Pan- Africanism needs Ethiopianism

A few months ago Professor Mammo Muchie, a Senior Research Fellow at Tshwane University of Technology gave an intellectually stimulating online public lecture to a global audience of African descent intentionally provoking a much needed debate on an issue regarding why Africans must adopt Ethiopianism as one of the highways towards unshackling lingering colonial mentalities and their offshoots.

Professor Muchie, a Pan- Africanist to the bone posed some few questions like how many of us Africans know that Ethiopianism was a fore bearer of Pan- Africanism? In fact, that it is the foundation for both Pan- Africanism and African Renaissance? He reminded his audience that it is imperative that in order to meet the challenges of the unfinished business of achieving African unity-which in today’s world are more subtle and insidious than the challenges that were faced during slavery, colonialism, and apartheid- Africa should look back and retrieve the ideals and ethos of Ethiopianism.

In this piece I fully concur with this scholar as I have found that it is inarguable that as a result of a routine failure to prevent others from continuing to dominate and control Africa by various means, the continent is today still not fully removed from coloniality, therefore there cannot be any better moment than today’s trying times to bring back the discursive arsenals developed during the early African struggles of resistance under the rubric of Ethiopianism. It is indeed true that the powerful narratives that were evolved around Ethiopianism are of such significance that they continue to inform the debates on the current quest for African unity and renaissance.

Editor's Comment
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