THE "IMPORT THESIS" ABOUT AFRICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
 

Pieter Boele van Hensbroek

In several serious academic studies as well as in a host of more every-
day accounts of African history the view is advanced that nationalist 
thought in Africa derived from Enlightenment ideas and revolutionary 
thought that came from abroad.1 Authors point out a kind of dialectic 
of history, where the same powers that colonised Africa also spread the 
basic ideas that guided the struggle for its abolition. This "import 
thesis", as I will call it, fits so well into the dominant background 
knowledge of much of the academia that it is seldom singled out for 
serious investigation. Interestingly, the "import thesis" also returns 
with authors who are highly critical of this dominant academia and 
claim that the troubles of Africa result from importing foreign ideas 
instead of building upon indigenous ones.

In this paper, I want to advance a critical analysis of this "import 
thesis" of African political thought. I investigate both the factual 
historical evidence for the thesis and the philosophical view of the 
nature of political ideas that it involves. The history of anti-
colonial struggles is often divided into what is called "primary 
resistance" and "secondary resistance". The first are the struggles of 
African political communities against colonial invasions and 
incursions. The second are movements of anti-colonial liberation that 
developed within the colonial context. The "import thesis" is advanced 
in explaining secondary resistance, and, thus, applies only to 
resistance after the mid-nineteenth century. Some use it to explain 
that the beginnings of secondary resistance developed exactly in those 
places where colonial presence became established first, namely in the 
so-called West African Settlements (Sierra Leone, Gold Coast etc.). 
Such import of ideas is then seen as the ideological counterpart of the 
transatlantic triangular trade system connecting Britain, West Africa 
and the Americas. It brought, as a by-product, Christian missionaries 
(White and Black!) and Enlightenment ideas of freedom and self-
determination to Africa.

Looking in somewhat more detail at the texts and political practices 
of African political thinkers since 1850, the import element could be 
identified at a number of points. Christian Abolitionist ideas combined 
with Pan-Negroist ideas came to Africa from the America's with 
influential intellectuals like Edward Wilmot Blyden and Alexander 
Crummell in the 1850s and '60s. The idea of establishing modern nation-
states in West Africa came with the famous modernist 'recaptive' 
Africanus Horton in the 1860s and '70s. The idea of modern political 
movements, such as the Aboriginals Rights Protection Society in the 
1890s and the National Congress for British West Africa in the 1920s, 
emerged under the leadership of the so-called "educated elites" who 
took their education from Britain and America. The "import thesis" can 
easily be extended into more recent history as well. One can think of 
Marxist-inspired nationalism in the Nkrumah - Padmore tradition after 
the Second World War, African Socialism in the 1960s, so much 
influenced by the European idea of the Welfare State and by Humanist 
Christianity. Again, the introduction of African communism in the 
decades thereafter and the introduction of Multi-Partyism in the 1990s 
tend to be seen as foreign imports.

In view of this long list one may be somewhat depressed about this 
picture of dependency even where African independence is theorised. 
However, I think that a more assertive response is possible, one that 
challenges the factual evidence upon which this list of historical 
cases is based. However, such an alternative interpretation of the 
history of African political thought in this period requires a much 
more detailed and methodologically sophisticated look at each of the 
movements and their ideas than is usually executed. In this paper I 
have to limit such detailed analysis to just a few cases and even in 
the descriptions of these cases I cannot go into all the necessary 
detail. However, a much more extensive argument can be found in my 
Political Discourses in African Thought; 1850 to the Present, and in 
the classical study by Ayo Langley of 1973, Pan-Africanism and 
nationalism in West Africa: A case study in ideology and social 
classes.

Let me begin with the example of the Aboriginals Rights Protection 
Society (ARPS), the Gold Coast movement in the 1890s that campaigned 
against the colonial Land Laws claiming all non-occupied land as crown 
land under the colonial administration. The ARPS looks at first sight 
like an early and classical case of western educated elites resisting 
the colonial administration by making use of the vocabulary of this 
same colonial power, for instance by claiming liberties, rights, 
democratic influence and self-determination. The intellectuals of this 
movement, such as John Mensah Sarbah and Joseph Casely Hayford, were 
British trained lawyers. The sociological environment in towns such as 
Freetown and Cape Coast included many aspects of British social life, 
and even the explicit political objective of the movement looks rather 
pro-British from our contemporary view. They did not demand liberation 
from colonialism, but a more enlightened colonial policy that would be 
based upon a better understanding of African societies and would leave 
much more of the internal affairs of the colony to Africans. Canada and 
Australia with their relative independent position within the empire 
were the examples of this African elite. In sociological and historical 
studies the educated elite are often described as ?brokers? between the 
British and the African subjects.2

However, a serious and detailed analysis does not confirm this 
categorisation of the ARPS. Certainly, people like Sarbah and Hayford 
made use of their European training and European ideas when beneficial 
for the movement. I will maintain, however, that the thrust of the 
movement, its participants, as well as its political discourse, were 
not European. It would be more correct to consider the ideas of the 
ARPS as creative indigenous resistance in its own right.

