 by welcoming our colleagues and the attend those who are on Zoom as well as the other platform around and also extend my welcome to those of us who are attending in person. Before I proceed with the with the event, I would like to acknowledge that the University of Regina is situated on treaty four lands with a presence in treaty six. These are the territories of the Nihayawak Anishinaabe, the Kota, La Thota and Nakota and the homeland of the Métis Métis nation. Today, these lands continue to be the shared territory of many diverse peoples from near and far. My name is Aziz Douay and I'm the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Regina. I am pleased to moderate today's book launch hosted by the Center for Socially Engaged Theatre at the University of Regina. The Center under the current director, Dr. Taigu Afulabi, has been in operation actually for about a year now and this is the inaugural event that is hosted by the Center or within the Center, so we're excited to be here. Dr. Taigu Afulabi is Canada Research Chair in Socially Engaged Theatre. He is also an assistant professor at the University of Regina and a research associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He received his PhD from the University of Victoria in Canada. He is an applied theatre practitioner with a decade of experience working across a variety of creative and community contexts in over a dozen countries across four continents, and he is disconnectionized with the theme of the book launch by soft power and cultural diplomacy or public diplomacy. His practice and research interests include cultural performance, decolonization, community-based and socially engaged creative practice and research ethics. He is the founding artistic director of theatre in Missouri International in Nigeria and serves on the board of the International Federation Theatre Research. I am looking here before I proceed with my introductory remarks about the book as well as introducing the speakers. I want to turn it over to Dr. Jeff Keshin, the president of the University of Regina, to deliver some opening remarks and welcome remarks. Jeff, are you online? Good morning everyone. President Keshin is just across the hallway. He just needs 30 seconds and he will be here. I apologize. Thank you very much. No worries. We can actually, the other editors are also online, so we could use that to introduce the other editors. So I'm looking here also. Thanks. Here we go. Thank you. I'm sorry to want to interrupt. I know you're on camera. Yeah, the floor is yours to deliver some opening remarks for this exciting book launch today. Thank you, Tim. I appreciate it. Again, I'm sorry I'm in the dark here. I want to begin by respectfully acknowledging and echoing that the University of Regina with its three federated colleges, the First Nations University of Canada, and Luther College and Luther College is situated in Regina on Treaty 4 territory. And with our two faculties, social work and nursing, partially in Saskatoon, that we are also in territory known as Treaty 6. And these are the traditional lands of the Oshinapak, the Nihayawak, the Dakota, Lakota, and Dakota, and the homeland of the Métis nation. Today, these lands continue to be the shared territory of diverse peoples from near and far. And with today's book launch, with its focus on amplifying narratives and experiences and realities that are anti-oppressive, this territorial acknowledgement has special resonance. I want to extend a warm welcome to everyone who is attending. I understand that a large number of you are elsewhere in the world in time zones that are far different from ours in Saskatchewan. And that speaks volumes about the importance of the book being launched today, and about the work, terrific work being done more generally through the Centre for Socially Engaged Theatre and the University of Regina's Faculty of Media, Art, and Performance. And I can't speak about the Centre for Socially Engaged Theatre without highlighting. It's a fantastic director, Dr. Tywell Afalabi. In the relatively short time he has been here at our university, Tywell has made splendid and outstanding impact in a number of ways. Just a thumbnail sketch. On an administrative level, he has provided a great deal of guidance to me and to others at our university, such as, among other things, volunteering to participate in the Search Advisory Committee that has selected our next incoming provost and vice president, academic. As an educator, I know firsthand that he has had a profoundly positive impact on our students. As a candidate research chair among the most prestigious recognitions nationally and socially engaged theatre, he leads an active and increasingly meaningful research program characterized by a wide range of regional and national and international collaborations. It is one of those many collaborations we are here to celebrate today. Thank you for inviting me to offer these words in celebration. The launch of recentering cultural performance in orange economy in post-colonial Africa, policy, soft power and sustainability. I will co-edit this book with two other academics. Ola Sula, I apologize for the mispronunciations. Ola Sula Oganubi and also this doctor, Ola Sula Oganubi and Dr. Shadrach Okuma. And of course it features contributions from many others who are here today. I want to extend my sincere congratulations to all of you. As a professor myself, I do know how challenging the process is of editing or otherwise contributing to a book of publications, how challenging that can be. And at the same time, I also know how gratifying, how rewarding it is to see that work in print after months and in some cases years of hard work. You should all share immense pride in this book and a great deal of optimism for the impact it will have in the interrelated fields of creative practice and artistic performance, cultural policy in Africa and beyond. On behalf of the University of Regina, my heartfelt congratulations to everyone involved, and thank you for everyone, to everyone for attending this launch today. Congratulations Tywell, congratulations to your colleagues. Thank you so much, Dr. Keshan, for your opening remarks. And in fact, you set the stage beautifully for the discussion today. I wanted to just kind of continue on the challenges of editing this book and the contribution that this volume is actually going to, it will be adding to current scholarship. When I was browsing through the book as part of preparing for today's book launch, I was impressed by the really the post-colonial prism and the offer centric perch that the book takes into the role of national theaters and cultural centers, as well as cultural policy, festivals and the film industry, and their role in existing soft power and cultural diplomacy. The contributions here deliver provocative perspectives on ways existing cultural and non-cultural infrastructures sometimes referred to