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Loading... Nkrumaism and African Nationalism Ghana’s Pan-African Foreign Policy in the Age of Decolonizationby Matteo Grilli
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This book examines Ghana's Pan-African foreign policy during Nkrumah's rule, investigating how Ghanaians sought to influence the ideologies of African liberation movements through the Bureau of African Affairs, the African Affairs Centre and the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute. In a world of competing ideologies, when African nationalism was taking shape through trial and error, Nkrumah offered Nkrumaism as a truly African answer to colonialism, neo-colonialism and the rapacity of the Cold War powers. Although virtually no liberation movement followed the precepts of Nkrumaism to the letter, many adapted the principles and organizational methods learnt in Ghana to their own struggles. Drawing upon a significant set of primary sources and on oral testimonies from Ghanaian civil servants, politicians and diplomats as well as African freedom fighters, this book offers new angles for understanding the history of the Cold War, national liberation and nation-building in Africa. No library descriptions found. |
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Wikipedia in English
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After Nkrumah was deposed in 1966 in a coup supported by the West, the military regime attempted to discredit Ghana’s foreign policy and Nkrumah’s Pan-African vision as a “failure”. Scholars such as W. Scott Thompson support this interpretation. Grilli criticizes this one-dimensional interpretation of Nkrumah’s legacy, and instead examines Nkrumah’s legacy and Ghana’s foreign policy in all its complexities. While Nkrumah was unsuccessful in establishing a continental state, and no liberation movement completely adopted the principles of Nkrumaism, Grilli argues that to describe Nkrumaism as a “failure” misses the massive influence Nkrumah had on liberation movements throughout Africa. From ideological and military training to financial and military aid to those on the frontlines, Nkrumaism helped shape countless nationalist and liberation movements. Indeed, at the time of the Western-backed military coup, there were 136 African nationalists being hosted in Ghana and several major liberation movements, including African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), Basutoland Congress Party (BCP), Ngwane National Liberatory Congress, Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe, People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Pan-African Congress (PAC), African National Congress (ANC), Popular Idea of Equatorial Guinea (IPGE), Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), etc., had offices in Accra. Moreover, many of the most prominent anti-colonial African nationalists have cited Nkrumah as an important influence, such as Lumumba, Mugabe, Cabral, Touré, Obote, Kaunda, Gaddafi, etc.
Secondly, Grilli examines how Nkrumah’s Pan-African vision influenced domestic politics within Ghana, more specifically the “feuds” between Ghana’s “orthodox”, British-trained Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ghana’s “unorthodox” Pan-African institutions, such as the Bureau of African Affairs. These “feuds”, Grilli argues, were one of the major weaknesses of Ghana’s foreign policy, and handicapped Nkrumah’s ability to project his Pan-African vision.
A really great book overall (