Africa and Black British Identity

Abstract

Reviewing what they saw as the increasing politicization of young black people in Britain in the early 1980s, the educational theorists Frank Reeves and Mel Chevannes identified five ‘traditions’ that provided ideological and practical resources for the articulation of political activity. These were: Black Power; Pan-African Socialism; Rastafarianism; Garveyism; and ‘ Race Today -style Marxism’. The relative popularity of each of these traditions and the extent to which they coherently can be separated from one another are open to debate, but it is instructive to note that each of the first four listed relies on forms of political discourse that originate outside of Britain. Further, at least three of them rely on an emphasis on African ancestry, and, specifically, on the physical invocation of the African continent. Crucial to both Garveyism and Rastafarianism is the idea of ‘return’ to Africa, and, while this ‘return’ is not strictly required within a philosophy of Pan-Africanism, the necessary focus on the figure of the continent as the defining heart around which black unity must be expressed foregrounds the material importance of the landmass. We find the following in the manifesto of a black British political organization in the mid-1980s: We state very clearly that we are not a part of this ‘British nation’ […] we believe that the African people in Britain must break out of the idea of being an isolated community in Britain, and build strong political, cultural and social links with other Africans throughout the world. In the United States, the tradition of turning to Africa has been embraced most enthusiastically by the Afrocentricity movement. This group, spearheaded by such scholars as Maulana Karenga and Molefi Kete Asante, has enjoyed less success in Britain than America, but nonetheless provides an example of this model of a racialized subject, intrinsically connected to Africa. For Asante, black people who refuse to accept the importance of African ancestry or ‘center’ themselves around the continent are doomed: Unable to call upon the power of ancestors, because one does not know them; without an ideology of heritage, because one does not respect one's own prophets; the person is like an ant trying to move a piece of garbage that will not move.