08/03/2025
https://youtu.be/oUlToTPuuB0?si=vWJdtisykcS4Yq5b
*Professor Amon Saba Saakana - The Sage*
Writer, publisher, film-maker, photographer, Egyptologist, philosopher, pan-Africanist, and more; our sage is a man of many rich parts. Born in Trinidad, he is deeply committed to championing causes that advance holistic development for all the peoples of Global Africa. He never stops calling for independence and self-confidence, in this context.
In this conversation he shares reflections as an insider, on how independent publishing houses from the Global African world - such as the one he founded, Kamak House - played a major role in bringing literatures of hitherto marginalised peoples, into the limelight of major global intellectual discourse. Saakana argues that Cheikh Anta Diop, Theophile Obenga and other writers of similar revolutionary inclinations, would simply have been shut out of the mainstream academia otherwise. Our sage knew many of these scholars quite well, so he speaks from an informed position of their struggles to publish.
Professor Saakana is a passionate and energetic campaigner for the importance of education in the development of wholesome and organic societies. He will like to see Africans everywhere celebrate thinkers in their midst much more - both in the proper study of history, and in carving roles for the future. He is convinced that unless Africa is willing to listen to its own scientists, people who understand Global Africa and advance knowledge about its peoples, it will never gain the self-confidence that is required to accelerate the cultural reawakening that will in turn power sustainable development.
The Sage does not end before he has touched on how music and other creative forms from Global Africa can play a very positive societal role. But he warns that unless there is a real desire to produce independent institutions of learning and cultural/knowledge production, genres like Afrobeat will succumb to the pressures of Western consumerism and the pervasive commercial interests of the industry predators in the sector.
Best wishes watching this conversation.
The Sages || JoyNews speaks with Prof.Amon Saba Saakana,poet ,writer,lecturer,filmmaker,kemetologist ...
