Unfinished Freedom: Africa's Long Walk Beyond the 1884 Berlin Conference:

IOL News

28-06-2025

Mphumzi Mdekazi is CEO of Walter and Albertina Sisulu for Social Justice, he writes in his personal capacity.
Image: Supplied
By Mphumzi Mdekazi
On June 12, 2025, we gathered at Vaal University of Technology (VUT) not just to honour the towering legacy of Walter Sisulu, whose birthday was on May 18, 1912– a revolutionary, a father of our democracy, and a quiet architect of freedom—but the day was also used to reflect on the deeper, historical roots of the struggles that continue to shape our continent.
Walter Sisulu believed, above all else, in the unity, dignity, and potential of African people, and he understood that true liberation would not come with the lowering of colonial flags, but with the dismantling of colonial logic—embedded in institutions, economies, and minds.
It is for that reason that, partially, the fulcrum of his inaugural memorial lecture looked back—not to dwell—but to understand, so that we may act differently going forward.
I would assume that, as we have gathered in the Vaal, we all knew that our problems as the African continent are located at the Berlin Conference of 1884.
In 1884–85, in cold, chandelier-lit halls of imperial Europe, 14 European powers convened what is now known as the Berlin Conference—also called the Congo Conference. Not a single African was present. Yet the lives of millions would be irrevocably changed.
There, the continent was carved up like a pie. Arbitrary borders drawn across ethnic groups, kingdoms, ecological zones and ancient trade routes. Entire civilizations dismembered. Africa was not seen as a place of peoples, cultures, or sovereignty, but as territory to be occupied, extracted, and exploited.
This process was legitimized by the so-called principle of 'effective occupation,' which required European powers to demonstrate control over African territories to claim them. In truth, it was a license for conquest, enslavement, and cultural erasure.
As Frantz Fanon warned us: 'Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove not only from our land but from our minds as well.'
The mid-20th century brought political decolonization. Flags were changed, anthems composed, and parliaments erected. But what did we really inherit? We inherited a map not made by us.
States that were, in many cases, artificially constructed with no national consensus. We inherited economies wired to feed Europe's factories, not Africa's people, and tragically, we inherited elite classes—many of whom became, in the words of Amílcar Cabral, 'the transmission belt of foreign interests.'
Yes, we achieved formal independence, which some were celebrating recently. But the substance of freedom remains unfinished.
The promise of decolonization has produced mixed results. We have seen moments of triumph and excellence, indigenous innovation, Pan-African solidarity, democratic progress, but also the painful betrayal of liberation ideals, especially here at home in South Africa.
The post-colonial African states have too often been caught between external manipulation and internal misleadership. Between structural adjustment and military coups. Between IMF dictates and elite capture.
Today, we see new waves of defiance. The people of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, nations in the Sahel, are attempting to reimagine sovereignty in a world still structured against African independence.
Their struggle is fraught. Attempts to build new political and economic models are met with sanctions, destabilization, and even covert efforts at regime change. Often, external forces act not alone but in collaboration with internal elites who fear change.
I call these collaborators 'committed and helpless or hopeless slaves, who mistakenly believe that Africa's total liberation will come from a coloniser and our former oppressors'.
The Sahel defiance is inspiring the youth, the majority of our continent, understandably so because these young Sahel leaders represent our real African liberation aspirations.
These young people, born in the ashes of neoliberal broken promises, are reclaiming the right to shape their future.
As Thomas Sankara once declared: 'We must dare to invent the future.'
Our Continent needs economic Justice, not Charity or IMF Loans. Africa is not poor; it is impoverished.
Through stolen resources, unjust trade, climate injustice, and debt traps, weare made to kneel before the same powers that once colonized us, a case in point is the recent oval meeting in the US, where voluntarily our rare earth minerals as a country were offered and donated without a request, with an apologetic anatomical posture to the Groot Baas.
Today, African countries spend more on repaying interest than on investing in education or healthcare.
As Julius Nyerere warned decades ago:
'They made us believe that development meant becoming more like them. But development should mean becoming more like ourselves.'
We must now demand not aid, but restitution. Not charity, but economic justice in memory of Walter Sisulu.
Walter Sisulu understood that liberation is a process, not a moment. He lived through a century of struggle, from the pass laws to the Robben Island cell, from exile to the birth of democracy, leading his family, which conservatively accounts for 59 years in prison combined, for committing no crime, but to demand equality and justice.
Such a sacrifice must not be sacrificed for immediacy and silver or short-term myopic pliability.
His life teaches us that freedom requires integrity, vigilance, sacrifice, and above all, solidarity across borders, ideologies, and generations. This calls for ethical leadership.
As the Foundation that bears his and Mama Albertina's names, we recommit ourselves today to that Pan-African vision, a continent of self-reliant nations, accountable, ethical leadership, educated citizens, and just economies.
We invite African thinkers, students, workers, women, elders, the downtrodden and especially the youth to carry forward this (Walter Sisulu's) legacy. To free the continent not only from external domination, but from internal betrayal, as this is a serious hazard towards the gains of our liberation.
Let us look beyond Berlin, towards African Rebirth and Reawakening.
Let Walter Sisulu serve as more than remembrance. Let it be a moment of reckoning and renewal. Once again, we must look beyond Berlin, beyond the maps we did not draw, beyond the narratives we did not write.
It is time for a new African imagination. It is time to complete the freedom that Walter Sisulu and his generation began. As Africans, let us rise. Let us remember. Let us rebuild.
Mphumzi Mdekazi is CEO of Walter & Albertina Sisulu for Social Justice, and he writes in his personal capacity.