\nProf. Samuel Ntewusu (right), Director, Institute of African Studies, with Daniel Krull (left), German Ambassador to Ghana, and Prof. Sylvia Tamale (middle), former Dean of the Faculty of Law, Makerere University, after the Anton Wilhem Amo Lecture. PICTURE: MAXWELL OCLOO <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A Ugandan Law lecturer, Professor Sylvia Tamale, has called for an integrated Pan-African approach to drive the continent\u2019s economy out of its current challenges.<\/h2>\n
The academic and human rights activist said unless a radical approach was adopted, the neo-liberal strategies embedded in Africa\u2019s economy would further sink the continent and make it remain under-developed for a long period.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the second edition of the Anton Wilhelm Amo Lecture at the University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Prof. Tamale, who is also a former Dean of the Law Faculty of the Makerere University, Uganda, mentioned some of the neo-liberal strategies impacting negatively on Africa\u2019s economy as structural adjustment, poverty reduction policies and wealth-creation programmes.<\/p>\n
\u201cA successful de-colonial link from the colonial development modernising models will only be achieved through a Pan-African-led radical movement.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfrica can learn from the Latin American experience and revert to its indigenous ways of becoming human beings and stop obsessing about material improvements to really understand that you cannot have a good life if people around you are not living well,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Lecture<\/strong><\/p>\n The lecture series seek to promote the dissemination of the ideas of Anton Wilhelm Amo, a Ghanaian-German philosopher and lecturer, and also enquire into what it means to be an African in European society.<\/p>\n The topic for this year\u2019s lecture was: \u201cDecolonising knowledge production in Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n It was chaired by the Director of the Institute of African Studies (IAS), University of Ghana, Prof. Samuel Ntewusu.<\/p>\n Among the dignitaries present was the German Ambassador to Ghana, Daniel Krull.<\/p>\n The lecture series are an initiative of the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA), in collaboration with the IAS and the Department of Philosophy and Classics of the University of Ghana.<\/p>\n They are named after the 18th century philosopher from present-day Ghana who taught at the universities of Halle and Jena in Germany.<\/p>\n Education<\/strong><\/p>\n Prof. Tamale further said Africa needed an educational system that tested indigenous knowledge embedded with its context.<\/p>\n She said those who controlled language controlled reality, and for that reason there was the need to teach the younger generation in their respective local dialects.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must heed to calls of African scholars to re-centre indigenous ways of knowing and de-colonise methodologies derived from oral traditions.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the epicentre of colonial indoctrination, the African university needs to be reinvented as a subversive, anti-imperialist, anti-sexist, anti-capitalist and non-elitist space,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Situation<\/strong><\/p>\n The Director of the IAS, Prof. Ntewusu, said the characteristic features of the colonial narrative of Africa’s past were still found in writings and verbal expressions.<\/p>\n He said new generations were exposed to the wrongful use of terms such as \u2018tribe\u2019 and \u2018paganism\u2019, including technological inventions and innovations in African knowledge systems.<\/p>\n He said such major misapprehensions originally served the purpose of colonialism rather than science.<\/p>\n \u201cDe-colonialism in Africa is not a topic of interest to me, as the chair in this hall alone, but individuals, institutions, inter-governmental entities, students and the private sector in general,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Partnership<\/strong><\/p>\n For his part, the German Ambassador said Ghana was a significant partner of Germany, referring to the economic development cooperation between the two countries.<\/p>\n He said the Ghana Beyond Aid Agenda could become feasible with further collaborations in areas such as science and research, adding that his country was ready to offer the necessary support.<\/p>\n \u201cGhana has become an important regional network in advancing scientific cooperation,\u201d Mr Krull said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n