as the orange economy. This is the first time that I heard about the orange economy. And how this orange economy can open opportunities for diplomacy and soft power. In fact, some of the contributors come from the world of diplomacy, not just strictly from the world of theater, so that adds to the richness of the work. So these are avenues by which cultural performances and creative practice can be re-centred in post-colonial Africa and in the post-global pandemic, Iraq. The volume is also positioned within post-colonial discourse, as I mentioned before, to amplify narratives and experiences within, especially within critical discourse and promote an anti-oppressive kind of pedagogy and scholarship. The book launch today convenes, as I mentioned before, experts, but also theater scholars and policymakers within the arts and cultural sector around the world. And I am pleased to introduce our speakers today, Professor Cynthia Schneider, Professor Suni Ododou and Dr. Alishola John, as well as our reviewer. Professor Cynthia Schneider is a professor in the practice of diplomacy, co-director of the laboratory of global performance and politics at Georgetown University. She's also the co-director of the Timbuktu Renaissance and former US ambassador to the Netherlands. Thank you so much for joining us today, Professor Cynthia Schneider. The next speaker will be Dr. Suni Ododou, professor of performance, aesthetics, theater practice and theater technology, as well as general manager and CEO of the National Theater in Nigeria. Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Ododou. The third speaker who is joining us today is Dr. Alishola John, who is head of department of aeronautical information service in the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency and the National Public Relations Officer for the National Aeronautical Information Management Association of Nigeria. And he is also a research affiliate with Amadou fellow university in Zaria, Nigeria. He will also be joined by book reviewer, Dr. Confidence Ogbona. With that, I'm going to turn it over to our first speaker, Professor Schneider, over to you. Thank you very much for the very kind introduction. And I just want to thank so much, my friend, Dr. Tywo Afolabi, for inviting me to participate. I'm so sorry, I want to make sure everybody can hear me. I'm getting this message about unmuting. I have unmuted. This is all okay, right? Okay, good. Stop giving me that message. I want to thank Dr. Tywo Afolabi for inviting me to contribute to this volume. It's really an incredible honor to be part of this book with all of you. And what I'd like to do in my 10 minutes is speak a little bit generally about cultural diplomacy, touching on a couple of the essays in the book or ideas floated in those essays in the book. And then I'll talk about my essay, which is on my work in Mali with the Timbuktu Renaissance. First to caveat, I am an academic. I teach at Georgetown University. However, I have absolutely no academic training in this field. My knowledge of cultural diplomacy comes entirely from experience. My experience as US ambassador to the Netherlands, which I did from 1998 to 2001. My job, I entered as an art historian, having studied Dutch art, taught Dutch art, written books on Rembrandt. And then since then, my work in cultural diplomacy projects and activities both at Georgetown with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, and around the world with a particular focus on Muslim majority communities. I was fascinated to read in a number of essays, the confidence that you, the authors seemed to project about the ability of cultural diplomacy to do many things both shape the image of a country in the outside world, and shape unity, cultural cohesion, peace among different groups, a sense of purpose, a sense of identity within the country. And there seemed to be a suggestion that if the cultural policy could be gotten right, then all these great things would happen. I'm going to suggest something else. Because at the heart of cultural diplomacy are artists. And to me, the greatest contribution of artists is that they speak their minds, they voice what people are thinking and often can't say or can't articulate all together. They are the canaries in the coal mine, they're the ones who hold up a mirror to authority. So, it is possible that artistic creations can do all these things. I think it will happen because of the creative act of artists not because of a cultural policy created by a government. Really what artists need most is support to do their work. You know the United States there were a number of references to the Cold War in the book and that was indeed the heyday of cultural diplomacy in the United States. It was the time when cultural diplomacy was taken most seriously. But do you know what was the most powerful impact what had the most powerful impact of the US public diplomacy, whether it was rock music jazz music theater books. It wasn't showing the US lifestyle. It was showing and actually putting into practice freedom of expression. That's what made the impact. The fact that people could criticize the United States that they could speak freely whether it's in their music or in their comments after their music. That's what knocked people out behind the iron curtain. And that's what helped seed the eventual change and dissolution of the Soviet Union. Now, in the Cold War period, the United States could stand for freedom of expression in Eastern Europe while at the very same time as you all know very well, assassinating elected leaders in Africa and Central America. Not anymore. Not with the internet. We live in such a different environment 24 seven media as you all know citizen journalism social media. You have to be consistent. And this is where soft power comes in. You can't just do soft power. You have to be a model already you have to be admired and respected. You don't have to walk the walk. You know the United States, for example, likes to say we stand for women's rights. Well, after exiting Afghanistan and look at the state of women there. We can't really say that anyone we can say it but who's going to believe it. You know, so there are standards of consistency in today's world that didn't exist before. Your country has such fun now I'm thinking particularly of Nigeria that I read about but it's true of so many countries, such phenomenal capacity in the creative and artistic realm. You know, I hope, rather than trying to find the policy that will make it work. Support the artist to make it work. You know what what if you revived Festak 77. You know, you want to project a good image of Nigeria, bring the world to Nigeria and be a platform for creativity and discussion. That's the kind of thing that makes an impact not, you know, some diplomat saying something or not the artist trying to say what the diplomat is thinking. Now there are ways to use culture in diplomacy that