汎アフリカ会議
汎アフリカ会議(はんアフリカかいぎ)は、かつて大陸の殆どがヨーロッパ諸国の植民地だった為に発生した問題に取り組む計7回の会議である。第1回は1900年のロンドン(第1回汎アフリカ会議)から始まり、1919年のパリ、1923年のロンドン、1927年のニューヨーク、1945年のマンチェスター、1974年のダルエスサラーム、1994年のカンパラと続いた。
汎アフリカ会議はアフリカと西インド諸島の脱植民地化を平和的に進め、パン・アフリカ主義に大きく貢献した。帝国主義による植民地統治と人種差別の終了を訴え、人権と経済発展の平等を求めた。汎アフリカ会議は国際協力を基にした新世界を政治的・経済的に要求した。
列強はアフリカ人の政治参加と職業選択に大きな制限を加えた。ヴェルサイユ条約の交渉に参加出来なかった事で、黒人の元軍人や高学歴都市階層は失望した。植民地主義は資本主義の上に成り立つ為、平等と国際協力を謳う社会主義はアフリカの革命を求める人々には魅力的に映った。
ジャマイカ人で社会主義文筆家のクラウデ・マッケイが1922年にレフ・トロツキーに送った手紙では黒人兵士の体験についてこう述べる。
In February 1919, the first Pan-African Congress was organized by W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida Gibbs Hunt, wife of US Consul William Henry Hunt, who was at that time working at the American consulate in Saint-Étienne, France. There were 57 delegates representing 15 countries, a smaller number than originally intended because British and American governments refused to issue passports to their citizens who had planned on attending. Their main task was petitioning the Versailles Peace Conference held in Paris at that time. Among their demands were that:
The Allies should be in charge of the administration of former territories in Africa as a Condominium on behalf of the Africans who were living there.
Africa be granted home rule and Africans should take part in governing their countries as fast as their development permits until at some specified time in the future.
Among the delegates were:
Charles D. B. King, Liberia
In 1921, the Second Pan-African Congress met in several sessions in London, Paris and Brussels. There was an Indian revolutionary who took part, Shapurji Saklatvala, and a journalist from Ghana named W. F. Hutchinson who spoke. This session of the Congress was the most focused for change of all the meetings thus far. At the London session, Resolutions were adopted, later restated by W. E. B. Du Bois in his Manifesto To the League of Nations:
The only dissenting voice was that of Blaise Diagne, a French politician of African origin, who represented Senegal in the French Chamber of Deputies. He soon abandoned the idea of Pan-Africanism because he thought the London Manifesto declaration too dangerously extreme.
In 1923, the Third Pan-African Congress was held in London and in Lisbon. This meeting was totally unorganized. This meeting also repeated the demands such as self-rule, the problems in the Diaspora and the African-European relationship. The following was addressed at the meeting:
The development of Africa should be for the benefit of Africans and not merely for the profits of Europeans.
There should be home rule and a responsible government for British West Africa and the British West Indies.
The Abolition of the pretension of a white minority to dominate a black majority in Kenya, Rhodesia and South Africa.
Lynching and mob law in the US should be suppressed.
Before the Congress met in London, Isaac Béton of the French Committee wrote a letter to Du Bois, telling him that the French group would not be sending delegates. However, in one of the reports he published in the Crisis, Du Bois drew on words spoken by Ida Gibbs Hunt and Rayford Logan to imply that the French Committee had sent delegates. As long-time African-American residents of France, Hunt and Logan had travelled independently to the meeting, and Hunt and Béton were perturbed that Du Bois had implied they represented France.
In 1927, The Fourth Pan-African Congress was held in New York and adopted resolutions that were similar to the Third Pan-African Congress meetings.
The Fifth Pan-African Congress was held in Manchester, United Kingdom, 15–21 October 1945. It followed the foundation of the Pan-African Federation in Manchester in 1944.
Africans again fought in World War II. After this war, many felt that they now deserved independence. This Congress is widely considered to have been the most important. Organised by the influential Trinidadian pan-Africanist George Padmore and Ghanaian independence leader Kwame Nkrumah, it was attended by 90 delegates, 26 from Africa. They included many scholars, intellectuals and political activists who would later go on to become influential leaders in various African independence movements and the American civil rights movement, including the Kenyan independence leader Jomo Kenyatta, American activist and academic W. E. B. Du Bois, Malawi's Hastings Banda, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, prominent Jamaican barrister Dudley Thompson and Obafemi Awolowo and Jaja Wachuku from Nigeria. It also led partially to the creation of the Pan-African Federation, founded in 1946 by Nkrumah and Kenyatta.
There were 33 delegates from the West Indies and 35 from various British organizations, including the West African Students Union. The presence of 77-year-old Du Bois was historic, as he had organized the First Pan-African Congress in 1919.
The British Press scarcely mentioned the conference. A number of resolutions were passed, among them the criminalization of racial discrimination and the main resolution decrying imperialism and capitalism.
Pan-Africanism is aimed at the economic, intellectual and political cooperation of the African countries. It demands that the riches of the continent be used for the enlistment of its people. It calls for the financial and economic unification of markets and a new political landscape for the continent. Even though Pan-Africanism as a movement began in 1776, it was the fifth Pan-African congress that advanced Pan-Africanism and applied it to decolonize the African continent.
The people in Manchester were politically conscious and that was one of the reasons why it was selected as the venue for the fifth Pan-African congress. The fifth congress was organized by people of African origin living in Manchester. According to the Mancunian historian Simon Katzenellenboggen it has a great significance as it was an important step towards the end of those imperial powers in Africa. Unlike the four earlier congresses, the fifth one involved people from the African Diaspora, including Afro-Caribbeans and Afro-Americans. Manchester had a significant part to play in helping the African countries to march forward in their fight to independence.