“Africa is on the move.” Full statement by the Deputy Chairperson

on the 55th Commemoration of Africa Day in Ankara, Turkey.

I bring you the fraternal greetings of His Excellency Moussa Faki Mahamat,

our distinguished Chairperson of the African Union Commission, and also

that of your colleagues in the African Union. He wishes you a happy and

productive Africa Day here in the very capital of the Ottoman Empire.

I also want to thank the President of the African Ambassadors Association

for this invitation. The genesis of this visit lies in an encounter we had at

the last retreat held here in Istanbul, where, to my surprise, the African

Ambassadors complained of not being kept in the loop on Agenda 2063.

What is Agenda 2063? It is a long-term vision and development strategy

for Africa. It was crafted by our predecessor Commission under the

distinguished leadership of my sister, Her Excellency Nkosazana Dlamini

Zuma, the last Chairperson of our Commission. It is to her and her

Commission that we owe our thanks for this vision, which grew out of an

imaginary letter to Kwame, a mythical figure – clearly a reference to the

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AFRICAN UNION UNION AFRICAINE

UNIÃO AFRICANA

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia P. O. Box 3243 Telephone: +251 11 551 7700 / +251 11 518 25 58/ Ext 2558 Website: www.au.int

!!

first Ghanaian President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s classic work –

AFRICA MUST UNITE, written in 1963.

I have been asked or, shall I say, invited to speak on the topic

Africa Rising. Is Africa really rising? And, if so, rising from where? Did

Africa fall? When did Africa fall and how? If indeed today we are said to

be rising, then perhaps this is an admission, logically speaking, that Africa

had fallen? Or is it? We speak today of our vision, of Agenda 2063,

Towards a Peaceful, Prosperous and Integrated Africa, under our vision,

Agenda 2063. There are at least eleven complementary components of

this vision which together form the basis for Agenda 2063. They can be

located, roughly, in the following thematic subsets:

• Peace and Security

• Political Affairs

• Human Resources, Science & Technology

• Infrastructure & Energy

• Social Affairs

• Trade & Industry

• Rural Economy & Agriculture

• Economic Affairs

• Legal Affairs

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• Women, Gender & Development

• Civil Society & The Diaspora

Besides all these, the African Union is in the process of reform to make the

Commission “fit for purpose”. This is the message from the report, the

Imperative to Reform, which can be adequately referred to as the “Kagame

Report”.

The aim of the Reform is to address the perennial question of our Africa, a

continent rich in natural and human resources, but which still somehow,

miraculously, manages to remain poor. Poverty in the midst of plenty?

Described, derisively and contemptuously as the Hopeless Continent, by

the Economist magazine. To Kwame Nkrumah our visionary, often

controversial independence President, even the shape of the continent is

like a question mark, with Madagascar as the dot. To President Sarkozy,

Africa has contributed absolutely nothing to history. Clearly he has

forgotten to take a look at the French national soccer team which won the

World Cup. To King Leopold, Africa was a magnificent, what do you do to

a cake, to be cut up and eaten, or rather devoured. Those were his words

at the Berlin Conference (1884/85). On this subject, we probably need to

have another more detailed conversation. In my view, it goes to the root

of the very raison d’etre of the African Union and the Commission – the

integration and unity of the African continent.

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To Professor Hugh Trevor Roper, then Regius Professor of Modern History

at Oxford University, Africa has no history to speak of, other than “the

unrewarding gyrations of barbarous tribes in picturesque but

irrelevant quarters of the globe.” To the Hungarian Marxist, Endre Sik,

who wrote in his history of Africa in 1966, “Prior to their encounter with

Europeans, the majority of African people still lived a primitive barbaric life,

many of them even on the lowest level of barbarism – therefore it is

unrealistic to speak of their history in any scientific sense of the word

before the appearance of the European invaders.” Now we have seen the

historic Arabic scripts from Timbuctu, and we know the story is totally

different, and have renounced what we are made to believe.

