A First Step Toward 'African Socialism'

...In addition, since in the case of established nations participants had to be from legally recognized parties, even if in formal opposition to their respective governments, major states such as Nigeria and Ghana, as well as some lesser ones currently ruled by military cliques, were excluded...

...Guinea's President Sekou Toure, for example, long ago stated in the same breath that he was a Marxist and that there was no such thing as "class struggle' in Africa...

...as economic facts...

...The idea is not new...

...the delegate from the Southwest African Peoples' Organization congratulated the hardly anti-Western Bourguiba on "your struggle against the Western camp...

...These are the basic questions that preoccupied the virtually unreported First Conference of African Parties on Planned Development and African Ways to Socialism, held here July 1-6 under the cochairmanship of Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba and Senegalese President Leopold Sedar Senghor...

...Predictably, these contingents were responsible for most of the more strident condemnations of imperialism and capitalism...

...Indeed, the Zambian delegates repeatedly expressed their delight at the "typically African hospitality" that they found while in Tunis...

...This approach, plus the masterful gavel-wielding by the presiding chairman, Mohammed Sayeh, director of Tunisia's Destourian party, spelled success for the Conference on several levels...

...Particularly noteworthy was the affinity displayed between Francophones and Anglophones, and between Arab-Berber and black Africans...

...If we are to be effective in gradually building up our future, we must think and act by ourselves, and for ourselves, relying on the virtues of Africa even—or rather especially?when it comes to tailoring socialism to the realities of African life.' This means, he continued, employing Africa's gift for intuition, combining it with reason, and basing African Socialism, within each country, upon African institutions and values, notably the rural communities or communes and the tradition of "community ownership...

...The poet-philosopher-politician began: "The reflections I am about to make are common to us, to many Africans north and south of the Sahara, whether they claim to be Marxist-Leninists, Democratic Socialists or even liberals who believe in planning, since the idea of planning is a socialist one...

...Its announced objectives were simply to promote contacts, share national experiences, explore options, and evolve a general consensus on approaches to development...

...But Tunisia's Bourguiba went much further by demanding "the substitution of a democratic economy for the conception of the class struggle, and urging that "the socialist society should be based on harmony, solidarity and free cooperation among all social categories...

...Similarly, to promote agreement on general principles and to discourage disagreements on specific issues, it was decided that no formal votes would be taken...

...Even though the conferees failed to agree on the membership or the place for a permanent committee, they did establish a liaison group to maintain contacts and prepare for another gathering in two years...

...The Egyptian director of the Union of African Journalists received very warm responses to his initiatives to generate continual, systematic exchanges of information among Africans, and there seemed virtually no resentment of the fact that the Conference was the brainchild of two leading Francophones, Senghor and Bourguiba...

...In short, the First Conference appears to have taken an important step toward defining the concept of African Socialism...

...And these parties, in the words of the final "Declaration of Tunis," should "mobilize the popular masses for the continual work of orientation, education and information" in order to promote "development through planning" and establish "equilibrium among individuals, regions and generations...

...To facilitate the give-and-take on these matters, the delegations were made up of active party workers rather than prominent national leaders, whose Organization for African Unity meetings and other summits have produced much rhetoric but little impact on the people back home...

...Absent, though, were some stalwarts of African Socialism with potentially meaningful views on the issues under discussion: particularly Tanzania, Kenya and Guinea...

...He then went on to urge "that we should read and ponder for and by ourselves, as Africans, the basic texts of socialism," instead of accepting any "catechisms for underdeveloped states' imported from abroad...

...A total of 30 delegations participated, ranging from the vaguely liberal Istiqlal party of Morocco (a country whose most noteworthy contribution to socialist thought has been the concept of "Royal Socialism" under King Hassan's personal direction) to Libya's Arab Socialist Union and Angola's three rival liberation groups...

...A member of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, for instance, vociferously attacked "the long and violent process of imperialist pillage...

...The great majority at the Conference, though, endorsed the view that the African nations need all the help they can get from all of their citizens, and that groups should work together under the firm direction of the (in most cases) ruling socialist-minded parties...

...On the whole, however, discussions concerning Africa's relationships with the developed world, while emphasizing the need to right economic and other injustices, still recognized the necessity for cooperation with the industrialized nations, provided that it was based on mutual respect...

...and a PLO official got in his licks about "pro-Zionism...

...If some of these motifs are familiar, the Conference also contained a few pleasant surprises...

...The broad spectrum in attendance and the important elements absent pretty much ruled out the issuing of any dogmatic prescriptions for curing Africa's economic and social ills, but this was never intended by the Conference at its initial gathering...

...A few participants, including those from the Congolese Workers party and the Moroccan Socialist Union of Popular Forces, maintained that class divisions were a menace in their countries...

...His thoughts were echoed by Tunisian Premier Hedi Nouira, who said that "in places of the class struggle, sterile, destructive and without a future, we propose a struggle of all the components of the national community against underdevelopment...

...Since the conferees see the struggle for economic advancement as a natural outgrowth 6t the struggle for independence, African liberation groups from Angola, Namibia (Southwest Africa) and Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) were present, as was the Palestine Liberation Organization, a movement most Africans deeply empathize with...

...Marx and Engels, Senghor said, have contributed something very useful, namely their analyses of materialism and the dialectical method, but their contributions cover only one aspect of reality: "What should interest us most, as Africans, is discovering whether, in fact, 'superstructures', in other words, cultural data, are not just as important...

...The result, declared Senghor, would be a special kind of humanistic socialism: "As a Wolof [Senegalese] proverb puts it, 'man is man's remedy.' " Other speakers focused on developing another aspect of African Socialism—the denial of, or sharp opposition to, the notion of "class struggle" in African societies...

...For one thing, the well-researched, magnificently delivered opening address by Senghor convinced skeptics at least to open, if not completely change, their minds about the very concept of "African Socialism...

...Lorna Hahn is the director of the Association on Third World Affairs...