tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/kwame-nkrumah-24742/articlesKwame Nkrumah – The Conversation2024-01-17T15:41:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210212024-01-17T15:41:47Z2024-01-17T15:41:47ZGhana won Afcon four times, but the last time was 40 years ago. What went wrong with its football team?<p><em>The Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) is the most important football tournament in Africa. It has been contested by the male national teams of countries on the continent <a href="https://www.britannica.com/sports/Africa-Cup-of-Nations">since 1957</a>. Egypt is the <a href="https://www.fifa.com/fifaplus/en/articles/caf-history-makers-tracing-egypts-seven-africa-cup-of-nations-conquests">most successful</a> country in the tournament’s history, with seven wins, the most recent in 2010. Previously, Ghana was the dominant force with four wins. In spite of producing world class players, the country has not won the tournament in four decades.</em></p>
<p><em>As the 2023 edition plays out in Côte d'Ivoire, The Conversation Africa’s Godfred Akoto Boafo speaks to sports scientist Ernest Yeboah Acheampong on what has gone wrong for Ghana.</em></p>
<h2>Ghana produces players who feature in top leagues. What’s its record at Afcon?</h2>
<p>Ghana has a strong attachment to football. Its first president, <a href="https://theconversation.com/nkrumah-and-football-how-ghanas-top-players-ended-up-in-north-america-179097">Kwame Nkrumah, used</a> the sport as part of his strategy to promote national unity. He pushed the sport as a preferred option for Ghanaian youths and even <a href="https://www.modernghana.com/sports/590298/afcon-trivia-nkrumahs-role-in-ghanas-all-conquering-feat.html">set up a team</a> that competed in the local league. This laid the platform for a country that has consistently produced footballers of continental renown who have contributed to the success of their club teams. They include <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abedi-Ayew-Pele">Abedi Pele</a> (UEFA Champions League winner with Olympic Marseille), <a href="https://citifmonline.com/2015/10/from-a-shoe-shine-boy-to-kotoko-president-meet-legend-sammy-kuffour/">Samuel Kuffour</a> (Bayern Munich), Sulley Muntari (Inter Milan), <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Essien">Michael Essien</a> (Chelsea FC) and <a href="https://www.fifa.com/fifaplus/en/articles/asamoah-gyan-ghanas-shining-star-hangs-boots-following-glittering-global-career">Asamoah Gyan</a>. </p>
<p>The conveyor belt of quality players produced by Ghana led to the country dominating the Afcon tournament. It <a href="https://www.ghanafa.org/about-ghana-football-association/what-we-do/history">won titles</a> in 1963, 1965, 1978 and 1982. But despite having several high quality players in its national team, Ghana’s best performance in recent tournaments has been a <a href="https://ghanasoccernet.com/afcon-2015-ghana-lose-final-penalties-ivory-coast">finals appearance in 2015</a>.</p>
<h2>What is the problem?</h2>
<p>The issues include poor preparation, poor commitment levels of players, unhealthy team politics and disputes over remuneration. There has also been a decline in the quality of the local league as Ghanaian clubs have struggled to attract fans to their games and to compete among their continental peers. Then there is interference by the political elite as the government often seeks to use the sport to achieve and enhance its public standing.</p>
<p>Ghana’s youth football system used to prioritise the progress of talent through different age categories. This no longer exists. Competitor countries like Senegal, Morocco and Algeria have <a href="https://www.bbc.com/sport/africa/67864876">built their recent success</a> on sound practice like this. There is also difficulty in getting qualified and experienced coaches or trainers who understand growth and development in talent identification and advancement. The inability of the country’s football federation to maintain an efficient database of talented players means some of the most talented players do not get noticed. </p>
<p>Finally, there is the long held perception that some players are selected based on their ability to remit money or their personal relationships to influential members of the football association and sometimes the technical team.</p>
<h2>What must change?</h2>
<p>Ghana can improve its chances of winning Afcon when key stakeholders are able to remove obstacles, wastefulness and undesirable practices that hamper the progress of the national team. There should be an appropriate grassroots structure for all the national teams which guarantees the smooth progress of talent. This supports the development of football talent through the ranks as recommended by <a href="https://www.fifatrainingcentre.com/en/fwc2022/scaling-the-pyramid/part-1-introduction.php">Fifa’s pyramid </a>(grassroots for the foundation, youth before elite level). </p>
<p>The authorities must not appoint leaders who do not have the requisite knowledge in football and management practices. Investment in football infrastructure and capacity building of coaches is crucial for development and to improve the chances of winning. Senegal, Morocco and Algeria have all used this path. This investment should cut across the domestic leagues and grassroots structure and systems. </p>
<p>The selection of players must follow specific criteria that prioritise talent who feature regularly at their clubs. These approaches, inspired by the practices in countries where sport scientists and managers play pivotal roles, can improve Ghana’s chances of ending its 40 year drought. Also, it is time to give technocrats the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the activities of the football association in various capacities based on their scientific knowledge and experience. </p>
<p>There is a need to develop a robust database of Ghanaian players both abroad and domestically to ensure effective supervision and monitoring of their performance in their leagues. Importantly, coaches and trainers should be more concerned about modern methods of training and management of talents since the sport has become more scientific.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221021/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ernest Yeboah Acheampong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghana’s recent Afcon record does not reflect its status as an African football powerhouse.Ernest Yeboah Acheampong, Senior Lecturer, Department of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Sports (HPERS), University of Education, WinnebaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2114342023-09-25T12:22:52Z2023-09-25T12:22:52ZKwame Nkrumah: memorials to the man who led Ghana to independence have been built, erased and revived again<p>Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park lies at the centre of Ghana’s capital, Accra. <a href="https://citinewsroom.com/2023/07/akufo-addo-to-commission-redeveloped-kwame-nkrumah-memorial-park/">Recently renovated</a>, it is dedicated to the memory of <a href="https://theconversation.com/kwame-nkrumah-why-every-now-and-then-his-legacy-is-questioned-120790">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, the leader of Ghana’s independence struggle and its first president. Marking the spot of his final resting place at the park is a massive statue. </p>
<p>The statue has been continuously contested since its original commission in 1956 and its unveiling at the first anniversary of independence in 1958. As a <a href="https://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb07-ifeas-eng/academic-staff-university-professors/prof-dr-carola-lentz/">social anthropologist</a> who has <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320148363_Ghanaian_Monument_Wars_The_Contested_History_of_the_Nkrumah_Statues">researched and written</a> about Kwame Nkrumah themed monuments, I have <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Remembering-Independence/Lentz-Lowe/p/book/9781138905733">explored</a> the contradiction that generally characterises monuments: built as lasting memories, they remain embedded in social and political conflict. </p>
<p>Nkrumah is heralded as one of the most influential African political leaders of the modern era. His vision of a liberated and united African continent influenced politics on the continent in the 1950s and 1960s. But that’s only one view of a man who was <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2018/2/23/february-24-1966-dr-kwame-nkrumah-overthrown-as-president-of-the-republic-of-ghana">deposed in a coup in 1966</a> and died in exile <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/28/archives/nkrumah-62-dead-ghanas-exleader-nkrumah-former-president-of-ghana.html">in 1972</a>. </p>
<p>In Ghana, there was vociferous criticism of “personality cult” and “hero worship”. Alongside presentations of him as the country’s “redeemer” were descriptions of him as a “dictator”. </p>
<p>The idolisation of Nkrumah began even before the country became independent. It had all the hallmarks of a new nation state trying to establish a charismatic national “founder” to stabilise its creation. But, as I have <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320148363_Ghanaian_Monument_Wars_The_Contested_History_of_the_Nkrumah_Statues">shown</a>, Nkrumah’s story shows both the limits and dangers of doing this. </p>
<p>These debates have been matched by unfolding dramas around various efforts to commemorate him – before and after his death. Attitudes have shifted from straightforward veneration to confrontation and destruction and, finally, to more subtle forms of remembrance.</p>
<h2>The birth of a monument</h2>
<p>With thoughts of Ghana soon celebrating 25 years of independence, then military ruler <a href="https://www.graphic.com.gh/features/opinion/remembering-general-kutu-acheampong-1.html">Ignatius Kutu Acheampong</a> intended to publicly honour the memory of Nkrumah. The deposed leader had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/28/archives/nkrumah-62-dead-ghanas-exleader-nkrumah-former-president-of-ghana.html">passed away</a> in 1972, in exile. After his overthrow, several of his statues and images had been destroyed by the military government. His memory was taboo.</p>
<p>Acheampong discussed the possibility of creating a mausoleum, adorned with an imposing new statue, on the grounds where the ex-president had declared independence. The statue was commissioned in Italy but before it could be erected the Acheampong government was toppled by <a href="https://theconversation.com/saint-or-sinner-rawlings-was-pivotal-to-ghanas-political-and-economic-fortunes-150025">Flight Lieutenant Jerry J. Rawlings</a> in 1979.</p>
<p>In addition, the continued economic crisis militated against any large-scale investment in the monumental landscape.</p>
<p>The memorial project was finally realised in 1992 based on the design of Ghanaian architect <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/etudesafricaines/pdf/20822">Don Arthur</a>. The heart of the memorial is the mausoleum, surrounded by water basins, with fountains and figures of Asante elephant-horn blowers that traditionally accompany royal processions. </p>
<p>The mausoleum stands in a landscaped park that is successively greened by commemorative trees planted by important international visitors. It is complemented by a museum that exhibits a collection of Nkrumah memorabilia. These include the famous smock he wore to declare independence, his desk at the seat of government and numerous photographs. </p>
<p>The mausoleum itself, made of Italian marble, evokes a gigantic tree stump, but also draws on the imagery of Egyptian pyramids, the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/252/">Taj Mahal</a> and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eiffel-Tower-Paris-France">Eiffel Tower</a>. The whole ensemble celebrates Nkrumah as a kind of chief. The shining large bronze statue erected in front of the mausoleum shows Nkrumah clad in royal kente cloth, not the humble smock of the original sculpture. </p>
<p>Opponents of Rawlings regarded the mausoleum project as an attempt to exploit the growing nostalgia for Nkrumah in his electoral campaign and to style himself and his party as worthy heirs of Nkrumah’s ideas. Another major motivation behind the project was to show the world that Ghanaians, after many years of neglect, respected Nkrumah as a great African leader. This was actually the first time since his overthrow that Nkrumah was publicly commemorated with such splendour. The memorial park conferred on Nkrumah an indisputable place in the national narrative. </p>
<p>This status, however, did not mean that his political legacy was now without contest. When the anti-Nkrumah New Patriotic Party won the elections in 2000, they, unlike the <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/232661566.pdf">1966 coup-makers</a> (who removed all images and monuments of Nkrumah), made no attempts to destroy the Nkrumah monument. However, the new government found other ways to correct, or at least complement, Nkrumah-centred nationalist narratives. </p>
<p>For instance, in the course of preparing for the golden jubilee of Ghana’s independence in 2007, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Kufuor">the John Kufuor</a> administration <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40175209">created a series of monuments</a> that commemorate the political heroes of his party, the New Patriotic Party. Most prominently, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/721348">J.B. Danquah</a>, Nkrumah’s most noted political opponent, was honoured by a renovated sculpture at a busy traffic roundabout in the capital.</p>
<p>This proliferation of historical monuments can be read as an attempt to neutralise the commemoration of Nkrumah. This was done not by eliminating existing statues of him, but rather by reducing Nkrumah’s status to being only one of several national founders. </p>
<h2>Strong memories remain</h2>
<p>For the masses of Ghanaian students and foreign tourists who come to the park, the statue of a triumphant Nkrumah has become the dominant icon of the national hero and of Ghana’s independence. It has been reproduced over and over again on thousands of private photographs, and is marketed on postcards, posters, calendars, T-shirts, bags, towels, tea cups and similar souvenirs. </p>
<p>However, there are still limits to the depoliticisation of Nkrumah’s memory. Heated debates over whether Nkrumah was a “democrat” or a “despot” flare up periodically. National heroes, as the case of Nkrumah shows, can divide people just as much as they can unite.</p>
<p>Developing the mausoleum into an attractive tourist site, as happened in the renovation and re-inauguration of the park in 2023, adds another intriguing twist to the long history of the commemoration of Kwame Nkrumah – another attempt at depoliticising and nationalising memory.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carola Lentz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Attitudes towards Kwame Nkrumah have shifted from veneration to confrontation and destruction and, finally, to more subtle forms of remembrance.Carola Lentz, Professor of Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University of MainzLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2039352023-05-24T05:47:18Z2023-05-24T05:47:18Z60 years of African unity: what’s failed and what’s succeeded<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528198/original/file-20230525-27-v5unbk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie (C) and Ghana's founder and first President Kwame Nkrumah (L) during the formation of the Organisation of African Unity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">STR/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Africa Day this year marks 60 years since the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/organisation-african-unity-oau">founding</a> of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The anniversary begs the question: How much of the vision of the OAU’s founding fathers has been realised 60 years on? What would not be there but for the efforts of the organisation and its successor the <a href="https://au.int/">African Union</a>?</p>
<p>There were two competing visions lobbying at the founding. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s president, in his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KKxpuxpVfc">Africa must Unite</a> speech, argued the pan-African case for continental federalism, for a Union of African States, with one continental diplomatic corps, one department of defence, and a common market.</p>
<p>He was hugely outvoted by other presidents refusing to give up their sovereignty. So the OAU, formed on 25 May 1963, was instead modelled on the Organisation of American States. It was an inter-governmental organisation whose charter pledged it to not interfere in the internal affairs of its member states – even in the event of massacres. This followed the precedents of the UN <a href="https://www.un.org/en/">United Nations</a>, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Arab-League">Arab League</a>, and the <a href="https://usoas.usmission.gov/our-relationship/about-oas/">Organisation of American States</a>, and would soon be followed by the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).</p>
<p>The OAU was committed to decolonisation, including the end of apartheid in South Africa and the settler regime in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). It contributed herculean diplomatic lobbying and sanctions to achieve this. Its <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41394216">Liberation Committee</a>, based in Dar es Salaam (the Tanzanian commercial capital), donated weapons and funds to the insurgencies in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique.</p>
<p>The OAU was a state-centric realisation of pan-Africanism. It launched a variety of continental NGOs, which were allocated to one or other member state to host. Space allows for only one example: it supported the launch of the <a href="https://panafricanwritersassociation.com/">Pan-African Writers’ Association</a>. Ghana pledged to provide it with premises for headquarters.</p>
<p>One development not anticipated when the OAU was founded in 1963 was the subsequent establishment of regional economic communities. There are over a dozen of these. Out of the <a href="https://au.int/en/recs">eight officially recognised</a> by the AU, the most significant are the <a href="https://ecowas.int/">Economic Community of West African States</a> (ECOWAS), the <a href="https://www.sadc.int/">Southern African Development Community </a>(SADC), and the <a href="https://www.eac.int/">East African Community </a> (EAC). These three are each free trade areas and, on paper at least, the ECOWAS and EAC are custom unions. These each provide stepping-stones towards that continental common market that Nkrumah had lobbied for back in 1963.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-union-at-20-a-lot-has-been-achieved-despite-many-flaws-175932">The African Union at 20: a lot has been achieved despite many flaws</a>
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<p>As a political scientist who has <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/j.ctt9qf58g">researched</a> the OAU and AU, I argue that it has performed far better than almost all of its global counterparts, though it has also experienced several shortcomings.</p>
<h2>The hits</h2>
<p>One success of the AU is its growing prestige. After its founding in 2002, Wikipedia did not consider it merited an entry until 2011. But today 50 non-African states <a href="https://www.usau.usmission.gov/our-relationship/policy-history/">accredit ambassadors to the AU</a>. The diaspora demanded inclusion during South African president <a href="https://au.int/en/cpau">Thabo Mbeki’s leadership</a>, and is now formally recognised as the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43526692">“sixth region”</a> of the AU <a href="https://diasporadigitalnews.com/sixth-region-of-africas-official-flag-launched/#:%7E:text=In%202003%2C%20the%20African%20Union,sixth%20region'%20of%20the%20continent.">since 2003</a>. Caribbean nations, members of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Caribbean-Community">CARRICOM</a>, recently started <a href="https://au.int/fr/node/19489">formal links</a> with the AU: these are African-descendant nations, abducted out of Africa during centuries of slave trade.</p>
<p>The AU architecture for peacekeeping and peacemaking has no peer in the Organisation of American States, Arab League, or ASEAN. While most AU organs meet only twice per year, the <a href="https://au.int/en/psc">Peace and Security Council</a> has met twice per month since its founding in 2004.</p>
<p>Dozens of its ad hoc military missions help governments with the suppression of terrorism everywhere from the Sahel to northern Mozambique. Various AU and regional economic community peacekeepers have served in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s numerous civil wars for decades.</p>
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<img alt="Soldiers carry the flags of the African Union and Uganda next to a plane." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522798/original/file-20230425-3274-p3ifr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Some of the first African Union peacekeepers arrive in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in March 2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ali Musa/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>The AU seeks a role in global governance. It tries to negotiate that Africa speaks with one voice in the halls of international organisations. Since some of the most important economic decisions about Africa are made outside the continent, the urgency of this is self-explanatory. The AU has its own embryonic diplomatic corps, with permanent diplomatic missions <a href="https://au.int/en/commission/permanent-mission-european-union-and-acp-brussels-office">in Brussels</a> (to negotiate with the EU), <a href="https://lejournaldelafrique.com/en/african-union-opens-permanent-mission-in-china/?noamp=mobile">Beijing</a>,<a href="https://au.int/en/office/permanent-delegation-league-arab-states-cairo-office"> Cairo</a> (to negotiate with the Arab League) <a href="https://www.africanunion-un.org/">in New York</a> (at the United Nations), and <a href="https://au.int/en/mission-usa">in Washington</a> (to negotiate with the World Bank and IMF).</p>
<p>Kwame Nkrumah appealed for an African common market back in 1963. The <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/treaty-establishing-african-economic-community">1991 Treaty of Abuja</a> proposed an elaborate 34-year schedule to achieve this. The first real step towards such economic integration is the <a href="https://au-afcfta.org/">African Continental Free Trade Area</a> - headed by a South African Secretary-General, <a href="https://au-afcfta.org/secretary-general/">Wamkele Mene</a>. Clearly, this will take at least a decade to substantially achieve. But the prize of <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/international-trade-can-help-africa-grow">“defragmenting Africa”</a>, as the World Bank calls it, will be worth the herculean lobbying and negotiating it will take. The <a href="https://au-afcfta.org/">African Continental Free Trade Area</a> is currently negotiating “rules of origin” and dispute-settling mechanisms as its opening steps.</p>
<p>The AU tries to be norms-making. The <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/treaty-establishing-african-economic-community">1991 Treaty of Abuja</a> must surely be the world’s most ambitious attempt to import lock, stock, and barrel the institutions and norms of the EU into another continent, which was of course only partially successful.</p>
<p>Few AU members have implemented the <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/african-charter-democracy-elections-and-governance">Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Good Governance</a>. But a majority of countries have one by one signed up to the <a href="https://www.aprm-au.org/page-about/">African Peer Review Mechanism</a> which, like the AU, has just celebrated its 20th anniversary. This is part of the peer pressure towards constitutionalism, and against autocrats.</p>
<h2>The misses</h2>
<p>One failure of the AU is in not preventing serial <a href="https://www.idea.int/blog/new-model-coups-d%C3%A9tat-africa-younger-less-violent-more-popular">coups-de-etat</a>. There have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-west-africa-has-had-so-many-coups-and-how-to-prevent-more-176577">more than 200 coups</a> following the era of independence in the 1960s. The obvious reason is that the continental body never sends a military intervention to suppress the putchists, to capture them and bring them to trial for treason. It limits itself to diplomatic pressures against them, such as suspending their membership.</p>
<p>In 2016 the AU launched a campaign to <a href="http://www.peaceau.org/en/article/au-retreat-to-elaborate-a-roadmap-on-practical-steps-to-silence-the-guns-in-africa-by-2020-concludes-in-lusaka-zambia">“silence the guns by 2020”</a>. Unhappily, it <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-african-union-has-failed-to-silence-the-guns-and-some-solutions-139567">proved powerless to prevent</a> both coups and terrorist insurgencies from continuing, so the slogan was repackaged as <a href="https://issafrica.org/pscreport/psc-insights/staying-on-target-to-silence-the-guns-by-2030">“silence the guns by 2030”</a>. It remains to be seen if wars can be suppressed throughout the African continent by 2030.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-unions-conflict-early-warning-system-is-no-more-what-now-183469">The African Union's conflict early warning system is no more. What now?</a>
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<p>Another failure is in getting member states to <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/african-union-set-to-sanction-countries-for-non-payment/1314757">pay their annual dues</a>. Clearly, the current penalties of suspension, which only fully come into effect when a state falls two years behind in payments, is not a deterrent. The AU surely needs to follow the universal practice by banks - that if a customer falls more than two months behind in repaying a mortgage bond, full sanctions are implemented.</p>
<p>The AU often dispatches election observers to countries to monitor voting, and hopefully to deter vote-rigging in its various forms. It has been <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/election-observation-in-africa-put-to-the-test">criticised</a> for reluctance to censure incumbent regimes that tilt the playing field in the electoral contest for power.</p>
<h2>Cornerstone</h2>
<p>In conclusion, the AU compares well with its peers in developing countries such as ASEAN, Organisation of American States, and Arab League. The AU accomplishes more than the <a href="https://thecommonwealth.org/">Commonwealth</a>, or the <a href="https://www.francophonie.org/francophonie-brief-1763">Francophonie</a>. Only the EU is way ahead – because its budget is three orders of magnitude larger than that of the AU.</p>
<p>The AU has put cornerstones in place towards realising the goals of the founders. The end of coups and civil wars; working towards establishing an African common market; and getting Africa to speak with one voice in global governance are worthy goals to persist in pursuing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203935/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Gottschalk is a member of the African National Congress, but writes this article in his professional capacity as a political scientist.</span></em></p>The African Union compares well to other continental unions. It accomplishes more than the Commonwealth or the Francophonie.Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1994182023-02-14T13:43:04Z2023-02-14T13:43:04ZWhen two elephants fight: how the global south uses non-alignment to avoid great power rivalries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509129/original/file-20230209-24-gfvsje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Indonesian military honour guard marks the 60th anniversary of the Asian-African Conference in Bandung in 2015. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Achmad Ibrahim /AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An African proverb notes that “when two elephants fight, it is the grass underneath that suffers”.</p>
<p>Many states in the global south are, therefore, seeking to avoid getting caught in the middle of any future battles between the US and China. Instead, they are calling for a renewal of the concept of non-alignment. This was an approach employed in the 1950s by newly independent countries to <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-non-aligned-movement-in-the-21st-century-66057">balance</a> between the two ideological power blocs of east and west during the era of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War">Cold War</a></p>
<p>The new non-alignment stance is based on a perceived need to maintain southern sovereignty, pursue socio-economic development, and benefit from powerful external partners without having to choose sides. It also comes from historical grievances during the era of slavery, colonialism and Cold War interventionism. </p>
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<p>These grievances include unilateral American military interventions in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/U-S-invasion-of-Grenada">Grenada</a> (1983), <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50837024">Panama</a> (1989) and <a href="https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/march-2013-us-invasion-iraq-10-years-later?language_content_entity=en">Iraq</a> (2003) as well as support by the US and France for autocracies in countries like Egypt, Morocco, Chad and Saudi Arabia, when it suits their interests. </p>
<p>Many southern governments are particularly irked by America’s Manichaean division of the world into “good” democracies and “bad” autocracies. More recently, countries in the global south have highlighted north-south trade disputes and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9168349/">western hoarding</a> of COVID-19 vaccines as reinforcing the unequal international system of <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2022-01-04/vaccine-apartheid-risks-rising-global-shortages-in-2022">“global apartheid”</a>. </p>
<p>A return of non-alignment was evident at the March 2022 UN General Assembly special session on Ukraine. Fifty-two governments from the global south did not support western sanctions against <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129492">Russia</a>. This, despite Russia’s clear violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, which southern states have historically condemned.</p>
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<p>A month later, 82 southern states <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1115782">refused to back</a> western efforts to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.</p>
<p>These included powerful southern states such as India, Indonesia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. </p>
<h2>The origins of non-alignment</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.southcentre.int/question/revisiting-the-1955-bandung-asian-african-conference-and-its-legacy/">1955</a>, a conference was held in the Indonesian city of Bandung to regain the sovereignty of Africa and Asia from western imperial rule. The summit also sought to foster global peace, promote economic and cultural cooperation, and end racial domination. Governments attending were urged to abstain from collective defence arrangements with great powers. </p>
<p>Six years later, in 1961, the 120-strong Non-Aligned Movement <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Non-Aligned-Movement">emerged</a>. Members were required to shun military alliances such as NATO and the Warsaw Pact, as well as bilateral security treaties with great powers.</p>
<p>Non-alignment advocated “positive” – not passive – neutrality. States were encouraged to contribute actively to strengthening and reforming institutions such as the UN and the World Bank. </p>
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<p>India’s patrician prime minister, <a href="https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/former_pm/shri-jawaharlal-nehru/">Jawaharlal Nehru</a>, is widely regarded to have been the intellectual “<a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/non-alignment-was-coined-by-nehru-in-1954/articleshow/2000656.cms">father of non-alignment</a>”. He regarded the concept as an insurance policy against world domination by either superpower bloc or China. He also advocated nuclear disarmament.</p>
<p>Indonesia’s military strongman, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Suharto">Suharto</a>, championed non-alignment through “<a href="https://asean.org/opening-statement-his-excellency-mr-soeharto-president-of-the-republic-of-indonesia/">regional resilience</a>”. South-east Asian states were urged to seek autonomy and prevent external powers from intervening in the region.</p>
<p>Egypt’s charismatic prophet of Arab unity, <a href="https://www.presidency.eg/en/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A6%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A9/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A4%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%82%D9%88%D9%86/%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B5%D8%B1/">Gamal Abdel Nasser</a>, strongly backed the use of force in conducting wars of liberation <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2008/6/20/arab-unity-nassers-revolution">in Algeria and southern Africa</a>, buying arms and receiving aid from both east and west.
