–to discuss, inter alia, cheaper intra-regional travel, trade

By Zena Henry

THE Kwame Nkrumah Pan-African Intellectual and Cultural Festival continues to provide a platform for the review and critical re-assessment of urgent tasks necessary to deepen the technical and intellectual skills needed for training the next cadre of thinkers and practitioners in the development of African peoples across the world.

Held from June 25 to July 1 in Ghana and hosted by the Kwame Nkrumah Chair in African Studies at the University of Ghana, the festival, the second to date, saw among those in attendance academics and advocates of Pan-Africanism from the Caribbean and Americas converging for further discussions on creating “a structural transformation of the African World”.

In his academic and research capacity, representing the Walter Rodney Foundation, Guyana’s own Wazir Mohamed was invited to the African nation to deliver on some of the ideas of Dr. Rodney, and to discuss the global marginalisation of small farmers and the difficulty they face in accessing land.

Mohamed told Guyana Chronicle on Saturday that his presentation dealt with the encroachment of neo-liberals moving forward with an agenda that affects small producers’ access to land, and the issue of land-grabbing, which he said is so familiar to Africa.

Mohamed contends that despite the fact that food production levels are rising in some cases, the operations of small farmers are generally being reduced.

The Kwame Nkrumah Pan-African Intellectual and Cultural Festival saw the attendance of several other Caribbean scholars, among them Barbadian historian and UWI Vice-Chancellor Dr. Hilary Beckles, who delivered the feature address at the event.

The Caribbean, through the efforts of Dr Beckles, who is the Chair of the Caribbean Community Reparations Commission, is leading the way in the reparations bid to seek from Europe various forms of compensation for atrocities caused by the system of African enslavement.

This approach to Europe has the support of African nations, even some African-American organisations that have indicated an interest in being a party in the claim against Europe.

In the meantime, more in-depth discussions on the relationship between Africa and western territories holding Africans were held. This included talks of increased trade and travel between Africa, the Caribbean and American countries.

One thing that was mentioned, Mohamed told the newspaper, was the need to improve travel whereby members of the Caribbean can easily and freely travel to the continent.

As it stands, persons from the Caribbean must go through Europe to get to Africa, despite the two locations being closer geographically.

These issues and many more will be highlighted in the university’s final communique, Mohamed pointed out.

Under the theme, “Global Africa 2063: Education for Reconstruction and Transformation”, the Ghana University wants “to reflect the foundations of Kwame Nkrumah’s intellectual and cultural ideologies of a united Africa”.

Those who had gathered, it was said, examined and critically investigated the role of African-centred education and knowledge production for shaping the development agenda.
“This approach challenged the destructive and dominant education and knowledge system which supports neo-colonialism.”

The Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, was established by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of the Republic of Ghana and has been noted as the founding institute that focused on Africa and African people.

Over 400 academics, government representatives, former government members, community members, international and local Pan-Africanists, and students of Africa convened in Accra.
Their job, “to debate on the way forward and interrogate the challenges of bringing Global Africa closer with the peoples at differing parts of the planet”.