Accra, (Greater Accra) 17 Sept.,
Prof. Nana Arhin Brempong, Chairman of the National Commission on Culture (NCC), today said Ghana’s culture remains strong and is proving resistant to foreign cultures and influences related to modernity. In an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra, Nana Brempong said new festivals keep springing up and customary practices such as marriage, funerals and recreation are assuming different dimensions without losing their basic philosophy. He said in an attempt to place the nation’s cultural heritage in the right perspective, the Commission is, among other things, working to control the excesses that characterise funerals and the importation of coffins. It is encouraging cross-ethnic marriage to foster unity among Ghanaians. Prof. Brempong said in a bid to dissolve ethnicity, the Commission plans to organise lectures on matrilineal and patrilineal inheritance to find a common ground during the next National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFAC). He called for a halt to the practice of carrying chiefs in palanquins, describing it as a symbol of servitude and suggested alternatives like the use of vehicles while artefacts like palanquins are preserved to guide posterity on what pertained in times past. Nana Brempong said these positive cultural strides are mainly due to programmes and activities of the Commission, established in 1989 as the principal custodian of Ghana’s culture and manager of its cultural policy. Prior to the establishment of the Commission, the Arts Council was the sole body responsible for fostering cultural development through music, dance, drama and fine art. Nana Brempong noted that the present environment in which Ghanaians from all walks of life appreciate and use locally made crafts, especially clothing and the increasing adoption of local names are signs that the nation is moving in the right direction. He said to bring the Commission’s operations in line with constitutional provisions, an amendment to PNDC Law 238 which set it up, is presently before cabinet. The amendment, among other things, will seek to increase the membership of the NCC to include the private sector. These additions, Nana Brempong noted, will enhance the Commission’s work by helping it to raise funds for its programmes, while publishers could help by publishing pamphlets and other literature necessary for it to meet its objectives. Nana Brempong cautioned against a wholesale abandonment of obsolete cultural practices, saying “a man cannot be forced to abandon his culture. What should be done is to study it well to identify what to discard and what to preserve”. He noted that the patronage and adoption of foreign cultures by the youth through films and music is a sign that the world is becoming one. However, “these are trivial matters as long as they don’t touch the core of our culture”. ”What we must try to avoid is the individualistic nature of Westerners which contradicts our cultural legacy of sharing and showing compassion among ourselves and to strangers”, he added.
