Life and Times of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

[Sokotocaliphate]

Part 3




Part 4

[Sokotocaliphate]

Part 5

[jamesamehere]

i came across these quotes from kwame Nkrumah which i think are interesting so i would post them here.

"Countrymen, the task ahead is great indeed, and heavy is the responsibility; and yet it is a noble and glorious challenge - a challenge which calls for the courage to dream, the courage to believe, the courage to dare, the courage to do, the courage to envision, the courage to fight, the courage to work, the courage to achieve - to achieve the highest excellencies and the fullest greatness of man. Dare we ask for more in life? " Address to the National Assembly. 12 June 1965

"It is said, of course that we have no capital, no industrial skill, no communications, no internal markets, and that we cannot even agree among ourselves how best to utilize our resources for our own social needs.

"Yet all the stock exchanges in the world are pre-occupied with Africa's gold, diamonds, uranium, platinum, copper and iron ores. Our CAPITAL flows out in streams to irrigate the whole system of Western economy. Fifty-two per cent of the gold in Fort Knox at this moment, where the USA stores its bullion, is believed to have originated from OUR shores. Africa provides more than 60 per cent of the world's gold. A great deal of the uranium for nuclear power, of copper for electronics, of titanium for supersonic projectiles, of iron and steel for heavy industries, of other minerals and raw materials for lighter industries - the basic economic might of the foreign Powers - comes from OUR continent.

"Experts have estimated that the Congo Basin alone can produce enough food crops to satisfy the requirements of nearly HALF the population of the whole world and here we sit talking about regionalism, talking about gradualism, talking about step by step. Are you afraid to tackle the bull by the horn?" Address to the Conference of African Heads of State and Government, May 24, 63, can be found at page 237 of the book Revolutionary Path

[jamesamehere]

"Africa is one continent, one people, and one nation. The notion that in order to have a nation it is necessary for there to be a common language, a common territory and common culture has failed to stand the test of time or the scrutiny of scientific definition of objective reality... The community of economic life is the major feature within a nation, and it is the economy which holds together the people living in a territory. It is on this basis that the new Africans recognise themselves as potentially one nation, whose dominion is the entire African continent. " Class Struggle in Africa


"No independent African State today by itself has a chance to follow an INDEPENDENT course of economic development, and many of us who have tried to do this have been almost ruined or have had to return to the fold of the former colonial rulers. This position will not change unless we have unified POLICY working at the CONTINENTAL LEVEL. The first step towards our cohesive economy would be a unified monetary zone, with, initially, an agreed common parity for our currencies...When we find that the arrangement of a fixed common parity is working successfully, there would seem to be NO reason for not instituting one common currency and a single bank of issue." Address to the Conference of African Heads of State and Government, May 24, 63 can be found at page 242 of the book Revolutionary Path

[jamesamehere]

"Psychological attacks are made through the agency of broadcasting stations like the BBC, Voice of Germany, and above all, Voice of America, which pursues its brainwashing mission through newsreels, interviews and other "informative" programmes at all hours of the day and night, on all wavelengths and in many languages, including special English. The war of words is supplemented by written propaganda using a wide range of political devices such as embassy bulletins, pseudo revolutionary publications, studies on nationalism and on African socialism, the literature spread by the so-called independent and liberal publishers, cultural and civic education centres, and other imperialist subversive organisations.

"The paper war penetrates into every town and village, and into the remotest parts of the bush. It spreads in the form of free distributions of propaganda films praising the qualities of western civilisation and culture. These are some of the ways in which the psychological terrain is prepared. When the target, a certain country or continent, is sufficiently softened, then the invasion of evangelist brigades begins, thus perpetuating the centuries old tactic whereby missionaries prepare the way for guns. Peace Corps divisions stream ins and Moral Rearmament units, Jehovah witnesses, information agencies and international financial aid organisations. In this way, a territory or even an entire continent is besieged without a single marine in sight. A sprinkling of political and little-publicised murders, like that of Pio Pinto in Kenya, and Moumie in Geneva, are used to assist the process.

"A recent development in the psychological war is the campaign to convince us that we cannot govern ourselves, that we are unworthy of genuine independence, and that foreign tutelage is the only remedy for our wild, warlike and primitive ways. Imperialism has done its utmost to brainwash Africans into thinking that they need the strait-jackets of colonialism and neocolonialism if they are to be saved from their retrogressive instincts. Such is the age-old racialist justification for the economic exploitation of our continent.

"And now, the recent military coups engineered throughout Africa by foreign reactionaries are also being used to corroborate imperialism's pet theory that the Africans have shamelessly squandered the golden opportunities of independence, and that they have plunged their political kingdoms into blood and barbarism. Therefore the imperialist mission: we must save them anew; and they hail the western-trained and western-bought army puppets as saviours. The press, films and radio are last spreading the myth of post-independence violence and chaos.

"Everywhere, the more or less covert implication is: Africa needs to be recolonised. The fact that Africa has advanced politically more quickly than any other continent in the world is ignored. In 1957 when Ghana became independent and the political renaissance began in Africa, there were only eight independent states. Now, in just over ten years, there are over forty and the final liberation of the continent is in sight. Imperialists are not content with trying to convince us that we are politically immature. They are telling us, now that we are realising that armed revolution is the only way to defeat neocolonialism, that we are inherently incapable of fighting a successful revolutionary war. " Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare

[jamesamehere]

"How much more effective would our efforts have been if we had spoken with the one voice of Africa's millions. With all our minerals and waterpower and fertile lands, is it not a cause for shame that we remain poor and content to plead for aid from the very people who have robbed us of our riches in the past? How can Egypt, strategically situated as is it, combat the imperialism and neocolonialism and solve the pressing and urgent problems of the Middle East unless it has the backing of a Union Government of Africa? Only a Union Government can assist in the solution of the problems of the Middle East, including the Palestinian question." Proposal For A Union Government of Africa speech at the July 19, 1964 OAU Summit Meeting


"...the problem is how to obtain capital investment and still keep it under sufficient control to prevent exploitation; and how to preserve integrity and sovereignty without crippling economic or political ties to any country, bloc or system" Africa Must Unite


"By far the greatest wrong which the departing colonialists inflicted on us, and which we now continue to inflict on ourselves in our present state of disunity, was to leave us divided into economically unviable States which bear no possibility of real development...."

"...We must unite for economic viability, first of all, and then to recover our mineral wealth in Southern Africa, so that our vast resources and capacity for development will bring prosperity for us and additional benefits for the rest of the world. That is why I have written elsewhere that the emancipation of Africa could be the emancipation of Man." Speech OAU Summit Conference Cairo 7/19/64 can be found on pages 282-4 of Revolutionary Path