Organisation of African Unity

They go to the International Women's Conference in Mexico City.

They go to the Organization of African Unity in Kampala, Uganda.

They go to the Non-Aligned Movement in Lima, Peru.

And they go to the Organization of Islamic Conference in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The only place they get a positive endorsement of the unseating is in Jeddah.

But at the OAU and at the NAM, they don't get what they want because Egypt is like, temper, you know, let's just condemn Zionism.

So that's why we have these drafting histories where, you know, Organization of African Unity, the NAM, the Non-Aligned Movement, these newly independent countries are all condemning Zionism.

It's not controversial.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Ethiopia, the homeland of the Afar, Marxist guerrilla factions were growing, and the French were getting nervous that Ethiopia might take back their territory.

So the Organization of African Unity, or the OAU, pressured France to hold a vote, a referendum, so the people could decide again if they wanted to remain French.

Other international agencies joined in on the pressure and a vote was finally held in 1977.

And 95% of the people of the French territory of the Afars and Issas voted for independence.

Uh, what is, uh, interesting to note is the day, uh, I would say immediately after the independence, many of, uh, African head of states thought, among them, uh, one of the prominent, uh, uh, head of state was Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who thought about putting this continent together.

And the day, the first day the AU, OAU it was at that time, was outdoor, the first word, uh, or s- yeah, the first words pronounced by President Habib Bourguiba and, uh, Senghor of Senegal were, uh, in French is, "Voici enfin vécu ce rêve longtemps rêvé." At last, we are living, uh, this dream or, yeah, something that we've been dreaming of-

Dreaming of for a long time

... for a long time.

A 1975 UN Women's Conference in Mexico City listed Zionism alongside colonialism, foreign occupation, apartheid, and racism.

That year, the Organization of African Unity described Israel and the apartheid governments of southern Africa as sharing an imperialist origin.

Non-aligned foreign ministers meeting in Lima also condemned Zionism as racist and imperialist.

Supporters of Resolution 3379 argued that Israeli policies privileged Jews, displaced Palestinians, and denied Palestinians' self-determination.

It will adhere to the principles enshrined in or as the case may be.

The aim and ideals is one, the Charter of the United Nations, the Charter of the Organization of African Unity, the Commonwealth, the Treaty of Economic Community of West African States, and other international organization." So if you look at article 40 of the 1992 Constitution, it, it clearly tells us that if you want to join organization, international organization like this, you need to first consider, um, it in the interest of the people.

The organization of you are joining, is this going to protect your people? Is it at, in the interest of your people? This, uh, part of the Constitution was being drafted because I said we are already aligned or affiliated with another, um, um, bloc, which is the US.

Now, don't forget that Donald Trump has threatened...

Um, he attended that Pan-African Cultural Festival that I talked about in nineteen sixty-nine.

He was an Algerian delegate to the African Union, um, or the Organization of African Unity at that point, right, in Ethiopia in the 1960s.

And so he was not somebody who was just a mindless deporter of the French, right? He, um, and many others started to think critically about the place that they had within society and try to, at the end of the colonial period, take action to make that end, right, to end the, the French occupation of their territories.

Um, there's another example of that that, that I like.