Spectacular nation: Nkrumahist art and resistance iconography in the Ghanaian Independence Era.

Theorists have regarded the privileging of representation as a means of reinforcing ideology to be a primarily Western phenomenon. World exhibitions and spectacles have been described as characteristic of the European scopic regime, as events that reinforce ordered relationships between representation and ideology (Mitchell 1988:2, 13). Exhibitions, by this view, are "classically imperialist in conception and construction ... As a collective phenomenon the industrial exposition celebrated the ascension of civilized power" (Karp and Lavine 1991:245).

The employment of cultural exhibitions and spectacles to underpin systems of authority, however, is not restricted to the West. The processes of exhibition, organization, and classification were also central aspects of the production of culture in the postcolonial era. Dazzling displays of royal regalia of the Asante in the region of Ghana, documented by Herbert Cole and Doran Ross (1977) and Tom McCaskie (1995), among others, suggest that exhibition and spectacle were a longstanding aspect of the assertion of authority in the region (Figs. 1-2). In attempting to construct a sense of nationalism that could displace existing political alliances, the administration of Kwame Nkrumah, in power from 1957 to 1966, similarly encouraged the production of exhibitions, documentaries, and representations that promoted a specific vision of political authority.

At the same time that it promoted an art conceptualized as "traditional," however, the Nkrumah administration advanced in its policies the notion that art conforming to this aesthetic was essentially homogeneous. The perception of what was termed "traditional" is revealed in administrative rhetoric and policy as a sense that regional cultural practices were anachronisms--worthy of acknowledgment, but ultimately to be subsumed within a national whole. The task of promoting pride in a nation detached from a colonial administrative structure--while at the same time rationalizing the unification of diverse cultures within colonial boundaries--resulted in the abstraction and objectification of specific cultures and the promotion of an Nkrumahist ideology, even as the presence of those diverse cultures was identified as the new nation's defining characteristic. This article demonstrates the employment of art in the establishment of Nkrumahist political hegemony and suggests that an iconography of resistance advanced a vision markedly different from the Nkrumahist notion of the nation.

Exhibition: Performance and Museum Display

The conception of anthropological knowledge as a system of "collecting, comparing, and classifying impressions" has been described as characteristic of the Western philosophical history of rationalism, in which "the Other, as object of knowledge, must be separate, distinct, and preferably distant from the knower" (Fabian 1983:120). Yet the phenomenon of exhibition, classification, and representation was also characteristic of the region of Ghana in the precolonial era. Historians of Asante art have documented the role that assemblages of symbolic regalia played in the manifestation and reinforcement of hierarchical authority (Cole and Ross 1977, Allman 1993, Akyeampong 1999, McCaskie 1995). In the Ghanaian independence era the employment of exhibition and display--frequently borrowed in form from the Asante--to advance nationalist and political objectives was also prevalent. Minutes from the Nkrumah Cabinet reveal that the advancement of "traditional" cultural practices and the advocacy of a national culture that would discourage the advancement of regional ambitions were goals of the administration (Daily Graphic, Nov. 28, 1956:12; Cabinet Minutes, Oct. 23, 1956:4). The appointment by the government of its own officials to the Arts Council and the exclusion of art and arts administration specialists and representatives of the territorial councils suggest that this policy had a political agenda (Cabinet Minutes, Dec. 11, 1956:3; Daily Graphic, Dec. 19, 1965:1).

As both official rhetoric and specific performances and exhibitions reveal, the Nkrumah government advanced the simultaneous and at times contradictory goals of cultural preservation and cultural unification. Performances and exhibitions were approved that reflected the "traditional heritage" of the country, but such events were mounted in order to manifest, in the words of the arts committee, the "living force firmly rooted in and acclaimed by the Gold Coast of today" (Daily Graphic, Jan. 16, 1957:3). Thus, for example, the celebrations that accompanied Nkrumah's return from a state visit to the UK in 1957 illustrate this conflation of the modern and "traditional":

   As [the crowds] waited members of
   the CPP clad in party colors and
   some wearing calico (the sign of
   victory), their faces smeared with
   white powder, danced and sang ...
   two women dressed in white, wiped
   the face of Dr. Nkrumah and placed
   white calico round his neck ... The
   grounds of the Castle were gaily
   decorated in bunting, the Ghana
   National Flag was conspicuous,
   and, against approaching darkness,
   colored electric bulbs sparked into
   life to give the whole scene a touch
   of fairyland. Under the coconut
   trees in front of the castle itself ...
   chiefs, elders, statesmen, councillors,
   government officials, men and
   women, young and old, most of
   them in white calico, were assembled.
   Drumming, dancing, and
   general merry-making continued
   until late last night (Daily Graphic,
   Jan. 16, 1957:3).

The bifurcated nature of government policy--its emphasis upon the recognition of tradition and the construction of a unified culture--was revealed in official statements related to cultural practices (Daily Graphic, Jan. 30, 1957:8). In an address at an arts festival held in Cape Coast in 1957, the chief regional officer of the Western Region, W. Brian Smith, stated that it was essential for the people of Ghana

   [n]ot only to realize their cultural
   heritage, but also to appreciate the
   great enjoyment that they themselves
   could find in helping to develop
   that culture in the future ...
   [No one] should imagine that indigenous
   culture and arts referred
   only to the ideas and works of a bygone
   age. They were the distinctive
   thought of the people and part and
   parcel of their changing conditions
   and developments (Daily Graphic,
   Jan. 30, 1957:8; emphasis added).

At the same time that celebrations incorporating a variety of cultural traditions were orchestrated, however, regional demonstrations of cultural practices were suppressed. Confidential Cabinet minutes reveal that the chief regional officer of the Ashanti Interim Regional Assembly was forced to retire because he had approved the attendance at an assembly of the Asantehene and his attendants. According to the minutes, the "pomp and pageantry" with which the assembly meeting was conducted "merely ... emphasize[d] the old claim of the National Liberation Movement for a separate Ashanti legislature" (Cabinet Minutes, Jan. 8, 1957). Similar restrictions curtailed the display of regional flags and emblems and regulated the establishment of independent regional museums. All of these regulations were imposed in the spirit of the Avoidance of Discrimination Act of 1957, which "forbade the existence of parties on a regional, tribal, or religious basis" (Austin 1970:377-80).

