Nana Kobina Nkatsia V, Omanhene of Esikado, has called on Africans to build a new consensus on unity, development and self-sufficiency.
He said Africa had suffered too much under colonialism, and continued to be portrayed as ‘primitive and without brains,’ and it was time for a total liberation of the minds of its people from the misinformation about their true rich history and heritage.
The African, he noted, had for centuries been brainwashed by westerners to believe and wholly embrace anything from the other side of the world, and to ignore everything about their own without giving it a second thought.
Nana Nkatsia V, who was the keynote speaker at a two-day workshop in Accra on the theme: “Re-conceptualising and Presenting African Heritages: Beyond Popular Narratives,” said the African mind must be unshackled, and to do so, it required great courage through a mass consensus to cause an awakening from the unconsciousness.
He said there had also been deliberate efforts by western colonialists to erase Africa’s heritage, as white supremacy in all its sacred forms and weights, had affected the entire history and culture of the continent, leading to the distortion of truth, and that “not seeking for the facts, would end us as a lost people”.
He said this was to create a dependency syndrome on the westerners, “which had only led to their domination and our highly accruing indebtedness to them, but we cannot continue to live like this if we intend to develop,” adding that a free people must be free from mental derailment.
“We must begin to rethink who we really are, know who we are and accept who we are by revisiting our culture and heritage,” warning that the zombielike behaviour control of especially African leaders, if not revised would continue to enslave their people.
Nana Nkatsia V said rethinking Africa’s heritage would lead to building its own resources, and encouraged academia especially the continent’s Universities to lead the change by developing strong curricular to drive the teaching and learning of African studies using applied history.
He also urged African governments to increase investment in securing heritage sites, and also museums to receive for preservation of all the stolen artifacts from foreign countries into their original sources.
Nana Nkatsia further suggested that in reversing the wrongs, there was the need to re-examine ways to reconfigure the African heritage, citing how the power of using language and literature could be used to mobilise and enlighten people, although it may take some years to realise the desired change.
He encouraged African Governments to initiate negotiations for the location of all stolen artifacts for repatriation from western countries, using regional bodies, like the African Union or the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS).
Professor Kodzo Gavua of the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, University of Ghana, said the workshop was joined in virtually by participants with diverse backgrounds from across the globe, and sought to create a platform for brainstorming on how to shape the thinking of Africans towards achieving a self-identity.
He said the programme which was supported by UNESCO, was one of the exercises of the teaching and learning of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, under the Remaking Societies, Remaking Persons Project.
Prof. Gavua stated that it was time for Africans and Ghanaians in particular, to start “telling our own stories to build that bond among ourselves, to work together as a people to deliberate on the way forward, and imagine our future of what and who we want to be like.
He said being able to achieve these would encourage the next generation to move the nation forward.
