African Ambassadors commemorate Africa Day
AGroup of African Ambassadors and High Commissioners in Gaborone will mount an exhibition to commemorate Africa Day next week Wednesday 25th of May at the Travel Lodge Hotel.
Some 200 people drawn from across the diplomatic Corp, representatives of Ministries and government departments, Academia, and the Media among others, are expected to grace this event, the first of its kind organised by a distinguished group of eminent personalities.
Africa Day is celebrated across the continent to remember the day when leaders of independent African leaders converged in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to agree on the Charter that established the Organisation of African Unity ( OAU), the forerunner of today’s African Union ( AU).
According to one of the Ambassadors that spoke to Botswana Guardian, the purpose of the exhibition is to showcase the attractively diverse cultures of the represented African nations, by displaying cultural products, artefacts, cuisine, attires, crafts, literature, and cultural performances. The cultural event is envisaged to be an attractive and educational experience for participants as they learn more about various African cultures and will certainly strengthen the unity of the 11 African Embassies represented in Gaborone.
The 12 Embassies ( including Botswana) of the African Group of Ambassadors and High Commissioners in Gaborone will each exhibit their cultural products in a designated stall. The Envoy explained that the exhibition will be preceded by a one- hour programme in which speeches will be made to highlight the importance of commemorating Africa Day. It is envisaged that the commemoration will ignite the flames of passion that engulfed the founding fathers of Pan Afrikanism - from the early days of slavery to colonialism and post- independence. And better still, to inculcate in today’s youth, the imperative of defending their mother continent, just as did the likes of Thomas Sankara, Patrice Lumumba and Samora Machel among the many others.
When placed in its historical context, as surely, the Diplomats will do on May 25th, there could be no Africa Day if the toil of that stellar African, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, the founder of the United Negro Improvement Association ( UNIA) and a Pan Afrikan second to none, had not stirred the emotions of Black people n the Western Hemisphere with his rallying cry - ‘ Africa for the Africans at home and abroad; Europe for the
Europeans and Asisa for the Asians’.
Other pathfinders in the cause of Pan Afrikanism include the Trinidadian Henry Sylvester Wiliams, William Burghandt Du Bois, George
Padmore while here at home, the likes of Emperor Haile Selassie I, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere were in the forefront of the struggle for liberation.