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Santanfara
3460 Posts |
 Posted - 08 Apr 2008 : 00:07:15
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print the speech and read it. it is now in a book but here you have it for free. print it and read it slowly .momodou will delete it by tomorrow. it is going to take a lot of his server space.
the sgreat speech follows....by who?
*"I am happy to be here in Addis Ababa on this most historic
occasion.
I bring with me the hopes and fraternal greetings of the government and
people of Ghana. Our objective is African union now. There is no time
to
waste. We must unite now or perish. I am confident that by our
concerted
effort and determination, we shall lay here the foundations for a
continental Union of African States.*
* A whole continent has imposed a mandate upon us to lay the
foundation
of our union at this conference. It is our responsibility to execute
this
mandate by creating here and now, the formula upon which the requisite
superstructure may be erected.*
* On this continent it has not taken us long to discover that the
struggle against colonialism does not end with the attainment of
national
independence. Independence is only the prelude to a new and more
involved
struggle for the right to conduct our own economic and social affairs;
to
construct our society according to our aspirations, unhampered by
crushing
and humiliating neo-colonialist controls and interference.*
* From the start we have been threatened with frustration where
rapid
change is imperative and with instability where sustained effort and
ordered
rule are indispensable.*
* No sporadic act nor pious resolution can resolve our present
problems. Nothing will be of avail, except the united act of a united
Africa.*
* We have already reached the stage where we must unite or sink
into
that condition which has made Latin-America the unwilling and
distressed
prey of imperialism after one-and-a-half centuries of political
independence.*
* *
* As a continent we have emerged into independence in a different
age,
with imperialism grown stronger, more ruthless and experienced, and
more
dangerous in its international associations. Our economic advancement
demands the end of colonialist and neo-colonialist domination in
Africa.*
* But just as we understood that the shaping of our national
destinies
required of each of us our political independence and bent all our
strength
to this attainment, so we must recognise that our economic independence
resides in our African union and requires the same concentration upon
the
political achievement.*
* The unity of our continent, no less than our separate
independence,
will be delayed if, indeed, we do not lose it, by hobnobbing with
colonialism.*
* African unity is, above all, a political kingdom which can only
be
gained by political means. The social and economic development of
Africa
will come only within the political kingdom, not the other way round.*
* Is it not unity alone that can weld us into an effective force,
capable of creating our own progress and making our valuable
contribution to
world peace?*
* Which independent African state, which of you here, will claim
that
its financial structure and banking institutions are fully harnessed to
its
national development?*
* Which will claim that its material resources and human energies
are
available for its own national aspirations? Which will disclaim a
substantial measure of disappointment and disillusionment in its
agricultural and urban development?*
* In independent Africa, we are already re-experiencing the
instability
and frustration which existed under colonial rule. We are fast learning
that
political independence is not enough to rid us of the consequences of
colonial rule.*
* The movement of the masses of the people of Africa for freedom
from
that kind of rule was not only a revolt against the conditions which it
imposed. Our people supported us in our fight for independence because
they
believed that African governments could cure the ills of the past in a
way
which could never be accomplished under colonial rule.*
* If, therefore, now that we are independent we allow the same
conditions to exist that existed in colonial days, all the resentment
which
overthrew colonialism will be mobilised against us.*
* The resources are there. It is for us to marshal them in the
active
service of our people. Unless we do this by our concerted efforts,
within
the framework of our combined planning, we shall not progress at the
tempo
demanded by today's events and the mood of our people. The symptoms of
our
troubles will grow, and the troubles themselves become chronic. It will
then
be too late even for pan-African unity to secure for us stability and
tranquillity in our labours for a continent of social justice and
material
well-being.*
* Our continent certainly exceeds all the others in potential
hydro-electric power, which some experts assess as 42% of the world's
total.
What need is there for us to remain hewers of wood and drawers of water
for
the industrialised areas of the world?*
* It is said, of course, that we have no capital, no industrial
skill,
no communications and no internal markets, and that we cannot even
agree
among ourselves how best to utilise our resources for our own social
needs.
Yet all stock exchanges in the world are pre-occupied with Africa's
gold,
diamonds, uranium, platinum, copper and iron ore.*
* 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% 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 - come 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?*
* For centuries, Africa has been the milch cow of the Western
world.
