of us who

owe a debt to Haiti. And the reason why we owe a debt to Haiti, is not just because there's some, like, mystical, mythical connection, but that there were material contributions that Haiti and the Haitian people made to liberation struggles in the Americas. In fact, were it not for Bolivar's ability to go and seek refuge in Haiti when he was initially defeated and to come back with Haitian arms and Haitian and Haitian military people, he would not have been able to fight those. battles. And there are also lesser known ones, right? Like the role that Haiti played in Cuban

independent struggles, right? And all over sort of Latin American and the Caribbean. And so one of the ways that Venezuela under the Boulevard and Republic and under the leadership of Chavez engages in this sort of resource internationalism, right, is through utilizing Petro-Carib. So all this money that they had, they developed these micro-loan programs, right? And so there was a micro-loan program with non-exploitative, you know, interest rates and these sort of non-exploitative relations on the terms of the loans that Venezuela was giving to these particular countries, right? And so there's this Petro-Karid money that gets given to Haiti to develop the country. Now, I actually didn't know, I knew this, but I didn't know it in the concrete terms that it was conveyed in this documentary.

One of the things, so, like, there has been like perpetual mismanagement of funds, right, in Haiti. because of corruption, leadership, whatever, all these other things. But one of the things that the, what do you call it, the activist talked about in the Haitian context in relationship to the Petro-Caride money specifically was that that specific pot of money had to be squandered because that specific pot of money was given that in terms that eschewed IMF World Bank structural relations between countries, right? And so that particular pot of money needed to be mismanaged because it could not succeed as an example of resource internationalism, of sort of anti-capitalist, anti-exploitative relations between countries, right? And so I think about the kind of early pink tide in Latin America between, you know, Ecuador under Rafael Korea, Bolivia, under, under Evo Morales.

Venezuela under Chavez, obviously Cuba, as the sort of grandfather of all of that, as I think somewhat of a continental parallel to what was happening with the Pan-Africanist project in the post-independence era, right? And again, we see that there has been these attempts right, like there was the coup attempt against Evlo, right? Fortunately, and there were massacres of indigenous people in Bolivia. Fortunately, they were able to sort of, you know, come back in and retake the reins under different leadership, and Evo is very much still a part of that process, right? We've seen assassination attempt after assassinated, cool attempt after coup attempt in a Venezuelan context. Nobody is saying Maduro is perfect. Obviously, there are

many critiques, all these kinds of things, right? But a part of what is at stake there is what is being offered as an alternative to global capitalism, right? And so I think that even in even in our understandings of Pan-Africanism, we have to recognize contemporary manifestations of those spirits, right? And so obviously, the Africans, like, Africans ourselves do have a monopoly on what it means to have communal spirit to share to all those things. But when I think about, you know, the role that Cuba played in African independent struggles, and I think about, and this is a very sort of anecdotal story, but like I remember when I first started going to Venezuela and I kept encountering black folks, African, folks from the U.S., from the diaspora, coming to Venezuela, because they were like, oh, I heard that, like, this revolution is happening. And I want to see, like, I want to see what it is and what's happening and what can it do. Like, that to me is the spirit, the spirit of Pan-Africanism

that I think that we, that we continue to see because it's like, okay, most people by public measures, we don't necessarily look at Venezuela as an African country. Now, there's data to dispute that. But, but. But. Until you go there. Yes. But most people don't look at it that way. But there is something to be said and to be seen in why is it that people who identify as African as black are seeing something potentially inspiring in that example? And why have we remained, you know, in support of that?

Why did black people collectively mourn Fidel Castro's death? Why do we collectively mourn Hugo Chavez's death? Why have we remained invested in these things? And I think that it is because there is, I think a human, like, you know, a lot of people make these kind of assertions about humans being like essentially evil and bad. I actually think that that is that all evidence exists to the contrary. And I think all of its evidence exists to the contrary because I think in spite of all of the terrible things and the evil, the ills of the world, the vast majority of us expect to be able to engage with other human beings in a particular kind of way. And we learn from these examples. And so I think that like that, because you mentioned the OAU, right?

