Pan Africanism : Nkrumahist-Tureist Economics

abdurratln

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See the thread in this forum called 'Islamic Economics". Also, go th this site for some thoughts and ideas: fudaa.blogspot.com. Scroll down to Nkrumahist-Tureist Economics.

Forward! LONG LIVE THE NATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another good place to start would be here:

http://www.panafricanperspective.com/ture2.htm


Pan-African Perspective
Revolution and Religion
Excerpts from Enhancing the People's Power
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Enhancing the People's Power

President Ahmed Sekou Toure
Secretary-General of the Party-State
Supreme Leader of the Revolution

Revolution and Religion

In attempting to tackle this issue that is as complex as it has raised secular controversies, namely, the issue of the " Revolution and Religion" relationships, we do not intend either to give it a solution acceptable to all, or to put and end to the debates that a simple reference, or a simple rapprochement between the two concepts might provoke. We rather intend to translate what the struggle of the P.D.G. amidst the Guinean People for over 30 years has enabled us to learn as lessons in the process of our Revolution which remained consistent with the realities of our People, in order to understand them, analyze them and use them as bases of operations for a truly progressive transformation of our society.
We shall therefore attempt, first to "venture" into definitions, and then to enumerate some characteristic features of the two concepts.
To us, Revolution means the collective movement initiated by a group of men or by a whole people, and supported by their conscious determination to change an old degrading order into a new, progressive order in view of ensuring the safeguard and development of collective and individual interests, without any discrimination whatsoever. The People’s Revolution, to us, remains thus a collective consciousness in motion, and a collective movement guided by conscience and whose ultimate aim is the continued progress of man and the People.
The fact of religion emerged with and from human consciousness. It suggests solutions to anguish. It influences and even at times, motivates social behaviors. But today, Religion to us means any coherent system of creed which carries noble ideals and cardinal values conducive to collective progress, respect for human dignity and human virtue.
Revolution sets as an objective for the action of men, their happiness in this world of ours, while Religion projects men’s existence onto the next world and reserves for a future world the positive or negative sanction crowning their life in this world. The Revolution does not intend to deny this future world; it only wishes that the struggle against evil be not " deferred", "postponed", and this is actually what all the sincere believers and all the dispossessed, regardless of race, sex or nationality are pressing for.
Revolution and Religion remain therefore characterized by their impersonality, their universality, and the ideology that locates them in the socio-human thinking, as well as the movement they impose on human conduct.
Revolution and Religion have common properties: they are means of educating the individual so that he may consciously acquire the conduct of a man that is free and responsible for his options and action. In other words, nobody becomes a revolutionary against his will, just as nobody could be the interpreter of a Religion against his will, or subjected to the exigencies of a Religion against his will. Revolution and Religion also have common postulates and they carry values, which they want the men to reflect, and more, of which they want men to, become the uncompromising and faithful advocates. To attain such an objective confers on these values a profound socio-historical significance. The one and the other set an ultimate objective to the human life of every individual, an objective on the basis of which a positive or negative sanction determines the value to be accorded to this individual existence.
A close examination indicates that Revolution and Religion both proclaim the pre-eminence of the society, the necessity for every individual to respect this pre-eminence in the assessment of contradictions between collective interest and individual interest, as well as the principles, rules and daily exigencies. The one and the other implicitly, if not openly, and profoundly consider society as the Supreme Reference from which the degree of usefulness of the individual is assessed and sanctioned as such.
The one and the other are expressed in a man through the faith which, as energy with a boundless strength, subtends and stimulates the manifestation of human life.
The one and the other underline the absolute necessity for every society to realize, defend and develop its independence, its sovereignty, its unity and its ethics, which must determine the behavior of individuals.
The one and other defend the common values, which are and remain universal aspirations for men and People: peace, freedom, justice, equality, progress, happiness, social harmony, truth and beauty.
Both consider certain goods as impersonal, well welded to the heritage of humanity, which every individual belonging to these goods must necessarily respect. These assets are both material and non-material: life, dignity, the unity, if not the cohesion of the family, of social groups, of the nation, of mankind; the soil, the subsoil, the fauna, the flora, the waters, air, light, etc.
Revolution and Religion proclaim, organize and conduct a permanent struggle, a universal struggle which, for the former (Revolution), is class struggle, the clash between antagonistic interests represented by classes that are opposed in the process of production, distribution and utilisation of the goods created by men, while for the latter (Religion), it is a struggle between good and evil, good embodying truth, justice and beauty, and evil embodying exploitation, alienation, foreign domination, lies, in brief, all that is contrary to good.
That the expression: class struggle and struggle between good and evil had not been formulated in the same terms, with the same concepts, does not change in any way their basic significance, the truths they involve and which men will have to defend in the search for collective and individual happiness.
