A few days after the publication of this edition, on 23-24 January, the biannual Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union will take place in Khartoum, Sudan. This important meeting is held in Sudan partly to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the independence of this sister African country, which she attained on 1 January 1956.
The venue of the Assembly will provide Africa's political leaders with an opportunity to reflect on both positive and negative developments in Sudan. On the positive side, the Assembly will celebrate the first anniversary of the conclusion of the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in Kenya in January 2005.
As a result of the finalisation of this Agreement, the protracted war between North and South ceased, and not a single shot has since been fired in violation of the agreement to end the war. Sudan now has a new Constitution focused on building one Sudan, while fully respecting its racial, cultural, religious and linguistic diversity.
As agreed during the negotiations of the CPA, it also respects the provision fundamental to the resolution of the national question in Sudan - the right of the South to self-determination, up to and including independence. Today the South has its own government, while its representatives also serve as part of the federal government in Khartoum.
Our continent as a whole should study these developments very closely and extend all support to Sudan to ensure the success of the CPA. This is because the Sudanese experience may very well provide an important example to all of us about how to build stable societies, despite the immense diversity that characterises many African countries.
The failure properly to manage this diversity, ensuring the genuine equality of all citizens, has been one of the fundamental causes of the instability and conflict that has affected many of our countries during the period of independence.
On the negative side, the AU Assembly will reflect on the unresolved problem of Darfur, in Western Sudan, which has now also led to tensions between Sudan and its neighbour, Chad.
Again, with regard to the conflict in Darfur and the road map to its resolution, we will have to return to the central issue of the proper democratic management of a diverse society. Hopefully, the Khartoum Assembly will contribute to an accelerated advance towards the resolution of the conflict in Darfur, and the application to this region of the CPA framework that has brought so much hope to millions of Sudanese people.
The resolution of the conflict in Darfur and the implementation of the CPA framework throughout the territory of Sudan would also place the country in a unique position to strengthen African unity, across the Sahara Desert, which is an important goal as the African Union pursues the strategic goal of African unity.
In this regard, we have to ensure that the various centrifugal forces do not undermine the unity of our continent because of the great desert that separates the Mahgreb North from the Sub-Saharan South. Containing the populations of both areas of our continent, a new Sudan can play an important part in consolidating the unity of our continent as a whole, using the Sahara Desert as a bridge rather than a gulf that separates Africa into two parts.
As we meet in Khartoum, in the year of the 50th anniversary of the independence of Sudan, we would do well to reflect on the moving historic article written by one of the principal founders of the ANC, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, published a century ago this year, in 1906. This is the famous article entitled "The Regeneration of Africa", which appeared in 'The African Abroad ' on 5 April 1906.
A century ago, Pixley Seme said:
"I am an African, and I set my pride in my race over against a hostile public opinion...I would ask you not to compare Africa to Europe or to any other continent. I make this request not from any fear that such comparison might bring humiliation upon Africa. The reason I have stated - a common standard is impossible! Come with me to the ancient capital of Egypt, Thebes, the city of one hundred gates.
"The grandeur of its venerable ruins and the gigantic proportions of its architecture reduce to insignificance the boasted monuments of other nations. The pyramids of Egypt are structures to which the world presents nothing comparable. The mighty monuments seem to look with disdain on every other work of human art and to vie with nature herself. All the glory of Egypt belongs to Africa and her people.
"These monuments are the indestructible memorials of their great and original genius. It is not through Egypt alone that Africa claims such unrivalled historic achievements. I could have spoken of the pyramids of Ethiopia, which, though inferior in size to those of Egypt, far surpass them in architectural beauty; their sepulchres which evince the highest purity of taste, and of many prehistoric ruins in other parts of Africa. In such ruins Africa is like the golden sun, that, having sunk beneath the western horizon, still plays upon the world which he sustained and enlightened in his career...
"Oh, for that historian who, with the open pen of truth, will bring to Africa's claim the strength of written proof. He will tell of a race whose onward tide was often swelled with tears, but in whose heart bondage has not quenched the fire of former years. He will write that in these later days when Earth's noble ones are named, she has a roll of honour too, of whom she is not ashamed.
"The giant is awakening! From the four corners of the earth, Africa's sons, who have been proved through fire and sword, are marching to the future's golden door bearing the records of deeds of valour done...
"The brighter day is rising upon Africa. Already I seem to see her chains dissolved, her desert plains red with harvest, her Abyssinia and her Zululand the seats of science and religion, reflecting the glory of the rising sun from the spires of their churches and universities.
"Her Congo and her Gambia whitened with commerce, her crowded cities sending forth the hum of business, and all her sons employed in advancing the victories of peace - greater and more abiding than the spoils of war. Yes, the regeneration of Africa belongs to this new and powerful period...It therefore must lead them to the attainment of that higher and advanced standard of life."
The distinguished participants at the Khartoum Assembly would help to inspire the millions of Africans of our continent and the African Diaspora, and give them renewed hope, if they repeated the words uttered 100 years ago by an outstanding African patriot, Pixley ka Seme, when he said:
"From the four corners of the earth, Africa's sons, who have been proved through fire and sword, are marching to the future's golden door bearing the records of deeds of valour done... The brighter day is rising upon Africa."
Having made this undertaking, the leaders meeting in Khartoum would then have to ensure that they do indeed actually lead Africa's march "to the future's golden door...(in which) all her sons (and daughters) would be employed in advancing the victories of peace - greater and more abiding than the spoils of war."
To move our continent forward, towards the attainment of this vision, as well as demonstrate their loyalty to the historic foresight of Pixley ka Seme, the African leaders meeting in Khartoum will, among other things, have to ensure that this year, the centenary year of the article, "The Regeneration of Africa":
The Khartoum AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government will take place during the Jubilee Year of independent Sudan. As they say Happy Birthday Sudan!, and wish her success in future, Africa's leaders should, whatever words they use, reaffirm Pixley ka Seme's prayer to Africa's future, when he said:
"The regeneration of Africa means that a new and unique civilisation is soon to be added to the world. The African is not a proletarian in the world of science and art. He has precious creations of his own, of ivory, of copper and of gold, fine, plated willow-ware and weapons of superior workmanship. Civilisation resembles an organic being in its development - it is born, it perishes, and it can propagate itself. More particularly, it resembles a plant, it takes root in the teeming earth, and when the seeds fall in other soils new varieties sprout up. The most essential departure of this new civilisation is that it shall be thoroughly spiritual and humanistic -indeed a regeneration moral and eternal!"
It will be the responsibility of the African leaders meeting in Khartoum to ensure that the new spiritual and humanistic civilisation that is being born in Africa "takes root in the teeming earth, and when the seeds fall in other soils new varieties sprout up".
Thus will they ensure, in the interest of the African masses, that Pixley ka Isaka Seme was right when, 100 years ago, he said: "The brighter day is rising upon Africa."
