Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Interim Diaspora President in Barbados Urged Unity, Now.

PRESS RELEASES

Interim Diaspora President in Barbados Urged Unity, Now.

August 29, 2007

Part 1 - Speech by His Excellency Dudley Thompson at the Barbados Bicentennial Global Dialogue on the 25th Day of August 2007. The most Honorable Thompson was recently elected President of the Diaspora at the Jamaica Pan African Summit.

Let me explain what that word stands for and its relevance. Pan Africanism is a socio-political movement, Afrocentric in nature, firmly opposed to racism and endeavoring to ensure Black empowerment, politically, socially, economically, technologically, and otherwise to accomplish our destiny as a people the Black Renaissance which will achieve the establishment of a new global order based on justice and equality for all.

Pan Africanism is the modern name of a Black universal movement, added to the political dictionary by a Black Trinidadian lawyer named Sylvester Williams in 1900 when he led a delegation of some 30 African, Caribbean and African Americans to the Archbishop of Canterbury in London to advocate greater respect for Black people all over the Diaspora and Africa . The two elements notable were the request for the right to be treated with equal dignity and secondly it was on behalf of all Black people over the world. This meeting suppliant in nature was attended by such leaders as Dr. WEB Dubois, Benito Sylvain of Ethiopia , Bishop Johnson of Nigeria and others.

The subsequent congresses were led by WEB Dubois was highlighted by the important Pan African Congress of 1945. The 5th Pan African Conference in Manchester , England marked the high water of the movement. It differed from the previous ones in that it had much greater attendance and composed of activists, intellectuals, trade unionists, students, workers, etc. Secondly, it was militant in tone and directly attacked the colonial system. Thirdly, it no longer included white sympathizers who usually attended. From now on the Africans were determined to take matters into their own hands. Finally and most importantly, it issued a single message, a united call for independence from colonial status. It is to be noted that of the hundreds that attended, only three countries were independent, Ethiopia , Haiti and Liberia .

I was present at that 5th Pan African Conference in 1945. I saw Kwame Nkrumah rise from his seat two chairs away from me and delivered a heart stirring speech that electrified the audience “Go back to your colonies and fight for political independence by all means at your disposal.” His voice rang out “seek ye the political kingdom and all things will follow.” The entire meeting was galvanized in silence, I was there. I saw those leaders leave that meeting silently, thoughtful men, I saw Ken Hill from Jamaica, Grantley Adams form Barbados, Jomo Kenyatta from Kenya, leave for their own respective countries with determination in their hearts and minds. Within two score years of that meeting over fifty countries got their independence. Leaders like Solanke and Nnamdi of Nigeria, and first of all Kwame Nkrumah succeeded in their struggle for independence. Little did I dream as I walked with Jomo Kenyatta out of that meeting nor could I know that in little over 10 years I would be his lawyer defending him with others in a court of law at Kapenguria charged with leading the Mau Mau, an insurrection which eventually brought forth Kenya’s independence.

Pan Africanism is a movement which had started like a flame for freedom in the hearts and minds of our ancestors when they were cruelly wrenched from the heart of Africa, their homes and their families, they could not be put out by the bloody waters of the Atlantic as they were horribly chained and packed like goods in those ferries o f infamy that made them slaves fro planters who worked them mercilessly under the lash. Men, women and children were scattered throughout the Diaspora. Barbados sugar planters grew rich of their labour and blood. The cotton fields of America , the coffee plantations and mines of Brazil and South America made the white slavers wealthy while our ancestors remained in poverty for generations our ancestors built the rich cities and universities of Europe and America our women and children and men chopped sugar cane and reaped tobacco in the sun until darkness fell upon them. They got not a cent for their labour, this went on for years, but in their song and suffering that spark for freedom that God put within them refused to go out…

There are millions of us in the Caribbean, millions more live in North America, and Canada , Millions in Brazil and other parts of Central and South America and other parts of the Diaspora. Today, the Government of Barbados has given everyone here today a great opportunity to send a message to these brothers and sisters in the Diaspora. Barbados gives you the opportunity to use this platform to ensure that they force that invincible chain of millions to give that strength of unity which would enable us as a most powerful family in world affairs to solve our own affairs to solve our own challenges. Each of you here and beyond must drop our habit of dependence. This is a time of many dangers. Among them is the growing spectre of globalization designed to maintain the status quo, leaving us at the bottom of the totem pole.

Are you training our youth to assume their responsibilities, to keep the flame alive by creating a conscious of solidarity? Where is the voice of Pan Africanism today? Are they responding to the fire of freedom in the strident call for unity from that great Pan Africanist as he brought his country into independence in March 1957 stating that “The independence of Ghana if it is meaningless not linked with the freedom of a united Africa . “Has the blood of our ancestors turned to water in our veins. The truth is that our scattered millions consist of several small groups promoting incongruous ideas seemingly determined to remain victims of division and necrophobia. One hundred years ago, Marcus Garvey called upon us to unite under mother Africa . It is your individual duty to fan the flames within you.

For your children’s sake organize in the Diaspora wherever you are, in clubs, associations in Churches, lodges and any other association which will make this Diaspora strong enough to support a single government of Africa. It is our only hope. Ask yourself today, each one of you what can you do to raise the awareness of our race? How can I organize and build the solidarity of our people? How can I make this world a better place for my children and their children and their children to come? It is not sufficient to give ovations at meetings, we need immediate commitments and actions now. The Durban conference succeeded in placing reparations on the main agenda. It is no longer a footnote for history. That conference further produced a plan of action. It appealed to us to mobilize and unite.

I am approaching the ninety first year of my life. As a veteran Pan Africanist, I implore you in the last years of my life to unite the Diaspora and make yourself worthy of becoming the sixth region, a province of the African Union. I long for the day when I shall obtain my united African passport. I long for the day when we shall have our own African international news service. I long for the day when our women will be treated as equals in all respects and full dignity. I long for the day when our Black mothers all over the world will smile upon the Black babies in their arms, happy confident that they will never again grow up in the shadows of injustice and inequality. May God Bless you all!

(The next meeting of the World African Diaspora Union (WADU) is October 27, 2007. To participate and support, please contact Mama Anna Swanston at 404-527-7756 in Atlanta , GA ).

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