Pan African Alternative

Militarism vs. Pan-Africanism: Two Paths, One World in Crisis

By Lea Celik Sommerseth Shaw

In the world we inhabit today, headlines are dominated by armed alliances, corruption scandals, surveillance states, and a global order that claims to protect democracy while perpetuating structural violence. NATO expands eastward, nuclear warheads are modernized, and military-industrial complexes from Washington to Brussels dictate policy as if war were inevitable. But imagine another path—one rooted not in domination, but in unity; not in exploitation, but in liberation. That path is Pan-Africanism.

The Current World Order: Rule by Finance and Corruption

The dominant global system operates on a foundation of:

• Militarized control of resources
  African nations rich in oil, gold, cobalt, and lithium are politically destabilized and economically colonized. Western alliances secure access to these resources through military aid, coups, and debt diplomacy.

• Endless alliances of war
  NATO, formed in 1949, has morphed from a “defensive pact” into a global interventionist force. From Yugoslavia to Libya to Afghanistan, it has enforced regime change under the pretext of humanitarianism—leaving destruction and chaos in its wake.

• Corruption and inequality
  The same nations that preach about democracy support kleptocratic regimes abroad when it suits them. Billion-dollar weapons contracts flourish, while former colonies struggle with broken infrastructure, mass youth unemployment, and external debt.

• Surveillance, detention, and imperial policing
  Under administrations like Trump’s, the West adopted aggressive detention policies. Whistleblowers, migrants, and even allies were detained, monitored, or blacklisted under “national security” concerns—often with racial and ideological bias.

The current model is unsustainable. It extracts from the Global South, militarizes borders, and isolates dissenters. It breeds global resentment, refugee crises, and climate inaction—all in service of capital and control.

The Pan-Africanist Alternative: A World Reimagined

Pan-Africanism, rooted in the legacies of Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, and Malcolm X, offers a radical departure from Western-dominated geopolitics. What would today’s world look like if Pan-Africanism were the global norm?

1. A Cooperative Defense, Not Global Militarism

In a Pan-Africanist framework, defense would be regional, sovereign, and demilitarized where possible. Rather than joining NATO-style alliances that enforce Western economic interests, African nations would form cooperative security zones to resolve conflict through diplomacy and mutual respect—not drone strikes.

Instead of U.S. and French bases in Niger, Mali, or Djibouti, Pan-African forces would be trained in conflict resolution, ecological defense, and food security. Soldiers would be builders, not occupiers.

2. Economies Serving People, Not Corporations

A Pan-Africanist economy rejects the IMF austerity model and builds on self-reliance, resource sovereignty, and grassroots cooperatives. African lithium and cobalt would fund African schools and hospitals—not American stock portfolios.

In this world, multinationals couldn’t bribe officials to strip a rainforest bare or pay child miners in Congo. Trade would be equitable, inter-African, and decoupled from neocolonial banking systems.

3. True Political Freedom and Reunification

Borders carved by colonial cartographers would be softened by political and cultural unity. African diasporas—in Brazil, the U.S., the Caribbean—would reconnect with the continent through dual citizenship, cultural exchange, and investment in African development.

Rather than fleeing to Europe or being detained at American borders, African-descended people would be part of building Africa as a global powerhouse of peace, sustainability, and pride.

4. A Different Approach to Global Conflict

Pan-Africanism teaches non-alignment. Unlike NATO’s Cold War mindset, a Pan-African-led world would prioritize multipolarity, regional sovereignty, and anti-imperial diplomacy. No sanctions crippling Zimbabwe or Cuba. No coups orchestrated in Burkina Faso or Haiti. Instead, global south solidarity.

A Pan-Africanist world order would resist the idea that Russia or China must be enemies because Washington says so. It would reject the logic of endless war for fossil fuel dominance and instead advocate for planetary survival and dignity.

A World at the Crossroads

NATO builds more missiles. Africa, under Pan-Africanism, builds more schools. The West detains migrants; Pan-Africanism builds the conditions so migration is a choice, not a survival strategy. NATO punishes dissent; Pan-Africanism integrates the rebel, the poet, and the visionary.

The world we have is a product of centuries of empire. But the world we need may lie in the lessons of a movement born from struggle, exile, resistance, and hope.

The independence of every African nation is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the continent, What if that liberation wasn’t just for Africa, but also humanity?

Lea Celik Sommerseth Shaw

Saint Germain Des Pres 7 August 2025