But to us, my dear Brothers and Sisters, Your Excellencies,

Africa is quite simply our home, our beautiful home, which we intend to

develop by 2063. We have a proverb in Ghana, “you do not point at your

father’s house, i.e. your home, with your left hand”. We want to develop

our home, Africa, so that we can live comfortably at home, so that our

youth, the most valuable part of us, our very future, our incredibly

talented, energetic and creative youth, do not, out of desperation, feel

compelled to vote with their feet and flee from home, across the Sahara

Desert, risk getting drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, in a vain and

fruitless attempt to seek a non-existent El Dorado in a Europe which does

not want them. I once saw on BBC TV, two twins who were seeking to

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cross the Channel Tunnel, to the UK and the continent of Europe. One had

been run over by a truck and killed. His brother was asked, “do you still

want to go to Europe?” His answer was amazing.

What then is our vision for Africa? In other words, what kind of Africa do

we want? But, Your Excellencies, behind all this, here is the question that

demands an answer. And it cannot wait. Why is it that the world’s richest

continent has some of the world’s poorest people? At a symposium held by

the English-speaking Union in Westminster, London, in May 1960, Kwame

Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, the first African country south of the

Sahara to win genuine independence, argued, and with your permission, I

quote. This was 1960!!

“What are the aspirations of Africans? Above all, they desire to regain their

independence and to live in peace. They desire to use this freedom to

raise the standard of living of their peoples. They desire to use their

freedom to create a union of African states on the continent, and thus

neutralize the evil effects of the artificial boundaries imposed by the

imperial powers and promote unity of action in all fields. These are Africa’s

ideals.”

In a speech at the National Assembly, Accra, 8th August 1960, Kwame

Nkrumah again said:

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“It has often been said that Africa is poor. What nonsense! It is not Africa

that is poor. It is the Africans. And they are impoverished by centuries of

exploitation and domination.” That is why we are poor. It is a product of

history. It was caused by man, and it can be therefore be addressed by

man.”

In his Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare, Kwame Nkrumah again wrote:

“The concept of African Unity enhances the fundamental needs and

characteristics of African civilization and ideology, and at the same time

satisfies all the conditions necessary for an accelerated economic and

technological advance. Such maximum development would ensure a

rational utilization of the material resources and human potential of our

continent along the lines of an integrated economy, and within

complementary sectors of production, eliminating all unnecessary forms of

competition, economic alienation and duplication.”

Now, it was not only Kwame Nkrumah who expounded this view. His

brothers, Jomo Kenyatta, Sekou Toure, Ahmed Ben Bella, Gamal Abdel

Nasser, and so on, all believed this. In 1965, Amilcar Cabral wrote: “The

people are not fighting for ideas in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win

material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward,

to guarantee the future of their children. Tell no lies, claim no easy

victories.” Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown. Amilcar Cabral was

assassinated. Samora Machel was assassinated. You must wonder why?

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Your Excellencies,

It is time to look at this conundrum more closely. Writing on the British

colonial legacy in Africa in 2002, Boris Johnson, new Foreign Secretary,

wrote, “The continent may be a blot, but it is not a blot on our conscience.

The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in

charge anymore.” In 2016, 44 per cent of respondents in a You Gov poll

agreed with him, stating that Britain’s colonial history was “something to be

proud of”. Why is it that Britain and other colonial powers continuously

feel the need to justify this position? The psycho- analyst and writer Franz

Fanon, put it this way in his classic work, The Wretched of the Earth:

“Colonialism is not merely satisfied with holding a people in its grip and

emptying the natives’ brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted

logic, it turns to the past of oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures and

destroys it.” It has no shame, just as Boris Johnson has no conscience, to

be disturbed by facts. When the facts are inconvenient, simply change

them.

It was the great Winston Spencer Churchill who once wrote, the further

back we look, the further forward we are likely to see. This statement has

been echoed by many officials and intellectuals including the immediate

past president of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso, “to look

forward and build the future, we must know the past.” Concretely, we

need to make a concrete analysis of our concrete situation, our history.