When the Revolution raps capitalism, it is thereby identifying and materialising what Religion embodies under the abstract concept of social evil.
Revolution and Religion require, each from its faithful militants an attitude of struggle throughout their lives; a struggle against self, against selfishness, against defects and shortcomings, a struggle all around oneself for the triumph and the reign of social justice, historical and social truth, social solidarity and for the materialisation of the equality in duties and rights between individuals, within a free and harmonious society.
Indeed, the duties of the Revolution are, for all conscious militants of the Revolution, just like the religious duties, dictated to all men having faith in the same Religion, and this, regardless of race, colour, sex, or wealth. Revolution and Religion also act on the nature of thinking and on the action of the social being and dictate both an attitude of rigorous honesty, absolute faithfulness, modesty and social usefulness.
Both Revolution and Religion give prominence to labour: they present labour as a pressing duty, without the accomplishment of which, once the conditions of its accomplishment are available, man could not normally claim to belong to either. Sweat is indeed considered by both Revolution and Religion as the only objectively worthwhile criterion of deserving the sanction crowning the actions of every man. They strongly condemn human exploitation, arbitrary practices in social relations, racism, selfishness, laziness, ignorance, mystification, charlatanism, fetish, theft, alcoholism and moral depravity with the sole aim of safeguarding at the same time the physical health, the political, intellectual and moral health of the People, thanks to a normalisation of relations of all kinds governing individuals within a whole community.
Thus, Revolution and Religion presents man, the individual only as a social being, an element that derived from the society, and who, while enjoying his personality, his freedom of thought and action, his faculties, is guided by a social consciousness, and who must live in perfect harmony in his relations with individuals and with the society, in the most absolute respect for the common values, the common interests, and the common future. Both, in their philosophy, assert the superiority of the human being over physical nature, over the animal and vegetable kingdom, in other words, over all that lives and which he considers an element of society’s progress.
From these definitions and general characteristics, Revolution and Religion constitute, in their principles, not two separate and much less, contradictory forces, but a single force acting on the individual in the diversity of objectives pre-occupying him; for the above-mentioned definitions and characteristics are indeed related to the foundation of the progress of man within the society, and of the society within the universe.
The Guinean Revolution is aware of the role it has to assume and which is an honorable role, to the extent that she has to translate the true legitimate aspirations of the Guinean People, of the Peoples of the world, and to the extent that she has to defend the interests of the Guinean People and to the other Peoples of the world, to enable them attain their objective of material and non-material happiness; her faithfulness to the People constantly leads her to observe an objective and courageous attitude to assert the People’s personality, the People’s interest and the People’s choices.
That is why, the Guinean Revolution, as an expression of scientific truth, adheres without reservations to historical and dialectical materialism, which is the social science the content of which has benefited from the contribution of all Peoples struggling for freedom, dignity and historical progress. This social science will continue to be enriched by the fruits of the People’s struggles and to constantly develop the impersonal values founding it in the reality of the struggle as well between the antagonistic classes, as between good and evil in the religious field.
As for philosophical materialism, the Guinean Revolution has not adopted it, and it is not bound to do so, for the philosophy of Islam to which the Guinean People have profoundly adhered asserts the existence of God; therefore, the People believe in all the prescriptions of the Holy Koran which the Guinean Revolution has the duty to translate through the successive phases of the evolution of the Guinean society into socio-human behaviours. Any Revolution that does not respect faith would violate democracy and human dignity.
1. Dialectical materialism invites man to have a global and unitary perception of the universe and all that lives therein, to understand the relations between all things; it holds that nothing is isolated, all things are interrelated. It explains the laws of reciprocal action and of universal connexion.
2. Materialist dialectics asserts that in the universe, everything changes as a result of universal change and incessant development, that all that is real is in motion, and that nothing in itself and for itself, has come to stay once and for all.
3. It explains the relation existing between the quantitative and qualitative changes enabling man to understand how the quality and properties of things change.
4. It asserts that in every organic unit, there is contradiction and that within every being, a thing and its opposite co-exist.
As for religious doctrine, it asserts first of all that the universe is not born out of nothingness on its own, that it is the work of an omniscient, omnipresent, invisible and informal God.
That God is lonely and absolute.
That the universe is complex, harmonious and perfectly governed by an infinity of movements characterising it. That everything is born and dies in the framework of that universe.
That man is the privileged creation of the Almighty who has endowed him with a mind and intellectual faculties enabling him to think, decide and realise, while controlling a portion of space and time covering his existence.
That without his mind, without conscience and will, man could not be superior to other beings possessing a mass that is heavier and larger than the one giving man his objective shape.
The soul, the mind and conscience which are not material, constitute the superior element, the dynamic function of the being.