And so the kind of OAU, what I see as a sort of institutional parallel to that in Latin America is the Bolivarian Alliance of Latin American States, right? And so part of even in my own research, what I'm trying to think about is without discrediting the role that indigenous people play, without discrediting the roles of other people, how do we think about this kind of left-tide movement? in Latin America as having been indebted to the legacy of pan-Africanism, right? And so I, and I think that that's something that's really important to think about because as pan-Africanist, you know, I've told the story of many platforms and many times. As a pan-Africanist, Africa is primary for me, but I am invested in the liberatory struggles of all peoples, right? And, you know, I myself personally, my father, when he was in college, was made an honorary member of the General Union of Palestinian students. And it was his Palestinian, he had, so I have two Palestinian names. I have a

South African name and I have a West African name. And all of that came from my parents' own political organizing. And so for me, as much as Pan-Africanism absolutely is a political project, it's also like an ethos. It's a way of being and existing in the world and relating to people. And so I can see myself in Dalit struggles. I can see myself in in the people of West Papua New Guinea. I can see myself in the indigenous, you know, Pacific Islanders. And I can see myself in Latin America. And they don't necessarily, I can see myself in Palestinians, right?

And understanding that essentially these are struggles against colonialism, but also against capitalism, right? They are against oppression and exploitation. And that if, and that in the same way that as Africans, we have to come together to understand ourselves as Africans, us as oppressed people globally. share, also share, have a shared identity, right? It's not necessarily an ethnic or a racial or linguistic identity or whatever, but there is a shared experience and that we have to acknowledge that as a way of thinking about how do we fight back against our dehumanization. I agree so much.

That was such a beautiful statement. Drew so many threads together and anticipated a couple questions or follow-up kind of points you got right there to when you talked about the Unina of Palestine students, general union of Palestine students, the connection between these struggles, between these political projects of Bolivarian, you know, Latin American solidarity, you know, pan-Africanism. And I would say, you know, what I was thinking immediately when you mentioned the Pink Tide movements in that era, that specific era, where there were a lot of political projects that were successfully able to, you know, capture. Various states and start developing coordinated policies for social justice, for development in a cooperative frame, helping one another.

These are very dangerous projects because it gives people ideas. It gives the lie to all the things Jackie was saying before that they say, oh, an Africanism failed or that project failed. Well, these were destroyed. They were undermined. They were the targets of the most incredible, oppressive, and militarized. responses, you know, coups and CIA, you know, involvement, every, all that sort of stuff. But, you know, one thing that made that pink tide possible, I think, was the U.S. that has traditionally, you know, policed the Western Hemisphere, Monroe Doctrine, made it its backyard

and been particularly anxious about any pro-people movements in its sort of hemisphere was tied up and distracted in its neocolonial war of empire to control a different resource so vital to global economic development, of course, oil and its extraction, the imperialist resource involvement there drew it away in some ways. It gave space for people to actually come together in solidarity and put forward their projects and be somewhat successful. And so these struggles are really tied. They have to be developed together with that kind of transnational consciousness of world regions. They have their particular political project of unity, but they're connected with other parts of the global south. And it's so important that we see right now,

that this is where the apex of the struggle is right now in the Middle East again. It's come back to where this is where the forces of empire have arrayed themselves to try and stop. a project of anti-colonial resistance that can be, you know, something that undermines their vision for a world global order of fortress Europe, fortress USA, of, you know, kind of climate degradation and impoverishment in surplus populations that will have to be kept out so that we can continue to hold these privileged dominant positions. I mean, this is what's at stake. And they're going to do it through militarized technology, policing, you know, high-tech surveillance, all of this. This is their vision of the world, and that's their laboratory, and the resistance is taking

place right now. And so people's projects, everyone, and this is why we see the solidarity with Palestine. But people know, they understand through their histories that whenever some form of resistance emerges to change the calculus, all the imperial, you know, change the calculus, all the imperial, you know, geopolitical global hegemonic forces of empire come down on them to destroy that so it doesn't give an example to inspire everyone else. So what you were saying just resonated so strongly with me that even if you think about like, well, how does the pink tide come about and its affiliations that it picks up from a trans, you know, a pan-Africanist perspective is the space that's created

