The Meaning Of Independence Of Ghana I: Reflective Foundations

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As the people of Ghana proceed to celebrate half-century of independence it is time we start to take stocks of the nation’s successes and failures. This success-failure stock taking must be done by critical and judicious examination of the meaning of independence of Ghana and Ghana’s sovereignty. In the coming months leading to the 50th independence celebration and beyond, I will reflect on the general meaning of independence. This general meaning of independence that we are advancing here applies to all African countries from East to West and from South to North without exemption.

In the contemporary and turbulently changing international socioeconomic order with more powerful nations imposing their will and bringing their brands of democracy and governance to weak nations (this behavior by more powerful nations is no different from the Western European behavior in bringing civilization and Christianity to weak nations) we must define independence with a set of characteristics that will allow our understanding of degree to which our nation, like other African nations, is independent. It is important in this judicious examination to distinguish the process of decolonization from the process of national independence and complete emancipation. Similarly it is useful in developing appropriate social policies to distinguish the process of nation building and social progress from simple economic development. It is also proper to distinguish between ideal and workable properties of independence for, reasons of diplomacy and strategies for international socio-political game. Thus in nation states we have decolonized nations and independent nations.

The establishment of distinguishing features of decolonized nations and independent nations requires us to take a look at the ideal and workable properties of independence. The ideal may be thought of as being defined by abstract theoretical properties which must find meaning in practice.

The properties of practice of independence must find meaning in thought. Here we are reminded by Kwame Nkrunah that “practice without thought is blind; thought without practice is empty”. Thus there is an inseparable bound between theory and practice of independence toward a genuine struggle of Ghana people for meaningful social existence, freedom and dignity. This meaningful freedom and dignity find expressions in nation building but not simply on economic development. Here the meaning of independence of Ghana must be reflected in the simple idea that practical people must seek practical solutions to problems of practical people. It will be of grave mistake, however, for Ghanaians to overlook one cardinal fact of history of evolution of ideas and practice. In that, practical answers must always be based on our people’s creative thinking in utilizing our spiritual and material conditions of our times. Solutions to problems facing Ghana can only be found in Ghana and Africa at large but not in the so called Western World which is now equated to Free World or the Civilized World. Here we can not abandon Africentric traditions of critical thinking from the confines of our culture, existence and history.

We must learn a lesson from one of Africa’s great thinkers, Attoh Ahama whose reflection on “The Gold Coast Nation and National consciousness” was printed in Gold Cost Leader, 1911. He states: “As a people, we have ceased to be thinking Nation. Our forbears, with all their limitations and disadvantages, had occasion to originate ideas and to contrive in their own order. They sowed incorruptible thought-seeds, (for example: Adinkra symbolism and Kente tapestry) and we are reaping a rich harvest today, though, for the most part, we are scarcely conscious of the debt we owe them. Western education as civilization undiluted, unsifted, has more or less enervated our minds and made them passive and catholic. Our national life is semi-paralyzed; our mental machinery dislocated, the inevitable consequence being, speaking generally, the resultant production of a race of men and women who think too little and talk too much. But neither garrulity nor loquacity forms an indispensable element in the constitution of state or nation.”

This lesson of raw and unguided imitation of Western education and corresponding culture that has led to semi-paralysis of African (Ghana’s) national life and dislocation of our collective mental machinery is the most revealing account of the devastating aspects of colonialism and slavery. The enervation of our minds has zombilized the people in our intellectual space such that our political leaders are moved to operate in the zone of cognitive imbecility; our masses are forced to operate in the zone of social confusion and suffering by schizophrenic culture and; the priests are move to work in the zone of askarization to further enervate the masses. For example, the Akan word, Obroni has lost its cultural, historical and philosophical significance and has acquired the opposite meaning of what our forbears meant and intended. Obroni is a work coined by our forbears during the intense fight against European atrocities, terror and human right abuses in Africa. Obroni simply mean OBI A ODI ABRO: that is Abro die ni (a mischievous person, or wicked person who operates with terror). Abro-kyire means Abro die no akyi (that is beyond where mischiefs and terror are being perpetuated). Libation is branded and caricatured as evil while European methods of prayer and offering are elevated and said to be godly and righteous. I can give many important examples but let us move forward into other reflections.

Ghanaian traditional societies were formed on the principles of egalitarianism (the philosophical foundations of these principles are explained in philosophical details in my award winning scholarly book, POLYRHYTHMICITY: Foundations of African Philosophy published by Adonis-Abbey, London 2006). Thus the foundational principle of the modern Ghana is “each for all and all for each” and thus must reflect in freedom and justice as pillars of our national life, the very essence of Ghana’s decolonization and movement toward independence. This concept of “freedom and justice” is that which is enshrined on our coat of arms. The process of nation building with freedom and justice at its center was in a logical sequence, first to decolonize the political structure of Gold Coast, free the social decision-making power from alien control, in order to initialize conditions for emancipation, independence, and national dignity. The second is for Ghanaians to take internal control of the social decision-making power, utilize it to shape the direction of our national life and history in accordance with the will and social preferences of the Ghanaian people. Two goals were required to achieve emancipation and independence: “First the restitution of egalitarianism of human society and second, the logistic mobilization of all resources (human and non human) towards the attainment of the restitution” - Kwame Nkrunah. It was on the basis of these principles, collective participation of all Ghanaians and the drive to build true but not faked structures of democratic social organization that the first government of Ghana democratized education and health (Universal free education and health). I have offered an extensive discussion on Democracy, education and health in my books African Union: Pan-African Analytical Foundations and Polyrhymicity: Foundations of African Philosophy (www.adonis-abbey.com) 2006. We may note that no nation building and democratic decision-making institutions can be erected on ignorance, illiteracy and unhealthy citizens.

