Feminist Africa, Issue 20: Feminism and Pan-Africanism

Issue 20 of Feminist Africa, edited by Professor Amina Mama and Hakima Abbas, is out and online here.

"In this issue, our contributors explore just some of the ways in which neoliberalism and neo-colonialism have distorted and obscured feminist articulations of the pan-Africanism dream."

"Today the continental mainstream pan-African agenda is dominated by powerful men who are mostly concerned about using conservative pan-African rhetoric to the service of their often anti-democratic purposes. The varied grassroots pan-African movements of the past have been reduced into a hegemonic pan-Africanism narrative that has become an institutionalised support for patriarchal values. Though the Organisation of African Unity transformed itself into the African Union in 2001, the institution remains dominated by the old boy’s club of Presidents who utilise oppressive political cultures to remain in office beyond their constitutional terms, despite the mass resistance that we have witnessed this year in Burundi. Other leaders are engaged in conflicts that make a mockery of grassroots pan-African ideals dedicated to a liberated continent. The new hegemonic meanings of ‘Africa’ are being articulated by presidents from Mbeki to Mugabe who at times poetically expound on the renaissance of an African dream for freedom and at other times disfigure the transnational anti-imperialist thrust of pan-Africanism in order to entrench localised authoritarian rule, buttressing this with nationalist, patriarchal, anti-feminist rhetoric that all too many of us remain gullible to."