The Ismaili Centre lecture series which covers contemporary topics of interest to civil society is presenting a virtual conversation between two scholars from East Africa, Dr Mohamed M Keshavjee, an international specialist on cross-cultural mediation and Dr Farouk Topan, an anthropologist and Swahili playwright on Thursday, 2 September 2020 at 8 pm BST: the. ismaili/TV.
The conversation highlights significant Asian contribution beginning with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi establishing the oldest political party in Africa in 1894 with the help of Dada Abdulla, a Memon businessman from Porbander and ending with the significant contribution made to the dismantlement of apartheid by the Indians of South Africa during most of the twentieth century.
Asian contribution in East Africa similarly includes leading icons in the pantheon of freedom such as Hussein Suleman Verjee, A M Jeewanjee, MA Desai, Makhan Singh and Pio Gama Pinto.
Topan,whose own grandfather Sir Tharia Topan, was a leading pioneer businessman and philanthropist had opened his home to David Livingstone in the 1850s while he was in Zanzibar. “Our history,” saysTopan, “is being captured today in four different ways: this is through academia, memoirs, curiosity of the younger generations searching for their roots, and fiction. ‘Diasporic Distraction’ Keshavjee’s book of short stories provides historical information in the most entertaining and educational manner. There is a fear of losing a critical part of our history if we do not capture it now while some of our older generations are still alive”.
The short stories from the book highlight themes of diasporic anxiety engendered by the end of Empire phenomenon. They represent diasporic angst faced by our earlier generation as they made the leap to a new horizon.
