By Laudia Anyorkor Nunoo
Tema, Sept. 23, GNA — The AfriKan Continental Union Consult (ACUC) has called for a broader understanding of Pan-Africanism that accommodates Africans of different religious backgrounds, including Christians, in efforts towards continental unity, development and emancipation.
Mr Benjamin Anyagre Aziginaateeg, the Leader of the ACUC, AfriKan Province-Ghana, said Pan-Africanism, as a project of collective African solidarity, should bring together people across cultural, ethnic, linguistic, religious and national differences.
Mr Aziginaateeg told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that disagreements with Christianity were legitimate within intellectual and historical discourse, but should not become a basis for deliberately alienating African Christians from Pan-African engagement.
“Pan-Africanism must be intelligent and wise enough to distinguish between Christianity as a faith, individual Christians, Christian institutions, the historical records of Christian actors, and the political uses to which it has sometimes been put,” he said.
Mr Aziginaateeg said Christianity remained a significant social space in contemporary Africa, with millions of Africans belonging to the faith and contributing to society as professionals, entrepreneurs, farmers, academics, community organisers and development practitioners.
He argued that their Christian identity should not disqualify them from contributing to African unity, development and emancipation.
He acknowledged that the history of Christianity in Africa included episodes of colonialism, missionary complicity, cultural disruption and other forms of injustice associated with Christian institutions and actors.
He said those historical realities should be acknowledged, examined and confronted, but should not become a permanent basis for excluding an entire African constituency from the African project.
“The more constructive question is whether or not African Christians today can consciously place their faith, institutions, knowledge and social influence at the service of African dignity, good governance, social justice, development and continental unity,” he said.
Mr Aziginaateeg added that African societies could also make constructive use of existing institutions, networks, knowledge, organisational structures and human resources within Christian communities to advance African interests.
He cited historical figures including Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Richard Allen, Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King Jr., Howard Thurman, Ella Baker, Pauli Murray and James H. Cone as examples of people who drew on biblical narratives, Christian theology and Church institutions in challenging slavery, racism and racial injustice.
He therefore urged African Christians who identified with Pan-African objectives to remain engaged in what he described as the continent’s unfinished liberation project.
“Christianity and Pan-Africanism need not be enemies,” he said, arguing that faith could inspire service while Pan-Africanism provided a continental framework for solidarity.
Mr Aziginaateeg said Pan-Africanism should recognise Africans of different faiths as equal participants in the continental project, including Christians, Muslims, Rastafarians, adherents of African traditional religions and people with no religious affiliation.
“The common denominator is African,” he said, adding that the task was to build a continental consciousness capable of bringing the different constituencies together in pursuit of African emancipation.
He said the significant presence of Christianity in contemporary African societies meant that the Church could not simply be left outside efforts to develop a comprehensive Pan-African strategy.
Mr Aziginaateeg called for a more mature intellectual approach to the African project, involving learning from history, challenging injustice, reforming institutions where necessary and mobilising resources that could contribute to Africa’s advancement.
He said Africa’s future required the commitment of all its people, with diversity serving as a source of collective strength rather than a basis for permanent division.
GNA
Edited by Christabel Addo
Reporter: Laudia Anyorkor Nunoo, GNA
Email: [email protected]