Beyond the Political Spider: Critical Issues in African Humanities

By Kwesi Yankah

Beyond the Political Spider: Critical Issues in African Humanities by Kwesi Yankah is the first title in the newly established African Humanities Association (AHA) publication series. By integrating his own biography into a critique of the global politics of knowledge production, Yankah, through a collection of essays, interrogates critical issues confronting the Humanities that spawn intellectual hegemonies and muffle African voices. Using the example of Ghana, he brings under scrutiny, amongst others, endemic issues of academic freedom, gender inequities, the unequal global academic order, and linguistic imperialism in language policies in governance. In the face of these challenges, the author deftly navigates the complex terrain of indigenous knowledge and language in the context of democratic politics, demonstrating that agency can be liberatory when emphasising indigenous knowledge, especially expressed through the idiom of local languages and symbols, including Ananse, the protean spider, folk hero in Ghana and most parts of the pan-African world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NISC (Pty) Ltd
• Release date: Oct 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781920033828

Kwesi Yankah

Kwesi Yankah is the author of two award winning books: Speaking for the Chief, which won the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences Gold Book award and The Proverb in the Context of Akan Rhetoric, winner of the Ghana Book Award. The latter was based on his award-winning doctoral dissertation at Indiana University, USA, 1985. He also co-edited African Folklore: An Encyclopedia. Yankah has held fellowships at several universities including, Stanford, Northwestern, Michigan, Berkley, Pennsylvania and Birmingham. He was from 2009 to 2017 an Associate Director of the African Humanities Program, established by the American Council of Learned Societies. Between 2017 and 2021 he was Ghana's Minister of State in Charge of Tertiary Education. Yankah is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Folklore Society.

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Beyond the Political Spider

Critical Issues in African Humanities

Kwesi Yankah

About the Series

The African Humanities Series covers topics in African histories, languages, literatures, philosophies, politics and cultures and is intended to speak to scholars in Africa as well as in other world areas. Its core goal is to foreground the best research on the continent. The rigorous review process of submitted manuscripts, editorial vetting and, where warranted, involvement of a manuscript mentor to work with the author on their writing, assures that the best quality material is published.

The establishment of the African Humanities Association in Abuja in 2020 has allowed the Series to expand in scope and authorship beyond the original five participating countries of the African Humanities Program (Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda), to include the entire continent. In addition, the African Humanities Series has broadened its coverage of topics and authorship to capture the work of scholars engaged in African Humanities research globally. The expanded scope encompasses two categories, each under its own imprint:

Reflections: A forum for African scholars as well as those in the diaspora to publish work on the state of the humanities on the continent. It will encourage especially senior scholars to reflect on their own experiences of past and current Humanities scholarship.

Cutting Edge: An outlet for innovative Humanities work which unsettles the boundaries of knowledge in ways which make us think anew about the abiding social problems across the continent.

The African Humanities Series is produced in collaboration with NISC (Pty) Ltd, established publishers of academic work on the continent, and is widely accessible in print and online formats from local and international sales outlets and aggregators of book content.

Series editors: Adigun Agbaje & Fred Hendricks

African Humanities Series Editorial Board members as at September 2021

African Humanities Series editors:

Professor Adigun Agbaje, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Professor Emeritus Fred Hendricks, Rhodes University, South Africa

Consultant:

Professor Emeritus Sandra Barnes, University of Pennsylvania, USA (Anthropology)

Board Members:

1Professor Kofi Anyidoho, University of Ghana, Ghana (African Studies & Literature) (Director, Codesria African Humanities Institute Program)

2Professor Ibrahim Bello-Kano, Bayero University, Nigeria (Dept of English and French Studies)

3Professor Sr Dominica Dipio, Makerere University, Uganda (Dept of Literature)

4Associate Professor Nicky Falkof, Universoty of Witwatersrand, South Africa (Dept of Media Studies)

5Professor Sati Fwatshak, University of Jos, Nigeria (Dept of History & International Studies)

6Associate Professor Wilfred Lajul, College of Humanities & Social Sciences, Makerere University, Uganda (Dept of Philosophy)

7Professor Bertram Mapunda, Jordan University College, Tanzania (Archaelogy, University Principal)

