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CAPE COAST, Ghana
For centuries, Africans walked through the infamous "door
of no return" at Cape Coast castle directly into slave
ships, never to set foot in their homelands again.
These days, the portal of this massive and fearsome
edifice has a new name, hung for all to see on a sign on
the side leading in from the roaring Atlantic Ocean back
into the slave fort: "The door of return."
Ghana, through whose ports millions of Africans passed
on their way to plantations in the United States, Latin
America and the Caribbean, wants its descendants to come
back.
Taking Israel as its model, Ghana hopes to persuade the
descendants of enslaved Africans to think of Africa as
their homeland, to visit, invest, send their children to
be educated here and even retire here.
"We want Africans everywhere, no matter where they live
or how they got there, to see Ghana as their gateway
home," explained J. Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, Ghana's
tourism minister. "We hope we can help bring the African
family back together again."
In many ways it is a quixotic goal. Ghana is doing well
by West African standards - it enjoys steady economic
growth, a stable, democratic government and broad
support from the West, making it a favored place for
wealthy countries to give aid. But it remains a very
poor, struggling country where a third of the population
lives on less than a dollar a day, life expectancy tops
out at 59, and necessities like electricity and water
can be scarce.
Nevertheless, thousands of African-Americans already
live here for at least part of the year, said Valerie
Papaya Mann, president of the African-American
Association of Ghana.
To encourage still more to come, or at least visit,
Ghana plans to offer a special lifetime visa for members
of the diaspora and will relax citizenship requirements
so that descendants of slaves can receive Ghanaian
passports. On the home front, Ghana is starting an
advertising campaign to persuade Ghanaians to treat
African-Americans more like long-lost relatives than
rich tourists. That is harder than it sounds.
Many African-Americans who visit Africa are shocked to
find that Africans treat them - even refer to them - the
same as white tourists. In Ghana, the term "obruni," or
"white foreigner," is applied to all foreigners
regardless of skin color.
To African-Americans who come here seeking their roots,
the term is a shocking sign of the chasm between
Africans and African-Americans. Though they who share a
legacy stained slavery, they experience it entirely
differently.
"It is a shock for any black person to be called white,"
said Mann, who moved here two years ago. "But it is
really tough to hear it when you come with your heart to
seek your roots in Africa."
The advertising campaign urges Ghanaians to drop "obruni"
in favor of "akwaaba anyemi," a slightly awkward phrase
fashioned from two tribal languages and meaning "welcome,
sister" or "brother."
As part of the effort to reconnect with the diaspora,
Ghana plans to honor people like Martin Luther King Jr.,
and W.E.B. Du Bois, people it calls modern-day Josephs,
after the biblical character who rose above his chains
to lead his people to freedom.
The government plans to hold a huge event in 2007 to
commemorate the 200th anniversary of the end of the
trans-Atlantic trade by Britain and the 50th anniversary
of Ghana's independence. The ceremonies will include
traditional African burial rituals for those who died as
a result of slavery.
Estimates of the trade vary widely. The most reliable
suggest that between 12 million and 25 million people
living in the vast lands between present-day Senegal and
Angola were caught up, and as many as half died
somewhere en route to the Americas.
Some perished on the long march from inland villages
where they were captured to seaports. Others died in the
dungeons of slave castles and forts, where they were
kept sometimes for months at a time, until enough were
gathered to pack the hold of a ship. Still others died
on the journey between Europe, Africa and the Americas.
Of the estimated 11 million who crossed the sea, most
went to South America and the Caribbean. About 500,000
are believed to have ended up in the United States.
The mass deportations and the divisions the slave trade
wrought between tribes, ethnic groups and clans are
wounds from which Africa still struggles to recover.
Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African nation to shake
off its colonial rulers, winning its independence from
Britain bloodlessly in 1957.
Its founding father, Kwame Nkrumah, who had studied at
Lincoln University, a historically black college in
Chester County, Pennsylvania, saw in African-Americans a
key to developing the new nation.
