Western Courier

Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Adam Sacasa On Wednesday, performances from the ALA conference were held in the Lamoine Room of the University Union.

Africa is not HIV/AIDS, nor is it malaria. Africa is not child soldiers, poverty or civil war. Africa, as the African Literature Association teaches, is an ecologically diverse and enormous continent filled with natural resources and, like any continent, full of unique and diverse people.

This week, the ALA is holding its international conference in Macomb. The theme for this year's conference, which is the 34th, is "African Diaspora Women Writers, Global Challenges and Cultural Identity."

The ALA is a non-profit organization that is composed of and open to writers, scholars and teachers from all across the world.

The conference started Tuesday with the Western Illinois University Presidential Reception and will continue daily with numerous panel discussions, performances and workshops open to anyone who is interested. The conference is located on the first floor of the University Union and will continue until Sunday, April 27.

These discussion and reading sessions are all led by experts in the field of African studies and African writers. Subjects range from the role of women in present-day Africa, changes brought on in a post-colonial Africa and the effects brought on by globalization and the exploitation of African resources by multi-national corporations.

"This is huge, this is absolutely huge," Dr. Abdul-Rasheed Na'Allah chairperson of the African-American studies department, said in describing his pride that the ALA chose Western for its conference.

"We bid for it … we competed against other universities and we were lucky because we had very strong support from our administration," Na'Allah said.

Na' Allah is a longtime member of the ALA and is also Nigerian-born. He graduated from the university of Ilorin in Ilorin, Nigeria.

Na'Allah has high hopes for the program in humanizing the African continent, asserting that "Africa is not about HIV/AIDS, Africa is about people ... who deal with challenges, including HIV/AIDS, like any other people."

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