James Mawuli Gawu

In the defence of our cultural heritage

James Mawuli Gawu Opinion Jun - 01 - 2017 , 06:00

Ghana marked World Museums Day on May 18, this year. A day set aside to appreciate and underscore the importance of museums as important, if not indispensable to the consolidation of our history and storage of the evidence of same for the sake of posterity and also for our national pride as a people who just don’t keep living life, but taking time to put aside what is important and what identifies us as a unified body of people with a common destiny.

In many countries, museums are important national landmarks, strategically branded and positioned as the first destination of tourists wishing to know more about the people. The sense of curiosity surrounding these places holding artefacts as old as the country is immense, the feeling of sacredness that greets national museums elsewhere, and the mere beauty and investment that is made by governments in these museums is sharply missing in Ghana. Am sorry to state that in Ghana, museums appear to be nothing more than boring old, dilapidated buildings with dusty, near empty shelves that arouse no interest whatsoever in the average Ghanaian or tourist to want to see, let alone pay for.

Artwatch Ghana reports that in the last quarter of 2016, government released a paltry sum of 2000 cedis for the administrative expenses of the eight main museums in the country. The 60-year-old building of the national museum is obviously very tired and unappealing. Some of the museum building projects have been abandoned since the 1970s and the museums generally lack the capacity, funds, logistics, human resource and the influence to even attempt a collection drive of artefacts. It goes without saying that our museums have to depend on individual donations and collections from private collectors. We can, thus, safely say that it is not possible for our museums to correctly tell the tale of our art, craft, tradition, culture, religion, infrastructure, chieftaincy and history among others.

I remember vividly the nationwide anger and condemnation that greeted an alleged comment by the Senior Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, to the effect that Ghana ought to fall on its Heritage fund drawn from oil proceeds to implement educational policies. Those vehemently against this proposal by the minister argued with fury how the money was for the future generations and we were taking away that heritage by drawing on the funds today.

I put it before us all that heritage has got a lot less to do with money and more to do with a sense of belonging of the future generation, their understanding of where Ghana came from and where we stand now, their appreciation of our history, art and culture and their admiration and preservation of same, their holding in high esteem the heritage of our independence won after struggles with colonial authority and the interesting balance of central governance with traditional rulership. So if we are so livid about protecting some money that is supposed to be for the future generations and yet we have no interest in protecting our identity as stored and kept sacred in our museums, then perhaps our priorities have to be re-analysed.

It is important to note that it is not for nothing that countries such as the United States are even investing in a new area of study known as Garbology- essentially the study of rubbish or garbage. They believe a lot can be learned about a people, their habits and every other aspect of their culture by studying what they throw away. Leading garbologists have since reconstituted several artefacts from the garbage of older generations and kept in museums for their students to read about and for tourists to understand parts of their culture and way of life that are probably not written anywhere. Museums elsewhere receive huge funds from government to study and collect priceless artefacts of their countries from around the world, many countries are engaged in lawsuits with other countries over found shipwrecks and their remains for storage in museums.

We must realise that we cannot make museums in Ghana attractive unless we put in place measures to brand them appropriately, give them the necessary facelift, back their activity with legislation, give them a proper leadership structure, fund them to go out there and collect artefacts of our arts, commerce, culture and make them attractive enough to be tourist destinations and places of leisure for Ghanaians where people pay good money to go see what’s in there and learn about their country.

Many families will like to take their children to the museum on a beautiful holiday instead of the Accra Mall, but then, the problem is these children may catch a cold from the dust and bat droppings in our supposed places of national history. I am aware we have problems such as energy crisis, unstable currency, educational challenges, health problems, salaries and emoluments, water, sustainable development goals to deal with, but all these come with actions, documents, works, events, artefacts, cultural displays etc. that in a 100 years will make a lot of sense to our grandchildren’s children and make them understand the might of the Ghana they have inherited. Let’s work on our museums now.