ABSTRACT
The Charter of Unity of I963 was a long-term commitment of Africa’s new leaders to common defence of the continent – economic, political and military – but it was to be a unity of diverse nation-states. The Pan-African ideal, nurtured by black Americans like W.E.B. Du Bois ever since the first Pan-African Congress held in the United States in 1900, had struck a deep chord, especially among Africans living outside Africa. It is an important fact about Africans that, unlike Europeans or Chinese, the majority can speak at least two languages – French or English, Portuguese or Arabic – and their mother tongue. The distinction between Marxist and non-Marxist is not much more helpful than language differences in characterizing the political typology of African states. African governments one by one accepted the international monetary fund and World Bank conditions for loans and other financial support, because they had allowed other alternatives to go by default.
