Rethinking Africa is a forward looking blog dedicated to the exchange of innovative thinking on issues affecting the advancement of African peoples wherever they are. We provide rigorous and insightful analyses on the issues affecting Africans and their vision of the world.
Tuesday 15 August 2017
142nd birthday of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
(Born 15 August 1875, Holborn, London, England)
DISTINGUISHED prolific composer whose landmark works embody African peoples-centred/-inflected themes including, especially, “Land of the Sun”, Op. 15 (1897) [anticipating Biafra?! - HE-E], “African Romances” Op.17 (1897), The Song of Hiawatha, Op. 30 (“Overture to The Song of Hiawatha”, 1899; “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast”, 1898; “The Death of Minnehaha”, 1899; “Hiawatha’s Departure”, 1900), “African Suite”, Op. 35 (1899), Toussaint L’Ouverture, Op. 46 (1901), “Ethiopia Saluting the Colours”, Op. 51 [2?] (1902),“Moorish Dance”, Op. 55 (1904), “Four African Dances”, Op. 58 (1904), Kubla Khan, Op. 61 (1905), Symphonic Variations on an African Air, Op. 63 (1906), Thelma, Op. 72 (1907-9), The Bamboula, Op. 75 (1911)
(Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Symphonic variations on an African air, Op. 63 (1906), played here by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Grant Llewellyn, BBC Radio 3, London, 28 October 2004)
Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is specialist on the state and on genocide & wars in Africa in the post-1966 epoch – beginning with the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-present day, the foundational and most gruesome genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. 3.1 million Igbo or 25 per cent of this nation’s population were murdered by Nigeria and its allies, principally Britain. Africa and the rest of the world largely stood by and watched as the perpetrators enacted this horror most ruthlessly. The world could have stopped this genocide; the world should have stopped this genocide. This genocide inaugurated Africa’s current age of pestilence. During the period, 12 million additional Africans have been murdered in further genocide in Rwanda (1994), Zaïre/DRCongo (variously, since the late 1990s) and Darfur – west of the Sudan – (since 2004) and in other wars in Africa. African peoples have, presently, no other choice but exit/dismantle the extant genocide-state (the bane of their existence & progress) & construct own nation-centred states that serve their interests. He is author of several books & papers on the subject and his new book is entitled The longest genocide – since 29 May 1966 (2019).
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