"Nkrumah saw the American Negro as the vanguard of the
African people," said Henry Louis Gates Jr., chairman of
Harvard's African and African-American studies
department, who first traveled to Ghana when he was 20
and fresh out of Harvard, afire with Nkrumah's spirit. "He
wanted to be able to utilize the services and skills of
African-Americans as Ghana made the transition from
colonialism to independence."
Many African-Americans, from Maya Angelou to Malcolm X,
visited Ghana in the 1950s and 1960s, and a handful
stayed. To Nkrumah, who had become a disciple of Du
Bois, the father of Pan-Africanism, the struggle for
civil rights in the diaspora and the struggles for
independence from colonial rule in Africa were
inextricably linked, both being expressions of the
desire of black people everywhere to regain their
freedom.
But Nkrumah was ousted in a coup in 1966, and by then
Pan-Africanism had already given way to nationalism and
Cold War politics.
Depending on which side of the Atlantic one's family
spent the last half-millennium, each side takes a
different view of the tortured history of enslavement
that is the shared legacy of black people everywhere.
For African-Americans and others in the African
diaspora, there is lingering hostility and confusion
about the role Africans played in the slave trade.
"The myth was our African ancestors were out on a walk
one day and some bad white dude threw a net over them,"
said Gates. "But that wasn't the way it happened. It
wouldn't have been possible without the help of Africans."
Africans, meanwhile, often fail to see any connection at
all between them and African-Americans, or feel
African-Americans are better off for having been taken
to the United States. Many Africans strive to emigrate;
this year the number of Africans moving to the United
States surpassed estimates of the number forced there
during the height of the slave trade.
"So many Africans want to go to America, so they can't
understand why Americans would want to come here," said
Philip Amoa-Mensah, a guide at Elmina Castle. "Maybe
Ghanaians think they are lucky to be from America, even
though their ancestors went through so much pain."
For all its overtures and promises of easy residency and
even passports, many African-Americans living in Ghana
say they cannot get work permits without staying for
seven years and demonstrating they can support
themselves.
Meanwhile an African-American visitor to Cape Coast
castle last month stepped through the door of no return,
only to be greeted by a pair of toddlers playing in a
fishing boat on the other side, pointing and shouting, "obruni,
obruni!"
William Kwaku Moses, a 71-year-old retired security
guard who sells shells to tourists on the other side of
the door no return, shushed the children. "We are trying,"
he said, with a shrug.
CAPE COAST, Ghana For centuries, Africans walked
through the infamous "door of no return" at Cape Coast
castle directly into slave ships, never to set foot in
their homelands again.
These days, the portal of this massive and fearsome
edifice has a new name, hung for all to see on a sign on
the side leading in from the roaring Atlantic Ocean back
into the slave fort: "The door of return."
Ghana, through whose ports millions of Africans passed
on their way to plantations in the United States, Latin
America and the Caribbean, wants its descendants to come
back.
Taking Israel as its model, Ghana hopes to persuade the
descendants of enslaved Africans to think of Africa as
their homeland, to visit, invest, send their children to
be educated here and even retire here.
"We want Africans everywhere, no matter where they live
or how they got there, to see Ghana as their gateway
home," explained J. Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, Ghana's
tourism minister. "We hope we can help bring the African
family back together again."
In many ways it is a quixotic goal. Ghana is doing well
by West African standards - it enjoys steady economic
growth, a stable, democratic government and broad
support from the West, making it a favored place for
wealthy countries to give aid. But it remains a very
poor, struggling country where a third of the population
lives on less than a dollar a day, life expectancy tops
out at 59, and necessities like electricity and water
can be scarce.
Nevertheless, thousands of African-Americans already
live here for at least part of the year, said Valerie
Papaya Mann, president of the African-American
Association of Ghana.
To encourage still more to come, or at least visit,
Ghana plans to offer a special lifetime visa for members
of the diaspora and will relax citizenship requirements
so that descendants of slaves can receive Ghanaian
passports. On the home front, Ghana is starting an
advertising campaign to persuade Ghanaians to treat
African-Americans more like long-lost relatives than
rich tourists. That is harder than it sounds.
