What is the All African Convention? This is a question that is frequently asked to-day. It is a question that will be increasingly asked in the future. For in the struggles that lie ahead of us Convention is destined to play a decisive role. It is important, therefore, to know what the All African Convention really is and what it stands for.
Now there are two ways in which tins question could be answered. One is simply to state what the Constitution of the Convention is and to give its resolutions. But this in our opinion would be to answer the question superficially. To approach the problem in this manner would be to give a picture of something bloodless, static and lifeless, and in point of fact it would not be true and accurate. What we want is a dynamic approach depicting a living body in a state of motion, capable of adjusting itself to the play of forces around it and in turn interacting with them. The better way, therefore, is to see the Convention as one more step in the political development of a people. We must survey it in its proper perspective, against its historical background and in its social setting.
The All African Convention is an organisation, which gives expression to the aspirations of a people, a people who occupy a particular position in a given society. What, then, is the nature of that society? It is a complex social structure in which the ordinary class divisions (which are easily observable as the pattern of society in Europe) are complicated and obscured by multi-racial distinctions, constituting a veritable maze of conflicting interests, both real and apparent....MORE
