AU to Honour Miriam Makeba and Aimé Césaire

Omar Faye (APA)--The African Union (AU) will celebrate the memories of Miriam Makeba and Aimé Césaire on Sunday in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) at the banquet of the 12th AU ordinary session to be held from 1 to 3 February.

‘It is important that the continent acknowledges their contributions to the emancipation of Africa,’ the AU Commissioner for Social Affairs, Bience Gawanas, said at a press briefing on Friday. ‘These two African icons have been instrumental in defining the cultural heritage of Africa,’ Gawanas added.

A South African national born on 4 March 1932 in Johannesburg (South Africa), Makeba had even witnessed the creation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, during which she performed a song to bless the continental body, she recalled.

Naturalised as a Guinean in the 1960s, then an Algerian in 1966 and honorary French citizen since 1990, Miriam Makeba, was nicknamed ‘Mama Africa’. Her real name was Zenzille Makeba Qgwashu Nguyama. She died on 9 November 2008 at the age of 76 in Naples, Italy due to discomfort at the end of a concert. ‘Pata Pata’, her most successful song, composed in 1956, allowed her to tour the world.

With regard to Aime Césaire, she continued, his contribution to the African renaissance has helped to forge Black consciousness. Born on 26 June 1913 in Basse-Pointe (Martinique), Aimé Césaire died on April 7 2008 in Fort-de-France where he had been hospitalized for heart problems.

Poet and politician, he was one of the founders of the literary Negritude movement alongside Léopold Sédar Senghor particularly. He was a convinced anti-colonialist. France organised a national funeral for him in Fort-de-France

Addis 30/1/2009

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