For his part, Ghana’s prophet of African unity, <a href="https://theconversation.com/kwame-nkrumah-why-every-now-and-then-his-legacy-is-questioned-120790">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, promoted the idea of <a href="https://www.internationalscholarsjournals.com/articles/kwame-nkrumah-and-the-proposed-african-common-government.pdf">an African High Command</a> as a common army to ward off external intervention and support Africa’s liberation.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nti.org/education-center/treaties-and-regimes/non-aligned-movement-nam/#:%7E:text=The%20Non%2DAligned%20Movement%20was,to%20remain%20independent%20or%20neutral">Non-Aligned Movement</a>, however, suffered from the problems of trying to maintain cohesion among a large, diverse group. Many countries were clearly aligned to one or other power bloc. </p>
<p>By the early 1980s, the group had switched its focus from east-west geo-politics to north–south geo-economics. The Non-Aligned Movement started advocating a “<a href="http://www.un-documents.net/s6r3201.htm">new international economic order</a>”. This envisaged technology and resources being transferred from the rich north to the global south in order to promote industrialisation. </p>
<p>The north, however, simply refused to support these efforts.</p>
<h2>Latin America and south-east Asia</h2>
<p>Most of the recent thinking and debates on non-alignment have occurred in Latin America and south-east Asia. </p>
<p>Most Latin American countries have refused to align with any major power. They have also ignored Washington’s warnings <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-and-europe-deteriorating-relations-with-latin-america-china-by-ana-palacio-2022-07">to avoid doing business with China</a>. Many have embraced Chinese infrastructure, 5G technology and digital connectivity. </p>
<p>Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many of the region’s states declined western requests to impose sanctions on Moscow. The return of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Luiz-Inacio-Lula-da-Silva">Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva</a> as <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-big-challenges-for-lulas-presidency-of-brazil-197967">president</a> of Brazil – the largest and wealthiest country in the region – heralds the “second coming” (following his first presidency between 2003 and 2011) of a champion of global south solidarity.</p>
<p>For its part, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (<a href="https://asean.org/member-states/">ASEAN</a>) has shown that non-alignment has as much to do with geography as strategy. Singapore sanctioned Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. Indonesia condemned the intervention but rejected sanctions. Myanmar backed the invasion while Laos and Vietnam <a href="http://www.taiheinstitute.org/UpLoadFile/files/2022/6/30/11206652fbb64821-c.pdf">refused to condemn Moscow’s aggression</a>.</p>
<p>Many ASEAN states have historically championed “declaratory non-alignment”. They have used the concept largely rhetorically while, in reality, practising a promiscuous “multi-alignment”. Singapore and the Philippines forged close military ties with the US; Myanmar with India; Vietnam with Russia, India, and the US; and Malaysia with Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. </p>
<p>This is also a region in which states simultaneously embrace and fear Chinese economic assistance and military cooperation. This, while seeking to avoid any external powers dominating the region or forming exclusionary military alliances.</p>
<p>Strong African voices are largely absent from these non-alignment debates, and are urgently needed. </p>
<h2>Pursuing non-alignment in Africa</h2>
<p>Africa is the world’s most insecure continent, <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/data">hosting 84%</a> of UN peacekeepers. This points to a need for a cohesive southern bloc that can produce a self-sustaining security system – <a href="https://www.accord.org.za/ajcr-issues/the-quest-for-pax-africana/">Pax Africana</a> – while promoting socio-economic development.</p>
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<p>Uganda aims to champion this approach when it takes over the three-year rotating chair of the Non-Aligned Movement <a href="https://www.newvision.co.ug/category/news/uganda-to-chair-non-aligned-movement-in-2023-117191">in December 2023</a>. Strengthening the organisation into a more cohesive bloc, while fostering unity within the global south, is a major goal of its tenure.</p>
<p>Uganda has strong potential allies. For example, South Africa has championed “strategic non-alignment” in the Ukraine conflict, advocating a UN-negotiated solution, while <a href="http://www.taiheinstitute.org/UpLoadFile/files/2022/6/30/11206652fbb64821-c.pdf">refusing to sanction its BRICS ally, Russia</a>. It has also relentlessly courted its largest bilateral trading partner, China, whose <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative">Belt and Road Initiative</a> and <a href="https://www.escr-net.org/sites/default/files/brics-ndb-factsheet-final-1.pdf">BRICS bank</a> are building infrastructure across the global south.</p>
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<p>Beijing is Africa’s largest trading partner at US$254 billion, and <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/27880/trade-between-china-and-africa/">builds a third of the continent’s infrastructure</a>.</p>
<p>If a new non-alignment is to be achieved in Africa, the foreign military bases of the US, France and China – and the Russian military presence – must, however, be dismantled.</p>
<p>At the same time the continent should continue to support the UN-led rules-based international order, condemning unilateral interventions in both Ukraine and Iraq. Pax Africana would best be served by:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>building local security capacity in close cooperation with the UN; </p></li>
<li><p>promoting effective regional integration; and </p></li>
<li><p>fencing off the continent from meddling external powers, while continuing to welcome trade and investment from both east and west.</p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adekeye Adebajo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If a new non-alignment is to be achieved in Africa, the foreign military bases of the US, France, and China - and the Russian military presence - must be dismantled.Adekeye Adebajo, Professor and Senior research fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1925202023-01-24T13:05:54Z2023-01-24T13:05:54ZGhana’s Nkrumahist parties keep splitting - a threat to their strength in the 2024 election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506301/original/file-20230125-16-ace5r6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kwame Nkrumah's political legacy is struggling to stay afloat in Ghana.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Political parties are not always completely united, as most classical political scientists argue. Dissenting opinions and the scramble for party apparatus tend to trigger internal schisms and factions. If these aren’t managed well, parties can split. A notable example is the recent emergence of splinter parties from the <a href="https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/publication/new-political-parties-and-the-reconfiguration-of-turkeys-political-landscape">Justice and Development Party</a> in Turkey.</p>
<p>In Ghana, all three of the country’s main political traditions have experienced internal conflicts and sometimes party splits. The <a href="https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/The-Danquah-Dombo-Busia-Tradition-179601">Danquah-Busia-Dombo</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ghanas-small-political-parties-have-found-a-way-to-stay-afloat-124810">Nkrumahist</a> and <a href="https://asq.africa.ufl.edu/tag/provisional-national-defense-council-pndc/">Provisional National Defence Council/Rawlings traditions</a> differ in terms of ideology. The Provisional National Defence Council/Rawlings tradition subscribes to social democracy while the Danquah-Busiasts hold property-owning democratic ideals. The Nkrumahist group is known for socialist beliefs grounded in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44484206#metadata_info_tab_contents">Nkrumahism</a> – the philosophy of Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah. This tradition focuses on self-reliance and pan-Africanism, and abhors neocolonialism. </p>
<p>The broad traditions have endured since the 1940s, but the parties within them are susceptible to conflicts. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10220461.2022.2127870">research</a> explored the possible reasons for factions and schisms in the Nkrumahist parties. I focused on the <a href="https://asq.africa.ufl.edu/tag/provisional-national-defense-council-pndc/">Convention People’s Party</a> and the <a href="https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/republic/pnc.php">People’s National Convention</a> and interviewed present and past party technocrats, academics and media practitioners. I also reviewed the literature on intra-party conflict, factionalism and fragmentation in Ghana.</p>
<p>The breaking up of parties affects their electoral fortunes. Political party fragmentation often culminates in elite disarray and cynicism among voters.</p>
<h2>Party schisms in Ghana</h2>
<p>The first account of intra-party squabbles and splintering in Ghana occurred in 1949. This was when Nkrumah and some members of the United Gold Coast Convention youth wing <a href="https://www.cegastacademy.com/2020/11/18/6-reasons-why-nkrumah-broke-away-from-the-ugcc/">rebelled</a> to form the Convention Peoples Party. It marked the birth of the Nkrumahist tradition in Ghana. </p>
<p>The tradition has had the most splinter parties in Ghana over the years. The People’s National Convention, National Independence Party, Peoples’ Heritage Party and National Convention Party emerged in 1992. The Progressive People’s Party was formed in 2012 and the All People’s Congress in 2016. </p>
<p>The Danquah-Busia tradition has also experienced some splits. The most devastating one <a href="https://d-nb.info/1201276179/34">occurred ahead of the 1979 elections</a>. The tradition, which had just recovered from a coup in 1972, divided into two feuding groups and ultimately two parties emerged: the Popular Front Party and the United National Convention. </p>
<p>Disagreements within the Provisional National Defence Council/Rawlings-inspired National Democratic Congress resulted in splinter parties like the National Reform Party in 1992, Democratic Freedom Party in 2006 and National Democratic Party in 2012.</p>
<p>Despite the divisive tendencies within the National Democratic Party and the New Patriotic Party, they have managed the problems in order to sustain their dominance of Ghanaian politics. However, the Convention Peoples Party and the People’s National Convention have failed to manage theirs.</p>
<h2>Diagnosis of the problem</h2>
<p>I found three major factors that help explain the instability within the Nkrumahist tradition. </p>
<p>First, there is evidence of a personality cult, especially among the “old guard”. These are individuals who have been described as gatekeepers and have personalised the party apparatus. <a href="https://www.modernghana.com/news/671143/why-i-resigned-from-cpp-dr-abu-sakara.html">Foster Abu Sakara</a>, the 2012 presidential candidate of Convention Peoples Party, cited this as a reason for his resignation from the party in 2016. </p>
<p>Second, political opportunism and patronage by some leading party members worsens the schisms. For instance, political personalities like Edward Nasigiri Mahama and Bernard Mornah of the People’s National Convention have benefited through <a href="https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/politics/ghana-news-appointment-of-ambassador-at-large-killing-pnc-mornah.html">political appointments</a> from two major parties in Ghana. <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/200601180216.html">Kwabena Duffour </a>and <a href="https://ghanaguardian.com/freddie-blay-renounces-cpp-says-he-is-the-joseph-of-npp">Freddie Blay</a> of the Convention Peoples Party have defected to the National Democratic Party and the New Patriotic Party respectively. The 2012 presidential candidate of the People’s National Convention, Hassan Ayariga, is believed to have defected to <a href="https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/politics/hassan-ayariga-forms-all-people-s-congress.html">form</a> the All People’s Congress because he was <a href="https://www.peacefmonline.com/pages/politics/politics/201211/147231.php">accused</a> of having close relations with the National Democratic Congress.</p>
<p>Finally, I found that ethnocentrism has stalled unity talks between the People’s National Convention and the Convention Peoples Party in the past. <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0045.xml">Ethnocentrism</a> is when an individual views the world from the perspective of his or her own ethnic group.
In that regard, the People’s National Convention was viewed as a party with restrictive membership to the northern regions of Ghana without any strong appeal to other parts of Ghana. Hence, in coalitions, the Convention Peoples Party has projected itself as true Nkrumahists, labelling the People’s National Convention as just an offshoot, as a strategy to lead the coalition.</p>
<h2>Ghana’s 2024 general elections</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.modernghana.com/news/975755/are-ghanaians-really-tired-of-npp-and-ndc-are.html">Public debates</a> ahead of the 2020 general elections – and currently – suggest that voters are somewhat tired of the three-decade two-horse race between the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party. With barely two years to Ghana’s 2024 general elections, <a href="https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/The-third-force-needed-to-win-the-2024-election-has-been-divided-1518095">the call for a third force</a> is audible. But its feasibility keeps waning. The recurrent bickering and fragmentation within the Nkrumahist parties raises doubts as to whether they can rise to the call by Ghana’s electorate. </p>
<p>I recommend that leaders of all Nkrumahist groups reconsider merger talks so as to form a united front. Second, leaders should focus on building effective and robust structures, rather than political patronage. Finally, Nkrumahists must adopt pragmatic political strategies to appeal to all sections of Ghana’s electorate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Baffour Agyeman Prempeh Boakye does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The recurrent bickering and fragmentation within the Nkrumahist parties raises doubt as to whether they can rise to the call by Ghanaian electorate.Baffour Agyeman Prempeh Boakye, PhD Student, University of DelawareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1851452022-10-31T13:11:38Z2022-10-31T13:11:38ZGhana’s National Museum: superb restoration but painful stories remain untold<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490104/original/file-20221017-18-2taq3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A museum </span> </figcaption></figure><p>Ghana’s national museum has reopened its doors after a seven-year closure to allow for major renovations.</p>
<p>The museum was first <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110670714-019/pdf">opened in March 1957</a> as part of the celebrations marking the transition from colonial rule to independence. </p>
<p>The opening also marked the end of a bitter struggle between members of the museum staff over issues related to the creation of a new memory space. I traced this history in a <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110670714-019/pdf">paper</a> about the origins of the museum.</p>
<p>Often, museums are considered spaces for the past. However, they also reflect how the past is understood and used in the present. In 1957, the makers of the museum wanted to create a space for foreign visitors, telling a history that focused on peaceful aspects of Ghana’s past. In the process, less peaceful histories were excluded, such as the slave trade and the destructive aspects of colonial rule. </p>
<p>Over time, histories of the slave trade were added to the museum’s exhibitions. The recently completed renovation has provided the museum with the opportunity to develop a new exhibition where these histories were part of the main narrative. </p>
<p>I was intrigued to find out how the museum compared with the original vision.</p>
<p>After visiting it I concluded that it does an exemplary job of presenting the dynamic diversity of Ghana as a nation. But it still excludes certain histories – most notably those of the slave trade and colonial rule. The museum is leaving out crucial aspects of Ghana’s past. It misses the opportunity to be a space where these can be discussed and processed peacefully. </p>
<h2>Origins of the National Museum</h2>
<p>The idea of establishing a national museum in what was then known as the Gold Coast was first raised in the 1940s by the colonial government. </p>
<p>In 1951, the <a href="https://www.nli.org.il/en/a-topic/987007272993505171">archaeologist A.W. Lawrence</a> became the director of this future museum. With a collection consisting of archaeological artefacts and an archaeologist as its director, it had a strong historical basis. </p>
<p>Over the next few years, new politicians decided where to house the museum and what histories it should tell. Together with British officials, the anti-colonial Convention Peoples’ Party became responsible for it. </p>
<p>The building was designed by <a href="https://www.themodernhouse.com/journal/architect-of-the-week-denys-lasdun/">Denys Lasdun of Fry, Drew, Drake & Lasdun</a>, a partnership known for Modernist tropical architecture. </p>
<p>The museum consisted of several modern elements, not least the building materials. A prefabricated aluminium dome covers most of the building. But domes also characterise many European museums. The building can therefore be seen as a compromise between the traditional and the modern. </p>
<p>Inside the museum, Lawrence wanted to tell a history that was referred to as “Man in Africa”. This history focused on the Gold Coast against the background of what “Man has achieved throughout the rest of Africa.” </p>
<p>To tell this story, the museum acquired artefacts from ancient Egypt, the Roman period in Morocco, and two original Benin bronze heads, among other things. Lawrence also acquired European objects used in West Africa in the past centuries to illustrate the relationship between the Gold Coast and Europe. </p>
<p>However, one member of the staff, John Osei Kufour, who was an ardent supporter of the Convention Peoples’ Party, wanted the museum to be a space for anti-colonial history. He was highly critical of the objects acquired by Lawrence, particularly those from Europe. He wanted the museum to focus exclusively on Ghana and its traditions – traditions he hoped would soon be confined to the past by the government’s development plans. </p>
<p>In 1956, shortly before the museum was about to open, he used his contacts in the party in an effort to remove the director. It failed. The party leaders did not want the museum to be an anti-colonial space. Rather, they saw it as a suitable meeting place where visitors to the country could learn something of its history.</p>
<h2>Opening exhibitions</h2>
<p>Two temporary exhibitions were unveiled at the opening in 1957.</p>
<p>One was based on objects and told the history of “Man in Africa”, and the other used documents from the newly established national archives to narrate recent history. Both presented narratives of the past characterised by ordered progress and development resulting from the interaction between the people of Ghana, West Africa and other parts of the world. </p>
<p>In general, the national museum excluded all references to the parts of Ghana’s global past that were problematic. It contained references to European contact but not to the slave trade. The documents excluded the anti-colonial narrative of colonial exploitation or resistance. </p>
<p>Over the following decades certain changes were made in a bid to adjust the museum to new demands. In the 1990s, for instance, the history of the transatlantic slave trade was included. This enabled visitors from the African diaspora to find their past too. </p>
<p>In 2015 the museum was closed for reparation and restoration. When it opened in 2022, it started with a clean slate.</p>
<h2>What now?</h2>
<p>The museum has been beautifully restored, and is worth a visit for all who appreciate modernistic architecture from the independence era. </p>
<p>But I have a few criticisms.</p>
<p>The new exhibition is entitled “Unity in Diversity”, which I think is an excellent title. But the opening exhibition fails to explore or discuss this. What does diversity entail? How is it connected to tolerance and acceptance?</p>
<p>Also, as in 1957, difficult histories are excluded. The transatlantic slave trade is not discussed. Nor is the colonial period.</p>
<p>In general, the museum seems unfinished. But this can be a good thing: it allows the museum staff to continuously develop the exhibitions and invite new forms of participation from visitors. Rather than telling the singular “history” of Ghana, it could tell many histories of Ghana - from perspectives that also bring out the diversity of country. </p>
<p>Museums are potentially important places for dialogue and discussions. The National Museum in Ghana can be a place where people use their diverse experiences from the past to discuss how to solve issues in the present.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185145/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Olav Hove does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghana’s national museum has been reopened after being closed for seven years.Jon Olav Hove, Associate Professor, Department of Historical and Classical Studies, Norwegian University of Science and TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1870462022-07-21T18:18:42Z2022-07-21T18:18:42ZSouth Africa’s Thabo Mbeki at 80: admired on the continent more than at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475139/original/file-20220720-20-plykfn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former South African President Thabo Mbeki in 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kevin Sutherland</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s second post-apartheid president, celebrated his <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-80th-birthday-celebrations-former-president-thabo-mbeki-18-jun">80th birthday</a> on 18 June 2022. Following Mandela’s era of multiracial and multicultural <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-rainbow-nation-is-a-myth-that-students-need-to-unlearn-66872">rainbowism</a>, Mbeki had to squarely address the challenges of acute inequality and the numerous grievances of the black majority caused by colonialism and apartheid. This was tough work with no easy solutions.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.za/about-government/contact-directory/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki-mr-0">Mbeki</a> was born in what is now the Eastern Cape province to fairly educated and politically conscious parents – <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/epainette-nomaka-mbeki">Epainette</a>, a schoolteacher, and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/govan-mbeki">Govan</a>, a contemporary of Mandela and other freedom fighters of that era. Govan was seldom home as he pursued the cause of freedom for South Africa. Thabo had to grow up fast and joined the youth league of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/african-national-congress-anc">African National Congress</a> (ANC) when he was only 13.</p>
<p>The topic of Mbeki’s political legacy is moot. Even his position between global icon <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/nelson-rolihlahla-mandela">Nelson Mandela</a> and alleged <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">state capture architect</a> Jacob Zuma is quite telling. For the most part, Mandela, whom he succeeded, basked in the glow of post-apartheid reconciliation and euphoria. But <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00064246.2018.1514927">Mbeki</a> could not afford that luxury. There was serious work to be done in building a post-apartheid political dispensation. Much of this arduous task fell on him, whom many considered Mandela’s de facto prime minister. </p>
<p>Mbeki is attractive to many intellectuals beyond South Africa because of his thinking about pan-Africanism, the <a href="https://archive.unu.edu/unupress/mbeki.html">African renaissance</a> and neocolonialism. All these issues are pertinent in Africa and its vast diaspora, which put Mbeki in the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Thabo-Mbeki-Short-Histories-Africa/dp/082142274X">spotlight of the pan-Africanist movement</a>. Numerous works have been written on his <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18772/22010105027">tenure as president and his legacy</a>.</p>
<p>Mbeki found his second wind as probably the most respected African elder statesman after his ignominious exit as ANC leader. His transition from national politics to the African continental stage has been without great fanfare but quite effective.</p>
<p>As the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Thabo-Mbeki-Battle-Soul-ANC/dp/184277848X">ANC</a>, which has governed South Africa since 1994, became afflicted by widespread corruption and deadly politicking, Mbeki kept above the fray. His nemesis and erstwhile deputy, <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">Zuma</a>, who succeeded him as president, went further in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Keepers-Those-keeping-prison-ebook/dp/B076YBL1WS">tarnishing the ANC brand and legacy in the most disrespectful manner</a>. </p>
<p>This is the uncomfortable position from which Mbeki is compelled to be assessed.</p>
<h2>A no-frills technocrat</h2>
<p>Mbeki is not a charismatic leader, neither does he pretend to be. He does <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Thabo-Mbeki%20Short-Histories-Africa/dp/082142274X">not possess Mandela’s charm</a> or Zuma’s demotic earthiness, which can move people to declare they’d <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/we-will-kill-for-zuma-20080616">kill for him</a>. </p>
<p>Mandela had a winning smile that floored <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-06-30-me-476-story.html">Hollywood A-listers</a>. Zuma sang and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBc1n5HqXxs">danced</a> his way into the hearts of the South African masses and wasn’t afraid to make a fool of himself. Mbeki always remained aloof. His appeal was largely among intellectuals.</p>
<p>Mbeki is rather a conscientious technocrat equally at home with other technocrats such as <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/directorate/former-executive-director-phumzile-mlambo-ngcuka">Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka</a> and <a href="https://www.weforum.org/people/trevor-manuel">Trevor Manuel</a>. The two served in prominent positions in Mbeki’s cabinet.</p>
<p>During his tenure as ANC president (<a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/former-leaders-2/">1997-2007</a>), Mbeki couldn’t woo the rank and file in his party with rousing speeches delivered with visceral directness. That isn’t his forte. He is, instead, a manager of systems and institutions and a purveyor of ideas.</p>
<h2>Downfall and resurrection</h2>
<p>Mbeki is a promoter of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24351577#metadata_info_tab_contents">pan-Africanism</a> – the quest to unite Africans in pursuit of a united, prosperous Africa. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frantz-fanon/">Frantz Fanon</a>, the Haitian revolution, the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/harlem-renaissance">Harlem Renaissance</a> and important milestones of black empowerment powerfully shaped Mbeki’s ideological make-up. There is a certain cosmopolitanism present in his outlook. But the masses of the South African people did not appreciate it. Instead, he was deemed cold, unresponsive and, therefore, uninteresting. This, more than any other failing, was the reason for his political downfall.</p>
<p>His detractors and the party <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-18-zuma-is-new-anc-president/">cast their lot</a> with a more engaging Zuma in December 2007, which turned out not to be the best of choices. Mbeki was subsequently unceremoniously fired as president of the country by the ANC <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/sep/20/southafrica1">in September 2008</a>.</p>
<p>Mbeki’s rejection by his party undoubtedly reduced his political influence within the ANC. But he did not become idle. He worked diligently on the continental African stage, where his expertise and experience are highly valued. He has been traversing the continent on behalf of the <a href="https://au.int/">African Union</a>, putting out political fires and helping broker peace with an energy and commitment that many of his age don’t possess.</p>
<p>While Zuma reigned supreme in the ANC <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/former-leaders-2/">from 2007 to 2017</a>, Mbeki kept a respectful distance. All through <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-capture-in-south-africa-how-the-rot-set-in-and-how-the-project-was-rumbled-176481">Zuma’s scandals</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42510304">motions of impeachment</a>, Mbeki more or less maintained his silence and dignity.</p>
<p>Zuma, on the other hand, abdicated his powers to a shady cabal that influenced key government appointments and commandeered most of the lucrative government <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">contracts of the ANC-led administration</a>. </p>
<p>Then people started to think that perhaps Mbeki wasn’t that bad after all. Some might argue that he had dictatorial tendencies but he was always his own man. Under Zuma, foreign actors without the least connection to the South African electorate wielded unimaginable power and influence.</p>
<p>After years in a political purgatory, Mbeki seems to have undergone a resurrection, based on the unmitigated disasters of his successor. He is now <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbcCp6vI5Wo">helping to save the ANC</a>.</p>
<h2>Africa’s elder statesman</h2>
<p>It is a pity that Mbeki’s invaluable work on continental affairs isn’t much valued in South Africa.</p>
