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GHANA
GRAND
TOUR THE
PURPOSE The purpose of "The
Joseph Project" is to make the 21st. century the
African century. STRATEGY To reconcile and
unite the African Peoples so that their positive
spirit and strengths are released in a focused
manner to elevate Africa and Africans
worldwide. INTRODUCTIION After more than 400
years of slave trading, colonial exploitation,
cultural and economic and post colonial political
manipulation much of Africa is a waste land of woes
and war. The African peoples
everywhere have been taught to be self loathing, to
see everything African as a negative: Taught to
believe that Africa is a definition of failure and
ugliness. The time has come
to put an end to the negative and begin the
positive. The time has come for us to till our own
vineyard; to produce inner and outer wealth for
ourselves. The time has come for us to stand and
state," I am a proud African, proud of my land,
proud of my people, committed to making the third
millennium the African millennium". "The Joseph
Project" is the code name for a series of
activities, actions and interactions being
spearheaded by Ghana to re-establish the African
Nation as a nation of all its peoples, capable of
delivering on the promise of God to Africa and the
African peoples. "I am black and
beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem … I am
dark, because the sun has gazed on me. My mother's
sons were angry with me; and made me work hard in
their vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not
kept". (Song of Songs 1,5-6 ) The Ghana
Government intends to use the year 2007, the 50th
Anniversary of the country's independence, to
celebrate African excellence and to inaugurate "The
Joseph Project". Ghana will use the year to bring
together, more closely, people in Ghana and
brothers and sisters in the Diaspora and establish
herself as the true gateway to the Homeland for
Africans in the Diaspora. THE
GENESIS Over almost 400
years, millions of Africans were transported across
the Atlantic Ocean from West and Central Africa to
be enslaved in the "New World". Almost as many as
survived the crossing died during the
journey. The Atlantic Slave
Trade remains the greatest example in history of
man's inhumanity to man. The memory of it can never
be erased and so many of its negative consequences
continue to divide and weaken us as a people
today. The Slave Trade
happened and we must continue, with a contrite
heart, to question why it happened so that we can
make sure it can never happen again and also so
that we can come to terms with what happened. We
must also gather some strength from this otherwise
cataclysmic event and to lay rest the disturbed
spirits of our ancestors who have never known
peace. It is the continued disturbance of their
spirits that stops us from coming together as one
reconciled people. JOSEPH Those of us who
believe in the promise of God to Africa, take our
hope from the story of Joseph in the Bible. For we
believe that God loved Joseph and yet saw him cast
into the hell of slavery and brought out in
triumph, to magnify the scale of his
favour. Genesis 37 vrs. 28
- "Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and
they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit and
sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of
silver: and they brought Joseph into
Egypt." Genesis 45 vrs 26 -
28 - "And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive,
and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And
Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them
not; And they told him
all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto
them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had
sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father
revived; And Israel said, It
is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go
and see him before I die." AFRICA'S
JOSEPHS While it is
miserably true that there are far too many Africans
held down by the legacy of their chains, it is also
true that there are many, like Joseph, who have
risen above their captivity and are shining
examples of the best of the human spirit and of
what man can achieve. History is replete
with the names of Africans who rose not only above
their chains but rose above those who sought to
chain them. Today there are
still, by God's will, many such distinguished
Africans, in so many diverse fields, who pursue
excellence and so continue to be held high and to
inspire us all. GHANA THE
GATEWAY TO THE HOMELAND Ghana is a nation
of similar achievement to these luminaries, these
Josephs. Ghana was the first
African colony south of the Sahara to gain its
independence. The Black Star of Africa inspired and
drew inspiration from the fight for the full
emancipation of Africans in the Americas,
especially the Civil Rights struggle in the US in
the 1950s and 60s. Dr. Martin Luther
King attended Ghana's Independence Day, March 6th,
1957, and made no secret of its impact on
him. Even before Ghana
became fully independent she had reached out to
kith and kin in the diaspora to return home to
share in the great vision of creating the New
Africa. It is in Ghana that
the remains of the late W.E.B. Dubois and George
Padmore are interred. Ghana has struggled
and continues to struggle for the full emancipation
and dignity of the African peoples. Ghana today is a
beacon in Africa of good governance: Ghana is the
example of the capacity of the African to manage
his/her own affairs in a decent, humane,
disciplined and respected manner. Ghana is a natural
inspiration for African pride. Ghana is a natural
choice to spearhead the research into the slave
trade and tell the real story of what happened.
