Victor Nze
5 November 2009
African history has for years been distorted in the same manner that her peoples had been dehumanized. The slave trade across the Sahara and later the Atlantic was the major single factor responsible for the first movement of peoples of African descent to the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean, North and South America, Asia and Oceania - where the vestiges of African culture could still be found.
The forced migration of people from Africa at the formative stage of the continent's development impaired the evolution of historical and productive network of relationship among Africans in all parts of the world.
It was therefore with the sole aim of promoting a better understanding between continental and Diaspora Africa, that the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC), a parastatal in the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation, in conjunction with the Special Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality (SEPPIR), Brazil, Pan African Strategic and Policy Research Group (PANAFSTRAG), Institute of Afro Brazilian Studies, the State University of Rio de Janeiro and the Association of African Historians organized an International Colloquium on "Teaching African History and Culture to the Diaspora and Teaching Diaspora History and Culture to Africa" in far away, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil last November 2008.
Champion Arts learnt that the success recorded by that confab spurred the affected agencies to line a follow up on the theme of promoting understanding on Black culture and heritage.
Following the keen interest of the Brazilian government in the teaching of African history and culture and the major recommendations of that 2008 Rio de Janeiro Colloquium that the teaching of African and Diaspora history, culture and indigenous knowledge be made compulsory in African institutions in the first instance and be supported by the African Union (AU), Organization of American States, regional and national associations, national governments and non governmental organizations in Africa and the Diaspora; the organizers have therefore concluded arrangement to organize another of such conference.
According to Prof Tunde Babawale, Director General of CBAAC, his agency will jointly organize this year's colloquium in collaboration with a host of other agencies in Nigeria and abroad, prominent among them the Brazilian government.
"CBAAC, PANAFSTRAG, IPEAFRO and the Brazilian government are jointly organizing the International Colloquium as a follow-up to further explore the teaching of African history and culture and provide direction on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) pedagogical use of general history of Africa emphasizing the use of African sources such as oral traditions, art forms and linguistics in the study and teaching of African history and culture."
The colloquium which comes up from November 8 through to 13, will hold in Brasilia, Brazil, and is expected to bring together academics, experts in African history, archeologists, cultural anthropologists, oral historians and linguists and many others.
Sub-themes for the colloquium include: African and Diaspora History: Pedagogical and Methodological Issues; Historicizing Africa and the Diaspora; Archaeology and the pre-History of Africa and the Diaspora; Global African Identity; Indigenous Knowledge System; Creativity and the Arts: Popular Culture, Music and Folklores; Liberation Ideologies in Africa and in the Diaspora; Slave Trade and Reparations: Trans-Sahara and Trans-Atlantic.
Other sub-themes are: African Religion, Spirituality and Values; Gender in African and Diaspora History; Language, History and Culture; Social Capital and Development; Colonialism, Neo-Colonialism in African History and Culture; Area Studies in African and Diaspora History; and Racism and Ethnic Relations.
Workshop themes lined up for the 5-day colloquium include: Experiences in the Training of Teachers of Africa and the Diaspora History in Primary and Secondary Schools: Pedagogical and Methodological Issues; Strategies for the Consolidation of the History of Africa and the Diaspora; History and Historiography of Africa and the Diaspora; Culture and Society in Africa and the Diaspora; as well as Art, Drama and Fashions.
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