<p>Beyond South Africa, Mbeki is increasingly being considered among African intellectuals such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/toyin-falola-1358213">Toyin Falola</a> (Nigeria), <a href="https://www.theblackscholar.org/board/zeleza/">Paul Zeleza</a> (Malawi) and <a href="https://www.tut.ac.za/rni/rs/research-chairs/prof-muchie">Mammo Muchie</a> (Ethiopia). He’s placed in the same league as African philosopher-kings like Senegal’s <a href="https://www.presidence.sn/en/presidency/leopold-sedar-senghor">Leopold Sedar Senghor</a>, Ghana’s <a href="https://aaregistry.org/story/kwame-nkrumah-fathered-pan-africanism/">Kwame Nkrumah</a> and Tanzania’s <a href="https://www.juliusnyerere.org/about">Julius Nyerere</a>.</p>
<p>At 80, Mbeki still articulates his pet concerns of African unity, African renaissance and pan-Africanism with diligence and precision. His analyses are usually well-considered and deserving of attention. His interventions to end the <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20101205-ivory-coast-thabo-mbeki-arrives-ivory-coast-mediate-crisis-gbagbo-ouattara">Ivorian</a> and <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-04-26-mbeki-comments-on-the-south-sudan-crisis-urges-reconciliation/">South Sudanese</a> crises are noteworthy.</p>
<p>Mbeki continues to function as probably the most resourceful elder statesman on the African continent. For instance, he is involved in efforts to solve the <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/news/mbeki-urges-african-lawyers-support-crusade-against-continents-stolen-funds">impasse</a> that has pitted Anglophone Cameroonians against their Francophone counterparts.</p>
<p>He is also involved in efforts to resolve the crisis in the Great Lakes Region. The conflict has been called <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wn0rvj.10#metadata_info_tab_contents">Africa’s first world war</a> because of the number of external actors and African nations engaged in the scramble for the region’s mineral wealth. </p>
<p>Because violence anywhere on the continent tends to have broader continental consequences, Mbeki makes it his business to try to prevent outbreaks of war and mayhem.</p>
<p>In Cote d’Ivoire, he led initiatives to resolve the confrontation between two presidential aspirants, Alassane Quattara and Laurent Gbagbo. Their bloody stand-off put their country into a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoRTpv6lEfA">downward spiral</a>. Finally, Mbeki has advised that to end the civil war in South Sudan, all the stakeholders <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoRTpv6lEfA">must be involved in the peacemaking process</a>.</p>
<p>It is clear that Mbeki has successfully transitioned from being an old horse of his party, the ANC, to a highly venerated and in-demand African elder statesman. And just as Nkrumah was, he is more respected on the continent than in his country. Given his attitude, composure and utterances, Mbeki seems quite natural in speaking and acting on behalf of the entire continent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187046/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sanya Osha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mbeki has successfully transitioned from being an old horse of South Africa’s governing ANC to a highly venerated and in-demand African elder statesman.Sanya Osha, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1835412022-05-24T09:01:40Z2022-05-24T09:01:40ZPan-African integration has made progress but needs a change of mindset<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464807/original/file-20220523-21-unn2ej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres addresses an African Union summit in Addis Ababa via video in February 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year’s celebration of <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/africa-day-2022-18-oct-2021-1312">Africa Day</a> provides another opportunity to assess how far continental integration has progressed. </p>
<p>Integration would mean a truly united Africa – either a federalist “United States of Africa” or the African Union (AU) exercising <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337898687_Can_Africa_ever_achieve_continental_sovereignty_in_the_shifting_West-to-East_strategic_landscape_The_geopolitics_of_integration_and_autonomy">binding powers over member states</a>. At present the AU merely serves as a platform for coordinating the interactions of its <a href="https://au.int/en/member_states/countryprofiles2#:%7E:text=The%20AU%20is%20made%20up,divided%20into%20five%20geographic%20regions.">55 member states</a>. </p>
<p>Although some progress has been made, more needs to be done to achieve the goal of integration.</p>
<p>Member states need to move beyond paying lip service to unity, and empower critical AU organs. This requires a shift in mentality. States need to appreciate the need to sacrifice some autonomy for common socioeconomic and political gains. Lacklustre commitment to continental integration is connected with Africa’s peripheral position in global dynamics. </p>
<p>In my view, as a researcher of the institutional dynamics of Africa’s integration process, pan-African integration is in a crucial phase. This phase is as important as the creation of the Organisation of African Unity <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/organisation-african-unity-oau">in 1963</a> and its eventual replacement with the AU <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/september-2002/african-union-launched">20 years ago</a>.</p>
<h2>A pan-African worldview</h2>
<p>In a 1969 speech, the then Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere, <a href="https://www.tanzania.go.tz/egov_uploads/documents/stability_and_change_sw.pdf">captured</a> what the African worldview entails:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We recognise that we are involved in the world and that the world is involved in us. Involvement without understanding, however, can be embarrassing and even dangerous. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A pan-Africanist worldview understands that the continent cannot exist in isolation. However, this must be accompanied by a determination to drive an agenda that enhances pan-African goals.</p>
<p>This position reflects the views of many of Nyerere’s contemporaries, and those who came after him, on how Africa should position itself on the global stage. </p>
<p>Kwame Nkrumah’s <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2F9780230118645_8.pdf">“African personality”</a>, Thabo Mbeki’s <a href="https://archive.unu.edu/unupress/mbeki.html">“African renaissance”</a>, and the oft-repeated <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/african-solutions-to-african-problems">“African solutions to African problems”</a> have also been used to capture the essence of an effective pan-African worldview. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sobukwes-pan-africanist-dream-an-elusive-idea-that-refuses-to-die-52601">Sobukwe's pan-Africanist dream: an elusive idea that refuses to die</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Mbeki’s idea speaks to restoring Africa’s dignity, and pushing for its economic and political development. Nkrumah’s advances the principles of societal equality. It places the community over the individual in preparing African societies to establish a federal union of African states that is assertive on the global stage.</p>
<h2>What’s working</h2>
<p>The continent has seen some positive developments that could advance integration. They include the adoption of the following instruments and processes: </p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview">AU Agenda 2063</a>, the AU’s blueprint for faster economic growth </p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://au.int/en/aureforms/financing">0.2% import tax levy</a> on member states to finance AU programmes and policies </p></li>
<li><p>the <a href="https://www.tralac.org/resources/our-resources/6730-continental-free-trade-area-cfta.html">African Continental Free Trade Area</a> </p></li>
<li><p>the <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/africa-intracontinental-free-movement">free movement protocol</a> (yet to come into force) </p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20181127/african-union-strengthens-its-sanction-regime-non-payment-dues#:%7E:text=Cautionary%20sanctions%20will%20be%20applied,meetings%20of%20the%20African%20Union.">sanctions</a> for non-payment of membership dues</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/au-commission-has-made-a-good-start-on-gender-equality-but-a-lot-remains-to-be-done-155005">reducing</a> the number of AU Commission members</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/au-commission-has-made-a-good-start-on-gender-equality-but-a-lot-remains-to-be-done-155005">gender equality in leadership</a></p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.tralac.org/blog/article/15548-how-relevant-is-the-protocol-on-relations-between-the-recs-and-the-au.html">regulating the relations</a> between the AU and the eight regional economic communities.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464981/original/file-20220524-24-2q84o5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The African Union: timeline of events.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Usifo Omozokpea / AU</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-union-at-20-a-lot-has-been-achieved-despite-many-flaws-175932">Thomas Tieku</a>, an expert on Africa’s international relations, has observed, despite some of the failures of pan-African integration, the AU has set admirable guidelines on governance, peace and security. </p>
<p>It has also developed enforcement mechanisms for violations of its standards. It has quickly adopted the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-union-at-20-a-lot-has-been-achieved-despite-many-flaws-175932">African Continental Free Trade Area</a>, empowered the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-african-union-at-20-a-lot-has-been-achieved-despite-many-flaws-175932">mobilised resources to get COVID-19 vaccines</a>, and integrated the AU development agenda <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/MDG/SDGs_Country_Report_2019_South_Africa.pdf">into national development plans</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/making-sense-of-decades-of-debate-about-nkrumahs-pan-african-ideas-132684">Making sense of decades of debate about Nkrumah’s pan-African ideas</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Yet pan-African continental integration remains constrained by many problems. These include countries’ <a href="https://theconversation.com/toothless-pan-african-parliament-could-have-meaningful-powers-heres-how-87449">unwillingness</a> to transfer powers to AU organs.</p>
<p>Addressing this will require a change of worldview. Africa needs to rebalance the way it sees itself and relates to the world. African states need to equip national and regional institutions to deliver on the promise of political and economic development.</p>
<h2>What’s not working</h2>
<p>The ability to project a strategic pan-African worldview is undermined by several factors. One is the unwillingness to transfer supranational powers to key AU institutions. For example, the Pan-African Parliament has only <a href="https://theconversation.com/toothless-pan-african-parliament-could-have-meaningful-powers-heres-how-87449">limited, advisory</a> rather than full legislative powers.</p>
<p>Similarly, the AU Commission lacks the power to make member states comply with institutional rules. The 2017 <a href="http://www.mandelaschool.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/78/News/FInal%20AU%20Reform%20Combined%20report_28012017.pdf">Kagame report</a> on AU reforms noted that the union has passed over 1,500 resolutions but has no mechanism for tracking their implementation.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/toothless-pan-african-parliament-could-have-meaningful-powers-heres-how-87449">Toothless Pan-African Parliament could have meaningful powers. Here's how</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<p>Member states have failed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/successes-of-african-human-rights-court-undermined-by-resistance-from-states-166454">comply</a> with about 75% of the decisions of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. In reaction to judgments against them, member states such as <a href="https://www.ejiltalk.org/individual-and-ngo-access-to-the-african-court-on-human-and-peoples-rights-the-latest-blow-from-tanzania/">Tanzania</a>, <a href="https://ijrcenter.org/2020/05/06/benin-and-cote-divoire-to-withdraw-individual-access-to-african-court/">Benin</a>, <a href="https://ijrcenter.org/2016/03/14/rwanda-withdraws-access-to-african-court-for-individuals-and-ngos/">Rwanda</a>, and <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2020/04/30/ivory-coast-withdraws-from-african-human-rights-and-peoples-court/#:%7E:text=Ivory%20Coast%20withdrew%20from%20the,to%2020%20years%20in%20jail.">Côte d’Ivoire</a> have withdrawn the permission allowing individuals and NGOs access to the court.</p>
<p>The AU’s dependence on external funding is another impediment. Despite ongoing financial reforms, at least <a href="https://au.int/en/articles/african-union-sustainable-funding-strategy-gains-momentum">61% of its budget</a> comes from external donors. Some use donations as a tool to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354654152_'She_who_pays_the_piper'_Examining_the_delegitimising_influence_of_European_Union's_financial_support_to_the_African_Union">manipulate</a> AU processes. </p>
<p>The continuous violation of AU norms and standards on human rights and governance is a major obstacle to deepening continental integration. For example, there has been an <a href="https://theconversation.com/burkina-faso-coup-latest-sign-of-a-rise-in-the-ballot-box-being-traded-for-bullets-175642">upsurge</a> in military coups in recent years. In addition, <a href="https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/en/publications/publication/did/a-divided-continent">democratic backsliding</a> is on the rise, through unconstitutional changes of term limits, <a href="https://africacenter.org/spotlight/deluge-digital-repression-threatens-african-security/">digital repression</a>, violent <a href="https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/en/publications/publication/did/a-divided-continent">clampdown on opposition voices</a>, and <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2020/03/how-african-presidents-rig-elections-to-stay-in-office/">electoral fraud</a>.</p>
<p>The AU’s response has been tepid. In some cases, leaders involved in <a href="https://www.africaportal.org/features/sisis-chairmanship-isnt-tonic-african-union-currently-needs/">suppressing</a> democratic voices are <a href="https://au.int/en/speeches/20200209/statement-president-paul-kagame-overview-implementation-institutional-reform-au">tasked</a> with leading key processes in the AU.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/connecting-african-citizens-with-african-decisions">limited role</a> of civil society in pan-African integration is another concern. And there is little public awareness of what the AU does and how.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/successes-of-african-human-rights-court-undermined-by-resistance-from-states-166454">Successes of African Human Rights Court undermined by resistance from states</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Despite the benefits that could come from <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/promise-of-african-economic-integration-by-c-lestin-monga-2019-01">an integrated Africa</a>, many African countries remain wary of the process. For example, some restrict human mobility. They have refused to sign the continental protocol on free movement, citing security concerns and <a href="https://blogs.eui.eu/migrationpolicycentre/barriers-free-movement-africa-remove/">protection of local jobs</a>.</p>
<h2>Changing mindsets</h2>
<p>The effectiveness of reforms at the AU depends on a change of mindset. Members need to understand that enhancement of Africa’s position in global realpolitik depends on an internally cohesive body. This will require actions in three key areas:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a detailed but <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/bafr/8/2/article-p156_7.xml">flexible</a> plan showing how willing states will transfer supranational powers to AU organs </p></li>
<li><p>including the African populace in AU programmes and processes </p></li>
<li><p>adherence to constitutionalism. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Without a system that emphasises fundamental rights and good governance, regional integration goals such as trade, free movement of people, gender equality, peace and security cannot be realised.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183541/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Babatunde Fagbayibo receives funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa. </span></em></p>Despite the benefits that could come from integration, many African countries remain wary of the process.Babatunde Fagbayibo, Professor of International Law, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1776352022-04-19T14:24:45Z2022-04-19T14:24:45ZAfrica’s relationship with India: a diplomat’s view<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456322/original/file-20220405-24-r2s4pn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Flags of India and African countries at the 2015 India Africa Friendship Summit in New Delhi.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Priyanka Parashar/Mint via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://www.theintlscholar.com/board-of-advisors/rajiv-bhatia">Rajiv Bhatia</a>, who represented India as the most senior diplomat to Kenya, South Africa and Lesotho for a combined seven years, has written an <a href="https://www.routledge.com/IndiaAfrica-Relations-Changing-Horizons/Bhatia/p/book/9780367489700#:%7E:text=This%20book%20explores%20the%20emergence,in%20all%20its%20critical%20dimensions.">account</a> of the relationship between his country and Africa. It comes at a time when India’s relationship with countries on the continent has been gaining momentum. This is shown by growing trade and investment, an increase in high level political engagement, and New Delhi articulating ten specific <a href="https://mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/30152/Prime+Ministers+address+at+Parliament+of+Uganda+during+his+State+Visit+to+Ugand">principles</a> that guide it’s engagement with Africa. Veda Vaidyanathan, who has researched Indian and Chinese contemporary engagement with various African countries, discusses what the new book adds to the understanding of this growing relationship.</em></p>
<h2>What’s the book about?</h2>
<p><em><a href="https://www.routledge.com/IndiaAfrica-Relations-Changing-Horizons/Bhatia/p/book/9780367489700#:%7E:text=This%20book%20explores%20the%20emergence,in%20all%20its%20critical%20dimensions">India Africa Relations: Changing Horizons</a></em> looks at the factors that have driven and shaped the relationship between India and Africa. The book explains how it has transformed with time, and recounts Bhatia’s own professional journey.</p>
<p>The author switches between perspectives and dimensions of the relationship - temporal and thematic, geographic and historic, anecdotal and critical.</p>
<p>He begins by providing an “optimistic-realistic evaluation” of the continent’s potential. A youthful demography, fast growing economies and proven resource wealth are grounds for optimism. He also flags issues like regional conflicts, poverty and high unemployment. He says the “world too has a responsibility to assist Africans secure their goals” and this should be based on a “respectful and empathetic attitude”.</p>
<p>Using an array of data sources, he presents a summary of key developments in the Africa-India relationship, first before and after 1947, and later from 2000 to 2019. </p>
<p>The narrative then shifts to Africa’s changing relationships with other countries and blocs. This is to drive home the point that “much of the world is far more interested in Africa today than it was 20 or even 10 years ago”. Their interests are “varied but largely common”, including security, access to natural resources, a growing market and “development of the continent’s human resources”.</p>
<h2>What fresh insights does the book offer?</h2>
<p>The author’s approach to Africa’s changing geopolitics is crucial on many counts. Scholars have largely studied the engagement of Indian actors in the region in isolation. They assume the levers that shape these relationships are largely internal. Their perspective overlooks a range of factors, particularly the impact of global events on African economies and how powers reengaging Africa are changing the status quo.</p>
<p>Bhatia’s primary aim appears to be underlining Africa’s importance to India’s foreign policy calculations. But the main questions that guide the book are these: how can New Delhi engage countries in Africa as other global actors, especially China, are stepping up their interactions in the region? And how can India-Africa relations be more comprehensive and productive?</p>
<h2>What struck you as the most interesting thing about the book?</h2>
<p>The author argues that relations “will be influenced by the larger global developments, especially the US-China relations that came under serious stress in the recent years”. Among other influences will be “the direction of the global economy once it begins to recover from the massive damage caused by COVID-19”.</p>
<p>For New Delhi, the most critical external partnership to examine closely would be China’s. Bhatia devotes an entire chapter to this, tracing the timeline and examining various aspects of this multifaceted relationship. They include summit diplomacy, trade, investments, projects under <a href="https://www.oecd.org/finance/Chinas-Belt-and-Road-Initiative-in-the-global-trade-investment-and-finance-landscape.pdf">China’s Belt and Road Initiative</a>, and a growing diaspora. </p>
<p>He then presents a prudent assessment: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“instead of demonising China’s Africa policy and its implementation, the competing nations need to focus on analysing it objectively and devising a more attractive policy model for themselves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He urges other powers to consider that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Africa needs and welcomes a multiplicity of options for partnerships. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Policymakers should consider each nation’s individual strengths and craft sustainable alternatives.</p>
<p>The book does not shy away from addressing difficult issues. Among them are the slow and inadequate implementation of previous agreements and commitments, lack of clarity in India’s Africa policy and attacks against African students in India.</p>
<h2>Who should read it and why?</h2>
<p>This book is a must-read for those interested in international affairs. But it will also be of interest to a broader audience. The insights are rooted in the reflections of an individual who has had a front row seat as the India-Africa relationship has evolved. Weaving personal impressions with the ideas of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Kwame Nkrumah, Jawaharlal Nehru and Nelson Mandela, the author reminds the reader of the social, philosophical and cultural congruities that have guided the relationship.</p>
<p>The book places the responsibility of African growth on its leaders, people, and civil society. But he also recognises the role partners like India can play in achieving its goals. According to the author, this is crucial because the world stands to benefit from the continent’s prosperity as Africa is the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177635/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Veda Vaidyanathan is a Visiting Associate Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), New Delhi. She was a recipient of the ICS - Harvard-Yenching Institute (ICS-HYI) Fellowship for China Studies and was also a Doctoral Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research. </span></em></p>A new book places the responsibility of African growth on its leaders, people, and civil society, while also recognising the role partners like India can play in achieving its goals.Veda Vaidyanathan, Associate, Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1806172022-04-08T14:53:06Z2022-04-08T14:53:06ZPaulin J. Hountondji: a tribute to one of Africa’s greatest modern thinkers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456929/original/file-20220407-18-1x6h51.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paulin Hountondji was the anointed enfant terrible of African philosophy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hountondji's personal collection</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When renowned <a href="https://theconversation.com/kwasi-wiredu-cleared-the-way-for-modern-african-philosophy-174917">Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu</a> passed on in early 2022, Benin’s Paulin J. Hountondji was left alone to adopt the mantle of “Africa’s greatest living philosopher”. With one possible exception – Congolese philosopher and historian of ideas, <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/mudimbe-v-y">V.Y. Mudimbe</a>. Now Hountondji himself has <a href="https://www.24haubenin.info/?Le-Professeur-Paulin-Hountondji-n-est-plus">passed on</a> at the age of 82.</p>
<p>The celebrated Beninese philosopher, politician and academic’s long and gallant campaign to establish and disseminate an African philosophical voice is noteworthy.</p>
<p>His first book was <a href="https://www.amazon.com/African-Philosophy-Second-Reality-Systems/dp/0253210968">African Philosophy: Myth and Reality</a> published in 1976. It introduced an unapologetic and counter-intuitive African presence into the supposedly scientific annals of world philosophy. This paradigmatic entry includes a generous critique of the work of the hitherto forgotten 18th century Ghanaian philosopher, <a href="https://blog.apaonline.org/2018/02/08/anton-wilhelm-amo-the-african-philosopher-in-18th-europe/">Anton Wilhelm Amo</a>. It is also an intricate metaphilosophical critique and a strident evaluation of Ghanaian liberation leader and president <a href="https://theconversation.com/kwame-nkrumah-memorials-to-the-man-who-led-ghana-to-independence-have-been-built-erased-and-revived-again-211434">Kwame Nkrumah</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337989740_%27An_Historiographical_Overview_of_Nkrumah%27s_Ideology_and_Foreign_Policy%27_Southern_Journal_for_Contemporary_History_vo_44_2_2019_pp_29-54">Nkrumaist ideology</a>.</p>
<p>His second book, published in 2002, was <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/The+Struggle+for+Meaning">The Struggle for Meaning: Reflections on Philosophy, Culture and Democracy in Africa</a>. It revisits his earlier doctoral dissertation on the German philosopher, <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/husserl/">Edmund Husserl</a>. It examines his engrossing trajectory as an African engaged in philosophy on the global stage. </p>
<p>Much of the work is also devoted to replying to critics. This includes the late <a href="https://codesria.org/IMG/pdf/2-_s_osha_codbul_online_21.pdf">Olabiyi Yai</a>. But Hountondji has nothing but affection for the contributions of Congolese-born philosopher <a href="https://scholars.duke.edu/person/vmudimbe">Valentin-Yves Mudimbe </a> and <a href="http://appiah.net/">Kwame Anthony Appiah</a>.</p>
<p>Hountondji came across as the anointed enfant terrible of African philosophy. This is even more so than Wiredu and the equally revered Mudimbe. He criss-crossed various metropolitan capitals spreading the mantra of African philosophy. He paradoxically denounced the discourse of ethnophilosophy as a colonialist (pseudo) disciplinary invention. At the same time he promoted philosophy’s innate scientism and universalism.</p>
<h2>Establishing modern philosophy within the continent</h2>
<p>His academic career began in the early 1970s in Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire in the cities of Kinshasa and Lubumbashi. He then returned to his country, Dahomey (now Benin Republic) in 1972. </p>
<p>The following year he was instrumental, alongside other continental colleagues, in founding the Inter-African Philosophy Council. He was also crucial in establishing early important journals on philosophy within the continent. They include the African Philosophical Notebooks. And the council-affiliated Consequence: Review of Inter-African Council of Philosophy. </p>
<p>Part of the effort in establishing modern philosophy on the continent entailed forming trans-regional organisations. Sadly, these have withered with the exception of the African Philosophy Society. Hountondji supported it by granting it legitimacy and serving as a keynote speaker at its events.</p>
<p>Ideologically and theoretically, Hountondji’s version of philosophical universalism and Africanity would have been a very hard sell for any other philosopher – except for Hountondji himself. His stature only seemed to rise. Indeed his support for a Euro-Amer-defined philosophical universalism did not seem emancipatory in an age of decolonisation and postcolonial despair. Philosophers were expected to reveal their ideological stances. These were meant to be anti-imperialist and pro-masses in orientation. </p>
<p>During this period African philosophers were also expected to get their hands dirty. This meant getting off the high horse of theory and abstraction to partake in the onerous and messy task of nation-building. </p>
<p>In other words, they had to take concrete measures to justify their sociopolitical existence and relevance.</p>
<p>Hountondji did eventually become a nation-builder. He held two ministerial portfolios in the early 1990s in Benin Republic. After emerging from the torrid political battles geared at consolidating Benin’s fledgling democracy, he returned to academia. There he resumed his unfinished investigations into strictly philosophical matters.</p>
<p>The enfant terrible of yore had transformed into part of the venerable old guard. This comprised Wiredu, <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/POBTQO">Peter O. Bodunrin</a> and late Kenyan philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/african-sage/">Henry Odera Oruka</a>. </p>
<p>He also became a highly sought and favoured guest at philosophical gatherings all over the world. </p>
<p>He continued to publish his research on the state of scientific and philosophical knowledge in Africa. And his stutter did not prevent him from sharing his invaluable insights on his diverse areas of expertise.</p>