From Mauritania to Angola from where the slaves
were taken, Ghana lies at the centre. There are some 40
Slave Forts, Castles and trade posts that were used
in the transportation of the slaves still existing
in Ghana. Many of these are well
preserved. Ghana has dedicated
itself to finding out the full story of the evil
trade and making sure that this truly African story
is told by Africans. Ghana has set up a
Multi-Sectoral Committee to research and trace the
slave routes of West Africa with special focus on
Ghana. There are historians, archaeologists and
restorers working together on this. Routes that
captives took have been identified, where they
bathed, ate, camped, and exited to the
Americas. WHY LAUNCH "THE
JOSEPH PROJECT" IN 2007 ? In addition to
being Ghana's 50th Independence Anniversary, 2007
is also the 200th Anniversary of The Act of March
2nd 1807, passed in the U.S., which forbade trading
in slaves with Africa. The Act of the
British parliament in 1807 abolished the Slave
Trade within their colonies. This had an immediate
impact in South America leading to the trade being
declared illegal in Venezuela and Mexico in 1810,
Chile in 1811 and Argentina in 1812. 1807 is a
historically acceptable date for the beginning of
the abolition of the Atlantic Slave
Trade. The
200thanniversary of this date, coinciding with the
50th anniversary of Ghana's independence, gives the
year a resonance suitable to the launch of this
momentous project. THE
ACTIVITIES 1. The
Healing "The Rapprochement
of the African Peoples". There can be no
African century without unity of the Afican
peoples. The constraint to
unity lies in the restlessness of the spirits of
our ancestors. Un- atoned violence leaves the
spirit disturbed; the 300 years of the slave trade
and the years of slavery and subjugation that
followed, subjugation that has yet to end, have
been years of violence to our people. We must lay the
spirits to rest .This will be done through Act of
Expiation and Forgiveness. The HEALING, a
ceremony of rapprochement in traditional and multi
faith forms, to be mounted in Accra in July 2007,
will assemble the traditional rulers of those
tribes that engaged in the Atlantic slave trade
from across the West and Central Coast of Africa:
the traditional rulers of those tribes whose people
still have living memory of being hunted by slave
raiders; and recognized leaders of and the Africans
in the diaspora. There will be
expiation, based on the recognition that great evil
was done by those who traded in their kith and kin,
by those in the Homeland for whom the memory of
being hunted is still alive and by the ancestors of
those who were forced into the agonies of the
middle passage and chattel slavery. And there will
be forgiveness of one another. This Act of Healing
will begin the process of
reconciliation. This "Healing" will
be in both modern religious and traditional forms.
This Act of healing will begin the process of
reconciliation and rapprochement. The Act of Healing
will be celebrated by the HEALING CONCERT, a
concert by the best musicians of the Diaspora and
West Africa, a concert of praise that will signal
the new beginning, to right a terrible wrong, to
get good out of bad. 2. A
Pilgrimage As every Muslim
must visit Mecca at least once in their lifetime so
we want to establish a pilgrimage to Ghana, one
that every African in the Diaspora must undertake
at least once in their lifetime. This pilgrimage
will be the re-introduction of the Diasporan
African to the homeland. Every Joseph
must return home. It was not enough
that Joseph was honoured in Egypt - "Then Joseph
could not refrain himself before all of them that
stood by him ………………
And he wept
aloud………………….
And Joseph said unto his brethren, ; doth my father
yet live? …………. And Joseph said
unto his brethren, come near to me, I pray you".
(Genesis Chap. 45 vs. 1 - 4) For our Pilgrims
there will definitely be sadness and anger in the
homecoming pilgrimage but yet it will be an
upliftment, a catharsis, a self re-discovery - a
Strengthening. They will reverse
the Journey that started four hundred years ago
with the "Door of no Return". Once in Ghana they
will retrace the route from the coast to the areas
where people were hunted. They will visit the
Slave markets, the slave baths, the rest stops on
the long journey from the hinterland to the slave
lodges, slave forts and slave castles from where
people departed to suffer the agonies of the
inhuman " middle passage". This part will be
painful. But it will be essential to coming to
terms with the past so as to lay it to rest, to
then gather strength to deal with the present and
the future. Along the
pilgrimage route our pilgrimage will also
experience the rich culture of Ghanaians. We will
seek to expunge the years of being denied who they
are and reintroduce them to their roots. They will also meet
ordinary Ghanaians; fisherfolk; farmers, traders,
teachers, doctors, lawyers, schoolchildren. They
will re-establish a kinship with their brothers and
sisters here in the homeland. In the Bible story
of Nehemiah, the descendants of the slaves returned
to Jerusalem, the homeland, to rebuild the wall
that had broken down and the gates that had been
destroyed. Thereafter, those in the diaspora
covenanted to return to Jerusalem to the temple "To
bring it (the wood) into the house of our God,
after the houses of our fathers, at times appointed
year by year, to burn upon the altar of the Lord
our God, as it is written in the law: And to bring the
first fruits of our ground, and the first fruits of
all fruits of all trees, year by year, unto the
house of the Lord: "Also the first
born of our sons, and of our cattle, as it is
written in the law,". Nehemiah 10 vs. 34 -
36 We want to create
an experience in Ghana that will make our
diasporans want to come back and hopefully use
Ghana as the gateway to the fuller return to the
homeland. Without knowledge
and understanding there can be no genuine
reconciliation. Without reconciliation there can be
no forward movement. Every African in
the Diaspora must draw strength from his/her roots,
his or her sense of belonging 2a. The Slave
Forts Ghana has some 40
slave lodges, slave forts and slave castles still
in place. The condition of these range from well
preserved through deteriorating to mere remnants.
