The Life and Work of Kwame Nkrumah - Term Paper Example

 The Life and Work of Kwame Nkrumah Table of Contents The Life and Work of Kwame Nkrumah 1 Kwame Nkrumah 2 Works Cited 11 Kwame Nkrumah This paper explores the life of Kwame Nkrumah in the context of the role that he play and the contributions that he made in the areas of the drive to independent existence for his country from Britain, diplomacy, and in the discussions and the development of ideas relating to the formation of a United Africa. This paper posits that such contributions are seminal and substantial, and are largely influential in the formation of his country as well as the development of African political institutions and political thinking in general. Kwame Nkrumah was at the helm of the leadership of Ghana upon the achievement of that country’s sovereignty in 1957, and is furthermore given credit for touching off an avalanche of independence movements that ran through the rest of Africa in the ten years following that achievement of independence. He would be ousted from power in 1966, via a coup, but by that time 40 countries all over Africa had been able to achieve independence and freedom from the hands of their European masters. For this reason, and for the strength of his leadership and his ideas relating to the importance of a free Africa and other key tenets, Nkrumah is regarded as a key political figure not just in Ghana but in Africa as a whole, apart from the influence and stature bestowed on him in the international stage as well. On a worldwide basis, many of his ideas and views have substantial weight and impact, including those that he held relating to national and regional development, a united and free Africa, and socialism, among others.1 His views on socialism, more of which shall be said later, were however tempered by a politics that was considered to be one of conciliation and friendship towards the western powers to some extent, and that means being friendly to some of the west’s ideas on democracy and democratic principles. 2 His ideas meanwhile on the unity of Africa as something that is urgent and necessary, a must, with the unity redounding to many benefits, political and economic, for the whole of Africa, is something that is said to have been validated by moves in Europe at unification, as well as in other places. 3 That said, some of his ideas relating to socialism and the adoption of socialist economic principles, such as the nationalization of aspects of Ghana agriculture, are said to have met with financial and personal disaster for the country and for its farmers, among others, tempering the positive assessment of Nkrumah’s role in the development of Ghana and African politics and economics. 4 The take is that overall there is much to appreciate and to discuss with regards to what amounts as a substantial and unique legacy on the part of Kwame Nkrumah and the impact that he has had in Ghana politics and political thought, and in the political developments across Africa before and after his rule. What touched this off was the achievement of Ghana independence under his rule, which both signaled a momentous shift in the balance of power in Africa, and underscored the importance of his leadership and his vision for Ghana and Africa moving forward from that independence gain: 5 In several respects, Ghana's achievement of independence in March 1957 was a momentous event in contemporary African history. Above all else, Ghana became the pace-setter of Africa's independence. It is therefore not surprising that Washington recognized Ghana's independence as one of the 'most significant events in contemporary Africa'6 The paper takes off from this assessment and from this initial survey of the literature to weigh in on the impact and role of Nkrumah, his life, leadership, vision and ideas, on Ghana, African political and economic development, and the world at large. 7 Next, the paper discusses the life, leadership, politics and vision of Nkrumah, and how those impacted the drive for independence of Ghana. The literature tells us that Nkrumah presided over the early years of a Ghana that, prior to independence, was one of the richest British colonies in Africa, having its principal economic products being gold as well as cocoa. Those two products brought in substantial wealth to the British masters, and this was the economic pillars that Nkrumah basically inherited with his assumption to power and the gaining of national independence in 1957. The assessment is these various economic riches were used by Nkrumah to power his political machinery, in an assessment of the politics and life of Nkrumah that views him not so much as a taint-free leader but rather also a shrewd politician who made use of the resources at his disposal to advance his own interests, while at the same time advancing the interests of Ghana as well. This assessment is useful because it provides a hint of the kind of personality and the kind of politics that Nkrumah possessed, which enabled him to free Ghana from the British. It was what was necessary to put forth the Ghana sovereignty agenda forward, in a world where the British had control of the economic machinery to advance its own interests at the expense of the freedom of the Ghana people. This drive and ruthless and pragmatic, as well as calculating politics, was also a significant factor in the way Nkrumah saw himself as not just being the leader of his own country, but also the leader of all of Africa. This ambition to rule an Africa that is united speaks of the kind of personal motivations that drove him to imagine an Africa that is united and under the rule of one leadership, in his person. 