02-07-2025
Unfinished Freedom: Africa's Long Walk beyond 1884 Berlin Conference
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Our continent needs economic justice, not charity or IMF loans. Africa is not poor; it is impoverished.
Today, African countries spend more repaying interest on borrowed money than they do investing in education or healthcare.
It is time to complete the freedom that Walter Sisulu and his generation began.
On 12 June 2025, we gathered at Vaal University of Technology (VUT) not just to honour the towering legacy of Walter Sisulu, whose birthday was on the 18th of May 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.
In emulating Sisulu by looking back at our history, I want to argue that our problems as the African continent date back to the ill-fated 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 by the discussions and decisions taken at that conference.
At that conference, the continent was carved up like a pie. Arbitrary borders were drawn across the land, tearing apart ethnic groups, kingdoms and ecological zones and disrupting ancient trade routes.
Entire civilisations were dismembered. Africa was not seen as a place of peoples' cultures or sovereignty – but as territory to be occupied, extracted from and exploited.
This process was legitimised 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 decolonisation. 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 decolonisation 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, destabilisation 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 is in need of economic justice, not charity or IMF loans. Africa is not poor; it is impoverished.
Through stolen resources, unjust trade, climate injustice and debt traps, we are made to kneel before the same powers that once colonised us.
A case in point is the recent Oval Office meeting in the US, where our rare earth minerals as a country were voluntarily offered and donated without a request, with an apologetic anatomical posture to the Groot Baas.
Today, African countries spend more repaying interest than investing in education or healthcare.
They made us believe that development meant becoming more like them. But development should mean becoming more like ourselves.
Julius Nyerere, the former president of Tanzania
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 demanding equality and justice.
Such a sacrifice must not be sacrificed for immediacy and silver or short-term myopic pliability.
Walter Sisulu's 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 also 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.