8Associate Professor Bernard Matolino, University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa (Dept of Philosophy)

9Dr Benge Okot, Makerere University, Uganda (Dept of History, Archaeology and Organisational Studies)

10Professor Innocent Pikirayi, University of Pretoria, South Africa (Chair & Head, Dept of Anthropology & Archaeology)

11Professor Josephat Rugemalira, University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania (Dept of Foreign Languages & Linguistics)

12Professor Idayat Bola Udegbe, University of Ibadan, Nigeria (Dept of Psychology)

Published in South Africa on behalf of the African Humanities Association

by NISC (Pty) Ltd, PO Box 377, Makhanda, 6140, South Africa

www.nisc.co.za

First edition, first impression 2021

second impression November 2021

Publication © African Humanities Association 2021

Text © Kwesi Yankah 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-920033-80-4 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-920033-81-1 (PDF)

ISBN: 978-1-920033-82-8 (ePub)

Project manager: Peter Lague

Indexer: Tanya Barben

Cover design: Advanced Design Group

Cover photographs: ©Linda Hughes Photography/Shutterstock

ePub conversion: Wouter Reinders

Acknowledgements

Data in Chapter 2: University of Ghana, Office of Research, Innovation and Development, and Public Affairs Directorate; photographs pages 51–60: Jubilee House, Accra; photographs Chapter 5: University of Ghana, Public Affairs Directorate; Chapters 7, 8 and 9: republished courtesy of Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences; photographs Chapter 8: Information Services Dept, Accra; photographs Chapter 16: Eric Obeng-Amoako Edmonds

The author and the publisher have made every effort to obtain permission for and acknowledge the use of copyright material. Should an inadvertent infringement of copyright have occurred, please contact the publisher and we will rectify omissions or errors in any subsequent reprint or edition.

Dedication

To the next generation of scholars in African Humanities

Published in the African Humanities Series

Dominica Dipio, Gender terrains in African cinema, 2014

Ayo Adeduntan, What the forest told me: Yoruba hunter, culture and narrative performance, 2014

Sule E. Egya, Nation, power and dissidence in third-generation Nigerian poetry in English, 2014

Irikidzayi Manase, White narratives: The depiction of post-2000 land invasions in Zimbabwe, 2016

Pascah Mungwini, Indigenous Shona Philosophy: Reconstructive insights, 2017

Sylvia Bruinders, Parading Respectability: The Cultural and Moral Aesthetics of the Christmas Bands Movement in the Western Cape, South Africa, 2017

Michael Andindilile, The Anglophone literary-linguistic continuum: English and indigenous languages in African literary discourse, 2018

Jeremiah Arowosegbe, Claude E Ake: The making of an organic intellectual, 2018

Romanus Aboh, Language and the construction of multiple identities in the Nigerian novel, 2018

Bernard Matolino, Consensus as Democracy in Africa, 2018

Babajide Ololajulo, Unshared Identity: Posthumous paternity in a contemporary Yoruba community, 2018

De-Valera NYM Botchway, Boxing is no cakewalk! Azumah ‘Ring Professor’ Nelson in the social history of Ghanaian boxing, 2019

Dina Ligaga, Women, visibility and morality in Kenyan popular media, 2020

Okaka Opio Dokotum, Hollywood and Africa: Recycling the ‘Dark Continent’ Myth, 1908–2020, 2020

Molefe Motsamai, African Personhood and Applied Ethics, 2020

FOREWORD

In this timely book, Kwesi Yankah invites his readers to reflect on a cocktail of critical issues of concern in the humanities in Africa. Presenting like an unintended intellectual biography, this book covers a range of issues and presents personalities with whom the author has had personal engagements as a student, researcher/scholar, a university administrator, a policymaker and a politician. The wealth of knowledge he shares in this book, more than anything else, presents him as an astute scholar of many parts. Kwesi Yankah, in easy lingo, laced with reasonable doses of humor, makes scholarly sense of features of his indigenous Akan language and culture. More than that, he adroitly connects these local observations with national, regional, continental and global standards and happenings, relating, comparing and contrasting indigenous knowledge systems with western received norms and practices.