The cultural exhibitions, performances, and displays that did receive support from the administration typically assembled unrelated cultural practices for the observation of a national audience. In the early years of the Nkrumah's Convention People's Party (CPP), Nkrumah's supporters staged political assemblies that incorporated Ga and Asante cultural practices, as well as customs from the Northern Territories and the West:

   Riding in a Jaguar car wearing a
   batakali and his P.G. [prison graduate]
   cap, the Osagyefo [Nkrumah]
   arrived at about 4.15 P.M. accompanied
   by K.A. Gbedemah, Kojo
   Botsio and T. Hutton-Mills[,] all
   wearing P.G. caps. The gigantic
   crowd suddenly burst into deafening
   applause when the Osagyefo
   Tufuhene was lifted high in a white
   "palanquin" with the CPP Tricolor
   at the back amidst the firing of
   muskets ... The long procession
   wended its way through Knutsford
   Avenue to the Arena as the conspicuous
   State umbrella, made in red,
   white and green velvet cloth, continued
   to "dance" jubilantly over
   the head of Ghana's chosen leader
   (Austin 1970:114).

A number of cultural exhibitions and spectacles featuring historical events and regional cultures were staged: The Daily Graphic reported the staging of a "pageant display" featuring "Asafo dances, Lakpa--the Great Deity of Labadi, a Ghana Market scene, the birth of Highlife, Agbekor dance, and the days of the Old District Commissioner"; in another spectacle, "traditional costumes displa[ys] brought together into one hall the Scot and the Ijaw, the Urhobo and the Ga, the Fanti and the Lagosian, all in their tribal dress; some hauntingly beautiful; others starkly, almost shockingly, austere; but all fascinating" (Austin 1970:114).

Asante art was a common source of nationalist allusions in public displays and spectacles. In appearances in the Asante region, at sessions of Parliament, and at meetings of the United Nations, Nkrumah appeared in kente, the cloth historically associated with the authority of the Asantehene (Ross 1998). A number of Asante art objects and practices were incorporated into the inaugural procession of the president: A sword-bearer in the procession evoked the function of the Asante Asomfofena, while Asante musical instruments and state umbrellas underscored an implied parallel between the authority of Nkrumah and the power of the Asante king (New Ghana, July 13, 1960:1; Ross 1977:16). The presidential mace, designed by state artist Kofi Antubam, employed a representational finial in the form of an eagle, the national symbol of Ghana; the impression conveyed by the mace, however--its employment of a gold-plated staff, its use of a crowning representational emblem, and the manner in which it was carried and displayed-was an affinity with the staff carried by the spokesperson (Okyeame) of the Asante king (Ross 1982:58, 60). Perhaps the most striking visual component of the procession was the presidential chair: Designed by Antubam, its brilliant golden sheen and the stool incorporated into its base suggested the Golden Stool, the revered Asante icon that functioned as the central symbol of cultural and national identity (McCaskie 1983:29-30).

In the later years of Nkrumah's rule, mass demonstrations of support for his policies were also orchestrated. Propaganda vans circulated films and other information sources celebrating Nkrumah's achievements. (1) A marching force of 7,000 school children welcomed Nkrumah to the expansive plaza of Black Star Square on the fifth anniversary of independence; a similar celebration in Kumasi included a parade of the Worker's Brigade, Boy Scouts, nurses, Girl Guides, market women, secondary school students, Young Pioneers (Ballard 1967), and the Farmer's Council, while in Tamale, market women "danced merily [sic] around the specially decorated dais of the regional commissioner as demonstrators displayed banners with such 'spontaneous' sentiments as 'Osagyefo's achievements are wonderful,' 'we demand one party system,' and 'Osagyefo, projector of African personality'" (Evening News, March 7, 1962). A celebration of the fourteenth anniversary of Nkrumah's release from prison represented the pinnacle of this artificial conflation of mass sentiment, religious fervor, and political iconography. As the Evening News reported,

   A large-sized portrait of Dr. Nkrumah,
   mounted on an open truck[,]
   was driven slowly from the prison
   yard, through the main streets of
   the capital, to the West End Arena,
   amidst the solemn singing of "Lead
   Kindly Light." ... The warmth of the
   people's love for the leader became
   evident at the rally, when an eight-point
   resolution, pledging unflinching
   loyalty and support to Osagyefo
   the President, the Party and Government
   was unanimously passed
   (Evening News, Feb. 10, 1966:1).

The idea of the exhibition has been discussed thus far in terms of staged public performance and spectacle. The assemblage of representations for the view of a presumably homogeneous audience, however, was also evident in museum display. Under the Nkrumah government, a new national museum was established to "encourage the development of a historical sense among the people of the Gold Coast" (Lawrence and Merrifield 1957). The museum included in its permanent collection plaster replicas and photographs of objects from Cameroon, Greece, and Roman North Africa as well as objects from Ghana that were overwhelmingly Akan in origin (Lawrence and Merrifield 1957). The central locus of the museum at the time of its national opening was a display of Asante stools surrounded by portraits of independence-era activists and leaders. The location of this distinctively hybridized display in a museum characterized by an eclectic collection of "traditional" art seemed at once to underscore the art's historical significance and at the same time to anchor the objects within an encompassing vision of national solidarity and cultural homogeneity.

That representations of regional culture were intended to be subsumed into a homogeneous vision of the nation is suggested by the fact that little attention or funding was given to regional display. The most extensively endowed and organized regional cultural collection--the Asante Cultural Center--was privately funded and administered. After significant pressure from the administration, it was forcibly nationalized during Nkrumah's presidency (Gokah 1988:8), although in later years residents of Kumasi installed in the Center--and throughout Kumasi-representations of the Asantehene (Fig. 3). Museums in the north and west were also given little governmental support, while a museum established in Nkroful, in eastern Ghana, displayed only objects related to the life of Nkrumah and his role in the nation-building process. On the motion of CPP representative J.A. Kinnah in 1961, the Ghanaian Parliament declared the Nkroful museum (at Nkrumah's birthplace) a national shrine; various mementos were displayed in a building erected near his home, including portraits, photographs of significant events in Nkrumah's life, and the clothing and handcuffs supposedly worn by Nkrumah at the time of his arrest. During the Parliamentary debate on the establishment of the shrine, the CPP representative from Nkroful compared the village to "Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed ... [and] Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, the Redeemer of the World" (Pobee 1988:148).

