Page 7 - Afrika Must Unite

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Freedom! Hedsole! Sawaba! Uhuru!
M en, women and children throughout the length and breadth
of Africa repeat the slogans of African nationalism - the greatest
political phenomenon of the latter part of the twentieth century.
Never before in history has such a sweeping fervour for free­
dom expressed itself in great mass movements which are driving
down the bastions of empire. This wind of change blowing
through Africa, as I have said before, is no ordinary wind. It is a
raging hurricane against which the old order cannot stand.
The great millions of Africa, and of Asia, have grown im­
patient of being hewers of wood and drawers of water, and are
rebelling against the false belief that providence created some to
be the menials of others.
In this century there have already been two world wars fought
on the slogans of the preservation of democracy; on the right of
peoples to determine the form of government under which they
want to live. Statesmen have broadcast the need to respect
fundam ental freedoms, the right of men to live free from the
shadow of fears which cramp their dignity when they exist in
servitude, in poverty, in degradation and contempt. They
proclaimed the Atlantic Charter and the Charter of the United
Nations, and then said that all these had no reference to the
enslaved world outside the limits of imperialism and racial
arrogance.
But in the course of fighting for their own freedom, they had,
like A braham Lincoln in fighting America’s civil war, to enlist
the aid of the enslaved, who began to question the justice of their
being dragged into wars for the freedom of those who intended
to keep them in bondage. The democratic enunciations of the
world’s statesmen came under the critical examination of the
colonized world. M en and women in the colonies began to