As a formidable African linguist, Kwesi Yankah elucidates the power of words as used by the most powerful persons in society, such as Presidents, to consolidate their grip on power, and the least powerful in society to vent their disdain and frustration of suffocating leadership. The use of words both to consolidate power and challenge the powerful in modern politics is paralleled with such use of language in African traditional governance systems. Whether you are in a position of authority or not, the power of the spoken word is available to you as a vehicle to advance your cause. Kwesi Yankah invites us to appreciate the role of the spoken word in governance and politics, carefully outlining how Ghana’s charismatic first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah made use of the power of the spoken word to enhance his public persona as a leader. Readers are made to appreciate the inexpediency of not speaking a local language in elective politics and the admiration that the general populace has for multilingual Ghanaian politicians such as J. J. Rawlings, Kwesi Botchway and J. H. Mensah. And their levels of fluency does not even matter – they just have to try! No doubt multilingualism is a resource for political capital. Representative of Africa’s strong oral tradition, Kwesi Yankah draws attention to the overlooked intellectual value of oral tradition and the value of indigenous intellectuals such as Agya Koo Nimo and Nana Kwame Ampadu – outstanding Ghanaian musicians of the twentieth century, from whose music exudes sound African philosophy.

The multi-dimensional aspect of communication in the African context is demonstrated through textile talk – skillfully exemplified by African fabrics (kente and wax print) adorned by the Ghanaian President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in his public appearances. More significantly, the reader is treated to the complementary use of textile talk as a unique African way of communicating in the time of a global health pandemic, thus, providing a fascinating example of how global challenges can be managed in a ‘glocalised’ way.

Kwesi Yankah, through his elucidation and personal encounters of various national icons in the performing arts, demonstrates that he is more than a linguist. He is also a scholar, and sometimes, almost a practitioner of the arts. Through his presentation of outstanding practitioners – theatre (Efua Sutherland), music (Ayga Koo Nimo, Nana Kwame Ampadu), and the spoken word ( kyeame Akuffo) – the relevance of the performing arts in reminding us of our history and keeping our future in perspective is highlighted. Irrespective of the mode of performance employed by these practitioners, the underlying feature is a demonstration of the value of African philosophy transported through various genres of orality.

His presentation of the development of humanities scholarship and leadership in Ghana could not have been complete without a recount of the role of the University of Ghana generally and Mensah Sarbah Hall in particular, in the nurturing of female professionals and leaders in the country. His chapter on Gender could easily pass for a personal favourite, for what may be the obvious reasons, but also because it serves as a personal enlightenment for me concerning the paths that I have myself trod as an alumna of the University of Ghana and of Mensah Sarbah Hall, the first and for many years the only gender co-habited hall on campus. The list of female ‘celebrities’ from Mensah Sarbah Hall is impressive, ranging from politicians such as Betty Mould Iddrisu, Gloria Akuffo and Ursula Owusu Ekuful to accomplished professionals like Esther Cobbah and Takyiwaa Manu. Younger women will be both inspired and intrigued by the narratives in this chapter.

Originating from various lectures given on both academic and non-academic platforms, Beyond the Political Spider: Critical Issues in African Humanities is presented in a conversational tone. However, this informality does not take away its intellectual value; rather, such scholarly analysis of the value of our African indigenous systems are made accessible to everyone – students, specialists and non-specialists alike. Facts and figures are presented in a way which makes the absorption of non-fiction a pleasurable venture. Essentially, Kwesi Yankah carries the reader along in an academic discourse presented in a conversationalist tone that allows everyone to appreciate both the content and the context of the events recounted in the book. This allows the author to discuss the serious matter of the geo-politics and economics of academic publishing without sounding overly scholarly. His argument rests on our continental tendency to export raw materials, this time, in the form of African indigenous knowledge. This knowledge is then ‘refined’ and published in the west. At this point, we, the originators of the knowledge, are compelled to import it at exorbitant prices, immobilising and further curtailing the spread of the knowledge we have created ourselves. Thus, a call is made for us to build the academic industry here in Africa, which the African Humanities Program has so aptly typified on the continent since 2009.

This book presents readers with a rare opportunity into the intellectual life and works of a scholar who transcends disciplinary boundaries. Beyond the Political Spider: Critical Issues in African Humanities is set to ignite further conversations on – among other topics – the power of the spoken word, the effect of modernity on cultural norms, African performing artistes as repositories of indigenous knowledge, gender considerations in higher education, and the geo-politics of the global knowledge economy. These must-read conversations one can surmise will both shape and transform humanities scholarship and policy in the coming decades.

