Africa needs a continental holiday
Oct 09, 2007
OKAY, this is something that needs to be said, and I am volunteering to say it out loud—Africa needs a continental holiday celebration, one similar to the Canadian (or American) Thanksgiving that unites it from north to south, east to west, bringing family together.
By Opiyo Oloya
OKAY, this is something that needs to be said, and I am volunteering to say it out loud—Africa needs a continental holiday celebration, one similar to the Canadian (or American) Thanksgiving that unites it from north to south, east to west, bringing family together.
Since Kwame Nkrumah proposed a United States of Africa 50 years ago, the notion of African unity has often been taken way too seriously to the point that nothing ever takes off the ground as every leader attempts to protect his or her tuft. That was the way it went in July in Accra, Ghana when African heads of government convened to discuss the way toward continental unity.
Nothing substantial was achieved as every leader worked hard to row away from Nkrumah’s vision of one Africa.
I know what you are thinking—what the heck is Opiyo talking about? I am writing this column in between the main course of turkey dinner and dessert, and as such do not have the objectivity required to say things in a balanced way. Nor can I vouch that what will be written here will have any semblance of making sense having just had a bellyful of good food. This after all is the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday, held every second Monday in the month of October, to give thanks for a bountiful harvest.
It is a tradition that dates back to 1598 with an English explorer named Martin Frobisher who was thankful just to be alive in his quest for the passage to the Orient. This is not to be confused with a similar thanksgiving offered by English Pilgrims who landed in America about two decades later in 1621, survived a harsh winter, harvested an excellent crop in their new country, which they celebrated that year, thereby popularising an annual thanksgiving that survives to this day in the US on the fourth Thursday of November.
Both celebrations are represented by cornucopias, pumpkin, corn, wheat sheaves and other harvest bounty.
On Thanksgiving Day, people stay home for a big meal with family. Whether in Canada or in the United States, there is no question that Thanksgiving is a very important holiday that draws together family, allowing for families to take stock of the year past, and focus on the year coming with optimism.
For many families, whether Canadian or American, Thanksgiving offers the opportunity to reconnect with family members scattered all over the map, to renew bonds and express what often is taken for granted, namely solidarity and love. It recognises that even when things have been very difficult during the course of the year, the death of a family member, a job loss, an illness or whatever, there is usually something we can be thankful for.
It is in this spirit that I suggest that a good starting point for a united Africa ought to be a celebration that allows the entire continent to celebrate family without stepping on the toes of religious affiliations, ethnicities, and languages.
There is a very simple reason for this idea. Right now, we have many religious-based celebrations such as Christmas and Ramadan, and nationalistic celebrations based on national independence such as the one celebrated by Ugandans yesterday. However, the main limitation of these celebrations is the tendency to leave out a large chunck of the population—Christmas leaves the bulk of Muslims out in the cold in the same way other religions are left looking from the outside when Muslims celebrate Ramadan. There is never a single point of convergence that unites the disparate elements together. The same problem is evident in North America with its very diverse population of Jews, Muslims, Christians, atheists, Buddhists, and so forth. Everyone celebrates an important occasion that others simply take in stride, and often have no inkling what it is about.
Is it any wonder that there is rarely unity of purpose when you come to issues what ought to unite a people as one? That is precisely the allure of something similar to Thanksgiving which can be enjoyed by just about anyone without having to worry about offending one’s god or tradition. The notion of Thanksgiving is one that allows that chance for everyone including the Muslim, the Christian and all other faiths, to gather together for a meal in thanksgiving for the year.
Now, for one thing, many critics will say who cares about an American idea, why do we need another foreign notion of what we should be doing with our free time?
The answer is very simple—these celebrations already exist under different names in just about every African culture, often marking that time between harvest and preparation for the next planting season. The idea here is to expand the celebration into a continental event unique to Africa. As a matter of fact, an African-American author and political activist named Maulana Karenga formerly Ron Everett, founded the week-long celebration called Kwanzaa, observed each year from December 26 to January 1, first celebrated in 1966.
Karenga took the term Kwanzaa from the phrase matunda ya kwanza which means “first fruits†in Kiswahili. Kwanzaa may be seen as an American invention, meant for those African- Americans out there, but as a concept, it truly captures in a major way two things that unite Africa as a continent, namely, family and community. It does not matter whether you are in Madagascar, Morocco, Maputo, or wherever on the continent, these two are the very basic foundations of society. Sure, another name may be used to describe such a holiday celebration, and it does not have to be closely associated with Christmas, but whatever the name and chosen date, such a celebration could become the building block of a united Africa.
I know what you are thinking next—the guy has taken too much Canadian wine. Wrong, I am sober as a new African moon on a cloudless night. That is unless you think herbal tea can make one drunk.