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If we are to examine the past, we would be duty-bound to consider the

causes and consequences of Europe’s encounter with Africa. Consider the

United Nations Human Rights Declaration from the World Conference

Against Racism (WCAR) Durban, South Africa (2001), “We declare that

Slavery and the Slave Trade were tragedies in the history of humanity, and

were crimes against humanity and should always have been so.” Crimes

against humanity have no statute of limitations so is there a right to

reparations in international law? The European countries have argued that

the slave trade was legal at the time? Does this argument hold water? Is

it valid? How were the slaves acquired? In the evidence brought before

the Select Committee of the House of Commons in the years 1790 and

1791, on the part of the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, in

Chapter 1, “The trade for slaves in the River Senegal, was directly with the

Moors, on the northern banks, who got them often by war, and not seldom

by kidnapping; that is, lying in wait near a village, where there was no

open war, and seizing when they could.” Yet Prime Minister Tony Blair, on

15th March 2007, asserted that though now this would be a crime against

humanity, it was legal at the time. We ask, when was the act of

kidnapping ever legal?

“Those sold to vessels at Goree, and near it, were procured either by grand

pillage, the lesser pillage, or by robbery of individuals or in consequence of

crimes. The grand pillage is executed by the king’s soldiers, from three

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hundred to three thousand at a time, who attack and set fire to a village,

and seize the inhabitants as they can.”

This happened along the coast of Senegambia. All the way down to

Angola and Mozambique and across the Indian Ocean. Now what about

the Gold Coast, where Cape Coast Castle was known as the Slave

Emporium, that is to say, the Slave Supermarket? Here there was

competition between the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese and the

English. This letter from the Dutch West Indian Company is illustrative of

what went on.

“Van Hodwerf to Assembly of Ten, 31st January 1687:

On 26 December the “Portugaalsche Handelaer” arrived, which I have

despatched today with 525 pieces of slaves, 386 men and 139 women. As

before, there is a great abundance of slaves here, but there is also great

famine, with the result that I have not been able to supply this ship with as

much millet as I would have desired. The Negros, who as I have

mentioned earlier, are here not at all polite, have torn up the Noble

Company’s flag, on the day the ship Cormantyn left. On many occasions, it

is custom, and one is even obliged to have such a flag on the beach for the

reputation of the Noble Company.”

He continues:

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“This event is therefore a serious matter, and the English and the French at

Fida are quite happy about it, as they concluded, as can be understood,

that our presence in this country is no longer brooked. I have, therefore,

on my own costs, prosecuted and eradicated the flag-violator on behalf of

H.E. the General, and sent him to Elmina per canoe; the General has

publicly sentenced him (to death) and decapitated him, and has sent the

severed head on board the company ship Goude Tyger hither. As an

example (of the punishment for) for such wantonness I have put it on top

of a pole here at the lodge …” Just think about it. A man was decapitated,

his head was cut off, for tearing up a company’s flag? This was the

violence introduced on the Gold Coast by Europeans!!

Another letter dated 10th February 1688, from Van Hoolwerf to the

Directors of the Chamber Amsterdam, 10th February 1688 is as follows:

“On 22nd January 1688 the small yacht Sara Maria, which had been sent

hither on the orders of Hon. D.G. Nic Sweerts in order to take Your

Highness account as many slaves as its cargo could buy, has been

despatched to Governor William Kerckrungh of Curacao with 173 slaves …

“Up to now the slave trade has well progressed, but these days it seems to

slow off a little as a result of the lack of wars in the interior as well as

the abundance of this year’s corn crop, which does not, like last year

the famine did, make them sell their slaves.”