Nana Aba Appiah Amfo

Vice Chancellor

University of Ghana

August, 2021

List of abbreviations and acronyms

A-LevelAdvanced Level Certificate

ACASAArts Council of African Studies Association

ACLSAmerican Council of Learned Societies

AFUFAcademic Facility User Fees

AHAAfrican Humanities Association

AHPAfrican Humanities Program

AIDSAcquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

AMAAccra Metropolitan Assembly

AUAfrican Union

AYAAshanti Youth Association

BBCBritish Broadcasting Corporation

CANAfrica Nations Cup

CDDCentre for Democracy and Development

CEGENSACentre for Gender Studies and Advocacy

CEOChief Executive Officer

CIBACentre of Indigenous Business Association

COVIDCorona Virus Disease

DCDistrict Commissioner

CPPConvention People’s Party

DWFA Fun ClubDzi wo Fie Asεm Fun Club

DRCDemocratic Republic of Congo

DVBDefender of Verandah Boys

DVLADrivers and Vehicle Licensing Authority

ECOWASEconomic Community of West African States

EXIM-BankExport-Import Bank

FCUBEFree Compulsory Universal Basic Education

FMFrequency Modulation

GAASGhana Academy of Arts and Sciences

GBAGhana Bar Association

GCPPGreat Consolidated People’s Party

GDPGross Domestic Product

GTVGhana Television

ICSUInternational Council of Scientific Unions

ICTInformation and Communication Technology

IDCIndustrial Development Corporation

IEAInstitute of Economic Affairs

ILOInternational Labor Organisation

IUIndiana University

JCRJunior Common Room

KEEAKommenda Edina Eguafo Abirem

KNUSTKwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

LSNALegon Society for National Affairs

MCEMunicipal Chief Executive

MOBOMusic of Black Origin

MOGOMusic of Ghanaian Origin

MPMember of Parliament

MSLCMiddle School Leaving Certificate

NALNational Alliance of Liberals

NCPNational Convention Party

NDCNational Democratic Congress

NGONon-Governmental Organisation

NLCNational Liberation Council

NLMNational Liberation Movement

NRIFNational Research and Innovation Fund

NRPNational Reform Party

O-LevelOrdinary Level Certificate

PANAFESTPan African Historical Theatre Project Festival

PHPPeople’s Heritage Party

PNCPeople’s National Congress

PNDCProvisional National Defence Council

PNPPeople’s National Party

PPPProgressive People’s Party

RFUFResidential Facility User Fees

SMCSupreme Military Council

SOASSchool of Oriental and African Studies

SRCStudents Representative Council

STEMScience Technology Engineering and Mathematics

TVETTechnical and Vocational Education and Training

UCLAUniversity of California at Los Angeles

UDSUniversity of Development Studies

UGCCUnited Gold Coast Convention

UNUnited Nations

UNESCOUnited Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation

UNIGOVUnion Government

UNISAUniversity of South Africa

USISUnited States Information Service

USSRUnion of Soviet Socialist Republics

USTUniversity of Science and Technology

UTAGUniversity Teachers Association of Ghana

VCGVice Chancellors Ghana

V-V AllianceVandal-Volta Alliance

WASSCEWest African Senior School Certificate Examinations

WHOWorld Health Organisation

Prologue

Until the lion learns to speak,

Tales of hunting will always favour the hunter

This book is a selection of essays and landmark speeches I have presented on various academic platforms around the globe, at various universities, local and international conferences, seminars and workshops. Most may have been heard but not seen in print; a few have been updated from earlier publications but rerouted here under a single canopy where their organic links and the author’s thinking threads can be easily discerned.

The project was conceived in 2012 when I was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, where thoughts of a book of this sort, that also encapsulates my academic sojourn, emerged. It was meant to consolidate a prevailing academic partnership between the two universities – the University of Ghana and the University of Michigan – and demonstrate the potency of any blend between local and global knowledges. But a delayed outcome of that project provided an opportunity for further infusion of new knowledge that was constructed and shared on platforms of the African Humanities Program (AHP), established by the American Council of Learned Societies, and international academic fora. The AHP gave me access to scholars of African humanities in various parts of Africa, whose feedback on work already published was needed for possible revisions.