<p>Franziska Dubgen and Stefan Skupien <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Paulin-Hountondji-Philosophy-Universalism-Political/dp/3030019942">in their 2019 book</a> on Hountondji argue for his acceptance as a universal thinker. This is fair enough. But it is always useful to remember that Hountondji popularised a few vital concepts and subjects with a distinctly African flavour. </p>
<p>Notable among them are the inevitable critique of ethnophilosophy, a repudiation of unanimism, an assessment of Nkrumaism, the rehabilitation of Amo and the searing indictment of scientific dependency. There is also the recent concept of endogenous knowledge. This might indeed be considered as an endorsement of the ethnographic potentials of philosophy, on the one hand, and the valorisation of local knowledges, on the other.</p>
<h2>Universalism versus particularism</h2>
<p>Philosophically, Hountondji’s work is characterised by an ever-present contestation between universalism (epistemic) and particularism (endogeneity). He avoids a neat resolution simply because it is a tension that animates what is considered to be philosophical.</p>
<p>The source of the particular is invariably African. For its part, the universal is ostensibly defined as western. This equation has the possibility of inaugurating an evident relativism which stands to be repudiated. This is particularly true given the transcendent dimension of Hountondji’s thought. Indeed the philosophical transcends the limitations of the particular.</p>
<p>The relation of Hountondji’s work to decolonial thought was re-emphasised at a 2022 workshop at the University of Cape Town. In an era of decolonial theorising, Hountondji found himself conveniently lumped with a range of contemporary thinkers. These include Walter Mignolo, Andre Lorde, Gayatri Spivak, Hamid Dabashi, Dipesh Chakrabarty and Achille Mbembe. </p>
<p>Undoubtedly, this diversifies the canon of critical theory. It also ensures Hountondji’s continuing relevance.</p>
<p>In view of these varied insights and contributions, Hountondji can be praised for a life well-spent, in the service of African systems of thought.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated to reflect Hountondji’s passing.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sanya Osha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hountondji both disrupted and shaped ideas on African philosophy. He is a grandfather of today’s decolonial movement.Sanya Osha, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1790972022-03-31T07:33:13Z2022-03-31T07:33:13ZNkrumah and football: how Ghana’s top players ended up in North America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452389/original/file-20220316-19-e015zo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Black Stars were an extension of Nkrumah's political ideology </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghana_football_team_1960s.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>African footballers have been migrating overseas since the 1920s, when French leagues attracted some West African players. The migration of African talent to Europe intensified from the 1980s to the 2000s as football became more globalised and economically viable. </p>
<p>Thousands of African footballers have since found their way to Europe. Many have succeeded in carving a niche for themselves, like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abedi-Ayew-Pele">Abedi Pele</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Didier-Drogba">Didier Drogba</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Weah">George Weah</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Etoo">Samuel Eto'o</a>. The performances of these stars have reinforced the perception that the African continent has some of the best football talent.</p>
<p>Less is known about the history of African footballers moving to North America. My own <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17532523.2022.2047282">study</a> of the migration of Ghanaians to leagues in the United States from 1967 to 1984 shows interesting connections between political, social, and economic influences and sports. In particular it highlights the influence of the country’s first post-independence president, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kwame-Nkrumah">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, on the state of football in Ghana. </p>
<p>The knowledge and experience of former footballers is a useful resource for those who wish to promote the game and support the development of players.</p>
<h2>Nkrumah’s vision for football</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17532523.2022.2047282">research</a> used a qualitative research method. We tracked down several players who played under Nkrumah’s regime and migrated to the United States to join the North American Soccer League. We also studied documents. </p>
<p>Nkrumah viewed the national football team as an extension of his pan-Africanist vision. He appointed an administrator who shared that vision in the person of <a href="https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-staps-2019-3-page-49.htm">Ohene Djan</a>. His role was to grow sports in general and develop a national football league capable of producing a national football team to fulfil Nkrumah’s objectives.</p>
<p>He did this successfully as Ghana’s national football team became the best on the continent, winning<a href="https://www.cafonline.com/total-africa-cup-of-nations/news/four-black-stars-in-the-sky#:%7E:text=For%20over%20two%20decades%2C%20Ghana,attempt%2C%20at%20home%20in%201963."> two continental titles</a> in 1963 and 1965 . Domestic club sides like <a href="https://www.ghanafa.org/football-club/asante-kotoko">Asante Kotoko</a> were also a force.</p>
<p>The popularity of football in Ghana brought enormous prestige, social respectability, and fame to football stars, especially to national team players. They were seen as international stars and were the “pampered darlings” of the general public. Former national goalkeeper Dodoo Ankrah described the feeling.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We were proud of wearing the national colours because it was not easy to be invited to play for the team … anybody who plays for the national team was regarded as a hero and even the chief in the community takes you as a hero.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>By 1968, two years after Nkrumah’s overthrow, the country experienced an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17532523.2022.2047282">economic crisis </a> which affected sports development. Unemployment increased and social welfare was drastically reduced, making Ghana unattractive to foreigners and citizens alike. The country experienced a long period of economic difficulty, political instability and civil unrest. Conditions became counter-productive to the growth of football and national team players were left to find their own way of surviving. </p>
<p>Some players embraced migration opportunities to the North American Soccer
League, where they met other African footballers. </p>
<h2>Greener pastures</h2>
<p>A number of factors led to the American league becoming the destination of choice for the players at the time. With the economic situation in Ghana showing no signs of improvement and football no longer the focus of attention for the new government, these players felt the need to look for greener pastures. The USA made sense as a destination because most of them had friends who had migrated there. The burgeoning football market was also a factor.</p>
<p>Footballers relied heavily on their social relations and networks acquired through fame and social status. One of them, Wilberforce Mfum, recapped his journey to the United States via Italy, where a former management member of Asante Kotoko SC – who was then an ambassador – hosted him.</p>
<p>This player explained the circumstances surrounding his migration after Nkrumah’s topple. At age 29, Mfum was still scoring goals in African competitions but the media put pressure on “ageing” national team players, leading to their exit. </p>
<p>He told of his final move to the North American league:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I left Ghana on July 24, 1968. That time, we had played a match against Morocco’s national team for a World Cup qualifier and we lost 0–1 at Accra Sport Stadium, so other sportswriters including Kofi Badu were saying the Black Stars players are old so we should be sacked from the team. I was so lucky that three days after that match, I flew to the United States and was met by Boye Lomotey(a Ghanaian resident in the states) at the New York airport and he took me to Washington.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The pioneers of the North American Soccer League included Gladstone Ofori, a former Invincible Eleven FC player. Brothers Sam and Oliver Acquah played for Kumasi Asante Kotoko SC before moving to North America. </p>
<p>Most Ghanaian players played for Rochester Lancers Club between 1970 and 1978. Out of the total, only four were former Black Stars players. Others were Wilberforce Mfum, Abdul Razak and Frank Odoi, a former player of Great Olympics, who stayed 12 years in the North American Soccer League. They all enjoyed a reasonable level of success during their playing career in the United States. Back home, football went through an intermittent period of success but the focus that Nkrumah placed on the national team was not replicated.</p>
<p>The study of the migration of some of Ghana’s biggest football stars to the US after the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah in 1966 adds to the literature on African football migration. This process continues today in the steady flow of football talents to the Major Soccer League in the US.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ernest Yeboah Acheampong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghanaian footballers chased migration to the US after the removal of Nkrumah as president.Ernest Yeboah Acheampong, Lecturer/Researcher, University of Education, WinnebaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1786092022-03-05T14:53:37Z2022-03-05T14:53:37ZHow Kwame Nkrumah’s midnight speech set a tradition for marking the moment of liberation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450141/original/file-20220305-19-gqchw6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kwame Nkrumah's vision still resonates with Ghanaians</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbdodane/9761663542">JB Dodane/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Ghana celebrates the <a href="https://nationaltoday.com/ghana-independence-day/">65th anniversary</a> of its independence from Britain, it is worth revisiting the landmark speech Kwame Nkrumah delivered at midnight to mark the event of Ghana’s birth. Nkrumah had led a mass movement demanding self-government in the anticolonial struggle and was, with independence, poised to become the first Prime Minister of independent Ghana.</p>
<p>Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African country to gain its independence from colonial rule. Accordingly, Nkrumah’s speech at the moment of liberation set a tone of pride in Ghana’s accomplishment along with hope for freedom struggles still in progress across decolonising Africa and its diaspora. </p>
<p>Today, Nkrumah’s midnight speech stands as a model of African political leadership that avoids the mimicry of Western models.</p>
<p>Addressing a large and excited crowd, Nkrumah’s first words at midnight were:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At long last the battle has ended! And thus Ghana, your beloved country, is free for ever.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the climax of the speech, Nkrumah acknowledged the larger stakes of the moment, declaring: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with total liberation of the African continent.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15358593.2022.2027996">recent analysis</a> of Nkrumah’s midnight speech reflects on how he used his performance at the moment of Ghana’s independence to outline his vision of colonial freedom. Nkrumah’s revolutionary rhetoric refused the narrow grounds on which Britain was offering Ghana independence. Instead, he sought to generate new forms of belonging outside the conditions that were the remnants of colonialism. </p>
<p>Nkrumah embraced various populations in the colony who had been devalued by the colonial administration and ignored by African leaders who were his rivals. His rhetoric worked alongside political rallies to organise a mass base that was a means of distinction for his party, the Convention People’s Party.</p>
<p>In addition, he advocated for pan-African union so that Ghana and other emergent African countries wouldn’t perpetuate the legacies of colonial rule. At the time, Nkrumah worried that the piecemeal liberation of colonised territories would limit the transformative potential of independence. Instead, he promoted African union as a way to establish new shared identities and a self-determined presence in international affairs. </p>
<p>Today, Nkrumah’s vision of a united Africa stands as a testament to the common humanity of Africans. Nkrumah’s embrace of the mass base and pan-African discourses mattered because it injected populist energies into Gold Coast politics and demonstrated a way for Africans to pursue sovereignty within conditions of their own making.</p>
<h2>Nkrumah’s vision of freedom</h2>
<p>Trinidadian journalist <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/274609">George Padmore</a>, one of Nkrumah’s closest advisors, singled out how Nkrumah and the Convention People’s Party offered a new form of political leadership that was centred on</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the plebeian masses, the urban workers, artisans, petty traders, market women and fishermen, the clerks, the junior teachers, and the vast farming communities of the rural areas.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is fitting, then, that, in the speech, Nkrumah named the people on equal terms with the chiefs when he recognised those who would “reshape the destiny of this country”. Rather than taking his cues from traditional rulers, Nkrumah used this mass base to ensure that the possibilities of postcolonial society would not be limited by precolonial traditions. </p>
<p>He also promoted the masses as representatives of the “new African” who is </p>
<blockquote>
<p>ready to fight his own battle and show that after all the black man is capable of managing his own affairs.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This proud and defiant vision of African political achievement was in stark contrast to racist and imperial ways of knowing that degraded and doubted African and black potential. </p>
<p>A second major theme of Nkrumah’s midnight speech was his view of the role of pan-Africanism in relationship to national consolidation. He said that Ghana’s independence was</p>
<blockquote>
<p>meaningless unless it is linked up with total liberation of the African continent. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although this became one of the most famous statements of the speech, its novel sentiment should not be overlooked. It marked Nkrumah’s widening of freedom to include pan-African dimensions. In subsequent years, Nkrumah would coordinate efforts across the continent, including the <a href="http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/africa/OAU_Charter_1993.html">1963 ratification of the Organisation of African Unity</a>. </p>
<p>Today, one of the enduring tributes to his work encouraging political and economic cooperation among African nations is the statue of Nkrumah on the grounds of the African Union building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which depicts him as he was dressed during the midnight speech.</p>
<p>One of the curious aspects of Nkrumah’s midnight speech is the fact that he asked the band to play the Ghana National Anthem twice. The first time, it was played after a moment of silence and Nkrumah’s declaration: “Ghana is free forever!”</p>
<p>Later, Nkrumah called for the anthem to be played again, saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>this time … it is going to be played in honour of the foreign states who are here with us today.“ </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This second anthem, however, has been written out of most of the widespread records of the speech (including the version that Nkrumah included in his 1961 book, <em>I Speak of Freedom</em>).</p>
<p>My archival work in both Ghana and the US has recovered a complete version of the speech that includes the second anthem and other omitted passages.</p>
<p>In my view, these dual anthems mark both the national and international audiences that Nkrumah was addressing. </p>
<p>For Nkrumah, achieving genuine freedom was not as simple as merely renaming the Gold Coast "Ghana” and replacing the colonial administers in Accra’s Christiansborg Castle with African agents. The “hard work” that Nkrumah focused on that night included a social and ideological reorganisation to match the political changes underway within independence. In this view, the pursuit of pan-African union was central to the transfiguration of the political kingdom. </p>
<h2>Beyond Ghana</h2>
<p>Nkrumah’s midnight speech is everywhere in Ghana today. It circulates on radio and in social media posts. Key quotations from it are emblazoned on t-shirts, posters, magazine covers, billboards, and beyond. As Nkrumah has ascended to founding father status within Ghana’s current Fourth Republic, contemporary politicians from all sides of the political spectrum invoke it. This is true even when advocating for policies that are in direct tension with those of Nkrumahism.</p>
<p>What is less well known, however, is that, in part because of Nkrumah’s influence and the catalytic role of Ghana’s freedom, the midnight independence speech has become a transnational tradition tied to moments of postcolonial foundation across the globe. </p>
<p>The midnight staging of Nkrumah’s speech was, in fact, an allusion to <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/tryst_with_destiny">the midnight speech</a> that Jawaharlal Nehru delivered for India’s independence ten years earlier. In addition, the convention of a midnight independence ceremony became a recurring practice for other countries emerging from colonial rule. Midnight independence ceremonies in subsequent years included Nigeria (1960), Sierra Leone (1961), Tanzania (1961), Botswana (1966), Angola (1975), and Zimbabwe (1980). </p>
<p>Across the Black Atlantic, Guyana marked independence with a midnight celebration (1966) and even the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China was celebrated with a midnight countdown.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178609/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erik Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nkrumah’s rhetorical vision used the politics of the crowd to build a postcolonial community outside of the conscripts of colonialism.Erik Johnson, Assistant Professor, Media and Communications Studies, Stetson University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1749212022-02-14T14:44:41Z2022-02-14T14:44:41ZTransformation of Ghana’s legal profession. A return to Kwame Nkrumah’s vision?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442978/original/file-20220127-6424-tc8ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There have been major demographic shifts in the profile of Ghana's lawyers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Late last year the University of Ghana School of Law at Legon held a <a href="https://law.ug.edu.gh/international-conference-future-legal-education-ghanaafrica-icflea">conference</a> to discuss the future of legal education in Ghana. The keynote speaker, President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo called for a <a href="https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/reform-of-legal-education-system-necessary-akufo-addo.html">reform</a> to meet the current and future needs of the country. His remarks came at a time when law students held several protests requesting changes in the current selection process for entry to the law school.</p>
<p>The legal profession in Ghana has come a long way. In 1887, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41405839?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">John Mensah Sarbah</a> was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in England, making him the first Ghanaian lawyer. 58 years later, <a href="https://www.africanwomeninlaw.com/african-women-in-law/Essi-Matilda-Forster">Essi Matilda Forster</a> made history as the first woman from the British Gold Coast and the third woman in British West Africa to be called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn in London in 1945. She was later called to the Ghana Bar in 1947. </p>
<p>The profession has grown since the first nine lawyers trained on Ghanaian soil were called to the Ghana Bar in 1963. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09695958.2021.1992283?journalCode=cijl20">recent article</a>, I traced the developments in Ghana’s legal profession over the past 30 years, through three phases: indigenisation, professionalisation and globalisation. </p>
<p>I examined the ongoing demographic shifts in the profession – the number of lawyers, the gender composition of the Bar and the intersection of ethnicity, age and class. </p>
<p>Among my findings were two that stand out. First, more people are pursuing a legal degree and career. Secondly, more women are becoming lawyers, accounting for over 30% of those called to the bar in recent years. The increase in the number of women lawyers mirrors the general gender demographic shifts taking place globally. Across Africa, <a href="https://www.africanwomeninlaw.com/_files/ugd/dc397a_f4ad148771d44bea826991d7c95e87c4.pdf">gender transformation</a> is happening within the legal profession though women still face gender-based professional biases.</p>
<p>The increase in the number of lawyers could signal increasing opportunities for Ghanaians to access the services of lawyers. This expands opportunity for access to justice and legal services. </p>
<p>But the positive changes we hope to see from an increase in the number of lawyers, cannot happen without a strong foundation for a legal education structure that meets the needs of the country. </p>
<h2>Three eras</h2>
<p><strong>Indigenisation:</strong>
I trace the indigenisation phase from the mid 19th century to the late 1970s, gaining roots in 1962 with the establishment of the first law faculty and law school in Ghana. Ghana’s first president, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kwame-Nkrumah">Kwame Nkrumah</a> played a central role in establishing legal education in Ghana. His vision of a united Africa found expression when he <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/745009?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">noted </a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our lawyers therefore, if they are to understand the spirit of our laws, must understand the basic principles upon which the state is directed and why certain laws are enacted, repealed or amended by Parliament. The teaching of law is totally incomplete if it is not accompanied by a background of economic, social and political science, and even politics, science and technology.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Three points are worth highlighting about the indigenisation phase. </p>
<p>First, Ghanaian lawyers who trained abroad had to develop their understanding of the legal systems in Ghana since they had not received any training in customary law. </p>
<p>Second, these lawyers were later to serve as a check on the political, legal, and economic excesses of the colonial administration. Not surprising, some of the early independence leaders were lawyers.</p>
<p>Third, many lawyers concentrated in land litigation given the colonial economy’s dependence on agricultural production.</p>
<p><strong>Professionalisation:</strong>
Professionalisation marks the period from the 1980s to the early 2000s. It was during this phase that the profession sought to institutionalise and contextualise its professional ethos. This period occurred during the political turbulence of the 1980s, during prolonged periods of dictatorships. Lawyers played important roles, opposing the military junta’s policies, such as the institutionalisation of kangaroo courts and the imposition of detention laws.</p>
<p>Lawyers played insider-outsider roles, as some lawyers worked for the government, while others served as opposition through civil society organisations and emerging political parties. This phase also witnessed an increase in the number of law firms, the introduction of continuing legal education, the use of technology and expansion in the areas of legal practice and specialisation.</p>
<p><strong>Globalisation:</strong>
This begins from the 2000s to the present. In this phase, legal education expanded through the privatisation of law school education. Private universities were allowed to establish law faculties. With the increase in the supply of lawyers, law firms began growing in scale and size.</p>
<p>Legal practice continues to change as lawyers expand their areas of specialisation. Regulatory bodies such as the <a href="https://www.glc.gov.gh/">General Legal Council</a> are enforcing professional regulation and ethics. Opportunities are expanding for professional affiliations at the domestic and international levels. </p>
<p>The last three decades have seen the profession expand, and become increasingly globalised. The peaceful transition to democratic government in 1992 and the alternation of political power between political parties and leaders has created new opportunities for lawyers. Democratic governance has led to an increase in public interest litigation due to constitutional freedoms and the guarantee of rights.</p>
<p>Given these changes in the profession, legal education has to change to meet these seismic developments in the legal profession.</p>
<h2>Future directions</h2>
<p>Lawyers in Ghana continue to occupy an elite status in society. Since 1992 three lawyers have held the position of president of Ghana, including the current president, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nana-Addo-Dankwa-Akufo-Addo">Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo</a>. Several members of parliament are lawyers.</p>
<p>To keep abreast with global and international developments, the legal profession in Ghana will have to undergo internal occupational and organisational transformation. Some of these changes are happening through increased specialisation, use of digital tools, and connections with foreign law firms via partnerships and best friend agreements. </p>
<p>However, more needs to be done to position the legal profession at a competitive advantage as global law firms and corporate practices around the world grow. </p>
<p>The changes needed to position the profession as a strong global competitor starts with an overhaul of the current legal education system. </p>
<p>Ghana has become a frontier for corporate legal services as global corporations take advantage of the economic growth happening across Africa. The teaching and practice of corporate law needs attention, but should not be prioritised to the disadvantage of other areas such as environmental law, human rights, and women’s rights. Maybe it is time to reconsider the foundational ideology for Kwame Nkrumah’s establishment of legal education in Ghana – a legal education that is holistic and meets the needs of the country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174921/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Josephine Jarpa Dawuni does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The present state of legal education in Ghana cannot be discussed without understanding its beginings.Josephine Jarpa Dawuni, Associate Professor, Howard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1765972022-02-09T14:02:18Z2022-02-09T14:02:18ZWhite Malice: how the CIA strangled African independence at birth<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445362/original/file-20220209-13-1t2q9l4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Patrice Lumumba, left, first Prime Minister of independent Congo in 1960. The CIA celebrated his death. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Historian <a href="https://research.sas.ac.uk/search/fellow/185/dr-susan-williams/">Susan Williams</a> grew up in Zambia. Like other scholars of her generation raised in former settler societies of southern Africa, she empathises with the continent’s people.</p>
<p>Williams’ widely acknowledged new book, <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/white-malice/">White Malice – The CIA and the Neocolonisation of Africa</a>, adds to her track record, testifying to this engagement. Almost a forensic account, its more than 500 pages (supported by close to 150 pages of sources, references and index) are as readable as a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-le-Carre">John le Carré</a> novel. </p>
<p>But make no mistake: Williams ruthlessly reveals through factual evidence the unsavoury machinations of the American <a href="https://www.cia.gov/">Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)</a> in Africa during the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War">Cold War</a> until the late 1960s. While scholarly analyses of this era have increased, the literature mainly focuses on how geostrategic aspects had an impact on international policy. In contrast, this is the first detailed account disclosing a Western dirty war through detailed quotes from original documents and by those involved.</p>
<p>Published in 2011, her investigative research titled <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/who-killed-hammarskjold-2/">Who Killed Hammarskjöld? The UN, the Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa</a> made history. The evidence strengthened suspicions that the plane crash that killed the United Nations Secretary General and 15 others on 17/18 September 1961 near Ndola, in then <a href="https://www.history.com/news/dag-hammarskjold-death-plane-crash">Northern Rhodesia</a>, was no accident. As continuously updated by the Westminster branch of the <a href="http://www.hammarskjoldinquiry.info/">United Nations Association</a>, the disclosures triggered <a href="https://theconversation.com/speaking-truth-to-power-the-killing-of-dag-hammarskjold-and-the-cover-up-65534">new investigations</a> by the UN.</p>
