Although President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa first labeled it an African Renaissance, the dawn of the rebirth of the African continent began a long time ago.
When we talk about the African Renaissance, it is important to give a historical background on the origins of the African Renaissance as a concept.
This glorious future, this African Renaissance was foretold by one of the founders of the African National Congress, Pixley ka Izaka Seme, when he spoke at New York's Columbia University, in 1906. He said:
"The brighter day is rising upon Africa...Yes the regeneration of Africa belongs to this new and powerful period. The African people...possess a common fundamental sentiment which is everywhere manifest, crystallizing itself into one common controlling idea...The regeneration of Africa means that a new and unique civilization is soon to be added to the world."
Even as Seme spoke these words, a dark future awaited the peoples of the African Continent. The brighter day did not rise. The darkest night of colonial oppression and exploitation continued to envelop Africa. But now almost a century later, the African Renaissance has dawned.
In her paper “The African Renaissance: Women in the Forefront of Social Transformation. Mavivi, Y.L. Myakayaka-Manzini, MP explains that we can isolate three catalysts that induced an African revival or renewal.
- the independence of Ghana in 1957.
- the collapse of socialist states in 1989.
- the end of the Cold War and the resurgence of more open political and economic renewal in Africa that surpassed the decolonization process of the 1960's.
- Finally, the need for democracy in the whole of Africa which energized the people far more than the nationalist movements ever did. This need for democracy culminated in the liberation of South Africa in 1994.
The African Renaissance as described by South African President Thabo Mbeki is a vision of continental renewal/reconstruction and reawakening. It is based on the:
- Economic recovery of the African continent as a whole;
- Ability to establish political democracy throughout the continent;
- Demolition of neo-colonial relations between Africa and the world economic powers;
- Mobilization of Africans to reclaim as well as direct the continent's destiny; and
- Acceleration of people-centered or people driven economic growth and development
Africans believe that the beginning of their rebirth as a Continent must be their own rediscovery of the African soul, captured and made permanently available in the great works of creativity represented by the pyramids and sphinxes of Egypt, the stone buildings of Axum in Ethiopia and the ruins of Carthage and Zimbabwe, the rock paintings of the San, the Benin bronzes from Nigeria and the African masks, the carvings of the Makonde and the stone sculptures of the Shona.
President Thabo Mbeki, then Deputy President at the adoption of Democratic South Africa's new constitution in 1996, had this to say in his speech entitled: I am an African
"I am an African.
"I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land. …"
Read the whole speech. Watch the video
The writer Frantz Fanon says that each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it. With South Africans leading from the front, the people of Africa are determined to fulfill their mission of making the 21st century an African century, a century of an African Renaissance.
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