In part 2 of our lecture series, we see the influence of Cabral, the Lusophonic thinkers, and Zambia’s Kaunda.

A wall painting honoring the late Amilcar Cabral in Cabo Verde. Photograph by Travel Aficionado.

Welcome to Part 2 of our ten-part ten-minute lecture series on African Political Thought, brought to you by Stephen Chan, Professor of World Politics at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS). Each week, a short reading list will be published alongside the lecture. Viewers are also encouraged to pose questions they have for Chan in the comments section below.

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In this episode, we look at:

The thought of liberation: Cabral and the Lusophonic thinkers; the “˜pacific’ counterpoint of Kaunda.

For an audio-only version:

Reading list for Part 2

Patrick Chabal, Amilcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People’s War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia Shall be Free, London: Heinemann, 1962.

Stephen Chan, Kaunda and Southern Africa, London: IB Tauris, 1992.

Previous episodes

• Part 1: Antecedents: race and romanticism in Africa – from WEB du Bois to the Manchester Conference to Senghor’s “˜negritude’.

Coming next…

• Part 3: The New African Man: the political thought of transformation – Kaunda, Nyerere, Obote, Nkrumah.
• Part 4: The degeneration into “˜Big Men’: case studies of Mobutu and Banda; the critique of Mbembe.
• Part 5: The coup “˜artists’ and the new nationalisms-on-command: from Gowon to Rawlings; the contrasts between Sankara and Amin; the contrasts and similarities between Obasanjo and Abacha.
• art 6: The old liberationists and their reassertion in new nationalisms: Mugabe’s political thought.
• Part 7: Africa in the world: Mbeki’s African Renaissance – nostalgia and the toleration of the carnivalesque; Ngugi’s linguistic chauvinism; Mandaza’s neo-Marxist retrospection.
• Part 8: The call for democracy: the critique of Soyinka; new constitutionalisms and the looking eastwards to China, Singapore and Malaysia; the model of Russian democracy.
• Part 9: Pan-Africanism today: thought on the African Union.
• Part 10: African intellectual currents and philosophy today: going it alone vs integration with a hegemonic world; Africa and the ICC, Africa and electronic globalisation; the thought of the outlawed commons.