UNDERSTANDING THE AFRICANIST MOVEMENT
“The future of Africa depends on our ability to build a mass movement
committed to organizing the oppressed and exploited majority of our people
to struggle against our oppression and exploitation,”
–Chernoh Alpha M. Bah
The Africanist Movement was founded in Sierra Leone on March 15, 2002 as a mass movement fighting for the total liberation and unification of Africa and African people worldwide under an all-African socialist government. Comprising mainly of young people, the Africanist Movement currently operates from Sierra Leone with branches in most West African states including Guinea Conakry, Gambia, Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal, Gambia and Cameroon.
A Sierra Leonean journalist and political activist Chernoh Alpha M. Bah founded the movement in 2002 but its history dates way back to 1996 with the formation of the Awareness Movement by Chernoh Alpha M. Bah and other young activists to campaign against the atrocities of the Foday Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) at the time. However, though Bah and his colleagues had intended to develop the Awareness Movement into a militant youth movement, this desire was hampered by the military coup of May 1997 that overthrew the Sierra Leone Peoples Party government. And following the reign of terror that accompanied the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) most Awareness Movement members fled to Guinea to escape harassment and intimidation by AFRC forces. Even though some of the leaders remained behind, the activities of the Awareness Movement became weakened and loosely coordinated through press activities and when RUF rebels attacked Freetown in 1999 Bah and the remaining leadership of the Awareness Movement fled to Guinea.
In exile he formed the Young Writers Association, which worked to unite writers and journalists displaced from Sierra Leone and Liberia. Journalists from the association reported abuses against the thousands of African people from war zones of those countries that were seeking refuge in camps in Guinea.
A Sierra Leonean journalist and political activist Chernoh Alpha M. Bah founded the movement in 2002 but its history dates way back to 1996 with the formation of the Awareness Movement by Chernoh Alpha M. Bah and other young activists to campaign against the atrocities of the Foday Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) at the time. However, though Bah and his colleagues had intended to develop the Awareness Movement into a militant youth movement, this desire was hampered by the military coup of May 1997 that overthrew the Sierra Leone Peoples Party government. And following the reign of terror that accompanied the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) most Awareness Movement members fled to Guinea to escape harassment and intimidation by AFRC forces. Even though some of the leaders remained behind, the activities of the Awareness Movement became weakened and loosely coordinated through press activities and when RUF rebels attacked Freetown in 1999 Bah and the remaining leadership of the Awareness Movement fled to Guinea.
In exile he formed the Young Writers Association, which worked to unite writers and journalists displaced from Sierra Leone and Liberia. Journalists from the association reported abuses against the thousands of African people from war zones of those countries that were seeking refuge in camps in Guinea.
The Young Writers Association quickly developed into a mass movement, bringing together Africans from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia to discuss problems facing refugees and their persistent harassment and intimidation by the Guinea police. The Association became a vehicle not only for the discussion of problems facing the war-torn African population in Guinea but also of the need for the African masses to unite and organize for genuine liberation in Africa.
As president of the Association, Chernoh helped established The Nations Newspaper, the first English publication in Conakry to provide news and analysis of the conditions of Africans in exile in Guinea and the conflicts in both Sierra Leone and Liberia.
In 2001 Chernoh was arrested in Guinea and detained on charges of “espionage and sedition.” After his release from prison the regime in Guinea banned the Young Writers Association and The Nations Newspaper. Chernoh returned to Sierra Leone, bringing together what remained of the Young Writers Association to form the Africanist Movement whose goal is to fight for the uncompromising liberation and unification of the oppressed African masses and to establish a all African woker's states based on socialist democracy.
Since that time the Africanist Movement has grown into a mass movement dedicated to African liberation and unification with thousands of members in more than eight countries throughout West Africa and relations with progressive organizations and revolutionary movements across Africa, Europe, the United States and other parts of the World. It is one of the most dynamic youth movement currently operating in Africa.
Ideologically the Africanist Movement believes in scientific socialism and committed to building an international African working class movement that will spearhead an international socialist revolution in Africa. Its members believe that freedom from neocolonialism and imperialism can only be possible through the development of a revolutionary mass organization guided by a working class revolutionary theory that explains the excesses of capitalism and the tactics and strategies for the overthrow of neocolonialism and imperialism.
Ideologically the Africanist Movement believes in scientific socialism and committed to building an international African working class movement that will spearhead an international socialist revolution in Africa. Its members believe that freedom from neocolonialism and imperialism can only be possible through the development of a revolutionary mass organization guided by a working class revolutionary theory that explains the excesses of capitalism and the tactics and strategies for the overthrow of neocolonialism and imperialism.
Strategically, the Africanist Movement believes that the struggle of African people everywhere is part of the universal struggle against capitalism and for world socialism, and that the sameness of the contradictions facing African people around the world requires an all-African solution. This ideological framework and understanding of the Africanist Movement aims at a free, united socialist Africa – an Africa without boundaries and governed by the working class.
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