change of perspective
the age of african awakening
What would the African continent look like today if there had never been colonial rule? This question continuously occupied my mind during my time in Ghana. Walking through Accra, I wonder how the city’s landscape would appear. But this thought experiment can go much further back: What country would actually exist on today’s Ghana if the arbitrary borders drawn by Europeans at the Congo Conference (Berlin Conference, 1884/85) had never taken place? What country, along with its culture and systems, would I be getting to know here if history had taken a different course?
I met Morris as a photographer at Arise, but he is much more than that: a young artist with a great interest in history, his own culture, and society. One day, a few months ago, we suddenly transitioned from a simple conversation into what felt like an all-encompassing discussion about colonialism and its traces, present-day Ghana, and alternative versions of the African continent.
For this reason, I wanted to have an in-depth conversation with him once again and share his voice and perspective on this topic. Additionally, he is currently working on an art project (Colony of Congo), a collection that aims to draw attention to the still prevalent system: how little remains of pre-colonial cultural assets, knowledge, and methods. How much “African identity” and culture have been lost due to Western influence. How many African states are still entangled in colonial chains…
“Colony of Congo. It started as an experiment. Colonization is definitely one of the biggest things that have happened to us. The Congo really stands as an image of Africa. When you look at Congo and all the things that Congo has been through from the past, it gives you an idea of African oppression.
It’s not really about Congo. It’s not just Congo that’s suffering. But I was thinking, Congo would be a good picture to tell people what the problem is. It’s just good to have that image of Congo as that image of Africa: This is how people were being treated in the past. They were enslaved on their own land. And then captured. Now they are not being enslaved anymore with the chains, but they are being enslaved to the mind. My whole point is to use new methods to communicate old ideas to the modern world. It’s like a contrast between the old life and now.“
How are the influences of colonization still present? What remains of the oppression or this „enslavement of the mind“?
“First of all, Africa’s wealth is not being managed by Africans. Most of it is being managed by western industries and foreign powers. The system, the Western system is still there. It contains the spiritual identity or the spiritual way of life. It contains our education system. It contains our financial systems, social systems, political systems. So far, the industries, the policies and all those systems are still there.“
That becomes clear when we take a look at the chocolate industry, for example. According to the Fairtrade Foundation, Ghana and the Ivory Coast account for 60 percent of global cocoa production. But their farmers earn less than six percent of the chocolate industry’s total global income. Production and the most valuable parts of the value chain are located outside the continent, meaning that most of the value and many resources are shifted abroad. Even if all the resources originally come from Ghana, less than 1 percent of the chocolate is being produced there. This is an example of an industry where there is a huge imbalance between the Global North and the Global South. Between countries that provide resources and don’t earn from them and countries that get rich from their industry. You get the feeling that all resources are only extracted to make money, but none of the money or even the jobs actually stay in the country…
How would politics be without colonization?
“What history tells me is that there used to be villages, small small ones. And everyone had their own administrative way of governing. So now there’s a new political system, it’s based off the British style of governance. That wasn’t how it was before. I think it the political system would have been totally different because it was more based off on kings like monarchs ruling and there wasn’t a president.
The political system of Africa right now is foreign. And if they were left to work on their old systems it wouldn’t have been how it was. Maybe from the kings it would have transitioned into a whole new different African style of ruling? But this didn’t happen because they were given a whole new political way of governing a country. I believe that the political atmosphere of Africa would have been way better if they had developed it in their own style, in their own ways and looking at their own problems. Right now, the political scene doesn’t fix most of the issues that are there.“
Please tell me something about the old system, about the traditional way of life…
“So because I was raised in the village, I learnt a lot about our own culture. Because during that time, there was not really much influence of Western education where I was raised. In the village they have not really been influenced by westernization as compared to the cities. So for me, I really took a lot from that whole setting. When you live in a Ghanaian typical village, the kind of life that you’d be introduced to is traditional and really natural. It makes you always have this sense of identity. You’re always aware of things and yourself, but when you come to the city it’s a big separation.”