Was it not our continent that helped the Western world to build up its
accumulated wealth?*
* We have the resources. It was colonialism in the first place
that
prevented us from accumulating the effective capital; but we ourselves
have
failed to make full use of our power in independence to mobilise our
resources for the most effective take-off into thorough-going economic
and
social development.*
* We have been too busy nursing our separate states to understand
fully
the basic need of our union, rooted in common purpose, common planning
and
common endeavour. A union that ignores these fundamental necessities
will be
but a sham. It is only by uniting our productive capacity and the
resultant
production that we can amass capital. And once we start, the momentum
will
increase. With capital controlled by our own banks, harnessed to our
own
true industrial and agricultural development, we shall make our
advance.*
* *
* We shall accumulate machinery and establish steel works, iron
foundries and factories; we shall link the various states of our
continent
with communications by land, sea and air. We shall cable from one place
to
another, phone from one place to the other and astound the world with
our
hydro-electric power; we shall drain marshes and swamps, clear infested
areas, feed the under-nourished, and rid our people of parasites and
disease.=20*
* It is within the possibility of science and technology to make
even
the Sahara bloom into a vast field with verdant vegetation for
agricultural
and industrial developments. We shall harness the radio, television,
giant
printing presses to lift our people from the dark recesses of
illiteracy.*
* A decade ago, these would have been visionary words, the
fantasies of
an idle dreamer. But this is the age in which science has transcended
the
limits of the material world, and technology has invaded the silences
of
nature.*
* Time and space have been reduced to unimportant abstractions.
Giant
machines make roads, clear forests, dig dams, lay out aerodromes;
monster
trucks and planes distribute goods; huge laboratories manufacture
drugs;
complicated geological surveys are made; mighty power stations are
built;
colossal factories erected - all at an incredible speed. The world is
no
longer moving through bush paths or on camels and donkeys.*
* We cannot afford to pace our needs, our development, our
security, to
the gait of camels and donkeys. We cannot afford not to cut down the
overgrown bush of outmoded attitudes that obstruct our path to the
modern
open road of the widest and earliest achievement of economic
independence
and the raising up of the lives of our people to the highest level.*
* Even for other continents lacking the resources of Africa, this
is
the age that sees the end of human want. For us it is a simple matter
of
grasping with certainty our heritage by using the political might of
unity.
All we need to do is to develop with our united strength the enormous
resources of our continent.*
* What use to the farmer is education and mechanisation, what use
is
even capital for development; unless we can ensure for him a fair price
and
a ready market? What has the peasant, worker and farmer gained from
political independence, unless we can ensure for him a fair return for
his
labour and a higher standard of living?*
* Unless we can establish great industrial complexes in Africa,
what
have the urban worker, and those peasants on overcrowded land gained
from
political independence? If they are to remain unemployed or in
unskilled
occupation, what will avail them the better facilities for education,
technical training, energy and ambition which independence enables us
to
provide?*
* ** There is hardly any African state without a frontier problem
with
its adjacent neighbours. It would be futile for me to enumerate them
because
they are already so familiar to us all. But let me suggest that this
fatal
relic of colonialism will drive us to war against one another as our
unplanned and uncoordinated industrial development expands, just as
happened
in Europe.*
* Unless we succeed in arresting the danger through mutual
understanding on fundamental issues and through African unity, which
will
render existing boundaries obsolete and superfluous, we shall have
fought in
vain for independence.*
* Only African unity can heal this festering sore of boundary
disputes
between our various states. The remedy for these ills is ready in our
hands.