<p>In 2016 Williams published <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/spies-in-the-congo-2/#:%7E:text=Spies%20in%20the%20Congo%20is,to%20build%20its%20atomic%20bomb">Spies in the Congo: The Race for the Ore that Built the Atomic Bomb</a>. The focus was on <a href="https://www.mindat.org/loc-4328.html">Shinkolobwe</a>, the world’s biggest uranium mine, in the Congolese Katanga province. Of crucial geostrategic importance, in the 1940s it supplied the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-manhattan-project">Manhattan Project</a>, which produced the first atomic bombs, which devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Shinkolobwe remained the main resource in the American nuclear arming of the 1950s.</p>
<h2>White Malice</h2>
<p>Williams’ new book seems like the third in a trilogy. Its title, White Malice, captures the racist arrogance of power, unscrupulously destabilising and (re-)gaining control over sovereign states as a form of colonialism by other means. </p>
<p>Not by coincidence, the book revisits the circumstances of Hammarskjöld’s death and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Katanga-province-Democratic-Republic-of-the-Congo">relevance of Katanga</a>. More room is devoted to a step-by-step account leading to the <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/L/bo20598433.html">elimination of Patrice Lumumba</a>, the first prime minister of an independent Congo.</p>
<p>Another major focus is on Ghana since independence <a href="https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/was-the-gold-coast-decolonised-or-did-ghana-win-its-independence">in 1957</a>. Documenting the continental role of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kwame-Nkrumah">President Kwame Nkrumah</a>, it explains why and how he was removed from office. His role in promoting <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313574089_Kwame_Nkrumah_and_the_panafrican_vision_Between_acceptance_and_rebuttal">pan-Africanism</a> was equated with an anti-Western attitude. </p>
<p>All this is tied together by the interventions by the CIA and its predecessor, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Office-of-Strategic-Services">Office for Strategic Services</a>, often in cahoots with the <a href="https://www.sis.gov.uk/">British MI6</a>. The detailed accounts offer insights into the secret operations then. The display of mindsets and their consequences do not require theory or analytical comment. The facts speak for themselves. </p>
<p>Both agencies shared access to the encrypted messages used in confidential communication by Hammarskjöld and other high-ranking UN officials. As quoted by Williams (p. 290), the CIA celebrated this as “the intelligence coup of the century”.</p>
<p>The UK and the USA have still not disclosed insider knowledge concerning the deaths of Hammarskjöld and his entourage. Their secret agents were also involved in deliberations to kill Lumumba. Though they weren’t directly participating in his abduction, torture and execution in Katanga, it suited their agenda.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Book cover shows a map of Africa with its western parts in a sniper's sights." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445364/original/file-20220209-21-hhrw56.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445364/original/file-20220209-21-hhrw56.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445364/original/file-20220209-21-hhrw56.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445364/original/file-20220209-21-hhrw56.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445364/original/file-20220209-21-hhrw56.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445364/original/file-20220209-21-hhrw56.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445364/original/file-20220209-21-hhrw56.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nkrumah was luckier. A state visit to Beijing saved his life, when in his absence the <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2018/2/23/february-24-1966-dr-kwame-nkrumah-overthrown-as-president-of-the-republic-of-ghana">military coup took place</a>. Nelson Mandela was also “spared” by being imprisoned for most of the next 30 years. His <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/trials-and-prison-chronology">arrest in South Africa in 1962</a> under the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/suppression-communism-act-no-44-1950-approved-parliament">Suppression of Communism Act</a> was based on information provided by the CIA (p. 474). </p>
<h2>Western mindset</h2>
<p>Williams quotes (p. 77) a high-ranking CIA agent to illustrate the overall Western mindset. He declared in 1957:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Africa has become the real battleground and the next field of the big test of strength – not only for the free world and the communist world but for our own country and our Allies who are colonialist powers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The strategy included replacing independent nationalist leaders with <a href="https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/anthos/vol2/iss1/5/">“big men”</a> – autocrats who based their power on Western support, such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mobutu-Sese-Seko">Mobutu Sese Seko</a>. A track record in or commitment to democracy and human rights was not a prerequisite.</p>
<p>In contrast, leaders like Guinea’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sekou-Toure">Sékou Touré</a> were considered enemies. Arguing for a referendum rejecting continued dependency from France, he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/28/obituaries/ahmed-sekou-toure-a-radical-hero.html">declared in 1958</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Guinea prefers poverty in freedom to riches in slavery (p. 74).</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Cultural operations</h2>
<p>CIA operations were not confined to plots ending in brute force. Some were cultural programmes, unbeknown to many artists and scholars who received CIA sponsorship.</p>
<p>This included stipends to South African writers in exile, such as <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/eskia-mphahlele">Es'kia Mphahlele</a> and <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-01902011000100004">Nat Nakasa</a>, as well as the sponsoring of cultural festivals and conferences in Africa. Williams (p. 64) quotes the future Nobel laureate <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1986/soyinka/biographical/">Wole Soyinka</a>, who after discovering that he had unknowingly received CIA funds <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1986/soyinka/biographical/">declared</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>we had been dining, and with relish, with the original of that serpentine incarnation, the Devil himself, romping in our post-colonial Garden of Eden and gorging on the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a spectacular disclosure (pp. 324-331) Williams presents details of CIA-funded concerts by <a href="https://npg.si.edu/exh/armstrong/">Louis Armstrong</a>, touring 27 African cities in 11 weeks during late 1960. This included a concert in Elisabethville, the Katanga breakaway province of Congo, at a time when Lumumba’s end was near. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/12/louis-armstrong-and-the-spy-how-the-cia-used-him-as-a-trojan-horse-in-congo">According to Williams</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Armstrong was basically a Trojan horse for the CIA … He would have been horrified.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Facts, not fiction</h2>
<p>The US’s <a href="https://www.ushistory.org/us/53a.asp">obsessive anti-communism</a>, which escalated in the era of Senator Joseph McCarthy, at times took lethal forms when governments or leaders were considered to be obstructing Western interests. </p>
<p>A sense of guilt or remorse remains absent. Mike Pompeo says it all. Then CIA director from January 2017 to April 2018 and Donald Trump’s <a href="https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/pompeo-michael-r">Secretary of State</a>, “celebrated immorality”, as Williams drily comments (p. 515). “I was the CIA director,” Pompeo boosted in a quoted speech in 2019:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The story, unlike John le Carré’s, is definitely not fiction. CIA operations, at times in collaboration with other Western intelligence agencies, were pursuing a hegemonic agenda with lasting impact.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Detailed accounts from original documents offer insights into the secret operations of the CIA in Africa.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1744852022-01-12T14:33:51Z2022-01-12T14:33:51ZAfricans and African-Americans would honour Martin Luther King by rekindling their bonds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440415/original/file-20220112-13-fulvzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bernice A. King, daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, at a recent press conference preview the King Holiday observance in Atlanta, Georgia.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Erik S. Lesser</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During an official visit to Washington DC in 1962, Cameroon’s founding President Ahmadou Ahidjo informed President John F. Kennedy of his <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/equality-noninterference-and-sovereignty-president-ahmadou-ahidjo-and-the-making-of-cameroonus-relations/20C7C112F4588FFA414E0E0572ECFCA7">displeasure over anti-black racism in the US</a>. Ahidjo met and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/equality-noninterference-and-sovereignty-president-ahmadou-ahidjo-and-the-making-of-cameroonus-relations/20C7C112F4588FFA414E0E0572ECFCA7">praised</a> the leadership of the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lift-Every-Voice-Making-Movement/dp/B0096EQTG0">National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)</a>, the oldest African American civil rights organisation, for its willingness to unite with Africa “in a world-wide movement to fight against the evils of racial discrimination, injustice, racial prejudices, and hatred”.</p>
<p>He later <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Contribution-national-construction-African-political/dp/B0007K7TL6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2Q1HLGGZVNUVF&keywords=ahmadou+ahidjo%2C+contributions+to+national+construction&qid=1639875012&sprefix=ahmadou+ahidjo%2C+contributions+to+national+construction%2Caps%2C75&sr=8-1">wrote that</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Each time a black man [and woman] is humiliated anywhere in the world, all Negroes the world over are hurt. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>President Ahidjo called for a united front between Africans and African-Americans to confront anti-black racism. </p>
<p>He was not the first postcolonial African leader to make such a request. Ghana’s founding President Kwame Nkrumah’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313574089_Kwame_Nkrumah_and_the_panafrican_vision_Between_acceptance_and_rebuttal">Pan-Africanism</a> was a message about black upliftment and unity, and his close ally, Sekou Touré of Guinea, <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/ahmed-s%C3%A9kou-tour%C3%A9-1922-1984">advocated similar objectives</a>.</p>
<p>Those calls for a crusade against anti-black racism were deeply rooted in the best of African nationalism. </p>
<p>On the other side of the Atlantic, calls for collaboration to end racism were also taking place. A leading proponent of that message was the <a href="https://www.grandcentralpublishing.com/titles/clayborne-carson/a-call-to-conscience/9780759520080/">Rev. Martin Luther King Jr</a>. He and many in his generation rejected the negative proscriptions of Africa, and called for Africans and African Americans to join forces in the anti-racism crusade.</p>
<p>They <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53360.A_Testament_of_Hope">spoke fondly</a> of their roots in Africa: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>we are descendants of the Africans…“our heritage is Africa. We should never seek to break the ties, nor should the Africans.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Africans and African-Americans must rekindle the spirit of collaboration and cooperation which existed among black nationalists over half a century ago to counter the rising tide of anti-black racism in the US. It was a relationship which came with mutual political, economic, and cultural benefits. </p>
<p>I am a scholar of modern African history with particular emphasis on Africa-US relations and have <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498502375/African-Immersion-American-College-Studen">published extensively in the field</a>. My <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/equality-noninterference-and-sovereignty-president-ahmadou-ahidjo-and-the-making-of-cameroonus-relations/20C7C112F4588FFA414E0E0572ECFCA7">latest publication</a>, on Cameroon-US relations, among other things, addresses the importance of the collaboration between Africans and African Americans to uplift Black people. </p>
<h2>King’s eyeopening visit to Ghana</h2>
<p>King’s knowledge of Africa evolved slowly, and was initially peppered with the usual beliefs of African backwardness. But a trip to Ghana was transformative. In 1957, President Kwame Nkrumah <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trip-newly-independent-ghana-inspired-074416217.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall">invited him to his country’s independence ceremony</a>. </p>
<p>King honoured the invitation. During the ceremony King ”<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trip-newly-independent-ghana-inspired-074416217.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIaZb_DR4jGxK6EFPgOGI9NAxQlgNssgDR1Urqw_22DKWDTH4oAwgLKZi3XDKQ8oeNxxG2BJHmkTuYPo5lJS8i79BcdCPlLceLsaiKj6syRmfTPgGwLugTIUkBOO_ABBsxQXXVcgUo4yFnCFViPTo31rBpDUaaZJ0kNuhVwpvVgL">started weeping… crying for joy</a>“ when the British flag was replaced with the Ghanaian flag. He spoke endlessly about the endurance, determination, and courage of the African people. The anti-colonial struggle in Ghana mirrored what was taking place all over Africa.</p>
<p>Later, King <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/birth-new-nation-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church">noted</a> that Ghana’s independence </p>
<blockquote>
<p>will have worldwide implication and repercussions — not only for Asia and Africa, but also for America. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This gave African Americans new insights about the anti-colonial struggle. </p>
<p>Increasingly, King saw parallels between the anti-colonial movement in Africa and the civil rights struggle in the US. In his sermon, ”<a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/birth-new-nation-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church">The Birth of a new nation</a>“, he stated that the Ghana example reinforced his belief that an</p>
<blockquote>
<p>oppressor never voluntarily gives freedom to the oppressed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He added that nonviolence was an effective tactic against oppression.
European colonialism of Africa and segregation in America were both "systems of evil”, he wrote, and <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/birth-new-nation-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church">summoned all to work to defeat them</a>. </p>
<h2>African nationalism meets US civil rights movement</h2>
<p>While racial segregation remained entrenched in America, the tide of independence was changing quickly in Africa. In 1960, 17 African <a href="https://www.macmillanexplorers.com/national-and-regional-histories/history-of-africa/17078210">nations gained independence</a>. They took their anti-racism message to the United Nations, where they chastised the US for its failure to stop anti-black racism. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Marchers carry a poster demanding justice for George Floyd and another bearing his face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440420/original/file-20220112-17-nryl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The murder of George Floyd by policeman Derek Chauvin angered the African Union.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/ Craig Lassig</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>African representatives in the US were often victims of American racism. Given the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/strategies-of-containment-9780195174472?cc=us&lang=en&">Cold War</a>, US Secretary of State Dean Rusk stated that one of America’s major Cold War problems was the continuous anti-black racism in the country.</p>
<p>After Nigeria, King increasingly spoke of a sense of urgency. In his article, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1961/09/10/archives/the-time-for-freedom-has-come-this-belief-dr-king-asserts.html#:%7E:text=%27The%20Time%20for%20Freedom%20Has%20Come%27%3B%20This%20belief%2C,By%20Martin%20Luther%20King%20Jr.%20Sept.%2010%2C%201961">The Time for Freedom has Come</a>”, he praised the independence movement in Africa while blasting the slow pace of change in the US. He referred to the independence movement in Africa as the </p>
<blockquote>
<p>greatest single international influence on American Negro students.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>African nationalists such as Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tom Mboya, Hastings Banda were “popular heroes on most Negro college campuses”, King stated. He <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53360.A_Testament_of_Hope">urged</a> African governments to do more to support the civil rights struggle of “their brothers [and sisters] in the US”. </p>
<p>In addition, newspapers in several African nations used the treatment of African Americans to question the role of America as the <a href="https://www.kentstateuniversitypress.com/2010/the-peace-corps-in-cameroon/">leader of the “free world”</a>.</p>
<h2>Ebb and flow</h2>
<p>King and his contemporaries took seriously the partnership with Africa. African American leaders, activists, and scholars alike turned to Africa for inspiration. For example, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/W_E_B_Du_Bois.html?id=-KkRAQAAMAAJ">WEB Du Bois</a>, whose credentials included being co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Pan-African movement, relocated to Ghana. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/16/us/stokely-carmichael-rights-leader-who-coined-black-power-dies-at-57.html">Stokely Carmichael</a> (Kwame Ture), who introduced the Black Power concept in the civil rights movement settled in Guinea. Many others immigrated to Africa. </p>
<p>Poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou was transformed by the African experience. <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/7921/maya-angelous-meeting-with-africa/">She wrote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>For it is Africa that struts around in our rounded calves, wiggles around in our protruding butts, and crackles in our wide and frank laugh. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The 1960s and 1970s were decades of remarkable collaboration and cooperation between Africans and African-Americans.</p>
<p>American political leaders took note of the collaboration between Africans and African-Americans. President John F. Kennedy, the first American president to treat Africa with respect, created a more informed US foreign policy towards African nations – in part <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cold-War-Black-Liberation-1948-1968/dp/0826204589/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1C1CIDK16G45D&keywords=Thomas+noer&qid=1639886835&sprefix=thomas+noer%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1">to woo the support of African-Americans in elections</a>.</p>
<p>Kennedy’s policy was later abandoned by his successors – some of whom reverted to referring to Africans as “<a href="https://books.google.co.ke/books?id=WsIIDJlKm6sC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=Lyndon+Johnson+Africa+cannibals&source=bl&ots=bQBLUppsTF&sig=yZPq5JA4MdgbQH2LsdCke68rt3M&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Lyndon%20Johnson%20Africa%20cannibals&f=false">cannibals</a>” and “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Enchanting-Darkness-American-Twentieth-Century/dp/0870133217/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LS3NS1GALRTI&keywords=an+enchanting+darkness%3A+the+american+vision+of+africa+in+the+twentieth+century&qid=1639879403&sprefix=an+enchanting+darkness+the+american+vision+of+africa+in+the+twentieth+century%2Caps%2C81&sr=8-1">genetically inferior</a>”.</p>
<p>Those new policies coincided with a deep level of ignorance about Africans by African-Americans and vice-versa. And little effort was made by each side to bridge the gap. African Americans increasingly saw Africans through a stereotypical lens invented by the western society to justify colonialism and slavery. </p>
<p>In turn, Africans accepted uncritically America’s <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498502375/African-Immersion-American-College-Students-in-Cameroon">mainstream society’s labels of African Americans</a>. The type of relations and advocacy forged by King’s generation had evaporated.</p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>But the tide may be changing. There was renewed interest following the release of the movie Black Panther which showed blacks as capable, determined, and <a href="https://apercu.web.unc.edu/2018/04/the-black-panther-to-african-american-society/">possessed civilisation</a>. Following the murder of <a href="https://theconversation.com/george-floyd-why-the-sight-of-these-brave-exhausted-protesters-gives-me-hope-139804">George Floyd</a> in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the African Union publicly condemned America for its continuous racism against blacks. </p>
<p>The spokesperson Ebba Kalondo <a href="https://au.int/en/pressreleases/20200529/statement-chairperson-following-murder-george-floyd-usa">issued</a> a strong condemnation of</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the continuing discriminatory practices against Black citizens of the United States of America.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Kalondo demanded a full investigation of the killing. </p>
<p>This new position may rekindle the spirit of cooperation and collaboration which characterised the King era. A major part of ending anti-black racism in the US is to learn about the role Africa played in shaping the idea of the west and <a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Born-Blackness-Howard-W-French/9781631495823">Africa’s contributions to global civilizations</a>. </p>
<p>That knowledge will implode centuries-old myths of Africa’s backwardness and incapability. It is up to African Americans to champion that conversation in university classrooms and many other public spaces. </p>
<p>Finally, what King said about Africa as full of “rich opportunities”, inviting African Americans to “lend their technical assistance” to a rising continent remains as true today as it was when he said it nearly 60 years ago. </p>
<p>The failure to do so has increasingly ceded the ground to other actors <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/03/07/the-new-scramble-for-africa">who continue to exploit the continent</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174485/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julius A. Amin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>King saw parallels between the anti-colonial movement in Africa and the civil rights struggle in the US.Julius A. Amin, Professor, Department of History, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1728962022-01-10T15:51:52Z2022-01-10T15:51:52ZHow Ghana lost its federalism – and lessons for others<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435261/original/file-20211202-15-1mrlmp2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kwame Nkrumah favoured continental federalism but worked against its practice in Ghana</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most of the 54 countries in Africa are unitary – the power to govern them resides mostly in a centralised government. </p>
<p>Only Ethiopia and Nigeria are fully federal while others like South Africa, the Comoros, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia have some features of federalism.</p>
<p>Federalism <a href="http://imej.wfu.edu/Articles/1999/1/02/demo/Glossary/glossaryhtml/federalism.html">involves</a> the division of power between a central government and regional governments. Each level has specified political power over different areas and regional governments have power to determine local policies and raise their own revenue. </p>
<p>Ghana is not known as one of the federations in Africa. However, it’s life as an independent state in 1957 began as a loosely formed federation with fairly high levels of regional autonomy included in the constitution. </p>
<p>The rules set down for changing that arrangement were very strict because the proponents of federalism wanted guarantees against unilateral changes by the government.</p>
<p>Yet, more than six decades later regional government officials have no direct powers to determine their own policies. The regional ministers are appointed by the president, regional policy is controlled by a central government ministry, and regions are funded directly from central government administered funds.</p>
<p>How did this come about? In Africa, the conventional expectation is that drastic shifts like this only happen when a government is overthrown – and the country’s constitution abandoned - through coup d’états. </p>
<p>But my <a href="https://academic.oup.com/publius/advance-article/doi/10.1093/publius/pjab035/6415420?searchresult=1#311960291">research </a> shows that gradual changes contributed to this outcome in Ghana. </p>
<p>I traced Ghana’s journey over the past 60 years (1957 - 2018) as it moved from a federal to an entrenched unitary arrangement. I found that during this period, there has been a steady erosion of regional autonomy. </p>
<p>This happened through several changes to the constitution – most notably those drawn up in 1960 when Ghana became a republic, and 1969 after the country’s first president <a href="https://theconversation.com/kwame-nkrumah-why-every-now-and-then-his-legacy-is-questioned-120790">Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown</a> .</p>
<p>I conclude from my findings that constitutional guarantees should not be taken for granted. They are subject to change, but the way they change depends on the decisions that stakeholders make. </p>
<p>These findings – and the realities of politics – suggest that other federations in Africa might well be at similar risk.</p>
<h2>Ghana’s federal beginnings</h2>
<p>The territory known as Ghana was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20204242?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">formed in 1957</a> by a union of four regions: the British colony of the Gold Coast, Ashanti, Trans-Volta Togoland and the British Protectorate Northern Territories. This composition implied that federalism was the most practical way forward.</p>
<p>But the federal idea was a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/182768?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents">key bone of contention</a> in the run-up to independence from British colonial rule. </p>
<p>On one side of the dispute was the the Convention People’s Party led by Kwame Nkrumah, who wanted full unitarism. On the other side was the opposition alliance led by the Asantes and their political wing, the <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2017/9/19/54recoyhe1930dp3kbvbq4hx5vy58q">National Liberation Movement</a> together with the <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2017/10/13/ta2pvuzhvi4mwdh1xfird4ybiqjnh1">United Party</a> led by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kofi-Busia">K.A Busia</a>, who wanted full federalism. </p>
<p>This contest was settled by a compromise in the <a href="https://vlex.co.uk/vid/ghana-constitution-order-in-812280049">1957 constitution</a>, giving regions autonomy. Headed by the native chiefs, regions had their own regional assemblies. These were responsible for directing financial expenditure, by-laws, and other government services in their regions. Referendums were required to alter the boundaries of a region. Any changes to this constitutional arrangement needed to be approved by two-thirds of the regional assemblies themselves. </p>
<p>However, in the <a href="https://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/amcdouga/Hist247/winter_2017/resources/ghana_constitution_1960.pdf">1960 constitution</a>, these regional assemblies and the referendum requirements were abolished and replaced with national parliamentary approval. </p>
<p>Moreover, chiefs were demoted as heads of regions and replaced with centrally appointed regional commissioners. The referendum requirement reappeared in less-stringent forms in the 1969 and <a href="https://www.studocu.com/row/document/ghana-institute-of-management-and-public-administration/law/1979-constitution-of-ghana/8132339">1979</a> constitutions but neither the regional assemblies nor chiefs as their heads were re-instated. </p>
<p>The current <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Ghana_1996.pdf">1992 constitution</a> maintains the referendum thresholds contained in the 1979 constitution but still does not reinstate the regional assemblies or chiefs to regional headship. Nor do regional administrations have the executive, legislative, and financial autonomies they had at independence. </p>
<p>In view of this lost regional autonomy, a constitutional review commission in 2011 <a href="http://constitutionnet.org/sites/default/files/crc_research_report.pdf">recommended</a> that the regional government “should be designated as part of central government” (page 504).</p>
<h2>The why and the how</h2>
<p>Based on my research, I conclude that Ghana lost its federalism as a result of a mistaken political choice and missed opportunity by supporters of federalism.</p>
<p>First, politicians who supported federalism failed to take steps to stop the introduction of a unitary state.</p>
<p>This started shortly after independence in 1958 when the main opposition boycotted national polls to elect members of the regional and national assemblies. As a result, the ruling party won a huge majority in the assemblies. </p>
<p>This meant that the ruling party had sufficient numbers to vote to abolish regional assemblies when a bill was introduced to this effect in the national assembly in 1959.</p>
