If we can just get free of colonialism the innate negritude can finally move us forward. Then colonialism ends and things only get worse. Maybe a Pan African festival open to Africans and the worldwide diaspora can bring back that hope once shared. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Remember this stamp was designed by Africans to show their culture to other blacks. The head on the left is a reproduction of the ivory mask depicting Queen Mother Idia of the 16th Century Empire of Benin. This was to be the symbol of the festival. The right side picture might be a little disturbing to non African eyes. It shows Masai warriors bleeding a cow. This was not done to kill the cow but instead to drain blood. The Masai believe drinking fresh cow blood everyday or part of ceremonies is good for health, boosts the immune system, and is a good cure for hangovers. A group holds down the cow, the jugular vein is nicked and the blood is caught in a pot. When the pot is full the wound is caked over with mud and the cow lives on.
Todays stamp is issue A75, a 50 cent stamp issued by Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania on November 3rd, 1975. The three countries were in their last year of a postal service union left over from British colonial days. The stamp imagines that the FESTAC festival was going to occur in January 1976 but there was another in a series of delays and the Festival did not happen till 1977. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
In colonial times there was a deep sense among African intellectuals that their achievements were being limited by the yoke of colonialism. When African country after country gained there freedom, there was a great sense of hope the was shared by the worldwide African diaspora. When the new countries instead declined due to their ineptitude their was a palpable sense of disappointment. A World Festival of Negro Arts was held in Dakar Senegal in 1966 to restore a sense of common purpose of Negritude as it was then referred. The Festival was not a success. Dakar was a giant ghetto and the Festival was embarrassingly paid for by France and UNESCO. Nigeria, with it’s oil wealth, was invited to hold the next one and pay for it themselves while hosting it in a newly built festival village that did not show old scars. The date was to be 1970.
The date repeatedly fell back all the way from 1970 to 1977 due to construction delays, the Nigerian Civil War, and government changes. During that time the name was modernized to Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, or FESTAC 77. A new village was constructed with 10,000 permanent homes, and a cultural theatre modeled on the Palace of Culture and Sports in Varna, Bulgaria. Over 2000 buses were imported to take the 16,000 participants to events that were cultural and intellectual. Participants came from Africa, the USA, Brazil, Guyana, and the Afro Caribbean. There was an opening ceremony that featured men walking on stilts and dancers with flaming urns on their heads. On the whole, the Festival was a success but the spirit did not sustain a rebirth of African momentum.
There was one further Festival back in Dakar in 2010. The name was again updated to Word African Arts Festival. The theme was a hoped for African Renaissance. It was plagued by all the old 1966 problems and embarrassments. Funding was again by France and UNESCO.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast those that try to maintain progress. It will be my last. I don’t want a hangover and have to try a traditional African cure. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.