Black Summit challenges Afro-Belizeans
Opening ceremonies are taking place at this hour in Belize City for the first Black Summit. Organised by the UBAD Educational Foundation and the World Garifuna Organization, over three hundred people have signed up for the weekend event, which has as its primary goal to assess the current state of Afro-Belizeans and suggest ways of dealing with the many challenges that confront them. Two of the main facilitators of the Summit arrived in the country this afternoon and News 5’s Patrick Jones was among those greeting the two professors at the airport. Both Dr. Runoko Rashidi and Dr. Molifi Asante say they will be challenging Belizeans to aim for higher goals.
Dr. Runoko Rashidi, Facilitator, Black Summit
“I’m going to do a presentation called “A Global African Presence.” And I’m going to, in this presentation, which will be about sixty minutes in duration, I’m going to look at the African presence in ancient and modern times. Now when I do my presentations, I try to concentrate on three essential themes. One, Africa is the birthplace of our humanity. That we have a common African ancestor; that Africa is the place that gave birth to modern human beings.”
Patrick Jones
“Who are the people who should come hear your lecture?”
Dr. Runoko Rashidi
“Hopefully anybody. I know we are going to have people from the universities and we’ll have a lot of black professionals. But the people I would really like to see are the people who live in the community itself. The people who in many cases are suffering from a lack of self-esteem, from the sense that we are a race of nothings and nobodies and our history is rooted in slavery. Those are the people I would most like to reach. Now whether they will come out or not I don’t have any control over that.”
Dr. Molifi Asante, Facilitator, Black Summit
“I think that the question of re-interrogating the question of identity is because at one time, African people or people of African descent knew precisely who we were. There was no question about it. I think that in the years between 1492 and now, there has been some confusion, particularly on the part of Africans in what we call the African diaspora. And that is the Africans in the scattering from Africa. Those who are not on the continent of Africa, but those who live in the Americas, Central, South, North and in the Caribbean have often lost that sense of identity. So the question is, how do you re-interrogate it and what questions do you ask to arrive at a sense of purpose and a sense of direction. The people who hear my lecture are the ones that want to hear it and then what I want them to do is go out and re-energise the community. I want them to go away with certain kinds of ideas that will allow them to energize their communities, energise their churches, their neighbourhoods and so forth.”
Speakers at the opening ceremony include U.E.F. Chairman, Evan X Hyde, Dr. Ted Aranda representing the W.G.O. and Dr. Joseph Iyo of the University of Belize. Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh will declare the summit open. The first plenary session starts at nine o’clock Saturday morning at the Biltmore Plaza.
