APIC(APICONG) first emerged in Palestine and in the Arab neighbourhoods and towns of Israel proper as a reaction to the sell-out of Palestinian and Arab interests by the Palestinian Authorities and the subsequent failure of the Oslo model.
Driven out of the State of Israel and not tolerated in the Palestinian autonomous areas, the organisation moved its headquarters to Ghana,West Africa, where it was officially founded in 1997 as "Association for Pan-Islamic Cooperation" (APIC). Branches in Nigeria (Lagos and Kano) and Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou) were opened in the same year. Advocating a united people's front in Africa and the Middle East, APIC(APICONG) was involved in educational projects in Ghana and pioneered the introduction of natural, human and politcal sciences in the madrassah's (Islamic Schools), which, to a major part of Muslim children, remain the only available source of education. Another focus point were social projects and activities transcending the bounds of ethnicity and religion, as well the promotion of women's active participation in the political struggles by which the future of the nation is shaped.
APIC(APICONG) has maintained branches or collaborated with associate organisations in Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Algeria, Egypt and the Sudan, Iraq, Iraqi and Turkish Kurdistan, South Africa, the Philippines, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Cyprus. In the late nineties, APIC(APICONG) held a series of high level meetings with government representatives, parties represented in government, NGO's and MP's in the Parliament of the European Union. A large campaign in Nigeria and Ghana (with which these meetings had been connected) ended in a major crackdown on all activities of the organisation in these countries and a merciless repression orchestrated by the Bush government and its associates in Africa, Asia and Europe.
The organisation's anti-fundamentalist policies increasingly alienated the extremist wing that had began to emerge within its ranks, which led to a split of APIC in the first decade of the millenium. The firm resistance of its secretary-general, comrade Mahdi, to any form of reactionary subversion in the guise of "Islamism", allowed the organisation to summon the necessary strength to purge itself of these elements when they attempted to take advantage of the 2002/2003 campaigns.
In a last desperate attempt to cling to power, they entered into an alliance with the NPP-led government in Ghana and with international revisionist, imperialist and pro-imperialist forces and from then on actively pursued the wreckage of the organisation, its work and its policies.
Their spectacular expulsion in March 2003 coincided with an all-out political and economic boycott of APIC, who was subsequently forced to abandon its African bases, as well as suspend all activities in order to avoid proscription. The last event in West Africa in the organisation of which APIC(APICONG) has taken part was the mass demonstration against the US invasion of Iraq in Accra, the largest event of this kind ever to have taken place in West Africa. The demonstration ended in a massive show of support for the organisation and in a unanimous expression of loyalty to the policies of its secretary-general by the hundred thousands of workers and peasants who constituted the main force of the rally.
Relocating to the Netherlands, Ireland and finally to the island of Cyprus, the Association for Pan-Islamic Cooperation (APIC) reorganised itself into the Afro-Asian People's Democratic Islamic Congress (APIC[APICONG]) and has survived a decade "in the shadows"; a decade of repression and silence.
It is only in the course of Egypt's January 25 Revolution that a resumption of its political work has become feasible.
APIC(APICONG) has been a member of, or represented in, the following committees and projects:
Intercultural Progressive Foundation (Interculturele Progressieve Stichting) and Intercultural Cafe (Netherlands),
the Afghanistan Committee,
Rotterdam against the New War (Rotterdam tegen de Nieuwe Oorlog),
Association for International Understanding (Gesellschaft fuer Voelkerverstaendigung) (Germany)
the council of Mumia Abu Jamal Support Groups (Netherlands and USA),
SufiLab,
the Civil Rights Movement of Ireland (CRMI)
and others
APIC(APICONG) is associated with
Ir Amim (City of the Peoples) (Jerusalem),
DAFRIG (German-African Society)
US and Candian solidarity groups in support of the peoples of Latin America and the Egyptian Revolution
and others
The sources of APIC(APICONGS) ideas, programme and policies are:
the Quran and the concept and history of Islam, the writings of Hussain Ibn Mansour Al Hallaj, Jalal-ad-Din
Al Balkhi (Rumi), Suhrawardi, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Karl Marx, Fatima Mernissi, Margaret Mead,
the ideas(within their historical context) and the struggle of
Muhammad Ahmad (Sheikh of the Dunqula),
Abdel Hassan (founder of the Derwish state in Somalia),
the revolutionary socialist movement of the 20th century,
Gamal Abdel Nasser,
Kwame Nkrumah,
Sekou Toure
Makariou
Meena (founder of the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan)
Mohandes K. Ghandi
