VIRTUOUS LIVING - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

One should remember that the Africans in diaspora, under the Pan-African movementin 1900, initially conceived this spirit of Africa’s recovery. A.I Asiwaju and M.Crowder have made reference to the influence of Marcus Garvey on NkwameNkrumah, and also that of Aime Cesaire on Leopold Senghor. These two, namelyGarvey (1887-1940) and Cesaire (1913 - ), belonged to the Africans in diaspora, likeWilliam Burghardt Du Bois (1886-1963), who among others formed the roots of thePan-African movement. For them, the questions of identity, culture, and politicoeconomicself-determination were tied together in the struggle of the Africans, asdistinguished from other races by the colour of their skin. However, the success of themovement depended on the African who was situated in Africa, from whence hecould politically rule himself and forge his/her destiny. Nkrumah had remarked:The road of reconstruction on which Ghana has embarked is a new road,parts of whose topography are only hazily sensed, other parts still unknown.A certain amount of trial and error in following the road is inevitable.Mistakes we are bound to make, and some undoubtedly we have alreadymade. They are our own and we learn from them. That is the value of beingfree and independent, of acquiring our experiences out of the consequence ofour own decisions, out of the achievements of our own efforts (Nkrumah1963:120).Nkrumah’s argument was put forward as the forces of neo-colonialism unfolded. Thesuperpowers had divided the world into economic blocs. Consequently, manyformerly well-intentioned African leaders became victims of the ideological schemingof the Europeans’ politico-economic manipulation, up to the present time (cfHarbeson and Rothchild 1995).Mandela’s speech in Tunisia set the agenda to African leadership, challenging them torevive the African continent. Below we shall turn to the objectives of this challenge,for the revival of the African continent.1.2.4 Objectives of the African RenaissanceThe objectives of the developing African Renaissance were tentative, because of theemerging capacity of African countries to engage each other. This engagement has ledto the discovery of one another and the need to complement each other in pursuit ofsocial and politico-economic development for the whole of Africa. This can be70