Page 8 - Afrika Must Unite

X INTRODUCTION
regard them as deceptions; clearly they were not to have uni­
versal application.
The realization was breaking upon the vast world of subject
peoples that freedom is as much their inalienable right as it is of
those who had set themselves over them on the pretext of bringing
them Christian light and civilization. The ideas of freedom and
democracy, which the Western world was busily propagating to
engage support for their cause, were being eagerly absorbed by
those to whom freedom had been most strenuously denied. A
boomerang to those who broadcast them, and ‘dangerous’ in
those to whom they were not intended to apply, they were
feeding the will to freedom in the overseas areas of the world
where their meaning was most deeply felt and accepted.
Turned by the nationalist leaders to the interests of the
struggle for political emancipation, they have helped to foment
the revolt of the majority of the world’s inhabitants against their
oppressors. Thus we have witnessed the greatest awakening ever
seen on this earth of suppressed and exploited peoples against the
powers that have kept them in subjection. This, without a doubt,
is the most significant happening of the twentieth century.
Hence the twentieth century has become the century of
colonial emancipation, the century of continuing revolution
which must finally witness the total liberation of Africa from
colonial rule and imperialist exploitation. The independence of
Ghana in 1957 opened wide the floodgates of African freedom.
W ithin four years, eighteen other African countries achieved
independence. This development is the unique factor in world
affairs today. For it has brought about significant changes in the
composition of the United Nations Organization, and is having a
momentous impact upon the balance of world affairs generally.
It has resulted in an expanded world of free nations in which the
voice of Africa, and of the reborn states of Asia, Latin America
and the Caribbean will demand more and more careful attention.
This expanding world of free African nations is the climax o f
the conscious and determined struggle of the African peoples to
throw off the yoke of imperialism, and it is transforming the
continent. Not all the ram parts of colonialism have yet fallen.
Some still stand, though showing gaping rents from the stormy
onslaughts that have been made against them. And we who have