Varieties of African Socialism

President Nkrumah of Ghana has recently reaffirmed that "there is only one Socialism-scientific Socialism" and that "our Socialist ideology, Nkrumaism, is the application of the principles of scientific Socialism to our African social milieu." At the other extreme the recent Kenya Government White Paper on "African Socialism" states: "In the phrase 'African Socialism', the word 'African is not introduced to describe a continent to which a foreign ideology is to be transplanted. It is meant to convey the African roots of a system that is itself African in characteristic." Between these two positions is a motley assembly of "national" "Socialisms"-"Arab", "Algerian", "Senegalese", "Malagasy", "Neo-Destour"-as well as "traditional African Socialism", "pragmatic Socialism", "empirical Socialism", and, in Eastern Nigeria, even (as an alternative to something called "catastrophe-Socialism") "Fabian Socialism". There are few African states whose leaders have resisted the temptation of insinuating "Socialism" into their political rhetoric, even while their actual politics are strikingly similar to those pursued by countries like Nigeria and the Ivory Coast, whose leaders are unabashed both in espousing and following "free enterprise". What President Sekou Tour of Guinea has described as "Socialism for the sake of Socialism" is very much the fashion in Africa today