Ghana’s Rastas and the year of return
Ghana's government likes to advertise its "Year of Return" to welcome members of the African diaspora back to the country, but the first returnees, Ratafarians, are still fighting for their rights.
Obed, an elder of the Amamole Rasta Camp leadership, and Hanson, a younger member, share peanuts and ganja during a meeting. Image credit Sam Broadway.
Twice this year, so far, the cannabis decriminalization efforts of the Rastafari Council of Ghana have been blocked by the police. Securing injunctions through two different courts, first on May 8th and again on June 26th, the Ghana Police prevented the group from proceeding with peaceful demonstrations in favor of ushering in a cannabis economy they view as increasingly legitimate.
Coming out of their annual conference in Kumasi, the seat of the Ashanti region, the Rastafari Council decided that 2019 was the year to ramp up their advocacy of cannabis legalization. Among the topics discussed was the persistent profiling of Rastas during routine traffic stops, which led to a much larger conversation. According to Rastafari Council President Ahuma Ocansey Bosco, better known as Daddy Bosco:
One of the things that came up was that we needed to step up the advocacy for decriminalization because it is the criminalization of herb that leads to police people wanting to pick on you because they think you carry and once you’re implicated, you know, it’s either a way of extortion or something.
Ironically, and perhaps fortuitously, the Rasta community’s increased advocacy has coincided with what has become widely known as the Year of Return.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly in September of last year, Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, declared that 2019, which marks the 400th anniversary of the first African slaves reaching the shores of Jamestown, Virginia, would be the year to welcome members of the African diaspora back to the country where over 70% of West Africa’s slave forts can be found.
“We know of the extraordinary achievements and contributions they [Africans in the diaspora] made to the lives of the Americans, and it is important that this symbolic year—400 years later—we commemorate their existence and their sacrifices,” said Akufo-Addo in his speech.
While Akufo-Addo and his administration intends, through the Year of Return, to recognize the “achievements and contributions” of American descendants of enslaved Africans, some of Ghana’s earliest returnees, members of the Rasta community, still face discrimination.
