Whither Africa in the Global South? Lessons of Bandung and Pan-Africanism

Abstract

This chapter traces the trajectories of the Bandung and Pan-Africanist projects to assess the present conjuncture. It is argued that Bandung and Pan-Africanism were, first and foremost, political projects, not subservient to economics. They were ideological rallying points providing vision, hope and dignity to the struggling peoples of the periphery. They were also anti-imperialist in their conception and development, seeking to provide an alternative to imperialist integration. Yet, they were led by bourgeois forces which failed to install an auto-centric development path, and this proved to be their failure as peoples’ projects. The bourgeoisies in Asia and the proto-bourgeoisies in Africa were eventually compradorised, and thus yielding the BRICS and NEPAD projects of today, both integrationist and both subject to the logic of primitive accumulation.