My journey through Graphic - Edmund Smith Asante writes (Part 11)
The AU Commission Chairperson, Nkosana Zuma, also told the 4th EU-Africa summit that Africa was looking at transformative policies that would enable it to add value to its material resources, “so that we can grow trade in manufactured goods, in addition to the raw materials that we are already exporting”.
Paying glowing tribute to the late Nelson Mandela, President of the European Commission, Mr Barosso, also said he hoped his commitment to peace, freedom, justice and his wisdom would inspire discussions at the summit.
Adding to the discourse, the President of the European Council, Van Rompuy, said Europe was committed to helping Africa bring an end to conflicts.
President of the AU, Abdel Aziz, also said, “We will work tirelessly to find solutions to our problems, but we may not have the means to implement and bring about the solutions on our own; hence, we will then call upon partners and the global community to support our efforts.”
Encounter with EU MP
One of the high points of my visit to Brussels, though, was an interview with the Vice-Chair of the European Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy Committee, Britta Thomsen, who advocated that Africa should develop local solutions for its energy challenges instead of depending on Europe.
During the interview conducted in her office at the European Parliament in Brussels on April 3, 2014, Ms Thomsen, a Danish Social Democrat, stated that Africa needed to advance energy solutions because globally 1.6 billion people did not have access to energy and “without access to energy, you can’t develop anything.
You will keep on the same level of very low economic activity”.
Another memorable experience in Brussels was meeting up with a Danish journalist, Mick Madsen, who had a stint with The Independent newspaper in the early 2000s when I was Editor of the paper.
Mick kept asking me when I would visit Denmark, so as we corresponded, I assured him I was sure it would be soon.
Interestingly though, when I had the opportunity to visit Copenhagen, work had moved him to Brussels.
Time with the Madsens
However, as fate would have it, the opportunity to see each other presented itself when I covered the 4th EU-Africa Summit, so I informed Mick of my trip, and he made time to check up on me at my hotel and also extended an invitation to me to visit him at home for dinner.
The journey to his residence, where I met with his wife, Eliza Chibilika, an African from Zambia, was smooth, and the Danish dinner (or was it a Belgian one?) went well.
However, it was during my return to my hotel by train that I encountered some difficulty because I decided to try a different line as suggested. Having missed my stop, I had to stay onboard the train to the last stop so I would be able to retrace my route.
That eventually paid off, aside from the fact that I got back to the hotel quite late.
Well, soon it was time to get back home after the summit had ended, and we had to fly back to Copenhagen before connecting flights to our countries – Ghana and Kenya.
It was when I presented my passport at the immigration counter at the Copenhagen Airport Kastrup that my wahala began.
My travel document went through scrutiny as if it were under a microscope while I stood there waiting for the official.
Still not satisfied, he called a colleague to come for my passport. I gathered that was the subject of the conversation when he handed my passport to the other official, who asked me to follow him.
I was instructed to sit on a chair in a sort of corridor at the airport as the official entered a room and came out after several minutes, asking me to follow him back to where we had come from.
It was then that I inquired what was amiss, and he, in a matter-of-fact way, replied as he shrugged his shoulders, “Maybe they think you are a drug dealer or something”.
Unbelievable! I said to myself. Oh, that was why the officer at the counter asked me a torrent of questions.
It all started coming back to me. He asked about my profession and why I had come to Denmark twice in a month.
Although I responded truthfully that I was a journalist and that I was there at the invitation of a non-profit organisation, International Media Support on a programme, which included covering the 4th EU-Africa Summit, I guess he was not in the least satisfied with my answer; hence, my detention at the airport, when all I was thinking about was making the long journey back home after my duties.
I was angered at being tagged a drug dealer when, to me, I had not given any reason for suspicion or for anyone to doubt my identity, or why I was in Denmark for the second time in a month.
Well, someone might say the official was only doing his job.
