Announcing the first in a new series charting movement memory, titled MR CLASSICS, beginning with Kwame Nkrumah’s thought, and the philosophy he called ‘Consciencism.”
On March 13th, Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly and Dr. Layla Brown guided us through this seminal work, deeply considering its contemporary relevance - that is, the issues it raises - which remain unresolved - and the questions it continues to inspire.
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ON NKRUMAH:
Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972) was an influential socialist theorist and Pan-Africanist. He was Prime Minister of the Gold Coast (later Ghana) from 1952 until 1960 and subsequently as President of Ghana before being deposed by the National Liberation Council in 1966. As the first president of Ghana after independence Kwame Nkrumah was at the center of what he called “the African revolution” and its ideology. Setting out his personal philosophy, Nkrumah blended different sources from within Africa, the canon of Western philosophy, and black intellectuals in North America and Europe. He termed the intellectual framework for his political action, “consciencism.”
Why “consciencism?” This was a call for African countries to cultivate their foundational integrity, in relationship to and united with one another, by adopting socialist political structures which were consistent with traditional African egalitarian values. In 'Consciencism,' Nkrumah grappled with the role of philosophy and Marxist-Leninist theory, in relation to the social context of the African continent and the necessity of its decolonization. Characterizing traditional African society as essentially egalitarian, he argued that a new African philosophy must draw its nourishment chiefly from African roots, according to the principles of Social Justice, Pan-Africanism, Self Determination, African Personality, and Anti-Imperialism.
'CONSCIENCISM,' EXCERPTED: monthlyreview.org/press/join-... YOU CAN GET A COPY HERE: monthlyreview.org/product/con...
More on the MR Classics Series:
The MR CLASSICS series carves out dedicated space for exploration of the contemporary relevance of essential texts published by Monthly Review Press, with an eye to informing and nourishing an emergent movement towards political education.
The erasure of historical continuity between social movements has disrupted our ability to make the revolutionary transformation we all desperately require. Through MR Classics we are playing a role in breaking a traumatic cycle, working to restore a sense of cohesion between multi-generational movements that-although truncated through state "intervention"- never actually ended in spirit, thought and practice.