Algeria: As the West Toasted Men On the Moon, Algeria Held a Party to a Post-Imperial World

analysis

The First Pan-African Cultural Festival, known as PANAF, formally opened in Algiers on 21 July 1969. This was the day after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's historic moon landing 50 years ago. But most Pan-Africanist commentators didn't see the coincidence as detracting attention from the festival. On the contrary, while the moon landing marked the white, Western world seeking out new frontiers in space, the festival denoted something just as significant: the emergence of a post-imperial world in which Algiers was positioned as the 'mecca of revolution'.

Mandated by the Organisation of African Unity to organise the festival, the Algerian state sought to involve the entire black and African world. This included representatives from various liberation movements in Africa, as well as the Black Panthers from the US. Even the Palestinian Liberation Organisation was invited, explicitly linking Pan-African culture with an ongoing global process of political liberation from Western colonial rule.

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