I found and I hope that ambassadors from all your countries will think of this. And that is highlight the artistic products from your country. I hosted a number of screenings of films from the United States and they weren't all positive. I hosted a screening of the film traffic which portrayed the real challenges of the drug war in a narrative. There were no good guys in this film, but watching that film together helped advance one of my main jobs as ambassador, which was fighting the problem of illegal drugs passing through the Netherlands. That's what happened. And this is to me the power of the arts and the way it can be used in diplomacy, because when you experience jointly a narrative that is moving in some way, you are in a moment of emotional vulnerability and openness. And in that moment, you can have extraordinary conversations, and you can change minds, and you can change policies. After seeing this film in the conversation afterwards, the judge the Dutch made dramatic changes in their policies, which helped us work together, much more effectively. And this is really the mission of the laboratory of the globe of global performance and politics which I co direct our mission isn't to promote the United States or to promote Georgetown University. Our mission is to humanize global politics through the power of performance. When that happens, then you can shift one person, maybe two people maybe three people. But when that's how change happens, and that's, I think what the arts can do. I'm so glad in your essays to see your emphasis on, for example, your both nollywood where two essays come together I always watch Nigerian films. When I'm on cutter airways because they have a great assortment of Nigerian films on the plane, and you know I can think of one film like up north where I learned so much about your country. And, you know, through a really authentic story that showed good and bad two sides challenges you're facing didn't solve all those challenges. But I felt I really learned a lot I love that film. The emphasis on the national theater, I will tell you now a opposite story had a very unfortunate experience at Georgetown with the national experience of another of a country in West Africa that brought we invited them to come They were doing a West African version of a play by Tennessee Williams was a fantastic performance of 10 blocks on the Camino Real which we hosted an outdoor performances at Georgetown and around Washington DC. I tried so hard to reach the embassy of that country, because I wanted them to help us invite the diaspora from that country. I wrote I called I sent a human being in person. I never was able to get a response. You know that said to me that that embassy, the ambassador, the people in it. They just didn't think theater was important. They had their national theater in Washington DC at the premier university. You know the ambassador of the country should have been there. They could have done so much with that. I'm so glad to see you emphasizing the importance of your national theater and I hope you succeed in touring it. And, and I hope that your ambassadors will recognize its importance. Now my essay briefly is about a different approach to cultural diplomacy and this is something that I think is a bit more appropriate for the 24 seven world that we live in. This is an approach I call leveraging local voices. My project the Timbuktu Renaissance which I'm one of the co directors that's on my project, our project, the other two are Molly in, including the premier music producer in Molly and if you know anything about Molly which I'm sure you do music is it's calling the world rock and roll. The blues all came from Molly and music and it's known and loved all over the world inside the country. Music is like the internet. It's how people communicate it's how they exchange ideas. It's how they understand their past. It's how they understand their present, it's how they envision their future. The artists are greatly respected. And so with the guidance of many answer the premier music producer. We put together a project that Timbuktu Renaissance with the goal of supporting Molly's recovery from conflict as you know Molly was invaded and partially occupied by extremists in 2012. She was expelled by French led forces in 2013, but unfortunately, since then, the country has still been wrought with violence from extremists actually spreading throughout the country and now also political instability with a new military government and that is causing more instability now and the economy is unfortunately in terrible shape because there's no tourism. There seems to be a, I guess I'll just keep going. I see there's a fire alarm from the organizers. They've all disappeared, but we do have our online audience in here. Yeah. Thank you so much. There is a fire alarm in the building so I just moved to another building, and I'm continuing the moderation so thank you so much. Okay, so I'm just wrapping up because I want to give. Okay. So, so together we formed the Timbuktu Renaissance and what we have done is to organize the first public concerts in Timbuktu since the occupation. And we did this, you know, here's a city that was, of course, known for its great civilization and learning and culture, always very tolerant had tremendous diversity in it. And now no one trusted anyone no one knew who'd been on the side of the extremists who'd been on what side of the city was in really bad shape. So what they needed a concert. Well, that was exactly what they needed, because concerts, and we hold them every other month or so, and been doing it since 2017, bring the population together. And what brings the different people who didn't trust each other in the same space, enjoying the same activity, remembering, and this was emphasized in a lot of your essays, remembering their national identity, their national social cohesion, feeling Molly and again feeling proud to be Molly and again. And literally after those concerts, you know, forming coalitions within civil society that they hadn't done before. We also host discussions after our concerts, raising issues of the role of cultural heritage, for example, in stamping out extremism we're holding conversations around the upcoming elections after our concerts now. We also perform in other parts of the country at festivals so we bring people together from all over the country. We have residencies in neighboring countries as you know it's easier to get to Europe than your next door neighbors in Africa. We have residencies in neighboring countries bringing together Molly and and musicians from Niger, for example, or Mauritania, and they compose music together, which we release is all the songs are about peace and peace building and good governance all the things that the people want. And they come out in songs and they also exhort their politicians in songs. And I'll just end by saying this project, which has been