Gamal Nkrumah examines the significance of Ghana's golden jubilee independence celebrations Kwame Nkrumah, understood that politics is about the possible. He knew what his people wanted: independence from colonial rule. "Today, I must pay homage to the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, and his colleagues of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) who in 1947 launched the last phase of the process towards independence," acknowledged the current Ghanaian President Ageykum Kufour at celebrations marking the commemoration of Ghana's golden independence jubilee. What Kufour failed to note was that Nkrumah soon after his return to Ghana after studies overseas in the United States and Britain, outmaneuvered his colleagues at the UGCC, an elitist group of Africans who had profited from colonial rule. Nkrumah wasted no time in establishing his own mass-based party, the Convention People's Party (CPP). His rallying cry was "independence now". The British colonial authorities promptly arrested Nkrumah. The British governor at the time, Aiken Watson KC, authorised a Commission of Enquiry to look into the state of disorder and the fast ascension of the national liberation struggle among the Ghanaian populace. "Nkrumah appears to be a mass orator among Africans of no mean attainments," the Watson report concluded. Nkrumah has never abandoned his aims for a Union of West African Soviet Republics and has not abandoned his foreign affiliations connected with these aims." The Cold War was in full swing. Nkrumah launched the CPP in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, on 12 June 1949. He worked closely with other national democratic and socialist movements in Africa -- including the regime of Egypt's late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser. "The glorious era of Nasser and Nkrumah is sadly over," the Arab World's most distinguished political commentator Mohamed Hassanein Heikal told Al-Ahram Weekly. Heikal was referring to the fact that even though some 30 heads of state and government from all over Africa converged on Accra for the 50th anniversary celebrations, Egypt was represented by Ambassador Ahmed Haggag. "I do not understand why there was at least no ministerial representation," Heikal complained. Are we suffering from amnesia? It is as if the African liberation struggle, as if the close ties that bound Ghana and Egypt in the past, is forgotten. It is as if Ghana, and all Africa, is lost from our collective memory." "This is most unfortunate. I am truly saddened," Heikal lamented. Samir Amin, the celebrated Dakar-based Egyptian intellectual concurred. The 6th of March is a very important date. It marks the independence of the first African country south of the Sahara," Amin explained. "I am sure you will agree with me that this is celebration not only for Ghana, but also for the whole of Africa. For 6 March 1957 changed the outlook of our continent and its status and role in the world forever," Ghanaian President Kufour said on Tuesday. He spoke of the "African on the continent who for centuries had been violated and subjugated through the slave trade and colonialism". Kufour spoke of "breaking asunder the chains of bondage". He quoted the then British prime minister who spoke of a "wind of change" blowing across Africa. Nkrumah and Ghana were trendsetters in the continent. "Today, therefore, is as much Ghana's celebration as it is for the rest of Africa". Accra became a Mecca for African freedom fighters. "Nkrumah's Ghana was a magnet for African revolutionaries. After the overthrow of Nkrumah's democratically-elected government was overthrown, the Tanzanian capital Dar Al-Salam, became the second capital of African revolution." Amin, however, pointed out that there was an important ideological difference between Nkrumah and the then Tanzanian leader Julius Nyerere. Nkrumah believed in universal socialism and social justice. Nyerere, on the other hand, invented what later became known as 'African socialism' -- there is a world of difference between the two. "Nkrumah understood that socialism was universal," Amin explained. However, Nkrumah pursued his dream of African continental unity. He married an Egyptian, my mother Fathia Halim Rizk -- the personal was political. This conjugal union symbolised the unity of Africa north and south of the Sahara. Arabs, too, like other Africans suffered from colonial oppression and there natural resources was looted and their countries underdeveloped by colonialism. "Nkrumah rejected outright the notion that colonialism was a result of the desire by the European nations to 'civilise' the 'barbarous' peoples of the world," explained his literary executrix, June Milne. Nkrumah, in sharp contrast to many of his contemporaries, understood that colonialism was not simply the conquest by white race of yellow, brown and black people around the world. The Ghanaian first president laid the foundation of industrialisation in Ghana. He built the Akosombo Dam to generate electricity for industry and electrify the rural areas, he constructed a deep water harbour in Tema, near Accra, and he founded hundreds of schools and hospitals throughout the country. He also established four universities. Sadly, Ghana today suffers from a crippling brain drain as the professionals trained in Ghana under Nkrumah seek greener pastures and better economic opportunities overseas. He was keenly aware of the problems faced by newly independent African states. The independence of Ghana is meaningless without the total liberation of Africa, he stressed. His book, The Challenge of the Congo: A case study of foreign pressures in an independent state, outlined the tragic events, instigated by Western powers, which led to the assassination of another hero of African national liberation -- the late Congolese prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. Nkrumah was an intellectual, as much as he was a politician and statesman. He was a prolific writer even when in power. His work Africa Must Unite, first published in 1964, remains to this day a blueprint for African economic and political survival. His bombshell, Neo- Colonialism: the last stage of imperialism, first published in 1965, led directly to the CIA masterminding the coup that led to the toppling of his government. George Bush, the father, was the key brains behind the coup which marked a critical change in his political career -- he quickly rose the ranks to become director of the CIA and eventually president of the US. Today under the presidency of his son George W Bush, the Americans are building what will eventually become the largest US embassy in Africa in Accra. Moreover, Ghana is to designated to become the headquarters of CIA operations in Africa and the headquarters of the Bush administration's proposed rapid deployment force in Africa. Nkrumah is, undoubtedly, turning in his grave. Fawzy Mansour, distinguished Egyptian academic, acknowledged Ghana's first president's farsighted vision when he told the Weekly that Nkrumah was one of the few African founding fathers who understood and extrapolated the economics of colonialism. "He wanted social and economic justice for his people, for an entire continent."
