rob
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Non-Compliance - 2006/05/22 12:47
There are many arguments for not 'complying' with Bristol and UK authorities on the 2007 bicentenary. At the core of it is the simple fact that it is driven by a purely Eurocentric agenda. This is an agenda that is usually content to celebrate the gracious-ness of the UK Abolition Act (26 years before 'legal' Emancipation) and trumpet the heroism of Wilberforce and then the British Navy.
Meanwhile the actual ongoing struggle of African people adrift from a 'mother-country', culture, spirituality, history, identity etc. has not been properly acknowledge let alone deeply enough addressed.
Bristol city is torn between national and local pressure to commemorate, while Europeans in Bristol, want nothing to do with it because it was too long ago, and Africans who will ignore it because it is insincere.
Is non-compliance throwing the baby out with the bath -water that comes in the new-found interest of local and national government on the African story? Or is it a powerful position that meets with an ongoing struggle.
Is it important to recognise this bicentenary? If so how, if not why not?
How should African people in Bristol respond to this challenge?
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