Sociologically, the ARPS was a movement of close co-operation between 
traditionalrulers, important business men and the educated elite. The 
direct objective was to resist the undermining of traditional 
authorities' powers over land issues as a consequence of the colonial 
Land Laws. Sociologically, thus, the ARPS was a purely African 
resistance. Intellectually, the ARPS represented a self-contained 
ideological orientation. Within this ideological frame, the educated 
elite perceived themselves to be destined for a key role in a kind of 
revived and modernised indigenous political system. Casely Hayford, for 
instance, identified in his detailed study of the Akan traditional 
system an elaborate division of roles and tasks between council and 
chief; in fact a kind of separation of powers between the legislative 
and the executive.3 The chief functions in this system as head of the 
executive, but the legislative has its own leaders, such as the so-
called ?linguist?. In elaborating this system in the modern context, 
the intellectuals argued that the role of the council and linguist 
would be developed further and the 'natural' role of the educated elite 
would be that of managers of the political process in the council.4

This strategy of elaborating a modernised indigenous system as the 
response to the challenge of the West in fact had already a tradition 
within the Gold Coast context. Hayford even explicitly referred to this 
historical tradition, a tradition that includes the abortive attempt to 
establish the Fanti Federation, in 1872 and 1873, and the earlier 
Mankessim Declaration, a statement by prominent persons such as kings, 
advisors, business men and the educated. Especially the Mankessim 
Declaration is remarkable. It outlines a progressive joint policy of 
local African leaders involving, for instance, the establishment of 
schools and compulsory education; something that had not even been 
implemented in the most ?advanced? countries in Europe at that time!5

This sketch of the sociological dynamics and the political ideas 
involved in the ARPS indicates that this movement was not fuelled by 
imported ideas, but a creative and progressive indigenous response to 
the challenge of increasing European domination. A movement for 
?modernisation from indigenous roots? one could say. The fact that, in 
actual history, the resistance of the type of the ARPS has not been 
successful does not change this conclusion. In fact, the whole idea of 
modernisation from indigenous roots became politically irrelevant with 
the full establishment of colonial rule in Africa in the early years of 
the 20th century.6 Intellectually, however, the ARPS intellectuals 
remain quite interesting. They were not so much importers of foreign 
ideas as creative innovators of their tradition.

My second example to disprove the import thesis about African 
political thought concerns post-war radical nationalism.7 Here again, 
the situation can easily be sketched as one of import. One can point at 
the enormous influence of Padmore on young Africans in London with his 
originally communist inspired and crystal clear analyses of 
colonialism. Furthermore, one can point at the influence of liberal 
ideas of freedom. One of the first points of action by Africans 
immediately after the war was an appeal to the principles for a free 
world order as were laid down in the Atlantic Charter by Roosevelt and 
Churchill in 1941. In a petition to the United Nations Conference in 
1945, they demanded that these principles would also apply to the 
colonised world and thus end colonialism. Even Kwame Nkrumah, the most 
prominent comrades of Padmore, incorporated much this liberal 
inspiration (as his policies in Ghana in the 1950s express). It is said 
that Nkrumah, while sailing out of New York and passing the Freedom 
statue, vowed to bring its inspiration of freedom to Africa.

However, if we investigate in more detail the actual process of 
political thought and action in the first decades after the war, then, 
rather than import of ideas, we see the selective appropriation of 
various elements to serve a new African agenda. The agenda itself was 
not even that new. Except, probably, for the idea of Pan-Africanism, 
the radical anti-colonial ideas can also be found among the many youth 
movements which developed for instance in Nigeria in the 1940s.

