 |
|
| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Momodou
Denmark
11514 Posts |
 Posted - 03 Jan 2024 : 14:55:02
|
Professors, historians set for blockbuster symposium at Janjanbureh Bicentenary
The Point: Jan 3, 2024
https://thepoint.gm/africa/gambia/headlines/professors-historians-set-for-blockbuster-symposium-at-janjanbureh-bicentenary
Eminent Gambian Professors and erudite scholars will animate the symposium on Slavery, Reparations, Return, and Tourism at the Armitage High School Hall, on Friday, 5th January 2024 at 4:00 PM in Georgetown (Janjanbureh).
The panelist is Nana Grey Johnson, erudite historian of The Gambian Krio; Professor Assan Sarr of Ohio University; Professor Pape Bassene of University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar; and Professor Bala Saho of Oklahoma University, and the blockbuster session will be chaired by MsBintaJammehSidibe, historian and former head of The Gambia Women’s Bureau.
The symposium is the intellectual angle of the three-day commemorative activities of the Bicentenary of Georgetown (Janjangbureh) which will last from 4-7 January 2024 at Janjangbureh. So far, several Heads of State in the sub-region have confirmed their attendance. The Commonwealth Secretary-General Rt. Hon Patricia Scotland will also attend in addition to other heads of international organizations.
A ranking member of the National Organizing Committee, HassoumCeesay told this medium that the symposium will interrogate the role of McCarthy Island in the resettlement, progress, and prosperity of the liberated Africans, who gained their freedom from enslavement following the Abolition of 1807, and also look at the role that The Gambia can play in the ongoing process of seeking for reparations for the wrongs of slavery, and how the whole Island of Georgetown can be a center for heritage rural tourism in The Gambia’.
He, therefore, used the opportunity to invite all Gambian intellectuals, students, and ex-Armitage the symposium.
|
A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
|
|
Momodou
Denmark
11514 Posts |
Posted - 07 Jan 2024 : 06:37:33
|
An excerpt from President Barrow’s Statement at the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Georgetown Bicentenary Festival
“History teaches us that, about 200 years ago, the Island of Janjanbureh was transformed from a peaceful Gambian settlement to a trading centre by the British, under Queen Victoria. It eventually hosted many French and British firms and was renamed McCarthy Island, with a part of it called Georgetown.
As we have it on record, thousands of Africans who were freed from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade bound for Freetown, Sierra Leone, were re-settled here in Georgetown.
We are in this historic town, therefore, to celebrate its bicentenary on an island where hope was restored to captured Africans who were unjustly seized, unjustly treated, and unjustly removed from their homeland and families without any regard for their rights and dignity.
On account of this, it is with mixed feelings that we have organised this historic festival to remember the events of the mid-nineteenth century. Because of the cruel acts of that dark era, Africans have been forced to demand reparations from those who took part in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
It is a welcome development that the African Union, the United Nations, and some African countries have already started to ask for reparations.
The African Union, for instance, has in the past two decades led a strong and persistent campaign on reparations for slavery as a basic human right for Africans.
Coming home, in 2022, at its 73rd Ordinary Session held in Banjul, The Gambia, The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights agreed to set up a committee that would establish a case for reparations.
The Gambia will seize the MacCarthy Island Bicentenary celebration to use its diplomatic, intellectual, and cultural advantage to promote the reparations agenda.” |
A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
 |
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
| Bantaba in Cyberspace |
© 2005-2024 Nijii |
|
|
|
Janjanbureh Bicentenary
