NKRUMAH ON AFRICA LIBERATION

Natuo

Kwame Nkrumah has been a very instrumental figure in both political and philosophical thoughts and geared towards African Liberation and unification. Nkrumah stresses that practice without thought is blind and thought without practice is empty. For him, the three segments of African society, the traditional, the western, the christians and the the Islamic mostly have an uneasy co-existence, the principles animating them are often in conflict with one another. Also, the principles of capitalism are also conflicting with the socialist egalitarianism of the traditional African.

Is not only that Nkrumah was restless with these conflicting values, but also he asked the question, what should we do in other to harmonized these conflicting principles? For this, Nkrumah suggests that Africans must accommodate the other two segments as experiences of the traditional African society. Nkrumah therefore postulated the philosophical consciencism which is the map in intellectual terms of the disposition of forces which will enable African society to digest the western and Islam and Euro-Christian elements in Africa. It must be noted that Consciencism is a summary of Nkrumah’s ideological viewpoint geared towards the economic and political emancipation of the African. It was marked that Consciencism arrived at a stage of development where the vigorous African search for freedom; unity and identity need to be expressed in the form of philosophical statesments. Furthermore, the concept; ‘Consciencism’ has been subjected to some criticisms; hence there is need for an overview of the concept with a view to presenting it in the very spirit of African revolution.

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