In support of the import thesis one could point to the debate in Ghana 
in the 1950s between protagonists of a federal state and protagonists 
of a unitary state. Nkrumah defended an almost universalist image of 
the unitary nation-state as elaborated in European political thought, 
whereas J.B. Danquah, as the eloquent defender of federal state form 
for Ghana, was clearly much more in touch with the specific history, 
plurality and the traditional leadership in the country. However, the 
reasons for Nkrumah to hold on to this unitary idea of the state were 
probably quite local. First of all to foster a strong unitary force in 
Ghana, avoiding the divisions that affected for instance the Nigerian 
nationalist struggle, and avoiding threats to his own position which 
had been secured well in national elections. Secondly, to have a strong 
basis for a modernising development policy firmly steered from the 
presidential cock-pit at the national state level. Ironically, Nkrumah, 
as the great defender of Pan-Africanism in debates within Africa, was 
at the same time a staunch defender of the hegemony of the national 
state level in national debates.

My two examples have shown that what looks at first sight like a 
situation of import of foreign ideas at vital junctions in African 
history is actually a different thing. Ideas that play a vital role in 
relevant political movements in Africa are mostly selectively 
appropriated and tailored to fit their new role. Let me turn at this 
point in the paper to the philosophical analysis of such processes in 
order to rethink the whole idea of import of political ideas.

My philosophical criticism of the idea of imported political ideas 
concerns first of all the nature of political ideas. Political ideas 
are often considered as items that can be isolated, taken out of their 
context and travel without changing them. Importing political ideas is 
then considered as similar to adopting different types of food in ones 
menu. However, it can be questioned if it works like that with 
political ideas. I will argue here that politically relevant ideas 
cannot be taken out of their context without changing their meaning. 
Such ideas need a reference to concerns, strategies, and options for 
action of real, historically situated actors. Such reference provides, 
so to say, the air they breathe. Thus, political notions are charged 
with meaning by the context of action in which they function.

My philosophical criticism of the "import thesis", therefore, derives 
from a criticism of an objectivist theory of meaning and its 
replacement by a theory of meaning that relates meaning to context of 
action of real, historically situated actors. As argued convincingly by 
Wittgenstein, the meaning of words depends upon their use in a 
community of users. When notions travel and are included in a different 
linguistic and political practice (a different discourse), then one can 
expect these terms to change their meaning. Often, notions used in a 
different context simply loose much of their relevance. But when they 
start playing a key role in a new context, then this is generally 
because they have received new meaning in this context. Such life-
histories of terms and ideas can be traced and are particularly 
relevant for political ideas. The history of political thought is often 
the history of re-coining central notions.

Let me give an example of such a travelling notion that became 
relevant in a new context in a changed meaning. Edward Wilmot Blyden, 
who is sometimes termed the most important black intellectual in the 
nineteenth century, arrived in Liberia in 1853 as a convinced Christian 
Abolitionist and Pan-Negroist. His thought was marked by the ?color-
line?, the key racial divide in the Americas between White and Black. 
Pan-Negroism aimed at uniting Blacks into a major and effective global 
force. However, as a model of thought, the color-line was much less 
relevant in West Africa at that time. Racial difference only 
occasionally became a hot issue, as was the case in the missionary 
world in the so-called Native Pastorate Controversy in Sierra Leone ? 
where Blyden got immediately involved in the controversy. In fact, the 
hottest issue in Liberia at that time was a racial issue, but between 
blacks. This concerned the competition between the lighter skinned 
elite who claimed a leading role and the opposition. Blyden became a 
partisan of the darker skinned, ?true? Negroes (he insisted on using 
this term and on writing it with a capital N). 

Thus, the idea of the color-line and, consequently, Blyden's Pan-
Negroism, was not going to be of much relevance for African political 
thought. However, Blyden?s thought gradually changed from Christian 
missionary abolitionism, which considered it the task of the civilised 
and Christianised blacks from America to ?save? and civilise their 
African brethren, to African cultural nationalism, which considered 
African culture superior to the West. With this change, the idea of the 
color-line received new meaning, this time in terms of a cultural 
dividing line between Africa and the West.8 According to Blyden, the 
African culture and the African personality (he was probably the first 
author to use this term) were to guard their authenticity against the 
onslaught of western culture. Only in this new meaning did Blyden's 
idea of basic divides in humanity attain political relevance in Africa.

Such a new relevance of his ideas also resulted from considerably 
changed political landscape. Towards the end of the nineteenth century 
colonial racism was at its top. Africans could for most of the century 
pursue careers in the colonial administration (at one time there even 
was a black governor in British West Africa) but were pushed out now. 
Just as the African traders were pushed out of the market. This 
discrimination led to growing resentment and a reaffirmation of African 
cultural and political heritages. In this situation Blyden?s thought, 
for instance his appeal for the establishment of an African Christian 
church, had great appeal. The idea of the color-line, which originally 
came from abroad as a racial and political notion, received new life as 
a guideline for a cultural nationalist orientation.