going since 2017 and has actually grown is funded, not by an arts organization is funded by Ned, the National Endowment for Diversity, because Ned recognizes I'm happy to say the power of music to bring people together in Molly, and it won't be music everywhere it's not a one size fits all you know better what would work in your country. But in Molly it's music, and it's really having a positive impact. I'm there and I'm happy to answer any questions later. You're muted Aziz sorry. Thank you so much Cynthia and I really appreciate the examples you cited and in fact, there is currently in Saudi Arabia actually they are looking at the entertainment industry as a means of wielding that soft power. Anyway, I'll leave that for the discussion but I'm going. Yes, I have strong views. Exactly. We'll leave that for discussion. Later and I'm going to invite Professor Sony do do for your remarks. The floor is yours. Thank you. I want to thank Cynthia. I'm playing paint going tribute to the National Theater. And the National Theater is so much recognized in Nigeria and in Africa. After hosting first attack 77. It has become an epicenter of cultural activities in Nigeria. For us. It's an edifice that commands attention. Foreign artists and creatives. Desires of seeing what the cultural landscape in Nigeria looks like gravitate towards the national theater to fill the culture of pause of the nation. By studying what is state. The teams and lessons inherent in such productions that make it to the national theater. They can get what other people are thinking about the nation. And what the local creatives are making out of the happenings around them. In the national theater. We host the national group of Nigeria. To that extent. The national theater continues to help in the preservation of the cultural relics of Nigeria. We can very, very important in cultural exchanges when the troops travels within and outside the country. And cause and performances where aspects of the nation's culture. Are enacted on stage. Few buildings in Africa evoke the kind of amazement that national theater edifice commands in the whole of African continent. The national theater is called the most iconic cultural building. The headquarters of culture and the oyster of culture in Nigeria. All these make the national theater more than just a building, but an expression of the can do is spirit of Nigeria. We come to represent a cultural heritage of the country. Widely used as a synodic for Lagos in artistic and creative works. Such is the pool factor that national theater has become that foreign dignitaries. First off. International societies, when in Nigeria, always want to visit this most historic venue. And home of Fester 77. Through such visits. They experienced Nigeria in its cultural form. It's a great trade of all the negatives that some international tabloids promote as the only thing obtainable in Nigeria. Through such visits. Culture exchange. All diplomacy diplomacy a call. The continue existence of the theater. This soft power that helps to project Nigeria as a destination of choice for tourists visiting Africa. With all the cultural agencies domiciled within the national theater complex. Diverse aspects of the Nigerian culture are always on display. Visual arts to sculptures and dressmaking. The national theater part time is a microcosm of the nation. Right now. Our focus is to address. How to develop the talents of the youth. To that level. Where. They can. And explore their creative potentials. With economic. Viability. We. Are innovating. At the moment. Massively. So that they can yield. The needs. Of society. Also yield. To the. Latent and. Very, very. Aggressive. Inbuilt talents. Of the young ones. To this effect. We're coming up with a four hops. New. To appeal to the creative artistry. Of our young ones. These four hops. Are in music. Fashion. Theme. And I. The technology. I city. So the idea. Is for us to. Engage our youth. In all these diverse. Creative. Of course. It's a known fact. The music. Ruled the world today. We believe. Our key stars. In the music industry. Have their replicas. All over the nation. With soy hops. Will be able. To have best. For the entertainment world. The likes of the video. With kids. And. Our film stars. Genevieve. And so on. Therefore. We. Are committed. To. Social engagement. Exploding. The latent. And quiet creative abilities. Of our youth. The government is committed. So much to this. So much to this. But. Is well known. Government cannot do much for the creative industry. Other than to. Provide enabling environment. And that is why. We have been appealing. In our own. Creative way. Using. The national status of power. For the creatives in Nigeria. To recognize this. And begin to key. Into that understanding. A product. We readily introduced. Is. The national theater. Unity. Festival. This festival. Brings together. Diverse culture. In Nigeria. And the South West African region. To exhibit. Their. Culture. The base of their culture. And through this. The sustainability. Of. Our cultural heritage. People are getting to know more. Even the youth. They don't know much about their past. I've been exposed to this. And they're excited. Is our belief. That by the time. The national theater. Is a. Well. Reveated and delivered. With the fresh. The logical. Has meant. There be so much. To offer the world. I want to see this opportunity. To thank. The editors. Who invited us to make contribution to this work. And. It gives opportunity to. To make. Silent statements. Provide information. About the national theater. And his current state. And how. Is been serving. As a soft power. Providing information. Interaction. Ideas. Art. Language. Language. And other aspects of culture. Among nations. And their people. Across the world. We continue to engage your donations. In cultural exchange. Recently. By green embassy. Re-engage with us. To begin to explore ways. We can further. The. Culturally. Don't forget. The Bulgarian government. Provided the. Workforce. That build a national theater. Even though in a bigger firm. So. We are happy. That this book. Is also a major contribution. To knowledge. In the area of clinical diplomacy. And soft power. Being part of it. For us. