Kah Walla at Georgetown Tomorrow – Guest Post Anyone?

Tags

Africa Society of Georgetown, Cameroon, Georgetown, Kah Walla

I have to confess I don’t really know who Kah Walla is.  However, the name sounds very familiar, so I suspect for Cameroon watchers, her talk tomorrow afternoon at Georgetown on ‘Leadership: Africa in the World and Women in Africa‘, is a rather big deal.  Her brief bio is quite impressive – presidential candidate, recognized by the World Bank, and celebrated by Forbes magazine.

I don’t usually plug events of this nature, but I had such a good time at the Africa Society of Georgetown’s pan-African conference last weekend, I wanted to highlight more Georgetown Africa activity (especially since I rarely get to their events).  Cameroon is also one of those countries (similar to Uganda and Burkina Faso, but definitely a notch below) where the lack of explicit US commitment to the professed policy of supporting democracy and governance really concerns me.

As always, I welcome a guest post from any of you who attend.  Also, I had promised a post a few weeks ago on a Cameroonian-American in DC with an awesome story, that will be coming soon.

Mathilde Mukantabana, Rwandan Ambassador to the US on pan-Africanism, Kagame’s Tenure, and Genocide

Tags

African Civilization, ASG, Georgetown, Mathilde Mukantabana, pan-Africanism, Paul Kagame, Rwanda, Rwanda Genocide, Rwandan Ambassador to the US, ubuntu

The final speaker at the African Society of Georgetown’s 2 day conference this weekend was Mathilde Mukantabana, who I understand was recently named Rwanda’s Ambassador to the United States.  I found Mukantabana to be a particularly appropriate speaker as she has spent much of her life in the Diaspora, serving as a professor of history in California until her appointment.  Her wide ranging comments certainly alluded to that background.  She referenced pan-African giants from this hemisphere like WEB DuBois and Marcus Garvey, from Africa, such as Kwame Nkrumah and spoke of African philosophies that she saw as being relevant across Africa, such as Ubuntu.

African Society of Georgetown: Uniting Africa for a Promising Future

Tags

Action Africa, African Women Cancer Awareness Association, Aisha Audu, Asratie Teferra, Boko Haram, Books for Africa, Georgetown, Ify Nwabukwu, Jackson Mvunganyi, Kogi State, Nigeria, Rwanda

I stumbled out of bed early on Saturday morning to head over to the annual pan-African conference of the African Society of Georgetown, a 2 day event with a heavy flavor of local DC representation.  I didn’t make the Friday evenings events, but they seem to have had more of a distinct Georgetown flavor with faculty and students moderating several breakout discussion sessions.

The keynote speaker was Mathilde Mukantabana, Rwanda’s Ambassador to the US, I’ll aim to have a separate post on her remarks up Monday.