because everywhere there is resistance. That is resistance against the same enemy, the same forces and these struggles are so tied as a result of that. Adnan, when you mentioned oil, it reminds me also of oil is a shared struggle between many of these Latin American countries like Venezuela, as well as many African countries. So Nigeria's economy is very heavily reliant on revenue as a result of its oil industry. Angola is an even bigger example. So the statistics that I have at hand are from 2009, but in 2009, 99, 95% of Angola's export revenues were as a result of their oil industry. So in 2008, 2009, that was quite a good thing. Oil prices went down very shortly afterwards, and Angola's economy was devastated. They had to take out massive IMF

loans as a result of the commodity crisis that came up just after that point, and they had to sell off large parts of their oil industry to, you know, the usual suspects, BP, Shell, Exxon Mobile. What that means then is that essentially they are being forced to sell off critical components of their own economic base that would be able to be used to develop themselves, trapping them in this cycle of, well, we're having to develop primary commodities as our way of bringing in capital in order to diversify our economy and develop our economy. But then you have the problem of, well, as soon as the primary commodity market collapses, you're having to sell off big portions of that primary commodity industry. And then you're back at square one again.

So you're in this cycle of more debt, trying to build your way up and diversify, having some economic crash, which we know is cyclical within the capitalist system, having to sell off that industry, taking on more debt, and then the cycle begins again. It's an endless cycle as long as we are trapped in this capitalist world system. Now, I want to turn to the final question. You've been very generous with your time. and Layla, your previous answer actually was very, very closely related to the final question that I had planned.

So feel free to, you know, add to this as you see fit, but you'll see the question that I had planned for closing us out is very directly related to what you were saying. So maybe I'll open with Jackie and then anything that you want to add at the end here, you can add in. So the final question is, can you talk about modern expressions of Pan-Africanism and how these modern expressions demonstrate and foster solidarity between the continent and the diaspora. So, as I said, you can see where the parallels are with what you had previously alluded to towards the end of your last answer, Leila. But, you know, thinking about what Pan-Africanism today is

and what it is able to do and what avenues we should be taking within a Pan-Africanist framework to try to achieve the political goals that pan-Africanism is an expression of. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like today? So, Jackie, we'll start with you on this. Again, I think about the Alliance of Sahel states, which people probably would not look at that and think of that as a pan-Afrikanist struggle, until you start to listen to some of the things that General Trieri is saying. And I have to admit, this is a pretty young man.

Is he not 30 yet? I think he's, I think he's 35. But he is the youngest leader. Yeah. I don't know if it's just only in Africa, but perhaps in the world. I don't know, but he's there. I think so. Yeah, he is very young.

And if you, I listened to his first speech and I, you know, the tone is different, but the words, it was all Thomas Sankara. It was clear. And he even, and I think in the second or third speeches, he even just flat out said, we are going to realize the vision of Thomas Sankar. So we have examples today, and I think the Alliance of Sahel States is one of those really great examples. But it's a great example that we would only see as such as being a part of the Pan-African struggle. If we know the history, if we know that there was, this alliance of the Sahel states is a reboot, a redo of the original one that was not allowed to continue.

that was destroyed. So what we're seeing, I think, is in the alliance of the Sahel states, the power, the enduring power of pan-Africanism, the enduring influence of pan-Africanism, and the enduring ability of pan-Africanism to achieve successes, victories, and goals. Because remember, this whole thing in the Sahel States started, and that's not really where it started, but internationally, people started paying attention to what was going on in the Sahel states because of Mali telling France to the French military to get out. Get the fuck out. That's what they told them. The first was a polite, you know what? You guys said you're here to help us fight terrorism and the terrorists are still terrorizing. because you're the ones who brought them here in the first place. Get out. Fuck out. The first request

was get out, please. And then when the French were like, no. Then it was like, you know what? Get the fuck out. Get out. So then people's response to that was, oh, well, that's great. And this is what some people told us. And by us, I mean Black Alliance for Peace. Because when BAP was founded in 2017, the very first campaign we had was shut down Afrika. Nobody knew what the hell africom was in this country. But we recognize that the U.S. military having basically a band of military bases that cut the continent in half from the west to the east coast, nothing but U.S. military and drone bases and other little lily pad sites that we're not really sure what they do because they don't tell us. we recognize that the United States military doesn't have that kind of a presence on any other continent and they're not there for humanitarian purposes. They're not there out of the kindness of the heart of the United States government and military. They are there for resource imperialism.