<p>The constitution adopted in 1960 declared, for the first time, that Ghana was a unitary state. Other changes included the removal of chiefs as the head of the regions and their replacement by regional commissioners appointed by the president. </p>
<p>A critical opportunity presented itself to reverse this trajectory between 1966 and 1969.</p>
<p>Some of those behind the coup that ousted Nkrumah in 1966 were supporters of the pre-independence notion of autonomous regions. Hence, a new constitution-drafting process was led by those who had called for federalism. Yet, instead of reversing the trajectory, the new leaders maintained the status quo. </p>
<p>The new constitution proposed and adopted in 1969 still maintained that “Ghana is a unitary republic” and made no specific naming of regions. It failed to re-instate the original mandate of the regional assemblies or the chiefs as regional heads.</p>
<p>All subsequent constitutions have consolidated Ghana’s unitary status.</p>
<h2>Lessons</h2>
<p>There are lessons for other countries that have federal structures, or any form of power-sharing arrangements. </p>
<p>The discussions around federalism in <a href="https://theconversation.com/nigerias-federal-system-still-isnt-working-what-should-change-149284">Nigeria</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-ethiopias-federal-system-is-deeply-flawed-119313">Ethiopia</a> are enough to show that when (federal) rules are made, they do not stay the same. Stakeholders are always looking for opportunities to change, keep or improve them.</p>
<p>If the changes reflect the interests of opposing political actors, as seen in Ghana’s case, then the change process is smoother with less violent outcomes. For instance, in Ghana today both the political parties that evolved from the opposing ‘Nkrumaist’ (mainly the National Democratic Congress ) and ‘Busiaist’ (mainly the New Patriotic Party) political traditions at independence have united around unitarism. Without such shared political interests, the campaign for change becomes a violent and protracted struggle, as seen in the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/4/5/should-ethiopia-stick-with-ethnic-federalism">reform-related conflicts</a> in Ethiopia. </p>
<p>Another case in reference is Burundi where in 2014, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-burundi-crisis-idUSBREA1B0US20140212">news</a> emerged that the power-sharing arrangements were under threat of being dismantled through well-calculated steps by the ruling government. </p>
<p>So, can such power-sharing arrangements stand the test of time? </p>
<p>My central argument is that changes are inevitable. However, the lesson from Ghana is that perhaps when proposed changes reflect the common political interests for key stakeholder groups in the arena of governance, the outcomes are less problematic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172896/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis Penu is also affiliated with the University of Cape Coast</span></em></p>Ghana lost its federalism due to mistaken political choices and missed opportunities, suggesting that other federations in Africa might well be at similar risk.Dennis Penu, PhD Research Fellow, International Institute of Social StudiesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1731082021-12-06T12:42:52Z2021-12-06T12:42:52ZQuotes from Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth that resonate 60 years later<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435618/original/file-20211203-21-axlnf1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Frantz Fanon</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Franz Fanon, the Martiniquan born psychiatrist, committed Algerian revolutionary and Pan-African thinker, died 60 years ago on December 6, 1961 just after the publication of his last book, The Wretched of the Earth. To mark this 60th anniversary, Nigel C. Gibson has just published his collection, <a href="https://darajapress.com/publication/fanon-today-the-revolt-and-reason-of-the-wretched-of-the-earth">Fanon Today: The Reason and Revolt of the Wretched of the Earth</a>. He discusses some important quotes from Fanon’s global classic</em>.</p>
<p><strong>Space</strong></p>
<p>In the first chapter of <em>The Wretched of the Earth</em>, ‘On Violence,’ Fanon describes colonialism as a system of absolute violence that can only be opposed through violence. He references South Africa as he powerfully describes the colonial world expressed in space:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The colonist’s sector is built to last…a sector of lights and paved roads, where the trash cans constantly overflow with strange and wonderful garbage, undreamed-of leftovers…The colonist’s sector is a sated, sluggish sector, its belly is permanently full of good things.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In contrast, the colonised sector,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the shanty town, the Medina, the reservation…[is] a disreputable place inhabited by disreputable people. You are born anywhere, anyhow. You die anywhere, from anything. It’s a world with no space, people are piled one on top of the other, the shacks squeezed tightly together. The colonised’s sector is a famished sector, hungry for bread, meat, shoes, coal, and light.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He then adds an important measure of decolonisation,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we examine closely this system of compartments…its ordering and its geographical layout will allow us to mark out the lines on which a decolonised society will be reorganised.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fanon rocked the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/all-african-people-conference-held-accra-ghana">All-African Peoples Conference</a> in December 1958 when he raised the issue of violence in contrast to Kwame Nkrumah’s nonviolent “positive action” agreed upon by many delegates. The following year Fanon became ambassador to Ghana and by then the crucial problem for Fanon was the lack of ideological clarity among leaders, regardless of their position on violence and nonviolence.</p>
<p><strong>The rationality of revolt and the philosophy of organisation</strong></p>
<p>The centrality of the “rationality of revolt” to a “new politics” is highlighted by these two quotes, from the end of chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter 3.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The insurrection proves to itself its rationality and demonstrates its maturity every time it uses a specific case to advance the consciousness of the people in spite of those within the movement who sometimes are inclined to think that any nuance constitutes a danger and threatens popular solidarity.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435573/original/file-20211203-21-flosvh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435573/original/file-20211203-21-flosvh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435573/original/file-20211203-21-flosvh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435573/original/file-20211203-21-flosvh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435573/original/file-20211203-21-flosvh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435573/original/file-20211203-21-flosvh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435573/original/file-20211203-21-flosvh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If the rationality of revolt becomes the material force of revolution where “violence represents the absolute line of action,” the “new politics is in the hands of…[those] who use their muscles and their brains to lead the struggle for liberation”.</p>
<p>But it is the cowardice and apathy of the “elite” and their “incapacity” to “rationalise popular practice” and “attribute it any reason” that leads to the postcolonial tragedy.</p>
<p>It was not only the leaders who were subject to Fanon’s anger. He was brutally honest in his criticism of the revolutionary militant:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It sometimes happens at meetings that militants use sweeping, dogmatic formulas. The preference for this shortcut, in which spontaneity and over-simple sinking of differences dangerously combine to defeat intellectual elaboration, frequently triumphs.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He calls the militant’s logic shocking and inhuman.</p>
<p><strong>The nationalist bourgeoisie and their organisation</strong></p>
<p>Given that he was writing at a moment when more than half of Africa had recently gained independence, his critique of the nationalist middle class and nationalist parties reads like a script which has been repeated over and over:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Privileges multiply and corruption triumphs…Today the vultures are too numerous and too voracious in proportion to the lean spoils of the national wealth. The party, a true instrument of power in the hands of the bourgeoisie, reinforces the machine, and ensures that the people are hemmed in and immobilised.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the same time, wary of the rising xenophobia and chauvinism in newly independent West African nations, Fanon argues that national consciousness is not in fact nationalism. Rather, national consciousness “enriched and deepened into humanism…is the only thing that will give us an international dimension.” For him the building of a nation has to be “accompanied by the discovery and encouragement of universalising values.”</p>
<p><strong>A new humanism</strong></p>
<p>Those universal values are expressed in the four-page conclusion to <em>The Wretched of he Earth</em>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>So, comrades, how is it that we do not understand that we have better things to do than follow Europe?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fully cognisant of the fact that neocolonialism can wear a Black or Arab face, Fanon is critical of how newly independent African countries, even when they used the language of socialism, didn’t do much more than follow Europe’s model, looking to take over the colonial apparatus – its states and institutions – for their own interests. Fanon considered this a product of the crisis of thought, the lack of a philosophy of liberation.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>That same Europe, where they were never done talking with humanity, never stopped proclaiming that they were only anxious for the welfare of humanity. Today we know with what sufferings humanity has paid for every one of their triumphs of the mind.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fanon rejects the humanism proclaimed in Europe. Based on colonisation, exploitation, slavery and violence, European humanism dehumanises. And so “We must find something different”. He rejects what is central to European humanism, profit and the reduction of the human to outputs in production.</p>
<p>“If conditions of work are not modified,” he adds, “centuries will be needed to humanise this world which has been forced down to animal level by imperial powers”. He’s saying, humanising the world means rethinking everything, “work[ing]out new concepts… and setting afoot a new humanity”.</p>
<p><strong>Time as the space for human development</strong></p>
<p>Fanon envisioned time akin to Karl Marx’s great phrase, as “space for human development”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The sense of time must no longer be that of the moment or the next harvest, but rather that of the rest of the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Humanising the world means creating a new conception of time, the time to create a new society.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have realised that the masses are equal to the problems which confront them…experience proves that the important thing is not that three hundred people form a plan and decide upon carrying it out, but that the whole people plan and decide even if it takes them twice or three times as long. The fact is that the time taken up by explaining, the time ‘lost’ in treating the worker as a human being, will be caught up in the execution of the plan.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rather than top-down the plan should come from “the muscles and the brains of the citizens” because “people must know where they are going, and why”. In the early pages of <em>The Wretched of the Earth</em> Fanon speaks of those dehumanised beings who become historical protagonists through the struggle.</p>
<p>This is just the beginning, the work of humanising the world does not end there, in fact by the end of the book it is clear that while this remains a crucial turning point because consciousness, let alone material reality, are not changed overnight. Mental and physical liberation has to be ongoing after the colonists had been kicked out. The “new society”, the liberated “new person” – collectively, socially, and individually – has to be consciously and intentionally developed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173108/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nigel Gibson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fanon was brutally honest in his criticism of militants and Africa’s post-independence elites.Nigel Gibson, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1713082021-11-28T09:09:45Z2021-11-28T09:09:45ZHow African thinkers of the 1980s fed into today’s inequality debates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431267/original/file-20211110-27-17rw2ib.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Inequality within countries is growing globally </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Inequality is an issue that arises everywhere in the world today. </p>
<p>Recent studies by economists such as <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.4159/9780674969797/html">Branko Milanovic</a> and <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674980822">Thomas Piketty</a> have looked at trends in economic inequality on a global scale. Social movements – such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/nov/18/why-south-african-students-have-turned-on-their-parents-generation">Rhodes Must Fall</a>, <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com/">Black Lives Matter</a> and <a href="https://metoomvmt.org/">Me Too</a> – as well as the COVID pandemic, have emphasised inequalities along lines of institutionalised racism, gender, wealth and health. All these highlight the unequal global power relations that continuously shape the world. </p>
<p>But how have the world’s intellectuals historically thought about inequality? By examining the ideas of earlier thinkers, we can gain perspective which might help us understand why today’s world remains unequal.</p>
<p>This is why a <a href="http://global-inequality.com/project">research project</a>, at Aarhus University in Denmark, is exploring the intellectual history of global inequality. As part of the research team, I have been studying how intellectuals in post-independence Ghana handled the idea of an unequal world. </p>
<p>For Ghanaian postcolonial intellectuals, terms such as development, neocolonialism, self-reliance and indigeneity were central to discussions of global inequalities. In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17496977.2021.1913390">recent paper</a>, I argue that at the end of the 20th century conceptions of global inequality were hinged on intellectual debates about African development. This was a time shaped by economic decline and crisis discourses. </p>
<h2>Decline and divide</h2>
<p>On the African continent, economic decline worsened after the oil shocks of the 1970s. The continued decline made the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa label the 1980s as ‘<a href="https://repository.uneca.org/handle/10855/15493">Africa’s lost decade’</a>.</p>
<p>The modernisation projects of the early independence years had not brought about the economic ‘takeoff’ that many African independence leaders had intended. What the first president of independent Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, had <a href="https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/selected-speeches-of-kwame-nkrumah.-volume-1">expressed</a> as the “raging hurricane of African nationalism blowing through the oppressed and down-trodden colonies” was losing air. </p>
<p>Intellectuals in Africa and elsewhere began to ‘diagnose’ the main causes of the economic, political and social problems on the continent and look for solutions. </p>
<p>Their thinking about development <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315761084-31/west-africa-gareth-austin-gerardo-serra">divided</a> opinion. Left-leaning and Marxist inspired scholarship focused on the sustained underdevelopment of poorer nations by foreign powers. On the other hand were neoliberal ideas, based on neoclassical economics, scepticism towards state intervention and confidence in the free market. </p>
<p>Accentuating this divide were two key official blueprints of the early 1980s. Through the Organisation of African Unity, African leaders issued the <a href="https://www.nepad.org/publication/lagos-plan-of-action">Lagos Plan of Action of the Economic Development of Africa 1980-2000</a> in 1980. This was arguably the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/african-development-adebayo-adedejis-alternative-strategies/oclc/23765826">first African ‘home-grown’ development plan for the continent</a>. It stressed African collective self-reliance and resistance to free market economics. The following year, the World Bank published the strategy paper <a href="https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/702471468768312009/pdf/multi-page.pdf">Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action</a>. It underlined the managerial incompetence of African governments. This laid the foundation for the Structural Adjustment Programmes of the 1980s-1990s. </p>
<h2>Elites and indigeneity</h2>
<p>In my <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17496977.2021.1913390">article</a>, I show what two Ghanaian-born intellectuals made of the continent’s problems and how to fix them during the 1980s-1990s. They are the South African based social scientist Kwesi K. Prah and the US based economist George N.B. Ayittey. They both left Ghana in the 1970s under the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/421836">Acheampong military regime</a>.</p>
<p>The solutions they offered were shaped by their different standpoints and intentions. </p>
<p>The two fell on different sides of the intellectual divide. Left-leaning Prah looked to language as a solution to development, ending neocolonial tendencies. Liberal Ayittey argued that postcolonial African elites had betrayed the African people through corruption and diasporic rule funded through foreign aid. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24352159?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Prah’s thinking</a> was shaped by language debates taking place in South Africa at the time. It was also shaped by theories of dependency between old colonial powers and their former colonies. He stressed how using indigenous languages had the potential to break the connections between African and foreign countries and their elites. In his view, the mother tongue was the foundation for personal and societal innovation.</p>
<p>Ayittey <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/9780312104009">depicted</a> precolonial Africa as democratic and capitalist. He emphasised that only through indigenous African institutions (such as chieftaincies) and free markets, free trade and entrepreneurship – which he argued were precolonial African values – could the grip of elites on the people be loosened. Provocatively, he called these elites black neocolonialists. </p>
<p>Thus, both Prah and Ayittey critiqued African postcolonial elites and upheld the importance of African indigeneity, but with very different purposes. </p>
<p>The divide among intellectuals – in this case Ghanaian – clearly shaped the debates of the 1980s-1990s. Both thinkers used concepts such as development, indigeneity and neocolonialism to portray different conceptions of the unequal condition of the world – and how to resolve this. </p>
<p>The 1980s also saw a ‘neoliberal turn’ as the World Bank and the IMF rolled out Structural Adjustment Programmes. A focus on ‘internal issues’, such as leadership mismanagement and the need to restructure ‘failed’ African states, shaped economic policies across the continent. This was in line with parts of Ayittey’s controversial criticism. And, in effect, it brought with it a reliance on foreign experts, funds and the free market – still, to some extent, effective today. A reliance on foreign models which both Prah and Ayittey criticised at the time from different angles. </p>
<h2>A lingering problem</h2>
<p>But the desired turnaround has not yet been fully reached. The most recent <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/latest-human-development-index-ranking?utm_source=EN&utm_medium=GSR&utm_content=US_UNDP_PaidSearch_Brand_English&utm_campaign=CENTRAL&c_src=CENTRAL&c_src2=GSR&gclid=CjwKCAiA1aiMBhAUEiwACw25McQXvNuL_TvPNRhuqbLAUnaCecsSbPow7676YV4JPUbdIWKxzork5xoCb7oQAvD_BwE">Human Development Index</a> reveals many bottom-ranking countries are in Africa. </p>
<p>Although <a href="https://theconversation.com/global-inequality-may-be-falling-but-the-gap-between-haves-and-have-nots-is-growing-159825">global income inequality</a> between countries has been decreasing recently, within-country inequality is on the rise. According to leading inequality economists <a href="https://wid.world/document/longrunpaper/">Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel</a> today’s levels of inequality are similar to those of the early 20th century. </p>
<p>Studying intellectuals like Prah and Ayittey reminds us of ideas which might give us the historical perspective to act on related current issues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171308/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mélanie Lindbjerg Guichon receives funding from Independent Research Fund Denmark under Grant 8047-00068B.</span></em></p>Ghanaian postcolonial intellectuals viewed terms such as development, neo-colonialism, self-reliance, and indigeneity as central to discussions of global inequalities.Mélanie Lindbjerg Guichon, PhD Candidate, Aarhus UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1616632021-05-30T07:58:14Z2021-05-30T07:58:14ZGhana’s national security ministry ignites old fears after fracas over photos<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403133/original/file-20210527-15-ulxhvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The SWAT team of Ghana's national security ministry</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Citi Newsroom</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/world-57056257">Caleb Kudah</a>, a journalist with the Accra-based Citi TV, didn’t expect that an investigation into unused cars at the Ministry of National Security would kick a hornets’ nest in the country – the role of the country’s security apparatus. </p>
<p>Kudah was investigating why cars purchased with public funds for distribution to transport unions had been abandoned at the <a href="https://www.myjoyonline.com/over-90-of-vehicles-at-national-security-premises-distributed-former-masloc-boss/">premises of national security</a>.</p>
<p>Ghana’s security officials were unimpressed. They arrested Kudah, manhandled and cuffed him. They then took him to the premises of <a href="https://www.mynewsgh.com/breaking-news-heavily-armed-national-security-men-raid-citi-fm-arrests-caleb-kudah-one-other-journalist/">Citi TV offices</a> intent on destroying evidence. They also arrested his colleague with whom he had shared mobile-camera videos. </p>
<p>The events shocked Ghanaians who were shown <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtxchVJdy6I">footage</a> of heavily armed members of a special tactics unit bursting into the offices of one of Ghana’s leading media houses. The scene was reminiscent of action taken by the same unit during a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfB9fsIolR4">parliamentary by-election</a> in January 2019 when the same special tactics unit assaulted voters and a sitting member of parliament.</p>
<p>Civil rights groups and parliamentarians are <a href="https://citinewsroom.com/2021/05/national-security-ministry-fact-finding-committee-meets-citi-fm-tv-over-abuse-raid/">demanding a probe</a> into the Kudah incident. </p>
<p>The key question they’re asking is whether the ministry’s behaviour was in line with the <a href="https://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/docs/ELECTRONIC/31976/101268/F-1229887249/GHA31976.pdf">1992 constitution</a>. Its landmark tenet is its emphasis on civilian control and legislative oversight over Ghana’s security agencies. </p>
<p>Former president <a href="https://theconversation.com/saint-or-sinner-rawlings-was-pivotal-to-ghanas-political-and-economic-fortunes-150025">Jerry Rawlings</a>, who had come to power in a coup 1981, held a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/04/29/ghana-holds-referendum-on-new-constitution/a277a2b6-2dac-41e9-8e00-aa15653396e6/">referendum in April 1992</a> on multiparty democracy. Over 92% people voted in favour. The idea was to put Ghana on an inclusive and democratic path. A key part of this was to curb the tendency of the security establishment to interfere in political processes. </p>
<p>The 1996 <a href="https://new-ndpc-static1.s3.amazonaws.com/CACHES/PUBLICATIONS/2016/09/04/SECURITY+AND+INTELLIGENCE+AGENCIES+ACT,1996+(ACT+526).pdf">Security and Intelligence Agencies Act</a> was the first law to be passed after Rawlings won the December 1996 elections. But the law hasn’t protected civilians from abuse at the hands of national security operatives.</p>
<p>A look back at how Ghana established its security services after independence provides clues about why.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07075332.2021.1888768">recent paper</a> I used previously untapped archives to explore how India built Accra’s security service between 1958 and 1961. Ghana sought India’s support when both Cold War rivalry and Afro-Asian solidarity were at a peak. The newly independent West African country was keen to reduce its dependency on the outgoing British colonial administration.</p>
<p>But by involving high ranking Indian officials, Ghana inherited a similar set of problems that affected intelligence headquarters in Delhi. This included resorting to colonial policing methods such as oppressive tactics, a lack of legislative oversight and a recruitment system based on partisan loyalties instead of professionalism.</p>
<p>Ghana continues to struggle with this legacy.</p>
<h2>Tumultuous history</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kwame-Nkrumah">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, Ghana’s first prime minister and president, was conscious of the nature of colonial policing and intelligence. It was focused on torture, brutality, corruption, negligence, abuse, ineffectiveness, and differential treatment.</p>
<p>To distance Ghana from colonial British practices, in 1957 he sought support from Indian prime minister <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jawaharlal-Nehru">Jawaharlal Nehru</a>. The idea was to benefit from independent India’s experience. </p>
<p>Indian officers ended up creating, and unofficially leading, a whole new intelligence agency – the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07075332.2021.1888768">Foreign Service Research Bureau</a>. Its role was to provide <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348412595_International_Journal_of_Intelligence_and_CounterIntelligence_Evaluating_Ghana's_Intelligence_Oversight_Regime">“reliable intelligence and counter-intelligence capability to protect Ghana’s independence</a>.”</p>
<p>It soon became clear that Ghana had imported problems that had plagued Indian intelligence services. The bad habits crossed over from the external to the internal agencies.</p>
<p>There were three key problems. </p>
<p>One, the Indian mastermind of Ghana’s Foreign Service Research Bureau was the Director of the Intelligence Bureau of India, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOigzznbifs">Bhola Nath Mullik</a>. Ghana, like India, had a huge network of police stations and officers across the country who could deliver critical intelligence. This should have been a positive. However, it ended up strengthening colonial policing practices and mindsets like intimidation and corruption.</p>
<p>Policing became conflated with intelligence. Intelligence gathering is an important part of policing. But it is only a small part of the job. Drawing spies mostly from the policing cadre risks confusing core competencies. Risks are even higher if spies are drawn from a policing service that has been trained and created by a colonial power that saw people as “subjects”, not “citizens”. </p>
<p>The result is an intelligence agency more prone to using invasive and coercive practice – and becoming highly politicised. </p>
<p>Second, Nkrumah used bureau as a vehicle of patronage. Even the first two officers trained by (and in) India, Paul Yankee and <a href="https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Rawlings-pays-respects-to-former-National-Security-Chief-281958">Benjamin Forjoe</a>, were from the Nzema tribe, the same as Nkrumah. </p>
<p>Such favouritism laid the foundation for endemic corruption and indiscipline in Ghana’s security sector. </p>
<p>Third, in a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07075332.2021.1888768">five-page top-secret note</a> Mullik recommended immense concentration of power in Nkrumah’s office. Similar to India, where intelligence agencies were beyond the <a href="https://www.prsindia.org/theprsblog/parliamentary-oversight-intelligence-agencies">purview of parliament</a> – still the case today – this recommendation effectively gave Nkrumah direct access to coercive arms of the state without any checks and balances. </p>
<p>He used his power to cultivate loyalties and crush dissent. By early 1960s, such unchecked power had fed Nkrumah’s authoritarianism to such an extent that he made himself <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/ghanas-kwame-nkrumah-visionary-authoritarian-ruler-and-national-hero/a-19070359">president for life</a>. And Ghana a one-party state. </p>
<p>Nkrumah’s authoritarianism forestalled democratic progress and politicised Ghana’s security establishment. </p>
<p>Nkrumah was ousted in a military-led coup in <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2018/2/23/february-24-1966-dr-kwame-nkrumah-overthrown-as-president-of-the-republic-of-ghana">February 1966</a>, triggering a highly turbulent phase in Ghanaian history.</p>
