Africa Day Commemorated in Montreal

Franco Famularo
May 19, 2010
Secretary General, UPF - Canada

Montreal, Canada - In anticipation of Africa Day on May 25, Ambassadors for Peace gathered in Montreal, Canada to devote their monthly meeting to an educational session on Africa. "On this day, we are all Africans," announced one of UPF Canada's founding members, Mr. Robert Duffy. As participants introduced themselves over breakfast, each one commented on their experiences with Africa and its peoples. Rev. Samuel King-Kabu, a native of Ghana, West Africa, and currently pastor with the Lutheran Church in Montreal, provided an informative overview of salient facts about Africa.

With over 50 sovereign countries, more than 2,000 languages spoken and a population of nearly 1 billion people living on the second-largest continent in the world, the audience was impressed to learn of the tremendous diversity on the continent known since antiquity as the "sunny" land which according to some linguists is the meaning of the word "Africa."

Rev. King-Kabu shared of the challenges in developing infrastructure citing examples of the difficulties in establishing communication links among Africans and also commented on the need to reforest rather than dig wells to improve water quality. He emphasized that Africa is a study in contrasts: rich and poor.

Father Tiburtius Fernandez, a Roman Catholic priest who recently returned to Benin for a two-month visit, spoke of his experiences during his 14 years in Africa during the 1980s and 90s. He shared of the tremendous changes he himself witnessed during his time there and spoke of a tsunami of modernity washing over Africa.

Both speakers commented on the abundance of cell phones in most African countries as the main means of communication. Father Fernandez reflected on the observation that the 19th Century may have belonged to Europe, the 20th Century to America and some say the 21st belongs to Asia. When is Africa's time? He concluded that in order to progress, Africa must not resist associating with the wider world, but embrace it.