Understanding Constructivist Pan-Africanism

Introduction
For years, I have sought to understand why, despite political independence, our continent remains trapped in the same chains. I have listened, observed, and studied. I have delved into our precolonial histories, into the narratives falsified by the colonizers, into the heroic struggles of our peoples, into the betrayals that followed, into the promises broken by our elites. And through these years of reflection, one certainty emerged: our problem is not only political or economic. It is also moral and structural. Our societies, as they function today, are built on foundations we did not choose and which we have continued to reproduce, sometimes without even realizing it.

I have seen entire generations born into injustice, grow up in injustice, and learn to tolerate it as if it were fate. I have seen peoples believe that poverty, corruption, dictatorship, or dependency are natural curses, as if our destiny were written elsewhere. I have heard speeches claiming to liberate Africa while reproducing, within our families, communities, and institutions, the very same power dynamics we fight against externally.

It took me a long time, years of experience, research, and struggle to understand that simply calling oneself Pan-Africanist is not enough. Pan-Africanism is a vast movement with multiple, sometimes contradictory, voices. But my journey led me to give a name to the vision that truly reflects my approach: Constructivist Pan-Africanism.

What is Constructivism?
Constructivism is first and foremost a school of thought that cuts across multiple disciplines: philosophy, social sciences, education, psychology, and international relations.
It is not a political ideology in the strict sense, but rather a way of understanding how our ideas, values, and systems come into being.

Its core principle is that social reality is built by human beings. In other words, what we consider “normal,” “inevitable,” or “natural” in society—our institutions, laws, hierarchies, beliefs, and more—is not given by nature or by an unchangeable truth. It is the result of a collective creation, often shaped by history, culture, and power relations.

This also means that none of it is set in stone. What has been built can be dismantled and rebuilt differently. In philosophy and sociology, this approach helps us analyze the invisible foundations of our societies. In politics, it reminds us that current power structures are not eternal. In education, it emphasizes that knowledge itself is a construction born of human experience and interaction.

Why do I bring Constructivism and Pan-Africanism together?
I stand at the intersection of Constructivism and Pan-Africanism because one gives me the method and the other gives me the mission.
Pan-Africanism sets the goal: the unity, freedom, prosperity, and sovereignty of African peoples. Constructivism provides the approach: understanding that our political, economic, and cultural realities have been constructed, often against us and that we can build new ones, this time for us and by us. 

Resisting colonialism, neocolonialism, and dictatorships is not enough if we leave the inherited structures intact. They must be replaced with institutions, values, and models forged from our own realities, our knowledge, and our collective aspirations.

Constructivist Pan-Africanism is my answer to the urgent need for an Africa that must free itself through building. As a militant, I have learned that resistance is vital, but no lasting victory is born from opposition alone. I have understood that freedom is not given—it is built—and I believe our peoples already carry within them the intellectual, cultural, and material resources to invent their own future.

Constructivist Pan-Africanism starts from a simple principle: we must dismantle the toxic legacies that bind us and, in their place, build institutions, values, and models shaped by and for Africans. This principle opposes deterministic visions that assign Africans so-called “natural” or “cultural” limitations, such as the idea that Africans cannot govern democratically, achieve economic prosperity, or invent their own models.

As a Pan-Africanist, I reject this fatalistic view. I believe African society can be rethought and rebuilt from our own values, history, and collective creativity. The Pan-Africanism I defend is not focused solely on political liberation or economic sovereignty: it also addresses the moral, ethical, and civic reconstruction of our nations, in order to build a free, just, and united continent.

Constructivist Pan-Africanism is both a categorical refusal of fatalism and an absolute commitment to the total reconstruction of our societies.

Moral Positioning
Our moral approach rests on the conviction that human dignity is non-negotiable. No political, economic, or social project can be legitimate if it is built on the dehumanization, exploitation, or exclusion of part of the population.
Constructivism, applied morally, means we have the responsibility to build common values that reject the normalization of injustice and violence; even when these are socially tolerated or historically inherited.

Civic and Citizen Positioning
We defend a civic republicanism in which every citizen is both a beneficiary and a guardian of collective freedoms. To be constructivist in the civic sphere is to recognize that active citizenship is not innate but must be cultivated through education, participation, and responsibility. We believe African society must rely on a redefinition of citizenship that integrates our participatory traditions while ensuring equal rights and duties for all.

Ethical Positioning
On the ethical level, we oppose all forms of domination—whether colonial, neocolonial, or internal. Constructivist ethics means questioning our own practices to avoid reproducing, within our societies, the systems of oppression we fight at the political level.
It means promoting transparency, justice, and coherence between words and actions, both in public institutions and within private and community structures.

I have seen too many efforts fail for lack of coherent vision. Too many peoples free themselves from one chain only to accept another. It is to break this cycle that I carry and promote this school of thought: to remind us that we have both the power and the duty to build ourselves, the moral, civic, and ethical foundations of our future.

Constructivist Pan-Africanism is not a theoretical ideal; it is a dynamic process based on four operational pillars:
1. Moral and cultural renewal
2. Citizen and institutional construction
3. Ethical integrity and transparency
4. Unity and sovereignty

What set Constructivist Pan-Africanism apart?

• Its active vision of social construction: while other schools focus primarily on political unity or cultural renaissance, Constructivist Pan-Africanism insists on rebuilding moral and institutional foundations before erecting the continental structure.
• Its rejection of determinism: unlike approaches that idealize the past or merely copy external models, it holds that everything is improvable and adaptable to contemporary realities.
• Its centrality of the citizen: it does not place elites or states at the center, but communities, moving from the local to the continental.
• Its ethical coherence: the fight against external domination only makes sense if it is paired with a fight against internal oppression.

What we Inherit From Our Pioneers:
From Nkrumah: the vision of African political and economic unity as a condition for sovereignty.
From Sankara: moral integrity, the courage to break from external tutelage, and self-sufficiency as a strategic objective.
From Cabral: the importance of culture as a weapon of liberation and of ideological struggle against fatalism.
From Fanon: the necessity of decolonizing our minds and breaking the internal reproduction of colonial systems.

What differentiates our approach?

• It is intersectional: we analyze domination as a system operating at political, economic, cultural, and psychological levels, and we attack all its dimensions simultaneously.
• It is self-critical: we do not limit our denunciations to external enemies; we question our own practices, our own elites, and our own social habits.
• It is methodical: our approach is not only militant or emotional; it is structured, with concrete, measurable, and adaptable steps over time.

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