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In yet another letter from Van Hookwerf to the Assembly of Ten dated 28th

May 1680, “we have tried to make known to Your Highness our miserable

conditions in the letter we sent per Den Grooten Africaen. In view of the

fact that I have served Your Highness for over four years, although I have

not been able to be of much service during the last two years as a result of

the lack of arriving ships, I wish to request Your Highness politely and

humbly to accept, with the first coming slave ship, my resignation if a

certain person by the name of Hendrick Huybers were to come to offer his

services to Your Highness, you may be fully assured of his fidelity,

knowledge and vigilance, (and his ability to take my post) because for the

intercourse with the Negros here, a person is required who – and Your

Highness may correct me, and pray, forgive the comparison – is as noble

and able as one who could be entrusted with a General’s post at d’Elmina,

as I now experience with the long delays and lack of arrivals of ships …”

“PS … I would also like to request humbly the dispatch of two assistants to

replace the two who have all the time been with me, and I also pray that

Your Highness may have the goodness to give me permission to take with

me, on my departure, 20 slaves, as may be permitted and over a long

period sourly earned emolument, on my own account …”

THE MIDDLE PASSAGE

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During the voyage, the slaves were tied up and arranged like books on a

shelf. The possibility of rebellion was never far from the minds of the slave

ship officers and crew when they swapped stories in slaving ports. Slave

traders had a variety of theories about what caused revolts and how to

prevent them. After William Snelgrave, an English slave captain, had

crushed a rebellion on The Henry in 1721, he interrogated the leaders as to

why they had rebelled. They replied that Capt. Snelgrave “was a great

rogue to buy them in order to carry them away from their own country;

and that they were resolved to regain their liberty if possible.”

Against the background of slaves always seeking their freedom, the general

prevailing policy was this. To guard against plots, slave traders should

identify those slaves who seemed most “indifferent to their liberty” and

give them preferential treatment to turn them into informers. When faced

with the threat or reality of a shipboard uprising, most, if not all, slaving

captains followed the theory that brutal intimidation was the best

course of action. Such a theory had been expressed earlier by Jean

Barbot, a celebrated French slave trade and author, who wrote that if a

rebellion occurred, the captain should “spare no effort to repress the

insolence and, as an example to the others, sacrifice the lives of the most

mutinous. This will terrify the others and keep them obedient. The way of

making it clear to them, I mean the form of punishment that scares the

Africans the most is by cutting up a live man with an ax and handing out

the pieces to the others.”

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Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, can you imagine this? No wonder

every effort is being made to suppress any debate on the Trans-Atlantic

slave trade.

According to the Trinidadian historian and writer, Dr. Eric Williams, the

negro slaves were described in the UK archives as the “strength and sinews

of the western world”. The slave trade, its preservation, development and

improvement was “a matter of high importance to the Kingdom and the

plantations thereunto belonging”, according to a prominent English political

economic/historian and writer, Malachy Postlethwayt.

In 1718, William Wood, an English economist, writing in A Survey of Trade,

noted that “the Slave Trade was the spring and parent form where all

others flow” – the great source of wealth for the English nation. Behind

every great wealth is a crime.

In 1751, Postlethwayt, in his publication Great Britain’s Commercial

Interest, described the slave Trade as “the principal foundation of all the

rest, the mainspring of the machine which sets every wheel in motion.” It

has been argued that the slave trade and the accumulation of capital

arising therefrom, fueled the Industrial Revolution in England and Europe.

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The profit from the Slave Trade provided the mainstream of the capital

accumulation which financed the Industrial Revolution. It was the negro

slaves who made those sugar colonies the most precious colonies ever

recorded in the British Empire. The British Empire, from which sprang

today’s Commonwealth of Nations, was “a magnificent superstructure of

American commerce and naval power on an African foundation.” Governor

John Hippisley, writing on the Population of Africa, observed that, I quote,

“the extensive employment of our shipping in, to and from America, the

great brood of seamen consequent thereon, and the daily bread of the

most considerate part of our British manufacturing, are owing primarily to

the labour of negros. The negro trade and the natural consequences

resulting therefrom may justly be esteemed an inexhaustible fund of wealth

and power to this nation.” Unquote.