It stares us in the face at every customs barrier, it shouts to us from
every African heart. By creating a true political union of all the
independent states of Africa, with executive powers for political
direction,
we can tackle hopefully every emergency and every complexity.*
* This is because we have emerged in the age of science and
technology
in which poverty, ignorance and disease are no longer the masters, but
the
retreating foes of mankind.*
* Above all, we have emerged at a time when a continental land
mass
like Africa with its population approaching 300 million are necessary
to the
economic capitalisation and profitability of modern productive methods
and
techniques.*
* Not one of us working singly and individually can successfully
attain
the fullest development.*
* Certainly, in the circumstances, it will not be possible to give
adequate assistance to sister states trying, against the most difficult
conditions, to improve their economic and social structures. Only a
united
Africa functioning under a union government can forcefully mobilise the
material and moral resources of our separate countries and apply them
efficiently and energetically to bring a rapid change in the conditions
of
our people.*
* Unite we must. Without necessarily sacrificing our
sovereignties, big
or small, we can here and now forge a political union based on defence,
foreign affairs and diplomacy, and a common citizenship, an African
currency, an African monetary zone and an African central bank. We must
unite in order to achieve the full liberation of our continent. We need
a
common defence system with African high command to ensure the stability
and
security of Africa.*
* We have been charged with this sacred task by our own people,
and we
cannot betray their trust by failing them. We will be mocking the hopes
of
our people if we show the slightest hesitation or delay in tackling
realistically this question of African unity.*
* ** We need unified economic planning for Africa. Until the
economic
power of Africa is in our hands, the masses can have no real concern
and no
real interest for safeguarding our security, for ensuring the stability
of
our regimes, and for bending their strength to the fulfilment of our
ends.*
* With our united resources, energies and talents we have the
means, as
soon as we show the will, to transform the economic structures of our
individual states from poverty to that of wealth, from inequality to
the
satisfaction of popular needs. Only on a continental basis shall we be
able
to plan the proper utilisation of all our resources for the full
development
of our continent.*
* How else will we retain our own capital for our development? How
else
will we establish an internal market for our own industries? By
belonging to
different economic zones, how will we break down the currency and
trading
barriers between African states, and how will the economically stronger
amongst us be able to assist the weaker and less developed states?*
* It is important to remember that independent financing and
independent development cannot take place without an independent
currency. A
currency system that is backed by the resources of a foreign state is
ipso
facto subject to the trade and financial arrangements of that foreign
country.*
* Because we have so many customs and currency barriers as a
result of
being subject to the different currency systems of foreign powers, this
has
served to widen the gap between us in Africa. How, for example, can
related
communities and families trade with, and support one another
successfully,
if they find themselves divided by national boundaries and currency
restrictions?*
* The only alternative open to them in these circumstances is to
use
smuggled currency and enrich national and international racketeers and
crooks who prey upon our financial and economic difficulties.*
* 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 a
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.
To facilitate this arrangement, Ghana would change to a decimal
system.*
* 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.*
* ** With a common currency from one common bank of issue, we
should be
able to stand erect on our own feet because such an arrangement would
be
fully backed by the combined national products of the states composing
the
union. After all, the purchasing power of money depends on productivity
and
the productive exploitation of the natural, human and physical
resources of
the nation.*
* While we are assuring our stability by a common defence system,
and
our economy is being orientated beyond foreign control by a common
currency,
monetary zone and central bank of issue, we can investigate the
resources of
our continent.*
* We can begin to ascertain whether in reality we are the richest,
and
not, as we have been taught to believe, the poorest among the
continents.*
* We can determine whether we possess the largest potential in
hydro-electric power, and whether we can harness it and other sources
of
energy to our industries. We can proceed to plan our industrialisation
on a
continental scale, and to build up a common market for nearly 300
million
people.*
* Common continental planning for the industrial and agricultural
development of Africa is a vital necessity.*
* So many blessings flow from our unity; so many disasters must
follow
on our continued disunity. The hour of history which has brought us to
this
assembly is a revolutionary hour. It is the hour of decision.*
* The masses of the people of Africa are crying for unity. The
people
of Africa call for the breaking down of the boundaries that keep them
apart.
They demand an end to the border disputes between sister African states
-
disputes that arise out of the artificial barriers raised by
colonialism. It
was colonialism' s purpose that divided us. It was colonialism' s
purpose
that left us with our border irredentism, that rejected our ethnic and
cultural fusion.*
* Our people call for unity so that they may not lose their
patrimony
in the perpetual service of neo-colonialism. In their fervent push for
unity, they understand that only its realisation will give full meaning
to
their freedom and our African independence.*
* It is this popular determination that must move us on to a union
of
independent African states. In delay lies danger to our well-being, to
our
very existence as free states.*
* It has been suggested that our approach to unity should be
gradual,
that it should go piece-meal. This point of view conceives of Africa as
a
static entity with "frozen" problems which can be eliminated one by one
and
when all have been cleared then we can come together and say: "Now all
is
well, let us now unite".*
* ** This view takes no account of the impact of external
pressures.
Nor does it take cognisance of the danger that delay can deepen our
isolations and exclusiveness; that it can enlarge our differences and
set us
drifting further and further apart into the net of neo-colonialism, so
that
our union will become nothing but a fading hope, and the great design
of
Africa's full redemption will be lost, perhaps, forever.*
* The view is also expressed that our difficulties can be resolved
simply by a greater collaboration through co-operative association in
our
inter-territorial relationships. This way of looking at our problems
denies
a proper conception of their inter-relationship and mutuality. It
denies
faith in a future for African advancement in African independence. It
betrays a sense of solution only in continued reliance upon external
sources
through bilateral agreements for economic and other forms of aid.*
* The fact is that although we have been co-operating and
associating
with one another in various fields of common endeavour even before
colonial
times, this has not given us the continental identity and the political
and
economic force which would help us to deal effectively with the
complicated
problems confronting us in Africa today.*
* As far as foreign aid is concerned, a United Africa should be in
a
more favourable position to attract assistance from foreign sources.
