NO ORDINARY WIND:

GHANAIAN LINGUISTIC IDENTITY WITHIN THE ENGLISH SUPERSTRUCTURE

A Senior Thesis

By

Kelly E. Wright

Major: English Literature

Maryville College

Fall, 2014

Date approved ______by ______

Faculty Supervisor

Date approved ______by ______

Division Chair

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Abstract

This thesis describes Ghanaian nation building through Kwame Nkrumah’s vision in an effort to understand how and where language is connected to identity, specifically addressing how a modern African identity is limned in the English language. Moving forward, education models are described, revealing how instruction differs in a setting where a multiplicity of languages are present and the unique set of challenges an equitable model faces in such a zone. Today,

Ghanaian mother tongue education models are making the best of a complex, fluid situation, but spaces for development in indigenous languages present themselves outside of the academic sphere. These spaces are literary, and this work views

African literature as identity development on the page. African literature production swelled in the early 1960s, immediately following Ghana’s independence, and tracing its thematic and linguistic development aids in viewing contemporary Ghanaian identity and its relation to the English superstructure through the bramble of circumstance which had it shrouded.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Introduction vi

Chapter I Building Ghana 1

Chapter II Education Policy and Language Reality 27

Chapter III The Genius of Her Race 52

Conclusion No Ordinary Wind 77

Works Cited 81

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis was made possible through the faith, direction and cooperation of Dr. Samuel Overstreet and Dr. Douglas Sofer, who allowed me to conceive a research topic with a linguistic tint, one lying somewhat outside the bounds of either department’s purview. I am also heavily indebted to Mr. Kusi Atta, whose hospitality I enjoyed in Bompata and who patiently endured a barrage of questions. Further, I extend my thanks to Dr. Michael Montgomery for the month of wandering conversations which furthered my understanding of language as a subjective object, a construct which effects beyond imagining. I dedicate this work to Ghana; may she never cease to dream.

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INTRODUCTION

English is a language of rebellion. Its first speakers formed an isolated population stifled by multiple invasions, church takeovers and monarchical shifts, yet their gritty, perhaps stubborn, nature enabled the preservation of their tongue.

Somehow out of the fray, historical and modern; religious and secular; indigenous and foreign; theoretical and experiential, English was chosen, molded, and utilized. The Britons were able to maintain a syntactically and phonetically distinct language for a millennium. This language had an atypical ability for absorption.

Words—even letters—were integrated through various contacts and eras of borrowing, creating a rich, sustainable tongue. The language gained miraculous dominance on an island poised to house a nation unmatched in global influence.

But is it rare flexibility which provided the longevity necessary for English to transition from a language of the people to a language of power, or is it instead an accident of history?

It is impossible to remove English from its historical moment. It owes its station at the vanguard of power to factors as varied as the outcomes of the Battle of Hastings, the unparalleled sensation of The Beatles, Vatican II, and the birth of the internet. The more one reads about the development of English, the more the phenomenon of historical causality shapes its novelty. Additionally, the language itself is indisputably flexible. And this space for accommodation, illustrated by

vi centuries of borrowing from other languages and new word formation, aids

English globally. Consequently, English has stuck to every shore it has touched.

Why? It certainly was not the lone, or even the first, imperial parlance to greet foreign courts. Yet English has been welcomed, studied, proclaimed in, and adapted internationally.

It has been argued that this is a modern development, stemming from the creation of interdependent world markets and air travel systems (Algeo 199).

Participating in the global economy undoubtedly necessitates a command of

English, but a simpler answer is the language’s adaptability. John Algeo notes,

“Despite its vast geographical spread, English in all of its major national varieties had remained remarkably uniform” (Algeo 183). This is not due to what some mark as the impurity of all but the Queen’s English today, but rather stems from

English’s inner framework, which has been set up over time. The pidgin Englishes of Panama or Vietnam feel and sound different than Ghanaian Pidgin English, but strip them of their additions—phonetic and lexical—and a frame is revealed. This frame is the modern English superstructure—an outgrowth which enables world

Englishes, through adaptation and variability, to be employed with nearly seamless intelligibility across the totality of milieus. Communicating in this language

is, to be sure, not a homogenous thing: . . . Its variety is part of the

reason it is useful. Standard English is standard, not because it is

intrinsically better than other varieties—clearer or more logical or

prettier—but only because English speakers have agreed to use it in

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so many places for so many purposes that they have therefore made

a useful tool of it and have come to regard it as a good thing. (Algeo

195)

The gems that fill this English frame, then, are mined from the identity of its speakers. These people who make English their own do so by infusing it with themselves. They fill it with those words, phrases and idioms that without a place for, communication would become evanescent: these fundamentals are the concerns of their verbal exchange.

This reality does not negate the absolute need for expression in indigenous tongues. World Englishes have been looked at from a variety of perspectives, but one which stands out is the link between national identity and language use. Africa is home to a preponderance of languages. These tongues vary in the extreme morphologically, phonologically, and syntactically. A population of speakers on one side of a riverbed may speak the linguistic antithesis of that language heard on the facing bank. On a continent where the consideration of history and heritage cannot ignore oppression of all kinds, the plethora of indigenous languages continuing to thrive inspires. Many of these words were clung to, becoming deeply knit into the fibers of soul and memory, because those words were the only home one could sustain. Language is the leonine treasure of Africa which has resisted foreign exploitation. Ghana is unique in that she rose to independence in the years immediately following World War II, becoming the first self-determined African nation. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, sought to create a representative

viii identity for this multiplicity of peoples, but he also envisioned this identity to be representative of Africa as a whole. English played a role in this romantic unity, and that creates tension. How can a unified, unburdened Africa be created with the baggage of colonial language sitting awkwardly on every doorstep? How can a distinct, African identity be preserved and promoted without a departure from

English?

Thinking back to those first speakers of English, who held tightly to who they were by maintaining a generational connection to the words they spoke, the analogy to the African experience is not difficult to trace. Kwame Nkrumah did create a Ghanaian identity, of which English is a part, and the African psyche has not imploded. That said, the importance of the mother tongue to the formation of self cannot be overstated. Universal Grammar or no, our brains are attenuated to language in the womb. Before we can see colors, we are attracted to the words spoken around us, the words we heard filtered into our first environment. This language is writ within us, a powerful component of our creation, our development as beings. To remove this component, or to weaken it, is damaging.

The human capacity for language sets us apart from all other creatures, giving us our mechanism for expression and expansion. Imagining coming of age in a place where nothing is legible to this most primitive part of the self is unsettling. When

Kwame Nkrumah stepped up to the rostrum and spoke to “the African Nation that must be,” he envisioned a people facing forward with the full ability to manage any challenge ahead. The English medium, effectively, became strategic. Nkrumah, like

ix any revolutionary worth their salt, turns the weapons of his oppressors back against them. English is how the modernity game is won; it is Nkrumah’s ace. And this victory finds achievement through the application of this outer, global mode of communication, because the internal, African voice remains particular. The language of the West booms from loudspeakers and television sets, proclaiming engagement, progress, and partnership, while the tongues of Africa whisper between mothers and children, teachers and students, elders and kingdoms, preserving that which the revolution aims to protect.

This dichotomy intended to reorganize the status quo, creating an African base supporting an English superstructure; the Socialist connotation is apt and purposeful. This reorganization has yet to succeed on a national or Pan-African scale. But Ghana may see it manifest. In the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, a statue of Africa’s manumitter stands facing away from his resting place with a hand outstretched, extending into the future. The successful liberation of Ghana arguably occurred due to its historical moment, not unlike the solidification of

English as a world language. There is an intangible salmagundi of circumstance which allowed for both. Today Ghana, and indeed all of Africa, still struggles for stability, in the UN application of the term as a measure of national progress.

English has brought Ghana to this moment unified, and perhaps now she must look to that array of languages which set her apart for perspective and direction.

This thesis describes Ghanaian nation building through Nkrumah’s vision in an effort to understand how and where language is connected to identity.

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English was selected as Ghana’s national language for political convenience and the language’s international propriety. Although this can be difficult to square with a modern African identity, unity is maintained in Ghana, despite the overwhelming number of tribes, ethnicities, religious groups and sovereignties which existed within the boundaries of Gold Coast at independence. However, a choice needed to be made whether to sustain English post-independence or deviate from its influence and elevate a Ghanaian language to equal status.

Describing mother tongue education policy can shed light on how this question was approached officially. Ghana’s education models reveal how instruction differs in a setting where a multiplicity of languages are present and the unique set of challenges an equitable model faces. Add to these considerations the cost of production and distribution of educational materials for ten languages in a forty- mile radius and it becomes quickly clear that a just model is basically impossible to achieve. The most effective stopgap for these holes in mother tongue education is mother tongue literature. The creative literary act has and always will be the pinnacle of individual human expression, what Emerson called “the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul”; if identity development can be observed anywhere, it is on the page. If Africa’s writers can reduce their perspective to consumable, illustrative narratives, written with the words they have striven to protect, they will place their personal and national experiences on a continuum. This placement fosters understanding and realizes the initial motives for the selection of English, the conservation of Africa’s brilliantly faceted identity base. To create the union

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Kwame Nkrumah envisioned, Ghana must promote mutual intelligibility with the genius of her race through mother tongue education and literature in the English superstructure.

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CHAPTER I

BUILDING GHANA

Ghana, the first independent nation in Sub-Saharan Africa, came into the forefront of global politics at a time when the ideologies surrounding what it meant to be a nation were fundamentally changing. On March 6th, 1957, Kwame

Nkrumah ascended the world stage and called for a unified, self-governing Africa, and for that hour, the world listened. Nkrumah’s policies presented a mixture of models, aimed at promoting a Ghana at liberty, an archetype for burgeoning free

Africa’s adoption. Nkrumah, the Osagyefo (meaning “redeemer” in Twi), envisioned a unified, unburdened Africa, free from the fetters of the market and what he called neo-Colonialism (Asirifi-Danquah 24).To fully comprehend the extent of this mission and its continuing effects, we must first acquaint ourselves with Nkrumah’s history and the tenets of Pan-Africanism which outlined his vision, develop a functional understanding of nationalism as it relates to identity, and discuss the integral role of language in the process of identity creation.

Because his rise to power occurred at the height of the Cold War, much research into Nkrumah’s legacy investigates political motivations (capitalist or socialist) during his presidency which may have swayed the outcomes of his vision.

Whatever his leanings, Nkrumah is upheld as a hero in the eyes of Western idealists, Socialist statesmen, and Ghanaian nationals for his successes without

1 embracing violence, his ability to meld the social landscapes of multitudinous ethnic groups into Ghanaian identity, and his forward thinking which astutely predicted the economic and social setbacks that Ghana, and Africa, face post- colonially. National identity is a tight ball, packed with layer upon layer of importance, perspective, and meaning. The identity of all Ghanaians contains these elements in relation to Kwame Nkrumah. He was born in what would become the Central Region of Ghana, into a “well-off” family (Sofer, “Parallel Lives”

1). This status differs from our understanding of being affluent or prosperous; his family owned property and he had access to quality education through a local church. This education was highly Eurocentric, in that the colonial model of education in West Africa was intent on providing students with the skills needed to work within the colony for the benefit of the empire’s efforts. This model was not intended to equip students with skill sets which would promote entrepreneurship or agricultural innovation (Antwi-Danso). Chapter two discusses the Ghanaian education system in detail. Kwame Nkrumah, paralleling many revolutionaries across the colonized world, showed promise and used open avenues to pursue higher education, which led him eventually abroad.

Kwame Nkrumah wanted to become a teacher, and to do this he moved to

Accra, the largest city in Gold Coast (the title of the colony). There Nkrumah was immersed in a rich mélange of life, ideas, and need unlike what he had experienced at his mission school. His motivation changed, and in 1935 Nkrumah left Accra for Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (Birmingham 4). In the US,

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Kwame Nkrumah experienced the stark disconnect between democracy on paper and in practice. Although the lines of segregation were beginning to blur significantly, Pennsylvania carried its share of disparagement, and Nkrumah found little in the way of immediate companionship or stimulation there. He did, however, join a small Presbyterian community, eventually becoming “a guest preacher”—it is here where his signature oratorical finesse develops, transitioning from rote recitation of traditional proverbs (common in the Akan) to adept, nimble rhetorical skill. Time spent in the United States was not a loss for

Nkrumah, despite limited interaction with his peers. It is here he became acquainted with the writings of Marcus Garvey, the now-renowned Pan-Africanist who looked at the American Experiment and found it lacking a niche for blacks to become socially mobile or gain autonomy. In the decade following, Nkrumah was

“swallowed up in American poverty” and worked himself to the bone to sustain the necessary means to achieve his academic goals. In doing so he fell into states of incapacitated exhaustion (Birmingham 4). It was this ebb and flow of extreme productivity and crushing enervation which kept him from completing his doctorate outright, and although he was awarded several lesser degrees (and eventually an honorary doctorate), he was never satisfied in the outcome of an endeavor which cost him nearly everything.