Based on what I’ve already learned, I can roughly imagine how life and being raised in the village works. But what are these traditional things specifically? What are examples?
“For example, at night in every house, an elderly person, like a grandfather, would sit with children in something like a circle. And then he would just start talking about anything. It could be proverbs, it could be stories, it could be anything. Then we are just happy to hear from them. At night the storytelling alone brings some sense of connectedness between you and your history. You learn your history through your grandfather. It’s not just stories, they could just bring anything up. It could sound like this: „when we were kids we went to the farm and then we saw a big figure that looked like something in the air“ — they are just trying to tell you something that happened way back, maybe in the 1920s. It gives you remembrance of your history your culture and all that. When you come to the cities this feeling is rare.”
How long have you lived in the village?
“I was born in the year 2000. When I was born, I was taken to the village because my mom lived in Accra. My village is Kibi, in the Eastern Region of Ghana — that’s also where the president is from. My mum wanted to be able to take care of me, so she had to work here and then keep me there with my grandparents. I spent a long time there. I came to Accra when I was 12 years old. When I came to Accra, I started school. I realised the big change that was here. Because the first day, I remember I was in the car and I was asking, why are there so many buildings? That was the first thing that I really paid attention to. Because back in the village, there’s a lot of trees, hills. You can see the green. You can feel the green. Behind that came a lot of cars, a lot of houses, a lot of people. Time went on and then I realised, okay this is what makes the village the village and this one makes the city the city. Through history, we learned that Europeans came here around 1471, the Portuguese. And then they started trade with the locals. That trade went into a whole different network of development they brought religion, education, they brought a whole new culture for the people that had their own culture. But what’s crazy is that the people accepted it.”
Why do you think some people accepted the new culture?
“Okay, let me get my point. If you are a foreigner and you come to a new region, you have to be very cordial, right? They really welcomed the foreigners. That is this niceness about Africans, they are really welcoming. So, they first welcomed them, not thinking of their culture going to change or anything. Just with a nice intention. Then it changed or maybe let’s say it developed into a kind of business friendship, trading minerals and gold for example.
So it’s like that friendship, but it changed. One felt powerful over one. So one had to lessen their power for another. I also believe that in some parts of Africa, some of them were like, no, this is powerful, we don’t want it. And then they had to bring the force, like the coercion, and force them to take the cultures. Because when I study history, I know that in some parts of Africa they had to use a lot of force to change that.
It’s sad when you learn about this in history. You realize that there was a different kind of thinking, a whole different identity of the people. That’s why I said I don’t even feel 100% African. I know that there are some things that I cannot even express. Honestly, I cannot express them because first of all my mode of language, my mode of communication is not local to me. Our mode of expression is not native— that is one big thing. Trying to express an idea in English when maybe the idea that you have is really native to you and you want to find a native expression to it, you have to still put it in the Western context.”
So which language is your mother tongue?
“Twi, Akan language. That’s what we used to talk. And my Twi has died since I came to Accra. It’s crazy, actually. I still do speak Twi. But I don’t have that deep understanding to really express myself. That’s what is really native to you. That’s what your mouth got used to from the beginning, right? So in any situation, that’s the best way you can express yourself with any idea.
So a lot of identities are not correct because first of all their expression is in a foreign language, it’s a foreign context. I feel like we are not ourselves.”
Is this why you say that it’s more authentic to live in a village?
“I went to my village in December last year. And I saw my cousins talking to me in Twi. The depth in the kids — I was overwhelmed. They were using some expressions in the Twi that I would say is for the grown-ups. When you talk to kids here in the city, in Accra, I realise that they’re speaking Twi and are always mixing it up with some English words. I even told them, you guys don’t know how blessed you are!”
What do you feel when you hear them talking?