Jackie, can I add in a quote very quickly? So this is from Vice Admiral Robert Mueller, who was head of Afri-Com. In 2008, they asked them what the purpose of Afri-com was. And he said there was three reasons. And I have, I have, again, in my annotations, there's some quotation marks. Let's just put it that way.

Okay. One, combating oil disruption relating to the previous conversation that we had had. Two, combating, and here's where the air quotes come in, terrorism. Again, echoing the point

that you had just raid, raised. And number three, and this might be interesting for the listeners, combating China's influence on the continent. These were the three reasons that Afrocom's head said that Afrocom had for existing. Oil disruption. Again, I'm using quotations on that because disruption for who? Oil disruption, quote unquote, terrorism combating. And three, combating China's influence on the African continent. So I just wanted to add that into what you were saying, Jackie. I didn't mean to interrupt, but I thought it was April. I am glad you hit them because that's exactly. Because see, we black radicals say these things

about what the empire is doing. We say these things about the fact that this country is an empire and people don't believe it. And we get called names and we're told we're liars. We're told we're agents of, you know, pick a country. Putin, Xi Jinping, Maduro, Okay, whatever. You know, Castro, okay, fine. But it's always good when the empire tells on itself, because here's the thing. Empires actually usually don't lie about what they're doing. We just don't believe them. They tell each other what they're doing all of the time. And they make this stuff public. But we don't know where to look. And then when we give people the information, then they don't believe it. Oh, you made it up. And it's like, you know what? All I can do is lead you to the troth. I cannot make you you're thirsty behind drink it. You know where the trough is now. But I think that this alliance of Sahel states is very, it has very deep implications for the future of Pan-Africanism. Even as this is an ongoing process, right, We can't really call this entire process revolutionary yet because it's not complete, right?

We can't, I would love to put a lot more of my personal aspirations on the other leaders to be more like General Triore. And even as this is going on, we're still, you know, very closely watching him to see where he goes. So we try very hard not to be ideological imperialist, right? and putting our Western U.S. focused understanding of things on somebody else's liberation struggle. That's a hard line because it is so easy to look at another country's struggle or look at another people's struggle and say, well, why aren't you all doing such and such? You know, we cannot do that. But I do think that this alliance of Sahel states could have incredible implications on the future of Pan-Africanism.

And I do personally feel a responsibility to get that narrative right for our people, to really not ignore it, to connect it to everything else that's going on because it is, and to get that narrative right so that people understand that not only is Pan-Africanism not dead, pan-Africanism is still winning. And that's actually the point that I was going to make is that from both sides, I think it is clear that Pan-Africanism is on the move. And I say that because for a couple of different reasons, one, you know, you're talking about Afri-Com, right? And so for those of us Pan-Africanists, particularly on the content of being the diaspora, too, African Liberation Day is an institution that we have been celebrating since the 70s. I think, I think my mother, my mother passed, actually the day that we are recording this, which is actually Indigenous People's Resistance Day in the U.S., but it's also my mother's birthday.

My mother would have been 63 years old today. She passed away in 2018. Prior to my mother's death, my father had not missed an African Liberation Day since I think 1974, I think he said. But I bring up African Liberation Day because it is, it is in our tradition. It is a commemorative. you know, moment. It is a moment to rededicate ourselves to our political commitments. It's also a recruiting tool for many of our organizations, but it is also being co-opted because AFRICOM also commemorates African Liberation Days. And the irony of Afriacom commemorating African Liberation Day is just absurd in the same way that the U.S. government puts out a statement in in support of Indigenous People's Resistance Day every year, right? So it's just utterly absurd. But I say that to say that when our enemies see a need to co-opt our messaging,

that means that something is continuing to happen. That means that those messages are moving forward. Also, so this year was the, well, it's supposed to be. So at the end of this month, there was supposed to be the ninth Pan-African Congress that was supposed to be taking place in Lomé, Togo. So, you know, the, the, the AU, which is the sort of bastardized version of the OAU, which the OAU itself was already like a compromise, you know, early on, recognized, officially recognized the diaspora as the sixth region of Africa, right?