With the end of the Second World War, Nkrumah terminated his tenure in

America and traveled to London, where he was greeted with a community of

African expatriates awash in the tides of independence. In 1945, Nkrumah took

3 part in what became “known as the Fifth Pan-African Congress” as the assistant to

George Padmore, the celebrated Trinidadian nationalist (Polsgrove 75). The history of the Pan-African Congress is one which stretches across continents, beginning in earnest with the organizational efforts of W.E.B. DuBois in 1919 to bring “blacks” together in Paris “to benefit from the ideals of democracy, anti- imperialism, and anti-colonialism” (Contee 13). One could say that the Pan-African movement itself began sometime before the establishment of the Congress, but this is more a matter of ideology than a visible international presence. DuBois can be credited with providing the Pan-African movement with “continuity,” as well as assuring its international sustenance (Contee 14). The timing of the 1919 Paris Pan-

African Congress, following on the heels of World War I, mirrored in a sense the political climate Nkrumah encountered stepping into the political arena decades later. There was a certain tension experienced as the world recovered from arguably the most influential event in the twentieth century. Business as usual could not be returned to, and because of this, many in the colonized world felt it time to make a push for self-determination while the “power-brokers and decision- makers” were reeling from the economic and social impact of total war (Contee

14). DuBois’ message was one which spoke with the voice of the diaspora, a vast network of African-Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, and African expatriates living off the African continent. DuBois took this voice abroad after it had fallen on the deaf ears of American politicians for nearly a half-century. His organizational efforts in

Paris in 1919 were able to reignite the fervor begun at the First Pan-African

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Congress in 1900 by conglomerating the messages and desires of smaller groups across the globe, and across racial lines, such as the League for the Rights of Man, the NAACP, the International African Service Bureau and the Aborigines

Protection Society of England (Contee 22). While the visible results of the

Congress were few, the event was hailed as “a significant accomplishment” in view of the difficulty of gathering constituents from Africa and the Americas despite the strong-arming of powerful detractors. For DuBois it was enough that “the entire world had heard the voices and the resolutions of the gathering” (Contee 25). The importance of DuBois’ effort is difficult to overestimate. Indeed, without the proceedings of the 1919 Congress, Kwame Nkrumah would not have received the inspiration to begin his peaceful charge towards African unity and ultimate freedom from colonialism.

George Padmore was another visionary who certainly heard the voices and resolutions rising from the Congress. He was able to bring the idea of Pan-African unity to Trinidad, and he created a public voracious for a self-determined space, willing to sacrifice themselves to see this future manifest. Padmore spent time studying abroad, in Germany and the Soviet Union, and returned to Trinidad in

1936 a published author fully endorsed by the Communist party (Polsgrove 4).

Padmore and other Pan-African leaders across the globe embraced print media as a vehicle for political change and issue awareness, and sought to ink their by-lines in any willing publication until such time as they were able to support their own

(Polsgrove 106). Nkrumah followed in this tradition, publishing many pamphlets

5 as well as a Pan-Africanist volume, Africa Must Unite, near the end of his presidency. The work is dedicated to Padmore “and to the African Nation that must be” and seeks to “place developments in Ghana in the broader context of the

African revolution” (Nkrumah xi).

It was his experience at Padmore’s side which endowed Nkrumah with the ability to become an “activist” and “organizer” and developed within him a picture of Gold Coast moving forward with “an idealized commitment to African unity as the only way out of the poverty of colonial fragmentation” (Birmingham 7). In the summer of 1945 at the Manchester Pan-African Congress, “an international ground swell of black aspiration and solidarity” formed (Birmingham 15). When it was suggested by organizers that Nkrumah return to Gold Coast to become general secretary for the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), he had been well prepared through his interaction with W.E.B. DuBois and George Padmore to go into the arenas where he was strongest and promote the African unity agenda.

Pan-Africanism was Padmore’s philosophy, but Kwame Nkrumah presented it to the world in an active sense; “What Nkrumah did was to give flesh to the skeleton”

(Atta). Quickly, Nkrumah moved to break away from the party which invited him because of their conservative, wait-and-see approach to dealing with colonial administration, and on June 12, 1949 he officially inaugurated a new political network, the Convention People’s Party, or CPP (Nkrumah 51).

Although he was an inexperienced political mover, his message of “self- government now” appealed instantly to the youth of Gold Coast, but he reached

6 further: “His charm, charisma, energy, rhetorical power, and organizing ability were single-mindedly devoted to building a broad coalition” (Birmingham 14). On the eve of his emergence into politics, Nkrumah’s paper, “The Accra Evening News was published, with its challenging motto: ‘We prefer self-government with danger to servitude in tranquility’” (Nkrumah 55). All groups across the Gold Coast’s four territories which were unsatisfied with the status quo aligned themselves with

Nkrumah and “self-government now”—the youth, the cocoa farmers, the unionized rail workers, the businesswomen, and the burgeoning class of intellectuals issuing from newly-formed institutes of higher education

(Birmingham 29-31). Inspired by the non-violent methods of Gandhi and harnessing the rage and hope sweeping the colonized peoples of the imperial world after Gandhi’s assassination in 1947, Nkrumah began promoting his campaign for outright independence called “Positive Action” (Birmingham 15).

Positive Action called for an informed citizenry, using all the analytical and political skill afforded them by the present system to commit acts of “civil disobedience, non-cooperation, boycotts, and strikes designed to” get England’s attention (Birmingham 34). Within two weeks of the announcement of Positive

Action, “the Big Six,” consisting of five leaders of the UGCC and Kwame Nkrumah, were arrested, a most grievous error on the part of the Gold Coast governor; overnight the people had a hero (Birmingham 19). Kwame Nkrumah fell into a slot left open, but this does not to lessen the importance of his message or his fervor in relating it. It was broad, popular support which enabled Kwame Nkrumah to walk

7 out of prison in 1951, not as the wide-eyed, idealistic student who was led in, but as a hero, the Osagyefo, and Africa’s first Prime Minister elected from within a colonial state.

This rise to power was meteoric, some might say miraculous; this is certainly the tone which the guided tour of the Dr. Kwame Nkrumah Memorial

Park resonates. The guides reference Nkrumah with the respect due a demi-god, relating his story with all the profundity one expects when dealing with a national hero and liberator. This view of Nkrumah’s ascendency and impact is not incorrect; indeed it is held, or at least projected, by the majority of Ghana’s citizens today. However, looking deeper into the global politics of the late 1940s reveals a perfect storm scenario which created power vacuums throughout crumbling, empiric giants, waiting to be filled by the boldest, the richest, the loudest, or the most fearsome. As World War II came to a close, Europe busied itself with reorganizing the world, economically and politically, in an attempt to sort out the

American and Asian superpowers which had come sharply into focus. Many nations of Europe, Britain included, had fallen nearly bankrupt during the war, and citizens were less concerned with maintaining a large empire abroad than with maintaining the healthy and secure households which remained. While superpowers were scrambling to stay afloat,

The realization was breaking upon the vast world of subject peoples

that freedom is as much their inalienable right as it is of those who

had set themselves over them on the pretext of bringing them

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christian light and civilization. The ideas of freedom and democracy,

which the Western world was busily propagating to engage support

for their cause, were being eagerly absorbed by those whom freedom

had been most strenuously denied. (Nkrumah x)

The groundswell created at the Manchester Congress was turgid, ready to burst at the slightest provocation, spilling forth freedom and light upon the African continent. The colonial powers were unconcerned. In the interest of promoting economic stability, the British government sacrificed some control over colonial holdings throughout the world, shifting day-to-day operations in colonies to local leaders, but in Africa the situations were much different because of the immense revenue generated from several prized and abundant commodities (Birmingham

21). Diamonds, bauxite, cocoa, and gold were African generators, cranking out giant percentages of Britain’s gross domestic product each year. Goods were produced by large, exploitive networks within colonies abroad and subsequently funneled through the English markets, creating near-monopolies in world trade.

Total control could not be yielded to the African continent. Given the ability to handle affairs of state, the Africans could act shrewdly in the markets, making holding the colonies less profitable for the English merchant class.

Other concerns of the British government were socialist and communist motivations throughout West Africa, which grew as more ex-servicemen returned from abroad, bringing organizational alternatives with them (Birmingham 22). The streets of Accra grew riotous in February 1948, bringing the Gold Coast’s potential

9 for radicalization to the attention of capitalists, imperialists, and socialists alike. In other West African colonies, the British government educated “a local élite” who could lead, with a debt to the crown, as a manipulatable administrator

(Birmingham 21). After the riots in Accra, it became clear that this system of management was not preferable, and that a policy was needed which would promote a middle way between the inactive conservative bourgeoisie and the enflamed youth (Birmingham 23). Once the UGCC became functional, the colonial administration thought it best to offer Gold Coast its own constitution, creating a commonwealth. The commonwealth existed somewhere in between colony status and republic status. Also, the term has several complex meanings, and the system manifests itself, even today, quite differently in various regions. For Gold Coast, becoming a commonwealth meant that there was now a formal mechanism for representation and participation in governmental processes within the existing

English system. The 1951 constitution gave Gold Coast a Prime Minister who was able to act legally and globally in the interest of the expressed will of the people.

Creating this constitutional mechanism within Gold Coast backfired, not having the middle-ground results the framers intended. Nkrumah’s self-determinist rhetoric had burned hot through intellectualist circles, his imprisonment had spread his thoughts even farther across the population, and without campaigning a single day, Kwame Nkrumah won the first open election in 1951 and was named

Prime Minister in his cell at James Fort (Birmingham 35). The British Empire had planned for a pushover yet produced a prophet.

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Kwame Nkrumah’s effect on Africa is undeniable. By 1961 “eighteen other

African countries achieved independence,” following Ghana’s example and benefitting from Nkrumah’s willingness to support their leaders through the transition (Nkrumah x).We have yet to see complete African unity—making the unity of regional powers such as Mexico, China, and Germany all the more impressive—but this does not allow us to disregard what happened when Ghana was created, in large part, from the visionary will of a single man. Kwame

Nkrumah generated for Ghana a new identity—a tenuous, ethereal definition of a nascent, national space.

To understand the forces at work within Ghana, and how language plays a vital role in the creation of national identity, we must first develop a functional comprehension of nationalism itself. Benedict Anderson is the foremost scholar of nationalism in the humanities. His work Imagined Communities has been pointed to by researchers and academics as a comprehensive work in the field, which fills a terminology toolbox for describing nation-building. The book mainly traces the emergence of nations after World War II, looking at how revolutions of this period and forward have used “national terms” to outline their motivations.

Understanding the development of nation necessitates understanding the development of identity and all that these terms entail. It is these terms we must isolate in the gestation of Ghanaian identity. Anderson’s parameters for this understanding are wrapped up in the idea of an “imagined community” (Anderson

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6). This community is a construct, something outside physical space, which is created in animis hominum.

Imagined community is defined by simultaneity. When thinking about the term community, typically those communities closest to us are instantly brought to mind. We see our homes, our cities, our churches and workplaces. This identification is involuntary. If a story was being written about a specific community, a few words could be used to instantly place the listener within that locality. Any members of that community should be able to read those words and instantly place themselves there as well. We are able to share deep connections to a community and with its disparate members—despite proximity, status, or commonality of character—through simultaneity. The nation is a collective of individuals and “in the minds of each lives the image of their communion”

(Anderson 6). Our lives, our identities, are bound up in a simultaneous experience of what it means to be men or women, students or teachers, citizens or visitors acting communally inside our roles. In each, certain aspects are constant which create a kinship among others, a “finite, if elastic, bound[ary] beyond which lie other” imagined spaces, complete with their own simultaneity (Anderson 7). In terms of nation-building, establishing and nurturing this simultaneous image is essential. Created in the minds of an emergent nation, the imagined community becomes visible as “a socioscape”—the social landscape of music, literature, and rhetoric; of holidays, monuments, and landmarks; of arbitrary boundaries, unspoken assumptions, and cultural fears (Anderson 32). This socioscape allows

12 communities of individuals to integrate general qualities and experiences of their larger community; it allows for acceptance of the simultaneity of their nation which sets it apart from others. Revolutionaries, later nationalists, are able to relate to a nation in general terms because of simultaneity. Revolutionaries, too, have the added benefit of imagining an ideal community, creating a priori simultaneity, adding into it the minds of the people as they rise.

One component of modern nation-building which is intricately woven into this socioscape is print media. Before capitalism, the socioscape was created orally, from pulpit or square. After, it is transmitted through “the novel and the newspaper,” private, communal commodities wherein “the . . . reader . . . is continually reassured that the imagined world is visibly rooted in everyday life.”

Print language is “the embryo of the nationally imagined community” (Anderson

44). Birmingham suggests that Nkrumah’s success after leaving the jail in James

Fort was his ability to harness the message in daily papers and pamphlets throughout his incarceration. He was never more than a news cycle away from the hearts and minds of the people because the CPP “kept in daily, living touch with the ordinary mass of people it represented” through print media (Nkrumah 54).

The choices made here in regards to which language is used are essential as this dissemination of national ideals, this delineation of the socioscape, is permanent.

The language chosen by nationalists becomes the language of power because it is circulated in print; over time, the general speaking public becomes conversant in it, reinforcing its dominance. More immediate than this, however, is the creation

13 of national images and symbols of Ghanaian identity, which arose alongside

Nkrumah as his presidency solidified. When independence was officially declared in 1957, one of Kwame Nkrumah’s first acts as president was to issue new postage stamps, stating that even though many people in Ghana, the newborn nation, were illiterate, they could look down at a postage stamp and see “an African like themselves” and know that they were

“truly a free people” (Wilburn 26). The entire people of Ghana now had an image to identify with the day they became Ghanaian, the day when their simultaneous memory began and their socioscape was created.

These images created an internal framework within which meaning could be hung as the nation struggled forward. For Nkrumah, Ghana was to be a shining example of progress and possibility in Africa—not only to the rest of the world, but also to other Africans seeking to carve out for themselves a self-determined space.

