CHAPTER TWO: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND CURRENT CHALLENGES _____________________________________________________________________ the Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP) of President Blaise Compaoré. The constitutive congress of the PDP took place in April 1994 and Joseph Ki-Zerbo was elected as its president. Another emblematic intellectual in the struggle for independence, and recipient of a Nobel Prize for his research into original models of development, is René Holenstein. René Holenstein is a renowned expert on African realities and has been the director of the Swiss Cooperation Office in Burkina Faso for several years. He currently chairs the DDC governance section. The title of the book A quand l’Afrique? (Still waiting for Africa) is a challenging question. Denying the tragic fatality into which Africa is so often locked, the book places the history of the African continent between a glorious past that hosted the first human civilisation – the Egyptian civilisation – and a self-confident future where hope is no longer an empty word but a real opportunity to develop today. With his brief, but precise, questions directed at Joseph Ki-Zerbo, René Holenstein reveals the audacity of a fruitful and imaginative thinking nourished by a knowledge we seldom find in the West. Joseph Ki-Zerbo was the first African to graduate from the Sorbonne and is the author of The history of black Africa. He broke the yoke of a story that had been confiscated for a long time and which had been rewritten by the colonisers. He reminds us that the strength of Africa is still based on solid, pre-colonial foundations: power sharing, various belongings, informal links of solidarity – that is, on so many features pleading for a new federalism. When René Holenstein asked him if Africa can emerge from its marginalisation, Ki-Zerbo responded: “We can intellectually build a new Africa. We have niches, particularly in terms of cultural industries. We have researchers, inventors, producers and creators in the field of music, dance, visual arts, theatre, community life and friendliness, care of the weakest, original management of the environment, relation toward health and death, ancestors, love, conflict management… My impression is that Europe cannot understand that Africa can play a beneficial role for humanity. It limits the route of Africa to past decades when Africa was colonized and poorly decolonized… This is why we must begin with history and end with history. Apart from this heart-rending review of history, there won’t be a new world vision, a new cosmogony that will bring goods, services and values.” Bibliography The black African world (Paris, Hatier, 1964). History of black Africa (Paris, Hatier, 1972). General history of Africa; collective work (Paris, Présence africaine/Edicef/Unesco, 1991). Africa, when? Interview with René Holenstein (Editions de l’Aube, RFI prices, Witness of the world, 2004). Black Africa, with Didier Ruef (Paris, Infolio editions, 2005). 116. 62 Confident in the capacity of its people, Burkina Faso has developed faith in its own ability and in the commitment of its people to the country, including its citizens living outside the country. This constitutes an important force in building tomorrow’s emerging country, but the country should know how to mobilise this force. In this context, the dynamism and work capacity of Burkina Faso are real assets that can be used in the development of the country of tomorrow.