Project to Preserve Manuscripts from 14th Century Mali
26 - May - 2003
Old manuscript from Timbuktu, Mali
Image by: worldtrek.org
In almost a year, the most tangible outcome of the African Union is a cultural project to preserve manuscripts from fourteenth century Mali which are vital evidence of early African literacy and scholarship.
SUN CITY, South Africa, May 23 (IPS) - Delicately written, with illustrations and drawings in gold, they risked wasting away at the Ahmed Baba Institute in Mali but now stand a chance of being saved, as the first cultural project of the African Union (AU) which has in South Africa been given the status of a presidential lead project under president Thabo Mbeki.
In 2001, Mbeki travelled to Mali on a state visit where one of his stops was at the Institute, where his aides say, he was inspired by the cultural importance of the manuscripts for the African Renaissance, and he pledged South Africa's support for their conservation and for the upgrading of the institute.
Timbuktu was the site of one of Africa's first universities 700 years ago (it is as old as Oxford University in Britain) and it drew scholars from as far afield as Spain. Their original manuscripts were largely of Quranic verses, but later they were used to record family and other histories.
Reports show that the documents also provide evidence of early scientific study including of the weather and of crops, geography, astronomy, mathematics and cultural history. These documents are important because they prove that Africans were literate hundreds of years before the European colonisation of Africa, says Graham Dominy of South Africa's national history archivist.
On Sunday (May 25), Africa Day, Mbeki and the Malian president Amadou Toumani Toure will launch the plan to save the Timbuktu manuscripts. The project is led by a team comprised of government and business leaders and it will try to drawn foreign donor support as well. The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is also a long-time supporter of attempts to preserve the manuscripts.
Sunday's meeting is the culmination of a week-long meeting of African foreign ministers who gathered at the Sun City resort, two hours from Johannesburg, to assess progress in the first anniversary of the African Union.
The African Union's actual first birthday is only in July, when the chairpersonship of the body will pass from Mbeki to Mozambique's president Joaquim Chissano in the capital Maputo. So this week's gathering was an attempt to chivvy along African governments which have been rather tardy in ratifying the various protocols that will make the body function properly.
Only five countries had by this week ratified the Common African Defence and Security Policy, which will give muscle to peace-keeping efforts; even fewer have ratified the peer review mechanism which provides that countries must keep each other on their toes in the area of democratic governance. Only 12 countries had ratified the protocols for the African Parliament - it requires 15 more ratifications before planning on such an all-Africa legislature can get started.
The meeting also heard this week that the African Union is struggling under the weight of a 44-million-U.S.-dollar arrears debt.
At the Sun City meeting this week, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Somalia, Sierra Leone, Seychelles and the Central African Republic (CAR) were not allowed to speak at the meeting as sanction for their arrears.
With 18 institutions and beefed up peace-keeping duties, the African Union is more expensive to run than its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
Arrears, says Chris Landsberg of the South Africa-based Centre for Policy Studies, is the smallest of the AU's problems. Many African leaders prefer the status quo and are uncomfortable with the new norms and values.
He says the first year of the African Union has been largely spent on setting up the union and that a lot of work still needed to go into sorting out the confusion between the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
NEPAD is a programme to kick-start the political and economic development of the continent (END/2003)
