2. Still learning from Adekeye Adebajo: Inveterate colonialists need to learn from the learned professor
Author: Eduardo Gutierrez-Garcia
Date: 7 October 2020
Publication: Business Day
Image courtesy of: @rhodes.ordies
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It would be a great loss if your columnist, Prof Adekeye Adebajo, were to be silenced as a result of the unreasonable complaints of subscribers such as David Wolpert threatening to cancel their subscriptions (“Adebajo’s racism unacceptable”, September 24).
Adebajo’s articles are highly instructive, even if his detractors feel that his interpretation of history is, at times, somewhat exotic and surrealist.
There is much that we inveterate colonialists need to learn from the learned professor. For example, he tells us something that not many of us knew, that in earlier times there was, in Africa, a thriving agricultural sector that was destroyed by the slave trade.
Now I start to understand why former president Thabo Mbeki talked about the “African renaissance”. He probably had in mind bringing back to life the thriving agricultural sector of bygone days, or perhaps resuscitating the mighty empire of Dahomey, with its fabulous imperial palace and the avenue leading to it, paved with human skulls.
The kingdom gave to the world the progressive and advanced animist rites of voodoo, which were successfully exported and still subsist in the cultures of the West Indies and in the Republic of Haiti. I wish to encourage the professor to continue to instruct us on African history, of which most of us have much to learn
Eduardo Gutierrez-Garcia, Honorary Consul of Spain.
Ms Zoliswa Ntsoko (South Africa) is the Institute’s Administrative Assistant who assists with general administration and research. She is a seasoned professional with a background in Disaster Management. She holds an Advanced Diploma in Management from Milpark Business School, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Public Management from Regenesys Business School. She also holds certificates in Project Management, and in Disaster Management. Previously, she has worked as a Disaster Management Specialist at the City of Johannesburg – Disaster Management Centre.
Ms Cecilia Lwiindi Nedziwe-Moyo is the Research Coordinator at the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation. She previously served as a Regional Coordinator at the Centre for Peace Initiatives in Africa (CPIA) in Zimbabwe between 2007 and 2013. She completed her master’s degree in International Studies, Peace, and Conflict Resolution at the University of Queensland in Australia as a Rotary Peace Scholar. She has just completed her doctoral studies at Rhodes University. Her areas of interest include: gender, foreign policy, regional organisations and conflict resolution.
Ms Thembeka Somtseu is a seasoned professional with a background in the textile and construction sectors. She holds a National Diploma in Business Administration from the Durban University of Technology, and studied Development Communication and Media Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. She worked as a corporate communications specialist for more than ten years, serving in both local and multinational companies.