There
is the far more compelling advantage which this arrangement offers, in
that
aid will come from anywhere to a United Africa because our bargaining
power
would become infinitely greater. We shall no longer be dependent upon
aid
from restricted sources. We shall have the world to choose from.*
* What are we looking for in Africa? Are we looking for Charters,
conceived in the light of the United Nations example? A type of United
Nations Organisation whose decisions are framed on the basis of
resolutions
that in our experience have sometimes been ignored by member states?
Where
groupings are formed and pressures develop in accordance with the
interest
of the groups concerned?*
* Or is it intended that Africa should be turned into a loose
organisation of states on the model of the Organisation of American
States,
in which the weaker states within it can be at the mercy of the
stronger or
more powerful ones politically or economically and all at the mercy of
some
powerful outside nation or group of nations? Is this the kind of
association
we want for ourselves in the United Africa we all speak of with such
feeling
and emotion?*
* We all want a united Africa, united not only in our concept of
what
unity connotes, but united in our common desire to move forward
together in
dealing with all the problems that can best be solved only on a
continental
basis.*
* We meet here today not as Ghanaians, Guineans, Egyptians,
Algerians,
Moroccans, Malians, Liberians, Congolese or Nigerians, but as Africans.
Africans united in our resolve to remain here until we have agreed on
the
basic principles of a new compact of unity among ourselves which
guarantees
for us and our future a new arrangement of continental government.*
* If we succeed in establishing a new set of principles as the
basis of
a new charter of stature for the establishment of a continental unity
of
Africa, and the creation of social and political progress for our
people,
then in my view, this conference should mark the end of our various
groupings and regional blocs.*
* But if we fail and let this grand and historic opportunity slip
by,
then we shall give way to greater dissension and division among us for
which
the people of Africa will never forgive us. And the popular and
progressive
forces and movements within Africa will condemn us. I am sure therefore
that
we shall not fail them.*
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Surah- Ar-Rum 30-22
"And among His signs is the creation of heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colours. verily, in that are indeed signs for men of sound knowledge." Qu'ran
www.suntoumana.blogspot.com |
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Dalton1
3485 Posts |
Posted - 08 Apr 2008 : 04:22:01
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Uncle Suntou,
How about just post your articles and not worry about Mawdo Momodou's cyber space? If you are that worried, post it on your blog and forward the link here. By saying it in the above way, almost numerous times now, you will solely discourage others on long articles or forwardings here. As long as what is forwarded is ethical and educative, Momodou and his crew of admins will shoulder it here ever. laughs!!! Fill it to the brim. haha!! Ayee!!
Remember others visit online, as per access to internet.
'Ahjaramah bui' for the piece.
Regards,
Dalton |
"There is no god but Allah (SWT); and Muhammad (SAW)is His last messenger." shahadah. Fear & Worship Allah (SWT) Alone! (:
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Edited by - Dalton1 on 08 Apr 2008 04:42:15 |
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Momodou
Denmark
11826 Posts |
Posted - 08 Apr 2008 : 08:38:46
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Suntu, Just remember to quote the source (give us the URL).  |
A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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Santanfara
3460 Posts |
Posted - 08 Apr 2008 : 09:41:13
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quote:
Originally posted by Momodou
Suntu, Just remember to quote the source (give us the URL).
thanks dalton . momodou, it was sent to me as an email a log time ago. i am just worried about the space on your systems. . any way thanks dalton for the good advice. it is very interesting take by nkurumah on why he thinks africa should unite. we need such documents for our children. |
Surah- Ar-Rum 30-22
"And among His signs is the creation of heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colours. verily, in that are indeed signs for men of sound knowledge." Qu'ran
www.suntoumana.blogspot.com |
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Dalton1
3485 Posts |
Posted - 08 Apr 2008 : 13:28:34
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Uncle Suntou,
Thanks!
You are very sincere & grateful.
See that makes a good personality: of some one who even worries about his own postings.
Dalton |
"There is no god but Allah (SWT); and Muhammad (SAW)is His last messenger." shahadah. Fear & Worship Allah (SWT) Alone! (:
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