Why Ghanaians must observe Emancipation Day

credit: Dr. Kwame Osei

1 August will be Emancipation Day. This day is a very significant day in the history of Ghanaian and Afrikan people which ALL Ghanaians must observe and that government should mark as a holiday.
The significance of this day is that it marks the 171st anniversary of the official end of the British Empire as it was known of the enslavement of Afrikan people/Trans Atlantic slave trade.
The purpose of this article is why Ghanaians need to commemorate this significant day.
However before we venture into the importance of why Ghanaians must observe Emancipation Day, It is important to recognize that as a country we are NOT emancipated and this is why extra attention must be paid to this date.
Emancipation means that Ghana is free do conduct its own affairs in the national interest of Ghana. That said the proof of the pudding is that we are not truly emancipated. The physical chains of enslavement may have been shackled, but the biggest cancer to our total emancipation is the mental enslavement that we are currently suffering from.
This mental enslavement manifests itself in many ways. Here are but five examples of this.
1. The school curricula is too European orientated thus peddling a European mindset in the make up of Ghanaians which keeps them further enslaved.
2. Our economy is dominated by Europeans, Indians, Arabs and Chinese and even our budget has to be balanced by up to 60% by the very same people just to keep Ghana surviving.
3. Most of our women despise their skin colour, explaining the dramatic and worrying instances of skin bleaching that is prevalent amongst our women – a definite mental enslavement illness.
4. Our national football team is managed by a European sending a worrying and disturbing message that a Ghanaian/Afrikan has not got the capabilities of football management.
5. Our political elite have no confidence in the Black man’s abilities as they are always looking outward rather than inward to solve the myriad of Ghana’s problems.
Now the vast majority of enslaved Afrikans that were taken to the United States and the Caribbean particularly Jamaica were of Ghanaian heritage.
Even the first lady of the United States, Mrs. Michelle Obama, has been able to trace her roots back to the Cape Coast area.
This is because for more than 200 years Ghana was the epicenter of the enslavement process that led millions of Afrikans being taken to the “New World”.
My emphasis on this is to impart to Ghanaians that as a result of this enslavement process their kith and kin have being scattered all over the Americas and the Caribbean.
Secondly it is to inform Ghanaians that it is their descendants who built America, The Caribbean and Europe.
How this manifests itself is that in America the descendants of enslaved Afrikans were the ones who invented some of the most innovative things that have revolutionized the world we live in that we often take for granted and that made America into the society it has become.

For example inventions like:
The Traffic lights/signals
The light bulb
The personal computer
The lap top computer
The telephone
The mobile phone
The helicopter
The railway system/network
The sugar refining process and
The automatic gear in cars, airplanes

These inventions amongst numerous others paved the way for the development of the United States into the economic power that we know it today and major American companies such as Unilever and Barclays Bank were started using the vast profits made from enslavement.
In Europe the enslavement of Ghanaians and other Afrikans was the major cause of the industrialization of Europe. In this regard Britain stands out as the main culprit and benefactor. It is said that the sun never set on the British Empire such was its size, from the Americas to the Australasia’s.
The great British industrialization and colonization was only made possible due to the colossal profits Britain made from enslaving Ghanaians and their descendants.
British cities like Hull, London, Portsmouth, Liverpool, Cardiff, Glasgow, Bristol all made their wealth from the buying and selling of Ghanaians and their descendants.
In actual fact great British institutions like the Bank of England, Lloyds of London and Barclays Bank all came into being on the back of the vast profits made from the enslavement process.
This information is detailed by reading “Capitalism and slavery” by Eric Williams and “How Europe Under Developed Afrika” by Dr. Walter Rodney.
In mainland Europe, cities like Paris, Bordeaux, Nantes, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Oporto, Seville, Brussels, Ghent, Copenhagen etc ALL made their wealth from enslaving Ghanaians and their descendants.
In actual fact the global financial and banking system as we know it today has its roots in the enslavement of Afrikan people via the enslavement process and the money that was gained by insuring slave ships and plantations which was channeled into creating the banking and financial system that we know today.
Therefore it is fair to say that the enslavement of Ghanaians and their descendants that lasted for over 500 years has left an indelible mark not only on the landscape of Ghana and Afrika but in Europe and the Americas not forgetting South East Asia and the Arabian peninsula.
Therefore on this day Ghanaians should reflect on this huge legacy of their ancestors and to ensure that this legacy is not in vain as we try to build a better Ghana and a better Afrika for future generations and as the late great Bob Marley said “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds”