Lembede's Afrika for the Afrikans and the Azanian Tradition Today: A Comparative Analysis of Two Forms of Afrikan Nationalism in “South Africa”

Abstract

The role of the missionaries in the conquest of Afrika has led to the emergence of “Afrikan liberalism” and its idea of Afrika. Christianity and European miseducation as instruments of epistemicide created a group of “new Afrikans” who, as the leading ideologues of the conquered Afrikans, were infected with European liberalism and humanism. The latter are the conditions necessary for the propagation of an inclusive Afrikan nationalism which seeks to integrate non-Afrikans, such as Europeans and Asians, into Afrika. Anton Lembede, who was a member of the new Afrikans, propagated the political philosophy of Afrikanism, which was premised on an exclusive idea of Afrika for the Afrikans. Robert Sobukwe and Steve Biko, through A. P. Mda's idea of “broad nationalism”, pursued an inclusive idea of Afrika. This article seeks to foreground Lembede's exclusive idea of Afrika in contrast to the Azanian tradition's non-racial and inclusive idea of Afrika, as encapsulated in Sobukwe's metaphor of the Afrikan tree and Biko's metaphor of the Afrikan table. This article engages in a brief comparative analysis of two forms of Afrikan nationalism in South Africa to underscore the two ideas of Afrika.