<h2>Speaking truth to power</h2>
<p>As the recent incident demonstrates, maintaining legislative oversight over security establishments is an ongoing process, not a one-off event. It has to be proactively maintained. And any successes can never to be taken for granted. </p>
<p>Ghana has come a long way from the era of Nkrumah and the post-Nkrumah coups d’état and has a lot to cherish in its decisive break from authoritarianism in 1992. </p>
<p>But a genuinely free press is never fully in the interest of a corrupt bureaucracy and a politicised security establishment. Kudah, his colleagues, and those parliamentarians and civil rights groups seeking a probe into this incident are continuing a hard-won Ghanaian tradition of speaking truth to power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Avinash Paliwal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghanians fear that the country’s security services still bear the hallmarks of bad old practices.Avinash Paliwal, Senior Lecturer, International Relations, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1567752021-05-06T13:27:59Z2021-05-06T13:27:59ZThe #JerusalemaDanceChallenge showed how Pan African styles can be forged<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398995/original/file-20210505-19-13vr53b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fenómenos do Semba from Angola.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Fenómenos do Semba/Facebook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A year has passed since an Angolan dance troupe called <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fenomenosdosemba/?ref=page_internal">Fenómenos do Semba</a> released a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=613A9d6Doac">video</a> of themselves dancing in a courtyard in Luanda to the South African hit song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCZVL_8D048"><em>Jerusalema</em></a> by Master KG. </p>
<p>With over 16 million YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=613A9d6Doac">clicks</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-angolan-dancers-who-helped-south-african-anthem-jerusalema-go-global-148782">#JerusalemaDanceChallenge</a> swept the planet as social media users posted their own versions of the dance. </p>
<p>Its success has inspired me to offer some further reflections on the importance of the cultural meaning of this dance and its contribution to the creation of a Pan African aesthetic.</p>
<h2>How Angolans celebrate</h2>
<p>The dance video’s success is related to deep-rooted elements that might go unnoticed at first sight. But, taken together, they convey the joyous and proud expression of a collective identity.</p>
<p>Despite not being danced to Angolan music and using steps that stem from different kinetic codes, the video is still representative of the main elements of the Angolan way of celebrating: food, music, dance … and <em>brincadeiras</em> (joking around).</p>
<p>The dance takes place in a communal courtyard situated between Luandan buildings. This open but protective space in itself represents a specific way of living in a community. In the recent past of civil war, these places of mutual exchange allowed people to preserve family units, overcome collective trauma and protect local languages and cultures from the threat of colonialism. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/613A9d6Doac?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Angolan troupe Fenómenos do Semba’s Jerusalema dance challenge.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Writing on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fenomenosdosemba/?ref=page_internal">Facebook</a> about their video challenge, Adilson Maiza, the leader of Fenómenos do Semba, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is always a reason to be happy, always a reason to celebrate. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This same spirit of gratitude found more concrete expression in the now famous troupe’s promotion of social initiatives. They have done things like distributing food in disadvantaged areas and promoting the foundation of the Angolan Dance Association for the promotion of dance in the country.</p>
<p>In this sense the presence of food is very relevant and it has surely contributed to the video’s success. It reveals the genuine character of the reunion and the spirit of contentment through the symbolic act of eating. Indeed, in Angola, getting together with family and friends has a social, political and spiritual value. This was pointed out by Angolan writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Ribas">Óscar Ribas</a> in his 1965 book <em><a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Izomba.html?id=UXoKAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">Izomba</a></em>, about the importance of recreational centres in Luanda. </p>
<p>The value of gatherings gained even greater importance during the long night curfews that were at times common during the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/angolan-civil-war-1975-2002-brief-history">civil war</a> (1975 to 2002). During this time dance and music seemed the only remedy to soothe a permanent fear. To the people who experienced the Angolan and South African reality of those years, the <em>Jerusalema</em> video is surely a reminder of the joy of being able to celebrate togetherness under any conditions.</p>
<h2>The dance</h2>
<p>The dance displayed in the video is commonly known as <em>Dança da Familia</em> (the Family Dance). It is not a traditional Angolan dance with a semiotic code. Nevertheless, it’s frequently danced at weddings and parties. It mainly consists of a short sequence of steps, repeated within the same structure. Anyone can introduce variations and personal touches (<em>toques</em>) to the sequence. In other words, it is not a choreography but rather the repetition of a scheme. </p>
<p>The idea of a choreography does not belong to the Angolan conception of dance. Rather, dance is improvised and repeated with simple variations answering to specific rhythmic calls. It’s never linked to a specific song.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hip-hop-and-pan-africanism-from-blitz-the-ambassador-to-beyonce-151680">Hip hop and Pan Africanism: from Blitz the Ambassador to Beyoncé</a>
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<p>Angolan dance is a performative act rather than a product. It is always the result of the encounter of new movements with a traditional but permeable frame, and it represents a specific conception of society and life. </p>
<p>Angolan dance stems from the expression of a circumstance. Songs register popular dialogues and events of daily life. Gestures come from activities such as drying wheat, tilling the land or, in more urban scenarios, imitating a crippled man (<em>o coxo</em>) or defending the value of gender diversity. </p>
<p>The peculiarity of the <em>Jerusalema</em> dance lies in its sequence, proposed by one of the participants and repeated in the same way in four directions. It does so with the same steps and the same rotation at the end of any sequence, while able to be embellished with any specific groove proposed by the main dancers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A television studio, a large camera foregrounded. In front of the cameras, a group of young men dances." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The troupe became well known in Angola, appearing on TV and working on social and dance initiatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Fenómenos do Semba/Facebook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The dance’s character demonstrates the focal point of the dance transmission technique in many African contexts. This takes place in a playful context, without any formal teaching. It derives from a logic of movement developed over centuries and passed on through imitation and innovation.</p>
<p>Commonly danced in Angola and South Africa, but also in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Congo Republic, Cameroon and Zambia, <em>Dança da Família</em> could be defined as a “neotraditional” cultural product, borrowing the definition of British-Ghanaian philosopher, cultural theorist and novelist <a href="http://appiah.net/">Kwame Anthony Appiah</a>. </p>
<h2>The music</h2>
<p>The “dance structure” of <em>Dança da Familia</em> can be performed on different rhythms. During family celebrations this pattern is danced on more traditional rhythms like <a href="https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2018/12/the-roots-of-soukous">soukous</a> (or sakiss) and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/oct/08/pantsula-dance-south-africa-via-kanana">pantsula</a>, but also on <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/30/africa/coup-decale-ivory-coast/index.html">coupé decalé</a>, <a href="https://www.redbull.com/int-en/music/a-history-of-afropop-dance-crazes">azonto</a> or <a href="https://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/2020/05/21/best-afrobeats-dances-lockdown/">Afrobeat</a> songs, by those who do not know each rhythm’s dance code. </p>
<p>All these music styles are appreciated by different generations in various countries. This dance structure embeds their specific vocabularies, reshaping them into a new cultural product. <em>Dança da Familia</em> can be adapted to all these rhythms, which is why it is often used at West African weddings in the south of the region, where continuous exchanges between ethnic groups have created mixed family units and multicultural traditions. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-angolan-dancers-who-helped-south-african-anthem-jerusalema-go-global-148782">The Angolan dancers who helped South African anthem Jerusalema go global</a>
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<p>Similarly, contemporary styles like Afrobeat or <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/europe/portugal/lisbon/articles/a-brief-introduction-to-kuduro/">kuduro</a> travel across the globe via TV and social networks, carrying symbols and proposing modes of self-representation that drive cultural legitimacy and recognition. In this context the creation of codes is often based on the recreation of traditions – reinforcing what Cameroonian philosopher and author <a href="https://wiser.wits.ac.za/users/achille-mbembe">Achille Mbembe</a> affirmed by <a href="http://calternatives.org/resource/pdf/African%20Modes%20of%20Self-Writing.pdf">defining</a> African identity as mobile and reversible. </p>
<p>This has now achieved the dignity of specific aesthetic criteria, nourished by improvisation and by freedom of expression.</p>
<p>Through these elements, <em>Jerusalema</em>’s dance spontaneously promoted a more conscious concept of Africanity and sowed feelings of tolerance and contentment that have conquered international audiences.</p>
<p>This reminds me of the words of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-kwame-nkrumah-used-metaphor-as-a-political-weapon-against-colonialism-129379">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, former Ghanaian president:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All the fair, brave words spoken about freedom that had been broadcast to the four corners of the earth took seed and grew where they had not been intended.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Francesca Negro is an independent researcher in Comparative Literature and Performance studies. She is affiliated researcher with The Centre for Comparative Studies at the University of Lisbon while collaborating as consultant and teacher with various international institution.</span></em></p>A year later, it’s clear that the dance promotes a conscious concept of Africanity – sowing feelings of tolerance and contentment that have conquered international audiences.Francesca Negro, Associate research scientist, Universidade de Lisboa Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1516802021-01-28T14:11:29Z2021-01-28T14:11:29ZHip hop and Pan Africanism: from Blitz the Ambassador to Beyoncé<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373944/original/file-20201209-19-4bf5nl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zambia-born, Botswana-raised hip hop artist Sampa the Great.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marc Grimwade/WireImage</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hip hop is many things. Most recently is has become more of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/korihale/2019/02/06/goldman-sachs-bets-on-hip-hop-and-millennials-for-music-revival/?sh=2b3ab2a46f17">commodity</a>, a commercial venture, but it has always been and remains a global culture that represents local realities. It speaks about where one is from – through rap lyrics, DJing, graffiti or breakdancing – by incorporating local slang, references, neighbourhood tales, sounds and styles.</p>
<p>Hip hop <a href="https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/how-the-burning-of-the-bronx-led-to-the-birth-of-hip-hop/">emerged</a> in the 1970s in the South Bronx, in New York City in the US, among young, working class African Americans as well as Caribbean and Latino immigrants. </p>
<p>Hip hop culture’s connection to African musical and social traditions would be well <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739193297/Hip-Hop-and-Social-Change-in-Africa-Ni-Wakati">documented</a>, including in my <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Hip-Hop+in+Africa">book</a> <em>Hip Hop in Africa: Prophets of the City and Dustyfoot Philosophers</em>. </p>
<p>In its roots and manifestations, I argue, hip hop has also proven to be a powerful vehicle for spreading and shaping Pan Africanism.</p>
<h2>Moving beyond borders</h2>
<p>Pan Africanism is an acknowledgement of the social, cultural and historical bonds that unite people of African descent. It’s an understanding of shared struggles and, as a result, shared destinies. It’s also an understanding of the importance of dismantling the divisions among African people in order to work towards greater social, cultural and political solidarity. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-77030-7_134-1">work</a> has focused on hip hop as a soundtrack for the transnationalisation – the spreading beyond national borders – of African communities and identities. </p>
<p>This includes the increased and diversified migration of Africans to countries around the world. Today, an increasing number of Africans have lived in more than two countries. There have also been increased migrations to Africa from the African diaspora – people of African descent who are spread across the world. Some of these diaspora migrants are also Africans migrating to countries in Africa other than their own. </p>
<p>One artist whose work is both an articulation of these transnational trends and of an advancing Pan Africanism is Ghanaian-born, New York-based hip hop star <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/11/27/247481464/blitz-the-ambassador-fighting-against-invisibility">Blitz the Ambassador</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man plays African drums and sings into a microphone, behind him a row of trumpeters and saxophonists." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373947/original/file-20201209-16-mctlq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Blitz the Ambassador in New York in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>We see this throughout his entire catalogue, from songs like <em><a href="https://blitzemmetstill.bandcamp.com">Emmet Still</a></em> and <em>Sankofa</em> on his 2005 album <em>Double Consciousness</em> to <em><a href="https://youtu.be/zyQNUGMBhLY">Hello Africa</a></em> on his 2016 release <a href="https://jakartarecords-label.bandcamp.com/album/diasporadical"><em>Diasporadical</em></a>. </p>
<p>In <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmqvguxPvu4">Hello Africa</a></em> he raps: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just touched down, Ecowas passport. Internationally known, I give ’em what they ask for. From Accra city all the way outta Marrakech…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He proceeds to take us on a journey across Africa in a way that acknowledges his identity as an African belonging to the continent, and also his transnational relationship with the continent. He throws in different languages – Arabic, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Wolof – as he moves through different cities.</p>
<h2>The new Pan Africanism</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/pan-africanism">Pan Africanism</a> is not a new idea, or movement. Its roots are pre-colonial. There continues to be serious investment in a Pan African agenda set by intellectuals like <a href="https://www.lincoln.edu/departments/langston-hughes-memorial-library/kwame-nkrumah-digital-information-site">Kwame Nkrumah</a> of Ghana, <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africanism/nyerere-nationalism-and-pan-africanism">Julius Nyerere</a> of Tanzania, <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/biograph.htm">C.L.R. James</a> of Trinidad and <a href="https://www.naacp.org/naacp-history-w-e-b-dubois/">W.E.B. DuBois</a> of the US.</p>
<p>While we see growth in hip hop’s Pan African voice through artists like Blitz the Ambassador, we do also see movement away from a United States of Africa under a socialist state as a primary goal of Pan Africanists. What then are some of the primary objectives of Pan Africanism today? African music, especially hip hop, has always given us clues.</p>
<p>Hip hop is an important <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Hip-Hop+in+Africa">catalyst</a> for Pan Africanism today. We are seeing a major cultural shift through collaborations between African and African diaspora artists, as well as the inclusion of Pan African elements in their music. </p>
<p>Some of these songs are significant in bringing together artists known for making social statements, such as <em>Opps</em> (2018) with Vince Staples (US) and Yugen Blakrok (South Africa) for the <em>Black Panther</em> <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2018/02/a-guide-to-black-panther-soundtracks-south-african-artists.html">soundtrack</a>. There are many more, like the remix to <em><a href="https://sampathegreat.bandcamp.com/album/time-s-up-remix-feat-junglepussy-3">Times Up</a></em> (2020) with Sampa the Great and Junglepussy.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Sampa the Great’s work embodies Pan Africanism today.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Zambia-born, Botswana-raised hip hop artist Sampa The Great spends her time between Australia and Botswana. Her album <em><a href="https://sampathegreat.bandcamp.com/album/the-return">The Return</a></em> (2019) was an important work that received much <a href="https://www.metacritic.com/music/the-return/sampa-the-great">praise</a>. From it, the songs <em><a href="https://youtu.be/H2lvgKDpiSA">Final Form</a></em> and <em><a href="https://youtu.be/dDubhAKSeB0">Energy</a></em> are representations of hip hop’s Pan African voice. </p>
<p>In the songs’ music videos, for example, we see dance styles found in diaspora and African communities. We see facial paint designs like those seen in South Africa and masks like those found in Mali. In <a href="http://pilerats.com/music/rap/sampa-the-great-energy/"><em>Energy</em></a> she features British-Sierra Leonean artist <a href="https://www.radicalartreview.org/post/black-visual-frequency-interview-with-nadeem-din-gabisi">Nadeem Din-Gabisi</a> performing poetry in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-west-africas-pidgins-deserve-full-recognition-as-official-languages-101844">Pidgin English</a>.</p>
<h2>Collaborations</h2>
<p>We’ve seen important collaborations between hip hop artists across Africa and in the diaspora that go back to the early 1990s. But we see an increase after 2010. When African artists started using social media and file sharing they were able to increase their collaborations. </p>
<p>In 2011, Senegalese hip hop pioneer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/feb/15/worldmusic.urban">Didier Awadi</a> released the major collaborative project, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/1fWlrQsVTwZo9avHCeZDzF?autoplay=true">Présidents d'Afrique</a> (Presidents of Africa) featuring collaborations with artists from Burkina Faso, DRC, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, France and the US. It also sampled speeches from past leaders like Aimé Césaire, Nyerere, Nkrumah, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.</p>
<p>And the growing presence of Africans in important positions in the US entertainment industry has meant these collaborations are beginning to happen in more mainstream platforms. </p>
<p>Two big budget projects that have attracted significant attention are the US film <em>Black Panther</em> (2018) and US pop star Beyoncé’s <em>Black is King</em> visual album (2020). </p>
<p>There are many important <a href="https://culture-review.co.za/black-america-is-king?fbclid=IwAR2aBSKryCvXuX1blBwJz7sFhViOestuSHNLtexPM6Npyzs4EQ6b6v3WTgU">criticisms</a> of these projects. Major labels prefer proven (profitable) formulas over artist innovation. There is a tendency towards a homogenisation – a lumping together – of Africa and a marginalisation of African artists’ voices. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nLm8MMmkqeQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Beyoncé is criticised for her representations of Africa.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But we also need to understand that both projects are products of the transnationalisation of African communities and identities. They exist in part because of the increased mobility of African communities around the world. We also must recognise their impact on helping to cultivate Pan African identities. </p>
<p>In <em>Black is King</em>, we see the prominent influence of West African culture. The project was the product of the creative vision of Beyoncé, Ghanaian creative director <a href="https://www.essence.com/entertainment/only-essence/black-is-king-director-kwasi-fordjour/">Kwasi Fordjour</a> and Ghanaian creatives Blitz Bazawule (Blitz the Ambassador) and <a href="https://www.emmanueladjei.com">Emmanuel Adjei</a>. Also on the project were Nigerian creative directors <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/ibra-ake-mission-show-african-creatives-value-ownership-childish-gambino/">Ibra Ake</a> and <a href="https://100women.okayafrica.com/editorial/jennnkiru">Jenn Nkiru</a>. </p>
<h2>Pan Africanism is hip hop</h2>
<p>There will be more of these projects produced. There will also continue to be these projects produced on smaller budgets. But imagine if Sampa the Great’s <em>Final Form</em> had a <em>Black is King</em> budget? Would there be criticism of this artist if she incorrectly used a particular African symbol?</p>
<p>Songs like <em>Final Form</em> and <em>Hello Africa</em> are celebrations of Blackness, in global spaces. This Pan Africanism is recognition that African peoples are transnational and multicultural. It is an understanding that African peoples must stand together. It is also a call to understand and respect the differences in our struggles and to resist the temptation of imposing “universal” models of liberation. Pan Africanism is also feminist, anti-homophobic and anti-imperialist. </p>
<p>The importance of African music and hip hop is that it also clues us in on what is going on with Pan Africanism. Pan Africanism is not a movement that faded away or only lives on among a small minority. It is dynamic, and has adjusted to new realities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Msia Kibona Clark does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The increased migration of Africans and the global growth of hip hop culture has seen a dynamic new generation of Pan Africanism emerge.Msia Kibona Clark, Associate professor, Howard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1539812021-01-28T09:09:49Z2021-01-28T09:09:49ZHow former president Rawlings pioneered heritage tourism in Ghana – in his own words<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380970/original/file-20210127-19-1bx9ucu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tourists pose for pictures at the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NATALIJA GORMALOVA/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the 1980s, Flight Lieutenant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/13/jerry-rawlings-obituary">Jerry John Rawlings</a> launched heritage tourism as a means to economic development in Ghana. Under his initiative, Ghana’s forts and castles – <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-africa-slavery-journey-widerimage-idUSKCN1UR4JV">where</a> enslaved Africans were forcibly put on slave ships to cross the Atlantic Ocean into slavery in the Americas – were turned into heritage sites for tourism. It united Africans and African descendant people living in the disapora.</p>
<p>Rawlings was Ghana’s youngest and longest-serving post-independence leader. He led military uprisings in 1979 and 1981 and served as elected president from 1992 to 2000. When Rawlings came to power in 1981, Ghana faced numerous <a href="https://asq.africa.ufl.edu/files/Adedeji-Vol-5-Issue-2.pdf">challenges</a>. Food was scarce, medicines unavailable, over a million Ghanaians were deported from Nigeria, and the economy was almost bankrupt. Rawlings understood the capital investment necessary to rebuild the economy. </p>
<p>However, Ghana’s 1979 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Ghana-1982-1992-Revolution-Democracy/dp/9988786816">revolution</a> had criticised the former regime’s ties to the West and Western imperialism, so private investment dried up. Eastern bloc nations gave minimal support. Rawlings was compelled to secure World Bank and International Monetary Fund assistance, a tactical acquiescence that proved pivotal for heritage.</p>
<p>Rawlings rarely gave interviews. This abbreviated <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1743873X.2020.1817929">interview</a> with him was the first time he spoke publicly on heritage tourism and development. It comprises several conversations in 2018 and 2019. </p>
<hr>
<h2>How did you arrive at this innovative idea – using cultural heritage tourism for development?</h2>
<p>I was always interested in culture and art. (He shows me his childhood artwork.) As a child, I was an artist. </p>
<p>At that time (in the 1980s), Ghana was politically stable. Cocoa, gold and timber were our major commodities. The tourism idea was unplanned. But I worked with many progressive-minded people. For instance, Valerie Sackey (Ministry of Communications) and Dr Ben Abdallah (Minister of Culture and Tourism) who approached me with the idea. They targeted cultural heritage, such as the forts and castles, natural heritage, performance and arts – for example <a href="https://panafestghana.org/">Panafest</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380896/original/file-20210127-15-q5onix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in an overall and shades reads a placard that says, 'Do Not Mind Foreign Intervention', a crowd of peoplein the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380896/original/file-20210127-15-q5onix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380896/original/file-20210127-15-q5onix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380896/original/file-20210127-15-q5onix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380896/original/file-20210127-15-q5onix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380896/original/file-20210127-15-q5onix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380896/original/file-20210127-15-q5onix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380896/original/file-20210127-15-q5onix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rawlings reading a placard at a 1981 demonstration in Nicholson Stadium, Accra.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Rawlings Archival Foundation</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Quite frankly, I was surprised by the response. I remember, when I was young, <a href="https://theconversation.com/kwame-nkrumah-why-every-now-and-then-his-legacy-is-questioned-120790">(Kwame) Nkrumah</a> was the star of Africa, and black Africa at that. I was acquainted with African Americans coming to Ghana. We had personalities such as <a href="https://www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org/Who%20We%20Are/who-was-george-padmore">George Padmore</a> and <a href="https://duboiscentreghana.org/">W.E.B. Du Bois</a>. I was familiar with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/books/malcolm-x-a-life-of-reinvention-by-manning-marable-review.html">Malcolm X</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr">Martin Luther King</a>. I expected those who visited would want to know Africa better. After all, I was a young student when <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Muhammad-Ali-boxer">Muhammad Ali</a> came to my school. Consequently, I saw all of this as part of a natural flow of events – even if it also brought some resentment. Many had a complex relationship with Ghana. After I left school, I observed this first-hand, when I used to ‘be-bop’ around town. African Americans struggled to come to terms with the fact that Africans participated in the transatlantic slave trade and sold their ancestors into slavery. It was a very mixed response. </p>
<p>So, when I was in office, I did not think African Americans travelling to Ghana was something to be revived. I left the matter to those who championed heritage tourism and the various ministries.</p>
<h2>Is it possible to describe you as a pragmatist, for trying to reconcile the revolution with ‘real world’ demands?</h2>
<p>We had little money to invest in what was important to provide stability – a stable climate, water, roads. But we did well, as tourism became our third largest foreign exchange earner – though we didn’t invest in tourism per se. Ghana was seen as a place where the black man had reason to feel proud and was not exploited by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/neocolonialism">neocolonialism</a>, so that was something in and of itself. The 1979 revolution also restored justice and respect… In our case, this pilgrimage … was a connection to blackness, to ‘Africanness’. </p>
<h2>Were there any challenges?</h2>