The religious doctrine makes of the mind and the body the elements materialising human life, for a dead body does not act, just as there could be no mind without a body.
Dialectics applied to the features of this religious philosophy points out the duality, that is, the contradiction within everything, and it is in fact in order to indicate this reality of the universal and permanent contradiction that the Holy Koran presents the two orientations, the two paths followed by men, on account of the nature influencing their positive or negative conduct as regards the high values which constitute the basis of justice, truth and good, as against injustice, untruthfulness and evil.
The Guinean Revolution considers as a base of operations of its action that which brings the people together and unites them in the concrete struggle for their democratic progress, and not that which divides them and weakens them.
It condemns and combats all that which, objectively, at one stage of the development of society, hinders and jeopardises the process of socio-human qualification and the constant improvement of the mode of production and of the relations of production which exert a direct influence on the People’s conditions of life.
History is not made of intentions, just as theory does not regulate social life; it is action, the struggle against nature in view of controlling it, and against all practices of alienation, exploitation and suppression which constitute the woof of social life and regulate the course of the history of the human society.
That is why the Guinean Revolution strongly believes that the container is one thing, and the content, quite another thing, two realities that deserve to be dialectically analysed. Thus, the container and the content may be understood both as separate entities and in their inter-dependency.
An old suit-case may contain valuable items, whereas a new, beautiful suit-case may contain items with no social and human value!
Religion, as well as Revolution may proclaim the absolute equality of beings, justice in social and human freedom, and have unfaithful interpreters who may flout the exigencies they are advocating through their behaviours. That is why, we must not judge the value of a Religion through the behaviour of those who are claiming it theoretically, while refusing to be its true containers. This shows the independence of the content from the container, and vice-versa. On the contrary, a Religion that would impose itself on man, against his will, by way of aggression, may be faced with resistance from the People, however noble the values it reveals. These values constitute the content, and Religion constitutes the ideological container. In the same way, whatever the soundness of the objectives contained in the programme of a Revolution, that Revolution would fail if the People are not involved in the conception, discussion and materialisation of these objectives and in the control of actions.
This points to the link between the container and the content.
The basic exigency which the revolutionary and the believers must consider foremost in the appreciation of men’s the obligation for them to participate effectively and efficiently in the People’s struggle for their progress, their freedom, their sovereignty, their dignity and the defence of the legitimate interests of every man without any other consideration that the legitimacy of property. No People are in favour of human exploitation, for the supremacy of one individual over others; no People acknowledge the right for one individual or a group of individuals to dispose of the life and property of others. The genuine exigencies of a Revolution or a Religion consist of the protection and development in harmony and justice of the human society whose character of solidarity must at all times be reinforced and asserted. The qualification of revolutionary and believer should not divide men, for good and evil are only defined by their nature, and the social classes, by their essence, facing the aspirations of the society. The best judgement we can make of man must be founded on his objective behaviour vis-avis the high values characterizing social and human existence.
In conclusion, social truth is revolutionary and this truth reflects in courage, the personality, usefulness and efficiency in the exclusive service of the People.
The Revolutionary People of Guinea have no complex towards anybody, for they consider themselves not only responsible for their existence and their destiny, but also sharing the same responsibilities with other Peoples of the world for the existence and the future of mankind.
As for us, there could be not inconsistency in the fact that men, determined to establish on their soil the bases and the material and non-material means of their progress, constitute a common front, such as the People’s Democratic Revolution.
The Muslim and the Christian both have room inside the Guinean Revolution, and they will be judged by that Revolution only on the basis of their faithfulness or unfaithfulness to the options of the People and the objectives democratically assigned by the revolutionary movement.
On the international scale, the Guinean Revolution doesn't intend to discredit any People, or any section of the People, but exclusively the negative values which she is fighting resolutely, permanently. These negatives values are: imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, human exploitation, racism, apartheid, superstition and all forms of licentiousness.
We are asserting once more that the container is one thing, and the content quite another. Efficiency in man’s struggle and the People’s struggle requires a perfect harmony between the container and the content, which is the expression of the unity of theory and practice, of this unity of philosophy and the behaviour it advocates, which, in turn is in the final analysis, the expression of dignity which requires man to do only what he says and say only what he is doing or will be doing.
We are appealing to all the Parties of world Revolution and to all conscious men of all nations to seal the unity of progressive forces, the unity of Peoples in the struggle which aims at completely and definitely putting an end to all that alienates the freedom, dignity and legitimate interests of the People and of man.
History is not a sprint, but rather, a long distance race, and for any race, we need a vehicle, that is, a means of transport from point "A" to point "B" or from point "A" to infinity.