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Professor. And we'll. Get back and open for questions later. Open the floor for questions later. So right now I want to. Given. That we're running out of time. I'm going to invite Dr. John. Dr. To deliver. Thank you. So. The question that you. Asked why. African. Or why don't African governments. Tap into existing. Resources. To. Of cultural. The cultural diplomacy and soft power. With that. I'm going to leave that question. In here. For the discussion. And I'm going to invite. The audience here for questions. Your question in the chat. And I'm going to. Read it here. So let me go to the first question. Here in the chat. Just bear with us for one second here. If you. So the question that I have here. Here is for Dr. Cynthia Schneider. So could you please share more insights on your work in Mali. And how did your team. The mentality of music to achieve. What you have achieved there. And what. What can other West African. Countries like Nigeria. And. Like an idea. Professor Schneider. Thank you. Thank you for the. Thank you for the question. First of all, I just, I want to emphasize that. I'm not going to talk too much about that. I'm not going to talk too much about that. I'm not going to talk to Renaissance, but I really have been led by my Malian colleague, Manny Ansar. Who is known around the world. And we're going to have to. Have some words. With my friend, Dr. Sunday there about whether Nigerian music is dominating the world stage or whether Molly and music is, but anyway, we'll, we'll share it. But. He was the director of the film. Of musical concerts and festivals. He was the brain. He organized the famous festival. That used to take place outside Timbuktu. And in fact, the last edition in 2012, just a month before Timbuktu was overtaken by extremists. Bono came and played there. So when Molly. And then there's other formalities together, all the Molly musicians, but also musicians from around the world. So. When Molly encountered these incredible difficulties and, you know, the country was torn apart. And of course, notice this, what did the extremists do. When they occupied Molly. They banned music. And this is something I often think. extremists and authoritarians Saudi Arabia get that culture matters and democracies like the United States or Nigeria, maybe many African countries don't, you know, the extremists understood that music was what was holding society together in Mali. And so they banned it. Yes, they can say our interpretation of Islam say you shouldn't have music but, you know, everyone knows that's not an authentic interpretation of the religion. I think they targeted it because they knew the power of music in Mali and the same thing happens in Afghanistan. And so if that if banning music is what you need to do to break down society to make society easier to dominate, then rebuilding music, enabling musicians to perform publicly, enabling people to come together around music is what will rebuild society. And so led by Manny Ansar, we organized that we formed the Timbuktu Renaissance at a conference, a political conference, the Brookings institutions US Islamic World Forum, which used to take place every year in Doha is an effort to build understanding between the United States and Muslim majority countries around the world. And I described this in the essay, I won't go into every detail. But we were given the opportunity as part of that conference to convene a group of Malians and also Americans to brainstorm how could culture help Mali recover from conflict. And so we had the opportunity to bring together some of the great musicians. We had Villa Farkatore, the son of Ali Farkatore, Fadi Matawala, Dumar, and also the great scholars and public intellectuals of Mali, notably Dr. Abdukadir Hydra, who is the person who saved Timbuktu's very precious hundreds of thousands of manuscripts from potential destruction by the jihadists by getting them out of Timbuktu during the occupation in an incredible operation that is described in the book, The Badass Librarians of Timbuktu. So we had all of these cultural leaders of Mali together in one place. And we came up with the idea of the Timbuktu Renaissance. And, you know, over time, we kind of refined our purpose and we were able to find funding. And, you know, our focus is on music production and of concerts and also producing new songs, new albums that we distribute supporting young artists, supporting female artists, and always with this theme of building peace. And so that means, for example, in our concerts, we will bring together artists from the north of Mali, such as the new phenomenon Kader, and artists from the south, such as Villa Farkatore, the two of them performed together at our concerts and events frequently. And so people literally see the unity of the country with these two people who look very differently, as poor eggs tend to look differently from Bambara people, and yet perform together, have the same goals from the country, clearly have become great friends, which they have. And so when they perform together, then their fans come together too. So you show unity on stage and that creates unity in the public. And something else that happens, you know, for a country that's been occupied and it's really under a lot of strain, people enjoy themselves. This should not be underestimated. It's really important for people to actually enjoy themselves together. And then they feel the sense of community with their neighbors. And the other thing that's important in Mali is the music industry is really important there. People become musicians, people become musical technicians. And so we help to train young musical tradition, technicians for recording and distribution, and also young musicians. So that helps the economy as well. And we've had a number of partners along the way. One very important one is Google Arts and Culture. And Google Arts and Culture, which is their nonprofit branch, I'm sure you have put a lot of Nigerian culture on it. If you haven't, you totally should and you should connect with them. It's a great platform that has a lot about different cultures around the world. The head of Google Arts and Culture came with us on our first trip to Mali. I just called him up and asked him and incredibly enough he came. And at that time in 2014 made a commitment to create a site dedicated to Mali's culture. And you can see it now. We launched it in March of last year, a year ago. You can see it online. It's extraordinary. It's called Mali Magic. And they, that's Mali Magic, two words. Google devoted an incredible amount of resources, human resources, not money. Nobody got any new money out of this because it's their nonprofit branch, of course. But they devoted a lot of time and effort to translating key manuscripts into English, Arabic, French and Spanish and providing summaries of them online. So you can see a whole library of subjects in these manuscripts on the website. We have hundreds of music videos. There's modern art and there's extraordinary things that they've done with key monuments. So you can take a 3D tour of the Gen A mosque, for example. And so that is, you know, there for a, unfortunately tourists can't really visit Mali right now, but they can visit Mali online through Mali Magic. So I'm just going to add one caveat. We feel the effect at every one of our concerts and we interview people afterwards and they say, I didn't think such a thing was possible. I now feel part of my country again. I can envision a future again that has very positive impacts. But, you know, honestly, the government in Mali is a catastrophe right now. So it does take a lot of social cultural change over time to have an impact on government. But I think it'll happen. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Cynthia, Professor Schneider actually for sharing with us those insights. I do have another question for Professor Sunday. So the question reads, apart from providing enabling environment, sorry, apart from providing enabling environment for music and other art forms to thrive in Nigeria, how can the Nigerian government, how can the Nigerian government begin to place the value of the arts given that Nigeria and many African governments prefer to invest more in STEM? Sorry, investment in what? In STEM, that means science, technology, engineering. A new policy in STEM is just being endorsed in Nigeria and we are fortunate to be invited to be part of the policy review. Over time, there have been some of this policy without the input of the humanities. So now, we've been able to let them understand that there's no innovation that technologically driven without an artistic component. Technology is to assist the ease of getting things done. So, and it's in the arts, the creative industry that most of the processes we go through to create that require this technology. And that resonated is now part of the policy. So that's to let you know that the Nigerian government is responsive. By the time the policy is being implemented, apart from just creating an environment for creatives to thrive, there will not be a policy that will drive most of the things that the creative industry in Nigeria engage in. To that extent, we believe there will be new understanding, new air to marry creativity and science technology innovation together. So that ultimately, the society benefits, the creative artist benefits, and a whole lot will happen within the cochlear space too. Beyond this, proposals are before different strata of a government in Nigeria for direct investments in the creative industries, not just picking, the main thing that's focused now is in tourism. But beyond that, we believe that artists can be supported to grow and get to their full potentials. When an artist gives us full potential, that is becoming somewhat like a master of his art. That way, he has to hold on the economy of his existence. And can also become employer of labor. And that is the idea, let our youth grow depending on their creative ingenuity. That way, put food on the table and also make provision for dependence. Thank you. Thank you so much, Professor Odu-Du. Are there any other questions from the audience? If not, I'm going to take the advantage of my role as the anchor or the facilitator to just ask a question here to the editors as well as to the panelists, today's speakers. Yeah, I don't see any question here. My own question here to the editors as well as to the speakers is with regards to soft power and social diplomacy. When we talk about soft power, I think that's kind of the, when Professor Schneider was talking about it, it's really kind of, there is an institutional approach to soft power. In fact, the United States after 9-11, they had an undersecretary for public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy at the time. I'm just wondering in your book, is there an institutional approach in terms of governments being cognizant of the importance of the theater or nollywood as means of wielding soft power in Africa or for their own countries? I see that, Professor Ogunbi? Yeah, I can talk about that too. You're one of the editors, so please go ahead. Yeah, I'm happy to say too much because I know we're pressed for time. But in terms of institutional approach, there's been, I think what I would say is there's some effort. Sometimes in terms of rhetoric, and I'm really happy that Professor Ogunbi was able to speak to some of the things that we are also seeing from an institutional level. I think part of the challenges contributors or authors sometimes have is a difficulty with accessing resources or information from the side of governments. And that speaks to bureaucracy. Sometimes you go there, you have to fill some forms, you have to wait for, I remember the last time I went to the Ministry of Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and they have to fill several forms just to speak and be representative from the Ministry. So there's institutional challenges that impede access to this information. So while there are efforts at the institutional level, there are challenges with authors accessing this information. And I hope that the freedom of information would help to resolve some of these challenges for authors especially. And so you can also maybe also refer to the aspect of rhetorics. You hear a lot of reference to subpar rhetorics by Minister of Information, by even the Vice President several times in some of his speeches. So there's some elements of understanding of the effects and the influence of soft power, but from an institutional level in terms of, you know, coordinating the actions and the policies to be strategic enough, not just leaving it to non-state actors, but leaving it to the informal sector. That's where the challenge is. So I think what the government perhaps, I hope there are really some of the outputs that we are producing. We see a sense of that in some ways. But the point is that they need to be able to formalize some of these soft power approaches and integrate some of the soft power elements into foreign policy, especially for informal actors, including informal actors or non-governmental actors into foreign policy, especially in ways that can create effect and create influence or rebrand the nation beyond what the ambassadors, the typical ambassadors would do. And I'm happy about the work that is being done at the National Theater that Professor Oduda eloquently referred to. Those are some of the work we've been doing. In fact, while he was talking, I was, you know, documenting some of the next areas of research that I want to begin to explore in terms of moving the frontiers of, like confidence also referred to, moving the frontiers of soft power research beyond just documenting and analyzing how it can be useful, but also critiquing its value, its value for foreign policy and for other aspects of cultural diplomacy and also, you know, improving address status as a global power, not sorry, as a regional power in Africa, basically. So there are aspects that bring some improvement. What I want to see in the future is to see more access, more governments, government, academic collaboration that, you know, documents or, you know, provides documents that one can work with. And I think there are countries that are doing a lot more in that aspect like South Africa. There's, there is more, a lot easier to access some of this information. And that's why you'd argue, for instance, that in terms of visibility of soft power, South Africa seems to be miles ahead because the government is