Accra (Greater Accra)
19 December 2002 - Ms Esi Sutherland-Addy, Member of the Board of Directors of
the PANAFEST Foundation, on Wednesday said Ghanaians should not see festive
occasions, which are patronised by foreigners, as an opportunity to exploit
them for monetary gain.
She condemned the
tendency to exploit others and said it was the main driving force behind the
slave trade and other forms of human exploitation that had taken place in
history.
She said what should
rather be done was for people to identify areas of mutual cooperation where
they would support each other's strengths. Ms Sutherland-Addy said this in
Accra on Wednesday at the launch of the sixth PANAFEST, which would be
celebrated alongside Emancipation Day from 23 July to 5 August 2003.
It is being
celebrated under the theme, "African Traditional Systems in 21st
Century Globalisation". It would be held in Cape Coast, Elmina, Assin
Manso and Accra. Ms Sutherland-Addy stressed the need for PANAFEST to be
maintained and improved upon since it was the major festival in the world which
brought together Africans in the Diaspora to come to terms with some major
landmarks and facts of their history and origin.
She said there was
the need to encourage African arts and generate more ideas on how to make them
more marketable, adding that global patronage for them, especially in the West,
was very encouraging.
Nana Akomea, Deputy
Minister of Tourism, launched the festival and observed that one main
importance of PANAFEST was that it served as a platform to unite Africans all
over the world.
He said the Ministry
of Tourism and the National Commission on Culture would do all in its power to
ensure that the festival was improved upon and sustained. Some highlights of
the festival include a pre-PANAFEST pilgrimage to the north, a carnival, an
emancipation day and reverential night, among other things.
GRi…/
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