As the Governor of Cape Coast Castle, he was bullish on the African Slave

Trade and wrote “Africa not only can continue supplying the West Indies in

the quantities she has hitherto, but if necessity required it could spare

thousands, many millions more, and go on doing this to the end of time.”

The Slave Trade was eventually abolished in the late 18th Century.

Subsequent developments then ushered in the Berlin Conference of

1884/85. At this Conference, the African continent was divided up

between European powers and the United States. This was done to prevent

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war in Europe among the European powers, prompted by British invasion

of Egypt, and the French of Morocco.

The borders which were created then are the borders which remain with us

today. For another century or more colonies were developed in Africa

whose countries were assigned the rule of single crop economies and

apartheid in South Africa.

Your Excellencies,

This is the background to the Africa in which we find ourselves. We can

only hope to create the Africa we want when few really know and

understand where we are coming from.

The independence of Ghana, wrought by a dynamic young Ghanaian

president, Kwame Nkrumah, ushered in the era of decolonization and

independence which led to and was also supported by the Organisation of

African Unity. After the final liberation of South Africa with the release of

Nelson Mandela, came the metamorphosis of the OAU into the African

Union. The colonial system entrenched poverty in Africa, and the system

remains largely so to this day. This is the nature of our historical

phenomenon, its origin, its evolution and its development. Now what is

the current situation?

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In the year 2004, Africa exported goods to the value of 232 billion dollars,

the equivalent of 2.6 per cent of global trade. Africa imported goods to the

value of 212 billion dollars, equivalent to 2.3 per cent of global trade. Of

its exports, manufactures accounted for 5.1 billion dollars, agricultural

products to 28 billion, and fuels and mining products 137 billion dollars.

Taking fuels, mining products and agricultural products together,

unprocessed goods accounted for more than 71 per cent of Africa’s total

merchandise exports in 2004. Only 10 per cent of the goods exported

were traded within Africa, 42 per cent to Europe, Asia, 16.8 per cent of

which 5.8 per cent was to China alone.

For long term sustainable development, Africa needs to prioritize its

capacity to process goods. In any wealth-generation process, such factors

as productive capacity, productivity and competitiveness are closely linked.

This linkage is one of the prerequisites for sustainable supply capacity and

regional integration. It is predicated on the proactive participation of

complementary initiatives of the private sector, the government and

support institutions, as well as learning and innovation centres.

It may perhaps be an appropriate juncture to recall that as far back as

1963, Kwame Nkrumah called for a Committee of Foreign Ministers,

officials and officials to be empowered to establish:

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1. A Commission to frame a Constitution for a Union Government of

African States;

2. A Commission to work out a continent-wide plan for a United or

Common Economic and Industrial Programme for Africa to include

the setting up of a Common Market for Africa, an African currency, an

African monetary zone.

He was advocating that with continental integration will come continental

development. He was confident that with integration and unity “we shall

be able to drain our marshes and our swamps, clear infested areas, feed

the undernourished, and rid our people of parasites and disease. It is even

within the possibility of science and technology to make even the Sahara

bloom into a vast field with verdant vegetation for agricultural and

industrial developments. We shall harness radio, television, giant printing

presses to lift our people from the dark recesses of illiteracy.” That was in

the dim and distant past over 50 years ago, in 1963, at the inaugural and

foundational setting of the Organisation of African Unity in Addis Ababa.

A CHANGING LANDSCAPE IN AFRICA

What is the landscape of Africa today? Africa seems today more confident,

more dynamic and imbued with more optimism. It is also quite fragile,

because it is still dependent on export of raw materials. Its growing

number of young people, energetic and restless, are facing the brunt of

lack of inclusiveness in the growth. The development is not sustainable

and the large majority of our energetic youth are without employment.

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Many African countries still face severe constraints in their sustainable

economic development and are still heavily dependent on the exploitation

of natural resources.