These messages were aided by the English language, which carried with it a level of formality in the public sphere (particularly among the United Nations) but also presented a vehicle for mutual comprehension across Africa (Sofer, personal conversation). Nkrumah projected his image over and against speech and written rhetoric into Ghanaian daily life with these philatelic efforts, making it impossible for Ghanaians to communicate with far-flung loved ones and the diaspora without observing his picture alongside established Ghanaian symbols, as well as those

14 known world-wide to be associated with freedom from tyranny: “Just as the

Queens’ images were intended to symbolize the unity of the British Empire and entrench legitimacy of rule, so those of Nkrumah sought to unite previously fractious Ghanaian ethnic groups and the emerging countries of Africa” (Wilburn

27).

Nkrumah also sought to make his message—that “the strength of imperialists lies in . . . disunity [and] . . . freedom stands open to danger just as long as the independent states of Africa remain apart”—heard outside the intellectual community, and he used the high-life music scene to enter the social and cultural realm as well, with great success (Nkrumah xvi-xvii). High-life music is a quintessentially Ghanaian musical form which evolved from a “feedback loop” between the Caribbean and West Africa, existing since the 1800s (Collins,

“Ghanaian Music Traditions”). This music has incorporated and indigenized many elements and methods from other non-Caribbean styles throughout its history, such as jazz and guitar. During Nkrumah’s youth and rise to power, the majority of successful, live musicians were playing big band music in large halls for British officers and officials. This type of music was suffused with the chosen political rhetoric throughout the Nkrumah era instead of growing organically, traditionally, as it had done since its inception (Collins, “Ghanaian Music Traditions”). Because high-life was a popular form, heard across Gold Coast—in field, fort, or foundry— it became “the perfect home-grown vehicle for projecting national rather than

‘tribal’ ideals” as Ghana gained its legs (Collins, “Highlife” 89). All live Ghanaian

15 music in the 1950s “was largely the creation of the ‘intermediate’ social groups that…emerged in between the national bourgeoisie and the vast class of subsistence peasant farmers” (Collins, “Highlife” 93). Nkrumah mobilized just this base with his call for “positive action” (Nkrumah 137). The CPP was easily able to find musicians willing to promote this message. Through the promise of quality education, which the administration planned to flood the countryside with, they were able to place instruments in the hands and mouths of those best suited to praise their efforts. These musicians wrote and played songs filled with pro-

Nkrumah and Pan-African rhetoric such as “Birth of Ghana,” “Ghana Freedom

Highlife,” and “Destiny of Africa” (Collins, “Highlife” 91, 94). The musicians realized that the nationalist effort and Nkrumah were in support of their interests, and the CPP realized that local musicians played a “vital role” in “the creation of an

African identity” (Collins, “Highlife” 91).

This music differed from other political efforts in that it was “performed exclusively in the vernacular” (Collins, “Highlife” 90). High-life rose naturally from the people, drawing its power from their words and their feeling. The mode of communication could not be changed, the vernacular had to be preserved, and those seeking power in the pre-independence years had to become conversant in that vernacular because of its strength and character. One of the palpable effects of

Nkrumah’s “endorsement of popular arts” was the “creati[on] of an artistic lingua franca suitable for Nkrumah’s ideal of building a nation from Ghana’s polyglot communities” (Collins, “Highlife” 94). In the BBC documentary Black Power, we

16 see and hear Kwame Nkrumah delivering a speech claiming independence for

Ghana in English, yet the highlife music floating across the wires is sung with boisterous pride in Twi (Black Power). This is an interesting and important dichotomy. Why was Nkrumah not able to remove from Africa the distinctly un-

African colonial language when his people had clearly established an efficient, accepted, and comprehensible mode of communication all their own?

Once the government, any government, is communicating with a “mass reading public,” there is a certain necessity of continuity in language (Anderson

43). Were an administration to splinter its publications to fill each language niche—a particular challenge within the Gold Coast territory, which encompassed striking linguistic diversity, some dialects being supported by less than one hundred speakers—it would find the task cumbersome enough to halt all momentum (Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue 97). Anderson tells us that “there was and is no possibility of humankind’s general linguistic unification”; despite this no nation can hope to support or recognize the totality of languages within its borders, spoken or written (Anderson 43). The maintenance of English as the general print language—and incidentally the language of power—in Ghana was pragmatic not only because mechanisms were already in place to widely and rapidly disseminate information in this language but also because English carried with it a certain ethnic neutrality (Bamgboşe Language and the Nation 85). The distinct histories and mores of ethnicities and regions within Ghana’s borders were being preserved and respected through the arts (s0cially) and through cross-

17 traditional elder councils (politically) (“Dr. Kwame Nkrumah”). The continuance of the artistic lingua franca and the initial absence of informal language regulation allowed for respect and flexibility across “one of the world’s most complex linguistic areas” (Huber 135). Ghana was admittedly uncharacteristic in experiencing little disruptive strife across ethnic lines during the era of independence. English may in part be responsible for this blanching of potential violence.

Notwithstanding the usefulness of English’s “ethnic neutrality,” the use and propagation of English became inseparable from Nkrumah’s plans for rapid industrialization (Huber 141). English is the language of capitalism, and Nkrumah needed to use Ghana’s natural, and valuable, resources wisely to usher Africa into the twentieth century, allowing her to stand unafraid, shielded from “neo- colonialism” (Nkrumah xv). It was necessary for Ghana to secure a place on the world stage by presenting stable and viable administrative organization to the

United Nations. The Nkrumah administration had to put forth a face of civility if the fledgling nation hoped to be taken seriously, not only as an autonomous unit, but also as the head nation of a union of African states (Birmingham 13). Ghana also had to project an ease of travel and cross-country communication to lure investors in swiftly for profitable, large-scale infrastructure and business projects

(Black Power). All of this required English in print, in policy and in public practice.

Considering this, it is interesting to note that Ghana is home to a rich

Pidgin English, which, although extensively used, is rarely heard on Ghana’s

18 streets—at least not in the South and Central Region—alongside the daily intercourse of Ghanaians. English is Ghana’s official language (Asirifi-Danquah 3).

Most native speakers, non-native workers, and immigrants operate with a

“localized trilingualism,” communicating with Ghanaian Standard English

(StGhaE); a Ghanaian language, most likely from the Akan group; or a more intimate regional/ethnic language depending on the purpose and setting of the speech environment (Bodomo 41). English in Ghana carries a certain official quality as it is used in formal settings, such a court proceedings or marriages:

“Even if Ghanaian languages are used in these functions at the regional and district levels, the records are kept in English” (Huber 137). Magnus Huber’s fieldwork in

Ghana represents the largest body of data available for the study of Ghanaian language, functioning across these various, often overlapping, speech environments. His work, a sociolinguistic snapshot of West African languages, includes a detailed account of Ghanaian Pidgin English (GhaPE). His observations

(compiled in the late 1970s) reveal that this linguistic stratification is visible in

Ghana. Huber’s findings provide examples of why a complete movement away from colonial language was not possible, desired, or necessary for a holistic

Ghanaian identity.

To begin classifying his observations, Huber first acknowledges the previous scholarship, citing the cline stages of two researchers, Lindsay Criper (1971) and

Kofi A. Sey (1973), both of whom arbitrarily separate spoken English in Ghana according to “competence” (Huber 138). These two approaches recognize Pidgin

19 briefly, solely as a mode of communication between “…Europeans and their servants,” and they classify spoken English based on the speaker’s level of education as it relates to proficiency in StGhaE (Huber 139). Huber argues that this manner of classification does a disservice to language in Ghana, shading the majority of speakers in an unnecessarily negative light, and that it would be best for researchers to understand GhaPE on more of a “continuum” (Huber 140). He states, “it is essential to bear in mind that the Pidgin ‘basilect’ is only associated with uneducated contexts, because it is in these settings that it is most often heard. The educational attainment of the speaker is not, however, a sufficient indicator whether or not he or she speaks basilectal or acrolectal Pidgin” (Huber

140). An acrolectal form of a language is one which corresponds most closely to the standard version of the language, e.g. French or Portuguese. A basilectal from would be the language representing the most distance from the standard version, i.e. various pidgins and creoles, and a mesolectal form would stand somewhere in between the two in regards to degree of correctness (“Basilect”). What Huber is stating here is that while GhaPE is certainly not a stock form of StGhaE, its speakers are not sub-par or uneducated in their own right. Instead, it is most important to consider the function of the speech and not merely the speaker.

The two most common forms of GhaPE occur for widely different reasons.

The first form—the basilectal—developed to facilitate communication in environments rich in “linguistic heterogeneity” (Huber 141). Gold Coast, before becoming independent Ghana, was only a section of British colonial holdings

20 along what was known as the Guinea Coast, an area stretching from present-day

Sierra Leone to Nigeria. Because of this, workers from ethnolinguistic groups throughout the region moved from port to port with fluidity. When independence came to West Africa, the use of languages these workers brought with them became concentrated within specialized migrant trades (Huber 128). Immigrant worker camps called “zongos [were] highly multilingual,” and while across the majority of camps a non-native speaker could get by with an Akan language,

Pidgin English was preferable because “it has no native speakers” and could therefore be used in these widely diverse communities without connotations of prestige or dominance (Huber 141-2). Huber tells us that basilectal GhaPE won out because of these “settings which diminish . . . the usefulness of an areal Ghanaian lingua franca such as Twi . . . and at the same preclude StGhaE as a language of interethnic communication” (Huber 142). The choice of Pidgin over another language is a matter of “the degree of multilingualism” in the environment (Huber

145).The basilectal Pidgin arises out of a communicative need within these seasonal worker groups dotting Ghana’s coastline. Although this is a single example of where basilectal GhaPE can be heard, it is easy to see why this form can be connected with an undereducated speaker.

The second form is that which occurs mainly on university campuses throughout Ghana, most often as a marker of group inclusion or identity. This is an ever-changing, location-centralized speech, characterized by buzzwords. An interesting difference in Pidgin usage versus that of StGhaE which comes sharply

21 into focus here is its gendered quality (Huber 147). This acrolectal form of GhaPE is heard most frequently from males in secondary schools. Although the form of speech is not used in the curriculum or by the teachers themselves (in an academic capacity), the students—mainly boys—use it during their free time, “not so much out of communicative necessity but as a means of expressing solidarity and intimacy with peers” (Huber 147). Huber notes that other scholarship has likely dismissed this form of GhaPE or found it difficult to classify because of its origin; it has arisen not from a gap in intelligibility but instead as a marker of group acceptance or belonging (Huber 147). Standard English exists with a capacity of formality and propriety in most settings; the world of education is no exception.

Women in Ghanaian society are subject to a vast number of cultural behavior norms. These norms are set to regulate moral behavior, good health, and good social standing within the cultural or religious group and are deeply rooted in the understanding and expression of Ghanaian feminine identity (Dovlo). Knowing this clears up the seeming disparity in Huber’s observations of acrolectal GhaPE being used primarily within groups of male speakers. The same assumption made in the existing literature is made in Ghanaian society as a whole, that Pidgin “bears the stigma of illiteracy” and can make the female speaker appear not only

“uneducated” but also disrespectful, ungrateful, “and above all unladylike” (Huber

148).

The Ghanaian socioscape is defined and regulated by distinct, yet overlapping, spheres of municipal and traditional authority. Of the widely diverse

22 ethnic groups, such as the Asantes, the Gurs or the Hausas, each has its own leadership which sets codes of behavior, observes and authenticates rituals, and presides over domestic issues (“Prempeh II”). These leaders work in tandem with the civic leaders who have been democratically elected (or appointed from within the military), chosen from across the ethnic spectrum of Ghana’s population.

Because each leader carries the interest of an indigenous group, the choice and use of language can become very delicate in certain social situations—in terms of socioeconomic status or gender. Huber includes the illustrative example of a wedding ceremony where a dispute arose in regards to language choice. The example helps us to grasp how spoken language affects the complexity of Ghanaian identity:

At a Catholic marriage that I attended in Twi-speaking Konongo,

Ashanti Region . . . the sermon and marriage ceremony were in

English with only very short Twi translations during the former.

These were followed by announcements for the congregation in Twi.

Speeches were made in Twi at the formal reception, but a ca. 70-

year-old guest chose to make his address in immaculate StGhaE,

which immediately earned him a sharp protest (in English) from

others who demanded Twi even though they understood him well.

Apparently this speaker felt that English, with its overtones of

refinement and education, was the language appropriate to the

formal situation. (Huber 137-8)

23

Simply reading this account makes it difficult to decipher the proper response, and this only deals with official versus traditional languages, not pidgins. This stigma of Pidgin is visible throughout Ghanaian society. It is not used in any media— print, artistic, political, radio—outside of satire (Huber 154-6). This stigmatization is not new. It came into the Ghanaian linguistic nexus on the backs of West Indian conscripted soldiers and Guinea émigrés. And although the prevalence of GhaPE is becoming more common throughout the younger generations, its use remains

“simply taboo” in the majority of social interactions (Huber 158-9).

This author’s experience of linguistic dynamics was no less complicated. At several decades’ remove from Huber’s experience, it is difficult to state whether

GhaPE has become more or less stigmatized. We were not able to visit the North, but did experience native speakers in urban and rural areas; in academic settings; in centers of commerce; and in religious communities of the South, Greater Accra, and Central regions. None of these areas were visited for an extended period of time—the longest being four days in the village of Bompata—and therefore natural speech interactions were not easily observable. Although we were in the environments Huber highlights for the presence of GhaPE—college campuses, fishing cities, market centers—it was never spoken within this author’s earshot.

