Building the Ghanaian Nation-State: Kwame Nkrumah’s Symbolic Nationalism

By H. Fuller

Ghana has always held a position of primacy in the African political and historical imagination, due in no small part to the indelible impression left president Kwame Nkrumah. This study examines the symbolic strategies he used to construct the Ghanaian state through currency, stamps, museums, flags, and other public icons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Dec 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781137448583

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BUILDING THE GHANAIAN NATION-STATE

Kwame Nkrumah’s Symbolic Nationalism

Harcourt Fuller

BUILDING THE GHANAIAN NATION-STATE

Copyright © Harcourt Fuller, 2014.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2014 by

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®

in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,

175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.

Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN: 978–1–137–44856–9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fuller, Harcourt, author.

Building the Ghanaian nation-state : Kwame Nkrumah’s symbolic nationalism / by Harcourt Fuller.

   pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978–1–137–44856–9 (hardback : alk. paper)

1. Nkrumah, Kwame, 1909–1972—Influence. 2. Nationalism—Ghana. 3. Symbolism in politics—Ghana. 4. Ghana—Politics and government—1957–1979. I. Title.

DT512.3.N57F85 2014

966.7051—dc23                              2014020338

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

First edition: December 2014

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Foreword: Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah—His Symbolic Nationalism and Nation Building

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Timeline of Important Dates in the Life of Kwame Nkrumah

Ghanaian Premiers, 1951—Present

Introduction: The Symbolism of Ghanaian Nationalism

1 Banal Symbols of the New Nation-State

2 Philatelic Nationalism

3 Economic Nationalism

4 Civitatis Ghaniensis Conditor

5 Exhibiting the Nation

6 Monumental Nationalism

7 Pan-African Nationalism

8 The Downfall of Kwame Nkrumah

9 The Death and Symbolic Resurrection of Kwame Nkrumah

10 From Redeemer to Redeemed?

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

MAP

TABLES

PLATES AND FIGURES

Plates and figures appear between chapters 5 and 6. All captions and sources for the corresponding figures are located on the recto side of the plate

Plate 1

Plate 2

Plate 3

Plate 4

Plate 5

Plate 6

Plate 7

Plate 8

Plate 9

Plate 10

FOREWORD: GHANA’S KWAME NKRUMAH—HIS SYMBOLIC NATIONALISM AND NATION BUILDING

The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked [up] with the total liberation of the African continent.¹

–Kwame Nkrumah

As one of the few African journalists, who had the opportunity of meeting and interviewing Dr. Kwame Nkrumah during his exile in the Guinean capital of Conakry in the late 1960s, and having written three books on Nkrumah during my academic career, I am pleased to see young scholars such as Dr. Harcourt Fuller produce novel and exciting (re)interpretations of the history and enduring legacy of Ghana’s first democratically elected leader, who was voted Man of the Millennium by BBC listeners in Africa at the dawn of the new millennium. Coming only a few years after both the fiftieth anniversary of Ghana’s independence, as well as the centennial of Nkrumah’s birth, Building the Ghanaian Nation-State: Kwame Nkrumah’s Symbolic Nationalism is a book of historical and political importance, which represents a largely ignored dimension of the Nkrumah story.

Upon leading his country to independence from Britain on March 6, 1957, some of the political ideals promoted by Nkrumah, including his lifelong quest for uniting the African continent, prompted him to make the much-heralded and oft-quoted statement above. Within the context of African history, Dr. Fuller has accurately noted that Nkrumah’s status as one of modern Africa’s most iconic personalities—who is seen as a benevolent nationalist by some and as a political dictator by others—cannot be overemphasized. Veteran scholars of African, and specifically Ghanaian history, have written voluminously and debated passionately about Kwame Nkrumah’s record as a nationalist, Pan-Africanist, and international statesman, and in so doing, have kept his name and history ever-present in the academic literature and popular press. From reading the immense secondary literature, it seems that every archival collection within and outside of Ghana, every article and book written anywhere in the world about Nkrumah, everything ever written by Nkrumah that was not destroyed in the 1966 coup, and every firsthand account of the Osagyfo, have been used and analyzed to exhaustion.