What are the challenges? Transnational security problems, organized

crime, human trafficking, religious fanaticism, Boko Haram, environmental

degradation, outbreak of diseases such as Ebola. We are faced with

famine in places like South Sudan, climate change, unprecedented levels of

forced displacements, irregular migration within Africa and towards a

Europe which does not want them. The demographic dynamics are

spectacular in their projections. By 2050, Africa’s population will be around

2.4 billion people – predominantly young people. This is a danger, as well

as an opportunity. What, then, is to be done?

Investing in our youth is the only way to harness the demographic

dividend. Education should start early and remain continuous. In the

African Union, we have three main priorities. It shall be education,

education, education. Education is a major priority in the development of

our youth. Early education is the first issue which requires investment of

the best development chances are to be given to all the children to seize

future opportunities.

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Studies have shown that the level of education attained by individuals

determine their level of exposure to poverty and the extent to which they

contribute to economic growth. Education transforms an individual’s

values, beliefs and behavior and generally enhances his attitude, and this

makes him more productive. The curriculum must be looked at again to

reflect our strategic ambitions for that is going to be the software of

development. And what are our aspirations under Agenda 2063?

AGENDA 2063

The aspirations reflect our desire for shared prosperity and well-being for

unity and integration, for a continent of free citizens and expanded

horizons where the full potential of women and youth, boys and girls are

realized, and with freedom from fear, disease and want.

Aspiration 1

A prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable

development. We are determined to eradicate poverty in our generation.

Aspiration 2

An integrated continent, politically united, based on the ideals of Pan-

Africanism, and the vision of Africa’s renaissance.

Since 1963, the quest for African Unity has been inspired by the spirit of

Pan-Africanism, focusing on liberation and political and economic

independence. It is motivated by development based on

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Self-reliance and self-determination of African people, with democratic and

people-centred ………………..

Aspiration 3

An Africa of good governance, democracy, respect for human rights, justice

and the rule of law.

Africa shall have a universal culture of good governance, democratic

values, gender equality, respect for human rights and the rule of law.

Aspiration 4

A peaceful and secure Africa.

Mechanisms for peaceful prevention and resolution of conflict.

A culture of peace and tolerance – education for every African child.

Aspiration 5

An Africa with a strong cultural identity, common heritage, values and

ethics.

Pan-Africanism, and the common history, destiny, identity, heritage, respect

for religious diversity and consciousness of African peoples and her

diaspora.

Aspiration 6

An Africa whose development is people-driven, relying on the potential of

African people, especially its women and youth.

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Aspiration 7

Africa as a strong, united, resilient and influential global player and partner.

Your Excellencies,

A new momentum for structural transformation is gathering steam. After

years of conflict, turmoil and economic stagnation, Africa’s fortunes are

beginning to turn for the better. Africa is once again on a positive path of

growth as well as political and socio-economic transformation.

The African Union Agenda 2063, the blueprint for Africa’s development,

provides direction with key flagship projects such as:

1. The signing of the Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) by

member states of the Union, in April last month in Kigali, will boost

trade within Africa; it will be a game changer.

2. The launch of the Single African Air transport Market, during the June

2018 Summit of Heads of State and Government to create a single

unified air transport market, will be an impetus to our economic

integration agenda to ensure intra-regional connectivity between our

capital cities as well as air carrier efficiencies.

The African CFTA will create a wider market of more than 1.2 billion people

with a combined gross domestic product of 2.19 million dollars. This will

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scale up investments, resulting in the pooling of African resources to

enhance structural transformation and the development of regional value

chains.

Your Excellencies,

Africa is finally on the move. We invite all of you, all our partners, all our

young people, the train has left the station, but it is beginning to speed up.

Get on board, and let us all build this proud continent. Where are we

going? We are creating and integrated, prosperous, and peaceful Africa,

driven by its own citizens, representing a dynamic force in the international

arena.

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