Special Reconciliation of African people from East and West of the Atlantic Ocean
«The essential for a people is not much being able to glorify itself by a past more or less majestic, but it is more about discovering and taking consciousness of this past’s continuity, whatever this past was.” (Cheikh Anta Diop).
Dirty cloths are to be washed within the family, they say. That’s why Malaki ma Kongo, association for the promotion of African cultural roots in service of Responsible Development, invites all Africans – but not only! – from east and west of the Atlantic Ocean to go back to African ancestors’ steps.
We’ll walk throughout the close yet faraway time of enslavery, to cover Africa from Goreè Island just to the black continent’s heart.
We’ll go through many villages where monuments, valleys, mountains, roots, leaves, trees and – why not -the wind will refresh our memory. It may happen that, while we sleep, during a dream a fly, or a beetle, or a fish, or – why not – an elephant will sing us songs that we kind of remember.
Yes, we’ll walk to touch reality by hand and to give ourself a personal judgement about what really happened more than 500 years ago.
AIM : preserving collective memory
OBJECTIVES :
- Creating a dialogue space for the Reconciliation of African people from East and west of the Atlantic Ocean;
- Promoting African Cultural roots
- Re-writing African history
- Entering in Communion with our ancestors by participating to the Three-continental Festival Malaki ma Kongo.
CIRCUIT OF VOYAGE
- a/ Gorée Island and Dakar city in Sénégal ;
- b/ Bénin: we’ll touch by hand an unusual expérience of “retourn to Africa” realised 10 years ago by the JAH family, who went there from Guadeloupe. We’ll visit the Temple of Pythons in Ouidah and we’ll organize a forum about: «The importance of the Exchanges between African people from East and west of the Atlantic Ocean» ;
- c/ In Ghana we’ll visit the Slaves Road, the city of Accra, some exemples of investments by the Black diaspora, following a show-dinner for solidarity with « The initiatives of the exchanges between African people from East and west of the Atlantic Ocean» ;
- d/ We’ll go to the two Congoes, in Brazzaville and in Kinshasa, where we’ll participate to the Three-continental Festival MALAKI ma KONGO, and we’ll visit the two capital cities. In Pointe Noire we’ll visit the “Monument of Memory” and the humanitarian action of MALAKI DEVELOPMENT (Centre for sewing education for young women) and AArit, the Pilote Agricole Center;
- e/ In Nzinzi (Pointe Noire) we’re waited to close in beauty the Three-continental Festival MALAKI ma KONGO, to « tell the children of our children what the parents of our parents lived».
ORGANIZATORS
Malaki ma Kongo in collaboration with local social organisations from East and west of the Atlantic Ocean. Malaki ma Kongo invites us to “go to Africa not to sympathise with lions, gyraffes or crocodiles but to fraternize with human beings”.
BENEFITS :
Preserving collective memory.
Re-writing Africa true history and learning the true meaning of words like Africa, Sénégal, Congo, Namibie, Zimbabwe, Mali, Cameroun, Guinée…
MODALITE OF the VOYAGE :
Responsible Tourism: We won’t stay in big hotels, we’ll stay by local people’s houses or by rooms we’ll rent from local families’ homes (these people are Malaki ma Kongo’s members), or local small hotels held by local families .
Transportation will be, depending on circumstances, local city bus, trains, taxi, cars rented on place, airplanes etc.
See ALL VIDEOS of the Pilgrimage in 2008 .