KNOWLEDGE AND TRADITIONAL KNOW HOW

The struggle of Africa is inseparable from colonialism and still worse from the slave route it has travelled over 4 centuries.

In 1500, Africa had between 600 million and 1 billion people. In 1900, following the consequences of the slave trade and wars of colonization, the population fell to 100 million people, or a loss of 80 to 85%. Only the Amerindian people have gone through such a holocaust in the history of mankind. In 2000, the population of Africa is estimated at 710 million, or 12.5% of the world population.

The ingenuity, quality and quantity of work performed over several centuries, allowed Africa to build on it's past, providing a high living standard to feed her children all over the continent regardless of the population density or whether the soil was rich or poor. The abundance and prosperity that characterized Africa then were due to a dazzling development of knowledge and traditional know how, which was testified by pre-colonial travellers’ stories such as Kaznini, Ibn Battuta, Ca da Mosto and other Valentin Fernandes.

We owe the preservation and resurgence of knowledge and traditional know how in Africa, to the eras of cultural resistance by the community, to the genius of the people, to the dynamic Africanist for restoring the values of black civilization.

It is noble to plead for a rehabilitation of the knowledge and traditional know how, essential components of the revival of African culture and its reaching out for modern science.
All human civilization builds itself upon a representation of the echo of the myth which it has of its originality. However, the knowledge and traditional know how translate the symbolic representation of this myth, either material, or ideal or simply human.


REFUSE SOMEONE ELSE’S DENIAL

Learning a language, a culture is to open up to the Other, is to accept the Other and the Difference.

Like languages, cultures differ in what they have to translate in order to express the full richness of human experience.

Putting one’s National identity, one’s patriotism in the service of the inter cultural constitutes a challenge for these present generations.

Claim the right to difference, the Right to belong to a Group in the commonality between people.

No culture, no religion will find in a living space, an Earth culturally or spiritually poor, even less blank!!!
As one can live and translate his/her own culture, as one can underestimate the foundations of his/her own culture if one is not able to represent oneself what is the fruit of several contributions from the other cultural sources.
The cultures of the world are leaning on each other, hence their commonalities in the quest for our existential balance.

It is recognized that the diversity of cultures is based on their parallel convergences and the release of their experiencess through successive generations.