But whatever the difference between the vehicles used, what is required of men is that the vehicle they are using should move in the same direction, towards the same objective: the sun of justice, dignity, unity and fraternity in peace.
In Africa, Islam has been a spiritual tool and a social force of resistance against imperialist domination. That is indeed why the colonisers have used all their means with the view to destroying it, but to no avail. It is also known that in Europe and America, it is the proletarians, those elements exploited by capitalism and feudal bourgeoisie who opposed all kinds of injustices under the banner christianity. No truly revolutionary conception could consider the aspirations to happiness, the belief in a true justice, incarnated by the masses of the People fighting their exploiters, as a reactionary trend to be destroyed.
That the Revolution exposes and destroys the basis of exploitation, oppression and injustice, nothing could be more progressive! That it denounces the war-mongers, the practices of mystification inherent in men of all races, all religions or those without any religion, nothing could be more righteous.!
Beyond philosophical conceptions ideologies and men’s intentions, society must assess the nature of their behavior within it, their objective attitudes facing its present and future interests.
There are fake believers as well as fake revolutionaries.
Revolution and Religion are not ends in themselves, but means which men use for social objectives.
In the last analysis, it is the socio-historic significance of men’s concrete actions which will serve as a sound criterion for their classification into useful men and harmful men in relation to the society.