8 This latter assessment of the politics and character of Nkrumah, practical, cunning and full of personal ambition and gain, is a part of a school of thought that sees Nkrumah and his personal life as being necessary, but not necessarily positive in a moral and ethical sense, for the liberation of the Ghana people and country. This school of thought attributes to Nkrumah and to his pride and loss of grounding the kinds of political and economic missteps that caused substantial ruin and misery to the people of the country. For instance, where Ghana achieved independence, the economic machinery was said to have suffered as a result of the failed economic plans and visions of the leader. On the other hand, there is the opposite camp that sees the failures of Nkrumah’s leadership as not being failures at all, and that from an ideological vantage point the power of his ideas and his vision for Ghana and Africa was what enabled the country to rise from the shackles of foreign rule, and for the infectious spirit of his ideas to spur the freedom movements in the rest of Africa in the years leading to his ouster from power in 1966. Then there is the third school of thought, which argues that looking beyond the polar opposites, one side attributing all manner of egoistic ambition and cunning to the man and his actions, and the other putting Nkrumah and his vision and ideas on a pedestal, as being primary and powerful in the spurring of the freedom movements in the many countries in Africa and in Ghana. This third view is of the position that looking beyond the polar opposites, there is the complicated legacy of the man, at the same time a flawed leader who presided over a Ghana that slid economically during his reign, but at the same time presided over a Ghana that led Africa in terms of ideology and a vision of a united and free continent, free to chart its course and free from the supervision and oppression of its colonial masters in the west. 9 Given Ghana’s preeminent position as the first independent African territory to be freed from colonialism, it became a symbol of hope for other colonized people around the world. As the principal figure in Ghana’s non-violent liberation, Kwame Nkrumah became the personification of that hope, an emblem of the power of the disempowered, who spearheaded a movement for a more just and equitable future. At the time many said that ‘Kwame Nkrumah is Africa and Africa is Kwame Nkrumah’. Even his critics admit that for at least a brief period, he was indisputably the most influential political leader and philosophical thinker in Africa. 10 Moving on to the relationships of Nkrumah with his fellow countrymen, the people around him, the international community, and the world, there are substantial insights to be had from a close reading of the sources. The world saw Nkrumah partly, according to one school of thought, as representing essentially the best of Africa, and of the hope that is to be had from being inspired by his non-violent ascension to power and the securing of the independence of Ghana from their British colonizers. 11 On the other hand, with regard to a few prominent world powers, chiefly the United States, he was seen as someone who can be talked to, and who can be relied on to some extent to be at least accommodating towards the western powers and their vision of what a free Ghana should be, in opposition to his more socialist thoughts and tendencies, which he put into practice in some of his political and economic plans and policies, as well as strategies. 12 It is therefore not surprising that Washington recognized Ghana's independence as one of the 'most significant events in contemporary Africa' and believed that 'Ghana's policies and institutions are still in a formative state, and their future character can be affected substantially by the attitude and actions of the United States'. This somewhat abstract and broad objective had two concrete implications. One was the US commitment to ensure that Ghana neither sought nor accepted assistance of 'an obligating nature from any countries whose motives are inimicable to the national interests of the United States'. The second was to use Ghana as the nursery for the cultivation of democratic capitalism, or what Emily Rosenberg calls 'liberal developmentalism' 13 The assessment, moreover, is that while his relationship with Marxist philosophy and ideas was pronounced, his own kind of politics was less about espousing strict socialist thinking as much as it was about being pragmatic in the way he related with the rest of the world and with the western governments. This showed, for instance, in the way he balanced his left-leaning thinking and policies with staffing that reflected a more moderate agenda. Many of the people close to him in government leaned left, to be sure, but there were others in equal numbers that leaned right, or in other words, leaned towards free markets, capitalism, and democracy. This pragmatic foreign relations and pragmatic, moderate government staffing qualities allowed him to be on good terms in general with the United States and other powers of the western world: 14 It is, of course, true that Nkrumah was personally attracted to Marxism and that he was surrounded by a number of people with strong Marxist cre-dentials. Notable in this category were George Padmore, Adviser on African Affairs; Geoffrey Bing, Attorney-General, who had long been associated with the British extreme left; and James Markham, secretary of the Pan-African Office, who had been with the Anti-Colonial Bureau of the Asian Socialist Conference in Rangoon. These were, however, more than matched by those with a different ideological orientation, notably Finance Minister Komla Gbedemah; A.L. Adu, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs; and Robert Jackson, an Australian who headed the Development Corpora ion. In 1956, St Clair Drake observed that 'all the members of the Cabinet are Western oriented'. In any case, the Marxists were not averse to a visible American presence in Ghana. Padmore, for example, advocated that if the USA was 'really worried about Communism taking root in Africa', it should undertake 'a Marshall Aid programme for Africa' and, more specifically, 'con-struct the Volta River project in the Gold Coast'. 