As we celebrate this year Africa Day, we are very conscious of the challenges that surround the efforts to unify Africa and its Diaspora.

African leaders have agreed in principle to the formation of a United States of Africa. But disagreement over the mechanism and substance of the envisaged union remain. However, such disagreement is not only restricted to the political leaders but is also found among scholars and activists in the Pan-African Movement.

Three issues that dominate the unity debate among the scholars and activists are - the participation of African Arab States in the unity project; how best to accommodate the African Diaspora in the unity project; and whether the union should be a union of states or a union of people.

Participation of African Arab States in the unity project

Some pan-Africanist scholars and activists call for the exclusion of Arab States in North Africa from the United States of Africa. Such calls are prompted by the declared loyalty of these States towards Arabia rather than to Africa. Moreover, the lack of acknowledgement among Arabs for the slave trade committed towards Africans plus the inhumane treatment of African immigrants in some African Arab States make any unity with them undesirable.

The loyalty of African Arab States towards Arabia can be observed in their membership of the Arab League. Pan-Arabism, as manifested in the Arab League, provides room for African Arab States to seek solidarity from the Arab League rather than from the African Union (AU).

A recent observation is Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir's instinctive call for protection from the Arab League against the International Criminal Court writ. Upon being indicted President Al-Bashir's first port of call was the Arab League, oblivious of the AU existence. While Black Africa would want absolute loyalty from African Arab countries, the Arab world on the other hand expects these countries to play a balancing act between the Afro-Arab subsystems.

The debate about the Arab slave trade is an issue that the Arabs wish away every time it pops up. Otherwise, if discussed they are quick to lessen its impact by drawing analogies between theirs and the Atlantic slave trade. Today, the conflicts in the Afro-Arab borderlands are full with evidence of boorish behaviour by Arabs towards African men and women. The conflict in Sudan between the Arabised Khartoum and the African South thwarted any further southwards Arabisation. Africans south of the Sahara are constantly reminded to be thankful to their Sudanese brothers and sisters for having contained the Arab expansion beyond the Afro-Arab borderlands.

But pan-Africanists who are dreaming of a union minus the African Arab States must remember that the same Arab States they wish to keep out are known to have assisted the liberation struggle of many African states.

Egypt, for example, was one such country that assisted African liberation movements with military training and financial assistance.

But so did both Algeria and Morocco albeit at a lower level than Egypt. Thus, can African countries especially those led by former liberation movements today decide to refuse to accept North African States into the United States of Africa?

Accommodating the African Diaspora in the unity project

Today, the progression towards the amalgamation of Africans on the continent with those scattered around the world is a destiny that cannot be impeded anymore. African people have assimilated this clarion call. Nevertheless, there remains confusion on how the Diaspora and the Motherland could be united. Currently, the AU has attempted to address this confusion by dividing the African continent into six zones.

These six zones are geographically defined as North Africa, South Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and the Diaspora. Where the Diaspora includes all Africans dispersed everywhere but the continent.

It is true that the AU has reserved seats for the Diaspora on its various commissions, thus facilitating an avenue for the Diaspora to contribute to the continent's development. But the AU summits attended exclusively by Heads of State and Governments are the organs taking the final decisions and not the commissions.

Consequently, the Diaspora lacks a mandatory opportunity where they would have a final say in African affairs. Except for some Caribbean Islands, the Diaspora does not consist of states that can be dragged easily into the AU. For instance, how can the Diaspora in the Unites States of America or in Europe or in India be represented in the AU or become voting members in the AU?

These states will not allow the African Diaspora to create countries within those countries. States sovereignty does not allow.

This predicament gives more grounds to those who call for a union of people rather than a union of states.

Towards a peoples' union

The current debate for African unity as advanced by the AU seems to leave the masses at the mercy of their leaders. The so-called "grand debate", so-called because only a debate by the masses can be branded a grand debate, about the shape of the US of Africa is confined to the AU summits and a few scholars who are invited to address AU sub-committees set specifically for the unity project. Regrettably, African countries are not creating the necessary platforms that will enable the masses to contribute meaningfully to the unity debate. States are sometimes accused of putting their national interests before the interests of the masses and thus cause a delay in the realisation of African unity.

Pan-Africanists in some quarters feel that the unity project should be a people driven project. For them, it is clear that such unity should not result in the unity of African states but should rather culminate in the unity of the masses.

Thus, a people's movement uniting all the people of African descent from the continent and the world at large should arise. It is a fact that black people all over the world are the largest recipient of all injustices and inequalities. For that reason, a people's movement built on the principles of pan-Africanism will speak with one voice for all the African masses. Of course, such a movement need not be a new invention. All it needs is to be reinvigorated in order to allow the masses to interpret and define the course of a peoples' union.

The Pan-African Movement as conceptualised in the ideology of Pan-Africanism is a peoples' movement. If it has been misinterpreted as encompassing the unity of African states then it needs to be salvaged from such misinterpretation.

Once again it must be reiterated that states-driven unity will not be in the interest of the masses. The unity of the people through states will leave out those Africans who are not in countries populated by the black masses. African states and some Caribbean islands can form a United States of Africa. But Africans in countries such as the United States of America and India where the blacks are in the minority cannot join a union of such states.

Therefore, it becomes obvious that a people movement is the only route through which the Africans masses can channel their solidarity. The masses through a peoples' union would be in a better position to effect change in the international system as well as harness the resources of Africans for the betterment of all.

The author is a former chairperson of the Pan African Students Society (PASS) at Unam and holds a bachelor's degree in international relations and diplomacy from Unisa.