by Gifty Etornam Katahena
When the Remnants Remain: Redefining Classics in Ghana through Reception
The first July blog (and 16th of the African takeover!) is written by Gifty Etornam Katahena of the Department of Philosophy and Classics, University of Ghana, Legon.
Many people find it ‘weird’ that Classics is still studied in Ghana. People usually exclaim: ‘Why Classics? You will be jobless! Do you want to be a teacher? How will it help develop Ghana?’ For the indigenous Ghanaian, Classics has outlived its purpose and, thus, must not be studied at all or at the expense of African or Ghanaian culture or history. For the Westerner, Classics forms part of the Western civilisation or experience, hence the Ghanaian may not have any reason to study it. These are like two faces of the same coin—that Classics is not relevant to the Ghanaian or the development of his or her society.
However, there are other groups of people who still find relevance in the study of Classics in non-Western environments. Whereas some find the essence in studying Classics from a purely humanistic point of view because legacies of the ancient societies have become modules for contemporary societal development or civilisations, others hold the view that references can be made to these legacies when necessary (as history or as part of the evolution of world civilisation) but should not be studied exclusively. How then can the aforementioned views be conceptualised without the knowledge of Classics at all?
Like most Classics students here in Ghana, there is a sense of astonishment when one identifies parallels between Greco-Roman and Ghanaian cultures. For instance, most ethnic groups in Ghanaian society have a traditional garment (called different names based on one’s ethnic language) that looks like the ancient Roman toga. It is worn either with an inner shirt that looks like the tunic and knee-length shorts, or with just knee-length shorts. While chiefs and kings wear this garment, its use, like the toga, is not limited to royals or the upper class.
Cultures around the world and in ages past cannot always make claim to the ingenuity of their cultural practices, beliefs, values and norms. Perhaps Bastian was right when in his principle of psychic unity of mankind he makes the observation that the “minds of all people, regardless of their race or culture, operate in the same way.” (Koepping 1983). This undoubtedly is a natural phenomenon, yet there is still some level of influence when cultures meet or make contact. The globalization of our contemporary world heavily relies on cultures making contacts and being influenced by each other. That said, there are cultures that have similarities but have no influence on each other.
Interestingly too, some practices have been adopted and adapted into the Ghanaian way of doing things which take semblance in ancient Greek and Roman culture but which are things taught us by the British. The colonization by the Europeans did not only leave us with the English language, Western religion, names, architecture, food, fashion, art (literature, paintings, music), and type of governance, but they also left us with formal education—the major tool for their colonial expedition. More importantly in this case is their leaving behind a bit of what influenced their culture and development—Classics. For example, the teaching of Greek and Latin was introduced in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) to enable Africans to read the Bible in the original languages Greek and Hebrew. Classics then gradually became a central part of secondary and tertiary education curricula in the early 19th century during British colonial rule in the Gold Coast. By 1987, however, these languages had been phased out of pre-tertiary education. But some secondary schools and universities still use Latin phrases as mottoes or slogans as can be seen in the mottoes for University of Ghana, the University of Cape Coast, and some selected senior high schools in Ghana illustrated here.
Reference
Koepping, K. P. 1983. Adolf Bastian and the psychic unity of mankind. The foundations of anthropology in the nineteenth-century Germany. New York: University of Queensland Press.
This is a remarkable submission. Who says the study of classics is irrelevant. Making such a conclusion will mean having no regard for cultural parallels that laid the possible foundation for recent and most influenced and sophisticated cultures. This may sound weird to someone who does not understand the rudiments surrounding cultures, however, the knowledge of the past, gives us a clear indication, without any doubt the direction of a foreseeable future. Far from it being compared to history, classics in itself gives some clarity to the confusion that sets cultures apart and tries to standardize preeminent and best regarded legacies of human attained contributions of development.