Eurasianism and Pan-Africanism: commonality of challenges and civilisational responses

Eurasian integration is one of Russia's top geopolitical priorities, while African integration is a priority for African countries. Both concepts were formed within their respective ideological currents: Eurasianism and Pan-Africanism. Despite the outward differences between Eurasianists and Pan-Africanists, there are serious structural similarities between these ideologies, which can be summarised in Arnold Toynbee's 'challenge-response' scheme. In essence, these are problems of similar civilisations, of non-Western civilisations confronting the problems of Westernisation, modernisation, historical memory and the project of a future rooted in tradition.

The challenge of the West. The answer: an independent civilisation

Both Eurasianists and Pan-Africanists are intellectuals who have known the West, who by different circumstances have found themselves there, but who have made a different choice, in favour of the non-West, of the civil sovereignty of their region, denying Western civilisation its universality.

Eurasianists are Russian intellectuals, including aristocrats like N. S. Trubetskoy, who held liberal or liberal-nationalist positions before the 1917 revolution. Finding themselves in exile in the West, they radicalised their worldview considerably and became staunch followers of the Slavophile tradition. However, they contrasted the West not with the Slavic world, but with Eurasia as a place of development, establishing the discourse of Russia's uniqueness and otherness from the cultures of the West and East. Eurasianism combined two key ideas: the uniqueness of Eurasian civilisation and the need to unify the Eurasian geopolitical (political and economic) space.

The early Pan-Africanists were African and African-American intellectuals who had studied and grown up in the West during the era of Western colonial rule in Africa. Among them were also members of the local aristocracy who personified direct blood ties with the old pre-colonial state tradition - for example, Tovalu Ouenu, a Parisian dandy of the aristocracy of the Kingdom of Dahomey who founded the General League for the Defence of the Black Race (LUDRN) in 1924.

Also because of the factor of the United States and Liberia, a de facto American colony and point of entry of the US into the continent, some of the liberal ideas of Pan-Africanism were not immediately expunged. However, the general anti-colonialist discourse was consistent with the positions that Eurasians also spoke of. Eventually, Pan-Africanists also started to talk about the independence and unification of Africa, which became a key idea of authors such as Cheikh Anta Diop, Leopold Senghor and others, and the basis of the political projects of leaders such as Modibo Keita, Sekou Toure, Kwame Nkrumah, Toma Sankara or Muammar Gaddafi.

The challenge of modernity. The answer is tradition

Russian Eurasians were the first of the Russian émigrés to pay attention to and review the writings of the founder of traditionalism, René Guénon. They themselves were in favour of Russia returning to the roots of its Orthodox tradition, respecting the traditions of other peoples. This found its most appropriate continuation in the neo-eurasianism of Alexander Dugin, who developed the opposition to the West of the early Eurasians into the paradigmatic opposition between modernity and tradition.

The same can be said of contemporary Pan-Africanism, which is also affectively influenced by traditionalist philosophy. These are primarily the ideas of Kemi Seb, president of the NGO Urgencies Panafricanistes. However, also inherent in the ideas of the African Renaissance articulated by former South African President Thabo Mbeki is a critical attitude towards modernity:

"What is unique about the African Renaissance articulated in Thabo Mbeki's writings is that he emphasises the importance of grounding everyday practice (including science) in African realities and philosophy. He recognises the failure of modernity to work for the good of all Africans, as evidenced by Africa's continued enslavement.... Neither capitalism, nor Marxism, nor their derivatives have brought freedom or unity to Africa. To a large extent, the invitation to participate in the African Renaissance is also an invitation to revitalise Africa through its languages and philosophies,' write Zimbabwean researchers Mark Malisa and Philippa Nengeze.

Both some currents of Eurasianism and Pan-Africanists have long sought to find a path to civil sovereignty in an appeal to modern ideologies (liberalism, communism, nationalism), but have come to reject modernism and its political paradigm in general.

"While early Pan-Africanists initially believed that Africa's future lay in the adoption of capitalism, Christianity or even Marxism, at the beginning of the 21st century, especially with the call for an African Renaissance, there was an implicit and explicit recognition that the tools and structures of modernity had failed to radically change the living conditions of Africans for the better," the African researchers note.

The challenge of empires. The answer: continental integration

The highest form of political organisation in the world of Tradition were empires - kingdoms of kingdoms. Ancient imperial formations such as the Mali, Benin and Monomotapa (Zimbabwe) empires were a source of pride for Africans and inspired Pan-Africanists. Imperial consciousness (as opposed to modern Western imperialism) and empires, both as functioning structures and as objects of collective memory that stimulate the political imagination, are a crucial resource of sovereignist ideology that mobilises opposition to colonialism.

For example, Modibo Keita, one of the founders of the state of Mali, justified the adoption of the name of an ancient empire for a new post-colonial state: 'Mali is a famous name that belongs to the whole of West Africa; a symbol of power, of the black man's capacity for political, administrative, economic and cultural organisation. It is a word that already leaves in hearts and souls the mystical imprint of the great hope of the future: the African nation...'.

Being not an artefact of the past but a real political subject, the African empire - Ethiopia - inspired the first Pan-Africanists as an example of resistance to the colonisers. However, the Pan-Africanists did not set out to restore the ancient empires in their previous form, but rather to build a new union encompassing the whole of the great African space on the basis of peace and mutual brotherhood rather than subjugation and slavery.

The political thinking of the Eurasians was organised along similar lines to the image of the past empire. They drew on the common historical past and were proud of the state-building of their ancestors, but were not in favour of recreating the Russian Empire in its previous forms, but rather of building a new entity of state integration on the principles of pan-Eurasian nationalism. This Eurasian position can be expressed in the words of Russian President V.V. Putin on the defunct Soviet Empire. Putin's words on the defunct Soviet Empire: 'He who does not regret the collapse of the USSR has no heart. And he who wants to restore it to its former form has no head'.

The symmetry between Eurasianism and Pan-Africanism is a further argument that the two ideologies are destined for cooperation and support. Faced with similar challenges, Russians and Africans follow similar paths to overcome the West, to overcome modernity and to overcome their past by creating new political forms on the basis of tradition. The study of each other's ideas can significantly enrich Eurasian and Pan-Africanist discourse and stimulate the political imagination of the bearers of both ideologies.

Translation by Lorenzo Maria Pacini