The African rebirth will be moral and peaceful and lead to a better world, South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma assured delegates to the African Union-Caribbean Diaspora conference on Tuesday.
”The people of African descent have to show the world a new world order where diversity is celebrated and harnessed as a collective strength rather than a cause for discrimination,” Dlamini-Zuma said in her speech to the conference in London.
”Africans against all odds have always scored victories; they have always turned ‘life into a playground of possibilities’.
”The African rebirth will be moral, peaceful and will lead to a better world.”
Dlamini-Zuma declared the 21st century as the African century, and said it was clear all people on the continent and the diaspora had to be mobilised to wage a ”titanic battle” of ideas against poverty and underdevelopment for the emancipation of women and empowerment of the youth, and to end the marginalisation of many Africans in the diaspora.
”It has to be a titanic battle to reclaim our cultural heritage. The fact that it is easier to buy CDs of an African artist in Europe and America than in Africa must come to an end,” she said.
The battle for the development of Africa and the diaspora had to be seen to be as inclusive as possible.
The continued skills drain of Africa’s best talent to the West — a new and insidious form of the old practice of taking the skills of the best from Africa for the advancement of Western economies — had to be addressed.
Dlamini-Zuma urged the conference delegates to revive and strengthen the spirit of Pan-Africanism and to strengthen the profile of the African diaspora wherever they were.
She said it was necessary to act in unison to deal with the challenges of globalisation, to challenge the imbalance of power and to ensure the rebirth of the continent.
She urged the conference to focus on an action plan that would both accelerate socio-economic development and increase access to markets, both regionally and internationally. — Sapa