Pan-Africanism in practice?

This is a detailed, perhaps too detailed, study of Kwame Nkrumah's foreign policy. Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana from 1957 to 1966. Still today, Nkrumah is considered important in some circles, as the founder and first leader of Pan-Africanism. Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) was the first European colony in Black Africa to become independent. Nkrumah therefore wielded an enormous moral influence on African independence struggles. Soon, he attempted to turn this prestige into real political and military clout. Ghanaian troops (under UN command) were present in the Congo during the Congo crisis. Nkrumah called on the newly independent African states to swiftly form a union, complete with an actual federal government. He did manage to form a bloc of radical states as a counterweight to a more moderate alliance headed by the Ivory Coast and Liberia. However, the “organic union” remained elusive.

The author of this book accuses Nkrumah of unrealistic expectations and adventurism. Despite Ghana's poverty and small size, Nkrumah saw himself as an important international statesman, bickering with Nasser, Nehru or Tito (the real heavy weights) over the future course of the Non-Aligned Movement. Nkrumah's official visits to other nations seem to have been many, prolonged and always done in the company of a large entourage. He vacationed at Crimea at the invitation of Soviet leader Khrushchev. At times, Nkrumah's antics were downright comical. During a visit to tiny Albania, the Ghanaian president and Albanian Stalinist leader Enver Hoxha signed an agreement to establish an air traffic link between Tirana and Accra, trafficked by Albanian planes. There was just one problem: Albania didn't have any civilian air planes... (To be fair, Ghana's economy was actually stronger than Albania's and Romania's ditto, the reason probably being that the British colonial power had developed the Gold Coast prior to independence. Albania subsequently exported substandard beer and cigarettes to Ghana, while Romanian diplomats in Accra used their nation's trade deal with Nkrumah as a means of obtaining foreign currency, suggesting that the Ghanaian pound was stronger than the Romanian leu!)

Nkrumah's politics also had darker sides. The Ghanaian leader attempted to destabilize many other African nations, became increasingly more autocratic at home, and turned sharply “to the left” in the hope of receiving substantial subsidies from the Soviet Union and China. (Of course, Ghana was frequently the target of destabilization by others, including several attempts to assassinate Nkrumah himself.) Despite his radical reputation as a Pan-Africanist and socialist, Nkrumah's international forays were frequently opportunistic. In the Congo, Ghana's troops refused to give Lumumba (Nkrumah's supposed ally) access to the national radio station at a critical point in the power struggle with Kasavubu (who was more pro-Western). Later, however, Ghana agreed to smuggle Soviet arms to Lumumba's supporters in Stanleyville. In Togo, Nkrumah's operatives attempted to topple the nationalist government of Sylvanus Olympio (since he had various conflicts with Ghana), in effect siding with pro-Western coup plotter Nicolas Grunitsky. Nkrumah made attempts to obtain massive amounts of financial assistance and food from the Western powers (including the United States), while "building socialism" and strengthening Ghana's ties with the Soviet bloc.

It's not clear whether Nkrumah was a genuine megalomaniac or simply a poseur. The author regards his politics as seriously intended, if extremely unrealistic and misguided, including the attempts to form a vast African super-state (or super-federation) ASAP. He also believes that Ghana might have become a dangerous Soviet satellite, had Nkrumah not been overthrown by the military in 1966.

Due to its attention to details, “Ghana's Foreign Policy 1957-66” is a tedious read. The book is *not* detailed when dealing with other issues than its stated subject. Somewhat ironically, it therefore requires a good deal of background knowledge (especially concerning Ghana's domestic policy) to be fully understood. My background knowledge comes from Jon Woronoff's “West African Wager”, reviewed by me elsewhere.

That being said, this study is probably a must if West African political history is your thing…