Most American tourists and students are greeted in English regardless of setting because the language carries with it a certain propriety. An awareness of class stratification—a holdover from colonial administration, to be sure—is always present and is reflected through the hyper-formal speech of Ghanaians. It can be

24 slightly uncomfortable if one is unaccustomed to total deference. Our group made efforts to communicate with those who were serving us, those we bartered with, and those we met on city streets in Twi. We spent time before leaving the U.S. studying phrases; our guide, Nii Tetteh Afotey, acquainted us with language helpful to specific interactions throughout our travels; and our host in Bompata,

Reverend Justice, helped us learn how to interact properly with people of different ages and genders in the village. With English as the national language, one might expect it to be common in the streets, but in Accra especially this was not what was observed. Thank you in Twi is Me da se. This utterance was met with mixed reactions—sometimes laughter, sometimes surprise—but the listener rarely responded in Twi. Nii Tetteh suggested that we try thanking those in Accra with

Oyiwaladonn, which is Thank you in Gã. Gã is a language common in urban areas of the South, spoken by ten thousand working commuters who enter the city each day from the surrounding countryside. Gã is also tonal, and correct pronunciation can be quite the exercise for the Southern American larynx. It seemed that listeners appreciated our efforts with this word more than the prescriptive Thank you, perhaps because it is a phrase that one would not easily find in a guidebook.

One must be trying to know Ghana if they are trying to say Oyiwaladonn. The observation of how a single phrase is infused with myriad connotations depending on the language in which it is uttered, the mouth doing the uttering, and the ear receiving the utterance, is infinitely fascinating. It is this complexity, discovering where and how it connects to national identity, which drives this project forward.

25

Language is slippery. It accompanies all human thought and action. It is a key component of our humanity which we rarely connect to our definitions of self, yet which we are somehow steadfastly opposed to losing. Taking as an example

Ghana’s emergence into the modern world as a self-determined nation, we are able to recognize the chief role of language in national identity. Somehow Nkrumah was able to unify the four main districts of Gold Coast into a nation—the first of its kind in Africa. More than this, he gave these people a mechanism of combination.

With it their disparate pasts formed into a simultaneous and finite identity, and

“when the country adopted the name of Ghana, there was little doubt that most citizens knew something of their new national affiliation and were proud of it.”

(Birmingham 48). English helped. Once the CPP was firmly in power, its eyes cast forward, looking towards total African unification, a choice had to be made in regards to which language would accompany the vision into the future. English, although reminiscent of Africa’s colonial past, was vital for preservation of the union. “Nkrumah’s decision to use English as the language of national identity…had profound ideological consequences” which are conspicuous within the education system (Birmingham 49-50). By reviewing the establishment of secondary and tertiary schools and universities across Ghana, and the lasting effects of higher education on her population, we will better grasp the intricacies of identity and how language can damage or sustain it.

26

CHAPTER II

EDUCATION POLICY AND LANGUAGE REALITY

When looking at educational models, it becomes necessary to understand the socioscape of the system being evaluated. The early Ghanaian socioscape has been detailed above. Education policy, all “policy . . . is a moving target” (Ayee 4).

Each nation, region, city, learner approaches the education process from a different perspective, bringing a specific set of motivations and handicaps. We are all learners—whether or not we participate in an educational environment— simply by being actors within a larger structure. The goals of our education system differ from those of Canada, Mongolia, or Palestine. Our governing body has evaluated the level of knowledge required for one to become an informed, functional, adult citizen and has set goals accordingly which will allow students to acquire and maintain this knowledge. Ghana’s socioscape has fluctuated considerably since it was limned. The unified nation has been ruled by five presidents and three military governments in its nearly sixty-year independence

(Asirifi-Danquah 3). When observing education and how it works within in the

Ghanaian socioscape, one must remember the considerable differences from other systems’ models and goals. By revealing the Ghanaian education system’s history, its modern inception, and its current form, we also reveal how language—be it

English, Twi or a combination of those and local tongues—functionally sculpts national identity through the mise en scène of education.

27

Joseph Ayee evaluates in general terms the success and failures of macro- level public policy in Ghana. He holds that for any policy to be successful in Ghana specifically or Africa universally, it must be “transformational,” meaning that it must be outward-faced with long-term goals in mind (Ayee 22). Ayee lays down a single absolute: “The leader should be committed to the development of the entire society over which he or she rules, ensuring that formulation and implementation of policies aim at enhancing the quality of life of all the citizens” (Ayee 23). The well-intentioned approach to policy is more important than the outcome of policy, in Ayee’s opinion. If a leader, or government, is not approaching policy from an informed, equitable, responsive, appropriate standpoint, then the results will never yield benefits for the maximum (Ayee 5). Discovering intention is impossible without a statement from the policy maker which unequivocally outlines the motivations, considerations, and goals of a workable plan before it is put into action. The majority of circumstances do not provide us with the luxury of clear, authorial statements of objective; Ghana’s are no exception. Observation of program outcomes is certainly possible, and this is where Ayee weighs an ideal system—removing the proposal chaff from the nutritious wheat harvested after good programs have been nurtured to maturity (Ayee 34-8).

Formal education—in our Western understanding—was brought to Sub-

Saharan Africa by Christian missionaries in the 1800s (Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue

9). In the centuries before this, along the Guinea coast the European (mainly

Portuguese, French and English) holders of trading—later slaving—forts would

28 educate those in the immediate area in the languages they brought to African shores and little else. This was to facilitate communication along the trade routes which reached the coast after travelling hundreds of miles from production centers deep within the continent. Although vast trade networks, extending across the

Sahara, had existed for millennia when Europeans joined African commerce, the

Europeans were inflexible when it came to language—so much so that resources were allocated to educate the surrounding population. Cape Coast is the largest city in the Central Region, and was the first capital of Gold Coast. Missionaries filtered into the region through trade forts, coming from across Europe and bringing the good news with them. Many, Bamgboşe tells us, chose to educate themselves in native languages and share this good news in a medium which provided for ample comprehensible input (Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue 9). A large percentage of Christians—mainly British and Portuguese before them—opted for the establishment of mission schools throughout the area, providing those around them with the opportunity to discover a foreign god by learning a foreign tongue

(“Cape Coast Castle”).

Cape Coast is today the most impoverished urban area in Ghana—a cycle unbroken since the end of institutionalized slave trade in the Central Region.

Entering Elmina Castle is a sight not to be forgotten. The tour is informative and paralyzing. Knowing some history of the castle is important, as it relates to the education inequality in Cape Coast and the Central Region. Elmina Castle was built by the Portuguese in the 1400s and is one of the oldest and most important

29

European structures on the Guinea coast (“Elmina Castle”). The Portuguese named the castle after St. George; the people called it “the mine” (“Elmina Castle”). The land was purchased from an Asantehene during a sort of African gold rush which occurred during that time. The Asante kingdom, the Kingdom of Gold, was and is known for its illimitable wealth (“Manhyia Palace”). Forming an alliance with their king was a strategy of considerable use and interest for any trading party seeking access to gold. In 1441 the first African prisoners of war were brought to the castle by Asante warriors and exchanged for supplies. Of these first men, several were trained as church missionaries or interpreters and sent back out into the community to facilitate the growth of trade and Christian values (“Elmina Castle”).

This practice forms the roots of the education system in Ghana. Missionaries would initially reach populations through local, indigenous language before

Anglicizing and Christianizing instruction. Cape Coast fort, which lies only six miles west of Elmina, houses the tomb of an African educated though this method,

Philip Quaque (This last name is an English phonetic respelling of Kweku

[kwaɪku], a traditional Ghanaian name for a boy born on Wednesday; it is pronounced today as one would expect with contemporary English phonemes

[kæk]) (“Cape Coast Castle”). Quaque went on to be the first African ordained an

Anglican minister; his journal is an extreme and telling snapshot of the Eastern legs of triangular trade in the 1700s (“Cape Coast Castle”).

Throughout Elmina’s history, the majority of the men, women, and children who passed across the drawbridge and into the holdfast were not educated, or

30 even put to work, but were instead turned into commodities through a process of systematized identity effacement and dehumanization. A fundamental constituent of this process was the separation of individuals by spoken tongue in an effort to stave off rebellion. One of the numberless results of this centuries-long practice is the crushing poverty of the region. The hills immediately surrounding Elmina castle are dotted with homes built to house the African women found to be carrying children of governors and officers before the ships of the merchants who had purchased them arrived (“Elmina Castle”). These women were given freedom, in a sense. They were allowed to leave the castle and raise their children in Africa.

These children, however, were not welcome back among the communities of their mothers and the only opportunity for work or education was through the colonial administration (“Elmina Castle”). Within several generations these illegitimate children became a community, which grew into the capital. But this community differed from all others because it lacked a connection with traditional, ethnosocial education as well as comprehensive colonial education. In short, it had no mobility. This stagnation continues, despite efforts of various policy makers to house educational resources in Cape Coast.

In this area higher education first appears for Ghanaians in 1701, with the establishment of Adisadel College (Afotey). Since then, Cape Coast has been a petri dish of policy experimentation from the Nkrumah administration forward.

Nkrumah was bent on rapid industrialization across Ghana, to bring the country on par with economic superpowers. In his manifesto, Africa Must Unite, Kwame

31

Nkrumah describes the considerable challenge faced by the nation, one which became ever clearer as the remnants of colonial administration were removed:

It was when [the British] had gone and we were faced with the stark

realities, as in Ghana on the morrow of our independence, that the

destitution of the land after long years of colonial rule was brought

sharply home to us. There were slums and squalor in our towns,

superstitions and ancient rites in our villages. All over the country,

great tracts of open land lay untilled and uninhabited, while

nutritional diseases were rife among our people. Our roads were

meager, our railways short. There was much ignorance and few

skills. Over eighty per cent of our people were illiterate, and our

existing schools were fed on imperialist pap, completely unrelated to

our background and our needs. (Nkrumah xiii)

To address this skills gap, programs were put in place even before Ghana’s independence was solidified. As a member of the UGCC, Nkrumah helped to usher in new systems which created an educated base of workers to modernize and industrialize Gold Coast. In 1948 Nkrumah was instrumental in the creation of

Ghana National College in Cape Coast, a school dedicated to “the Honour and

Glory of our Fatherland” (Bonney). In 1950 the Ghana Library Board was created.

Another hallmark initiative was the establishment of the West African

Examinations Council in 1952, which provided a mechanism for standardized testing and ensured its validity “comparable to those written in Europe and other

32 advanced countries” (“Ghana”). After independence, the state expanded education policy, giving free (if compulsory) education to all primary and secondary school students by 1961 (Antwi-Danso). In this same year, Nkrumah initiated the

University of Ghana Act (Act 79), which created an autonomous educational council, capable of appropriating property, regulating standards of education to fit the “special relevance [of] the needs of Ghanaians . . . and other problems which exist in Ghana or elsewhere in Africa”; Nkrumah himself was named the

Chancellor. Sweeping legislation such as this was not uncommon throughout the

Nkrumah administration, which intended total liberation, innovation, and transformation of Ghana. Indeed, it was these program models which garnered the loudest international opposition to Nkrumah, labelling him personally and politically as a Socialist (Antwi-Danso). That aside, Nkrumah brought boarding schools, science and technology programs and internationally recognized teacher training colleges to Ghana. He created mechanisms for state programs to fill the holes religious organizations and private citizens could not. Many of these schools remain and are arguably the best outlets for higher education in the country.

Regardless of which camp Kwame Nkrumah’s policy falls into politically, his efforts were well-intentioned, informed, and directed in response to need. Initially

Ghana enjoyed “an economic boom with shops full of imported goods, a reasonably low cost of living and favourable food prices, with the cities filled with huge cars and new buildings, schools, colleges, roads, hospitals . . .” (Asirifi-

Danquah 44). The global political climate of the day, however, took advantage of

33

Kwame Nkrumah’s personal naiveté and idealism. The president was wrapped up in addressing this ever-present skills gap in Ghana, and was unable to balance local need with economic reality. The few education initiatives outlined here are policy in the right sense, as Ayee would describe it, but they did not have the sufficient administrative adrenaline behind them to create instant or lasting improvement.

This trend, which we will look at in detail, is not uncommon across Africa. Nation by nation became independent and found they faced the same fragmentation— economic, medical and political challenges which had to be addressed to foment stability. Literacy is all well and good, but a population without clean water has little need for books. The energies of the fresh minted Ghanaian administration were engaged in the Volta River Project, which sought to establish a large-scale aluminum processing industry along the Volta River, which could capitalize on the electricity produced from the not yet built great Akosombo Dam (Black Power).

The site for the dam was originally chosen by the British government in 1953, during the commonwealth period, but the project was abandoned after the Suez

Canal War in 1956. Once in power, Kwame Nkrumah spent over a decade in negotiations with the World Bank, Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and the

Kaiser Corporation to fund the Volta Project (Black Power). He hoped to use the naturally occurring bauxite—which is refined into aluminum—to broker a deal with Kaiser to build the dam and run a refinery in the region in exchange for bauxite. Nkrumah hoped to appeal to the West by illustrating a capitalist shift in vision. This vision would, theoretically, benefit all of West Africa. The region

34 would be granted unfettered access to clean water and electricity created by the

Akosombo, allowing nascent communities to stabilize and create self-determined spaces. Additionally, jobs would be fashioned for generations of Ghanaians as industry took root—everyone wins (Antwi-Danso). Millions were relocated and the bauxite was mined. Infrastructure was built to receive and distribute the electricity. Once the project was underway, and the Nkrumah administration had borrowed £30,000,000 from the World Bank, Kaiser opted to import higher grade bauxite to the refinery, irreparably weakening Ghana’s financial outlook. Lake

Volta, the largest man-made lake in the world, glistens on the Ghanaian veldt, forever a symbol of unrealized idealism. Today, only forty percent of those in the immediate area benefit from the electrical output of the dam, the water itself is of inconsistent cleanliness, and the nations of the West African coastline have never possessed its bountiful promise (Senah). The Akosombo became “a hostage in the vicious confrontation of the Cold War,” limiting the effectiveness and reach of

Nkrumah’s political capital among his people (Black Power). These same limitations created space for widespread discontinuity throughout the newly- reformed education systems due to lack of oversight, accountability, and the misappropriation of state funds by local officials (Antwi-Danso).

