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Editors Note: Caesar Alimsinya Atuire is a Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy and Classics Department at the University of Ghana, Legon. He is also a 2020 Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford. Dr. Atuires work draws from African and European philosophical traditions to reflect on normative issues in bioethics, health, and intercultural relations. He is co-editor of the volume Bioethics in Africa: Theories and Praxis. He has also lectured and published on epistemic decolonization in academia. Originally published as 21: INQUIRIES INTO ART, HISTORY, AND THE VISUAL #2-2020, pp. 449467 https://doi.org/10.11588/xxi.2020.2.76234

The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests have been accompanied by calls for the removal of statues of racists from public space. This has generated debate about the role of statues in the public sphere. I argue that statues are erected to represent a chosen narrative about history. The debate about the removal of statues is a controversy about history and how we relate to it. From this perspective, the Black Lives Matter movement is not a drive to remove or topple statues, but a call for an honest examination of systemic racism and the residual effects of slavery. This call can be a kairos to engage in a constructive dialogue about the societies we aspire to live in. The result of this dialogue, which includes a re-examination of dominant narratives, will decide which statues and monuments can occupy public space and represent our societies.

Premise

I begin this paper with a confession. I cannot be neutral in the Black Lives Matter conversation because mine is a black life and I would like it to matter. Nevertheless, as an academic philosopher, I can only try to be rational and possibly dispassionate.

The residual effects of the North Atlantic slave trade and its essentially racist framework have always been present in my life. My ethnicity, the Bulsa of Northern Ghana, is linked to the slave trade. The unity of the Bulsa as a distinct ethnic group came about when various clan and village leaders united to defend themselves and their families from the frequent attacks of slave raiders. The Feok Festival, celebrated by the Bulsa every year in December, affirms the Bulsa identity by commemorating and reenacting the defeat of Baabatu, the last notorious slave raider of the Upper East region of Ghana.1 The architecture of the Bulsa homes also bears witness to defence against human and livestock raiders. All domestic animals are kept within the courtyard of walled compounds, where, amidst the thatched roofs, there is always a flat-roofed terrace which serves among other things as an observation tower.

Growing up in the northern territories of Ghana, I was quite oblivious of racism. This changed when I left Ghana for the UK at the age of seventeen to continue my education. It was only then that I was made to become conscious of the weight of being black. Yet, apart from a few isolated incidents of being verbally and physically attacked because of the colour of my skin, the weight has been present principally in two subtle forms. First is a sort of burden of proof that I am a normal law-abiding, honest person and an intellectual. If we consider that onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat (the burden of proof lies with the one who affirms and not the one who negates), this is tedious. When a burden of proof is needed for such basic human characteristics, there is an implicit assumption that by claiming to possess these qualities I am making an affirmation that requires proof because it is not the accepted view about persons like me. The qualities which have often been assigned to me gratuitously and generously, such as being a good dancer, an athlete, a party freak, and possessing joints or being able to procure them, are qualities which I unfortunately do not possess. The second aspect of this weight is alienation. Even though I have lived, studied and worked in the UK, Ireland, Spain and Italy, and I speak four modern European languages fluently (whereas I can barely get by with two African languages), I have always been considered a foreigner in Europe, an outsider. I do not really belong. With hindsight, I realize how this has conditioned some of my reactions, especially on those occasions when I should have spoken up. The feeling of alienation, accompanied by the burden of justification, has made me think speaking out is counterproductive or pointless. I have been perhaps more fortunate than other persons of African descent born in Europe and America, since I always have a home to return to in Africa, whereas for them it must be more difficult because the only home they have and they know is the one that alienates them.

When I returned to Ghana after living in Europe for twentynine years, I chose to settle in a small fishing town on the Atlantic coast called Apam. There are three things I notice whenever I am returning home to Apam: the distinct smell of fish as I drive by the port; the Apam skyline, which is an endless series of bamboo sticks, none perfectly perpendicular to the ground, holding up TV antennas from low-rise rusting roofs; and, above all, the imposing structure of slave Fort Lijdzaamheid (Fort Patience), built by the Dutch from 1697 to 1702, standing on top of the promontory overlooking the town. It is an indelible and jarring reminder of the North Atlantic slave trade and its racist agenda.

It is with this baggage that I write about Black Lives Matter and the removal of statues of racists.

Next week

Introduction. Una passeggiata estiva romana (A Roman summer walk)

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Black Lives Matter and the Removal of Racist Statues - Insight News