Forward!!
 
Marxism-Leninism and Nkrumahism

The following is transcribed and reprinted from Black Scholar Magazine, February 1973; pages 41-3. It also appears at fudaa.blogspot.com. All of the errors are the exclusive property of Sheik (Abdurrahman) T. L. Nelson.
Marxism-Leninism and Nkrumahism
By Comrade Dr. Kwamr Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael)



“Nkrumahism is scientific socialism applied to countries emerging from colonialism. And specifically African countries where the Marxist capital-labor conflict is only one of a number of fundamental conflicts”

-Osagyefo




There are many African organizations which accept as their ideology Marxism-Leninism. Many of these young organizations received their stimulus from the concept of Black Power, which emphasiezd the powerlessness of Africans. The All-African Peoples’s Revolutionary Party knows that the correct ideology for Africans the world-over is Nkrumahism. Nkrumahism does not and cannot negate the universal truths of Marxism-Leninism; it merely incorporates these truths.

Our Party finds that its attempts to spread OUR IDEOLOGY, Nkrumahism, we are meeting ideological conflicts from black Marxist-Leninists. We find the situation ironic simply because it is crystal clear to us that any African who understands Marxist-Leninist theory should readily recognize the necessity and correctness of our ideology. The irony in this case, we feel, is due to misunderstanding. Two particular concepts are recurring themes in this area. One is that the struggle of the African is one in which race [ethnicity] is totally irrelevant. This due to the fact that many Marxists-Leninists believe that economics is the only determining element in the making of history (sic). The other is that the African experience finds reality in Marxism-Leninism. The Party feels these organizations do not understand the importance of race in the class struggle today. Consequently, they are unable to comprehend the world socialist revolution in general and the Black [Africa. Abdurrahman.] Revolution in particular. (sic.)

One does not become a Marxist-Leninist by constantly using the term. I find myself constantly amazed at the number of people who become Marxist-Leninist overnight. It seems to me that Marxism-Leninism is a science which has to be carefully studied. Only after study, understanding and practice can one honestly and legitimately claim Marxism-Leninism. Engels understood this phenomenon and as early as 1830 cautioned against it. In a letter to J. Bloch he stated, “Unfortunately, however, it happens only too often that people think they have fully understood a new theory and can apply it without more ado from they have mastered its main principles, and even those4 not always correctly. And I cannot exempt many of the more recent “Marxists” from this approach, for the most amazing rubbish has been [produced in this particular quarter, too,”

Neither Marx, Engels nor Lenin (sic) ever claimed that economics was the sole determining factor in history. In the same letter quoted above Engels makes this crystal clear. He states, “According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. [See the Creation of Humanity at the Command of Allah. Abdurrahman.] More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase…” Black (African. Abdurrahman.) Marxist-Leninists, proceeding logically from a faulty premise, arrive at an invalid conclusion asserting that in the African struggle race [ethnicity] is totally irrelevant to the class struggle.

Any student of revolution knows this is incorrect. They say they are fighting the class structure of the United States. But they do not comprehend that is a fighting “a racist class structure” and in this structure “capitalist exploitation and race oppression are complementary.” Therefore, we must analyze the effects of this racial oppression and understand its relationship to the class struggle. This will allow us to arrive at the correct solution which will be reflected in our ideology. Since they do not analyze this relationship they fly into the arms of Marxism-Leninism, a science which did not analyze the race contradictions concretely, due perhaps to its own historical period. Any intelligent person knows that “in the modern world, the race struggle has become part of the class struggle”.

[His Excellency. Abdurrahman.] President Sekou Toure reminds us that Marx did not invent scientific socialism. Marx was an observer. He observed certain phenomena on relation to man and economic forces in general and to labor and capital in particular. Having observed the validity of certain theories based on historical materialism, he stated principles which act as a clear guide to the inevitable destruction of capitalism and its attendant evils, and for the reconstruction of a society free from exploitation of man by man. Many people who call themselves revolutionary ACCEPT THESE PRINCIPLES AS UNIVERSL TRUTHS. So, do I. As we stated earlied (sic) Marx, like Newton, observed and recorded but did not invent. Any student of science can independently observe the same laws of gravitation without prior knowledge of Newton. We thank Marx, Lenin and Newton for correctly classifying knowledge, thus making our own research easier.

In Osagyfo’s classical philosophical work, Consciencism, we can see that the theories of Marx and Engel have their roots in communalism. Thus, as an African, I should study Nkrumahism which knows communalism contains the very foundation of Marxism-Leninism. It contains my history, African history, as it must be presented in order to “become a pointer at the ideology which should guide and direct African reconstruction.” (sic) Nkrumahism has already studied the theories of Marxism-Leninism, accepting their universal guidelines and scientific methods. And Nkrumahism returns to Africa, returns to communalism, because Nkrumahism knows that if Mother Africa had been left untrampled by alien forces She would have been the first to achieve communism naturally, without bloodshed.