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

The allusion to Bethlehem was merely one aspect of an entire complex of associations between Nkrumah and Christianity. Postcards appeared in Accra that showed Nkrumah in conversation with Christ (Thornberry 1967:71); at his lighting of a "perpetual flame" in Accra, Nkrumah referred to his act as a "sacred duty to millions of Africans ... crying out for freedom," and stated that "this great struggle of the African emancipation is a holy crusade" (New Ghana, July 13, 1960:13). Nkrumah was popularly believed to have studied for the priesthood, and a significant portion of the clergy are reported to have "testified to his divine wisdom and prayed for God's guidance and long life to complete his messianic mission in order to 'transform Ghana into a prosperous socialist state'"(Bediako 1966:18). (2)

It would appear that some sense of the personification of spiritual values exemplified by the Asantehene had been transferred--along with the accouterments of authority--to Kwame Nkrumah. The staging of performances and museum displays, the use of Christian and Asante honorifics ("Osagyefo," "Redeemer"), the invocation of Christian beliefs, the retention of a salaried Asante linguist who introduced Nkrumah's speeches with praise poems (Yankah 1985:86-92)--all suggest a vision of nationalism that employed traditional cultural practices to advance Nkrumah as an individual. That the personification in Nkrumah of spiritual values was not restricted to the beliefs of the Asante is suggested by the association of Nkrumah's white handkerchief, walking stick, and unparted hair with "the accouterments of traditional fetish priests," and the belief that he "commune[d] periodically with Mame Wata," an act "which gave him privy information about the 'machinations of imperialism'" (Arhin 1990:19).

The assemblage of assorted cultural and religious elements in exhibitions would therefore appear to have advanced not the uniqueness and legitimacy of specific regional cultures, but their incorporation within a national political context. The function of cultural assemblages, according to Susan Stewart, is "not the restoration of context of origin but rather the creation of a new context, a context standing in a metaphorical, rather than a contiguous, relation to the world of everyday value ... Metonymic forms are the articulation of abandoned use value" (Stewart 1984:149). The appropriation and exhibition of art forms in Ghana thus signified a new social and political context for purportedly anachronistic or fading "traditional" forms, a context dominated by the political objectives--and physical presence--of Kwame Nkrumah.

Portraiture and Propaganda

As the Ghanaian scholar Natalie Yowles argues, the style of representation favored in commissions of the Nkrumah government was an idealized form of portraiture that was both illustrative and propagandistic.

   Countless depictions of "Osagyefo"--Father
   of the Nation, Leader,
   and Teacher--surrounded by workers
   and farmers with spades and
   hoes and smiling Young Pioneers,
   all looking happily forward to a
   brighter future, appeared on canvas
   and the walls of public buildings
   ... The happy image of the nation,
   confidently striding into the wonderful
   tomorrow, appealed to the
   unsophisticated masses, and, with
   its uncompromising message and
   exaggerated optimism, served as effective
   political propaganda (Yowles
   1981:44-5). (3)

Life-size color portraits were offered by the Department of Information at a low price in virtually every retail establishment, and portraits of Nkrumah were commonly displayed at rallies and in government offices and embassies (Cabinet Minutes, June 29, 1958:3). Countless representations of Nkrumah with workers, particularly farmers, idealized representations of Nkrumah and other political leaders, such as Karl Marx and Patrice Lumumba, were portrayed in murals, posters, and illustrated propaganda vans (Yowles 1981:45). (4) Theatrical productions also presented positive images of the Nkrumah administration (Aryeequaye 1975).

Idealized and propagandistic portraits were also published in the popular press. Prior to independence, the Ghanaian nationalist press was "the most potent instrument used in the propagation of nationalist ideas and racial consciousness" (Ansah, in Arhin 1993:85). The Ghana Evening News, a newspaper that Nkrumah described as an educational and propagandistic voice of the independence movement, frequently published images associating Nkrumah with specific regional cultures and political achievements. An editorial cartoon published in the Evening News in 1954, for example, depicts an enormous figure of Nkrumah--wearing a "prison graduate" cap and the batakali (overshirt) of a northern Ghanaian--collecting votes as figures labeled "GCP" ("Gold Coast Party") and "Islam" collapse in despair (Ghana Evening News, May 10, 1954:2). Another cartoon from the same year depicts a gigantic figure of Nkrumah, dressed in Western apparel and lifting a miniature figure toward "the rising sun of Ghana." The figure, draped in kente, lifts his arms in amazement at the dawning words, "Our eyes have seen the glory of the coming of freedom" (Ghana Evening News, May 10, 1954:4).

By the time of Nkrumah's first anniversary in power, in 1958, such images had become merely one aspect of an entire complex of visual and ideological representations, including the 20' (6m) bronze statue of Nkrumah commissioned from the Italian artists Nicola Cataudella and Sergio Barbeski and inscribed with sayings attributed to Nkrumah (Fig. 4). (5) A great complex at Black Star Square in Accra--featuring an enormous presidential seating stand--was erected to facilitate assemblies and parades celebrating Nkrumah's achievements. Nkrumah's Cabinet also discussed such details as the installation of plaques depicting the Ghanaian coat of arms in the Supreme Court; the presentation of the Speaker's Chair to the National Assembly by the UK; the design and model for a fountain at Kwame Nkrumah Circle; and the commission for an honorary medallion, dominated by a bust of Nkrumah. The declaration of the minister of the interior in a Cabinet meeting in 1958 that "the name of the Prime Minister had become the symbol of the liberation of Ghana and also the whole of Africa" (Daily Graphic, June 21, 1957:1) reveals the extent to which these representations associated with Nkrumah had become identified-in government discourse and in art disseminated by the government--with the idea of the nation.

