2nd Kwame Nkrumah International Conference

Africa's Many Divides and Africa's Future

JOINTLY ORGANIZED BY KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND KWANTLEN POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY (OF CANADA)

VENUE: THE KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, KUMASI, GHANA

The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana and Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Vancouver, Canada, invite you to participate in the 2nd Biennial Kwame Nkrumah International Conference at the beautiful campus of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

DATE: September 21-24, 2012.

THEME: Africa's Many Divides and Africa's Future

"If in the past the Sahara divided us, now it unites us." Dr. Kwame Nkrumah declared some fifty years ago. Keenly aware of Africa's many artificial divides, Nkrumah was determined to lead a revolution that would bridge those divides. One way to achieve this goal, Nkrumah proposed, was a continental pan-African government, which would provide the African people the opportunity to pool and marshal their enormous real and potential economic, human and natural resources for the optimal development of their continent. A continental union government, Nkrumah was convinced, would ensure that Africa ended the divisions created by the trilogy of enslavement, colonization and neo-colonization of Africans. Nkrumah was concerned by other divisions as well; those created by time/history, nature and above all those created by Africans themselves, such as ethnic/ racial, and religious discrimination, classism, sexism, ageism, as well as atavistic and backward traditional practices, including ‘tribalism' and  patriarchy. 

Nkrumah had long predicted that unless Africans formed a political and economic union to address the continent's acute problems, the raging ‘revolutions' in the north of the continent, religious, and ethnic strife and civil wars  in other parts of Africa were inevitable. He warned that unless urgent steps were taken to bridge Africa's divides, Africans would be warring among themselves as their detractors and neo-colonialists hide behind the scene pulling "vicious wires" to cut "each other's throats." For him, these upheavals are all masked economic "wars." For him, these upheavals are all masked economic "wars."  In other words, these wars and unrests are struggles over scarce economic resources and scrambles to control political power.  Religion and "tribalism" are mere fronts for deep-seated grievances over economic deprivation. 

Ethnic divisions are not racial. There were probably over a thousand languages in Africa, and hence a thousand histories, traditions, religions, legal systems, etc. etc.  After all, it is a huge continent – and all that unites people IS the experience of colonialism and neo-colonialism One could argue that the slave trade also united, but then the trade to the North and East was very different from that across the Atlantic.

Topics to be discussed include, (but not limited to) the following:

• The Northern Africa-Southern Africa Divide
• The Linguistic Divide
• The Class Divide 
• The Ethnic Divide
• The Ideological-Political Divide
• The Gender and Sexuality Divides
• The Generational Divide
• The Religious Divides
• The Rural-Urban Divide
• The Afro-Pessimism-Afro-Optimism Divide
• The Continental Africa-Diaspora Africa Divide
• The Intellectual-Non-intellectual Divide
• The Elitism-Non-Elitism Divide
• The Global South-Global North Divide
• The Cold War Ideological Divide (the Soviet-East-American-West) Divide
• The Post-Cold War Divide(s)
• The slaver-raiders/sellers and the enslaved Divide
• The rhetoric (theory)/action (practice) Divide

Paper Abstract Submission

Abstracts of approximately 250 words for papers of 20 minutes duration, and suggestions of panels consisting of 3 panelists each are welcome and should be e-mailed, with a short bio-note (50 words) contact address, and one to three keywords related to the area of research to Dr. Charles Quist-Adade, knic@kwantlen.ca no later than December 15, 2011, final notification of selection to be communicated by February 15, 2012.

For More Information, contact

Charles Quist-Adade, PhD 
Department of Sociology
Kwantlen Polytechnic University
12666 72nd Avenue
Surrey, British Columbia
V3W 2M8, Canada

E-mail: charles.quist-adade@kwantlen.ca
Telephone: 604.599.3075

Publicado por: http://www.kwantlen.ca/knic.html