Mrs Angela Colley, the Secretary of State for Tourism and Culture, has expressed serious concern over what she considered the low participation of Gambians in the promotion of Gambian culture, calling on all and sundry to look inwards and put an end to this trend. “I want us to look inwards. You cannot celebrate Gambian culture if you do not have Gambians themselves participating in the celebration. In the past, there has been little participation from the Gambian population and I want this to change,” she said.

Speaking at a cocktail organised to launch the 2008 international roots festival and media campaign held at the Paradise Suites hotel last Friday underscored the importance of culture towards the promotion of peace in The Gambia in particular and Africa in general.

According to Secy Angella Colley, the festival would be refocused on a new direction as, she disclosed, for the first time the festival would move to the Central River Region where participants would be spending a night and tour the villages and heritage sites in that area.

The 9th edition of the International Roots Festival slated for 30th May to 7th June 2008 is a biennial event conceived in 1996 by the government of The Gambia to commemorate the enslavement of millions of Africans in the Americas and the Caribbean during the 17th and 18th centuries.

It is also intended to serve as a bridge-building initiative between Africans on the continent and all peoples of African descent in the Diaspora.

The inspiration for the festival, according to research, is drawn from the late Alex Haley’s famous book, Roots, which details the story of how he traced his 8th generation ancestry to Kunta Kinteh, a slave caught in the village of Juffureh and forcibly transported to America where he was sold into slavery.

Research also shows that over 243,000 Senegambians were forcibly transported on registered transatlantic slave ships between 1645 and 1800s. Consequently it is inferable that The Gambia is home to millions of Africans in the Diaspora through their ancestral umbilical cord.