The Asante King speaks at the College of Memphis
Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asantehene, the Asante King, opened his speech Thursday afternoon to a group at the University of Memphis by speaking about the worth of instruction.
“It has been a policy, wherever our leaders have taken us, to seek to engage the youth in the educational program,” the king reported. “Not only as a reflection of the priority we have put in training, but also simply because of our recognition that generating understanding in the youth is the surest way to be certain the potential of the world.”
The speech, titled “Contemporary Challenges in United States and Africa Relations,” was a section of the Memphis in May well Intercontinental Competition, a week-extended sequence of plans to learn about the festival’s “honored country,” which is Ghana this calendar year. Memphis in Could 1st picked Ghana as the honored region in 2020, but the pandemic upended the city’s signature pageant and gatherings. Organizers made the decision to honor Ghana this yr with nationwide and local COVID-19 limits largely gone.
“Citizens of Memphis, you can be proud of this town for its foresight in developing the Memphis in Could International Festival,” the king reported. “…we have traveled quite a few hundred miles from across the oceans, in the very coronary heart of Africa, to celebrate with the town this year and it is only correct that we make the most of the possibility to foster higher comprehension as a contribution to the continental relations of the men and women of our two nations.”
Considerably of the 15-minute speech centered on educating the attendees on the record and lifestyle of the Asante Empire and Ghana.
The Asante king, who will celebrate his 72nd birthday Friday in Memphis, is the 16th Asantehene and a direct descendant of the initial Asante King, who established the Asante Empire in 1701. A highly effective state that resisted British colonization until eventually the quite conclude of the 19th century, the empire’s previous territory is now portion of modern Ghana, a presidential republic.
The king is not Ghana’s head of state. Ghana is a democracy with an elected leadership and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was re-elected in December of 2020, but the king however has significant impact. According to a Memphis in May possibly push launch, “His platform as King focuses on furthering peace among the location and producing the schooling, financial system, and wellness of His individuals.”
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“He invited all the states and said to them ‘we are just one individuals, speaking a single language. Why must we keep on to exist as minimal states in some cases quibbling among ourselves and occasionally battling other states, when we can unite and turn out to be just one highly effective kingdom versus which no other drive can stand,” the king mentioned about the initial Asante King. “He yelled prior to them the eyesight of a single kingdom capable to protect alone versus all other folks and able of withstanding and investing with other nations to deliver prosperity to all people. The state bought into the remarkable vision.”
If conditions, this sort of as schooling, had been distinct, the king explained, the globe would be learning the words and phrases of the Asante Empire with the exact “zeal” it experiments the Federalist papers.
“The kingdom grew to come to be a single of Africa’s excellent warrior kingdoms,” the king stated.
The speech also touched on the struggles that appear with a democracy. The king spoke of the satisfaction he experienced in helping in arbitration when it will come to political turmoil.
“As you might know too very well, the adversarial mother nature of democratic politics has a tendency to elevate tensions among the political combatants,” the king reported.
The speech finished as it experienced started, with the king talking about the vital significance of education, the two for Ghana alone and the globe as a complete.
“We recognized the basis to aid the training of young children of lousy backgrounds,” the king mentioned. “It has become so much the biggest private intervention in training in the place and has offered for pupils who would have normally been deprived of a standard training.”
Gina Butkovich handles DeSoto County, storytelling and typical news. She can be reached at 901-232-6714 or on Twitter @gigibutko.
