African Liberation Day was established to honor the anti-colonial struggles of the African peoples and nations for independence, a fight which continues today with different contours
Now, more than ever, is the time to commit to the emancipatory project of revolutionary Pan-Africanism. For the first time in decades, a new anti-imperialist path is being forged in Africa through the creation of the Alliance of Sahel States. Our task is to defend and advance a continental Pan African Project that concretely represents most of Africa’s peoples.
Africa is both the wealthiest and poorest continent on Earth; it is rich in resources yet poor in GDP. The continent boasts an abundance of mineral resources, including uranium from Niger, which until recently powered every third lightbulb in France, as well as cobalt from the Congo, crucial for the electronic devices of much of the developed world.
South Africa still holds over 75% of the world’s platinum supply, yet the people living above these platinum deposits do not have flushing toilets. The Congo, from King Leopold’s barbarism and the uranium extracted for use in the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima to today’s scramble for rare earth minerals, has remained both rich and poor. While the Congo Basin could feed the entire continent, Africa suffers from the highest rate of hunger in the world.
Half of Africa’s population is under 19, a considerable demographic advantage with the potential for a brighter future. This youthful energy, if harnessed and guided, can be the driving force behind the revolutionary transformation we seek. However, this potential is at risk of being squandered, with most of Africa’s youth at risk of becoming another unharnessed, lost generation.
All of this is a direct consequence of the lingering legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, European colonialism, and the neo-colonial subordination of post-independence Africa by the United States and its Western European allies.
Divide, rule, and weaken
Africa’s simultaneous fortune and misfortune is rooted in the fact that this continent has more countries than any other. “Divide and rule” was more than just the British imperial policy of the 19th and 20th centuries; it was the modus operandi for weakening Africa’s potential since the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885.
Fragmented into 54 nominally independent countries, Africa’s 1.5 billion people have been prevented from fully benefiting from the continent’s collective human capacity and material wealth.
The active balkanization of Africa is not merely a historical phenomenon. Balkanization continues today. In 2011, Sudan was divided into two countries. The central government in Kinshasa lacks full sovereignty over the entire Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since the Biafran War of 1967, efforts have been made to divide Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, into multiple states beholden to Western imperialism. Even Burkina Faso – the land of Thomas Sankara and Ibrahim Traoré – has faced repeated attempts at fracture, especially following NATO’s destruction of Libya and the subsequent jihadist ventures into the Sahel.
History is not merely a rear-view window through which the African people can look as we drive into the future. Instead, it is the culmination of 580 years of struggle between the forces of oppression and exploitation and those of resistance and liberation.
Africa’s contemporary reality – particularly the ongoing issue of Balkanization, the stark contrast between immense material wealth and significant poverty, and the unfulfilled potential of our people – did not emerge in isolation. It stems from Africa’s long-standing role as the anchor of development in Western Europe and North America.
Colonial accumulation
This reality is succinctly outlined by Walter Rodney, who argued that “two factors have brought about underdevelopment [in Africa]. In the first place, the wealth created by African labor and from African resources was grabbed by the capitalist countries of Europe; and in the second place restrictions were placed upon African capacity to make the maximum use of its economic potential – which is what development is all about. Those two processes… [explain]… why Africa has realized so little of its potential and why so much of its present wealth goes outside of the continent.”
Undoubtedly, many will attribute the problems of Africa to ‘internal factors’ such as failed states, poor governance, corruption, ethnic conflicts, leadership failures, and more. Of course, these factors are significant, and those responsible must be held accountable.
However, and more importantly, none of these factors emerge out of nowhere, and none are without beneficiaries. These manifestations of Africa’s challenges are frequently cited as the root causes of the continent’s problems. Yet, such an analysis substitutes the appearance of a problem for its essence.
These so-called ‘internal factors’ can be traced back to cliques of slavers, colonists, and neo-colonists who are the primary beneficiaries of Africa’s socio-political and economic problems. For them, dysfunction in many parts of Africa is highly functional.
Capitalist slavery fueled the Global North’s development. This system, alongside the colonial exploitation of Africa and its people and the ongoing neo-colonial economic and political world order, is why Africa remains at the bottom of the global food chain. If revolution is understood as ‘fundamental change,’ then it is clear that overcoming this unjust reality necessitates a revolutionary transformation.
Pan African revolution
Such a revolution is possible only when rooted in the African peoples. A political movement that genuinely enjoys popular support from peasants, workers, the urban poor, women, and youth, along with a steadfast commitment to the unity of all people across Africa and the diaspora, can aspire to overturn what Walter Rodney described as Africa’s active underdevelopment.