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

The conscious management and dissemination of Nkrumahist iconography is also evident in images that continued to appear in government-sponsored publications. In the Evening News, the Daily Graphic, the Ghanaian Times, and the daily newsletter of the CPP, editorial illustrations portrayed Nkrumah as the literal embodiment of popular aspirations. In a cartoon by the artist Yaw Boakye (Ghanatta), for example, Nkrumah is depicted striding from the Independence Arch toward the new House of Parliament, his torso wrapped in the national flag and his head shaped in the form of the contours of Ghana (Fig. 5; Guinea Times, March 3, 1958:5). Ghanatta's cartoons reflect a vision of Nkrumah as not merely the architect of domestic policies and Pan-Africanism, but also as a moral leader gently guiding his exuberant "children" to resist the entrapments of evil. In a cartoon from 1958, for example--dating from the period when Nkrumah elevated the rank of chiefs who demonstrated their loyalty to the CPP--Nkrumah is depicted lifting a mass of chiefs from the darkness, as a disapproving and vaguely satanic Asante chief looks on. A later cartoon depicts Nkrumah holding a flame aloft and leading a mass of liberated Africans onward; the facial features of Nkrumah are arranged within an outline of the continent of Africa (Evening News, Feb. 10, 1964:3).

[FIGURE 5 OMITTED]

State Artists

The promotion of exhibitions, spectacles, and documentaries advancing the ideology of the Nkrumah administration might well have contributed to the advancement of a generalized and abstract national aesthetic among official state artists. However, the steady dissemination of representations of Nkrumah suggests that the artists themselves valued and advanced a representational ideal that differed dramatically from that of precolonial and colonial art and from Nkrumahist imagery. Art commissioned from officially designated state artists often resulted in works that revealed a commitment to local cultures and to the ideals of the newly independent nation that was independent of the administrative impulse toward an Nkrumah-centered culture.

The art of Oku Ampofo (b. 1908) is illustrative in this regard. Ampofo--the son of a chief from Akwapim who, while studying in Europe, was exposed to nonAkan African art and the philosophies of Negritude and Pan-Africanism--combined themes of Western-influenced abstraction with themes associated with "traditional" African life. The sculptures modeled in cement--including Drummer, in the National Arts Center in Accra; Call to Nationhood, in the National Cultural Center, Kumasi; Man's Endless Struggle, in front of the Ghana National Museum; Announcer, at the Broadcasting House in Accra; and Prophet of the Sky God, in the courtyard of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Legon in Accra-are characterized by elongated limbs, distorted or elided anatomical details, and uplifted disc-shaped heads derived from the Akan funerary terracottas known as mma. The artist's dual interest in regional cultures and in national achievement is occasionally overt in Ampofo's works: Announcer, which depicts a village announcer/messenger, was purchased by and installed in front of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation in Accra (Fosu 1993:144-8).

The work of Vincent Kofi (1927-1974), a sculptor who studied at the Achimota School in Ghana, at the Royal College of Art in London, and at Columbia University, depicts the human body in a fashion that integrates nationalist ideals with an Asante aesthetic. The sculpture Awakening Africa integrates the body of a woman struggling to rise to her feet with the head of an Asante akuaba. Drummer, installed in the interior of a courtyard at the University of Legon (Fig. 7), combines the isolated and heroicized body of a single figure with the upwardly tilted head of an Asante mma. The designs make explicit the sculptor's respect for local art traditions; as he states in Sculpture in Ghana, "Art expresses both the tradition and aspirations of a people, what they consider desirable for the present and the future ... [T]he force of outside influences is no source of danger to a virile artistic tradition that is too profoundly aware of itself to lose its personal and national identity" (Kofi, in Grobel 1964:8).

[FIGURE 7 OMITTED]

The work of Kofi Antubam (1922-1964) also reveals a dual concern with regional and national ideals. Antubam's portraits of prominent Ghanaians, his murals in oil and plaster for the Cocoa Farmers' Cooperative Headquarters and the Ambassador Hotel, his carvings and paintings for the ships of Ghana's Black Star Line (New Ghana, Feb. 1, 1961:8), his immense mosaic for the exterior of the Accra Community Center (Fig. 8), and his wood reliefs for Accra's Central Library and the main assembly hall of the Ghana Parliament building illustrate both his proficiency in a wide range of artistic styles and his honoring of national ideals. The mosaic for the Community Center, for example, is characterized by a merging of Western representational conventions and traditional motifs and by a generalizing of the art associated with specific regions. Figures in "traditional" attire are poised against a blank backdrop and framed by the words "Kwe Boni Ehi Ke Nyem Imei Fee Ekkome Kehi Ei Le," translated by Kojo Fosu as, "there is strength in togetherness" (1993:15).

[FIGURE 8 OMITTED]

In light of the many allusions to Asante traditions in Antubam's commissioned art, his published views about this "traditional" art are particularly interesting. On the one hand, Antubam maintained, like Kofi, that Ghanaian artistic identity would be "neither Eastern nor Western and yet a growth in the presence of both with its roots deeply entrenched in the soil of the indigenous past of Africa" (Antubam 1963:23). The preconditions of "cultural progress," according to Antubam, "exist only in the lasting values of a people's traditions," traditions that he explicated in his text Ghana's Heritage of Culture (ibid., 13). Yet at the same time that Antubam affirmed the importance of cultural traditions, he questioned the value of indigenous artistic practices. While acknowledging the significance of symbolic expression among the Asante people, he maintained that "[a]s far as it is known, Ghanaians have no great concrete architectural, sculptural, ceramic, painting, musical, or literary works to be shown" (ibid., 123). Despite the African artist's duty to express the "African Personality" in order to "save the debasing conscience of mankind ... [and] revitalize a frustrating humanity," Antubam claimed that

   Africans will have no chance of
   success at doing this duty if they
   continue to be complacent about
   their achievements in the arts. They
   have to face the fact that simplicity
   is no license for crudity ... the time
   for the sort of grotesque, African art
   that belongs to the solitary shades
   of forest graveyards, or the mushroom
   grown shelves and galleries
   of dark ethnological museums[,] is
   long past (ibid., 20-21).