It is difficult to imagine, therefore, what new sources and (re)interpretations about Kwame Nkrumah’s political ideology and practices have yet to be discovered, analyzed, and made available to the academic community and those interested in the history of Ghana. Luckily for us, Professor Fuller has unearthed a cache of omnipresent yet surprisingly neglected and unappreciated historical evidence, which he has used to vigorously research and reinterpret the history of postindependence Ghana as it relates to the country’s first president. The book’s chapters are underpinned throughout by Dr. Fuller’s developed theoretical framework, which he variously terms symbolic nationalism, symbols of nationalism, and symbols of nationhood. In addition to the well-known means of nation-building, Fuller argues, Nkrumah also relied on symbolic nationalism to attempt to construct and forge a new national identity for the citizens of Ghana from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. Dr. Fuller’s examination of Nkrumah’s use of these unique tools of spreading nationalist propaganda through the political iconography embedded in such semiotic mediums as Ghanaian money, postage stamps, museum exhibits, monuments, Akan Adinkra symbols, the national anthem, emblems, the national flag, and political party flags, is simply unprecedented. As a Ghanaian and an Akan who knows the importance of symbolism to Africans, as expressed through mediums such as Adinkra symbols embossed and printed on traditional cloth (my father was a Kente weaver), as well as gold weights and proverbs, I can assert that this book is an important contribution to African history, politics, and cultural studies.

The analysis of these kinds of visual sources and their meanings presents another dimension to the history of Nkrumah and postindependence Ghana that we have seldom seen before. For example, Professor Fuller analyzes the self-promoting minting of Nkrumah’s likeness on Ghanaian coins, which were encircled by the coined Latin term, Civitatis Ghaniensis Conditor, or the Founder of the State of Ghana. This and other symbolic slogans created a firestorm of accusations leveled at Nkrumah by his foreign and domestic critics, who viewed them as evidence of Nkrumah’s insatiable appetite for acquiring and maintaining political power. Always cognizant of his public image, Nkrumah used the international and domestic media to defend the minting on his likeness of Ghana’s new coins, currency, and postage stamps. He argued that he was forced to take these actions given Ghana’s high rate of illiteracy, which compelled him to use visual signs and symbols to convince the people that their country was really free, and that he, and not Queen Elizabeth II, was now the ruler in charge of Ghana. Fuller’s interpretation of other important symbols of Ghanaian nationalism, such as the various versions of the national anthem, the national flag, the exhibits established at the national and regional museums, and the many monuments and statues erected across the country, offer a rare insight into the construction, contestation, and continuation of the Ghanaian nation-building project, with Nkrumah as its main protagonist.

While the book focuses on the domestic scene, Fuller’s articulation of Ghanaian symbolic nationalism under Nkrumah’s leadership reveals the intricate symbolic, yet substantive connections between Nkrumah’s national, Pan-African, and international politics, chiefly the Cold War, the Third World, and Non-Aligned Movements. The guest list of international dignitaries who attended Ghana’s independence inauguration signaled from the beginning that Nkrumah intended to make his mark on the world stage. These foreign guests included then US Vice-President Richard Nixon and Mrs. Pat Nixon; Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mrs. Coretta Scott King; future Jamaican prime minister Norman Manley, and several others. Initially, the United States viewed the support of Ghana’s independence, and Nkrumah’s leadership, as important to its counter-communism campaign in the Third World. Nkrumah not only welcomed, but also courted American financial support of his economic development programs, the poster child of which was the Volta River/Akosombo Hydroelectric Dam. President Dwight D. Eisenhower endorsed the program, and persuaded Henry Kaiser of Kaiser Aluminum to build the dam, which also provided much-needed electricity to neighboring West African countries.

For its part, the Soviet Union also tried to make inroads into newly independent Ghana, by providing the Nkrumah government with technical training, equipment, and financial assistance. By analyzing the iconography and archival documents associated with Nkrumah-era postage stamps and currency, for example, Dr. Fuller presents readers with a seldom-seen picture of Ghana’s most significant development projects to date, which were at the heart of the contestation for African hearts and minds by the Cold War superpowers.

