Kwame Nkrumah: Between Political Modernity and Geopolitical Fundamentalism
Keywords:
Ghana; Marxism-Leninism; modernity; national interest; Nkrumah; postcolonial stateAbstract
This article offers a critical, contextual exposition of Kwame Nkrumah’s existential and epistemic anxieties as he sought to develop and mobilise African political modernity. Drawing on the extensive literature on Nkrumah’s biography and politics, archival materials from the Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD), Accra, Ghana, declassified files, and both online and offline media, we investigate the contours of this intellectual background. Our research reveals that while Nkrumah ostensibly vacillated among Western concepts, Marxism-Leninism, and indigenous African socio-political epistemologies, he consistently prioritised a Marxist-Leninist approach, underpinned by an African/South-South epistemology, to realise his vision. He adopted Western ideas only out of pragmatic, diplomatic necessity to advance national liberation, development, and Pan-African unity without triggering direct conflict with Western powers. Nkrumah deeply understood the nature of Euromodernism and its imperialist tendencies, which were reinforced by what we term “Western geopolitical fundamentalism”—a political paradigm wherein Western nations prioritise strategic geopolitical calculations over state sovereignty and the international order. This structural tension centrally shaped his thought and actions as he fought to realise his vision for an emancipated African political future. While his project of decolonial modernity possessed certain shortcomings, a critical re-contextualisation of his ideas offers the continent and its people a more strategically rewarding political modernity today. Ultimately, this article argues that we now live in an era of overt, unvarnished geopolitical fundamentalism. This current reality demands that we urgently extract vital lessons from the struggles and vision of Nkrumah and other anticolonial figures who sought to liberate Africa and the wider colonial world.
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