That Antubam was lauded as one of the chief artists of the Nkrumah administration suggests a tolerance on the part of the administration of distanciation from the specific cultural "traditions," though officially designated artists neither engaged in idealized portraiture nor in propagandistic portrayals of the administration's achievements.

Asante Iconography and the NLM

In the period preceding Ghanaian independence, the propagation of Nkrumahist and nationalist ideology was thus accomplished through the dissemination of specific representations, including artwork commissioned from and produced by designated national artists. But the Nkrumah era was also characterized by discourses and representations that solidified resistance to Nkrumahism. Members of the Opposition--most notably, the Asante-based National Liberation Movement (NLM)--were united by representations that advanced their own ideological objectives. (6)

For both chiefs and leaders of the NLM, the critical mechanism in consolidating support and resisting the party led by Nkrumah was the invocation of the historical legacy of the Asante, specifically the symbolic representations of the Golden Stool. Historians of Asante art have noted that symbolic representations play a significant role in the manifestation and reinforcement of hierarchical authority among the Asante (McCaskie 1995, Cole and Ross 1977, Akyeampong 1999). Attacks on the relevance and efficacy of the Golden Stool were perceived as assaults on the memory of the Asante's ancestors and on the political unity of the Asante state itself. In 1955, for example, outrage followed the statement of a CPP minister of agriculture, J.E. Jantuah, that "the Golden Stool was just but a wooden stool that Komfo Anokye covered with something. It did not, as was supposed, contain the soul of the nation" (Ashanti Pioneer, Aug. 2, 1955:1). At a meeting of the Asanteman council held to discuss Jantuah's action, hundreds of Kumasi residents gathered dressed in kuntunkuni (mourning cloth), and the Council resolved to institute a period of mourning and slaughter twelve sheep as a gesture of purification. The Asantehene gave a speech in which he stated that "Komfo Anokye had the Golden Stool for the whole nation and there is no true Ashanti born whose ancestors' blood had not been shed for the stool ... Today is a serious day, a serious day for the nation" (Ashanti Pioneer, Sept. 15, 1955:1).

The attempt by the Asante opposition to construct an image of twentieth-century Asante nationalism--to formulate, in the phrase Anderson used as the title of his 1991 book, an "imagined community" that could compete with Nkrumah's vision of nationalism--did not, however, depend solely on the rhetorical invocation of the central symbol of the Asante. A variety of images were employed by the NLM to emphasize the connection between Asante authority and the aspirations of the NLM. Thus, at the inauguration of the NLM held in Kumasi, most of those attending wore kuntunkuni. In 1957 the Asante Youth Association and the Asante Kotoko Society similarly wore kuntunkuni to signify their "seriousness of purpose" when the British colonial secretary, Sir Charles Arden-Clarke, visited Kumasi (Allman 1993:16; Liberator, Jan. 19, 1957:1). Women in the NLM wore cloth that expressed political sentiments: The women of the Obuasi branch of the NLM wore a cloth named "Kwame Nkrumah aka bankye dua kon mu" ("Kwame Nkrumah is entangled in the branches of the cassava tree"; Ashanti Pioneer, Dec. 21, 1954:1).

Spectacles were also adopted by the NLM, most notably the appearances of the "NLM Action Groupers," an organization modeled after the paramilitary CPP. The Action Groupers "dressed in the movie version of American cowboy costumes, black satin with white fringe, and they wore high-heeled black Texas boots brilliantly studded with the letters NLM and the words 'King Force'" (Allman 1993:103). The spectacular legacy of odwira was also used to signify discontent with Nkrumah's leadership: The deferral of the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration (Silver Jubilee) of the Asante-hene Prempeh II in 1956 over a conflict between the CPP and the NLM is but one example of the manipulation of festivals for ideological purposes (Liberator, June 19, 1956:1). The cancellation of the odwira by chiefs of Akyem Abuakwa, Kukurantumi, and Adasewase similarly underscored an association between royal art and political (and oppositional) objectives (Ashanti Pioneer, Nov. 16, 1956:1).

The Ashanti Times and Ashanti Pioneer participated in the resistance to the CPP by publishing a series of illustrations, originating in the West, that implicitly contrasted the democratic aspirations of the NLM with the socialist practices of the CPP. The Ashanti Times series, "Did You Know?" for example, ostensibly provided an illustrated account of historical trivia, but often provided a defense of federalism or a critique of the activities of communist regimes. In one installment, innocuous subjects bracket uniformed Soviet children arrayed beneath a portrait of Lenin. The caption asserts that the socialist government held wages below the subsistence level to force both parents into the labor force, while "the State gets complete control of their children" (Ashanti Times, Aug. 13, 1957:2). By allying such messages with more innocuous claims--and by pairing the series with "True Tales," an illustrated strip that featured benign accounts of such figures as Clara Barton and Booker T. Washington--the NLM disseminated critiques of the Nkrumah government even as it shielded its views from regulation and suppression.

Perhaps the most masterful of the efforts to convey opposition through allusion and appropriation was the publication in the Ashanti Pioneer of an illustrated strip titled "Animal Farm." The cartoon--attributed to "George Orwell"-depicts the central events of Orwell's novel, but its iconography has been reinterpreted as alluding to the CPP and its activities. The appearance in Orwell's novel of a cockerel at the head of a "spontaneous demonstration" is prominently featured in the strip in a manner that NLM sympathizers could liken to the symbol of the CPP; the reclamation by the animals' leader, Napoleon, of the former home of their oppressor could be seen to allude to Nkrumah's move into the former slave fort and colonial stronghold of Christiansborg Castle (Ashanti Pioneer, Feb. 18, 1957:5; March 27, 1957:5). As in "Did You Know?" "Animal Farm" contains what could be interpreted as a veiled critique of Nkrumahist indoctrination: The young puppies taken by Napoleon for their "education" are later revealed as the vicious guards trained to defend their "master," while the reader is warned that "the disappearance of the puppies is not the only mystery on Animal Farm" (Evening News, January 24, 1957). (7)

Resistance to Nkrumahist Iconography

From the time of the formation of the NLM, the invocation of Asante iconography was accompanied by resistance to representations associated with the CPP, including flags, emblems, ephemera, and the like. It was the dissemination of representations of Nkrumah, however, that incited the greatest controversy. Their placement on stamps commemorating independence--images of Nkrumah in kente and in a batakali, and standing before the Ghanaian flag or by the Lincoln memorial in Washington, DC--was interpreted by the NLM as a violation of the agreement that established the Queen of England as the titular head of Ghana, and as a gross offense to the Asante people. Rallies of the NLM in Kumasi revealed the sense of betrayal that Nkrumah's action prompted, while the Ashanti Pioneer condemned the measure as "a presumptuous gesture of self-aggrandizement" (Ashanti Pioneer, Feb. 18, 1957:1).

