Advocating for the teaching of the history of Pan-Africanist heroines

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Rokhaya Daba Fall, a retired international civil servant, pleaded on Saturday for the teaching of the history of pan-Africanist heroines. I want, in the curricula from kindergarten to primary school, to integrate stories, tales about these heroines, these female leaders, so that children finally understand the role played by Collette Nardal, Suzanne Roussi Césaire or Ndatté Yalla, Aline Sitoe Diatta, etc., » she said.

Ms. Fall was speaking at a conference on the theme  »Women’s leadership and pan-Africanism », organized at the Monument of the Renaissance by the Provisional International Initiative Committee (CIP) as part of the celebration of Africa Day.

Rokhaya Daba Fall, who spoke at length about the role played by women in the resistance, believes that there has been « a collective forgetfulness of female leadership ». « We often talk about the fathers of independence, negritude, pan-Africanism, where are the mothers?

The negritude was well supported by mothers like Colette Nardal and her sister Paulette Nardal and Aimé Césaire’s wife, Suzanne Roussi Césaire, etc., » she said.

Rose Samb, an activist of RTAS (Rasemblement des travailleurs africains/Sénégal), agrees and notes « the essential role of women in the various pan-Africanist movements ».

« They were there and have always been there. Collette Nardal is an academic at the Sorbonne, a writer, and with her sister Paulette. They had a literary salon, one of the crucibles of negritude where Senghor, Césaire and Damas were nurtured », she recalled.

For her, « women have had an essential role in transmission ».

For General Mansour Seck, member of the IPC, initiator of this day, it is a question of reviving this pan-African movement which has « gone dormant » while in the world « we are witnessing large groups ».

By: Aps – APS

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