And so earlier this year, it was in the end of August. I went to a regional planning meeting in Bahia, in Salvador, Brazil. And, you know, the significance of Salvador is that it has, it is the, well, Brazil has the largest African population in the Americas, right? It has the largest black population outside of Nigeria in terms of a single national entity. And so, you know, symbolically they chose that place because of the size of the African population. But it was a regional planning meeting in preparation for this ninth Pan-African Congress. Well, I just wanted to point out also that something you had referred to earlier, about resistance when we were talking about resistance, that it was the site of the most

massive slave revolts that were organized because there were West African scholars, you know, Muslim scholars who could write and taught people and they passed messages and organized a massive resistance in the, what was the 1830s, I think? I believe so, yeah. Yeah. So at any rate, that's an amazing site to holds the ninth. Yeah, so that meeting was a preparatory meeting ahead of this one. But see, here's the thing even about this meeting coming up, right? It's taking place in Togo. And Togo is basically run by de facto monarchy. And so I recently got an announcement that it was postponed. And there's some interesting things that are happening because there are some theories that part of the reason why Togo decided to host the ninth pack this year, is because there's actually like internal disputes over leadership in the country.

But because of the particular salience of Pan-Africanism right now, utilizing this moment and hosting that conference was going to be a way of garnering a particular kind of support, right? And so again, I don't necessarily see that conference, that meeting as the, you know, this sort of zenith of panathism. But I think that even that battle that struggle over it, happening is a product of the fact that Pan-Africanism is growing. And people are, and people are talking about Pan-Afghanism. I think my father, I even say, in a way that he

hasn't necessarily even seen in his own lifetime, right? As a person who has a lifelong commitment dedication to organizing as a Pan-Afghanist. And so I think we're in a really promising moment. And I think that as many horrible things are happening, one of the things that I think happens when horrible things happen is like people begin to not be able to ignore things and people begin to be awakened and I because I think that that's what's happened with Palestine. There has been no shortage of people who have been anti-the Israeli settler colonial project since its inception. But there's something happening in this particular moment where people who are not otherwise concerned with it are now, right? And I think that that's also true of Pan-Afghanism.

I wanted to end sort of with a quote that takes us back about a decade, but one of, one of Chavez is sort of, so, you know, Chavez, he died because of cancer. And there are even, there are even theories that, you know, he was given cancer, right, to take him out. And so this is yet another example of sort of being, you know, the myriad ways that they, they depose, you know, our progressive leader. It's right. But one of his last acts, there was supposed to be a South-South conference that was happening in Equatorial Guinea in February of 2013, the year that he died. And he was not physically able to make it. And so he sent a letter, you know, ahead of himself. And it's now famously referred to as his letter to Africa. And one of the things that he's quoted in there saying is that those that conquered us in the past, blinded by their hunger for power, did not realize that the barbaric colonialism they imposed. on us will become the catalyst for our first independences. Thus, whilst Latin America and the Caribbean share a past history of oppression and slavery, today more than ever, we are the children of our liberators and their heroic deeds. We can and must say with conviction and resolve that this unites us in the present and a vital struggle for the freedom and definitive independence of our

nations. Speaking again to the African peoples, he says, I won't tire of repeating that we are one people. We are obliged to find one another, going beyond formality and discourse in the same feeling of our unity. Together, we must dedicate ourselves to creating conditions that allow us to rescue our peoples from the maze that we were thrown into, first by colonialism and then by the neoliberal capitalism of the 20th century. And so I think that that is a testament to the power of what Pan-Africanism is. And I think it's also an example of people attempting to to put the work in to achieve the objective of Pan-Africanism, which, again, as we, Jackie and I have both said,

is the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism. And also beautifully said, you know, I want to be slightly flippant in closing and say, well, I'd like to also end with a note to Afri-Com, since surely there's Afri-com officials who are listening to us, you know, the next time you want to make a commemoration for African Liberation Day, you can commemorate the day by abolishing yourself. And the same thing, United States government, the next time you want to make a commemoration for Indigenous Resistance Day,

you can commemorate it by abolishing yourself as well, not only the government, but the state entirely. I don't have much faith that will actually happen, but, you know, I might as well give my two cents here now. Well, it's not a job to make it happy. That's what we're supposed to be doing. That's and that's what we're trying to do. So it has been an absolutely fantastic conversation

despite the fact that the listeners have had to periodically hear me speak during this. But I want to allow both of our wonderful guests to let the listeners know where they can find more of their work. Jackie, let me turn to you first. Can you tell the listeners where they can find more of your work and where they can keep up with you on social media? Again, one of our guests, Jackie, Luke, come on.