But the local scene in Ghana provided more secure anchorage, marked by platforms of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, a reputable think tank, established by Ghana’s first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah in 1959, as the very first in black Africa. The Academy’s platforms, open to the general public, and active all year round, encourage the tabling of groundbreaking research before young and seasoned scholars. The most notable is the J. B. Danquah Memorial lecture series, a three-day event, where fellows take turns annually to address burning issues of national and international importance, preferably themes inspired by the values and intellectual ideals promoted by Ghana’s celebrated scholar, lawyer and nationalist, Dr J. B. Danquah, who was a foundation fellow of the Academy. That platform, plus several others in the humanities and sciences, including the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial lectures, a later addition, have given opportunities for inter-generational dialogues among fellows, students, policymakers and the general public. A fair number of papers in this volume were originally presented as Ghana Academy lectures, but have since been updated.

Most of the chapters were written in the new millennium within the twenty-first century, and span two decades or more of exhaustive academic research. But a few go further back into the latter part of the twentieth century and have been included for good reasons, including their continued citation and their harmony with the African story.

These include a chapter on the use of indigenous poetry to mystify the persona of Ghana’s first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, which was facilitated by Nkrumah’s personal poet, Okyeame Boafo Akuffo, with whom I worked when he was appointed as a tutor at the University of Ghana after Nkrumah’s overthrow and subsequent death. It is included here and updated due to its uniqueness, and ensuing impact on contemporary Ghanaian poetry and politics.

But added here is also the outcome of knowledge originally constructed when I was a fellow of the African Humanities Institute of Northwestern University in 1995. The institute organised a seminar on the theme, ‘scholarly authority in the humanities’ which awakened me, and triggered my call for a new world academic order where local African research, and that of marginalised cultures would receive equal attention by the global academy. That idea was further expanded and presented as my inaugural lecture at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003, and is reproduced here as a frequently cited essay. Most of the essays, though are freshly minted and emerged from engagements with local and international fora in the past decade.

It is however my eight-year involvement in the affairs of the AHP as Associate Director that ignited the impulse to compile my work into a composite form that facilitates storytelling: an African story. The AHP provided opportunities for stocktaking, and a more focused look at high quality doctoral and postdoctoral research in Africa, bolstered by available funding and opportunities for publishing. But the AHP project also enabled the mentoring of the next generation of scholars by experienced academics, who guide the young ones and expose them to prevailing human and intellectual resources that could broaden and sharpen their outlook. Together with senior scholars across the continent, we enabled the eventual emergence of a large pool of humanities fellows on the African continent. Equally fulfilling were platforms the AHP provided me and other senior scholars to give well-researched inputs at fellows’ meetings and mentorship workshops at chosen sites in Africa, where we dealt with crosscutting themes that resonate with African humanities in general.

The breadth of issues I discuss in this book has been enabled also by the multiple positions I have held over more than a quarter-century as a scholar and professor at the Linguistics Department of the University of Ghana; researcher; university deputy vice chancellor for academic and student affairs, University of Ghana; and thereafter vice chancellor of Ghana’s biggest private university, Central University. The latter position was interrupted when I was appointed Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education in the government of Nana Akufo-Addo. Before then, I had the privilege of appointment to visiting professorship and fellowship positions in various universities around the world.

The papers in this work are largely from the perspectives of scholar and researcher, but there are a few I have articulated from the standpoint of administrator, particularly those presented between 2017–2020. Even as an administrator and political appointee, I have remorselessly betrayed my research biases as a humanities scholar or ethnographer of communication, without disturbing the general drive by governments toward the sciences in tertiary institutions. Even though this publication is on humanities (in the sense of arts), I have occasionally drifted to Humanities with a capital H, which overlaps with the social sciences, since definitions and classifications have differed across various countries, academies, and universities. This is particularly relevant since I have oscillated between African Humanities in which the social sciences are integrated and the narrower definition with a small h, used in most parts of the USA. While the oscillation may smack of inconsistency, it enjoys the privilege of flexibility and all-inclusiveness, facilitating interdisciplinary perspectives where necessary. As you will find in the latter part of Chapter 2, the AHP for which I was an Associate Director for eight years, found the scope of its fellowship gradually widening to include scholars who straddle the arts and social sciences.

