MCN OPENS IN DAKAR.

By Nii B. Andrews.

The Museum of Black Civilizations (MCN) –  “a dream that the black world has been awaiting for so long”, opened in Dakar last week on December 6.

It has taken 52 years to bring the project to fruition after being mooted by Leopold Senghor during the 1st Black Arts Festival in 1966.

MCN’s curatorial mandate is to be a “political, cultural, artistic and economic response of the ‘Negritude’ against the technological and cultural devaluation of black civilizations.”

MCN façade.

It will also provide an impetus to explore and record Africa’s contribution to the development of science and technology!

This perspective has often been woefully under reported and largely neglected in world history.

MCN will focus on highlighting the achievements of Africans and the members of the African diaspora.

A mammoth sized brand new edifice (? modeled on medieval Great Zimbabwe or a generic round African hut as variously reported) built with Chinese money and designed by Chinese-state architects with a grant for $34 million houses MCN.

Evening look.

And of course this has generated some controversy as have many other Chinese projects in Africa within the recent past.

Clearly, it is a manifestation of Chinese “soft power” – a term that others coined and for a long time had a complete monopoly of with results that we can all evaluate.

MCN has floor space of about 14 000 sq meters and can house over 18 000  objects; it is the first Chinese funded museum in Africa.

A striking coincidence was that on December 8 the Royal Museum for Central Africa outside Brussels reopened after an extensive five-year renovation.

Dominique Zinkpe.

Founded by King Leopold II, for decades the disgraceful institution celebrated Belgium’s maniacal impulses and the ruthless colonization of the Congo in the late 19th century.

The renovated museum seeks to exhibit more accurately the horrific reality of Leopold’s macabre imperial dream and reveal its wanton cost in human lives and shattered dreams of innocent Africans.

Black Star Series.

The Belgian museum in a recent press document says it is working on partnerships with the MCN.

The maiden temporary MCN exhibition  “African Civilizations: Continuous Creation of Humanity” looks at the “globalization” of people of African decent and their culture; the masking tradition, and the traditions of Sufism and Christianity in Africa.

LONG LIVE THE MCN!

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