Not Yet Uhuru: The Unfinished Revolution in Africa

Abstract

In Kwandiwe Kondlo’s In the Twilight of the Revolution (2009), which examines the role of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) of Azania in South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle as the backdrop, this article surveys the momentum of social revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa during the decolonization era that started in the mid-20th century and ended with South Africa’s transition to a multi-racial democracy in 1994. It argues that the failure of the African elite to achieve a genuine independence from both colonial rule and South Africa’s apartheid system is largely because of inconsistent nationalist ideologies and the detachment of the African elite from the popular struggles of the people, which could have resulted in the revolutionary overthrow of the colonial state and the dawn of more progressive and autonomous states all across Black Africa. It concludes that this failure led to the continuing instability of the post-colonial states across Africa and, in South Africa, to the achievement of a particular form of multi-racial democracy with very little or no change to the real politics of apartheid and Boer domination.