The PAC@75: Viewing the Past and Looking to the Future Debate

How can we view our past African Socio-Political Histories and its link with African self-determination and development as a lens with which to view our contemporary post-pandemic future and its relationship to the demands of the BLM?

In this mixed live/recorded debate and reflective discussion, we have invited key thinkers and academics from Manchester Met, UoM and across the UK, to give their reflections and discuss their views on the statement above. This is a two-hour and open-ended session where we will be playing pre-recorded reflections from thinkers who are unable to join the discussion and debate physically online, and also giving platform to a number of invited speakers, particularly those with Manchester academic connections, to discuss and debate their views and positions on how our historical relationship with the past may or may not inform the present. The last 30 minutes of the session will be open to all attendees as a Q&A session.

Chaired by Dr Kai Syng Tan, with co-ordination by Ola Uduku and Berrisford Edwards. Invited Participants and Speakers: Dr Shirin Hirsch, Prof Gary Younge, Prof Farida Vis, Alnoor Mitha and others. Gary Younge, Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, gives a ten-minute reflection on the post-war context in which the conference took place, and the contradictions between the Allies’ euphoric claims that civilisation had won over barbarism and the colonial realities that were already under pressure.