Issues

Essays selected for this book entail the exercise of power and domination that challenge the weak and vulnerable, compelling their recourse to survival instincts and assorted modes of protest. The protean spider, Ananse, folk hero in Ghana and most parts of the pan-African world, does not only spin its way across pivotal segments of the book; it provides a unified frame of reference that transposes fundamental issues in African humanities into turf wars of resistance, best dramatised at folk theatres. Tales and proverbs that intersperse this book are not contrived; they frame our theses and affirm their social provenance in the wit of one and the wisdom of many.

But the book also sets an informal tone, which partly reflects the context of its genesis as fireside dialogues, most of which were originally presented to live audiences at conferences and seminars. One paper presented at an auditorium in Accra was proffered in the context of performance intervals provided by storytellers, to celebrate Efua Sutherland, one of Ghana’s most influential playwrights and cultural icon who transformed tale-telling into a cultural movement.

Critical matters in the humanities I have raised in this book, are grouped in five interwoven sections. Section 1 covers issues of definition, scope, and disciplines normally classified as humanities. It also raises dangers entailed in promoting social exclusion by portraying humanities as a narrow, discrete entity. In addition, the unfortunate de-prioritisation of the humanities in limited funding settings comes up for discussion, which I exemplify with facts and statistics from Ghana’s foremost university, the University of Ghana, where in spite of minority enrolment in the sciences, the latter has an edge in funding and doctoral output. The relatively limited funding and output in the humanities, as shown by data, strengthens the case for extra efforts to bolster funding and research in the humanities. The section ends with a chapter that seeks to define the African people on the basis of cultural identity and a common heritage. I take the opportunity of a keynote speech I delivered at an international symposium of the African Studies Association, to discuss the significance of the African heritage in a world of globalisation. But, as I indicate, heritage is not solely a relic to be plucked and exhibited in museums. It can be revitalised to cope with contemporary challenges, including its rare use as a shield and armour in a battle for survival. The COVID-19 pandemic may be recent and ongoing, but the state of Ghana has partly used the heritage of textile rhetoric, to manage its impact and assert resilience in the African identity.

In Section 2, considerable attention is paid to historical issues that have constrained the optimum realisation and construction of excellence within the African academy, including issues of institutional autonomy, endemic impasses between the state and universities, knowledge construction, a skewed global academic order, as well as gender-based inequities in academic representation. Exemplifying from Ghana, we point to progressive directions in which universities have headed in the past two decades in attempts to promote a fairer representation of women. The final outcome is a formal advocacy we make for equality and all-inclusiveness in the global academy, where disadvantaged and marginalised groups, would join hands and be equally recognised in a new global order. As the chapter on gender indicates, fair opportunities given to women in an African university have changed the face of gender in leadership positions within the institution and the nation at large, conveying a poignant lesson: Until the lion learns to speak, tales of hunting will always favour the hunter.

The third section comprises updated lectures I gave on the platform of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, where in a J. B. Danquah Memorial lecture series, I highlighted a crosscutting dilemma confronting African countries: the management of language, literacy/illiteracy in public policy and democratic governance. While literacy is desirable, and resources should be optimally allocated to erase illiteracy, the prevalence of illiteracy and limited proficiency in the English language poses problems for active participation in democratic governance; and steps should be taken to ensure optimum participation in governance by an otherwise silent majority. The danger of systemic censorship in speech and expression through the choice of English as the sole language of governance in parts of Africa, smacks of ‘linguistic imperialism,’ and should give way to policies of accommodation, and the part cultivation of local languages in which knowledge is more spontaneously constructed. I use interaction from Ghana’s national legislature and local government to support discussions. But I also devote a chapter to magnates in Ghana’s political experience, particularly during the Kwame Nkrumah era, who in veiled modes of resistance, excelled in politics, subsisting more on street wisdom than academic qualifications.

