Black Panther and Philosophy. Группа авторов
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Wakanda’s isolationist attitude and deep-seated sense of nationalism, it seems to mean “Wakanda for the Wakandans!” As portrayed in the film, this nationalism was constructed as a defense against the outside world. After all, as W’Kabi, who opposes accepting refugees from neighboring countries, says, “The problem with refugees is they bring their problems with them.”
In brief, the history of Wakanda began thousands of years ago when five African tribes fought over a meteorite containing vibranium. United as Wakanda, they used the vibranium to develop advanced technology and isolate themselves from the world, posing as a third-world country. Ultimately, a visit from Thanos’s army in Avengers: Infinity War led to the decision that Wakanda could no longer isolate from the rest of the world. As a result, nationalism gave way to liberalism.
Liberalism, as an international theory, encourages cooperation among nations for the sake of mutual benefits. The protection and promotion of human rights and freedom must come ahead of national interests and state autonomy. The hope is that war can be prevented or eliminated through institutional reform or collective action.1 But does liberalism suffice? Perhaps a Pan-African alternative is preferable.
“Wakanda Has the Tools to Liberate’em All.”
In 1992, N’Jobu planned an armed assault on the California National Guard in response to the beating of Rodney King and the Los Angeles uprising that ensued. He further planned to share Wakanda’s technology with people of African descent around the world to help them throw off their oppressors. N’Jobu’s plans were thwarted, but in 2016 N’Jobu’s son, Killmonger, planned to share Wakandan weapons with operatives around the world.
After the death of his father at the hands of the former king T’Chaka, Killmonger grew up an orphan in poverty. His experiences of racial discrimination, the war on drugs waged in Black neighborhoods, over-policing, systemic poverty, and redlining, led him to the belief that Wakanda’s advanced technology should serve the purpose of liberating oppressed African people around the globe.
Killmonger’s philosophy of spreading Wakanda’s wealth and technological advances to Black communities all over the world aligns with the Pan-African vision of such nationalists as Martin Delany, Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X. The term “Pan-African” dates to the first Pan-African Conference, held in London in July 1900. The conference aimed to assemble “men and women of African blood, to deliberate solemnly upon the present situation and the outlook for the darker races of mankind” and to demonstrate that those of African descent could speak for themselves. Its “Address to the Nations of the World” condemned racial oppression in the United States, as well as throughout Africa, and demanded self-government for Britain’s colonies.
W.E.B. Du Bois sought to continue the tradition of those of African descent speaking with one voice when he organized his own Pan-African Congress in Paris in 1919. Du Bois took the initiative to organize a second congress, held in 1921 in London, Paris, and Brussels, a third in London and Lisbon in 1923, and a fourth in New York in 1927. The congresses took a stand against racism and raised the demand for self-determination. They were, however, criticized as harboring moderate political views and for their exclusion of Marcus Garvey, perhaps the leading Pan-Africanist of the time.
Garvey had established his Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League in Jamaica in 1914. Among its aims were “a universal confederacy amongst the race.”2 Time only strengthened Pan-African demands for an end to colonial rule. In Britain, George Padmore, Amy Ashwood Garvey, and the Pan-African Federation made preparations for a new gathering at the Manchester Pan-African Congress of 1945. The Manchester Pan-African congress of October 1945 marked a turning point in the history of the Pan-African movement. Since this meeting, the struggle for the emancipation of people of African descent focused on the continental homeland. When Kwame Nkrumah returned to Ghana in December 1947, Pan-Africanism moved into the realm of practical politics. With Ghana achieving independence in March 1957, and until the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU, May 1963), Ghana became the focal point of the struggle for African unity, with Kwame Nkrumah as the unofficial leader.
According to Nkrumah, political integration is a prerequisite for economic integration. As Nkrumah states, “unless Africa is politically united under an all-African union government, there can be no solution to our political and economic problems. We are Africans first and last, and as Africans our best interests can only be served by uniting within an African community.”3 Muammar Qaddafi proposed a similar project at the 5th Summit of the OAU held in Qaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, Libya, in September 1999. After the death of Nkrumah in 1972, Qaddafi assumed leadership of the Pan-African movement and became an outspoken advocate of African unity. “One Africa, One Hope” calls for the realization of the Pan-African ideal of African unity in order to achieve the elusive goals of peace, security, and development. Unfortunately, the relatively ineffective and powerless African union – modeled after the European union – that came into being in July 2001 was significantly different from the organization envisioned by Qaddafi.
In the world of Black Panther, Killmonger’s plan to arm African descendants across the globe represents the beginning stages of the Pan-African ideal, where Blacks all over the world fight for liberation by any means necessary.
T’Challa’s Liberalism
For centuries, Wakanda pursued a policy of isolation fueled by the desire to maintain its traditions and by the spirit of nationalism. Outside Wakanda were the scourges of colonialism, slavery, and wars of conquest. For Wakandans the question was whether to maintain their isolationist ways or to join the international community. Should they share their vibranium-based technology, or perhaps use it to support oppressed people across the globe? We get an answer at the end of Black Panther. T’Challa establishes an outreach center at the building where N’Jobu died, and he appears before the United Nations to reveal Wakanda’s true nature to the world.
The United Nations is based on the notion that the member states have sovereign equality.4 Each state, regardless of size or population, is legally recognized as equivalent with every other state. The inequalities between states, however, are codified through the veto power granted to the five permanent members of the security council: China, Russia, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. Notably, only international problems are within the jurisdiction of the United Nations. The UN Charter does not “authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.”5 Increasingly, current wars have been civil wars, which do not legally fall under the provisions in the UN Charter. However, the prelude to and fallout from civil war can often demand UN attention: refugees seeking asylum often crossing international borders, and weapons of war being transported through transnational networks.
The UN is designed primarily to maintain international peace and security. Collective security is based on the proposition that potential aggressors will refrain from the use of force against another because they know ahead of time that their use of force will be met by all, or many, states joining together against the aggressor. The goal of achieving peace through collective security relies on several assumptions that will also help us understand why T’Challa believes that joining with the United Nations and building a community center is the best approach to solving the global oppression faced by people of African descent. The first assumption is that wars are preventable and will not occur if all parties exercise restraint. A second assumption is that aggressors, no matter who they are, should be stopped. This presumes that the aggressor can be easily identified by members of the international community. In many cases, though, it is difficult to tell who the aggressor is and who the victim is.6 Lastly, collective security assumes moral clarity, meaning that the aggressor is morally wrong because all aggressors are morally wrong. As a result, those who are right must act together to meet the aggression. This also assumes that the aggressors know that the international community will act to punish the aggressor, or those committing the initial injustice.
In practice, collective security has been difficult to achieve