The representation of Nkrumah on Ghanaian currency similarly prompted a storm of debate among Asante supporters of the NLM. William Offori Atta, Nkrumah's minister of local government, maintained that the placement of Nkrumah's portrait on Ghanaian currency, accompanied by the words "Civitas Ghanaiensis Conditor" ("Founder of the Ghana Nation"), commemorated Nkrumah "not as a Prime Minister or life chairman of the CPP[,] but as the man who has led his country successfully to achieve self-government after several people have attempted and failed" (Daily Graphic, July 6, 1957:1). The Opposition, however, claimed on the floor of the National Assembly that the act constituted an attempt to propagate the belief that "Ghana was Kwame Nkrumah, and Kwame Nkrumah was Ghana," which it described as "the last stage to dictatorship" (Daily Graphic, July 6,1957:1). In a series of editorials published in the Liberator under various pseudonyms, Joseph Appiah argued that the actions of the CPP constituted a violation of democratic principles and a threat to the very identity of the Asante nation (Liberator, June 25, 1957:2; June 26, 1957:2).

In response to the controversy over Nkrumahist imagery, Nkrumah published an article in a London newspaper ascribing to his party the desire to educate the people about the achievement of independence:

   My Cabinet have decided, with my
   agreement, to put my head on the
   coinage, because many of my people
   cannot read or write. They've
   got to be shown that they are now
   really independent. And they can
   only be shown by signs. When they
   buy stamps they will see my picture--an
   African like themselves-and
   they will say: "Look, here is
   our leader on the stamps. We are
   truly a free people!" (Daily Graphic,
   June 21, 1957:1).

The Opposition responded to Nkrumah's explanation as an "unnecessary and uncalled for attack on the character of the people"; Nkrumah's assumption that illiterate Ghanaians could not be addressed in words to understand that a new government existed, according to an NLM MP, constituted a statement to the world "that they are beasts and must be spoken to not in language, but in signs" (Daily Graphic, June 22, 1957:1; Liberator, June 25, 1957:2).

The greatest outrage, however, was prompted by statues of Nkrumah. Nkrumah maintained that the monumental statue erected in front of the Ghanaian Parliament and unveiled in 1956 by the chief justice of Ghana, Sir Arku Korah, was, like the portrait on the stamps, necessary in order to demonstrate the nation's independence to the people of Ghana. Editorials in the Liberator, however, prompted by the news that a series of monuments to Nkrumah were to be constructed, referred to Nkrumah as an "Nzima born with dictatorial tendencies," a "CPP tin god" who was building an environment of "sycophantic adultation [sic] and idolatry" (Liberator, Aug. 10, 1956:3). From 1956 to 1957, the Ashanti Pioneer and the Liberator ran numerous articles on and illustrations of Stalin in eastern Europe; the allusion to the likely fate of monuments to Nkrumah was clear to readers.

In response to an announcement by the CPP minister of communications that a statue of Nkrumah was to be erected in Kumasi's Kejetia Square--a demonstration, according to the minister, "that power was now in the hands of the African and not the whiteman"--Bafour Osei Akoto warned that not even with the Ghana Army could the statue of the prime minister be erected, "for we shall find out who owns the lands in Kumasi" (Daily Graphic, July 2, 1957:16).

The Fall and Resurrection of Nkrumah

In the final years of the Nkrumah administration, the resistance of organized political opposition, particularly the NLM, was almost entirely suppressed (Thornberry 1967:20, 40, 42; Arhin 1992:88; Schiller 1964:18-19). Media representations and cultural spectacles orchestrated by Nkrumah became--as a consequence of government censorship--increasingly heavy-handed, bombastic, and hagiographic, and far removed from the public they purportedly represented and manifested. Thus, the masthead of the Evening News in 1962 bore a silhouette of Nkrumah and the slogan, "The Party is Supreme"; by 1966 the masthead incorporated the profile, the flag of the CPP, and an image of the African flame of liberty, along with the words "One Leader, One Party, One Nation for Work and Happiness" (Evening News, Feb. 10, 1966:1).

The editorial cartoons printed in the Daily Graphic and the Evening News reflected a twofold emphasis on the effectiveness of the Nkrumahist philosophy in confronting imperialism and achieving party unity and on the exclusive privileges and impenetrability of Nkrumah's party. A front-page cartoon from the Ghanaian Times by "Chucks" from 1963, for example, depicts a group of Ghanaians using the word "Nkrumaism" to destroy the edifice of "imperialism" (Ghanaian Times, July 1, 1963:1), while a cartoon strip by Ghanatta, titled "Operation Yes" and captioned in Twi, portrayed Ghanaians from all walks of life debating the merits of Nkrumah's referendum and concluding that the wisest course is to "Vote Yes" (Evening News, Jan. 23, 1964:3). The effects of resisting the authority of the CPP were also emphasized in editorial illustrations: A cartoon of January 14, 1964, for example, published after a series of assassination attempts, demonstrates the actions taken by Nkrumah that "force[ed] [the] killer to surrender" (Fig. 9; Evening News, Jan. 14, 1964:2).