These are hallowed memorials of an agonized past.
They must be preserved for posterity and used to
keep alive the memory of the evil times. "The Joseph
Project" will source funds and partners to preserve
what we have; to develop each site into a unique
experience ranging from a grave site at Elmina, to
the "African Excellence Experience" at James
Fort. We will have
diasporans returning to help in rebuilding and
restoring these shrines to the suffering of our
people. 2b. Assin Manso
- "The Last Bath" At Assin Manso
captives on their way to the coast for shipment
were given their last bath in the River Prah prior
to leaving the shores of Africa. Here in Assin
Manso we are developing a Garden of Commemoration
for meditation, an interfaith prayer hall to pray
for the spirits of the ancestors, a wall of return
on which can be etched the name of a returnee/
pilgrim or that of an ancestor or deceased relative
to proclaim the return. 2c. Salaga and
the Slave Markets Over the last 5
years Ghana's historians and archeologists have
been carrying out a major project to identify the
"Slave Route"; those areas where captives were
hunted and the routes by which they were marched to
the coast. The "Slave route"
map that this scholarship has revealed has shown us
the key way stations and markets on that route. We
are now developing methods to be able to share the
experience with our "returnee/ pilgrims"of what
happened at some of those locations. We have collected
oral history, handed down from generation to
generation, that can be shared to deepen and
broaden the knowledge of those terrible
times. 2d. The Walled
Town of Gwollu and other Hideouts We cannot but be
aware of the real bitterness felt by many of our
brothers and sisters in the diaspora against those
of us still in the homeland. However, it is
important that those outside realize that their
pain is shared by many brother and sister Africans
still in Africa: For every son who went out to play
and never returned and who grieves till today,
there are the parents still lamenting their son who
disappeared; for every mother who disappeared when
out gathering firewood, there are the motherless
infants; for every father who left to go hunting,
there is the fatherless family. Gwollu, in the
North West of Ghana, was walled as a protection
against slave raiders. We have also
identified hard to find caves that hid fugitives;
forests where the porcupines allowed fugitives to
enter and then protected them by firing their
quilts at pursuing slave raiders. These and other
sites are being preserved and restored so that the
voices and stories of the victims in these areas
can also be heard. 3.
Education What happened
during these 400 years must never be forgotten.
