How former president Rawlings pioneered heritage tourism in Ghana — Quartz Africa

Flight lieutenant in the 1980s Jerry John Rawlings Introduction of cultural tourism as a means of economic development in Ghana. On his initiative, Ghana’s fortresses and castles –Where enslaved Africans were forcibly placed on slave ships to cross the Atlantic in America for slavery – they became cultural heritage sites for tourism. It united Africans and African descendants who lived in the diaspora.

Rawlings was Ghana’s youngest and longest-serving leader after independence. He led military uprisings in 1979 and 1981 and was president-elect from 1992 to 2000. When Rawlings came to power in 1981, Ghana faced numerous problems Challenges. Food was scarce, medicines unavailable, over a million Ghanaians were deported from Nigeria, and the economy was almost bankrupt. Rawlings understood the capital investment needed to rebuild the economy.

However, Ghana’s 1979 revolution criticized the former regime’s ties to the West and Western imperialism, so that private investment dried up. Eastern bloc nations gave minimal support. Rawlings was forced to secure support from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a tactical assent that proved critical to the legacy.

Rawlings rarely gave interviews. Abbreviated this interview He spoke to him publicly for the first time about cultural tourism and development. It includes several discussions in 2018 and 2019.

How did you come up with this innovative idea – to use cultural heritage tourism for development?

JR: I’ve always been interested in culture and art. (He shows me his childhood art.) As a child I was an artist.

At that time (the 1980s) Ghana was politically stable. Cocoa, gold and wood were our most important raw materials. The tourism idea was unplanned. But I’ve worked with a lot of progressive people. For example Valerie Sackey (Ministry of Communication) and Dr. Ben Abdallah (Minister for Culture and Tourism) who contacted me with the idea. They targeted the cultural heritage such as the forts and castles, the natural heritage, the performance and the arts Panafest.

Courtesy of the Rawlings Archival Foundation

Rawlings reads a placard at a 1981 demonstration at Nicholson Stadium in Accra.

To be honest, I was surprised by the response. I remember when I was young (Kwame) Nkrumah was the star of Africa and black Africa at that. I knew African Americans who came to Ghana. We had personalities like George Padmore and WEB you Bois. I was familiar with Malcolm X. and Martin Luther King. I expected that those who visited us would want to get to know Africa better. After all, I was a young student when Muhammad Ali came to my school. As a result, I saw all of this as part of a natural flow of events – even if it brought with it some resentment. Many had a complex relationship with Ghana. After leaving school, I saw this firsthand as I frolic around town. African Americans struggled to come to terms with Africans participating in the transatlantic slave trade and selling their ancestors into slavery. It was a very mixed reaction.

When I was in office I didn’t think that African Americans traveling to Ghana should be revived. I left the matter to those who advocated cultural tourism and the various ministries.

Can you be called a pragmatist to reconcile the revolution with the demands of the “real world”?

JR: We had little money to invest in what is important for stability – a stable climate, water, roads. But we did well as tourism became our third largest foreign currency earner – even though we didn’t invest in tourism per se. Ghana was seen as a place where the black had reason to be proud and was not taken advantage of NeocolonialismSo that was something in and of itself. The 1979 revolution also restored justice and respect. In our case, this pilgrimage was a connection to blackness, to the African woman.

Were there any challenges?

JR: For sure. The African diasporan presence raised the issue of citizenship and nationality. This created problems including Making amends for the transatlantic slave trade and slavery, which also created polarization between our own people and African descendants. Still, I would like to mention something interesting. Gradually, African Americans gained recognition in various fields, for example, sports and entertainment. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, some were so disgusted by their treatment by the US government that they offered to enter the Olympics on Ghana’s “ticket”.

REUTERS / Siphiwe Sibeko

Former President of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings

Unfortunately, the African-American perception of Africa soon changed along with the Ethiopian famine. While they had previously sympathized with the struggles in Africa and defiantly wanted to identify with the continent, this feeling suddenly collapsed. Terrible scenes on television – overwhelming images of flies covered Ethiopians with bloated stomachs – discouraged many African Americans from identifying with Africa.

As head of state, you worked and lived in Osu Castle. How was it?

JR: I was often too busy to think about the (slave trade and colonial) past. I saw my black people suffer. As I traveled north, I saw that my people had no water to flush their toilets and Guinea worm was everywhere. The pressure of economic and social injustice was on me! Don’t forget that I wasn’t always in the castle. I was always on the move. So was (my wife) Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings. I had water, electricity and a bed to sleep in. What more could I have asked for? Why should I spend money renovating the castle? Many Ghanaians did not have basic needs. I didn’t even have the money to buy bullets for my soldiers in Liberia or to protect people during the violence in the north.

How do you see the Tourism and Heritage Development Initiative today?

Ghana is well received. Over the years, the return” has become increasingly known. Ghana has taken a unique position because of our history, independence, nkrumah, the assertion of blacks in Africa’s liberation struggle and blacks in general.

We are aware of our responsibility to ourselves, our African fellow citizens and those in the diaspora. I’m not into (financial) reparations. Those who were taken during the transatlantic slave trade have to choose. When they return, we should offer them land and dual citizenship as restorative and social justice. Diasporans and development don’t have the money to develop in Africa. Let us give them the respect they want, which is due. This is the beginning of everything. Then other things will follow. In this way, they can also fight for the continent … help us gain access to what the continent deserves. Do you see? It should be so.

Addendum: President Rawlings died when this article was due to go to press. It is published with the support of the Rawlings family. Thanks to them Magazine for cultural tourism for republication permission.

Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann, Associate Professor and Director, Christiansborg Archaeological Heritage Project & Adjunct Lecturer, University of Massachusetts Amherst

This article is republished by The conversation under a Creative Commons license. read this original article.