able to provide information to authors or academics to use that to build some of the arguments that they are making. I will stop there. Thank you. Thank you so much. If I may also add, I think one of the, one of the impetus for this work is really seeing the fact that, and for me, I may, you know, make it a person and other people that work in different spaces. And, and, you know, the fact that artists and cultural diplomats who are, as it were, non-state actors, and maybe they are their individual ventures and all of that, they, there are a lot of obstructions that we find in our work, right? And then we look at countries like, you know, like, like Canada, country like Germany, and of course the US and other spaces to see how the state has sort of brought in these interventions to be able to create an enabling environment for, you know, for cultural diplomats, as it were. And so even in trying to put this book together, we're very careful who we bring to rights because, like Dr. Gungumi was saying, there is, A, there is no access to the information, but also beyond that it seems that we are operating at different levels like the bureaucracy and the, the, everything is on this side and research is on this side. And it's like, what if we bring all of them together? But it's starting from one another. One, two is that I think we need to start looking into what is existing and how to know that basis. And I, you know, Dr. Gungumi mentioned South Africa, but even beyond South Africa, to look into other countries, not necessarily the West alone, but who have existing policies that are really creating space for cultural diplomacy to thrive and to leverage the, the, the, the soft power in a way that is useful, not just only for the state itself, but even for, you know, for every individual who is part of that ecosystem. Now the challenge lot of the time is that I think emphasis is always on entertainment, the, the other woods that we have, whether it's nollywood or it's bollywood or, and there's so much emphasis on spots. There's so much emphasis on all these glamorous, you know, which is, which is great. Yeah, exactly. And so we need to start thinking of how does, you know, really thinking about the culture from the, from the stem of not only how much it can give us from an economic standpoint, but in, you know, really weaving every aspect of it. And that, that includes theater, that includes performance, that includes music and all of that. And so I think that it's, it's quite loud that there are different areas, more areas to explore and hoping that, you know, whether we do that or that researchers do that to start exploring all of that. And hopefully that, you know, that our government, not just only Nigeria, but across different regions across the world that they can give us, give researchers, you know, more access to those, to those resources and those materials. Because I think those things are really needed in making the work really out there. So I'll leave it at that. I have a comment on that about how we can bridge the gap, but I don't, I don't want to abuse my prerogative as a facilitator. And I want to invite Professor Okuma, who is here with us as one of the co-editors to share with us your perspective. Professor Okuma? Right. While waiting for Professor Okuma, I just want to actually go back to the core notion of soft power. When you look at Joseph Nye, who came up with this concept early on, soft power is usually deployed as a complement, as something, as a formal power that is distinct from hard power, which is economic or military power. And soft power is based on the power of persuasion, of really influencing others to want the same outcomes that you want. So here, I guess my question to the editors here, but also to the speakers, what are some of the outcomes that African soft power would, would enable or would achieve? Anybody can go first? It depends on what the goals are. Yeah. You know, it really depends on the goals, you know, are the goals to build understanding with other countries or the goal. I personally am quite suspicious in the 21st century environment of the goal of projecting a particular image. You know, I'm not sure any country has a particular image, but, you know, maybe some do. I think it's, it tends to be diverse everywhere. I think you can build connections and you can project multiple images about your country. You can introduce your country around the world and it can have, you know, concrete returns in terms of economic trade. You know, Korea is an example. South Korea has put a huge amount of money. A huge amount of money into their culture. And if you look at the products, it's not like they're all positive, you know, K-pop. Everybody loves K-pop, but I mean, Squid Games, that was a perfectly horrible TV show that was watched all over the world and didn't say anything particularly positive about Korea, but everybody watched it and everybody wanted to know about Korea. So people go to Korea now. It's a cool place and the economy is thriving. That came after at least a decade of the government putting a lot of money into developing their commercial culture, developing television, developing film. So you become a destination, a place that people want to go to and trade with. The United States, when we use cultural diplomacy in a more transactional way, which I honestly don't think would be possible in this environment in the 21st century, our goal was to seed the ideas of a democratic society in countries that were within the Soviet bloc and to stop the threat of communism, which as you know, we did in different ways in different parts of the world. That was not saying that America was the greatest country on earth. Again, I want to emphasize that the way freedom of expression took hold behind the iron curtain was through Americans in different forms of culture, criticizing our society and government, actually doing free expression. You know, there's a famous Dizzy Gillespie quote when he's called into the State Department for a briefing before a tour, the great jazz musician, and he says, I don't want you to tell me what I'm going to say about America. I know my experience of America and I'm going to say it if someone asked me. Now, to the credit of the State Department, he went out on tour and this was a time of deep segregation in the United States and what impressed people was that the United States government sent out these musicians, including rock musicians, and that they weren't spokespeople for the government. That has enabled people to see what freedom of expression really was, not just a talking point. I think today the challenge is it can't be all government run and government organized. Actually, the U.S. government, what it has to spend on culture is not that much. It's nothing like what we spend before. They can't do the same thing. The challenge is how to partner with and leverage the private sector, and that's certainly