Pan-Africanism and Negritude: A Look Into African Peoples and the Journey Towards Unity

This past week, I was invited to a conference by my Yoruba professor, Dr. Bayo Omolola (who's class I also wrote this for), titled: Pan-Africanism and Negritude: Dialogues Between Africa and the African Diaspora (Past, Present, Future) International Conference. The three-day long conference was hosted by the Department of World Languages and Cultures in. During this conference, the panelists discussed different topics in relation to Pan-Africanism. One of the panelists, Brandon Hogan, discussed Frantz Fanon’s opinion of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s “master-slave dialectic”, which is basically another name for a passage in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. As told by Hogan, Fanon basically says that Blacks do not follow their own laws and because of that, Black are not and cannot be free. Whites are also stuck in a similar situation, but it is not to the same degree as Blacks. Additionally, Whites follow their own laws and because of this, they are freer than any other race.

Hogan also noted, according to Fanon, that freedom of personhood requires some type of struggle and without the will to fight for one’s freedom or for one’s rights, he or she does not deserve recognition of their freedom or for their rights. He also notes that certain forms of political freedom can be barriers for actual freedom.

In the end of his presentation, Hogan, according to Fanon, pointed out that freedom requires mastery – which involves creating our own laws, being authoritative and essentially becoming autonomous.

In the next presentation, Mbow Amphas Mampoua discussed Pan-Africanism and the African realities in relation to Globalization. A couple points Mampoua had in regards to this topic was that Pan-Africanists are currently dealing with democracy and that Pan-Africanism was heightened when many African countries were being liberated. He also noted that teaching others their native tongues was and still is a good form of communication as the people would be able to help each other out by communicating in each other’ languages. Additionally, Mampoua pointed out that Africa is stronger than many other countries when everyone is working together – which I agreed with. Finally, Mampoua shared with the audience that he believes the United States should support Pan-African sub-regional organizations – like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) – that are helping Africans better themselves.

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WORKS CITED

Duquette, David A. "Hegel: Social and Political Thought." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n/a. Web. 3 Nov. 2015.