Prof. Ali Mazrui Calls On PAWA Secretary-General

Professor Ali Mazrui, a renowned pan-africanist scholar and the director of the Institute Of Gobal Culture Studies, has presented some of his highly regarded books including his latest, 'A Tale of Two Africans,' to the Secretary-General of the Pan African Writers’ Association (PAWA), Prof. Atukwei Okai.

Prof. Okai, in a reciprocal gesture, also presented two of his books 'The Oath of the Fontomfrom and other poems' and 'Lorgorligi Logarithms and other poems' to the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the humanities, of the state university of new York at Binghamton.

The exchange of books occurred when Prof. Ali Mazrui who happens to be the first PAWA lecturer, at the inaugural annual PAWA lecture in 1996, paid a courtesy call on the secretary-general at PAWA house in Accra.

The other books presented by Prof. Mazrui were 'The Scholar between thought and experience', an anthology of biographical essays in honour of Ali Mazrui, and 'Africanity Redefined' which is a collection of his essays.

Prof. Ali Mazrui was in the country to participate in the launch of a book 'under the tree of talking: leadership for change in Africa'.

Welcoming his guest, the secretary-general assured the African intellectual that the spirit and conviction that led to the formation of PAWA about two decades ago were the same today and so shall it be in the years to come.

It was about liberating the minds of the African people into an empowering inner posture of self awareness, self-confidence and self-assertion in order to strengthen their capacity to generate African answers to African problems.

Prof. Okai further briefed him on projects PAWA has undertaken over the years, including the recent 'Writers Against HIV/AIDS' project which was organized across the West African sub-region.

He described the reading of the winning entries in some selected schools as very successful as the award winners motivated the students to participate in subsequent literary competitions as well as the expected moral change in the students after listening to the stories which were frightening, yet real.

Prof. Mazrui, who was recently nominated as one of the 100 greatest living public intellectuals in the world by the Washington-based journal, Foreign Policy, commended Prof. Atukwei Okai and the Pan African Writers’ Association in general, for steadfastly championing the cause of African renaissance.