Ebook: Great Speeches of Africa's Liberation

The overarching brief of this short volume was to collect, authenticate and publish key speeches that have impelled, accompanied or celebrated Africa’s liberation from colonialism and access onto “the world’s stage”, as Hegel would, and did say. Collection was arduous and authentication even more so.The first speech is possibly the earliest to articulate clearly and irrevocably a need for liberation; it was delivered in 1836 by Emir Abd-el- Kader. It is reproduced here in French since the African Yearbook of Rhetoric takes pride in its multilingualism. Readers will discover the first authentic transcript of Patrice Lumumba’s indictment of Belgium’s rule. They will read, as it was delivered and not redacted, Macmillan’s “Wind of change” speech which as paradoxical as it may seem belongs to this collection. Addresses by Haile Selassie, Mohammed V, Kaunda, Mondlane and Machel complete this unusual and compelling first collection of the great speeches of Africa’s liberation. Some of these momentous speeches will not be known to English-speaking readers who are more used to look at Africa through the lens of the “Cape to Cairo” tunnel vision, and they will possibly discover what can be termed “Latin Africa”, that is, the liberatory oratory from lands colonised by France, Italy and Portugal. Southern Europe settled first Africa, in a geopolitical logic that goes back to Roman times. The texts provided here are based on archives not on the "romance of great speeches". They follow primary sources scrupulously and in one instance the collection offers, for the first time, a glimpse as rare material in fac-simile reproduction of the famous "winds of change" speech.