<p>Sure. The African diasporan presence raised the subject of citizenship and nationality. This created issues, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-west-is-morally-bound-to-offer-reparations-for-slavery-153544">reparations</a> for the transatlantic slave trade and slavery, which also created a polarisation between our own people and African descendants. Still, I would like to mention something interesting. Gradually, African Americans won recognition in various arenas, for example, sports and entertainment. But in the late 1970s and early 1980s, several were so disgusted at their treatment by the United States government that they offered to participate in the Olympics on Ghana’s ‘ticket.’</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380902/original/file-20210127-17-1p4j12a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A greying man with a beard and sunglasses sits in a brown chair looking ahead intently." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380902/original/file-20210127-17-1p4j12a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380902/original/file-20210127-17-1p4j12a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380902/original/file-20210127-17-1p4j12a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380902/original/file-20210127-17-1p4j12a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380902/original/file-20210127-17-1p4j12a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380902/original/file-20210127-17-1p4j12a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380902/original/file-20210127-17-1p4j12a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rawlings later in life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alhassan Idrissu/Courtesy the Rawlings Archival Foundation</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unfortunately, soon after, African American perceptions of Africa altered with the <a href="https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/1980s-ethiopia-famine-facts">Ethiopian famine</a>. Whereas previously, they sympathised with Africa’s struggles and, in a defiant move, wanted to identify with the continent, that sentiment suddenly collapsed. Horrible scenes on the television – overwhelming images of Ethiopians covered in flies, with bloated stomachs, dissuaded lots of African Americans from identifying with Africa. </p>
<h2>As head of state, you worked and lived at Osu Castle. What was that like?</h2>
<p>Often, I was too busy to give thought to the (slave trade and colonial) past. I saw my fellow black man suffering. When I travelled up north, I saw my people did not have water to flush their toilets and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/guineaworm/index.html">Guinea worm</a> was everywhere. The pressure of economic and social injustice was on me! Don’t forget that I was not always at the castle. I was always on the move. So was (my wife) Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings. I had water, electricity and a bed to sleep on. What more could I have asked for? Why would I spend money on renovating the castle? Many Ghanaians did not have basic necessities. I did not even have the money to buy bullets for my soldiers in Liberia, or to protect people during the violence in the north.</p>
<h2>How do you see the heritage tourism and development initiative today?</h2>
<p>As for Ghana, we receive people well. Over the years, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ghanas-year-of-return-2019-traveler-tourist-or-pilgrim-121891">the ‘return’</a> has become increasingly known. Ghana has enjoyed a unique position because of our history, independence, Nkrumah, the assertion of black people in Africa’s liberation struggle and black people generally.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ghanas-year-of-return-2019-traveler-tourist-or-pilgrim-121891">Ghana's Year of Return 2019: traveler, tourist or pilgrim?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>We are aware of our responsibilities to ourselves, our fellow Africans, and those in the diaspora. I am not enthusiastic about (financial) reparations. Those taken during the transatlantic slave trade must decide. If they return, we should offer them land and dual citizenship as restorative and social justice … As for diasporans and development … they do not have the money to develop us in Africa. Let us give them the respect that they want, that is due. That is the beginning of it all. Then other things will follow. This way, they can also fight for the continent … help us gain access to what the continent deserves. You see? This is how it should be. </p>
<p><em>Postscript: President Rawlings passed away as this article was to go to press. It is published with support from the Rawlings family. Thanks to the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjht20/current">Journal of Heritage Tourism</a> for permission to republish.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153981/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a rare series of interviews, the late Ghanaian leader spoke of how the country’s slave trade was revisited as a vehicle for economic development.Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann, Director of Christiansborg Archaeological Heritage Project, Associate Professor at Africa Institute Sharjah & Associate Graduate Faculty, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1500252020-11-12T19:55:38Z2020-11-12T19:55:38ZSaint or sinner: Rawlings was pivotal to Ghana’s political and economic fortunes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369144/original/file-20201112-15-1mduwlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The second phase of Ghana’s post-colonial history – from 1981 – is intensely controversial, centering on Jerry Rawlings himself.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jerry John Rawlings Facebook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Twenty years after he left political office, probably nothing divides Ghanaians more than their opinions regarding Flight-Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings who has <a href="https://citinewsroom.com/2020/11/former-president-jerry-john-rawlings-dies-aged-73/">died</a>. His lingering political influence on Ghana may be second only to <a href="https://theconversation.com/kwame-nkrumah-why-every-now-and-then-his-legacy-is-questioned-120790">Kwame Nkrumah</a>. Some like Rawlings, some hate him.</p>
<p>I wrote a PhD on Rawlings and his rule at the end of the 1980s. After four years of intensive study, I was still not sure how to regard Rawlings. Was he a patriot who believed passionately in Ghana or a wrecker who wanted to bring the post-colonial edifice tumbling down? Today, 30 years later, I am still not sure what to make of him. But, assuredly, I will remember him and his legacy.</p>
<p>Rawlings has been a pivotal, absolutely central, figure in the country’s political and economic fortunes.</p>
<p>Ghana moved from military to democratic rule with two elections in 1992 and 1996. Both resulted in the election of the former military leader, Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, as president. Rawlings’s party gained a majority of seats in parliament on both occasions. But this is not simply a case of an authoritarian regime trying to legitimise itself by dubious elections, as contemporaneously in <a href="https://uca.edu/politicalscience/dadm-project/sub-saharan-africa-region/upper-voltaburkina-faso-1960-present/">Burkina Faso</a> or <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10246029.1999.9627907?journalCode=rasr20">Kenya</a> . </p>
<p>Instead, Rawlings’s election as president showed signs that Ghana was consolidating as a liberal democracy. Having a vocal, reasonably effective opposition greatly affected Ghanaian politics in the 1990s. For the first time in nearly 20 years a regime led by Rawlings had to answer publicly for its programmes and policies. Also, certain national institutions were both strengthened and made more independent. </p>
<p>However, the possibility of a military coup d’état could not be discounted, especially if a regime perceived as hostile was to be elected in 2000. This was a time when Rawlings could not constitutionally run for president again. But, even then, it was difficult to imagine Ghana going back to the status quo ante. Instead, it seemed more likely that there would be an extended period – where both government and state exhibited mixed characteristics of both democracy and authoritarianism. Today, in 2020, Ghana is one of the few consolidated liberal democracies in Africa.</p>
<p>To what extent is Rawlings to thank for this welcome state of affairs?</p>
<h2>The Rawlings era</h2>
<p>After independence in 1957, a decade of initially democratic, latterly dictatorial, rule by Kwame Nkrumah and his Convention People’s Party government ended in 1966 with a joint<a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2018/2/23/february-24-1966-dr-kwame-nkrumah-overthrown-as-president-of-the-republic-of-ghana"> police/military coup d’état</a>. After handing over power to elected civilians in 1969, the military struck again in 1972. Following a junior ranks coup in early 1979, which brought Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings to power for the first time, an elected civilian government took charge following elections later the same year. </p>
<p>After a traumatic two years of conspicuously unsuccessful rule, Rawlings returned to power via another coup in late <a href="https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/I-could-not-avoid-1981-coup-Rawlings-justifies-overthrow-of-Limann-752330">1981</a>. He initially rejected ‘Western-style’ multi-party democracy as ‘<a href="https://www.longdom.org/open-access/the-rawlingsfactor-in-ghanas-politics-an-appraisal-of-some-secondary-and-primary-data-2332-0761-1000-S1-004.pdf">unsuitable for Ghanaian realities</a>’. But over time Rawlings became an apparent convert. Voted president by impressive margins over his nearest challenger in 1992 and again in 1996, his party, the National Democratic Congress, achieved substantial parliamentary majorities in those two elections.</p>
<h2>Political stability and economic steadiness</h2>
<p>The second phase of Ghana’s post-colonial history – from 1981 – is a story of evolving political stability and <a href="https://www.longdom.org/open-access/the-rawlingsfactor-in-ghanas-politics-an-appraisal-of-some-secondary-and-primary-data-2332-0761-1000-S1-004.pdf">growing economic steadiness</a> . The period is however intensely controversial, even today: centering on the figure of Rawlings himself.</p>
<p>Rawlings’ initially chaotic, then authoritarian, latterly democratic, rule by hook or by crook managed to take Ghana through the uncertainties of the 1970s to the political balance and comparative economic equilibrium of the 1990s and into the 21st century.</p>
<p>The chaotic phase lasted from 1982 to 1983-84 when a series of populist political and economic strategies were tried without much success. From 1983-84 to the early 1990s, government attempted to manage the economy and engineer desired political changes through a mix of often clumsily applied <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13523279208415146?src=recsys">administrative controls</a> and popular mobilization. Over time the regime became more authoritarian. It became increasingly unwilling to listen to alternative suggestions to deal with the country’s problems. </p>
<p>Until 1992, when the country democratised, Rawlings’s economic and political policies remained insulated by his authoritarian style and wide powers of coercion. Decisions were made by a small, strongly centralised, coterie around, and including, Rawlings. It seemed to many that populist rhetoric was taking the place of governmental institutions.</p>
<p>During the 1980s anti-Rawlings coup attempts were regularly made. The key to the regime’s continued survival was tight control of a large, loyal security apparatus. The apparatus was originally designed to mobilise the population in defence of what Rawlings persisted in calling a ‘revolution’. Over time, it evolved into an oppressive machine to quell dissent. The tough tactics of the regime’s militants and security personnel did impose acquiescence on the country’s once vocal political opposition to the extent that a ‘culture of silence’ existed.</p>
<p>That culture of silence is now over. Many Ghanaians will be glad to see the back of Rawlings. Some will remember him as a forward-looking leader who took Ghana through a rough patch and ultimately leaving the country in a better place than it might have been without his rule.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Haynes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jerry John Rawlings remains the most polarizing political figure in Ghana since Kwame NkrumahJeffrey Haynes, Professor Emeritus of Politics and Coordinator of Governance and International Relations, London Metropolitan University, London Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1489402020-11-02T14:50:03Z2020-11-02T14:50:03ZGhana’s politics has strong ties with performing arts. This is how it started<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366847/original/file-20201101-15-13x5wrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Tempos band were known for their political songs</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">JCollins-BAPMAF Archives</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Towards the end of the Kwame Nkrumah era in 1966, a number of highlife artists wrote songs critical of him as Ghana’s president. But during the period leading up to independence in 1957 and the early years of independence, most Ghanaian popular artists and entertainers wholeheartedly backed Nkrumah and his Convention People’s Party. </p>
<p>It is on this support by local popular artists for the independence struggle, as well as Nkrumah’s Pan African and “African Personality” ideals, that this article focuses. </p>
<p>In the late 1940s and early 1950s, “concert party” popular theatre groups staged pro-Nkrumah plays. Among them were the Axim Trio and Bob Ansah’s. Bob Vans actually changed the name of his Burma Trio concert party to the Ghana Trio in 1948. This was nine years before “Ghana” became the country’s official name. </p>
<p>In 1952 the guitarist E.K. Nyame formed his Akan Trio concert party, which for the first time fully integrated guitar band highlife into the concert dramas and performed exclusively in the vernacular. His motives were partly political. As he once told me, he wanted to get away from the “colonial ideology and British mind”. </p>
<p>E.K. Nyame’s guitar band also wrote and released on record 40 highlifes in support of Nkrumah. </p>
<p>Some of the other highlife guitar bands that supported Nkrumah were those of Kwaa Mensah, I.E. Mason, the Fanti Stars, Bob Cole, Yaw Adjei and Otoo Larte. </p>
<p>Moreover, the highlife influenced Ewe borborbor drum and dance music created in the Kpandu area around 1950 became so closely identified with his political party that this neo-traditional recreational music became known as “Nkrumah’s own borborbor”.</p>
<p>The more urbanised and prestigious highlife dance bands also supported Nkrumah: like Broadway, Squire Addo’s London Rhythm Band, the Modernaires, the Red Spots, Joe Kelly’s band and E.T. Mensah’s Tempos, which played at Convention People’s Party rallies and released records like <em>Kwame Nkrumah</em>, <em>General Election</em> and <em>Ghana Freedom Highlife</em>. </p>
<p>Not only did the Tempos record pro-Convention People’s Party highlifes, but the band’s brilliant blend of highlife and jazz, as well as its use of sophisticated up-to-date imported instruments to play African songs, became the sound-symbol or zeitgeist (“spirit of the age”) for the early optimistic independence era.</p>
<h2>Nkrumah’s quid pro quo</h2>
<p>Nkrumah recognised the vital role of local popular entertainment in the independence struggle and the creation of an African identity. This led him to endorse numerous state and parastatal highlife bands and concert parties. These included the Cocoa Marketing Board, Black Star Shipping Line, State Hotels, Armed Forces, the Workers Brigade and the Farmers Council. </p>
<p>The coup in 1966 led to some interesting dynamics. One was that the military National Liberation Council that overthrew Nkrumah showed it understood the power wielded by the popular artists. This was demonstrated by the case of Ajax Bukana. A Nigerian musician and comedian, he came to Ghana in 1952 and literally became Nkrumah’s personal “court jester”. As a result of his close association with Nkrumah, Bukana was briefly imprisoned by the police criminal investigation department immediately after the 1966 coup. </p>
<p>Indeed the link between popular artists and Nkrumah was so strong that after the anti-Nkrumah coup the new government not only dissolved the two entertainment unions but also put a three week ban on the movement of touring concert parties. </p>
<h2>Other reasons for Nkrumah’s support</h2>
<p>Besides the active role of highlife bands and concert parties in Ghana’s independence struggle there were a number of other reasons why Nkrumah supported the popular performance as a third prong of his national performing arts policy. </p>
<p>Firstly, as Ghana’s independence movement was spearheaded by the mass Convention Ppeople’s Party, it is not surprising that the popular music and drama of the masses was also drawn into the struggle. Indeed the so-called “veranda boys” from whom Nkrumah drew so much of his backing were of the same “intermediate” class from which most Ghanaian (and other African) popular musicians and actors were drawn. These “intermediates” were neither elite nor peasant, but cash-crop farmers and newly urbanised Africans who performed semi-skilled work. In short the same rural and urban masses that the Convention People’s Party drew its main support from. </p>
<p>Yet another reason for Nkrumah’s endorsement of the popular arts is that, compared to ethnic based traditional music, highlife music and the concert party were “non-tribal” art forms popular throughout Ghana. For instance, although the text of highlife songs and concert party dramas was mainly in the Akan and Ga languages, the Ewe, Hausa and Pidgin English languages were also sometimes used. Local popular dance music and drama therefore provided an artistic lingua franca suitable for Nkrumah’s trans-ethnic nation building policy for polyglot Ghana. </p>
<p>Yet another was the pro-Convention People’s Party concert musician and actor Bob Cole, who in 1961 wrote a song that lamented the assassination of Nkrumah’s Congolese colleague Patrice Lumumba. Other pan-African highlife themes are found in some of the releases of E.K. Nyame, Otoo Larte, the Builder Brigade band, S.S. Ahima, the Ramblers, Broadway – and the Uhuru dance band which derives its name from the East African Swahili word for “freedom”. </p>
<p>Several highlife bands accompanied Nkrumah and represented Ghana at Pan African and international events. One particular case was that of the Tempos, who visited Guinea just after its independence in 1958 when, as E.T. Mensah told me, he was gifted money by President Sekou Touré. At that time Ghanaians were particularly popular in Guinea, as the country had received a substantial loan from Nkrumah to overcome its initial problems at independence. The French colonial government had sabotaged the new nation’s infrastructure before quitting.</p>
<p>On this theme of pan-Africanism it should also be noted that Ghanaian highlife music is not only “non-tribal”, it has some roots and extensions in other West African countries (particularly Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria). Indeed during the 1950s highlife music spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa.</p>
<p>In short, highlife not only provided Nkrumah with a readymade artistic vehicle that projected trans-ethnic national aspirations, but also became a Pan African artistic idiom that symbolised the birth of sub-Saharan Africa’s first modern independent nation. </p>
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<em>This material was culled from Professor John Collins’ work ‘Nkrumah and Highlife’. New Legon Observer, Ghana, vol. 2, no. 7, pp. 5-7</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148940/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edmund John Collins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghana’s history shows a strong connection between music and politics that has evolved over six decades.Edmund John Collins, Professor, Department of Music, University of GhanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1440092020-08-06T10:25:48Z2020-08-06T10:25:48ZLessons from two pan-African giants on how to achieve genuine nuclear disarmament<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351524/original/file-20200806-22-119nyyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hiroshima after the US military dropped the atomic bomb on 6 August 1945. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peace Memorial Museum</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year marks the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/04/world/gallery/hiroshima-nagasaki-atomic-bomb/index.html">in 1945</a>, the only time in history that nuclear bombs have been used. </p>
<p>The atomic bombs killed tens of thousands of people instantly, with many others succumbing to horrific wounds or radiation sickness days, weeks, months and years afterwards. Subsequent generations, born to the survivors, suffered birth defects. The two cities were just about <a href="https://www.history.com/news/hiroshima-nagasaki-atomic-bomb-photos-before-after">flattened</a>.</p>
<p>For some, nuclear weapons represent a necessary evil that brought an end to World War II and have since kept major powers from repeating the <a href="https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/waltz1.htm">slaughter of such wars</a>. For others, nuclear weapons represent a moral low point in human history, falling into the same category as slavery. For this group, the only solution is to <a href="https://www.wagingpeace.org/the-challenge-of-abolishing-nuclear-weapons-2/">abolish them</a>. </p>
<p>There are at least two traditions of African thought on nuclear weapons, traceable to their most vocal exponents: <a href="https://theconversation.com/making-sense-of-decades-of-debate-about-nkrumahs-pan-african-ideas-132684">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, the scholarly first president of independent Ghana, and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2014/10/15/in-memoriam-intellectual-ali-mazrui-1933-2014/">Ali Mazrui</a>, the renowned Kenyan scholar. </p>
<p>Both Nkrumah and Mazrui associated nuclear weapons with imperialism and racism, but proposed different approaches to address the problem they present. Nkrumah’s was an abolitionist non-violent approach. He argued for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and saw nuclear imperialism as the exploitation of smaller states and indigenous people and territory for nuclear tests and uranium mining. </p>
<p>Mazrui, on the other hand, argued for nuclear proliferation before nuclear disarmament could take place. His view was that the dominant policy towards nuclear weapons afforded some states the political privilege of having them, while denying this right to others. What <em>he</em> called nuclear imperialism. </p>
<p>Nkrumah’s approach arguably became <em>the</em> African approach to nuclear weapons. As a leading member of the Non Aligned Movement, Africa’s participation in the global nuclear order was directed through the organisation in the pursuit of nuclear disarmament. Closer to home, the achievement of an <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/african-nuclear-weapon-free-zone-treaty-pelindaba-treaty">Africa Nuclear Free Zone</a> treaty in 2009 was a direct outflow of Nkrumah’s approach. </p>
<p>Mazrui’s approach never had much official traction.</p>
<p>I argue that to end nuclear imperialism, African states have to reconcile Nkrumah’s and Mazrui’s approaches to nuclear weapons. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-efforts-to-secure-a-deal-on-banning-all-nuclear-weapons-are-so-important-75484">Why efforts to secure a deal on banning all nuclear weapons are so important</a>
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<h2>Reconciling the two approaches</h2>
<p>Tackling nuclear imperialism would require African countries to sign up to the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/tpnw/">Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons</a>, or the Ban Treaty, of 2017. This treaty is a first step toward eliminating the weapons themselves and the systems of control and exploitation they make possible. African states participated in the treaty process. More than 20 have signed the treaty and five have so far ratified it.</p>
<p>It would also require African states to withdraw from the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty</a>. All African states are currently members of this treaty. But, after 50 years in existence, there is little hope that it will deliver <a href="https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/armaments/nuclear-weapons/3345-uncertainty-haunts-the-future-of-non-proliferation-treaty-and-disarmament">genuine nuclear disarmament</a>. </p>
<p>Reconciling Nkrumah’s idealism and Mazrui’s realism helps us see these treaties for what they are: the Ban Treaty is based on humanitarian concerns and the equality of states; the Non Proliferation Treaty legalises a few states’ nuclear hegemony indefinitely. </p>
<p>It is time for African states to lead in creating a new non-nuclear order.</p>
<h2>Where both of them stood</h2>
<p>An internationalist and pan-Africanist, Nkrumah saw abolition as the answer to nuclear weapons. He saw them as the “sword of Damocles” hanging over humanity. Embedded in the global peace movement of the time, he advocated for “positive action” – an outflow of Gandhiist non-violence. He attended and hosted several conferences with an anti-nuclear agenda, including an assembly in 1962 on the theme <a href="https://history.wustl.edu/files/history/imce/allman_nuclear_imperialism.pdf">“A world without the bomb”</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Kwame Nkrumah, first president of independent Ghana. Undated.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>Although many Africans lost faith in the value of non-violence and preferred a military solution to imperialism, Nkrumah’s approach to nuclear weapons did not fade. It was enmeshed with the position espoused by the Non Aligned Movement, and was the <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/jspui/bitstream/10539/14761/1/Monyae%20M%20M%20D%201999-001.pdf">position</a> adopted by the African National Congress in South Africa in 1994.</p>
<p>For his part, Mazrui believed African states should not pursue a nuclear weapon free zone and should leave the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">1970 Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty</a>.</p>
<p>The treaty was considered a landmark arms control agreement between the five states that had tested nuclear weapons by 1967 (the US, UK, France, Russia and China) and non-nuclear weapon states. States without nuclear weapons agreed not to acquire them in exchange for access to peaceful nuclear technology, while the nuclear weapon states agreed to give them up at some unspecified date in the future. </p>
<p>Mazrui saw the Non Proliferation Treaty as a trap that smacked of racism, where major powers got to say <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gq1wn">“such and such a weapon is not for Africans and children under 16”</a>.</p>
<p>Mazrui was thus “advocating nuclear proliferation as the <em>only</em> realistic path to nuclear disarmament. This was a <a href="https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/category/ali-mazrui/%22">total inversion of the Western consensus</a>.” </p>
<h2>Wasted opportunities</h2>
<p>The five nuclear powers have wasted many opportunities to negotiate the nuclear disarmament that the 50-year-old Non Proliferation Treaty binds them to. Instead, key nuclear arms control treaties have been discarded and all the nuclear weapon states are <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2019/09/is-it-time-to-ditch-the-npt/">modernising their arsenals</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The global nuclear arsenal in 2020/Nuclear knowledges.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The treaty has also not stopped proliferation: four other states have since acquired nuclear weapons – Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. </p>
<p>Mazrui was right. In practice, the treaty is at most a status quo treaty that has come to legalise a small club being able to wield nuclear weapons – what India calls <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1998-09-01/against-nuclear-apartheid">nuclear apartheid</a>. </p>
<p>The treaty is not just about separating states into haves and have nots; it is also a stick to beat the have nots into submission. </p>
<p>In the Iraq War of 2003 the US used stopping nuclear proliferation as a false premise to justify making war on that country and is today doing the same <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2019/09/is-it-time-to-ditch-the-npt/">to sanction Iran</a>. States without nuclear weapons accepted the Non Proliferation Treaty in the hope that it would deliver a world without nuclear weapons, but that hasn’t happened and their <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2019/11/taking-erdogans-critique-of-the-nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty-seriously/">patience is running out</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Kenyan scholar Professor Ali Mazrui.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Photo by John Patriquin/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)</span></span>
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<p>The efforts of the majority of states that went outside the Non Proliferation Treaty forum to negotiate the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/tpnw/">Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons</a> three years ago, to make nuclear weapons illegal for all, without exception, need to succeed. The Ban Treaty will enter into force when 50 states have ratified it. The number currently stands at 40.</p>
<p>The Ban Treaty was only possible because of a broad international coalition emphasising the unacceptable humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>To end nuclear imperialism, African states have to reconcile Nkrumah and Mazrui’s approaches by not only joining the Ban Treaty, but also withdrawing from the Non Proliferation Treaty. This will signal that African states will only take part as equals in global nuclear governance where these weapons are illegal for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joelien Pretorius has in the past received funding from the National Research Foundation in South Africa. She is affiliated with Pugwash (South Africa chapter). </span></em></p>Kwame Nkrumah and Ali Mazrui associated nuclear weapons with imperialism and racism, but proposed different approaches to address the problem they present.Joelien Pretorius, Associate Professor in Political Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.