The programs Nkrumah created prior to the Volta disaster may have qualified as good policy in Ayee’s definition, but Ayọ Bamgboşe classifies these missteps as “avoidance” on the part of the state (Bamgboşe, Language and the

Nation 6). Ghana’s leaders were hesitant to show signs of divergence from a

35

Western government model, and were thus unwilling to officially promote multilingualism. The strength of non-African languages lies in the “superior roles assigned to them” either socially, politically, academically, religiously or economically. During the Volta River Project, Nkrumah sought to spur innovation by exploiting Ghana’s natural resources—its bauxite, its fresh water, and its work- starved population. He educated himself and his administration on how these materials could be used to create something sustainable—something African— that had value in the global marketplace. Often one sees a city, nation, or region engaged in a similar task, that of convincing the investing and consuming public that their community has something to offer, some commodity worth spending capital to attain. Multilingualism, which stems from cultural variety, is not embraced in the same way as other, “natural” diversities and rarities (Bamgboşe,

Language and the Nation 3).

Because of this, emergent nations with a pronounced colonial history tend to move in the direction of promoting or preserving so-called superior, non-

African, colonial languages in favor of indigenous ones, particularly in the education system. Leaders, Nkrumah included, claim that these policies are placed as guards against divisiveness, that each language of Africa, having the cultural variety it does, also brings with it various regional, social, religious, and ethnic tensions, and that in the interest of national unity, it is best to reinforce

“sentiments of oneness” (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 6). Bamgboşe takes issue with this thinking, stating that “language is only a convenient scapegoat on

36 which the real causes of divisiveness are usually hung” (Language and the Nation

7). Solving “language problems,” such as illiteracy (functional or initial), equality, or technical savvy, through education is often placed on the backburner because

“the effects of not taking action” are not immediately felt (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 6). This hesitancy is understandable when one considers the choices faced by a leader who must consider bringing eighty percent of his population up to literary speed versus providing an equivalent number with clean water, reliable housing, or a sustainable agricultural future. The fact that language problems lack immediacy does not diminish their seriousness, but because of the

Ghanaian government’s preoccupations throughout and immediately following

Nkrumah’s tenure, “education was . . . regarded as a ‘frill’ rather than an essential duty of the government. This policy gave some flexibility to the theory and practice of education” because of the administration’s ineffectiveness when it came to regulation of the education system. (Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue 35). Although the models of program implementation and the avenues of financial support fluctuated a great deal, the education system on the ground, especially in rural settings, remained principally unchanged; the Christian missionary emphasis on mother tongue communication persisted intact. However, instruction in a

European language was convenient in the colonial days and essential post- independence. Africa arrives late to the industrial, economic, and technological revolutions, creating distance from the theaters of modernity. For a high- functioning continent to be developed, a leader had to consider that “The

37 complexities of those demands impose a constraint on the language policies of

African nations. Whatever they do with their indigenous languages, they will need a major world language for access to higher education, science and technology; and this same language will serve as their window to the outside world”

(Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 5). Because of this, vernaculars exist in an

“unhappy state . . . [due] to the absence of any clearly articulated and consistently applied language policy for schools” (Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue 87).

With a surface-level understanding of the history of mother tongue education in Sub-Saharan Africa, we will be better equipped to measure how it is structured in Ghana today and how language plays a vital role within that structure. The term mother tongue education “refer[s] to the use of any indigenous language in education for any purpose and at any level” (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 63). We have established previously that most children in Ghana acquire language under an umbrella of “localized trilingualism” today: most are fluent in at least two languages—a mother tongue and a regional lingua franca— and the majority are conversant in another language as well (Bodomo 43). In

Ghana’s case, this other language is English, the national language. Bamgboşe, in describing mother tongue education systems across Sub-Saharan Africa, categorizes English in this instance as a “language of wider communication,” or

LWC (Language and the Nation 62). Any of these three categories of languages can be incorporated into the education system. The mother tongue, whose speakers generally form a minority population in terms of language use, is an indigenous

38 language and could be taught for the purposes of initial literacy (the ability to read and write), could be taught as a subject, or could be used as the medium of instruction. Bamgboşe includes that “The use of an African mother tongue as a medium of instruction beyond primary level is rare” (Language and the Nation 63).

He outlines nine possibilities for mother tongue education models incorporating these three language types at difference stages of education.

Typically in the region, the primary level is conducted with the LWC as a medium, but the second language (lingua franca) is taught as a subject. Initial literacy is acquired in the African language early and a gradual transition to

English literacy is practiced. It should be noted that the first language, the mother tongue acquired in the home, is not represented. Bamgboşe cites several pitfalls with the model, including the lack of language proficiency among primary level instructors, but holds that if implemented correctly, this model underscores the instrumental value of English (or another LWC) while maintaining cultural connection and richness of thought afforded by an African language. The greatest challenge for this broadly applied model—one particularly familiar for

Ghanaians—“may be linguistic heterogeneity in the composition of school or class populations, with the result that while some children already possess a good mastery . . . others are grappling with the problem of mastering” a foreign language alongside foreign concepts (Bamgboşe Language and the Nation 65-66). In 1991

Bamgboşe observed in Ghana that an African language is used at the primary level for three years to establish literacy, followed by a gradual shift to an LWC as

39 medium of instruction, which places the Ghanaian model (at the time) into this category (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 68). These nine possible models for mother tongue education in Africa supply

. . . the best illustration of what has come to be known as an

inheritance situation: how the colonial experience continues to shape

and define post-colonial problems and practices. Thus, while it

would seem that African nations make policy in education, what

they actually do is carry on the logic of the policies of the past.

Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the very languages

selected, the roles assigned to them, the level at which languages are

introduced and the difficulty of changing any of these. (Bamgboşe,

Language and the Nation 69)

Despite the numerous options of mother tongue education models, African nations split into two groups, neatly along colonial lines. The French and

Portuguese favored assimilation and therefore insisted on using an LWC throughout the education process with the assumption that the earlier the language became incorporated the more fluid the acceptance of national ideals could be. This model is visible across Nigeria, whose system is only recently adjusting to create distance from the French language and incorporate Yoruba and

Somali into the curriculum (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 85). The corresponding Janus face is that of the British, who encouraged mother tongue education throughout their empire to hasten and improve translation and

40 communication, thereby facilitating trade. English is now maintained as Ghana’s national language for these same purposes.

The models described by Bamgboşe and the subsequent plans which stem from them beg description, if for no other reason than to highlight the varied approaches taken to solve language problems across the globe. The needs of every speaking community are distinct, and several models can exist in the same nation, forming plans to serve different ends. Each model deals with a language type

(mother tongue, lingua franca, LWC) and each type’s function in education (for literacy, as a subject, as a medium). Considering mother tongues, the “for literacy” model is used mainly for adult literacy, the “as a subject” model is used often in higher education settings, the “as a medium” model is the rarest and is typically only present “at primary level” (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 64).

Considering linguae francae, the “for literacy” model is used to develop “initial literacy” for children and is the most controversial, the “as a subject” model is used at the primary level in mother tongue and LWC medium settings, the “as a medium” model is used when the lingua franca is “already widely spoken”

(Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 65-66). Considering LCWs, the “for literacy” model is used from the outset with children to provide “exposure to oral/aural training in a LWC” as early as possible, the “as a subject” model is used at primary level to prepare students for a LWC medium in higher levels, the “as a medium” model is the most flexible and some amalgamation of it appears in “most African countries,” including Ghana (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 66-67).

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Regardless of the model chosen, most mother tongue education plans in nations with high linguistic density fail to meet educational goals due to manifold causes—lack of qualified teachers, empty policy—but also because “historical constraint is further reinforced by the argument that a language which is going to be needed for higher education, science and technology might as well begin to feature in the educational process as soon as possible” (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 71). Mother tongue education is further complicated by population of speakers (an issue compounded by Ghana’s linguistic heterogeneity). This challenge becomes “particularly significant in urban areas” across Sub-Saharan

Africa (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 72). Resources and teachers do not exist to equally represent all speakers in nations with a high concentration of indigenous languages. The languages of Africa rise from traditional, oral forms, and a large percentage of her tongues have no written equivalent. In an area where the majority of students have acquired such a language, they cannot expect to be formally educated in its use because “it is only when the language has been reduced to writing and materials made available in it that it can be used in education” (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 72). Strong and weak arguments have been made against the economic logic the production of these materials makes, and Bamgboşe agrees that the cost of creating them from nothing for the multiplicity of languages would be considerable, but that “the real cost of education in a LWC must be quantified in terms of such factors as poor performance, drop-out rate, cost of recruitment of foreign personnel and the use of

42 material ill-adapted to the local situation” (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation

74-75). His argument omits the cost of wounding the African child’s identity, which begins to solidify simultaneously to first language acquisition and requires continual engagement and reinforcement throughout development. The cost of complacency is also great, and a shift in thinking about long-term goals in education is warranted; representing more African languages in the system can only benefit its students.

In the past half-century, several mother tongue education studies and experiments have been conducted in the region, with varying and consistently controversial outcomes. This variation stems in large part from the site of the study, according to Bamgboşe, who cautions against generalization of results. In

Uganda, the Iganga experiment tested performance in two geography classes, one using an LWC medium and the other a mother tongue (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 76). This experiment was expanded into selected schools and eventually concluded that “no significant differences were recorded between reading competence in English and in an indigenous language [but] that the teacher factor was more important than length of English teaching or even materials” (Bamgboşe,

Language and the Nation 81). Bamgboşe repeatedly highlights the necessity of abundant, well trained, local teachers. Often those teaching at the critical primary level are placed in an area with either little familiarity with the language of the community (perhaps the lingua franca only) or with English. This teacher factor is highly evident in the rural areas of Ghana, where many teachers are “not proficient

43 in the approved language” and improvise either by using their own mother tongue or teaching another subject in the LWC medium during the time set aside for second language learning (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 65). The study in

Uganda reveals not that there is little difference in outcomes from varying models, but that for any educational model, consistency and expertise should be prized.

That said,

Dominant languages are the easiest to carry out innovations in,

particularly in terms of their use as media of instruction. This is

because such languages tend to have a good literary tradition as well

as a sizeable school population to justify extensive provision of

textbooks in the various subjects which the language is used for

teaching. There is also a ready pool of potential teachers. (Bamgboşe,

Language and the Nation 84)

Perhaps the most comprehensive study conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa was the Six Year Primary Project in Nigeria. The project began after a survey of the teaching system concluded in 1966: “The immediate motivation of the Six Year

Primary Project was a desire to improve the teaching of English” (Bamgboşe,

Language and the Nation 85). In Nigeria, “primary education was terminal for most children,” a reality which had diminished the pool of trained, available educators.

The project, sponsored by the Ford Foundation, sought to compare the traditional system—which taught exclusively in an LWC—with a new system, featuring

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Yoruba for the six-year primary curriculum. The project began in 1970 at Ile-Ife, and it followed the progress of two groups taught in Yoruba and the third taught in the traditional model (LWC only). Because of the study’s popularity it was expanded some years later, adding new factors such as new versus old materials and specialist instructors. Once the evaluations were completed in 1978, it was determined that “In all cases, the traditional control group was the worst,” meaning that the students did not exhibit fluency in any language, indigenous or otherwise (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 86). Bamgboşe concludes, “The lesson to be learnt from the Six Year Primary Project is that where” a majority population of indigenous language speakers is present, “mother tongue education involving the use of an indigenous language as a medium of instruction for the entire primary education can be achieved without sacrificing proficiency in a LWC

. . . taught as a subject throughout primary education” (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 86). Results like this are promising and show that with the application of new methods and materials by trained instructors, students can benefit in the long term—become better citizens, workers, and thinkers—from this mother tongue model for primary education. Minority languages are still, always, at a disadvantage “because they lack the population base and the status to support more widespread use . . . as media of instruction” (Bamgboşe, Language and the

Nation 86). There is also a perception of greater worth associated with LWCs and regional linguae francae over indigenous languages because of the philosophical and technological products of those languages. There is a certain prestige attached

45 to these LWCs because of the ideas written and disseminated through them.

Africa’s minds seek to join this discourse but do not facilitate opportunity to do so with Africa’s tongues.