Dr. Fuller’s treatment of such symbols of nationhood as postage stamps, currency, and monuments from Ghana and other countries to explain the final years and legacy of Nkrumah is not only refreshing from a methodological standpoint, but also reveals another dimension of this history that other scholars have not had the vision to pursue. In the final chapters of the book, Dr. Fuller examines Nkrumah’s downfall in 1966, his death in exile in 1972, and, above all, his subsequent symbolic resurrection, whereby his supporters have clamored for a return to some of his nationalist principles and continental leadership, while others have remained critical of his legacy. As a graduate of the Lincoln University’s Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, and a self-proclaimed Non-Denominational Christian and a Marxist Socialist, Nkrumah would have been amused by the notion of his symbolic resurrection, as Christians believe that the act of resurrection is reserved only for Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Professor Fuller has worked very hard to make this book very useful in the context of African studies and the more specific history of Ghana. It is a publication that researchers as well as teachers and students will find invaluable and enjoyable to read. They will find that Building the Ghanaian Nation-State offers a fresh perspective on the history and legacy of Kwame Nkrumah—the twentieth century’s most pointed African nationalist and Pan-Africanist leader, who rubbed shoulders with other iconic Pan-Africanists from the African Diaspora, including George Padmore, C. L. R. James, Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the 1960s, Nkrumah was very vocal in his efforts to unite Africa through the Ethiopia-based erstwhile Organization of Africa Unity (OAU).

Indeed, the OAU was founded in 1963 by Nkrumah and such dynamic African leaders as Presidents Julius K. Nyerere of Tanzania; Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya; Kenneth K. Kaunda of Zambia; William V. S. Tubman of Liberia; Sékou Touré of Guinea; Modibo Keita of Mali; Léopold Sédar Senghor of Senegal; among others. In 2002, to give the organization a fresh lease on life, the OAU was renamed the African Union (AU), still with its headquarters in Ethiopia but housed in an ultramodern building that was built and donated to the continental body by the Chinese government. In his final analysis, Dr. Fuller discusses how the erection of a golden statue of Nkrumah at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa is further evidence of Nkrumah’s enduring relevance to postcolonial Africa’s past, present, and future. As with all things related to Nkrumah, as Professor Fuller reveals, there was tremendous debate in both Ghana and Ethiopia regarding whether or not Nkrumah, as opposed to the former Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie (or some other noteworthy statesman), merited being immortalized in front of the continental organization that he was partially responsible for creating.

Above all, Building the Ghanaian Nation-State is a book that brings to light several aspects of the symbolic nationalist policies of Kwame Nkrumah, which, combined with other nationalist political programs of his leadership, enabled him to play significant roles in Ghanaian as well as in continental affairs. Nkrumah’s symbolic but real Pan-Africanist record included placing at the disposal of liberation movements much-needed resources to fight colonialism, and the draconian racialized system of the apartheid regimes in Africa, particularly in South Africa, which imprisoned Nelson Mandela, himself an iconic leader, and several of his colleagues for decades. In addition to addressing the South African problem through symbols of Ghanaian nationhood, Kwame Nkrumah commemorated the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected prime minister of the Republic of the Congo, and promoted Ghana’s attempt to remedy the crisis in the Congo, through postal iconography and museum exhibits, as Fuller analyzes in this book. This underscores Nkrumah’s use of symbols of nationhood to promote his Pan-Africanist ideals and preoccupations.

In summary, this publication makes a serious contribution to the history of African nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and African biography in general, with particular emphasis on Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah. Readers will appreciate Fuller’s use of novel and rich photographs, illustrations, and archival material that have been provided by various Ghanaian sources, including private collections, the Ministry of Information, the Museums and Monuments Board, Manhyia Palace Museum, the Ghana Armed Forces Museum, Ghana Post Company, the Bank of Ghana, and the Public Records and Archives Administration Department, as well as continental sources from the African Union, and other sources from Britain and the United States. Many of these visual sources and their associated written archival material have never been incorporated into an academic work previously. Unequivocally, I commend Professor Fuller for producing a very significant treatise that will spark further intellectual interest in how Kwame Nkrumah and other CPP members utilized symbolic nationalism to construct an official narrative of the new nation-state, and how the Asantes, Gas, and outgoing British colonial officials, as well as post-Nkrumah governments in Ghana, other African countries. and internationally have used similar symbols of nationhood to rewrite, reinterpret, or reaffirm this Nkrumah-centric version of Ghanaian history.

Indeed, all of the accomplishments and challenges of the late Ghanaian leader, coupled with the various books and articles that continue to be published about him, go a long way in demonstrating axiomatically that, in line with the thinking of the members of the Ghana Young Pioneers Movement, maybe Nkrumah, in symbolic terms, never really dies intellectually, but, of course, physically!

