Speaking at the Founder’s Day celebrations in Winneba, Ghana on Friday, September 21, 2018, Dr Fred M’membe declared that Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s socialist revolutionary ideas were on the resurgence.
Extolling Dr Nkrumah’s revolutionary leadership and ideas, Dr M’membe, who is the 2021 presidential candidate of the Socialist Party (Zambia), said the progressive socialist wave had dawned on the African continent.
Below is the full speech by Dr M’membe:
Revolutionaries never die, Nkrumah lives in us!
Those who thought Nkrumah is dead, they should realise that wherever there is a crucifixion, there is always a resurrection.
Nkrumah is with us right here today. The ideas of Nkrumah will live forever, they will live forever in us, they are here today in his homeland of Ghana. Those who thought we were totally defeated and that was the end of Nkrumah’s ideas were mistaken. The revolutionary process started by Nkrumah six decades ago is being resurrected today, right here in Ghana.
Capitalism has no answer to the problems facing humanity today. Capitalism cannot deal with the problem of inequality that is crippling the world today; capitalism cannot deal with the issue of unemployment that is crippling the world today! Every year in winter they go to Davos in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum; what do they discuss in there? They discuss growing inequality in the world, they discuss growing unemployment in the world!
But every year they come from Davos without answers to these problems, without solutions to these challenges. This is so because the answers to these problems and solutions to these challenges do not lie in capitalism. In fact, what they are trying to do is to square a circle. To find solutions to these problems and challenges they have to destroy capitalism, and they are not ready to do so. We are ready to do so; and we are starting here in Ghana to do so.
Imperialism has reached its highwater mark. Today a new revolutionary wave starts here, right here in Ghana; they will not defeat us this time, we are better equipped with Nkrumah’s ideas, Cabral’s ideas, Chavez ideas, Fidel’s ideas, Mao’s ideas, Lenin’s ideas, Karl Marx’s ideas.
We are coming for you! We are coming for you! And there’s no pulling punches.
We are more revolutionary than six decades ago; we are more experienced than six decades ago. And we are more in numbers than six decades ago. In this hall today, we have over 60 nations represented, covering all continents. Can we fail? We won’t fail!
Comrades, those who thought Nkrumah’s ideas were dead, what they didn’t realise is that these were revolutionary ideas. You can’t kill revolutionary ideas whose time has come. It was time for these revolutionary ideas 60 years ago; it is still time for these revolutionary ideas today.
Since 1945 when the PanAfrican Congress was held in Manchester, we didn’t have this type of gathering, not even the OAU assembled so many nations in one place. If imperialists are as intelligent as they claim to be, they will today realise that something is changing on this continent. Something big is happening and they will not be able to stop it. They will not be able to stop this progressive wave.
History is not always in a straight forward direction, there’re often gigantic leaps backward. We have suffered our leaps backwards, we have had our calvary. We’re now coming for you! We’re coming for you! And victory is certain! We will not do it with guns but with ideas – Nkrumah’s ideas, Cabral’s ideas, Fidel’s ideas, Chavez’s ideas! We’ll do it with all the ideas of the revolutionaries of our past and our present!
Their concerted efforts to bury Nkrumah’s ideas with his body have failed. We’re today much more aware of Nkrumah’s ideas than we were before. When they realised that they were failing to bury Nkrumah’s ideas, what did they do? They started to create a new Nkrumah for us, a Nkrumah who was not a socialist, a Nkrumah who was not a communist, a Nkrumah who they called a PanAfricanist; meaning something else.
Today we are here to reclaim, to redefine and to chart a new path for the Nkrumah we know, a Nkrumah who is socialist, a Nkrumah who is communist. There was a time when it was difficult to say ‘I am a socialist’ on this continent, when it was difficult to say ‘ I am a communist’. Comrades, today I stand before you to tell you that I’m a socialist! I’m a communist who is a son of Nkrumah, who is a grandson of Nkrumah, who is a great grandson of Nkrumah!
Comrades, this progressive socialist wave will not be stopped! We are back in Ghana to draw our inspiration, to recharge our revolutionary batteries, to re dedicate ourselves to the African struggle for socialism, which is not only the struggle for Africa, but a struggle for the whole world.
We are with the whole world in Ghana here today. Those who have got ears should listen to what we are saying; those who have got eyes should see that our actions are determined, our ideas are clear! We’re resolute with everything that we are saying and which we are doing!
We’re not here to reform capitalism; we’re here to build a socialist future for our continent and the whole world. We’re here to continue what Nkrumah struggled for and died for. We’re here again because Nkrumah lives in us!
Comrades, we cannot continue on this neoliberal capitalist path. The population of Ghana today is 24 million people and at a growth rate of more than 2 per cent, the population of Ghana is likely to double in the next 15-20 years. Where are the jobs going to come from, given Ghana’s today’s unemployment rate and capitalism’s inability to create jobs? Where will housing come from in 15 to 20 years-time when the population of Ghana doubles? How are they going to live?
Can capitalism give answers to these problems? The answer is a categorical NO!
For many years, we are given examples of how Ghana is doing very well in terms of neo-liberal capitalism. What has changed? Are the conditions of the Ghanaian people today better than they were 20 years ago? Are they going to be better in 20 years-time under capitalism? Again, the answer is a categorical NO!
We are proud to be associated with Nkrumah! We’re proud to be Nkrumah’s followers! We’re proud to be Nkrumah’s children! We’re proud to be Nkrumah’s disciples! We’re proud to be socialists! We’re proud to be communists!