The linguistic realities of all nations differ, and when experimental programs are created, “the underlying assumptions of the experiment, the questions posed, and the way the results are reported” depend on those realities

(Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 78). Reviewing these and other projects is important, however, to determine the methods used to test new policy and how best to adapt experiments to the linguistic environment being studied. Leaders, unfortunately, are often presented with information out of context, and tend to lean on generalized results: “even when there is pressure to . . . emphasize mother tongue education as an aspect of authenticity and cultural renewal, governments generally find it more convenient to pay lip-service to such goals and then quietly carry on with a LWC medium” (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 79-80). In the

1920s a British commission observed educational methods in West Africa over a period of five years and produced a report which would formulate the basis of language policy across the Guinea coast. This policy, echoing the opinions of the early missionaries, noted the importance of teaching through the medium of indigenous language at the primary school level but also maintained that in higher education, a movement towards English was “desirous” because of the marked lack of “reading material in the local languages sufficiently stimulating for the adult reader” (Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue 88). The model developed from the

46 commission’s report suggests the first three years of primary school be conducted exclusively in the vernacular; English would then be incorporated as a school subject, finally becoming the medium of instruction for secondary school and beyond. This is the model adopted by the British in Gold Coast and implemented first in the Cape Coast colleges and radiating out to rural churchyard school rooms. At the outset, Europeans learned enough of the regional dialect to instruct students in initial literacy and first level English (as subject) courses. Soon, they began training teachers in these disparate communities, educating individuals to follow a similar curriculum. After World War II there was a full-scale reevaluation of all manner of British policy. One product of this was the “Accelerated

Development Plan,” which, among other things, looked to adjust educational objectives throughout Britain’s colonial holdings as the old idea of empire gave way to capitalist hegemony. This plan in regards to West African education stated,

“The aim of the Primary School course will be to provide a sound foundation for citizenship with permanent literacy in both English and the vernacular”

(Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue 92). The plan’s tone, according to Bamgboşe, leads the reader to believe that the British would have preferred to insist that English be the main vehicle of instruction (similar to the French colonial model of assimilative education), but that the reality of the region’s linguistic diversity simply would not permit this in any practical sense.

This Accelerated Development Plan created the guidelines for standard education in British West Africa. All of the Ghanaian schools Kwame Nkrumah

47 attended functioned under this plan (Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue 38). It is here where we discover an interesting wrinkle. Attached to the Accelerated

Development Plan was a minority report written by J.N.T. Yankah, who “advocated the use of English” at all levels of education (Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue 93). It was this policy which was cited by the new government in 1957 when it formed a common, accessible, complete education system for Ghana. The result was a direct, if ironic, shift away from the colonial model of education, which was at that time operating primarily under the established mother tongue model. Many questions arise when one considers this movement, but placing this decision before the backdrop of Ghana’s independence era concerns, one potential motivation appears plausible: “From the point of view of the practical politician, to stress the importance of some indigenous languages in education at the expense of several others was dangerous from the point of view of national unity” (Bamgboşe,

Mother Tongue 93). A leader must protect the simultaneity of the imagined community.

While this alteration of policy remains interesting and illustrative, the effects of it were negligible, although it remained official for over a decade. Little energy was devoted to oversight once these policies were created, leaving decisions regarding curriculum to be made in the moment. Ghana’s primary educators— untrained teachers—simply followed the program which worked best and taught in the student’s own words. While the more common Akan group languages received unavoidable elevation and prestige over the myriad native languages

48 which abound across the Ghanaian hinterland, mother tongue education provided rapid and functional engagement with “primary-school subjects… [more so] than in a foreign language” and allowed generations of students to engage learning through a familiar, indigenous lexicon (Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue 86). This model, as detailed by Bamgboşe in a report for UNESCO’s Anthropology and

Language Science in Educational Development program, remained the educational archetype even in the decade following Nkrumah’s tenure. The tendency of African leaders of this period to fall into a similar practice of “declaration without implementation” helped set the foundation for some of the continent’s greatest contemporary challenges (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 9). Although the mother tongue model was not officially sanctioned, what occurred on the ground combined “idealism and practicality” which helped Ghana sustain an education system “which [was] flexible enough to ensure unimpeded contact with the outside world as well as promote national ideals” (Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue 84).

Bamgboşe hypothesized in 1991 that the use of colonial languages across

Africa was likely “to persist for the reason that there are no viable alternatives,” but over the past quarter century we have seen mother tongue education models emerging in Sub-Saharan Africa due to the delayed effects of laissez faire approaches to language problems—rampant illiteracy, agricultural and personal health ignorance, and social divisiveness caused by a nouveau elite, created from those fluent in Standard Ghanaian English. What is becoming more common is what Bamgboşe suggested: the fruition of “a viable program in which both mother

49 tongue and other tongue teaching reinforce each other” (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 8). After the UNESCO observations in the 1970s, this thinking was championed at the International Institute of African Languages and Culture meeting in Rome:

It is a universally acknowledged principle in modern education that

a child should receive instruction through his mother tongue, and

this privilege should not be withheld from the African child. The

child should learn to love and respect the mental heritage of his

people, and the natural and necessary expression of this heritage is

the language. Neglect of the vernacular involves the dangers of

crippling and destroying the pupil’s productive powers by forcing

him to express himself in a language alien both to himself and to the

genius of his race. (qtd. in Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue 88-89)

Millions of Ghanaians benefitting from state or church sponsored education today are not intellectually defunct; most are cognitively agile due in large part to the

“localized trilingualism” which chaperones their daily lives (Bodomo 43). At home, one language is spoken for daily conversations with family and general interaction with the community; it is the language of socialization. At school, one of four linguae francae, “Twi, Fanti, Ga, and Ewe,” is used exclusively at the primary level, generally for three years (Bamgboşe, Mother Tongue 85). Once the student is over the age of eight, English is taught and eventually spoken exclusively. Education is certainly thriving in Ghana, but up-to-date research is needed to create informed,

50 equitable, responsive, appropriate models-of-best-fit for the school stratum.

Research such as this will aid today’s leaders when they consider whether policy should be created “to save the language or save the child,” realizing that the effort is one in the same (Bamgboşe, Language and the Nation 73).

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CHAPTER III

THE GENIUS OF HER RACE

First-language learning is a luxury the Western world enjoys without realizing its intellectual value. Even the most well intentioned mother tongue education models face problems with consistency in policy application and equity, especially among languages with small speaking populations. Additionally, the lack of sophisticated curricular materials in minority languages makes regular, impartial plans unfeasible. Nations feeling the results of an undereducated citizenry, unable to participate in industrial or academic invention, find themselves struggling to address the language problems which weaken education systems from the outset. Today, Ghana is heaving herself out of the skills gap. This leaves her freer to pursue education for education’s sake and to promote the development of good, localized teachers. But the pursuit of good, localized literature is vital as well. Superlative literature, composed by Africans in their own tongues, will serve some of the roles mother tongue education struggles to fill.

Initial literacy can be developed in the lap, and it is easier to print a book in an indigenous language than it is to print a primer, a reader, a workbook, a text, and supplemental aids for each student in that tongue.

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This is not to say Africans are not writing exceptional literature. Since the era of independence, Africans have stepped assuredly onto the global literary scene, changing conversations and creating a baseline of understanding for the modern African experience. African authors such as Soyinka and Achebe have been inducted into the canon, taught as essentials alongside their international contemporaries. Ghana has herself created mellifluous literature which reinterprets genre, convention, and form. Examples of this are Ayi Kwei Armah’s novel The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Efua Sutherland’s play The Marriage of

Anansewa, and Boakyewaa Glover’s Circles. The African creative tradition is diverse due to religious, ethnic and regional variety. The way of life for a

Presbyterian Ghanaian salt miner differs dramatically from that of a teenager in

Johannesburg, an Imam in Tunis or the consort of a Janjaweed militia leader in

Darfur. The common thread running brightly through this tapestry is the oral tradition with which these vastly different peoples have classically expressed their imaginations, taught their lessons, and preserved their ancestry. We cannot understand the written products of Africa without an appreciation for her oral products. A reverence for the spoken word is an integral part of the African socioscape. The fundamentals of community and therefore individual identity are laid out in this way, and that becomes most important when we consider the limits of mother tongue education. How can a system designed to create a new, relevant, stable Africa work within and through a system which demands physical, relatable material in the classroom without undermining the oral essentials of indigenous

53 language? One method is by creating literature which serves a similar function.

African literature written in minority languages will serve as ballast for mother tongue education, providing a tool for identity creation through a medium which is palatable. Reviewing the transition of African literature from its oral roots to its current manifestation will reveal paths for the creation of this type of writing.

A separation between research into Northern and Southern African literature exists for a number of reasons, the simplest and strongest being topographical bounds. These regions are separated by the largest expanse of hot desert on the globe. Additionally, parts of North Africa are often categorized into the Middle East region, partially due to religious and ethnic populations. Proximity to and long-standing interaction with Europe have also colored North Africa a different shade than the Sub-Saharan Africa inaccessible for centuries to the writers of Anglo histories. This distinction carries over into the classification of G8 nations and the curation of affluent museum exhibits. Africa is not perceived as a continent, claims Thomas Hale (Hale 11). Taking a “continental approach” to describing the history of African texts is a newer vision. For years, a common refrain among historians spoke of the impossibility of influence between the creative traditions of the Northern and Southern climes, which may account for the continuance of this non-continental perception of Africa (Hale 11-12). The links between these two regions, however, cannot be denied, and Hale’s work is a collaborative effort between Northern and Southern African historians, looking

54 specifically at the development of writing, seeking to trace the origins of cross- cultural influence.

When one’s mind turns to early forms of written communication, it inevitably passes over Egyptian hieroglyphics. A glance, even a cursory one, into

Egyptian history reveals contact with Nubia, a southern kingdom interested in the control of the Nile and its resources. These dark-skinned animists had more in common with the ancient peoples of West Africa than the Egyptians (Hale 12).

One such Nubian king was able to hold power in Egypt for several decades. During that time he commissioned an account of his reign to be carved into a granite pillar. This was done in Middle Egyptian hieroglyphics (Hale 13). This writing returned to Nubia, and over time its people adapted a written form of their language which is said to contain Greek and Arabic elements as well, an unsurprising phenomenon given Egypt’s location astride the European, African, and Mediterranean worlds. (Hale 13). This early Nubian writing system was used for more than record keeping; several examples of poetry have been collected as well (Hale 13). The written poetic tradition arises here in the same fashion as it did on the British Isles, which maintained the rhythmic structure of stories composed and presented orally by the wandering bard. The African troubadours following trade routes preserved storytelling tropes by co-opting the writing systems they encountered to represent their home talk.

All along these trade routes, stretching westward around and across the

Sahara, rocks were discovered inscribed with an “ancient form of Tifinar,” which

55 according to one researcher, represents what remains of this early poetry (Hale 14).

Tifinar, in its contemporary form, is spoken by the Tuareg, whose poetic arts were historically practiced by women (Hale 14). Research into these trade routes reveals creative, particularly poetic expression, solidly in the labor domain of women, who provided the primary support for the routes passing through their respective regions. Women would set up way stations for traders to rest, buy supplies, make connections with local leaders, and water their beasts. As new language influence was funneled through the Egyptian kingdom, it spread almost effortlessly along these routes. Arabic “narratives emerge from the Timbuktu region in the 16th and

17th centuries that . . . contain legends about the early populations of the region as well as chronicles of events in the Mali and Songhay empires,” the latter being the source from which Kwame Nkrumah derives Ghana, the sobriquet of independent

Gold Coast (Hale 14). The widespread influence of Arabic could have halted the development of many regional Saharan texts, concludes Hale, due to the seemingly simultaneous appearance of Arabic script in early literatures, placed side by side for the first time through his project. This revelation is cogent enough “to erase the pervasive belief that Europe was the only source of writing in Africa” (Hale 14-15).

The work of African female griots was overlooked for some time due to its everyday, domestic subject matter. It was not until closer linguistic analysis of early writing artifacts revealed repetitious formulaic convention that the work was determined to be poetic. Research in literature has used the shift from oral to written literatures as a measure of a nation or culture’s creative evolution (Hale

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16). As Hale argues, this evolution is artificial, and the linguistic medium of the literature is less important than what is being said and who is listening to the message. Hale’s collaborative timeline of written language development on the

African continent intends to reveal the weakness of this traditional position (Hale

17). Research has judged the development of African writing, and therefore African literature, by considering its oral tradition, but Africa has an oral present which is applicative to the themes and purpose of writing. Further, “the relationship between orality and literacy [--] the medium, oral or written [--] is not what counts; it is the language in which a message or an artform is composed that is of greatest importance. . . . Orality and literacy are, then, secondary concerns here when we consider what lies behind each language” (Hale 17).

Historically, appreciation and care for the diversity, equality, and importance of language in West Africa were seen in the organization of the court of an Asantehene. The Asantehene was an Asante ruler with dominion over a large area, one containing many languages and dialects. All linguistic communities have certain traits and values which differentiate them from others, even those in close proximity. It was important for the Asantehene not to show favoritism by choosing to address the people in one of these languages in preference of another, regardless of his nativity. Because of this, the office of linguist was created to facilitate communication between the Asantehene and those seeking his assistance and protection or on behalf of the Asantehene in his absence. The Asantehene never

57 spoke in public (“Manhyia Palace”). The linguist— or okyeame—carried the voice of the crown and its subject peoples within himself.

This was a position of great respect and the man commanding such power was held in a mystic aura. The linguists of the Asante were divided into houses distinguished by an animal totem (“Prempeh II”). These totems sat atop a staff carried by the linguist. This combination announced the tenor of the event to the people by using totems associated with certain mythic figures, such as the spider or the dog, or characters from proverbs, such as a woman with a load of wood on her back (Arthur and Rowe). Knowledge of proverbs and the ability to use language figuratively was and is essential to Ghanaian social life. For the okyeame, an apt proverb is the sharpest rhetorical tool, because “Proverbs can also be used when the subject of a speech cannot be expressed directly without creating offence. . . .When one does not wish to make oneself immediately and directly understood, one often tends to use proverbs. . . . [and] Proverbs can also be used . .

. [A]s a means of interpreting present action in terms of the past” (Dseagu 88-89).