15 It is clear from the above that Nkrumah was behind the thinking with regard to the way Ghana was going to approach its foreign relations. It had a Marxist slant in some respects, but the signal of cooperation and friendship/accommodation towards western ideals showed in the way Nkrumah chose government leaders that were sympathetic or allied with western ideals as well. The choices reflected well on Nkrumah and solidified his standing with the US and other key western powers as a friendly leader amenable to the dictates of reason and of moderation when it came to foreign policies and foreign engagement. 16 His ideas and his vision relating to uniting Africa and to freeing all of Africa from colonial rule are compelling and original, and have had profound impacts on the continent and the rest of the world. It is clear from an assessment of the thoughts of Kwame Nkrumah relating to the unification of all of Africa in a political sense that is indispensable to Africa’s future. There are references for instance to Nkrumah tying the independence and the meaning of Ghana’s own independence to the unity of Africa and the achievement of a union of all of Africa. The thinking was that while Ghana was free from the grip of its colonial masters, the rest of Africa was not during the time of the independence of the country, and in this manner even Ghana’s own independence was not complete. It was not complete because it was achieved in the context of the continued subjugation of its neighbors and kin in other countries in the continent. The enemy for Nkrumah was colonialist rule, which undermined Ghana’s own independence. Unity meant not just political unity for its own sake, but what unity represented. Only a free Africa was capable of deciding towards a unified continent. A unified continent meant also an independent and free continent, independent from the west, and free from its shackles under the colonial masters. Nkrumah was said to have tried to make this notions relating to a unified Africa into practice in several respects. In the years immediately after the achievement of Ghana’s sovereignty, Nkrumah was famous for hosting two conferences in Accra, in Ghana, both of them showcasing and asserting a free Pan-African vision: 17 Several important meetings, which included two conferences of Independent African States and the All African People's Conference held in Accra Ghana in April and December 1958 respectively, took place in Accra. The following year, in November, a meeting of the All African Trade Union Federation Conference was also held in Accra Ghana. Within two years of its independence the capital city of Ghana became the centre of diplomatic activities, which led to the liberation of Africa countries from colonial rule. The 1959 trade union conference established practical ways, through which the rest of the countries still under colonial rule would be liberated and the independent African countries would unite.18 Aside from the pronouncements of the way Ghana’s independence was wedded to the achievement of independence for Africa; and the conferences that followed after independence pushing for pan-African sovereignty, Nkrumah showed his resolve and his vision in other ways. One of them was the experiment to unify Ghana and Guinea. This unification was seen by Nkrumah as serving as the germ or the prototype or foundation on which the unification of all of Africa was to be achieved. Mali would later merge with the two countries in order to increase the base of this union, even as hurdles remained in terms of practical unification of the economic and political foundations of the three countries. Be that as it may, collectively these moves typified and put into full display the breadth and depth of Nkrumah’s thoughts and commitment to the unification of all of Africa as a free, self-determining continent. 19 In conclusion, while the debate as to the motivations and the predominance of personal ego ambitions over the ideals, thoughts and vision that Nkrumah held and espoused is not settled, what is clear is that from a results point of view the impact of Nkrumah’s life, leadership and thoughts are prodigious and unparalleled. His drive for Ghana’s independence was a success, recognized by the world, and it spawned the freedom movements in the rest of Africa afterwards. His vision of a unified and free Africa had teeth, and his ideas relating to that added fuel and inspiration to the continent’s freedom drive. 20 Works Cited Kah, Henry Kam. “Africa Must Unite: Vindicating Kwame Nkrumah and Uniting Africa Against Global Destruction”. The Journal of Pan African Studies 4 (10). January 2012. 16 November 2012. Marker, Jamsheed. “Chapter 2 Ghana”. Quiet Diplomacy: Memoirs of an Ambassador of Pakistan. Oxford University Press. pp. 13-25 Nwaubani, Ebere. “Eisenhower, Nkrumah and the Congo Crisis”. Journal of Contemporary History 36 (4). 2001. 16 November 2012. White, Evan. “Kwame Nkrumah: Cold War Modernity, Pan-African Ideology and the Geopolitics of Development”. Geopolitics 8 (2). Summer 2003. 16 November 2012. Read More