So you can find me on Facebook under Jackie, J-A-C-Q-U-I-E, L-A-U-A-N. I had to put the apostrophe in there because my old profile was, I don't know what happened to it. So I had to change the last name. But you can also find me. You can listen to me on Darker Than Blue at 5 p.m. on Fridays at W-P-F-W-F-M-F-M.org.

just click the Listen Live button or if you're in the D.C. Maryland, Virginia area, it's 89.3 FM and that's 5 o'clock on Fridays. The show is called Darker Than Blue. You can also find my stuff on Black Liberation Media. On YouTube, it's Black Liberation Media.

And where else? Sometimes I publish stuff in a Black Agenda Report. I owe Hood Communist, another article. I know I owe them. I'm going to write another article for them. And you can also get me on Twitter and Instagram at Luke Mon Nation 1. That's L-U-Q-M-A-N-A-N-A-T-I-O-N-A-T-I-O-N, the number one, all one word. I think that's everywhere I am.

Wonderful. And I'll make sure to link to as many of those things as I can. Layla Brown, it was nice to see you again. Can you tell the listeners where they can find you and more of your work? For sure. So again, like I said, in my daily work capacity, I'm a professor at Northeastern University. And so if you have questions specifically pertaining to the Academy, I can be reached at my institutional email. You can just Google Northeastern

and Layla Brown, and you can find that. But more significantly, I am the co-host of the podcast Life Study Revolution with my dear best friend, colleague, comrade, Cherie's Bert and Stelling.

We currently are on our own YouTube platform, but we have returned to Black Liberation Media. And so we are still working out those kinks, so we will be there in some kind of way soon. Across social media, I have the same handle. It's Pan-Afric F-M-U-S-D, so it's P-A-N-A-F-R-I-K, F-E-M-U-S-E-M-U-SK-D. I have a very contentious relationship with writing, so I don't have a whole lot of public writings, but I am working on my first book manuscript project, which is tentatively titled in Anthropology of Pan-Africanism in the 21st century. So hopefully that will be out in the coming year or two. And yeah. Oh, and also

end through the All African People's Revolutionary Party, G.C. So a dash aAPRP-GC.org. And folks are interested in that as an organization, I am also available there. So thank you so much for having us today. And I think it goes without saying that when that book is out, you're coming back on the show, whether you like it or not. And I just want to say one other thing before I turn it Adnan to tell the listeners where they can find him. Layla, I had told you this before we hit record, but it was wonderful to see the podcast that you are doing with Dr. CBS back. So you had done Last Dope Intellectual, and then I was very sad to see that that project

was going on a hiatus. I had told you that was a source of inspiration of education for me. And I really learned and took so much from that program. And, you know, I understood. but I was quite sad to see that project going on hiatus. So when it was announced that Life Study Revolution podcast with the two of you was coming out on YouTube, I was so pleased. And I have been loving it.

Listeners, if you're not keeping up with LSR podcast, what are you doing? You know, get on it. Not doing nothing with your life. That's right. You are doing absolutely nothing right. That is very kind of both of you. Adnan, how can the listening This might do in your other podcast?

Well, people can catch up with me on Twitter at Adnan A. Hussein, H-U-S-A-I-N. You can check out my other, somewhat infrequent, but hopefully to become more regular in the near future podcast called the Mudgellis about the Islamic world, Middle East, Muslim diasporas. So that's on all the usual platforms, M-A-J-L-I-S.

And I just want to thank our guests again for an amazing discussion full of their brilliant insight and for reaffirming something that I've believed for so long, which is that global liberation cannot happen without pan-Africanism. We must all be pan-Africanist in the ways that we can. So this was so valuable, I think, for our listeners. and we thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you. And I absolutely echo non-sentiments. Listeners, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995. That's H-U-C-K-1-995.

You can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. and you can keep up to date with everything that Agnan and I are doing individually as well as what the show is doing collectively by following us on Twitter

at Gorilla underscore Pod that's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A underscore pod and we're also on Instagram I think at Gorilla underscore History but you know you can find it and tell us if I got that handle right or not. So on that note and until next time listeners

Solidarity I'm going to be. Thank you.