The 2006 National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress and hosted by First Lady Laura Bush, will be held on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2006, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., between 7th and 14th streets from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (rain or shine). The festival is free and open to the public.The 2006 National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress and hosted by First Lady Laura Bush, will be held on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2006, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., between 7th and 14th streets from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (rain or shine). The festival is free and open to the public.
René Depestre is a Haitian writer, the author notably of the award-winning “Hadriana dans tous mes rêves” (“Hadriana in All My Dreams”). He was present at the First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists organized in Paris. He was also participating in the commemoration of its 50th anniversary. He looks back on the historical 1956 event. The First Congress was held at a time when African countries were still colonies. What did it represent for you?
First of all, an extraordinary opportunity. It allowed me to encounter and know the ideas of intellectuals I hadn’t heard of. It allowed me to better understand the diversity of black experience in relation to slavery and colonization, and to realize that the various historical journeys of Africa and its Diaspora didn’t always match. In my case, I had a particular experience. Dictatorships in Haiti made it such that “my adversary” wasn’t a white man, he was a Haitian, like me. I didn’t entirely agree with the tenets of Negritude, because I was afraid it would end up as a form of essentialism, totalitarianism or fundamentalism. At the same time I was confident, because I knew that men like Léopold Sédar Senghor and Alioune Diop from Senegal and the Martiniquais Aimé Césaire were engaging in a cultural struggle of decolonization.
Interview by Jasmina SopovaWhat is your perspective now on the First Congress?
It was the first gathering of its kind in the French-speaking world. “Présence Africaine”, the journal and the publishing house founded in Paris by Diop, Senghor, Césaire, were the pioneers that swept my generation into the movement. This Congress, held at the Sorbonne, cradle of European knowledge, restored our self-confidence. At the same time it showed the world a black intelligentsia existed. Beyond that the Congress produced a creative effervescence that found expression in historiography, anthropology, literature and poetry. All that work did not make racism disappear, but since 1956 we have been better prepared to stand up to it.
But for me colonization isn’t over. There has been decolonization of institutions, and of the relations between the old colonial empires and their African, Asian and American colonies. There has also been a certain decolonization of mentalities.
Yet there is a more subtle colonization that we should have achieved: it is the decolonization of semantics, at the level of words, starting with “black”, “white”, “yellow”. This means that 50 years after the Congress, young people, particularly in the suburbs, hang on to myths supposedly related to identity, based on skin colour. They form “black” associations. This phenomenon is a regression in relation to the progress made by the generation of Senghor and Césaire, mine and the one that followed.
What is the role today of the intelligentsia of Africa and the Diaspora?
Today it is not a question of affirming black cultures versus others. The colonial or racial question has been replaced by the issue of globalization. If the latter remains strictly financial, we are heading for disaster. To have ultramodern airports is not sufficient if we don’t have the Airbuses of the imagination to take off. What is cruelly lacking in globalization is “globality” – in other words the totality of the values of different civilizations. All civilizations are concerned. Some panic and fall into fundamentalism. Others make the transition with much greater ease and joie de vivre. Some have bigger obstructions, like Africa, like Haiti. Globalization should also provide the opportunity to raise the level of solidarity in the world for those who have been left behind.
René Depestre is a Haitian writer, the author notably of the award-winning “Hadriana dans tous mes rêves” (“Hadriana in All My Dreams”). He was present at the First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists organized in Paris. He was also participating in the commemoration of its 50th anniversary. He looks back on the historical 1956 event. The First Congress was held at a time when African countries were still colonies. What did it represent for you?
First of all, an extraordinary opportunity. It allowed me to encounter and know the ideas of intellectuals I hadn’t heard of. It allowed me to better understand the diversity of black experience in relation to slavery and colonization, and to realize that the various historical journeys of Africa and its Diaspora didn’t always match. In my case, I had a particular experience. Dictatorships in Haiti made it such that “my adversary” wasn’t a white man, he was a Haitian, like me. I didn’t entirely agree with the tenets of Negritude, because I was afraid it would end up as a form of essentialism, totalitarianism or fundamentalism. At the same time I was confident, because I knew that men like Léopold Sédar Senghor and Alioune Diop from Senegal and the Martiniquais Aimé Césaire were engaging in a cultural struggle of decolonization.
Interview by Jasmina SopovaWhat is your perspective now on the First Congress?
It was the first gathering of its kind in the French-speaking world. “Présence Africaine”, the journal and the publishing house founded in Paris by Diop, Senghor, Césaire, were the pioneers that swept my generation into the movement. This Congress, held at the Sorbonne, cradle of European knowledge, restored our self-confidence. At the same time it showed the world a black intelligentsia existed. Beyond that the Congress produced a creative effervescence that found expression in historiography, anthropology, literature and poetry. All that work did not make racism disappear, but since 1956 we have been better prepared to stand up to it.
But for me colonization isn’t over. There has been decolonization of institutions, and of the relations between the old colonial empires and their African, Asian and American colonies. There has also been a certain decolonization of mentalities.
Yet there is a more subtle colonization that we should have achieved: it is the decolonization of semantics, at the level of words, starting with “black”, “white”, “yellow”. This means that 50 years after the Congress, young people, particularly in the suburbs, hang on to myths supposedly related to identity, based on skin colour. They form “black” associations. This phenomenon is a regression in relation to the progress made by the generation of Senghor and Césaire, mine and the one that followed.
