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Thoughts of a French-Speaking African on African-American Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2019

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Extract

Economic planning in America, while not promoting socialism, did at least prevent officials and Africanists in the U.S. from being caught short by the wave of African independence which broke in 1960. Indeed, such planning seems to have insured that the U.S. would be present in Africa at that historic moment.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1972 

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References

* translated by Margaret Harrison

1 The following denunciation of Sekou Touré was issued at the last meeting of the Union Générale des Etudiants Voltaiques:

We must once again proclaim the Guinean regime to be neo-colonialin character and denounce Sekou Touré as a servant of American imperialism. The recent U.S. imperialist aggression against Guinea has stirred the righteous indignation of all peace loving peoples.

But the people of Guinea are becoming increasingly aware that the government of Sekou Touré, demagogue and protector of imperialism’s plunder, would not in any way be capable of guaranteeing the sovereignty and integrity of the Republic of Guinea. This sacred duty, unattainable without total independence and the effective mobilization of people within their own organizations, falls to the true anti-imperialist Guinean patriot.

2 Afrique Nouvelle, No. 1164.

3 Ibid.

4 U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1970’s: A New Strategy for Peace, A Report to the Congress by Richard M. Nixon. February 18, 1970.

5 Ibid.

6 Afrique Nouvelle, No. 1199.

7 This section was written before the Anglo-Rhodesian accord. That agreement drew much criticism in Africa for two reasons: no Africans were consulted, and Great Britain abandoned the black majority to the white minority.

One certainty is that the recently announced purchase of Rhodesian chrome by the United States risks greatly strenghtening the power of the whites. And yet the Americans still firmly believe, and always will, that the black majority has the right to rule. Indeed, American faith in democracy is so strong that they would see it established in Rhodesia at the earliest possible time. No left or right, black or white haranguing will shake America’s love of democracy. This will be Zimbabwe’s trump card for the future.