Abstract
Anton Lembede, who is regarded as a
member of the “new Afrikans”, propagated
the political philosophy of Afrikanism that
is premised on an exclusive idea of “Afrika for the
Afrikans.” On the other hand, A.P. Mda’s idea of
“broad nationalism” pursued an inclusive idea of
Afrika. This paper seeks to foreground Lembede’s
exclusive idea of Afrika in contrast to Mda’s idea of
“broad nationalism” and inclusive idea of Afrika. We
will rely on the historical and comparative method
and the Afrikan-centred theoretical paradigm.
There are several findings which this paper has
deduced. The first one is that the political and
intellectual relationship between Lembede and
Mda has eventuated in the epochal emergence
of the antagonism between two Afrikan political
philosophies of national liberation in conquered
Azania. These philosophies are Afrikanism and broad
nationalism. The second one is that the intellectual
legacy of Lembede is a marginalised study in South
African scholarship especially on the figures of the
Black Radical Tradition. The third one is that the
broad nationalism of Mda was transformed into the
Azanian political tradition by Robert Sobukwe and
Steve Biko. The last one is that the triumph of Mda’s
idea of Afrika must triumph has contributed to the
disastrous dominance of nonracialism in South
Africa at the expense of the racial nationalism of
Lembede. This nonracialism has taken the form of
the Congress/Charterist nonracialism of the African
National Congress and its Tripartite Alliance and
the Azanian nonracialism of the Pan-Africanist
Congress and the Black Consciousness Movement.
The fundamental objective of this paper is a call
for the replacement of these naïve and dangerous
forms of nonracialism with the uncompromising
racial nationalism of Lembede, so that Africa’s cause
can triumph as he envisioned it.