A. B. ASSENSOH, PHD,

Professor Emeritus, Indiana University-Bloomington & Courtesy Professor Emeritus, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A wise person once said that life is a journey and not a destination. I owe a debt of eternal gratitude to my family, friends, and colleagues who have paved the way and laid the foundation so that I would have the opportunity to embark on this journey, which has taken me to three continents and three countries (the United States, Britain, and Ghana) to complete this book.

My interest in the history and culture of Ghana actually began high up in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, where, through my father, I discovered our family’s Akan roots as one of the Windward Maroon clans of the Rio Grande Valley. I therefore would first like to thank the Maroon peoples of Jamaica, past and present, for preserving and sustaining their West African ancestry for over three and a half centuries. Thanks also to the people of Ghana—The Gateway of Africa—for (re)introducing me to their history, society, and culture, as well as for giving me the opportunity to connect with the source of my Maroon ancestry. In particular, I thank Aunty Emily Asiedu, for her consistent support of my research, for her hospitality, memorable meals, and conversations over her kitchen table. Thanks also to Bright Kojo Botwe of the Ghana National Archives (The Public Records and Archives Administration Department—PRAAD) for all his assistance in locating, photocopying, and sending me archival material. Takwia Manu also facilitated my presentation of the research in one of the seminars at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon. Peter Tagoe of the Ghana Post Company Limited was also instrumental in providing me with philatelic archival material, which was thought to be nonexistent, but which literally saved my project. Special thanks also to the Bank of Ghana, Emmanuel Quainoo at the Ghana Armed Forces Museum, Frimpong Gordon at the Manhyia Palace Museum, and Fati Mango. Ivor Agyeman-Duah of the Ghanaian High Commission in London also provided me with valuable research information and feedback. I am also greatly indebted to the Reverend Dr. Kumi Dwamena and Alfred Aporih, whose valuable mentorship has sustained me and my research over the years. I would especially like to thank Merrick Posnansky, whose writings and personal conversations have inspired me to utilize nontraditional sources such as postage stamps in historical writing.

There are also several colleagues in the International History Department and the LSE IDEAS/Cold War Studies Centre at the London School of Economics whom I would like to thank for their scholastic support and camaraderie. In particular, I would like to thank Odd Arne Westad for his rigorous guidance, exceptional encouragement, and confidence in my research. I’d also like to thank Antony Best, Joanna Lewis, N. Piers Ludlow, Kirsten Schulze, Svetozar Rajak, Michael Cox, Tiha Franulovic, Tanya Harmer, Nayna Bhatti, Demetra Frini, John Breuilly, and John Hutchinson. Thanks to Catherine Eagleton and Joe Cribb at the British Museum; my former colleagues at the Association for the Study of Ethnicity & Nationalism (ASEN) and the editors of Nations and Nationalism; and David Beech and Paul Skinner at the Philatelic Collections Department at the British Library. Mandy Banton, an archivist at the British National Archives (the Public Records Office), also greatly assisted me in identifying relevant and significant primary documents within their collections. Other colleagues whom I would like to thank for their assistance include John Parker and Tom McCaskie at SOAS, as well as Eric Helleiner, Nigel Dodd, and Tim Unwin.

Ghana Studies Association hosted the presentation of a chapter of this book at an African Studies Association meeting. Thanks to my colleagues at the City College of New York (where my interest in Africa was sparked) including Marina Fernando, Chudi Uwazurike, Gerardo Rènique, Jim McGovern, Elsy Arieta Padro, Jeanette Adams, and Joe Brown. Thanks also to colleagues at Boston University, particularly Linda Heywood and John Thornton in the African American Studies Program; Jennifer Yanco at the West African Research Association (WARA), and Barbara Brown in the Outreach Program of the African Studies Center. Emmanuel Acheampong and Emmanuel Asiedu in the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University also gave me insightful feedback about the research, especially on organizing the Nkrumah centennial symposium at Connecticut College. I owe a special debt of gratitude to colleagues at Connecticut College, especially Leo Garofalo and Cathy Stock in the Department of History. Mohammed Hassen Ali, Michele Reid-Vazquez, and other colleagues in the Department of History at Georgia State University have also given me the opportunity to present and develop parts of the book.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge that my early research for this book was supported by funds from a variety of sources, including Mr. Maurice Pinto, the University of London Central Research Fund and the Convocation Trust Award, the LSE International History Department Research Students Travel Grant and the Postgraduate Travel Fund, the Directors of the LSE IDEAS/Cold War Studies Centre, the Newby Trust Ltd, and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library and Museum.

ABBREVIATIONS