**************************************************



Nkrumahism now studies African history as it be studied as “the history of our society. Studying in this framework allows Nkrumahism to correctly analyze the forces of history utilizing the method of dialectics. Nkrumahism having studied its history correctly now dissects it the principles Marxism-Leninism, which it accepts universal truths. Thus Nkrumahism uses these principles to its own theories of historical materialism producing new principles for African reconstruction. [Note: see fudaa.blogspot.com under Nkrumahist-Tureist Economics. Abdurrehman.] [Note: see “Revolution and Religion” by His Excellency President Ahmed Sekou Toure. Abdurrahman.] Consequently, Nkrumahism merely sees as an instrument, thus avoiding dogmatism. Failure to understand this leads to disaster. It is like a man holding in his hands instruments preparing to perform an operation but having no knowledge of medicine. The charlatan preparing to remove a malignancy will cut our patient improperly and at random. His operation will not based on scientific knowledge, but on egotistical guess work. This unashamed imposter, who has stolen the instruments, screams to the top of his, lungs, “I am the doctor.”

Any African who accepts Marxism-Leninism must find his reality in Nkrumahism. Marxism-Leninism is the universal instrument; Nkrumahism is the scientific ideology. Nkrumahism is reality grounded in our African experience. If the African does not accept Nkrumahism we find him like our charlatan dogmatically slashing our patient, at first cautiously, then angered at not finding the malignancy; becoming more desperate, he find him killing the very patient he professes he wants to cure.

Thus we find these groups missing the boat completely. Were they grounded in the reality of Nkrumahism, they would know the “total liberation and unification of Africa under an all-African socialist government must be the primary objective of all Black [African. Abdurrahman.] revolutionaries throughout the world. It is an objective which, when achieved, will bring about the fulfillment of the aspirations of Africans and people of African descent everywhere. It will at the same time advance the triumph of the international socialist revolution, and the onward progress towards world communism.” These heretics of Nkrumahism (and consequently, Marxism-Leninism) see the primary objective of Black [African. Abdurrahman.] Revolution in America as the transformation of the American society; an obvious conclusion if one has an a-historical analysis. (sic)

We Black [African] revolutionaries, who are Nkrumahists, know that the highest political expression of Black Power is Pan-Africanism; and the highest expression of Pan-Africanism is Nkrumahism. [See fudaa.blogspot.com under Nkrumahist-Tureist Economics.] The pre-requissite of an Nkrumahist is knowledge and love of the ideas of Osagyefo. When these ideas “display themselves in moral theory and practice,” we have an Nkrumahist. We know that any ideology concerning African people, who have been maliciously scattered all over the world. During the calculated period of the disruption of our society, must consider all the component parts while maintaining “the core of the Black [African. Abdurrahman] Revolution in Africa.” We understand the death of imperialism is certain, and as Osagyefo teaches us “it can only come under the pressure of nationalist awakening.”

Brother Malcolm told us we needed Black Nationalism [African. Abdurrahman.], and Black Nationalism is African Nationalism, because the Blackman is the African and the African is the Blackman. ThusBlack Nationalism is African Nationalism which finds its highest aspiration in Pan-Africanism. The ideology must go beyond mere nationalism. [See fudaa.blogspot.com.] It must establish a society where the principle, from each according to his ability to each according to his needs, is a reality. We know that Nkrumahism is the surest and fastest way to reach our goal. Especially since Nkrunahism has analyzed Africa so thoroughly with Marxism-Leninism. Our goal is to work in harmony with Mother Africa We are on safe ground. In the Mind of Africa we are told, “whereas socialism has been corrective in Europe, it has been the pristine condition in Africa in the form of communalism.” Any true African revolutionary must embrace Nkrumahism.


Forward! LONG LIVE THE NATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

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