President Koroma attends Senegal’s Golden Jubilee celebrations

President Ernest Bai Koroma led a government delegation on Good Friday to attend the fiftieth Independence celebrations of the Republic of Senegal.

The celebrations started in earnest on Saturday with Senegalese Head of State Abdulaye Wade opening an intellectual forum, named ‘International Colloquium on the African Renaissance’ at the conference hall of the Meridien Hotel in Dakar’s business district.

In his speech, President Wade gave an intellectual treatise of the origin of the idea behind the superimposing super-human monument he has constructed in a hilly area of central Dakar overlooking the rest of the city. “I am not a historian. I just read History; I just love History,” President Wade maintained to an audience having in its midst reputable historians from across the continent.

He revealed that the idea of an African renaissance was first propagated by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, while he (Wade) initiated the idea of a representative monument of the African renaissance as encapsulated in his book ‘A Destiny For Africa.’

In this book, according to him, he wrote under the title ‘Key Role Of France And the United States of America’: “If I were a sculptor, I would set up three characters, the arms outstretched in an embracing outburst. Two on a higher step, Europe and the United States, are standing closer. The third one, Africa, slightly away, with its striking features of purity and strength, too, stretches out its arm. The issue is not to find out whether embracing will occur, but rather when and how we can work at it and substitute four centuries of conflicting relations, originally founded on the triangular slave trade, for an alliance of convenience, cultural complementaries [sic] of souls and mutual friendship. The symbol can become a reality if the construction relies equally strongly on Blacks in Africa, in America and in Europe, because after all, they are the common denominator. A way of saying somewhat that Africa will be the pedestal of this construction.”

On the geographical location of the monument, President Wade said, “…One day, as I was passing by the second mammal hill [in central Dakar], my eyes were attracted by the top of the hill and in a flashing vision, I saw a giant African athlete bursting out of the volcano and filling the space, followed by his wife and holding his child in one arm as if they were propelled outside. I was not dreaming. The picture became strongly engraved into my mind and I understood then that the African Renaissance propelled by immense forces of fire and energy from the inner guts of the earth and drawn by another force coming from the sky was to happen ineluctably….. This African man bursting out of the volcano facing the West, with his wife and his child lifted up in the sky as if to be introduced to the world, was the symbol of Africa that freed itself from several centuries of imprisonment in the abysmal depths of racism, ignorance, intolerance, to re-conquer its place on this earth that belongs to all races, in the air, in the light and freedom.”

Married to a white French lady, President Wade did not mince his words about the horrors of slavery and the current European discrimination against black people. He insisted that black people contributed to and built the free world through slavery, but now “Europe is closing its doors on Africa. We are being rejected…The principle of freedom of movement does not apply when it comes to Africans wanting to go to Europe… The door is closed for us. Only a small window is open; but even with that small window, there is a lot of selectivity. Europe is opening its doors to millions of other people, but closing its doors to black Africans…” He however said that Africa will not retaliate by closing its doors on white people: “Africa is the last border where migration stops. Africa has to remain an open continent in order to develop. America developed because its doors were, and are still, very much open to all….” President Wade maintained that the three-human-family statue “is an artistic and cultural infrastructure conveying a political message of black Africa and its Diaspora to the world: [that] Africa once relegated to darkness for centuries and to obscurantism [sic] is rising now and tomorrow.”

It was actually in the afternoon of Saturday 3^rd April that the 50-metre (164 feet) Senegalese-artist-designed North-Korean-constructed 27-million-dollar bronze statue, dubbed ‘The Monument of African Renaissance’, was officially inaugurated.

The fanfare-inundated ceremony virtually brought Dakar to a standstill, as in attendance were tens of Heads of State mainly from across the continent, African Americans including Rev. Jesse Jackson (who gave a speech) and the membership of America’s National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, and also Arabs and white Europeans, while featuring hundreds of drummers and dancers.

In his speech to the gathering on the foot of the hill at Ouakam in Dakar, where each African country’s flag was flying, President Wade said the monument marked the rebirth of Africa: “It brings to life our common destiny. Africa has arrived in the 21st century standing tall and more ready than ever to take its destiny into its hands,” hoping that the statue (taller than the Statue of Liberty in America) will become a major tourist attraction. A staircase leads to the top of the man’s head, from where virtually the whole of Dakar can be viewed

In the evening, President Koroma joined President Wade and other Heads of State at a banquet at the Meridien Hotel.

On Independence Day Sunday 4^th April 2010, Senegal displayed its utmost capabilities in terms of cultural and military assemblage as thousands marched past accompanied by armoury, tanks, and vehicles in a spectacular military parade of virtually all ages and indeed both sexes at the ‘Place of Nation’ on mainland Dakar. After the five-hour parade, President Wade spoke to the nation through a somewhat on-the-spot media briefing, calling for national unity for national development and stressing that “Senegal belongs to all Senegalese.”

Both ceremonies (i.e. African Renaissance Monument inauguration and Independence Day parade) were shown live on Senegalese TV and on big screens around the city.

President Koroma and entourage included Minister of Foreign Affairs Zainab Bangura and Minister of Tourism Hindolo Trye. They return to Sierra Leone this afternoon (Easter Monday) without the Foreign Minister who proceeds to Cairo, Egypt.

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