Uhuru!

by Ben Soton

African Uhuru by Roger McKenzie, Manifesto Press, London 2024, 178 pp, RRP £15.00

The word Uhuru (as well the character from Star Trek) is Swahili for freedom or independence. African Uhuru is a history of African self-liberation covering a period from the end of the First World War to the present day written by Roger McKenzie, the International Editor of the Morning Star, and a highly respected figure within the progressive and labour movement.
The book covers liberation movements both inside and outside of Africa; both movements for national independence and as well as the struggle against racism in Europe and the USA. McKenzie places considerable emphasis on the African diaspora, which he is a product of. From the 16^th to the 19^th centuries Africans were abducted from their homes, mostly in West Africa, and sold as slaves to work in the Americas. It was the Transatlantic slave trade which enabled capital to be accumulated in a relatively small part of the globe that led to the development of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution.
The author goes into considerable detail about the growth of anti-colonial and anti-racist movements in Britain and the United States. Whilst covering the role of key figures such as Marcus Garvey and C L R James, McKenzie also points out that African Self-Liberation and Marxism did not always sit well together. He covers the hostility of leading black figures such as George Padmore and Marcus Garvey to Marxism; which the latter described as a “white man’s thing”; as well as a possible lack of commitment of communist parties in assisting black workers. It was however Lenin and his seminal work Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism that took Marxism away from its European origins and into the colonial and semi-colonial world.
The book also covers the various attempts by nations within what is now referred to as the Global South to co-operate against imperialism. The ranges from the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1950s, with its famous meeting in the Indonesian city of Bandung to the more recent rise of BRICS, the bloc formed initially by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, whose initials make up the group’s name.
McKenzie ends the book with a call to de-colonise the labour movement; a demand for the labour movement to play a greater role in fighting racism, which has its origins in the slave trade and imperialism.