The use of proverbs, especially among the Akan, is not reserved to the political sphere. The Ghanaian is a “lover of words,” and so absorbs the tricks and turns of proverb mastery in youth. Verbal acrobatics are part of indigenous education, play, and social ritual which traditionally defined the wits of the maturing generation. S. A. Dseagu writes about the perception of Akan proverbs in an attempt to elevate understanding of them as primitive, pithy wisdom to vehicles for “the general education of members of a society” (Dseagu 81). Proverbs

58 provide an in-group identity and carry the experiences of elder members, which

“serve as a means of social control by telling the individual what he should and should not do” (Dseagu 87). Many of these proverbs define morality in the negative, providing consequences so dire that an attempt to circumvent order is never endeavored, “and thus achieve a continuation of traditional behavior”

(Dseagu 86). Today, the value of proverbs has eroded somewhat, becoming

“competitive sport” among school age children as the traditional institutions fade in favor of modern ones (Dseagu 82). Dseagu concludes his argument reflecting on this circumstance:

As Ghana rapidly evolves from a completely traditionally oral into a

written cultural society, the place of proverbs and tales is bound to

undergo tremendous change. At present effort is made in primary

schools for children to tell stories to each other so that the tradition

will be preserved. But the whole exercise no longer has the

naturalness of a village folk assembled on a moonlit night to tell

stories. And with the loss of the traditional setting, the wisdom and

philosophy which had evolved over the years are bound to disappear.

But perhaps one thing will remain: with the Ghanaian’s love of

oratory, new proverbs and tales will evolve to explain and deal with

the modern era we now live in. (Dseagu 91-92)

Dseagu is not the only thinker of his time to note the wounds created by the disappearance of this visceral, African mode of cultural expression.

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Interestingly enough, Okyeame is the name given to Ghana’s first literary magazine, created with the authority of Kwame Nkrumah in 1960. Okyeame was the organ of the Writer’s Workshop, chaired by Efua Sutherland and Ayi Kwei

Armah, and its purpose was to reinvigorate the power of the linguist in contemporary society by creating a medium of communication between the leader and the people (“Okyeame”). The magazine enabled writers to “experiment with a versatile, hybrid Pan-African linguistics that combined African oral influences

[and] phonetic innovations with lyricism and wordplay,” thereby reviving proverb culture into “a new intellectual framework” (“Okyeame”). Nkrumah hoped to adapt the wit, symbol, and metaphor of Akan language to the forming world order;

Okyeame becoming the analogy for proverb to solidify that order. This vision, like many others, did not survive long after the Osagyefo was deposed. However,

Africa’s writers, empowered with a new liberty, began contributing their experience to the reading world in an effort to strip away the mask of the savage and claim space in the halls of power for their newly imagined communities.

This literature Africa produced in the latter half of the twentieth century— the era of independence—is reflective and descriptive. The narratives of the period rotate around the effects and experience of Imperialism from the perspective of the conquered: “It was a weeping literature, a literature of lamentation” (Nnolim 1).

Charles Nnolim holds that these writers were collectively, though not cooperatively, seeking to justify Africa’s stunted progress by describing the injustices she had suffered at the hands of “whites” (Nnolim 2). These works are

60 not written for the benefit of African audiences, whose very lives were the continuance of these consequences. These works were written to communicate the humanity and perseverance of the African people to the Western world; Africa needed to prove her civility. This writing, in a sense, joins up with a realistic literary style: Negritude. Negritude refers to writing which defines and describes the black experience. This style was initially popular among French writers who attacked colonial racism in the 1930s. The Negritude aesthetic translated heavily into the works of writers of America’s Harlem Renaissance, which sought to create a black identity by showing “the dignity” of negro-ness (Nnolim 2). A portion of the writers associated with the international Negritude ideology were members of the diaspora. Negritude writing, its settings and themes, are inextricable from the

Pan-African movement, which rose during the same period and of which many of these writers were active participants. This is a highly affective conversation and it is little wonder that this model of writing is what emerges first from self- determined African pens. However, literature in general was moving more rapidly than ever in the 1960s and 70s, as the creative world had recovered from the disillusionment of total war and had new ideas to unpack onto the page. More writing was produced in these decades than those preceding, and genres expanded. This expansion is largely absent from African literature. Nnolim argues that this “disquieting lull” exists because African literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries did not engage the African people (Nnolim 3).

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Literature has a “social function” which expresses the values and questions of a writer or movement, but more importantly it communicates the intellectual wrestling from which these products develop back to the community for posterity and challenge. Africa’s early modern writers did not create literature consumable by Africans. It was not written in languages they could engage in and its subjects were not relevant; it did not develop perspective. This literature did not adequately fulfill its function, so it created “an ashen paralysis” in the African intellectual cortex (Nnolim 2). Nnolim cites a need for African literature which engages the

African identity in a way that promotes imaginative stretching: “we should be educating for change . . . we should be preparing people for the future while warning that unless man quickly learns to control the rate of change in his personal affairs, we are doomed to a massive adaptational breakdown” (Nnolim 4).

The African identity cannot be restored to its former glory, but it can be refreshed.

This is accomplished by a pronounced turn from the past and a development of settings, genres, and leitmotifs which, when read by Africa, cannot help but develop a twenty-first century African personality. These writers have the important task of creating a literature which performs its social function in a contemporary, continental African context. To do this, writers must develop “A forward-looking utopia for Africa. . . [which] should project a truly independent

Africa politically stable, able to feed her starving peoples, standing side by side with Europe and the west, possessing enough coercive force to earn her respect in

62 the international arena, and become the last refuge for the oppressed all over the world” (Nnolim 5).

This task may sound daunting, but imagining solutions to societal problems forms the bulk of dinner table conversations. They stem from the questions all

Africans are asking each other. A perspective, a direction, already exists. The twenty-first century writer need only articulate it back to Africa’s own mind, thereby validating and solidifying publicly the informed, private opinion. As

Nnolim challenges these writers to reach further, he challenges critics to do the same. He disdainfully labels African critics as “the children of de Saussure,” accusing them of playing the “highfalutin” Structuralist game which enraptured literary critics in the 1970s (Nnolim 6). These critics are trying to be a part of the global discourse in a similar way as the African authors writing in English or

French are, and because of this they have become “lost in these exercises” (Nnolim

7). This type of criticism is misplaced because the typical African author does not consider these models as they craft (Nnolim 6). It is difficult to bury a

Deconstructionist signification in a text employing a language which is not your first. The common Saussurean discourse is elevated beyond the African reader’s purview. If literature from Africa is to be for Africa, even if it must invent a new

Africa, the critic must “be a midwife between a difficult text and a non- understanding reader” (Nnolim 7). The literature is the proverb and the critic the linguist. The presence of the critic allows African literature to tackle “new challenges in this epoch of globalization” intellectually, academically,

63 technologically, as well as creatively (Nnolim 4). Nnolim’s suggestion is a comfortable one. It creates space for new work engaging with international literatures on equal stages without neglecting the overhanging realities which threaten daily life. It also calls for a new criticism engaging African readership through explication, navigation, and fomentation of creative zeal. It gives writers the latitude to amplify output. This outward-looking approach expressly limits connection with tradition, thereby solidifying the social order which is and which will be. But does this motion leave behind African identity, negro-ness, at its own peril?

Another perspective on how language functions in all literature is presented by Joe Obi, who suggests a direction post-colonial African literature should head in. Obi begins by stating that the debate over language medium is always a component when categorizing and evaluating post-colonial writing. Literature is developed by members of a certain culture and, “When this organic embodiment of a group’s lived experience finds expression in an other’s ‘language,’ genuine anxieties emerge: to what extent are the functions of literature jeopardized by the

‘foreign’ tongue” (Obi)? Language, too, has its own social functions. In many cases, a language is the sole separation of a tribe, faith, or district; it is the “expression of a group’s heritage and uniqueness” (Obi). This puts languages in direct conflict with one another, creating hierarchies of prestige. As with any such aspectual grouping, tensions abound and minority groups suffer, eventually lacking status or mobility. It is little wonder, then, that hesitation and “critical silences” wax in

64 independence-era writing, most of which is composed in LWCs (Obi). Nigerian statesman and author Obi Wali held that writing in superpower languages “is misdirected and has no chance of advancing African literature and culture. . . [it] can only lead to sterility, uncreativity, and frustration” (qtd. in Obi).

Accepting or adapting this premise has been difficult for African writers.

Kenyan author Ngugi Wa Thiong’o “bade English farewell” in his later works after publishing several essays (in English) on the importance of indigenous language: those “who are forced to think, speak, and read in English, are disconnected from their environment—an environment which possesses a language that resonates with it in a much more harmonious manner than any overlain variety” (qtd. in

Obi). Thiong’o argument suggests that African writers should treat indigenous language in a similar way as the great English writers did and compose in their mother tongue to spite the elite tongue. Thiong’o calls for a literary revolution in a socialist sense, the twenty-first century African writer having become alienated from the products of the extant culture. This revolution, says Thiong’o, will establish a genuine African literature, one which simultaneously reflects and creates a local, national, and continental “ecosystem” (Obi). The movement can be made from English to a mother tongue, as Thiong’o has done, but this shift came later in his career when he had capital and notoriety, making publication worth the risk, and still engagement with the wider speaking community of his chosen language was not guaranteed.

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Conversely, some have argued for the necessity of a LWC medium for literature, particularly if it is to be produced with a social intent rather than for its own sake. Chinua Achebe, perhaps the most recognizable name in African literature, has asked what makes a language African (Obi). Thomas Hale presented a background apropos to the consideration of this question: contact with European tongues has occurred for millennia. As the Nubians brought Greek and Arabic elements south from Egypt to record their histories, so today’s writers are using the linguistic tools available to them to produce new stories. This matter then becomes “a question of how long the language has been present on African soil. . . how many years should constitute an effective occupation? For [Achebe,]. . . [A] language spoken by Africans on African soil, a language in which Africans write justifies itself” (qtd. in Obi). Achebe and coetaneous writers of the late twentieth century have spoken against language critics, who often seek the production of new indigenous language literature by printing scathing diatribes in “colonial language” publications (Obi). From this standpoint, the social function of literature is best achieved when an LWC is utilized because the widest audience is reached, locally and internationally. The multilingual reality of African communication allied with the histories of colonial education form a solid foundation to rest Achebe’s argument on. The authors in this camp were “making the best of the circumstances” (Obi).

As we have seen, languages with solidified cultural cachet often do not have written forms; they are treasured cultural products but have low prestige in a

66 transnational context. And “the literacy and dexterity of writers in their indigenous language cannot be assumed” (Obi). Obi “is in agreement with Perry-Widsfrand’s definition of literacy as ‘“an act of knowing through which a person is able to analyze the culture which has shaped him and to move towards reflection upon, and positive action, in his world’” (qtd. in Obi). Literacy begets positive action, an echo of the words which formed Kwame Nkrumah’s motto for independence, wherein he called for Ghanaians—and all Africans—to become literate in modernity and raise Africa from her knees. For this ideal, positive action, to affect change, the people needed to be educated, needed to be fluent in English to participate in the rapid modernization Nkrumah envisioned. These circumstances gave rise to the current education models in Ghana, maximizing command of

English, leaving a considerable portion of citizens unable to impart their experience through complex forms, as the novel or play, in their mother tongues.

Obi considers these issues, stating, “the reality of life in unstable dependent economies is that the market, not ideals, dictates such decisions. A scenario of multiple language literature also means multiple translation, small markets, and publishers’ coolness resulting from the fear of low returns” (Obi). The challenges are the same for mother tongue literature and mother tongue education. A work written in English, even a terrible one, is more justifiable as a publishable commodity than a work in any other language. “A book of creative literature is also a material product which must force its way through a material universe,” and

Africa’s nationalized publishing houses assess the risk of producing a new creative

67 work on similar ground to that of producing new educational texts in minority languages (Obi). More than this, in any speaking community, there will be

Thiong’os and Achebes. Some view English as a unifier, bringing them out of their smaller community into the wider social and intellectual world, and others view

English as a divider, creating a stifling, systematized disrespect for the language they identify with. In reality, Africa is a continent of “cultural osmosis,” where clear lines are not drawn between past and present, colonial and non-colonial; this should not be surprising (Obi). Obi asks us to

Consider this: In the bustling city of Benin in Southwestern Nigeria,

there is a market where young English-speaking, secondary school

educated Nigerian males sell Southeastern Asian electronics,

Jamaican tapes, and ride Japanese motorcycles. . . The situation is

made interesting when one realizes that these same youth

participate—pari-passu—in the most profound traditional rituals,

speak their mother tongues flawlessly, wed traditionally, belong to

age grades, visit ‘home’ religiously, and make a mean fufu! (Obi)

This places the choice of language medium in a subjective realm, marrying language to the writer and his or her intention, making it another creative decision alongside setting and narrative point of view. Obi concludes that what is needed is

“a pragmatism that allows for the coexistence of colonial and indigenous language literature on the same soil,” and a market which appreciates the necessity of each and provides equal avenues for their creation (Obi). Shifting the market’s gaze is

68 more realistic than overhauling the education system, which has far-reaching organizational and quality issues to address before language policy could be meaningfully attended.

But, where are they to start? Twenty-first century African writers are faced with conundrum after conundrum in the languages they choose, in writing not about the past but creating the future, in approaching subjects which are distinctly

African, and in stretching creatively into the new. They must be subjective but relevant, and to do this they must honestly convey experience as Africans through an informed, reflective introspection. To do this, they must raise up a common factor for Africa which can stand above the languages separating communities, but more importantly above the external economic and political forces which asphyxiate creativity. This unifying trope of African literature is the child. Africa houses nine of the top ten nations with the highest infant mortality rates. Every

African family has been touched by the death of a child, and preventing such horror is the preoccupation of all. A living child is a blessing beyond all measure, although another growling belly is a danger all its own. In Ghana, a traditional naming ceremony does not take place until the eighth day, because within the first week diseases or curses are likely to snatch the child away (Dovlo). Naming is an important tradition in Ghana; each child is given a name corresponding to the day of the week on which the child is presented to society. Prior to this day the infant is a non-entity; a heritage, an identity, is gifted to a child for surviving.

