From the Publisher…
Publisher’s Message
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y Publisher’s Message to you is this inspiring atticle by Koffi Kouakou from tGhana News. In Travel Africa, we strive to celebrate Africa by presenting the myriad of worthy, beautiful, exciting spaces on the continent that the world should experience. This article also reminds us all of the whys we celebrate AFRICA! Thank you for taking the time to visit our publication. Make your plans to celebrate Africa using the wide range of information in this and past issues. Harambe!! www.africabusinessassociation.com
Celebrating Africa Day Is Worth It
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odern Africa has come a long way. From slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, the Bandung Conference, the Bretton Woods structural adjustment chokeholds, along with their inexhaustible debt relief and poverty alleviation schemes, right up to liberation struggle traumas, idealistic PanAfricanist dreams, dismal leadership and elite failures, and, most recently, health sovereignty challenges brought on by the Covid-19 crisis, it has been a dreadful era for Africans. Yet, amid the travails, Africa resiliently keeps thriving. Nevertheless, every year, a sceptical and ritualistic question arises about whether to celebrate Africa Day. It is the annual commemoration of the foundation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on May 25, 1963, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, hosted by Emperor Haile Selassie. It was called African Freedom Day, to “mark each year the onward progress of the liberation movement, and to symbolise the determination of the people of Africa to free themselves from foreign domination and exploitation”. It is celebrated in many countries on the continent and worldwide. It was formerly known as African Freedom Day and African Liberation Day.
Later, on July 9, 2002, the OAU became the African Union, in Durban. The celebratory day has continued ever since. While I find such a question irritating, I also enjoy the due pressure it puts on Africans to constantly re-evaluate the gains of the liberation Struggle ideals many of our early compatriots fought for. Africa Day celebrations deserve praise because they remind us of how far the continent and its people have come and the associated sense of pride, healing and dignity with a mixture of pain, joy, fear and hope. So, the question is not whether Africa Day is worth celebrating but who, what, and how it should be done beyond cultural jamborees. In short, those who genuinely care about Africa and its future must celebrate and rejoice on this special day and do so in their own ways, peacefully. The significance and celebration of Africa Day remind me of two notions. The first is the idea of the Afropocalypse. It is the dreadful chronicle of the tragic challenges of all things hellish facing Africans. It includes poverty, inequality, unemployment, and corruption. It conjures the stereotypical image of a degenerated Africa falling apart and off the face of the Earth. There is a deep perception, rightly so, that the decolonisation of Africa is incomplete and
4 | ABA Publications | Africa TRAVEL | May 2021