Already there are signs of a growing amnesia about
the slave trade in the homeland. The young, and not
so young, in the diaspora are also showing a lack
of interest in knowledge of that terrible
period. Almost all of what
has been written to date, has been written by the
"Europeans". It is time that Africans told the
story of this very African tragedy. Underpinning
everything we want to do in the field of education
is the "Slave Route Project" being carried out with
the support of UNESCO, not only in Ghana but across
Africa and in the diaspora. From the learnings
of this project we intend to do the
following: Introduce studies
of the Slave Trade into our schools in Ghana at all
levels. We will create the syllabus and write the
books. We will encourage others to follow our
lead. We will build the
knowledge that we are one African
people. We will encourage
our authors to produce the books, comic books, pop
up books, etc. that will tell the story in a way
that will generate interest and
understanding. We will use the new
technologies including the internet to make the
full history and the stories available to as wide a
range of interests and intellects as we can
reach. 4. Our Culture
and Tradition Along the
pilgrimage route, from the coast in the south,
through the middle of the country, Ashanti, Brong
Ahafo, to the North we will display and explain our
culture and our traditions, all part of our
heritage that the years in the diaspora have erased
the memories of. The
re-establishment of their culture in our brothers
and sisters will provide a more solid root, a rock
upon which to build our self awareness and self
value. 5. The African
Excellence Experience While we lament
over the wickedness of the Slave Trade we must not
lose sight of the display of greatness of the
African spirit that it showed. Our people were in
bondage in the land of the oppressor, chattel
slaves, yet they turned round to dominate their
oppressors so that, today, African culture, African
language ,African music dominate world culture,
world language, world music. The strength of
this spirit is epitomized by those Africans in the
diaspora who rose and continue to rise far above
their chains to attain and display
excellence. The Ghana
Government intends to convert one of the slave
forts, James Fort in Accra, a fort that kept first
slaves and then prisoners, a true example of the
attempt to chain mankind, into the home of the
African Excellence Experience. We will build in
this slave fort, from which our peoples were
shipped out supposedly never to return, a museum
dedicated to those Africans in all walks of life
who triumphed over slavery, who triumphed over
every adversity; who triumphed and continue to
triumph over those who sought to enchain them: - we
will build a monument to The True
Josephs. At this monument
you will relive the story of Mary MacLeod Bethune,
Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey,
Toussaint L'Ouverture, Duke Ellington, Martin
Luther King, George Washington Carver et
al. All the "Josephs"
of blessed memory and you will also meet the
Josephs of today, those still alive, whose lives
are an inspiration to us, whose lives are blazing
torches of the true African spirit. Here in the
"African Excellence Experience" we will find the
inspiration to overcome all of life's
challenges. Here we will share
the strength and power and inspiration of those who
rose and triumphed and continue to triumph over the
greatest of all adversities. In this fort we
will mount a state of the art exhibition of the
slave trade; from hunting captives, through the
march to the coast, the middle passage and onto the
plantations of the Americas and to the continuing
struggle for civil rights. We will tell not
only the story of the gross inhumanity but we will
also tell the stories of the continual struggle for
freedom and against the imposition of the yoke. We
will tell the story of Toussaint L'Ouverture, the
Maroon revolts, the refusal by so many of our
people to accept the shackles of those who have
sought and continue to seek to subjugate
us. Having passed
through this exhibition you will then enter the
cells and dungeons of the slave fort/prison and
here we will exhibit the life stories of the
"Josephs". Those who triumphed over the extreme
adversity of the slave trade, its aftermath and
consequences and triumphed in all areas of human
endeavour. An African, whether
homelander or diasporan, visiting this experience
should emerge strengthened, better able to overcome
whatever challenges he or she may face through the
examples of the "Josephs". Truly it will show
that the African spirit can never be
chained. 6. The "Josephs
of today There are "Josephs"
alive today and new ones still being born, so it is
our intention to form a nominating committee of
Africans in the homeland and in the diaspora who
will select those men and women who qualify to
become a "Joseph". These will then be en robed and
featured in the "African Excellence
Experience". 7. The Diasporan
visa It is the Ghana
government's intention to introduce "A Diasporan
Stamp" which when granted after an initial visit
will allow the Diasporan visa free entry to
Ghana. The African Union
(AU) Diasporan office is to be located in Ghana. It
is this office, an adjunct of the AU that will work
on Diasporan issues with AU member
countries. 8. Owning land
in the homeland A variety of land
and home ownership schemes are being evolved that
will allow Diasporans to have real ownership of a
piece of the Homeland. These will range from
symbolic plots, real ownership but of a very small
piece of real estate, time share apartments and
land for private development. 9. Know your
Roots Programmes for the
youth in two categories, Gifted but Poor and the
Socially Difficult. Holiday tours and pilgrimages
will be sponsored for these young people so that
they can learn how privileged and culturally rich
they are to be African. The installation of pride
will hopefully benefit both groups. 10. The "gene
map" To irrevocably
establish the genetic link between our
returnees/pilgrims and the homeland, we intend in
the medium to long term to collect DNA samples from
across the length and breadth of West and Central
Africa. With this genetic
database map we would hope to be able to establish
for every returnee/pilgrim interested, a personal
report on his/her antecedents: to be able to
organize visits to the villages of the
ancestors. J.O.Obetsebi-Lamptey, Minister, Ministry of Tourism
and Modernisation of The Capital City, Accra,
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The Ghana Joseph Project...
From
Ghana Tourism Website
http://www.ghanatourism.gov.gh/main/advertdetail.asp?id=1
Photo of Former Minister by Robert
Eilets
http://www.ghanatour.org/index.htm
http://www.ghanaweb.com/
http://www.ghana-embassy.org/tourism.htm
http://www.ghanacastle.gov.gh/