Augusta Epanya | Dynamique Unitaire Panafricaine
1. The Situation of the Continent
The partitioning of the African continent following the Berlin Conference in 1885 marked the continuation of five centuries of the slave trade, which led to the deportation of around twenty million Africans and placed the people of the continent under colonial rule. This Balkanization was carried out among Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Great Britain, France, and Spain. Colonization resulted in the destruction of the existing social, economic, political, and cultural organization. Imperialism and its economic counterpart, capitalism, were built on this domination, which led to the accumulation of capital and solidified their control over the world.
The territories were redrawn and redistributed at the whims of inter-imperialist wars, competitions, and contradictions, without regard for the people living there, who were primarily exploited for profit. Conditions of domination and alienation were created and perpetuated so that men and women no longer left Africa forcibly in ships’ holds but instead left “voluntarily” by sea or desert in search of “a piece of bread”―to sell their labor power, often to die at the other end of the planet.
Afirca and the African diaspora remain the “cash cow of imperialism.” Despite being the wealthiest continent, including in strategic minerals such as coltan, lithium, and cobalt, 35% of the African population lives in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $1.90 a day. Of the 47 least developed countries, 33 are African, with 21 at the bottom of the list. Twenty-five percent of the African population is affected by armed conflicts, including the DRC, which has endured 30 years of conflict while holding 70% of the world’s coltan reserves. More than a quarter of the world’s refugees and displaced persons are African.
This situation is utterly anachronistic and unacceptable, more than 60 years after African nations gained independence. Many of these so-called independences were purely formal and can only be explained by the violence and adaptation of imperialism to new conditions, with the imposition of neocolonial regimes.
2. Characterization of Imperialist Domination
This process continues, maintaining the international division of Africa and its Afro-descendant territories through several mechanisms:
• Enslavement agreements were established after independence, maintaining the economic, monetary, social, military, political, cultural, and institutional ties with former colonies.
• The elimination, by any means necessary, of leaders who brought hope and defended the interests of African peoples at the head of liberation movements, fighting for genuine independence.
• The installation of leaders and the support or organization of coups by colonial powers.
• The organization of dependence through multinationals, which keep countries in rentier economies based on extraction, without transforming any of their raw materials locally or fostering industrial emergence, despite the continent’s wealth of raw materials, including the rarest.
• The sell-off of millions of hectares of land to foreign capital, notably in Madagascar, the DRC, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Sudan, and to a lesser extent in Mozambique, Liberia, Ghana, and Cameroon. The continent’s arable land sold off accounts for 5% of the total, to the detriment of the farmers and the country, as all production is intended for export.
• Imperialism contributes to the destabilization of the continent by supporting and arming numerous warlords who bring death and destruction.
• Finally, corruption, the support for dictators, and the training and technical assistance to all repressive armies against the people.
3. Impact on Building Real Alternatives to the Neocolonial Capitalist System
The impoverishment of the population, coupled with low levels of education―over 70% of young people work in the informal sector―and the lack of access to basic social needs (water, electricity, health care, education) are all obstacles to building alternative solutions to the predatory capitalist system that people suffer under. Adding to this are systematic violations of public freedoms: the inability to organize, gather, demonstrate, or express oneself. Everything is done to prevent reflection and the gathering of revolutionary forces, especially when they propose a systemic change.
Dominant bourgeois propaganda floods the youth and the population with messages that suggest that only the capitalist system offers a future, maintaining the illusion that the West is an Eldorado by promoting images of consumer goods in abundance, discrediting everything done on the continent, and discouraging alternative initiatives through various means.
It is therefore imperative to capitalize on the growing awareness among African youth. Youth who protest and resist because they experience the harsh reality that neocolonial regimes, implementing a “tropical capitalism” subservient to dominant Western capitalism, are wallowing in misery without any future prospects, and they realize that migration is far from a solution. This awareness presents an opportunity that must be seized.
4. Escaping Imperialist Domination and Building an Africa that Serves the People: Moving Towards the United States of Africa
The many popular and insurrectionary movements we have witnessed in recent years clearly show that Africa, Africans, and the Afro-descendant communities aspire to break free from the system of domination and exploitation in which they have been trapped for decades. There is growing awareness that most African independences were confiscated by the colonial powers―today’s imperialists―who continue to sow misery and anger.
There is also increasing recognition that most African countries are ruled by regimes that perpetuate our enslavement, defending only their own interests and those of a comprador bourgeoisie that cares little about the suffering of the people. The popular uprisings we have witnessed in several Sahel countries, notably Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, express a clear desire to break ties with imperialism, especially French imperialism. These movements have led to the end of military bases, the questioning of exploitative agreements, and the construction of common defense structures and a confederation aiming to pool resources and projects.
This process must continue by including all revolutionary and progressive forces, the best way to consolidate, root, and expand it. Similarly, in Senegal, popular mobilization has resulted in the election of a sovereignist government that has begun to challenge the neocolonial system. African progressive forces must support such movements wherever they arise, encourage them, and ensure their irreversible spread across the continent.
To this end, struggles must be interconnected and mutually reinforcing. Certain regions of Africa, particularly Central Africa―home to especially brutal regimes―and countries like Togo, Benin, and Burundi, where progressive and revolutionary forces are repressed, require special attention and support.
The Pan-African Unitary Dynamic (DUP), a platform of over 25 organizations, aims to consolidate and expand to new regions across the continent. It seeks to amplify struggles across Africa, Afro-descendant territories, and the diaspora. It also aims to raise consciousness and provide political education for our youth, contributing to the reflection necessary for building a sovereign Africa that controls its resources and creates a model that breaks with capitalism and meets the needs of African peoples. This vision includes the construction of the United States of Africa, without which no African country can sustainably free itself from imperialism and ensure its sovereignty.
DUP is aware of the urgent need to build anti-imperialist internationalism and to connect the Pan-Africanist struggle with this broader fight. For this reason, the DUP seeks to be involved in and concerned with all struggles aimed at combating imperialism.