Section 4 takes a critical look at the aesthetics of speaking in Africa, where proverb use and indigenous rhetoric are central to policy dissemination and effective mobilisation in contemporary settings. I touch on the strategic uses of proverbs, panegyrics and local rhetoric by modern-day presidents and their mouthpieces, to frame national and international policies and celebrate their affinity with the masses. The strategy is partly an extension of speech ways in local communities where speech does not attain its optimum flavour without embellishment with local speech aesthetics. The extension here includes the deployment of spokespeople and mouthpieces, who judiciously convey words meant for the public ear. The strategy also helps to boost the social power and charisma of patrons and people in power. I exemplify this with presidential aphorisms, as well as the deployment of presidential praise poets who declaim panegyrics and laudatory epithets in the modern nation state. As an example, the case of Kwame Nkrumah and his personal poet is tabled and discussed. Occasionally though, proverbs, allegories and eulogies associated with presidents are enmeshed in a crisis of interpretation, which is somehow resolved by the multiple meanings proverbs and panegyrics attract in situ.

While most of this section deals with the power of words to enhance charisma and social profile, part of it is devoted to an arsenal of pedestrian words and genres, available to the weak and socially deprived to cope with stress and domination. Interjections and folktales may be mundane but have succeeded in jolting tyranny in parts of Africa and preserving a sound democratic order. Classic examples in contemporary Ghana are showcased, where the weak have fired from their most lethal armoury, a simple interjection, and achieved a dramatic impact. To illustrate this, I look at how it is unsurprising that a simple incident in Ghana, aided by formidable social media, has promoted the mundane local word, tweaa, to global prominence.

Section 5, Outstanding humanists, explores the legacies of three celebrities I have personally encountered: two prominent humanities scholars and one musical performer who have had a tremendous impact on the performing arts in Africa: J. H. Kwabena Nketia, a world famous ethnomusicologist; Efua Sutherland, playwright and celebrated queen of the tale empire; and Agya Koo Nimo, a folk singer of tales.

Though most of the chapters in this book centre on Ghana, issues, institutions and personalities highlighted, including early patrons of the humanities, resonate with countries and cultures across Africa and beyond.

Historical icon

Throughout the book, the silhouette of one important personality moves in and out of pages: Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president. Snapshots of this global icon and Man of the Millennium are scattered across many chapters. Nkrumah, himself a humanities scholar, is variously depicted as a heroic statesman who inspired endless eulogy and praise chants; a visionary who promoted the pan-African identity and indigenous foundations of learning; and a founder of research academies as springboards for national development.

But Kwame Nkrumah is also seen through other lenses as a tyrant and dictator, who looked on fellow intellectuals and others with suspicion, and recklessly violated academic freedom and institutional autonomy in universities, clamping down on political dissent, and incarcerating opponents without due process.

Undisputed, though, was Nkrumah’s lifelong battle against domination through strategies of resistance that were partly steeped in the African heritage.

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend warm hands of appreciation to Fred Hendricks and Adigun Agbaje, Associate Directors of AHP, as well as Sandra Barnes, consultant to the AHP, who have been very supportive of this project, and made productive comments on the draft manuscript. I cannot thank enough the various academies and universities around the world, whose platforms and research facilities I used in constructing and disseminating earlier versions of knowledge assembled here, among them the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, the African Humanities Program, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford Humanities Centre, Indiana University, and the American Folklore Society.

The University of Ghana deserves special mention for bringing out the best in me and providing me with the best available human and intellectual resources. I highly appreciate the access to data and statistics on the university provided to me by the Office of the Pro-Vice Chancellor responsible for Research, Innovation and Development as well as the Public Affairs Directorate.

To my dear wife, Victoria, I say a big thank you for constant reminders that a book like this, was long overdue.

Kwesi Yankah

August, 2021

Section 1

Defining moments

1

Rising with the African Humanities

He who climbs a good tree, is given a push

This chapter is virtually an intellectual biography, that tells my story as a budding humanities scholar, who battled through odds helping to uplift African humanities to local as well as global attention. But it is also a story of uncertainties about the scope of the discipline and its economic worth, made worse on a continent that suffers negative stereotyping. The sudden emergence of the African Humanities Program (AHP) on the continent in 2009, and its constructive impact on the next generation of African scholars, has uplifted the quality of humanities research, and laid a firm foundation for fairness in the global perception of different knowledges. The chapter is an update of closing remarks I made at a Mentorship Project Workshop of the AHP in Kampala, soon after I left the AHP as Associate Director, and accepted appointment as Minister of State for Tertiary Education in Ghana.

