50th anniversary celebration international conference on African studies: Keynote Address by Carlos Lopes, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ECA

Abstract

Keynote Address by Carlos Lopes UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ECA at the 5th anniversary celebration international conference on African studies. Mr. Lopes, on his remarks highlighted that, Pan-Africanism has been an enduring ideal in our continent with the degrees of engagement ebbing and flowing over the years. We are certainly in a period of revival of the Pan-Africanist spirit, as shown by the fact that the theme of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the African Union has been dedicated to "Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance". The pertinence of past strands of Pan-Africanism must also interest us for they affect our current thinking and approaches. the role of blackness and the definition of an African identity countering the discriminatory views of Africa dating from the famous Hegel proclamation that Africans had no History. Many factors contributed for a new moment for Africa. None was more important than the end of the apartheid regime and the historical arrival of Nelson Mandela to the presidency of South Africa. African Intellectuals need to examine and clearly understand what the ‘African Moment’ entails.