Description
Given the resurgent interest in decolonizing IR, this presentation examines the extent to which this discourse in the Anglo-North tends to forget interwar Pan-African thought and South Atlantic critiques of colonization. Certainly, there are theorists who do address this systematic error, and so rightly there is growing awareness of the role colonization in shaping the modern and contemporary international system, but it is unreasonable for these theorists to do all the work. Accordingly, this presentation discusses two case studies of forgetting. The first concerns how the 1919 ANC delegation, led by Josiah Gumede, to the Versailles Peace Conference was ignored by officials. The second is the lukewarm reception of CLR James’ The Case for West-Indian Self Government (1932). Later reflecting on the spirit of the interwar years, James said “there were never all told more than a dozen of us, who banded our¬selves together in 1935 to propagate and organize for the emancipation of Africa. For years, we seemed, to the official and the learned world, to be at best, political illiterates.” Through asking about the processes which deemed Gumede and James ignorant, which powers forgot them, the aim of the presentation is to prompt a discussion of which perspectives are currently deemed ‘politically illiterate’, even while international affairs may be proving the very value in their insights.