[FIGURE 9 OMITTED]

By the end of Nkrumah's "reign," Joseph Aphiah's observations about the fate of Joseph Stalin's statue in Hungary would prove prescient. On February 24, 1966, while Nkrumah was out of the country, the Ghanaian armed forces instigated a coup that removed him from power. Within seventeen hours of the coup, the new government passed a law prohibiting the speaking or writing of Nkrumah's name and making the display of Nkrumah's "effigy" an offense, and new coins and currency were created which did not bear his image (Blay-Amihere 1992:23; Guardian, Jan. 7, 1992; Evening News, March 3, 1966:3). Angry crowds burned CPP flags, membership cards, textiles, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, and other documents, including archival materials (Evening News, March 8, 1966:5-6, March 14, 1966:6; Mensah 1987); illustrations of the cockerel, symbol of Nkrumah's party, were stripped from the CPP headquarters in Accra; and signs in the capital bearing the name of the CPP were destroyed (Evening News, March 2, 1966:7; March 14, 1966:6). Demonstrators at Nkroful "pulled down the hut in which the deposed tyrant Kwame Nkrumah was said to have been born [, and] ... furniture and wooden boxes alleged to have been in possession of Kwame Nkrumah during his school days ... [were] burned to ashes" (Evening News, March 14, 1966:6). In Koforidua, "[a] sheep was slaughtered and libation poured for the successful overthrow of the wicked regime of Nkrumah" (Evening News, March 2, 1966:7). The curious mixture of celebration and rage is suggested in the account of a demonstrator in Accra:

   200,000 placard-bearing workers
   with white bands round their heads
   to signify victory danced merrily to
   "Kpanlogo" and brass band music
   through the streets of Accra ... in
   support of the overthrow of the
   Nkrumah regime ... a massive portrait
   of the deposed president ...
   was continuously spat at and
   thrashed by the workers (Evening
   News, March 4, 1966: 6). (8)

The Evening News published editorial cartoons depicting Nkrumah as a monstrous demon tormenting the nation of Ghana and as a weak and insubstantial figure pleading with Sekou Toure and the "KanKan Nyame" to save him (Fig. 10; Evening News, March 12, 1966:1; March 17, 1966:1). In Kumasi, a life-size statue of Nkrumah that had stood in front of the Asante Regional Secretariat of the CPP was destroyed in a public riot; the monumental statue of Nkrumah in Accra was dismembered and destroyed (Daily Graphic, March 4, 1966:5), (9) and Ghanatta captured the event in a cartoon titled, "The Masses' Revenge--Kwame's Statue Pounded to Dust" (Daily Graphic, Nov. 6, 1961:1).

After the overthrow of the second president of Ghana, Joseph Ankrah, the attitude toward Nkrumah and architectural monuments associated with his rule underwent a transformation. When Nkrumah died in exile in 1972, Ghanaian president Ignatius Kutu Acheampong ordered the return of his body to Ghana, and Nkrumah was granted a state funeral in Accra. A modest mausoleum was established in his hometown of Nzima, near the border of Cote d'Ivoire, with a portrait bust of him and a rendering of a hand holding aloft the flame of liberty from his grave. In 1975, the Cataudella monument, which had borne so much of the symbolic weight of the administration, was re-erected in front of the Ghanaian National Museum (Shillington 1992:19-20; Arhin 1990:41).

Under the administration of President J.J. Rawlings (1981-2000), Nkrumah's image was invoked as a symbol of anticolonialism and Pan-Africanism. At a 1985 conference sponsored by Rawlings's Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), Rawlings's secretary for foreign affairs stated that it was "necessary to keep alive Nkrumah's gift of vision and [the] inspiration of his leadership" ((Dadson 1985:30-31). (10) In the same year, the W.E.B. DuBois Memorial Center for African Culture was dedicated. The Center--which encompasses the former home and mausoleum of the Pan-Africanist and African American scholar and political activist W.E.B. DuBois--expresses in its modern architectural form, its dedication text, and its installations lauding the achievements of both DuBois and Nkrumah a merging of nationalist idealism and architectural modernity. (11)

In 1992, in a year of both presidential and legislative elections, Rawlings dedicated a memorial complex to Nkrumah situated on the site of the British colonial polo grounds in Accra, the site from which Nkrumah had announced independence on March 6, 1957. (12) At the dedication of the complex--attended by Namibian president Sam Nujoma, the chairman of the African National Congress Oliver Tambo, the African American Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan, and Betty Shabaaz, the widow of Malcolm X--Rawlings presided over the re-interment of the mortal remains of Nkrumah, emphasizing in his dedication address the themes of nationalism and self-determination (Ziorklui 1993:625-26).

   [Nkrumah] rose to the pinnacle of
   his political authority ... with the
   support of his own people and
   race. He was too proud to do otherwise.
   In short, he understood the
   value and dignity of the black African.
   In the name of the people of
   Ghana, of Africa and the diaspora,
   and in the name of all those who
   truly seek freedom and justice, we
   dedicate this park to the memory
   of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah (Ziorklui
   1993:631).

Although Black Star Square stands empty and disintegrating, the current administration welcomes visitors to the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Complex. Attendants sell tickets to tourists entering the vast space of the memorial plaza, tickets that bear Nkrumah's portrait; postcards and ephemera bearing images of the architectural spaces of the plaza and of Black Star Square in its former glory are everywhere available. While the museum dedicated to the history of Nkrumah is virtually empty, the marble mausoleum of Nkrumah is well maintained, and an immense bronze statue of Nkrumah strides forward from the mausoleum like a prophet risen from the grave (Fig. 11). (13) The mournful hush that falls over the interior of Nkrumah's mausoleum and the triumphant forward motion of the Nkrumah monument appear curiously juxtaposed. This juxtaposition may be viewed as a metaphor for the supercession of specific histories and cultures in architectural space--and as a metaphor for the resurrection of a spectacular and triumphal notion of the "nation."

Commentary

by Nii O. Quarcoopome Detroit Institute of Arts

Janet Hess's insightful essay makes for interesting reading. Its critique of the blending of art and politics in the drive to craft a national identity is both well-argued and compelling.

Hess points to Nkrumah's selective use of the Asante kente, stool, and royal appellations in developing a national aesthetic. However, she would have made a stronger argument had she outlined a more coherent chronology of when precisely these appropriations occurred. For instance, did Nkrumah intentionally employ the northern batakari war tunic during the agitation for self-government? Was it by design that he subsequently replaced the batakari with the Asante kente cloth once Ghana achieved independence? That Nkrumah was willing to tout Asante cultural ingenuity abroad even as he suppressed its resurgence locally is something worthy of further analysis.