Happy… (please, complete it with the name of the celebration you think would unite the continent and send it back to me).
Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca
OKAY, this is something that needs to be said, and I am volunteering to say it out loud—Africa needs a continental holiday celebration, one similar to the Canadian (or American) Thanksgiving that unites it from north to south, east to west, bringing family together.
Since Kwame Nkrumah proposed a United States of Africa 50 years ago, the notion of African unity has often been taken way too seriously to the point that nothing ever takes off the ground as every leader attempts to protect his or her tuft. That was the way it went in July in Accra, Ghana when African heads of government convened to discuss the way toward continental unity.
Nothing substantial was achieved as every leader worked hard to row away from Nkrumah’s vision of one Africa.
I know what you are thinking—what the heck is Opiyo talking about? I am writing this column in between the main course of turkey dinner and dessert, and as such do not have the objectivity required to say things in a balanced way. Nor can I vouch that what will be written here will have any semblance of making sense having just had a bellyful of good food. This after all is the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday, held every second Monday in the month of October, to give thanks for a bountiful harvest.
It is a tradition that dates back to 1598 with an English explorer named Martin Frobisher who was thankful just to be alive in his quest for the passage to the Orient. This is not to be confused with a similar thanksgiving offered by English Pilgrims who landed in America about two decades later in 1621, survived a harsh winter, harvested an excellent crop in their new country, which they celebrated that year, thereby popularising an annual thanksgiving that survives to this day in the US on the fourth Thursday of November.
Both celebrations are represented by cornucopias, pumpkin, corn, wheat sheaves and other harvest bounty.
On Thanksgiving Day, people stay home for a big meal with family. Whether in Canada or in the United States, there is no question that Thanksgiving is a very important holiday that draws together family, allowing for families to take stock of the year past, and focus on the year coming with optimism.
For many families, whether Canadian or American, Thanksgiving offers the opportunity to reconnect with family members scattered all over the map, to renew bonds and express what often is taken for granted, namely solidarity and love. It recognises that even when things have been very difficult during the course of the year, the death of a family member, a job loss, an illness or whatever, there is usually something we can be thankful for.
It is in this spirit that I suggest that a good starting point for a united Africa ought to be a celebration that allows the entire continent to celebrate family without stepping on the toes of religious affiliations, ethnicities, and languages.
There is a very simple reason for this idea. Right now, we have many religious-based celebrations such as Christmas and Ramadan, and nationalistic celebrations based on national independence such as the one celebrated by Ugandans yesterday. However, the main limitation of these celebrations is the tendency to leave out a large chunck of the population—Christmas leaves the bulk of Muslims out in the cold in the same way other religions are left looking from the outside when Muslims celebrate Ramadan. There is never a single point of convergence that unites the disparate elements together. The same problem is evident in North America with its very diverse population of Jews, Muslims, Christians, atheists, Buddhists, and so forth. Everyone celebrates an important occasion that others simply take in stride, and often have no inkling what it is about.
Is it any wonder that there is rarely unity of purpose when you come to issues what ought to unite a people as one? That is precisely the allure of something similar to Thanksgiving which can be enjoyed by just about anyone without having to worry about offending one’s god or tradition. The notion of Thanksgiving is one that allows that chance for everyone including the Muslim, the Christian and all other faiths, to gather together for a meal in thanksgiving for the year.
Now, for one thing, many critics will say who cares about an American idea, why do we need another foreign notion of what we should be doing with our free time?
The answer is very simple—these celebrations already exist under different names in just about every African culture, often marking that time between harvest and preparation for the next planting season. The idea here is to expand the celebration into a continental event unique to Africa. As a matter of fact, an African-American author and political activist named Maulana Karenga formerly Ron Everett, founded the week-long celebration called Kwanzaa, observed each year from December 26 to January 1, first celebrated in 1966.
Karenga took the term Kwanzaa from the phrase matunda ya kwanza which means “first fruits†in Kiswahili. Kwanzaa may be seen as an American invention, meant for those African- Americans out there, but as a concept, it truly captures in a major way two things that unite Africa as a continent, namely, family and community. It does not matter whether you are in Madagascar, Morocco, Maputo, or wherever on the continent, these two are the very basic foundations of society. Sure, another name may be used to describe such a holiday celebration, and it does not have to be closely associated with Christmas, but whatever the name and chosen date, such a celebration could become the building block of a united Africa.
I know what you are thinking next—the guy has taken too much Canadian wine. Wrong, I am sober as a new African moon on a cloudless night. That is unless you think herbal tea can make one drunk.
Happy… (please, complete it with the name of the celebration you think would unite the continent and send it back to me).
Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca