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Dear colleagues, I’d like to ask for your prayers and support for candidate Gloria Guevara of Mexico, who has a generous program for Africa as a UN-Tourism Candidate for Secretary General.
We are together because we must be together to be strong. This desire to be together is not negotiable. We win together or we perish together, because Mother Africa is indivisible.
I am delighted to be among the founders of this wonderful cultural initiative with economic, social, tourism, and environmental dimensions. Today, Africa is speaking about itself and celebrating its culture, and it’s very exciting to know that music and dance are mobile libraries that don’t require a visa to travel.
The untold African Stories project is a fantastic initiative highlighting Africa’s cultural wealth’s unexplored and untapped potential, from its development to implementation. This adventure, led by several private stakeholders from African countries, including Senegal, aims to refocus culture on its role and mission as a driver of inclusive growth, development, and content creation for tourism.
This is why we call on our governments and cultural and tourism stakeholders to pool their efforts to create the conditions for a truly local form of tourism that promotes our heritage, expertise, and unique cultural identity.
Scholars have taught us that we need to be rooted in our own values before opening up to others.
African culture is threatened by so many negative factors in the 21st century that it is important to establish safeguards if we want future generations to understand the meaning, value, and importance of preserving our entire cultural heritage.
Promoting cultural awareness is important for developing empathy, harmony, and peace, as well as for accepting common ground and living together despite society’s differences.
The increasing integration of cultures and economies in inclusive social development is an issue that people must reflect on because culture is considered the beginning and end of all development.
It is a whole, a very complex unit of society, including beliefs, behaviors, and tangible and intangible assets shared by its members through Music, dance, and songs. Celebrating special events and milestones in life, reciting oral stories and other recitations, and spiritual experiences are integral to many traditional African societies that promote our social values.
From urban folk dances to works of classical music, the musical richness of the African continent is a true cultural treasure, unique in the world, that must be valued and marketed for a market value capable of sustaining its humankind.
Therefore, these human societies share the key cultural characteristics of tolerance, understanding, sharing, forgiveness, openness, and respect. Music accompanies every stage of life in our traditional African society.
It is the link between every social act and is inseparable from secular and religious celebrations. And in rituals, it serves as a vehicle of communication between the world of the living and the world of the ancestors.
We need to understand beyond sounds and rhythms that music can have several primary functions:
Accompany, evoke, provoke, structure time, and orient oneself in time. Just as dance beyond the physical activity of expression, representation, bodily production transmits messages of stories which is a form and style of communication (to convey a message, information, an emotion), soliciting the imagination, symbolism, calling on gestures (steps, gestures, attitudes) and referring to specific social practices different in each ethnicity and ethnic group
Music and dance are integral parts of many traditional African societies. Songs and dances facilitate the teaching and promotion of social values, the celebration of special events and life milestones, the recitation of oral stories and other narratives, and spiritual experiences.
The other meaning of dance is to move the feet, the body, or both rhythmically, following a precise rhythm, especially to the sound of modern or spiritual music, meditation, or yoga that makes you jump or skip under the effect of excitement or emotion while moving with agility or speed. We dance with joy, with cries synonymous with pleasure.
In another definition, dance is a form of creative expression through physical movement, especially rhythmic, accompanied by music. Historically, it is used during celebrations and religious practices.
African dance has played an essential role in human societies since ancient times and continues to evolve and develop today in various forms. From ancestral songs and drums to urban folk dances and live music, the musical wealth of the African continent is a traveling library that must be valued, labeled, and monetized.
Knowing that culture and creativity can help us recognize our environmentally destructive behaviors is essential. They can also inspire us with creative solutions and stronger policies. Together, we can build a more resilient and sustainable future for all.
From tangible and intangible heritage to creativity, Africa’s rich cultural diversity and talented cultural professionals are powerful catalysts for peace, sustainable development, and human rights on the African continent.
We must continue to inspire the world where Africa is marginalized, which is unacceptable because their culture measures human dignity and a people’s value.
Finally, I approve of this approach taken by certain African countries to recover African works of art and to recount the facts as they are, which are of paramount importance for several reasons.
Above all, it allows us to reconnect with the history and cultural identity of countries and the African continent, which is essential for strengthening national pride and collective awareness.
