UNESCO's Deputy Director General for Africa, Dr. Noureini Tidjani-Serpos, says that in the face of the turbulent world economic crisis, Africans must dream and get the solutions, taking into consideration their cultural diversity.

He thus implored Africans to take inspiration from the Japanese who developed their culture to make them one of the modern day super powers.

Dr. Tidjani-Serpos was speaking as the Special Guest of Honour at the opening of the 4th PAWA World Poetry Festival as part of the celebrations of the 16th International African Writers' Day at PAWA House in Accra.

A statement signed by Prof. Atukwei Okai, General Secretary PAWA, the festival was under the theme, “A Gathering of the Family, in the Middle of a Century, At the Centre of the Earth: Accra”.

Citing an example from the Japanese history to buttress his call, Dr. Tidjani-Serpos said the Japanese Government at one point in their quest for development, tasked their scientists to produce a fax machine that could send and receive fax in their local Japanese language, instead of Latin, which they did successfully.

“You only develop what you have,” he noted, adding that Africa “must identify what is appropriate for her culture and environment and a developed mind in order to generate solutions to her problems.”

He therefore called on Africans, especially writers and poets, to produce a well researched work because “if we do not have a researched memory, we will tow the line of a slave.” He indicated that cultural research was extremely important for Africa because “all people who have been colonized have had their memory stolen from them and replaced by an artificial memory, an alienated memory”.

Source: GNA - Ghana News Agency