What is the role today of the intelligentsia of Africa and the Diaspora?
Today it is not a question of affirming black cultures versus others. The colonial or racial question has been replaced by the issue of globalization. If the latter remains strictly financial, we are heading for disaster. To have ultramodern airports is not sufficient if we don’t have the Airbuses of the imagination to take off. What is cruelly lacking in globalization is “globality” – in other words the totality of the values of different civilizations. All civilizations are concerned. Some panic and fall into fundamentalism. Others make the transition with much greater ease and joie de vivre. Some have bigger obstructions, like Africa, like Haiti. Globalization should also provide the opportunity to raise the level of solidarity in the world for those who have been left behind.
As part of the conclusions reached at the Cultural Diversity for Social Cohesion and Sustainable Development international conference held September 11th-15th in Sun City, South Africa, cultural unification appears to be a powerful tool when considering the corrosive impact of globalization on indigenous culture.“The convention has great implications for the whole of the developing world in particular. It highlights the need for national governments to develop a coherent policy for cultural industries and to synergize its approaches within the appropriate ministries involved in creative entrepreneurship.
In this regard, a liaison between ministry of culture and ministry of trade, culture and education, culture and tourism, culture and external affairs need to be reinforced. The convention seeks to provide measures needed to balance the current imbalances in the trade of cultural products and also to enhance capacity building for areas of the cultural sector in the developing world.
Personally, I regard Article 4, 1-3 of the convention as being extremely significant to Africa because it recognizes oral tradition, heritage and indigenous knowledge system as part of cultural capacity. This is very important to some of us who decry the corrosive effects of globalization on our indigenous culture”, said George Ngwane**, a civil society cultural advocate from Cameroon, and party to the conference.When asked about what he came out with the Sun City Conference, Mr. Ngwane’s response was:
“We were able as civil society actors, government departments and isolated cultural practitioners to lobby for the establishment of national cultural policies in our respective countries. What this implies is that countries would have to convene all partners in the cultural sector to a kind of forum.”
He also expressed a need for reviving the national commission for UNESCO in Cameroon, and mentioned the successful cooperation of the National Commission for UNESCO in South African with the South African Department of Arts and Culture and University of South Africa that has created a transcontinental platform of Africans and the Diaspora. The platform is expected to develop a common position on issues like bilateral partnerships on cultural diversity and regional strategies and the role of culture in effecting social cohesion, human rights, democracy and social justice.
“Someone described culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development and this has been recognized by the UNESCO Convention, AU, NEPAD and Art Moves Africa. But the successes of these global or continental cultural charters depend on the integration of national and sub regional cultural policies. Cultural unification is a vital instrument for African unity. Hence, the urgency for countries and more so African countries to follow the example of Togo, Madagascar, Mauritius and Djibouti in ratifying the UNESCO Convention and establishing the structures identified in it.”Related
*UNESCO and Cultural Diversity
*21 May: World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development
*International Network for Cultural Diversity
**George Ngwane was interviewed by Walter Wilson Nana for the Post, Cameroon's English- language newspaper
Poster© UNESCO
As part of the conclusions reached at the Cultural Diversity for Social Cohesion and Sustainable Development international conference held September 11th-15th in Sun City, South Africa, cultural unification appears to be a powerful tool when considering the corrosive impact of globalization on indigenous culture.“The convention has great implications for the whole of the developing world in particular. It highlights the need for national governments to develop a coherent policy for cultural industries and to synergize its approaches within the appropriate ministries involved in creative entrepreneurship.
In this regard, a liaison between ministry of culture and ministry of trade, culture and education, culture and tourism, culture and external affairs need to be reinforced. The convention seeks to provide measures needed to balance the current imbalances in the trade of cultural products and also to enhance capacity building for areas of the cultural sector in the developing world.
Personally, I regard Article 4, 1-3 of the convention as being extremely significant to Africa because it recognizes oral tradition, heritage and indigenous knowledge system as part of cultural capacity. This is very important to some of us who decry the corrosive effects of globalization on our indigenous culture”, said George Ngwane**, a civil society cultural advocate from Cameroon, and party to the conference.When asked about what he came out with the Sun City Conference, Mr. Ngwane’s response was:
“We were able as civil society actors, government departments and isolated cultural practitioners to lobby for the establishment of national cultural policies in our respective countries. What this implies is that countries would have to convene all partners in the cultural sector to a kind of forum.”
He also expressed a need for reviving the national commission for UNESCO in Cameroon, and mentioned the successful cooperation of the National Commission for UNESCO in South African with the South African Department of Arts and Culture and University of South Africa that has created a transcontinental platform of Africans and the Diaspora. The platform is expected to develop a common position on issues like bilateral partnerships on cultural diversity and regional strategies and the role of culture in effecting social cohesion, human rights, democracy and social justice.
“Someone described culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development and this has been recognized by the UNESCO Convention, AU, NEPAD and Art Moves Africa. But the successes of these global or continental cultural charters depend on the integration of national and sub regional cultural policies. Cultural unification is a vital instrument for African unity. Hence, the urgency for countries and more so African countries to follow the example of Togo, Madagascar, Mauritius and Djibouti in ratifying the UNESCO Convention and establishing the structures identified in it.”Related
*UNESCO and Cultural Diversity
*21 May: World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development
*International Network for Cultural Diversity
**George Ngwane was interviewed by Walter Wilson Nana for the Post, Cameroon's English- language newspaper
Poster© UNESCO