During May 2006 we launched of an African World Heritage Fund through which African governments committed themselves to the preservation, protection and promotion of Africa’s heritage. The sight of the launch was the State of the Art Information Centre at the Cradle of Humankind, outside Strekfontein.

PaleoAnthropologists believe that it was there that a group of creatures, our common human ancestors, evolved from among the higher primates. From the time they embarked on their long walk into the future our ancestors could not be certain of what lay ahead. The walk into an uncertain future had many hazards, but each time they fell, they found the courage to pick themselves up, and to continue. As they progressed their numbers grew, until they became so numerous that they inhabit every part of the world. As they multiplied they had become more diverse evolving into a vast family of many hues, colours, hair textures, heights and weights. But, bound by their common ancestry they possessed the same abilities and shared common ways of doing things.

Every human society uses the experience of its older members as the foundation on which to build. Since the birth of the human race our ability to pass on our knowledge of the world, our experience in life and our achievements to our off-spring has enabled the human family not only to survive but to prosper. Observation was probably the first means by which we instructed our young. But as our offspring’s powers of comprehension improve, human beings educate and socialize their young through speech. The faculty of speech, found only among humans, is extremely versatile. We use it to command, to comfort, to instruct, to express affection, to express anger, to communicate fear, to convey anxiety, to express joy as well as sorrow. Constant communication and the exchange of experience have given us an incomparable competitive edge over other species.

The human family is unique in its ability and desire to externalize itself through acts of creation reflecting on its experience, its environment, its own life as a species and its imagination. The human animal sings, dances, sculpts, carves, paints, recites poetry, tells stories and records its memories. The human is obsessively curious, always posing the question: why? By consistently posing that question, the human animal arrived at a second, and perhaps more significant one: why not?

The search for the answer to that second question stirred our species to change and constantly transform our environment, and by so doing we have made and re-made ourselves. Artistic creation is an important dimension of our search and of our urge to remake our world rather than merely adapting to it.

The earliest attempts to render the words, thoughts, ideas and feelings of a human as writing were executed on African soil, along the Nile River valley. The invention of writing, one of the most profound cultural revolutions experienced by humankind, was extremely empowering. From then on communication was liberated from the constraints of time and space, the thoughts, opinions, emotions, beliefs, values and experiences of people acquired infinite mobility, even immortality.
Africans have recorded their thoughts and emotions in verse, rock art, sculpture and writing for centuries. The act of recording made these art objects eminently transferable from one place to another, from one time to another, from one environment to another, from one people to another. Reading and writing, the cornerstones of literacy empowered those who read and write even further as the custodians of cultural heritage.

It cannot be regarded as a coincidence that the major social revolutions around the world have been associated with literary movements. As Chinua Achebe explained through one of his characters, there is much more of crucial, social significance to storytelling – in our era, the writing of books - than mere entertainment. Reading, writing and books as literary and cultural artifacts, have become an essential part of our heritage. That makes it imperative for government, non-governmental organizations and the private sector to work together in partnerships that will create greater access to reading materials, writing potential and publishing for more Africans. The importance of cultural expression, the full creative potential of the reading, writing and publishing sector will only be realized when all the diverse people of our continent have reasonable access to the means to write, to read and to be published. This imposes extremely serious obligations on African publishers.

back to top

Twentieth century African writers, living through the long transition from pre-colonial, to colonial, and then post-colonial states have often portrayed the situation of the African as tragic. African writers, poets, artists and other leaders of thought had indeed experienced the modern era as highly ambiguous. The extremely destructive elements such as national oppression, economic exploitation and colonial racism were invariably interwoven with very constructive ones such as modern education, modern science, the transfer of modern skills and technologies. The excruciating ambiguities of modern times multiplied as urbanization on the continent accelerated. The post-colonial experience during which progress has often been purchased at the exorbitant price of freedom; then rolled back in gory internecine conflicts; has compounded the African writers’ perspective on the modern world with the infusion of extra-ordinarily contradictory elements and unanticipated tensions

Ambivalence, obliquity and dissonance consequently are prominent features of the idiom evolved by Africa's modern artists. Our continent's anguish has found its most poignant expression in the works of the post-colonial writers many of whom have been the victims of censorship, government disapproval and sometimes active persecution.

The continent is now decisively living through a post-colonial era. Africans are governing and mis-governing themselves. The independence of the continent is undermined not so much by military might as by devastatingly inequitable economic relations. While Africa is firmly entangled in the global economy it features more as a victim than as a beneficiary. Africa’s relationship to the modern world might well explain why a few among her intellectuals have been tempted to lend an ear to the siren songs of a backward-looking “integrisme”, which they present as "authenticity" or as affirmation of African culture. But its adherents still have to explain the features of "authenticity" as revealed many times on our continent. The people of the Congo lived through three decades of gross depravity : the Seso Seko Mobutu regime of Zaire (present-day D.R. Congo), where a post-colonial indigenous elite, sheltering under the cloak of “authenticity”, shamelessly plundered the national wealth in an orgy of cleptocracy . “African culture” and its affirmation have also been invoked as a pretext for perpetuating disgraceful feudal practices that degrade human beings, especially African women.

The more visionary among the generation of writers, poets and playwrights who came into their after the Second World War, demonstrated that instead of wallowing in their alienation or seeking refuge in the past, the cause of the African writer is better served by integrating oneself with the common people and active engagement in political and social struggles for freedom, independence and social progress.

As we march into the third millennium, there are a number of important lessons African intellectuals can derive from Africa’s 20th century experience. We expect the writers of the continent, where necessary, to unsparingly, and rigorously critique our recent past and our current performance. We expect them also to be the foremost advocates of freedom of expression, rooted in an appreciation that truth, beauty and good are elusive, extremely elastic and have be defined and redefined in the course of human history and, therefore, are best sought in an environment of untrammeled contestation and debate among differing opinions. The best in the modern African political tradition has preferred secularism and advocated pluralism, not only to nurture and preserve diversity, but also for their intrinsic value. African writers and publishers have a shared interest in supporting these values.

Ulli Beier, an early chronicler of modern African creative arts, dubbed his literary journal “Black Orpheus”. If our Orpheus is ever to win back his Eurydice, who was swallowed up by the Hades of slavery, colonialism and apartheid, like his classical namesake, he must march forward and upward into the light of the 21st century. He would be wise also to heed the admonition against looking back in nostalgic longing; lest, as in the classical tale, Eurydice is called back,
and is reclaimed by the darkness of Hades.

Thank You.

back to top