Conversing with “Pan-Africanism"

Abstract

Conversing with Africa: Politics of Change
by Mikoma wa Ngig
Kimaathi Publishing House, 2003, 210pp.+ xxiii,
ISBN 0797425616

“Africa, define yourself!” commands Thabo Mbeki,1 the South African president who styles himself as the architect of an “African Renaissance”, a“pan-Africanism” by political fiat, arguably for economic ends. Given this context where the future of the continent is defined and enacted by a political elite rather than the masses who authorise their power, Mikoma wa Ngig’s Conversing with Africa represents an important and timely intervention. Both a philosophical treatise and a political manifesto, it – in crude summation - crafts two useful analytics: one diagnostic, the other prescriptive, for the contemporary malaise of Africa. In each of these analytics are bold claims, none more so than its conclusion – a call for a revolutionary Pan-Africanism. I argue that the political aspirations of Conversing are worthy of discussion; at the same time, I attempt to complicate the theoretical analysis that makes the claim possible.