| dc.description.abstract | This thesis, through a narrative of Duse Mohamed Ali's life and times,
aims to expose the milieu from and in which a particular Pan Africanist
emerged, and thereby also to show other dimensions of Pan-Africanism to
1945 than set-piece conferences and congresses.
The first three chapters explore Duse Mohamed Ali's life and developing
opinions up to the time when he became a fully active Pan-Africanist with
the foundation of the African Times and Orient Review in 1912. Chapter one
deals with what little is known about his Lgy ptian family background until
the destruction of his family in 1882; chapter two with ris life as an
actor and journalist in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, and his
early travels in the United States, Central and South America, the West
Indies and Europe; and chapter three traces his connections with the
seminal British left wing magazine The NewAae between 1909 and 1911, with
the Universal Races Congress in London in 1911, and discusses his political
history of Egypt from the fall of Khedive Ismail to the assassination of
Butrus Pasha, In-The Lend Of The Pharaohs, published in London and New York
in 1911. This work is analysed to show the great debt it owed to other
writers, especially the Russian Marxist Theodore Rothstein and the English
conservative anti-imperialist, Wilfred Scawen Blunt, as well as to show
its author's own original contribution, namely his relating of British
behaviour in Egypt to racism in general in the British Empire, and attack
on the United States of America, for its violent and arbitrary oppression
of Negroes - strictures by Theodore Roosevelt against Egyptian Nationalise
having provoked the writing of the book.
Chapters four to six consider his life in London as a Pan-Africanist
editor, political campaigner and organiser, and business man, between 1912
and 1921 when he left Britain for the U. S. A. Overall, they attempt to
reveal the importance of his London headquarters, 158 Fleet . 3treet, not
only as the place of publication of the African Times and Orient Review
and Africa and Orient Review, but as the organising centre of a complex
and interlocking group of political, cultural, religious, social and
business enterprises and associations, designed to further the interests
of either sections or the whole of what buss Mohamed Ali called the "darker
races". The development of his own ideas is illustrated, through his
writings in his two reviews and other contemporary sympathetic journals,
as is his organisational role as a bridge between such diverse movements
as Indian Nationalism, the All-India Muslim League, various Pan-African
organisations in London, early West African Nationalism, Pan-Islamism,
Egyptian Nationalism, the Khilafat Movement, and black nationalism in the
United States. It is shown that although not neglectful of political
aspects of the struggle of the "darker races" for freedom, by 1921 he had
decided to pin his faith on an economic programme for race emancipation.
This decision is also shown to rest within the context of a fairly general
inclination in that direction by elements mainly from West Africa and the
black community in the United States.
Chapter seven discusses his attempts, in conjunction with black
Americans and West Africans, to put these economic plans into practice,
during the period from 1921 to 1931 when he was living in the United States.
It shows their conscious Pan-Africanism, relates them to the similar plans
of other persons, especially Marcus Garvey and w. Tete-Ansa, and suggests
overall reason for the invariable failure of all such schemes. Duse
Mohamed Ali's relations with Marcus Garvey are discussed in detail, as is
his role as an organiser of Islamic, Asian and African cultural movements
in the United States, and his views on the race problem in American society.
Chapter eight considers the final failure of Duse Mohamed A1i's plane
for economic Pfn-Africanism on his going to Nigeria in 1931; the organisation
and influence of his Lagos magazine The Coxgt; his role as mentor of
a generation of young Nigerians who were to include many of the leading
nationalist politicians of the post-war era; and his relationship with
Nigerian political movements of the period 1931-45.
The brief conclusion makes general remarks about Duse Mohamed Ali's
place within the world of Pan-Africanism during his lifetime. | en |