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The child as a symbol is not new, especially in art, but in Africa, the child is more than the future or innocence apostrophized, the child promises that the energies spent by an entire community had purpose because one life, one connection, has been spared. Richard K. Priebe notes this trope as the “natural symbol” for African narratives, and cites several examples of it working through various literatures. The child is a bridge, spanning the divisions of the continent in a silent, determined arc. Because of this commonality, Priebe argues that these narratives be considered a genre all their own: “African Childhoods are always about identity formation and growing up in a multicultural/transcultural world,” and the themes, and social functions, of African Childhoods have shifted in similar ways to the writing mentioned above (Priebe 41).

Early Childhoods, such as Laye’s L’enfant noir and Conton’s The African, worked within the Negritude aesthetic to define identity, in Preibe’s opinion. The protagonist in The African, Kisimi Kamara, follows a plotline which is the fictional equivalent of Kwame Nkrumah’s life. Kisimi is born in West Africa, goes abroad for his education, and returns with Pan-African ideals to lead his and neighboring colonies to independence, choosing Songhai for the name of the new state. This work problematizes language use in ways identical to Nkrumah’s apparent dichotomies, creating an African identity with “the idea of English as being a unifying language” (Priebe 42). Conton was personally engaged in this debate. He is responsible for the first comprehensive West African history, and “he held various posts in education in Ghana and Sierra Leone” (Priebe 42). Priebe holds

70 that these early works “rarely, if at all, . . . show any concern about identity in a national state,” being in favor of identifying the reader with a more Pan-African socioscape. The Childhoods that follow, then, are concerned with finding and describing individual identity in the rubble of this collapsed ideal (Priebe 42-43).

Priebe argues that parsing out national identity is the it-factor setting apart narratives which are lasting, instructive examples of the Childhood genre from ones simply applying the child trope. He cites several which “have appeared between the 1950s and the present and all, with varying emphasis, deal with the struggle and process of negotiating and finding a sense of familiarity in the midst of multiple linguistic, ethnic and cultural possibilities within the protagonist’s community and even his or her family” (Priebe 44).

It may seem what Priebe is suggesting brings writers farther away from reinforcing identity through indigenous language, but that is not so. Dealing with the webs of simultaneous existence in today’s socioscape requires African writers to interrogate their stake in language and struggle with it to finagle a space for themselves within this larger context. The webs become a hammock, hanging in places they choose, between the strongest trees, nurtured and supported by deep roots. Identity, national or personal, is inextricable from language for an African, and choosing which ones to prize becomes a formulaic conflict within the

Childhood genre. Priebe uses Remi Foster, the protagonist of Simi Bedford’s

Yoruba Girl Dancing, as an illustration of this. Remi’s experience is no different from that of any Ghanaian teenager, especially one living in a metropolis; she lives

71 in a household and in a region where many languages are spoken. If literature is to fulfil its social function, it must describe where language is measured, managed, and manipulated to form identity. If a stable adult emerges on the other side of this Childhood, the work must show how. If not, it must act as a proverb, defining the moral and ethical responsibilities attached to language use by defining the very real consequences attached to their evading these responsibilities.

In Yoruba Girl Dancing, Remi faces linguistic discrimination in every environment, being all at once too English, too African, too rural, and too elite.

Racism is expected as she travels abroad. One can easily accept the color of one’s skin as something physical, definite, unchangeable and divisive, yet something which places one in a wider group with shared enemies but also shared defenses.

But how does one handle discrimination based on speech, especially when conversant in several distinct tongues, each separately yet equally ingrained in one’s character? There is no history of how this is dealt with, which lends credit to the assumption that it has not been, that these marginalized adventurers in modernity have been silenced. Remi eventually forsakes her linguistic diversity for consonance, giving the novel, in Priebe’s view, an “awkward” end (Priebe 46). It is important to note here an esteem for individual experience. These characters are ambassadors, always on foreign soil because they carry varied communities. These subjective vistas of Childhood characters become the African worldview writ large.

Literature is as slippery here as anywhere, giving us more questions than answers in many cases. But what the African Childhood reveals is the validity and

72 relevancy of contemporary writing. The identity issues in these novels are wrapped up in the conflicting realities which limit Africa’s progress, the realities which, as

Nnolim states, good writing should challenge, destroy, or create anew. Intellectual engagement in what it is to be African is occurring in this space in a meaningful way. And Priebe adds that the “shift in the African Childhood over the past fifty years may reflect a very big social and cultural shift on the continent that these writers are addressing” (Priebe 50). The writers of the independence era described the realistic Africa; these turn-of-the-century diasporic writers created a new fictional genre, which indigenous writers are using today to produce African high fiction. The Childhood is set apart from other invented genres in foreign traditions; Childhood is African in the way Drama is Greek. This gives critics something to praise and something to chew. The questions raised here illuminate for the critic the path ahead, allowing them to cue writers writing well to where the pitfalls lie, while also revealing how they can best steer the reader to the intended destination.

It bears repeating that good literature does little without the backing of a publisher. Applying literary development to the Ghanaian socioscape will not improve outcomes, lessen antagonism, or stiffen political clout if the work does not reach the people in a consumable form. If any leader ever appreciated this fact it was Kwame Nkrumah, who used print media to great effect, filtering the Pan-

African philosophical ideal through the community to develop it practically.

Nkrumah was a lover of words with a gift for lyrical, yet biting prose. His work is at

73 times abrasive, confrontational towards the reader, but it is never alarmist; his was a zealous dedication to African potential. His administration worked alongside intellectuals and a growing number of African leaders to organize a union to promote the production of literature in Africa by Africans. This effort was stymied for several decades, but in 1989 the first conference of the Pan African Writers’

Association (PAWA) was held in Accra “under the theme: ‘African Unity: A

Liberation of the Mind” (Pan African). At this event, sponsored by the OAU and

UNESCO and bringing the writer’s unions from over thirty nations together, a constitution was signed, creating PAWA. This association has far reaching goals.

Their declaration proclaims that these assembled unions were

Anxious to contribute to the revalorization of African cultural

identity, and putting a spurt on Panafricanism and the struggle

against all forms of racial discrimination.

Conscious, thus, of the necessity for co-operation between

African Writers and the world in order to break the language barriers

and to promote the different cultures on the continent by developing

them.” (Pan African)

They go further in their statement of aims, including the objective “To promote

African languages and the translation of African literature into African languages”

(Pan African).

The mission of PAWA gives the writers of Africa a continental, literary sphere. The total triumph of this mission, however, has yet to be realized. PAWA

74 was granted “full Diplomatic Status” by the Ghanaian government in the early

1990s, and the organization now boasts representatives from 52 of Africa’s countries. What is lacking is global recognition and capital support. PAWA intended to become a coterie of the intelligentsia, affirming the products of the

African writer through award. The association wanted to bring African writing to the world stage, making their writers part of the canon, and to do that needed to develop African equivalents for the Pulitzer, Newberry, and Booker Prize (Pan

African). African writers are certainly winning those prizes, placing themselves in those circles, but their work is not judged on African terms, and therefore cannot be said to “revalorize” African identity (Pan African). Commanding the attention of a global readership is nothing to be ashamed of, but the standards of worth and relevance by which the Pulitzer is awarded do not stem from the African consciousness. The award cannot show how and where Dele Olojede’s Newsday communicated the lived moments of Africans or how those connections were weighed by the selection committee (“2005 Pulitzer”). Because of Olojede’s accomplishment, we can say that African writers are gaining literary equality contemporaneously, but we cannot say they are gaining relevance locally. Without the accompaniment of monetary encouragement, PAWA’s awards have yet to gain validity in the wider literary community or aesthetic capital among the local readership.

PAWA has been able, for close to thirty years, to hold conferences and workshops across Africa, inviting authors to assemble as peers. The association has

75 also created numerous training and literacy programs across the continent, encouraging youth to expand their talents and academics to hone them (Pan

African). Nnolim’s new creative hope is here in PAWA, a body in Africa which has recognized the correlation of literature and language to unity and stability. This is a continental body, acting within and without bound in the way Hale suggested. A vehicle exists for the preservation of traditional wisdom, conveyed in the same silvery parlance in which it was fashioned. Ghana must invest in these essentials and continue to lead Africa towards intellectual equality on a world stage. This can be accomplished by nurturing an appreciation for the space PAWA provides for the fulfillment of Africa’s self-determination.

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CONCLUSION

NO ORDINARY WIND

The climacteric texts of twentieth century applied Pan-Africanism belong to

Kwame Nkrumah, who channeled his rhetorical dexterity onto the page as a clarion call for continental unity. These texts—Africa Must Unite, I Speak of

Freedom, Neo-Colonialism—composed at the Cold War’s apogee, when ideology was quite literally more important than message, were written not in Twi, Fanti,

Gã, or Ewe, but in English. Nkrumah observed his moment and saw that, “Never before in history has such a sweeping fervour for freedom expressed itself in great mass movements which are driving down the bastions of empire. This wind of change blowing through Africa . . . is no ordinary wind. It is a raging hurricane against which the old order cannot stand” (Nkrumah i). It is no ordinary wind which created a modern African state out of far-flung, ideologically weary, historically diverse peoples through the use of a colonial tongue. It is no ordinary wind which fills Africa’s sails, lest she perish adrift. It is no ordinary wind which cleared the identity horizon for Ghana. A clear, definitive moment where this identity creation occurs does not exist. Perhaps pursuing such a clear moment in any national history is naïve. What this work has shown is that language is messy.

Whether attention is paid to medium of communication or not, language is

77 constantly dictating our sensation and shaping our perception. Adding levels of interpretation to this equation (by considering multiple languages) makes every new scenario facing a populace all the more complex, and potentially fatal. The use of English as a guard against divisiveness, not only in an infant community but also a maturing one, sounds like a convenient excuse, used to avoid pursuit of language equality. But these dangers are real in Africa. In view of the number of speaking communities which exist in Ghana alone, as well as the strife these communities endured during centuries of exploitation, the stickiness of language policy becomes clear. Nkrumah could not choose one Ghanaian, or even one

African, language as the crier of African identity. To elevate one would have been to invalidate the struggle of all others. So English becomes the vehicle of self- determination, and as Ghana’s national language, continues to inform policy in all venues.

Once the nation was created—the form set— achieving nationwide fluency in English became and remained a goal for Ghana’s leaders. English is a language of power. This is undeniable. The choices made in Ghana in regards to language, particularly in education, are illustrative, revealing in greater detail the challenges for all emergent nations. Ghana was the first nation to claim independence after

World War II. Her liberty is the standard bearer, revealing to all other nations seeking liberty where its modern boundaries lie. Africa can be self-determined, but to be so means living life in the English superstructure. If Ghana was to be part of the global economy, part of global intellectual, technological, political

78 communities, she had to place herself within it. To many, this small price would reap untold gain. In the present, we find turmoil in Ghana. If many of the nation’s systemic threats potentially stem from language problems, exacerbated by an education system which preferences English, it is difficult to weigh the extent to which adopting this foreign language from the nation’s outset protected her unity.

Ghanaians remain in alliance despite numerous leadership changes since 1957.

They are allied in suffering, too. Asking whether or not employing an indigenous language initially would have improved Ghana’s present outlook is unproductive.

It is more important to allow each Ghanaian to lay their language bare, interrogating it and finding what is just, equitable, and foremost in regards to the preservation and health of their socioscape. There is no wrong answer; there is simply a language continuum. Each places oneself subjectively, and the nation collectively, on it; the location is determined by the relative weight allocated to

English. This subjective, linguistic gravity is one in a number of reasons why Pan-

African unity was not achieved by Kwame Nkrumah. Each nation arrives at a difference place on this continuum, and even when they are speaking the same language, the conversation is not the same.

If the nation is a collection of individuals sustaining an imagined community through the strength of simultaneous memory, where on the continuum is the most important, representative, essential language in Ghana? Is it the one “of the metropolitan daily newspaper, of the bureaucratic memo, of the contemporary poet, of religious ritual, of football sportscasts, of political

79 harangues, of loving whispers,” of moaning dirges (Algeo 202)? The answer is that

Ghana does not have to choose. These divisions exist because each arena is important and the language in which each finds expression becomes a single facet in a crystalized identity. This prismatic capacity to indigenous language allows meaning to bend and illuminate the Ghanaian socioscape in new, unexpected shades. Ghanaian linguistic identity must be cut free from the bramble of circumstance which had it concentrically shrouded. National unity builds from this, helping Ghana be aware of her rarities, helping Ghana grasp what sets her apart. Americans are often criticized for elevating individuality, and rightly so, but a similar elevation is beginning to occur in Africa and should be encouraged.

African exceptionalism should be espoused and proclaimed by sirens vociferously reciting an indefatigable list of the continent’s excellences. Africa’s modern enemy is herself, and it is only by valorizing individual, crystalized national identities enduring despite ubiquitous strife, that she will reveal what is truly limiting her unity. English can unite Africa in a way that will efface those umbrageous partitions drawn around commonality, allowing for true communication and dynamism. In this light, Africa will finally recognize herself; she is radiant, mellifluous, and faces the future unafraid, with no ordinary wind at her back.

80

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