Ghanaian Nationalism, Internationalism and the Political Iconography of Kwame Nkrumah, 1957 – 2010
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Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Faculty Publications Department of History 2015 Father of the Nation: Ghanaian Nationalism, Internationalism and the Political Iconography of Kwame Nkrumah, 1957 – 2010 Harcourt Fuller Georgia State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_facpub Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Fuller, H. “Father of the Nation: Ghanaian Nationalism, Internationalism and the Political Iconography of Kwame Nkrumah, 1957 – 2010.” African Studies Quarterly 16.1 (December 2015): 39-75. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. African Studies Quarterly | Volume 16, Issue 1 | December 2015 Father of the Nation: Ghanaian Nationalism, Internationalism and the Political Iconography of Kwame Nkrumah, 1957 - 2010 HARCOURT FULLER Abstract: This article addresses the ways in which Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s prime minister and president, sought visually to propagandize the complementary, yet competing demands of nation-building, Pan-Africanism, and internationalism (most notably Cold War politics and Third World non-alignment) from 1957 to 1966. In order to illustrate the complexities inherent in juggling these three main pillars of his presidency, this article examines the iconography and symbolism of the postage stamps, and to a lesser extent, the national currencies produced during the Nkrumah era. It also notes how every regime that has succeeded Nkrumah, from the National Liberation Council that ousted him from power in a military coup in 1966, to the John Atta Mills administration that came to power in 2010, utilized postage stamps and currency to reevaluate and reinterpret the major milestones in post-colonial Ghana’s history. These “symbols of nationhood” and the archival documents that were generated as a result of their production provide scholars with another frame of reference to judge Nkrumah’s legacy in the first decade after the centenary of his birth, which was marked in 2009. Introduction When seeking to position newly-independent Ghana as a non-aligned African nation-state in the midst of the Cold War, Kwame Nkrumah would frequently use the populist refrain, “we face neither East nor West: We face forward” at political rallies and in public speeches, such as that delivered at the Positive Action Conference for Peace and Security in Africa, held in Accra on 2 April 1960.1 Ghana, however, like other newly independent nation states in Africa, and indeed other countries in the Third World with strong nationalist leaders, could not escape the political, cultural, military, and economic ramifications of the ideological battle between the United States and the Soviet Union in the post-World War II era. This article analyzes the complementary, yet competing demands of nationalism or nation-building, Pan-Africanism, and internationalism during Kwame Nkrumah’s nine years in office as Prime Minister and later President of Ghana from March 1957 to February 1966. It also considers how post-Nkrumah administrations have reconstructed and reconsidered his projects and legacy, beginning with the military coup that ousted him from power in 1966, until the yearlong commemoration of his birth centenary in 2009-2010. Harcourt Fuller is Assistant Professor of History, Georgia State University. His research and teaching expertise include the history of Africa, West Africa (Ghana in particular), the African Diaspora, and Maroon nations in the Atlantic World. His publications include Building the Ghanaian Nation-State: Kwame Nkrumah’s Symbolic Nationalism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), the co-edited Money in Africa (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 2009), and articles in Nations and Nationalism as well as African Arts. http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v16/v16i1a2.pdf © University of Florida Board of Trustees, a public corporation of the State of Florida; permission is hereby granted for individuals to download articles for their own personal use. Published by the Center for African Studies, University of Florida. ISSN: 2152-2448 34 | Fuller At first glance, it might appear that the history and legacy of the Nkrumah era within and beyond Ghana’s borders have already been exhaustively covered in the literature; that would not be an incorrect statement. Previous scholars of Ghana’s national and international history and politics under Nkrumah have relied on traditional written sources of information such as those found at the national archives of Britain and Ghana, among other countries, in addition to the myriad of books, academic articles, and writings published in the popular press, as well as first-hand and biographical accounts of the Nkrumah state.2 Methodologically, this article takes a different approach to analyzing and evaluating the history and political legacy of Nkrumah by utilizing visual sources that have either been under- studied or outright neglected by other scholars. The article’s arguments are validated by archival material and secondary sources related to these visual documents. In previous publications, I argued that Nkrumah’s expressions of his nationalist, Pan-Africanist, and internationalist projects, ideologies, and strategies encompassed the propagandistic use of political iconography and idioms, which I have termed “symbols of nationhood,” “symbols of nationalism,” or “symbolic nationalism.”3 This is defined as the political and propagandistic use of symbols including money, postage stamps, monuments, museums, dress, non-verbal maxims (such as the Adinkra symbols used in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire), the national anthem, emblems, and both national and party flags to articulate a particular political philosophy. Yet these symbols of Ghanaian nationhood also had trans-national implications, as they were embellished with iconography emphasizing the politics of the Cold War, the promotion of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the creation of a United States of Africa (Pan-Africanism), and support for international organizations such as the United Nations. An increasing number of scholars from a variety of disciplines have argued for the use of visual, semiotic sources in academic works as legitimate and useful forms of historical evidence.4 While the majority of these visual sources were produced during the Nkrumah era, many were issued immediately after he was ousted by the National Liberation Council (NLC), while others were developed by the Limann (People’s National Party—PNP), Rawlings (Provisional National Defence Council—NDC, and the National Democratic Congress—NDC), Kufuor (New Patriotic Party—NPP), and Mills (National Democratic Congress) administrations. Nonetheless, very few scholars have examined these rich and revealing visual archives, including those of the Ghana Post Company Limited (GPC), which houses primary archival documents and images relating to the issuance of national postage stamps dating to as early as 1955. The holdings of the GPC Archives demonstrate how the iconography of postage stamps was an essential aspect of Nkrumah’s nation building, Pan-Africanist, and Cold War political propaganda machine. While a small number of academics have conducted research in these archives, most may not have been aware of, or had access to the hundreds of documents previously thought lost, which I uncovered in the philatelic vaults of the Ghana Post Company. These finds cover the critical years of Nkrumah’s rule.5 In addition to stamps and associated archival material, I will also tangentially analyze how the iconography and symbolism of Ghana’s national currency reflects upon and problematizes Nkrumah’s record and legacy over the last fifty plus years. African Studies Quarterly | Volume 16, Issue 1| December 2015 http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v16/v16i1a2.pdf Father of the Nation | 35 Nation-Building After becoming Prime Minister of Ghana, one of Nkrumah’s major, but daunting tasks was to achieve national unity and construct a singular national identity. The years that he spent living and traveling overseas, particularly in the United States and Britain, as well as his studies of modern nations and nationalism gave him a detailed level of understanding about the symbolism and substance involved in nation-building. He found that there were certain basic tenets of nationhood, which modern nation-states had in common, and which they used to iconize their ideals, independence, sovereignty, development, promise, and uniqueness among nations. Nkrumah felt that Ghana would have to emulate these traditions, albeit in an Africanized way. This included constructing a national narrative that centered on having a glorious historical past and rich traditions, as well as having Founding Father(s), national heroes, a currency, postage stamps, a flag, an anthem, a coat of arms, museums, and monuments. While this article is confined to the examination of postage stamps and currency, which were the most frequently used and widely circulated symbols of nationhood, I have analyzed the full breadth of visual sources in greater detail in other publications.6 As a priority, the Nkrumah government sought to express Ghana’s economic independence and solidify his image as the country’s Founding Father, by establishing