On October 17, 2025, UNESCO celebrated the completion of Volumes IX, X and XI of the General History of Africa, a monumental collective project mobilizing over 230 scholars. In this essay, Afrospectives co-founder Ali Moussa Iye reflects on the intellectual and cultural challenges of this long endeavour, and on what this Pan-African, decolonized perspective means for future generations across Africa and its diasporas.

Located in the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia, near Djibouti and Somalia, the hill of Sitti stands as the cradle of the Xeer Isse - a sacred space where law, ecology, and spirituality merge. Between earth and sky, this mountain of the pact embodies an African cosmogony of justice and balance, offering a living testimony to the continent’s philosophical and political heritage.

We have entered a dangerous era, which invites us to reimagine new relationships between humans and with other living and non-living beings.