The Member of Parliament (MP) for the Jomoro Constituency, Ms Samia Nkrumah, has charged intellectuals to lead African societies in thinking about original solutions to their challenges. She said intellectuals had a crucial role to play in two important areas of Africa's development. First, is their role in fighting pessimism of Africans and reviving the can-do spirit exhibited by the founding fathers, and second, is their role in offering ideas and criticism, as well as guidance on social and cultural dimensions of greater integration of Africa. Ms Nkrumah said this in her address on “culture and Social Development: A Perspective” at the opening of the 16th annual conference of the International Society for African Philosophy and Studies (ISAPS) at Legon in Accra last Thursday. The conference was organised by the Department of Philosophy and the Faculty of Law at the University of Ghana (UG), Legon. She said philosophy, for her, was all about asking abstract questions for answers that might help clarify the reality of life. In line with that, she expressed hope that if the question, "Can African people be free?" was considered as a philosophical question, it would generate the ideas that would inspire the development of the necessary paradigms for social development. "We need ideas which will lead us in developing perspectives to resolve the problems of poverty, disease and our marginalisation in world politics. We need ideas so that we can manage our diversity and turn it into an advantage," she told intellectuals and philosophers gathered. Ms Nkrumah said the Black Star, evoked by her father Dr Kwame Nkrumah and used by him as a symbol of African aspiration, was the most profound signification of what the African could do. African culture, maligned under colonial rule and yet to be fully tapped into by Africans themselves, was important to social progress and the collective direction of all Africans to a more productive future. She said African culture that was "alive, vibrant and sustaining," of millions across the continent, and that comprised the ideas and resources drawn from indigenous knowledge systems and ways of doing things was basic to future strides for realising aspirations. Ms Nkrumah said situating justice within culture and throwing up a whole range of questions on the application of justice and the idea of justice itself, whether or not it related to the wider context of human security was just a legal idea. She thus challenged African philosophers to lead in the search for answers to the issues. Focusing on culture and development, Ms Nkrumah posed a question on the African values and systems that could help in its development. She said in Kwame Nkrumah's thoughts and book on Consciencism, he referred to how communistic values inspired him towards socialist-oriented policies, and how his Africaness inspired him and refocused his thoughts to realise socio-economic and cultural emancipation. She said the same concept was reflected in the notion of "Ubantu" as propounded by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop of the South African Church. The concept meant that each African was human, only in relation to the humanness of his or her neighbour. She said such views, formerly denigrated by colonialist, were now gaining currency in industrialised nations where there was an ongoing effort in the search for human elements in the administration of law. She said African people had survived by such values and thrown the challenge to philosophers to help successive generations to hold on to the values and practices. The Vice-Chancellor of the UG, Prof. Clifford Nii Boye Tagoe, who chaired the function, in his closing remarks, emphasised the fact that what used to be controversial in the third world was now thought to be the real standards. Prof. Tagoe expressed hope that such seminal ideas at conferences would not be allowed to die away. He also charged students to table the opportunities being offered by the insights and stretch their capacity for thought and enterprise. Source: Daily Graphic/Ghana