Hess's discussion of the state art commissions from three prominent fine artists raises important questions: first, the impact of their academic training and respective cultures in their creativity. All three had received part of their training abroad and had been exposed to a range of influences before resettling in Ghana. Oku Ampofo experienced among other things the philosophies of N6gritude and Pan-Africanism. Considering these were ideas shared by Nkrumah, Ampofo was primed for his role as a state artist. There are inherent difficulties in demonstrating artists' commitment to their respective local cultures. For instance, how does Ampofo's "elongated limbs, distorted or elided anatomical details, and uplifted disc-shaped heads" reflect influence of Akan terracotta sculpture when Akwapim is not known for that art? Pointing up Vincent Kofi's depiction of the human body as an attempt to "integrate nationalist ideals with an Asante aesthetic" is similarly not convincing. Should we take it that Ga-Dangme art is here being subsumed in Akan aesthetics? The ringed neck, flat disc-shaped head, and highly abstracted body is also characteristic of Ga fertility dolls.

Second, how dependent were these artists on state patronage and to what extent were they aligned with official propaganda? Because these trained artists were few in number, they were strategically positioned to benefit from state art commissions. As pioneers in a young republic, they also recognized their dependence on official patronage for their survival. However, they were not entirely innocent cogs in the wheel of propaganda, not mere practitioners who rendered service for pay. Some, such as Oku Ampofo, shared the same Pan-Africanist fervor that drove Nkrumah's political agenda. Antubam's condescending attitude toward indigenous art sprang from a limited view of traditional art. Overall, the selective use by these artists of indigenous imagery points to a similar lack of interest in the authentic traditions and thus mirrored that Nkrumah.

Third, what roles did indigenous, non-college-trained artists play in this process of national identity formation? Granted, state artists produced monumental works that were in the public realm. However, the numerous gifts of carved Asante stools and so on presented to foreign dignitaries were not the handiwork of state artists. Many had been commissioned from the nation's finest craftsmen, critically acclaimed within their communities. Hess's apparent silence over the contributions of this anonymous group represents a significant gap in our knowledge.

I am grateful for the wisdom and kindness of Christopher Roy, William Dewey, Suzanne Preston Blier, and Barry Matsumoto. Suzanne Blier was instrumental in an early conceptualization of the "visual landscape" of Independence-era Ghana. My heartfelt thanks to Eric McGuckin for his compassion, and to Asa Hess-Matsumoto, Anne Heggen, Ross and Katie Hess, and James Norris for their patience and love.

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(1.) The same tactic was earlier employed by opponents of the CPP: The Ashanti Pioneer, for example, reports the dedication of a propaganda van by the Kumasi Muslim Association: "When the door was opened by Chief imam to signify it was ready for use, there were deafening cries of 'Islam,' 'Islam'" (Ashanti Pioneer, Jan. 27,1954:1).

(2.) Members of the Young Pioneers--a self-described "paramilitary" movement that indoctrinated children into civic and national values--were described as "Apostles of the New Social Order," and the official hymn of the CPP was "Lead Kindly Light" (Evening News, June 1961; see also Botchway 1969).

(3.) According to Ablade Glover, former dean of the College of Art at the University of Science and Technology, these images were in part disseminated through the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute, established by Nkrumah in Winneba to instruct ministers, regional commissioners, and party functionaries in Nkrumahism and Cousciencism, identified as "the philosophy and ideology for decolonization and development, with particular bearing on the African revolution" (interview with Glover, Teshie-Nnungua, Ghana, July 1993). Nil Oobo Quao (1970) notes that the Ideological Institute had its own School of Art specializing in portraiture and that officials of the ruling party supported and patronized artists from this school. Such art works, Quao points out, were however destroyed after the coup against Nkrumah.

(4.) Ekow N. Woode (1983) notes that, "Some artists were instructed to make works on Marx, the death of Lumumba and murals of men in bondage breaking their chains."

(5.) Three sayings were inscribed on the statue's base: "We prefer self-government with danger to servitude in tranquility," "Seek ye first the political kingdom and all other things shall be added unto it," and "To me the liberation of Ghana will be meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa" (Daily Graphic, June 21, 1957:1; Cabinet Minutes, June 29, 1958:2).

(6.) That the NLM perceived the issue in nationalist terms is evident in editorials in the Liberator: "An Ashanti Youth of today, who allows another, for instance a foreigner, to interpret to him that Ashanti is not a tribe but a NATION must ... be the biggest fool this ancient Nation has ever produced ... The Akan-speaking people of Ashanti Nation are not a tribe but a Nation with a long, bloodstained history of unity and power, a well-organized system of Government with the Ashanti at the apex" (Liberator, August 10,1953:3).

(7.) Significantly, a photograph of Ghanaian workers denouncing Nkrumah at a demonstration after his overthrow shows a sign which reads, "No More Animal Farm" (Evening News, March 4, 1966:6).

(8.) The cartoonist Ghanatta is reported to have published a comic book on the fall of Kwame Nkrumah. See De Graft-Johnson 1977.

(9.) One source (Woode 1983:53) states that an artist favored by the Nkrumah administration, Ado Safo, destroyed his work and fled to Nigeria.

(10.) At least five political parties in Ghana have traced their roots to Nkrumah's philosophy, including the People's Heritage Party, the National Conventional Party, the People's National Convention Party, the National Independence Party, and the People's Party for Development and Democracy.

(11.) As the Centre's brochure states, it was hoped that the house "will become a rallying point where Black people from all over the world, and all those who have truly dedicated themselves to the cause of justice and the triumph of the human spirit[,] will come to seek inspiration and guidance.'(W.E.B. DuBois Centre 1980:n.p.)

(12.) The park was designed by a Ghanaian architect, Dr. Don Arthur; the bronze statue was imported from Italy (Anon. 1995).

(13.) Nkrumah's stance, with right arm outstretched, alludes to the motto of the CPP, "forward ever, backward never" (ibid.).