“How do I feel? Oh, I feel happy. What I think can be good is taking those two identities, your native identity and the foreign identity that you definitely come into. Using both of those identities to your own good. If someone just wants to be on the native side language-wise and culture thinking and everything — It’s good, right? But most people right now have really lost touch with that kind of living. The best thing to do is just to have those two identities and then pick which side to be with most of the time. But honestly, I just wish Africans were more on the native side. Because the more we go towards that foreign side, the more we lose ourselves.
It’s just hard for me to see most people not being truly who they are. I know for a fact that Africans are way better than who they are right now. All Africans, they have more potential. But to see where we are now is just not enough. Due to all the influences.
Foreign influences are good if they are introducing our culture to your culture, right?”
You mean exchange on an eye to eye level?
“That would have been the best solution to Africa’s issues. But the narrative was: take away your spirituality, take away your education, take away your family system, take away everything.
You don’t have to go back to your old system. It’s crazy how people take this for granted, something that our forefathers have lived on, now it’s wiped away.
What happens is, people losing their identities. African arts losing its quality. Because when you look at the old art of Africa, it will be so new to you. They really had the inspiration from a very deep or rich source. This is not happening anymore, these deep artworks with that expression, that iconography, that was in african art before. When you look at the modern art, it doesn’t even hit you. You see a chair that you sit on — now it’s just a chair that you can sit on, but when you look at a chair from that time you see there’s an animal head, a crocodile head and maybe this side is a lizard tail — they will tell you, this is from a proverb.
I want to make some kind of art that hits you. But I can’t do it because of what I’ve been influenced to. I have to always inspire myself from art from the past, thoughts and proverbs.
Now that concept is gone. There’s a whole new way that we view the world. The foreign influences really didn’t just take away the identities, but also for example our arts or our spirits. Sometimes I get too passionate thinking and talking about these things. When I talk to my friends about this, they say „you’re always on this historic thinking and modern stuff, this is the new system, can’t you see it’s working?“ But there are so many things that are really messed up because of this whole „foreign friendship“. If we all kept our cultures and then we were working on it, it would have been so nice. I just want to imagine how Africa would have been if we were just left to work on ourselves?”
So, what are examples? How did religion look like before the missionaries brought Christianity?
“Where I grew up in the village, they did ancestral kind of worship. They didn’t believe in Jesus before the Europeans. They knew a master. All they knew was that, there definitely has to be someone who’s controlling everything. They also thought that there was one figure above them. But their mode of connecting to that master was the difference. For the African traditional religion, it was using the ancestors to connect to the master. Or they used natural elements to connect to the master because they believed that all these natural things were connected somehow. That’s why they used their ancestors, they are also part of the natural elements.
That was what was there until they brought Christianity.”
Do some people still practice these natural religions?
“Just a few of them. Not like how it was before. For example me, I’m not practicing the African traditional religion, I’m not practicing the foreign modern one, it’s really sad.
There are also old, old traditions that they’ve been practicing for long, like coronations. Some of the traditions were kept but most of them were forgotten. It’s like little pieces that are being left. And it’s hard, you can’t really know what the African traditional religion was like. What they really used to do.
When I go to the villages now, everybody’s a Christian. Everybody’s a Christian and what’s funny is that when we’re kids I used to realise that my grandfathers and my grandparents used to do the traditional stuff. They would pour the beer and bow, but at the same time they went to church on Sundays. I was like, what’s happening? Why are they doing both? Foreign influence — that’s the point. Because they are now at a point where they want to keep the old things but they are still adapting. But especially the Christian thought doesn’t like the African way of spirituality. Most of it, the Christians demonised it. They had to demonise it so that they would let them stop. But how are you telling me you’re a Christian and also you believe in this? Messed up identities.
I just wish Africans use their own method to connect to whoever here. Rather than blending or using a whole new foreign method to connect to a master. When I think about this it‘s really painful.”