What I want to point out for reflections by Ghanaians and other Africans are items in the decision sequence toward Ghana’s independence” declaration in March 6, 1957. Let us visit Nkrumah’s statement ”Seek ye first the political kingdom” [Africa Must Unite, p. 50] which was ignorantly criticized by the members of the opposition party, The National Liberation Movement (NLM) and other African intellectual with their separatist ideology and apologetic colonialism. Nkrumah’s idea about political kingdom is followed by a powerful intellectual recognition that “political power is the inescapable prerequisite to economic and social power” (speech 10th Anniversary of CCP June 12, 1959). The gem (kenel) of knowledge and logical relevance of these Nkrumah’s statements to Ghana and Africa in general may be abstracted from the fundamental building blocks of any nation.

The fundamental building blocks are:

1) Political structure;

2) Legal structure and

3) economic structure.

The statements are further supported by the fact that national history is an enveloping of decision-choice outcomes of the society. Thus who controls the decision-making power invariably shapes the paths of the welfare of the people and the national history. While the economic structure is the foundation of the livelihood of the people, the power to make social, economic and legal decisions and the crafting of the rules that govern them is vested in the political structure. Thus whosoever controls the political structure determines the destiny, freedom and justice, and fairness of the nation and the motion toward complete emancipation and true independence. Furthermore, the people who control the political structure constitutes the decision-making class whose actions affect the nation building, individual welfare and social progress. This is how the relevance of decolonization and “seek ye the political kingdom” must be seen but not silly criticisms with biblical comparisons. The action on the part of the people of Gold Coast to embark on the path to complete emancipation and independence for the African people under the British dictatorship and cultural terrorism in Gold Coast was the domestic seizure (arrest) and control of the political structure that was used by the British to steal resources from the Gold Coast, deny the Africans of all democratic freedom, brought slavery, destroy traditional institutions and state craft as well as imposed poverty crime and suffering. This implied that it was necessary to decolonize Gold Cost and get rid of oppressors, the colonialist, the Abrofo (Abro die fo). The success of the struggle against the British dictatorial rule was referred to as independence” where the Africans graduated from conditions of colonial slavery to decolonized political structure by trading off Gold Cost for Ghana since much of the gold has been taken away by the British and other European pradators. The conditions of decolonization offered the people of Ghana the beginnings of independence but not independence. These beginnings of independence were the end of one possible form of colonization and external political violence, as well as an initialization of appropriate path toward nation building, emancipation and internal human social progress and welfare improvement of Ghanaians. It also offered a neocolonialism and crony imperialism as contenders to freedom and justice. With the political structure planted in the initial conditions of independence that is fragilely under the control of the Ghanaians, the path of our national history that follows depends and will depend on our collectively judicious, effective and independent use of our political decision-making power and freedom to asset the direction of our national life and history in accordance with our collective will. This is what independence connotes; and from which sovereignty must be defined. This demands destructive counter strategies developed from within and by the domestic decision-making core against the crafty and deceptive maneuvers and tricks of the imperialists and destroyers from the West. We must note that these crafty and deceptive maneuvers by the predators and imperialists will be exercised to take advantage of our managerial weakness and domestic failures such as poverty, decease and other unintended consequences as we work our national life to independence and emancipation. At this moment the internal decision-making power is infested with neocolonial virus that has rendered our independence meaningless and our sovereignty empty. This infection is amplified by utilization of our internal weakness as instrument of neocolonialist ideological war against Ghana and other African countries

To embark on the road to independence as defined above, to secure our freedom toward a complete emancipation and to build a just society requires the establishment and implementation of two important aims. The first is to restore our traditional democratic ideals based on egalitarianism and the principle of “each for all and all for each” but not on imperialist model of man on the principle of “each for himself and God for us all” which has come to replace the underlying principle of social construct that was destroyed by European imperial predators. The second aim is to efficiently mobilize over human and non-human resources of the country to attain the first aim of development of our society and our nation on the basis of our traditional democratic ideals. These resources are those resources rescued from the imperial predatory machinery.

The important lesson to us as we celebrate Ghana at 50 is that, while decolonization of Ghana seems to mark the closing chapter of direct European imperial terror and disarray of imperialist primitive exploitation, oppression, territorial occupation, colonial wickedness, destruction and domination; it constitutes the opening chapter of new possibilities waiting to be actualized as future realities. These new possibilities include struggles against new forms of international and domestic oppression if independence is to be meaningful and sovereignty is to have content. These future realities further include struggle against neocolonialism and for true independence and liberty so as replacing old forms of material relations with progressive new ones. The foundations for understanding our independence will be followed by examination of current realities.

Substantial theoretical detains and tools for analysis are provided in my books

1) African Union: Analytical Foundations and

2) Polyrhythmicity: Foundation of African Philosophy published in 2006 by Adonis-Abby, UK- (www.adonis-abbey.com).