Page 177 - Afrika Must Unite

162 AFRICA MUST UNITE
lose* policy, which aims to create a bitter schism among the
independent African states or else to cajole them all into the
fold of the European market, in the same old imperialist relation­
ship of the European rider on the African horse. Any of the states
that enter deprive themselves of the possibility of independent
action. They will have lost their freedom to trade wherever it is
most advantageous or to secure capital from the most convenient
sources. They will, moreover, have surrendered their policy of
non-alignment by attaching themselves to the European eco­
nomic organization which is linked with the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (N.A.T.O.). Even worse, they will be com­
pelled to betray the cause of African freedom, by the support
they will be obliged to give to the imperialist suppression of the
emancipation struggle in Africa. In short, they will have sold
their African birthright for a mess of neo-colonialist pottage.
Nor could there be any idea of solid industrialized advance­
ment for these African states in the interests of their people.
For, having returned themselves to the imperialist fold, this time
of their own ‘free5 will and not by territorial conquest, the same
forces which kept them tagging behind the industrialized coun­
tries of the West will continue to operate. The African countries
will once more be wide open to imperialist exploitation. Political
independence will be a sham and will have gained nothing
except the aggrandizement of certain opportunist groups
within the national societies and the enrichment of the neo­
colonialist interest. Economic independence will be farther away
than ever and the conflicts within these African societies will be
more severe, because the class divisions will crystallize sharply
under the more ruthless demands of neo-colonialist monopoly
to feed its greedier and greedier economic and military
machines.
An African Common M arket, devoted uniquely to African
interests, would more efficaciously promote the true require­
ments of the African states. Such an African M arket presupposes
a common policy for overseas trade as well as for inter-African
trade, and must preserve our right to trade freely anywhere. If
it is a good thing for the European buyers to regulate their affairs
with their overseas suppliers by combination, then it must be
equally good for Africans to do likewise in offering their wares.