I have been asked to make a few closing remarks about Scholarship on Humanities in Africa, and considering the short notice given me by the organisers, as an eleventh hour substitute, I thought the easiest way out is to step down the formality of the assignment, and rather transform this into a dialogue on the humanities, giving this a touch of my personal journey and reminiscences.

But I was also a little careful accepting this assignment, partly because of this new role or position that was unexpectedly conferred upon me, while I was looking the other way: from the position of a humanities scholar, a university administrator or head of a university, to the onerous position of a Minister of State for Tertiary Education in Ghana. In other words, from the position of a consumer of national educational policies laid out by government, to that of a policymaker: one who develops policy for the consumption of others, all in the interest of national development. In such situations of role reversal, there is doubtless a considerable amount of empathising: putting oneself in the shoes of the other, if only because you once wore those shoes.

If you were a humanities scholar, well aware that policymakers gave the humanities a raw deal very much to your concern, now here you are on the other side of the podium, you be in the position of the Akan proverb: Kɔm ma yɛnhwɛ [Let’s see your dance].

The truth of course is that until eight or so years ago, when I was invited to be part of the African Humanities Program, I had not thought of ever having to formally determine what constitutes the humanities. In 1988, during a postdoctoral year at Stanford Humanities Centre, a relation living in our neighbourhood sought to understand what humanities were all about, and all she said was: it probably has to do with subjects or disciplines that deal with human emotions: of happiness, sympathy, sadness, compassion, and so on. Even though that would not be a formal definition, it appeared to have touched on certain aspects of the human experience that evoke reflection and emotions: music, words, argumentation, dance, theatre, language, religion, among others, and that also tie humanity together. Do the disciplines or experiences that knit humanity together, or that generate human ties, have a unique character of their own?

Then came 2010 or so, when I was requested to give a cultural orientation to newly arrived American staff, coming to work at the US Embassy in Ghana. In seeking to demonstrate a significant difference between the American culture and African cultures, I drew their attention to what happens when you go to a supermarket or big store in America, where you would simply check the price tag on the item you needed, say US$3.50 and pay for it – no questions asked. But look for the same item in a market in Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Lagos or Accra, and that is where the entire encounter between buyer and seller turns from a mechanical engagement into a performance, where conversations are struck, friendship is cultivated, and the human factor enters the fray. Buying and selling are not simply for profit, gain or loss. Instead, the quality of the transaction may be measured by the human ties it has generated: the celebration of social and human values – generosity, eloquence, altruism, empathy, good neighbourliness, philanthropy, and so forth.

While the American transaction was almost entirely business driven, this other one subsisted on human ties. Negotiation is not simply a win or lose; it is the type of interaction where there are no winners and there are no losers. Otherwise, why would a young boy selling snails on a highway in Konongo in Ghana plead with you to buy the burden off his head because he has to pay his school fees, and buying his stuff is the only way he can fund his education? And that simple plea, eloquently conveyed, turns on your generosity, and you probably dispensed with five cedis in the Ghanaian currency.

Thus, when art and creativity are woven into human experience, an entire transaction takes on a different character, and human ties are negotiated, reinforced, or even severed. Experience here then tends to appeal to the soul.

Of late, a College of Humanities, has been established at the University of Ghana in an attempt to bring together the arts, languages and social studies faculties. Whereas the Arts Faculty has consisted of the language departments, classics, philosophy, the study of religions and the performing arts; the Faculty of Social Studies consists of political science, sociology, social work, geography, psychology, history, economics, etc.

Definition

In academic circles, Humanities since the sixteenth century, has come to be associated with the rediscovery of the ancient world of Greece and Rome, and with the discovery of that world in Greek and Latin literature, history, and philosophy – a world that was considered fresh and beautiful, and that portrays man at his best. To this were later added grammar, rhetoric and dialectics. One scholar, Claude Bissell would simply say the term ‘humanities’ refers to what man has created and fashioned out of words; the best that has ever been thought and said by man (Bissell 1977, 3). This would be