This commitment to African unity and the African people as the protagonists of fundamental social transformation through a new socialist trajectory for our continent is what Pan-Africanism is.
The political project of Pan-Africanism is not solely rooted in identity, such as race, nor is it tied to geography, excluding the sixth region of our continent – namely, the African diaspora.
As a political project, Pan-Africanism recognizes that the modern capitalist world was founded upon the bones of our ancestors, beginning with the establishment of the first slave trading posts in modern-day Mauritania in 1445. It acknowledges that this system enables a small group to accumulate wealth and power at the expense of the vast majority.
Confidence in the possibilities of Pan-Africanism is not based on a naïve assumption that the peoples of Africa are homogeneous or inherently inclined towards this political project. Instead, it is rooted in the fact that, despite differences in culture, religion, language, geography, and other factors, Africa remains unified by a common history and, for better or worse, a shared future.
Individual people, organizations or countries cannot determine whether the future is characterized by prosperity or drudgery. This choice only exists at the level of the African continent. Drudgery is the world that has been built at our people’s expense since 1445. Such a world must be defeated once and for all, and through Pan African unity, replaced by socialism.
We must heed Chris Hani’s words when he said, “Socialism is not about big concepts and heavy theory. Socialism is about decent shelter for those who are homeless. It is about water for those who have no safe drinking water. It is about health care, it is about a life of dignity for the old. It is about overcoming the huge divide between urban and rural areas. It is about a decent education for all our people. Socialism is about rolling back the tyranny of the market.”
Pan-Africanism remains relevant as it constitutes the quickest path to socialism in Africa. For over a century, figures ranging from W.E.B. Du Bois and Anna Julia Cooper to Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, and Thomas Sankara have championed the cause of Pan Africanism.
Imperialism has repeatedly sought to snuff out any individual or country which has threatened to serve as a unifying anchor for African liberation, from the assassinations of Thomas Sankara and Patrice Lumumba to the overthrow of leaders like Nkrumah. Despite this, Pan-Africanism, both as a methodology of struggle and an articulation of social, political, and economic aspirations, continues to persist against all odds.
As a shield and a spear against the US-led imperialist bloc, the imperative to build upon the revolutionary legacy of our predecessors is stronger than ever. We require political unity and centralized coordination of Africa’s enormous capacity, as Nkrumah demanded, alongside the regional economic integration championed by Nyerere.
Our African countries must jointly reject the neoliberal world order imposed by the United States, which lacks even the façade of human rights and democracy that once formed the rhetoric of imperialist subordination of Africa. Simultaneously, we must dismiss the international capitalist political economy that seeks to keep Africa and its people in a state of underdevelopment and drudgery. We must forge our independent path of development.
AES showing the way
This is why the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) represents one of the most significant developments since Nkrumah’s era. Despite understandable challenges and contradictions, the defensive, economic and anti-imperialist integration of these countries, through patriotic revolutions, widespread popular support, and a resolute rejection of French imperialism, marks an essential step toward the fundamental aspirations of Pan-Africanism. The AES symbolizes the antidote to balkanization and the erosion of African sovereignty; this process must be defended and celebrated as a milestone in Africa’s struggle for self-determination.
Those committed to African liberation must transcend the tremendous inspiration we derive from the Alliance of Sahel States. We must wholeheartedly defend the gains made by the revolutionary processes unfolding while intensifying the urgent task of securing true sovereignty and development in all corners of our continent.
The gains in the AES cannot be attributed solely to soldiers with guns. Instead, these achievements stem from the widespread popular support for sovereignty in these countries. There are many areas of Africa where such alignment between the aspirations of the people and the actions of governments is less pronounced. In these regions and countries, people’s movements and organizations must be strengthened and unified through political education, solidarity campaigns, and the clear articulation of the experiences and aspirations of Africa’s people.
In this task, there are no shortcuts. Only through unwavering confidence in the African people, the organizations they build, and the political and organizational leaders that emerge in the struggles for a better world can we truly advance in our fight for sovereignty, development, and prosperity in Africa.
In July 2025, we commemorate 100 years since the birth of Frantz Fanon, who concluded his last book by reminding us that “each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.”
The step towards African liberation in the Sahel is that very mission. The aspirations voiced by the peoples of the AES – true sovereignty and prosperity for themselves and their children – must be defended, replicated, and multiplied. This is perhaps the mission our generation must decide to fulfill or betray.
