Nazionalismo radicale e panafricanismo in Lesotho: il Basutoland Congress Party e le sue connessioni globali (1952-1970)

Through the BCP, Ntsu Mokhehle introduced Basotho nationalists - who were concerned primarily with the local political struggle - to universal ideas such as Pan-Africanism, socialism and non-alignment. Mokhehle himself took advantage of the networks he created internationally to promote Basotho political demands, to send men and women abroad to obtain political and administrative experience and benefit from organizational and political experience for the party. This article demonstrates how BCP’s radical nationalism was hugely influenced by transnational networks, both in terms of ideas and in terms of individual experiences of the militants who were sent abroad. Despite being the protagonist of the independence struggle, the BCP lost the elections of 1965 (just one year before independence) and thus lost control of post-colonial Lesotho. This can be then considered as a history of “losers” of the liberation struggle and yet it is also the history of one of the absolute protagonists of the liberation of Lesotho.