If this example is taken as representative for processes of export and 
import of political ideas, then statements about imported political 
ideas that have guided African political discourses in the past one or 
two centuries are superficial. Rather than a process of import, we have 
a process of selective appropriation and re-coining of terms and ideas 
within struggles and discourses that have their own dynamic and 
orientation. Such a type of appropriation is a sign of an open-minded 
and pragmatic orientation, rather than of dependency. This is not to 
deny, of course, that there can be cases where there is wholesale, 
thoughtless import; the introduction of state-farms, of the proletarian 
vanguard party, or of a simple multi-party recipe for organising the 
political power struggle can be cases in point. The damage done by 
these imports is untold. However, we have to distinguish here between 
the fact of appropriation of something from outside (which is as such 
neither good nor bad) and the discourse and political process of which 
it becomes part. I would argue that it is the quality of critical 
reflection about political realities and the degree of democracy and 
embeddedness of the political process that counts, not the assumed 
origin of the concepts and notions.

Reference
1 See, e.g., Shepperson (1960, 1961), Geis (1968), and Davidson 
(1992).

2 E.g. De Moraes Farias @ Barber (1990).

3 Casely Hayford (1903)

4 For an elaboration of such a modernised traditional system, see e.g. 
De Graft Johnson (1928)

5 Such ideas can also be found in Africanus Horton's West African 
Countries and Peoples (London, 1868)

6 In fact the quite common negative judgement of the educated elite is 
quite unfair when it concern the ARPS intellectuals. They worked 
jointly with other with the traditional leaders. It was the colonial 
government that sharpened the divisions between the educated and the 
chiefs by increasingly side-lining and ridiculing the former (with 
terms like ?trousered niggers? etc.) and incorporating the latter in 
their own system of indirect rule.

7 One should note here the major difference of this colonial 
resistance to that of the ARPS, when, before the full establishment of 
colonial rule, the hope could still be held that colonisation could be 
avoided or softened into a situation similar to Canada or Australia, 
where a large degree of self-rule could be established. For people like 
Nkrumah and Azikiwe, the liberation issue was no longer framed in terms 
of renovation of the indigenous systems, but in terms of creating a 
?New Africa?. 

8 One of the consequences of this change in Blyden?s thought is a 
changed assessment of racial solidarities. He did not consider American 
Africans, especially not ?mulattoes?, as a good influence for Africa: 
Africa had everything in its own resources.

Bibliography
Azikiwe, N. (1968). Renascent Africa. London: Frank Cass. (Reprint 
from 1937).

Clapham, Ch. (1970). The context of African political thought. The 
Journal of Modern African Studies, 8(1), 1-13.

Boele van Hensbroek, P. (1999). Political Discourses in African 
Thought, 1860 to the Present. Westport, Praeger.

Davidson, B. (1992). The black man's burden: Africa and the curse of 
the Nation-State, New York: Times Books.

Graft Johnson, J. W. de (1971). Towards nationhood in West Africa. 
London: Frank Cass. (Reprinted from 1928)

Hayford, J. E. Casely (1969). Ethiopia Unbound. Studies in race 
emancipation. London: Frank Cass. (Reprinted from 1911)

-----. (1970). Gold Coast native institutions. With thoughts upon a 
healthy imperial policy for the Gold Coast and Ashanti. London: Frank 
Cass. (Reprinted from 1903)

Geiss, I. (1968). Panafrikanismus. Zur Geschichte der Dekolonisation. 
Frankfurt am Mein: Europeische Verlagsanstalt

Langley, J. A. (1973). Pan-Africanism and nationalism in West Africa: 
A case study in ideology and social classes. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

-----. (1979) Ideologies of Liberation in Black Africa 1856-1970: 
Documents on modern African political thought from colonial times to 
the present. London: Rex Collings.

Sarbah, J. Mensah (1968). Fanti customary law. London: Frank Cass. 
(Reprinted from 1897)

-----. (1968). Fanti national institutions. London: Frank Cass. 
(Reprinted from 1906)

Shepperson, G. (1960). Notes on American Negro influences on the 
emergence of African nationalism. Journal of African History, 1(2), 299-
312.

-----. (1961). External factors in the development of African 
nationalism, with particular reference to British Central Africa. 
Phylon, 22(3).


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Citation Format:

Pieter Boele Van Hensbroek. ?The "Import Thesis" About African 
Political Thought,? Journal on African Philosophy: Issue 2, 2003.

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