S Ndebele: African Renaissance Festival conference

23 May 2007

Thank you

Dr Kwazi Mbanjwa
Programme Director
Acting Director-General of the Provincial Government of KwaZulu-Natal

The African Renaissance is about the re-birth of the Continent of Africa.
Such a re-birth manifests itself in different ways, but these ways are born out
of a desire by Africa and its people to claim their stake in the global affairs
of mankind.

This is the 9th African Renaissance Festival to be held in the Province of
KwaZulu-Natal. It started as an idea, and today it is a movement. Every year in
May, we assemble in Durban and Pietermaritzburg, with our brothers and sisters
from the United States of America, under the leadership of Reverend James
Orange. We do so, so that we can share views and plans about the essence of
being an African.

The African Renaissance Movement is itself not new. In 1911 the founder
member of the African National Congress, and intellectual Dr Pixley ka Isaka
Seme, was already talking about the need for Africa's regeneration.

Over the years, the likes of W B du Bois, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, President Julius
Nyerere, President Thabo Mbeki and many others have pursued the idea that
Africa must rise up and re-claim its position in the common wealth of
nations.

Over the years, the movement has been an intellectual one. However, this is
not unique to the African Renaissance, because similar movements elsewhere have
been triggered by the rise in intellectual discourse. A Renaissance happens
when a people hitherto, under some untenable position characterised by lack of
room for new ideas and growth, decide on their own to turn the situation
around. A Renaissance often results in such people re-claiming their
destiny.

The African Renaissance is about Africa. It is about Africa and the Africans
realising that even though we live in villages, and have complete lives there,
we are surrounded by cities, mountains, seas and vast lands over which those
who went before us once presided. The African Renaissance movement provides
Africa with an opportunity to indulge in an introspection, in order to find and
re-discover itself in terms of its history, its identity, its cultures, and its
character.

Africa was once a dominant player in world affairs; through trade, through
scholarship and through political wisdom. It has been established, through
palaeontology, that Africa is the cradle of mankind. In pursuance of modern
civilisation, Africans in the world were already practicing farming, some 5 000
years BC.

Africa has nurtured some of the biggest kingdoms like the Kingdom of Kush,
which came out of the South of Egypt around 2 000 BC, as well as such Kingdoms
as Aksum which arose around 300 BC, when it, together with the Nubians 200
years later, became a Christian State. These were established Kingdoms with
trade and diplomatic relations with other parts of the world.

When, between 639 AD and 710 AD the Arabs conquered Northern Africa, the
history of this continent was to change drastically. The northern parts of this
continent were occupied by Arabic people who assumed an African identity and
brought with them the Islamic religion.

In the years immediately following the death of Christ in the Middle East
Africans of Negro origins started moving southwards from the southern parts of
Egypt and the Great Lakes. The massive movement of Bantu Speaking people to the
South, West and East of Africa was yet another milestone in African history. As
they migrated South, they established such large Kingdoms as Zimbabwe,
Mapungubwe, Basonghai, Buganda, Congo and much later the Zulu Kingdom, to name
but a few.

We are a people rooted in the history of Africa. We are united by our
diverse cultures, languages, music, musical instruments, dances and most of all
one history. The intervening period of slavery, colonialism and apartheid,
spanning some 500 years did much harm. However, we cannot stand by in the
fringes of life and mourn this unfortunate period.

Yes, our African brothers and sisters are now found all over the world. We
should turn this into our competitive advantage. The African diaspora is our
resource. It is our competitive advantage. Our challenges are the same.

We have a continent to re-engineer. We have villages and cities to re-build.
While some of us may be fascinated by the ruins of Zimbabwe, Mapungubwe and
Timbuktu, we should not lose sight of the fact that understanding the complex
history of the ruins is the necessary first step.

The next, much bigger task is to turn the ruins into winning cities, and
winning centres of African excellence. We have a history to re-construct and
that task begins now.

The Independence of Ghana in 1957, and the subsequent formation of the
Organisation of African Unity in 1963, has seen African nations and people
working more and more towards the unity of purpose. There has been even more
determination with the formation of the African Union and its supporting
structures in 2002. Through New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad),
the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and the African Parliament, Africa is
now a continent-in-dialogue. This counts very positively for the
Renaissance.

Today and tomorrow we are going to deliberate, mainly around the following
three questions:

1. The economic development question
2. The culture, heritage and identity question
3. The governance question.

It is going to be important to deliberate and resolve these questions,
bearing in mind that most of the issues around the African Renaissance consists
of work-in-process. We will emerge out of this conference with resolutions
which will add on to the knowledge base that already exists about Africa and
the Africans. Some of these resolutions will feed to the African Diaspora
Conference to be held in the future.

The Festival itself is bigger than the Summit with more events planned for
Friday and Saturday. We stand on the verge of making history by deliberating on
these issues and thus contributing to Africa's regeneration.

In conclusion, Programme Director, I wish to point out that as we seize this
moment to contribute towards Africa's Regeneration, we must construct and
realise a view of Africa characterised by peace, democracy and development
through partnerships.

We must formulate and construct a view of Africa where thinkers and thinking
flourish and exchange ideas at will; an Africa where the entrepreneurs are ever
engaging in service, technology and innovation; an Africa where the
universities are producers rather than mere consumers of knowledge; and an
Africa where the natural resources are utilised to empower the continent and
its people.

It is doable.

I thank you.

Issued by: Office of Premier, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
23 May 2007