Many African-Americans who visit Africa are shocked to
find that Africans treat them - even refer to them - the
same as white tourists. In Ghana, the term "obruni," or
"white foreigner," is applied to all foreigners
regardless of skin color.
To African-Americans who come here seeking their roots,
the term is a shocking sign of the chasm between
Africans and African-Americans. Though they who share a
legacy stained slavery, they experience it entirely
differently.
"It is a shock for any black person to be called white,"
said Mann, who moved here two years ago. "But it is
really tough to hear it when you come with your heart to
seek your roots in Africa."
The advertising campaign urges Ghanaians to drop "obruni"
in favor of "akwaaba anyemi," a slightly awkward phrase
fashioned from two tribal languages and meaning "welcome,
sister" or "brother."
As part of the effort to reconnect with the diaspora,
Ghana plans to honor people like Martin Luther King Jr.,
and W.E.B. Du Bois, people it calls modern-day Josephs,
after the biblical character who rose above his chains
to lead his people to freedom.
The government plans to hold a huge event in 2007 to
commemorate the 200th anniversary of the end of the
trans-Atlantic trade by Britain and the 50th anniversary
of Ghana's independence. The ceremonies will include
traditional African burial rituals for those who died as
a result of slavery.
Estimates of the trade vary widely. The most reliable
suggest that between 12 million and 25 million people
living in the vast lands between present-day Senegal and
Angola were caught up, and as many as half died
somewhere en route to the Americas.
Some perished on the long march from inland villages
where they were captured to seaports. Others died in the
dungeons of slave castles and forts, where they were
kept sometimes for months at a time, until enough were
gathered to pack the hold of a ship. Still others died
on the journey between Europe, Africa and the Americas.
Of the estimated 11 million who crossed the sea, most
went to South America and the Caribbean. About 500,000
are believed to have ended up in the United States.
The mass deportations and the divisions the slave trade
wrought between tribes, ethnic groups and clans are
wounds from which Africa still struggles to recover.
Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African nation to shake
off its colonial rulers, winning its independence from
Britain bloodlessly in 1957.
Its founding father, Kwame Nkrumah, who had studied at
Lincoln University, a historically black college in
Chester County, Pennsylvania, saw in African-Americans a
key to developing the new nation.
"Nkrumah saw the American Negro as the vanguard of the
African people," said Henry Louis Gates Jr., chairman of
Harvard's African and African-American studies
department, who first traveled to Ghana when he was 20
and fresh out of Harvard, afire with Nkrumah's spirit. "He
wanted to be able to utilize the services and skills of
African-Americans as Ghana made the transition from
colonialism to independence."
Many African-Americans, from Maya Angelou to Malcolm X,
visited Ghana in the 1950s and 1960s, and a handful
stayed. To Nkrumah, who had become a disciple of Du
Bois, the father of Pan-Africanism, the struggle for
civil rights in the diaspora and the struggles for
independence from colonial rule in Africa were
inextricably linked, both being expressions of the
desire of black people everywhere to regain their
freedom.
But Nkrumah was ousted in a coup in 1966, and by then
Pan-Africanism had already given way to nationalism and
Cold War politics.
Depending on which side of the Atlantic one's family
spent the last half-millennium, each side takes a
different view of the tortured history of enslavement
that is the shared legacy of black people everywhere.
For African-Americans and others in the African
diaspora, there is lingering hostility and confusion
about the role Africans played in the slave trade.
"The myth was our African ancestors were out on a walk
one day and some bad white dude threw a net over them,"
said Gates. "But that wasn't the way it happened. It
wouldn't have been possible without the help of Africans."
Africans, meanwhile, often fail to see any connection at
all between them and African-Americans, or feel
African-Americans are better off for having been taken
to the United States. Many Africans strive to emigrate;
this year the number of Africans moving to the United
States surpassed estimates of the number forced there
during the height of the slave trade.