Where have you learned all of this? You learned a lot in your childhood in the village, right? Have you learned something about it in school as well?
“We did learn some of that in school. I realised that the education system was more Western and then partially or slightly dedicated to your African heritage and background. In schools, you get to learn just a bit. And even what you learn is not so particular connected to your background. In school, you learn about a general view of African culture or Ghanaian culture. I’m an Akan. They don’t take you in depth to the Akan culture for example. Even the teacher doesn’t know much, because he is not being educated for teaching in depth about the indigenous cultures. They teach you the general perspective. So for you to really go deeper, it has to be personal. Most of the things I’ve learned was through my own research. When I go to the village I’m talking to an older person. I ask about their views back then. And they start talking. Sometimes I just go online and study. I do that a lot. History through research really helps me to learn new things.
Most people are not interested in learning more about the traditional life. Because of the new perspective, the new system. They do not even want to learn about the old systems of African living. It needs people who are really interested to learn about this. So first of all, it will take interest. And using other means to educate people. For example my brand colony of Congo. The whole point is to just awaken Africans. The whole point why I created Colony of Congo was to make sure that we can find ways to communicate the forgotten African history.
How do I re-educate people on Things that are not so important now but were important before. How do I bring those things back? How do I tell people in a in a modern way? How do I communicate old history in the modern world where everything is new? You can use design which is a modern way to communicate ideas right? And also art. Then I said I’ll take it serious. I’ll pay attention, I’ll educate myself on the histories and the things that I really want to communicate now and then use modern ways. If somebody sees this colony of Congo, I know for a fact it’s going to take your mind off something.”
You said that it’s a lot about identity. What are ways how can you get back to this identity? Or is it even important that people are trying to reconnect to it?
“Personally, I feel like educating yourself and learning about these things is very important.
Where you are born has its own ways of life. If you are connected to that way of life from where you are born and still in tune with that culture and you have that identity, you are going to be way, way better than you being where you are born and then not connected to the ways of life and the patterns of living in that same place.
And we have to stop talking not only about the problems, let’s talk about solutions. That’s what I’m working on right now. What would help us be free from all these colonial influences and all that—that’s the question right now. Awareness is the biggest thing right now. Educating people. You have to look into our old system, you have to understand it, why it was being used. I mean, why did they even create that system in the first place? Why were they working with that? Why did they connect to God through their ancestors? Why did they use natural elements? Through that maybe we can understand things more and find solutions to it.”
Do you have one idea or something that you think is important for the people reading to know?
“First of all, in everything… We are all humans, right? Regardless of wherever you come from, and how educated you are, how enlightened you are. We are all humans. And I believe very well that we all started from one place. So if this is the thought, and if anybody believes in this and accepts that, we are all humans, we are not from different parts of creation, we are actually all from one creation, right? Then it is right for us to all believe in true liberties of humans. If somebody wants to have a way of life, we should let them have it. If a group of people feel like this is what’s going to work for us, this system is what we want to work with, they should have it, they should be able to use it. And if it doesn’t work for them, they should be able to find solutions to let it work right. But to be in a state where your system is being forced on you every single day or has been forced on you since and you’re still continuing — it’s painful. Everybody should believe in allowing people to choose what really works for them. And mostly, what really works for people is their natural.
And if one person has the freedom to choose then everyone should have the freedom to choose how they want to live their life.
Where you’re born has had its own ways and patterns of life. You wouldn’t want to choose a way of life that is not from where you are born, or it is foreign to where you are born because where you are born has almost all the answers and all the things that you would need to evolve. But to have a different pattern being introduced or being given to you where you are born, you cannot evolve. For me, the true way you can evolve is being connected to your source, where you are, and knowing really where you are. People have the freedom to choose, but it is better to choose from the source. What if you choose to represent exactly who you were by knowing where your ancestors were from?”
Scene of a traditional festival in a village — seen at Gallery 1957, Accra, Ghana — Rita Mawuena Benissan