true in Nigeria because that's where most of the cultural products are coming from. I'm going to give the floor to Ogonobi, but before I do that, I thought one of the things or one of the intended outcomes of cultural diplomacy and soft diplomacy is to improve the standing or the image or the branding of a certain nation, and I'm just kind of reminded in politics about the former president of the United States, President Trump or former President Trump, who called a number of countries in Africa as that word, like shithole countries. I'm tempted to think about this soft power and cultural diplomacy that Africa might wield as a counter narrative or a counter way to these negative stereotypes of Africa as a conflict-ridden continent. That was one of the things that I thought would be an outcome of this kind of mobilization of soft power. Anyone else thought that besides that former president, by the way? Yeah, quickly, I'll just say that I think your question eloquently, so some of the research I've done in the last probably 10 years, and it's significant and it's well put. The point to note is that there are several arguments about that one can make about the outcomes, the intended outcomes of African soft power, which I think is a little bit different in epistemology and ontology from what you have from the West, and that's some of the arguments with me. There's an African context of soft power that is quite unique in terms of its ambition and in terms of its purpose, and we talk about and ask a point of symbolic hegemony from talking about the realist point of view. There's an argument about soft power being an instrument of symbolic hegemony because some of these states are not able to compete globally from an economic or military point of view. Soft power gives them or cultural diplomacy as it were, gives them some sort of symbolic hegemony or symbolic hegemony within Africa, because perception matters and that also speaks to some of the points you also raised. The argument about the altruistic motive of of African soft power dimension that is just for the sake of rebranding image, beauty and image, and projecting cultural influence. So there are different dynamics that one could point to in terms of what is the intended outcome of soft power. But if you look at the point of original power dynamics, the argument about soft power is an instrument of symbolic hegemony or symbolic representivity for states to create some kind of a higher level dimension for itself in terms of its comparison with other states. And you see that in terms of soft power characteristics between Nigeria and South Africa. You could argue for instance, and we've argued that the only reason why South Africa is similarly regarded as a more dignified hegemony is simply because of its superior soft power characteristics. And so that's another argument that you could also argue about the issue around that Professor Ododo had referred to about improving tourism, future empowerment, and projecting cultural influence from a normative perspective of the intended outcome of soft power. So there are different arguments that one could point to in terms of how soft power can be useful for its states, especially that for African states that are the very period of global discusses, soft power is an instrument for them to come into the equation of global dynamics or global diplomacy and use their strengths to the advantage more or less because they don't have the strength in military assets or strength in economic assets, but soft power, cultural diplomacy gives them those instruments to projects that influence on multiple platforms or multiple levels. Thank you. I know we have two minutes to wrap it up because we don't want to go beyond that. But I would say that I think for me at the heart of all this is the fact that it's narrative, it's storytelling. Nobody's going to hear about the residential school system that happens in Canada until you get into Canada. Nobody's going to hear or lead you to them and say nobody. I mean, so many people don't even know about what happened in Australia with their origin. A lot of people don't even know what happened in the U.S., whether they gunshot and all that. I mean, thanks to social media now, where all these things are now becoming out there, but what we realize is that it's a controlled narrative. And you know, Chimamanda will always talk about one thing of a single story. A lot of the time the African continent as an identity, as an image, there is a certain against the people, the stereotype. And so, I do agree that it depends on what the government and the people want to achieve, but regardless of that, the other thing is that ultimately we're studying stories, we're studying narratives. And so nobody's going to come to Nigeria or go to Ghana or go to other part of the country, of the continent. If the only narrative they keep doing, it's war. Oh, this is that. But then people want to come to Canada. Nobody knows that. In the heart of Canada, it's minus the people, right? Rika is painted as a very beautiful, romanticized idea of life, until you get you're like, oh my goodness, it's minus 35, right? Again, how do we tell this story? It's about storytelling. So I think that's where we can put this kind of feed forward, not only in the terms of the geopolitics, which is great, but how can we all bring it together? Because that's what immigration has helped us to do now, that we're having Nigeria, you know, Nigerians in all over the world, we're having Kenyans, we're having different people, different cultures and identities in different spaces that are not necessarily their home as in physically their land. And so how can we start bringing all of this integration and connection and negotiation together? That's one of what I was going to add to what I was going to say. Totally agree. It's about building these counter-narrations to steer you to dominant stereotypes. We thought I'm looking here at the time and we have less than a minute. I'm just going to thank the panelists and the editors actually of this book, this great book, and just congratulate you on this wonderful contribution. I'm again going to thank Professor Cynthia Schneider and Professor Sonny Ododo and Dr. Ola Shola John, who couldn't make it today, but also I want to thank our reviewer, Confidence Ogobona, as well as the participants today, and I'm going to draw them the meeting to a close. And I just want to say thanks to Haram too, by the way. Oh, okay, sorry. Thank you to Haram, the actual leaders platform. So do they pay you? But anyway, I also want to thank our interpreters here today. They have done an amazing job in terms of translating the words that we do, but also just bearing with us through these hybrid virtual events as well. So thank you, and we wish you a happy and great rest of your day. Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye. Have a lot of good day. Thank you. Bye.