"So many Africans want to go to America, so they can't
understand why Americans would want to come here," said
Philip Amoa-Mensah, a guide at Elmina Castle. "Maybe
Ghanaians think they are lucky to be from America, even
though their ancestors went through so much pain."
For all its overtures and promises of easy residency and
even passports, many African-Americans living in Ghana
say they cannot get work permits without staying for
seven years and demonstrating they can support
themselves.
Meanwhile an African-American visitor to Cape Coast
castle last month stepped through the door of no return,
only to be greeted by a pair of toddlers playing in a
fishing boat on the other side, pointing and shouting, "obruni,
obruni!"
William Kwaku Moses, a 71-year-old retired security
guard who sells shells to tourists on the other side of
the door no return, shushed the children. "We are trying,"
he said, with a shrug.
Jamaica Gleaner
Online
Eastward ho?
published: Thursday | December 29, 2005
by John Rapley
AFTER ITS CIVIL WAR, the U.S. imported
millions of immigrants and urged them to colonise the
country's west, which it saw as a vast but untapped
reservoir of wealth (much to the consternation of its
indigenous occupants). Unlike the African immigrants who
developed the south, these ones came willingly. Among
them were boatloads of Irish. Their homeland was then
mired in a poverty that would last another century.
In recent decades, the Irish government took a page
out of the American history books. In the midst of
economic reforms that gave a fresh impetus to economic
growth, it invited Irish in its large diaspora to return
home to help develop their country. By the end of the
20th century, not only had Ireland gone from being one
of Europe's poorest countries to one of its richest. Its
brain drain went into reverse, as the descendants of
Irish immigrants came home.
Now, the West African country of Ghana wants to
employ a similar model. Like Ireland, Ghana has spent
the last couple of decades implementing structural
reforms that have made the country 'open for business.'
As was the case for Ireland for so long, Ghana's
development has been impeded by a brain drain of skilled
professionals. Now, Ghana wants them to return.
But Ghana is going further than summoning recent
emigrants. It is widening the call to include the
descendants of those who went to the Americas centuries
ago. It would like to make Ghana a haven for Africans in
the diaspora. The appeal is not merely sentimental. Just
as the U.S. government saw the west as a frontier of
opportunity, Ghana seeks to become a land of economic
promise for transplanted Africans all over.
The challenges are many. The links between the
African diaspora and Ghana are more attenuated than they
were for most Irish in, say, Canada or the U.S. The
country is less accessible. Language and cultural
barriers remain strong. And there are serious
impediments to succeeding in business in Ghana,
including bottlenecks in infrastructure and corruption
in government.
OPPORTUNITIES
On the other hand, there are more opportunities than
there have been in a long time. Ghana's economy, if
performing below par, has been growing for several years
at rates we here in Jamaica could only envy. Its
political system has successfully moved from
dictatorship to what appears to be a stable democracy.
The government has an ambitious vision for the future,
including a visionary shift to the frontiers of
information technology.
But exploiting these changes, and propelling Ghana
into the ranks of "tigers" like Ireland, will require
capital. More capital than the government can get its
hands on. Hence, the appeal to private investment: by
streamlining the process of acquiring residency and
citizenship, and trying to promote a culture of openness
to a new type of returning resident, the Ghanaian
government is hoping it can lure back the financial and
human capital it will need to become West Africa's
economic powerhouse.
Ambitious, it is certainly. It is unlikely Ghana will
attain the sort of immigration levels Ireland did. But
then, it doesn't need to. It has set relatively modest
goals for increasing temporary stays in the country, and
hopes to convert some of them into longer-term ventures.
A little could go a long way towards raising Ghana's
growth rate. Raised growth might then become itself a
magnet for greater inflows.
Maybe it's wishful thinking. But then, if a
quarter-century ago, anyone predicted that Ireland would
today be one of Europe's richest countries, he'd have
been laughed out of the St. Patrick's Day Parade.
Stranger things have been known to happen.
John Rapley is a senior lecturer in the
Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
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