He also forged ties with black American intellectuals, for whom Africa was becoming, in this time of political change, an area of extreme interest. Moving to London after World War II, Nkrumah helped organize Pan-African congresses, linking the emergent educated groups of the African colonies with activists, writers, artists, and well-wishers from the industrial countries. It was a time of great intellectual ferment, excitement, and optimism.
India's achievement of independence in stirred dreams of freedom for the other colonies. The terms and timing were highly unsettled, and indeed would provoke conflict and violent clashes, but the basic principle of self-government was becoming the consensus.
Nkrumah was dissatisfied with the existing nationalist grouping, finding it staid and conservative, overly tied to colonial business interests. With several associates he set up a new party, the Convention People's Party CPP , in the process demonstrating his supreme organizational abilities. Within two years the CPP had won limited self-rule elections, and Nkrumah became "Leader of Government Business" -- a de facto prime minister, responsible for internal government and policy.
He set his sights firmly on independence. No amount of autonomy or self-rule, he argued, could match the energy, commitment, and focus of a government and people in a truly independent country. It was a precondition for growth. He summarized his philosophy in a slogan that became famous and influential across Africa: "Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added unto you By the mids, over 30 African countries were independent and many had charismatic leaders, including Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, and Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia.
Their economic views were very much those of the time, in line with the consensus among development economists. Here again, only the state could mobilize the funds and coordinate the activities of economic transformation if it was to be achieved in the leaders' lifetime -- let alone during their time in office.
Indeed, pessimism about markets was even greater in Africa than elsewhere. After all, the colonization of Africa had come with little regard for local education, health, or infrastructure. It was tainted with racism and contempt. As a result, people were not equipped to participate in markets, or so it seemed. Instead, the new leaders hatched schemes for "African socialism" that could somehow combine modern growth and traditional values. It was, after all, the received wisdom of the time.
Ironically, the economic device in which Africa's new leaders invested their trust was itself a colonial invention -- the marketing board, a public agency responsible for buying crops from farmers and reselling them for export. Seemingly innocuous and indeed almost boring in name, marketing boards were in fact powerful tools of control for the new governments.
They were born of necessity, when the Great Depression drove down world commodity prices and the wartime boom drove them up again. African farmers lived on a shoestring and were highly vulnerable to such volatile swings in world markets. They might overplant in times of high prices and abandon crops when prices fell. Meanwhile, the state would lose both tax revenue and its ability to plan ahead.
The marketing boards were set up to correct this situation. They would purchase crops at stable prices. In times of high world prices, they would accumulate a surplus of money; in times of low world prices, they would use that financial surplus to support the local price. This would protect farmers from the tumult of markets, over which they had no control.
Because the marketing boards deliberately paid farmers prices other than the world-market prices, they could not function in a competitive market. Hence, they were granted monopolies. Virtually all crops for export had to go through the marketing board. This was the prevailing system at independence in almost every African country. All that varied from country to country was the exact number and range of crops concerned. For Nkrumah and his peers, retaining the colonial marketing boards seemed the expedient, indeed the sensible, thing to do.
By using these words, he was inviting people to take action. Given that religion is considered by many to be the ultimate moral force, Nkrumah is seen to be imposing a moral imperative on Africans to rise up in armed resistance.
This established a moral order and created a sense of solidarity. This made them a threat that needed to be nullified. Generally, research shows that politicians tend to be indirect and evasive.
His style was atypical given that politicians tend to be diplomatic in what they say. And it certainly contributed to making him one of the most powerful voices on the continent.
Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. Become an author Sign up as a reader Sign in. But before the close of , cracks had developed in the relationship between Nkrumah and the party leadership. He was accused of being complicit in riots that resulted in the detention of the leaders, Nkrumah himself included. From this point their mistrust of Nkrumah heightened. For his part, Nkrumah too became estranged from the views of the leadership.
By this time, he had toured almost every part of the country. As David Rooney , the historian and author, has observed, Nkrumah roused the youth with his. He inflamed the people with demands for self-government now. This was what the leadership of the United Gold Coast Convention lacked. The party injected a new sense of urgency into the fight for independence.
From then on he was viewed as the father of the independence movement, and after independence the father of modern Ghana. Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. Become an author Sign up as a reader Sign in.
0コメント