The ‘Founder of Ghana’ - a contribution to the debate

The acrimony of the debate about who deserves to be given the honorific title of ‘Founder of Ghana’ shows no signs of abating. This year, as in previous years, the debate has preoccupied the general public for several weeks and rightly so, as we need a greater diversity of views and perspectives to enrich the debate on the history of our struggle for independence.

Uses and Abuses of history’

In his book entitled ‘Uses and Abuses of Power’ published in 1970 (University of Chicago Press), a Ghanaian political scientist in the United States (US), Maxwell Owusu, observes that:

“In situations of social change, as groups and individuals compete for political and economic advantages, [they strategically] reinterpret, redefine and manipulate tradition or custom.” (p5)

This observation will no doubt resonate with our countrymen who regret what appears to be a calculated attempt by some of our countrymen to distort the historical reality of our recent past for partisan political advantage.

Nineteenth century England went through a similar experience which developed out of the long-standing political feud between Protestantism and Catholicism from the 16th century. In some ways, I see what is happening in our country as a throwback to the 19th century wrangle between the ‘predecessor’ parties of modern-day Tory and Liberal parties in the United Kingdom which led to abuse of the process of historical reconstruction known to historians as the Whig interpretation of History.

Whig interpretation of history

The Whig interpretation of history developed out of the debates between the WHIGS (now the Liberal Party), and the TORIES (now the Conservative Party) over the English Revolution of the 17th century.  The long-standing political feud between Protestantism and Catholicism in the time of King James 11 (1685-89) resolved itself into a conflict between royal absolutism on the one hand, and parliamentary democracy and personal liberty on the other. Ranged on the side of royal absolutism were the Catholics and adherents of the theory of Divine Right of Kings; on the opposite side were the Protestants and advocates of parliamentary supremacy.

In the 18th century, the Protestants became identified with the Whigs while the Catholics aligned themselves with the Tories. Under King George 1 (1714-1761), the Whig landowning aristocracy who had played a leading role in the Revolution of 1689 achieved supremacy and enjoyed majority representation in the House of Lords.

English revulsion against revolutionary France and Edmund Burke’s ‘‘anti-French revolution’’ and ‘‘anti-Napoleon’’ stance enabled the Tories to enjoy a long tenure of power beginning in the late 18th century and extending beyond the French Revolution.

After peace was concluded, English public opinion was swept by a strong counter current against the Tories. They, however, managed to stay on by means of the completely antiquated electoral system. The Whigs rode on the crest of the counter current, raising the ‘Reform’ as their battle cry. Behind the Whigs were the radicals who threatened revolution. The Tories stubbornly resisted reform, arguing that England’s future lay in maintaining the status quo of traditional forms of authority and subjection. The passionate belief in ‘progress’ aroused by the French Revolution made it unimaginable for the British Historian of the period between the mid-19th century and the outbreak of World War I to conceive of historical change for the better in terms other than of progress.

Nearly all British historians of the 19th century, without exception, regarded the course of history as the unfolding of the principle of human progress. Progress became the measure of history and the ideology of a confident, rapidly progressing Britain.

In the political wrangle that ensued, each side appealed to history, reading and interpreting the English Revolutions of the 17th century to its advantage. While the Whigs held up the revolution as a warning, the Radicals held it up as a deterrent.

In 1825 a young Whig historian, T.B Macaulay, entered the debate on the side of the Whigs, supporting reforms to ward off revolution and its excesses. In a book titled History of England from the accession of James the Second, he asserted that the history of England ‘during the last hundred and seventy years’ (i.e. since the death of Queen Mary), was ‘eminently the history of physical, of moral and of intellectual improvement’ (A Marwick 1970 p45) It was the belief of Macaulay, the most celebrated exponent of the Whig interpretation of history, that ‘history is full of a natural progress of society (Pieter Geyl, p43); and he saw the history of England as ‘emphatically the history of progress’ (P.Geyl,pp37,45).

Furthermore, he assumed that in each of the many struggles that marked the history of England,there had always been a side that was right; that it was ‘this right side’ alone that had served the cause of progress. Macaulay claimed that in the struggle between the Tories and the Whigs, the latter had always been on the right side since they (the Whigs) were ‘the men to whom we [i.e. England] owe it that we have a House of Commons’ (Geyl, pp34, 38-39).

Macaulay maintained that since history was all about progress, whatever was done in the cause of progress, symbolised by liberty, was right. It followed from his viewpoint that in judging the past, the historian derives his standard from his own time or age. The result was that the picture of the 18th century that Macaulay set before his readers was distorted through 19th century spectacles. Macaulay and his age obtrude every moment ‘between the reader and events described or personages pictured’ (Geyl, p35).

As the Historian Pieter Geyl explains, the distorted picture was a function of the fact that Macaulay ‘came to the contemplation of the past with a mind brimming over with ideas and sentiments about the present’. Hence, he was not able to avoid ‘the temptation to judge men and events of earlier ages ‘by the dictates of the preoccupations of his own time or age’.

Nothing could be more wilfully one-sided than such an interpretation. It is this mental attitude to the past, an attitude which is unhistorical in the deepest sense that is referred to as the Whig interpretation of History. That interpretation seeks to negate what historians have been trying to do ever since the 19th century Rankean Revolution in Historiography, namely:

• To look at the past ‘’from within’’, so to speak;
• To ‘imaginatively transpose’ oneself into the past and ‘make intellectual adjustments’ when a historian confronts a generation earlier than his.

For Macaulay and other historians of the Whig tradition, a past event has relevance for them only insofar as it serves their generation. Adherents of the Whig interpretation of History study the past for the sake of the present, not in an effort to understand the past for the sake of the past.

The Whig interpretation provides a handy rule of thumb for easily discovering what was important in the past, which by definition means what is important from their point of view.  The Whig interpretation misconceives

parties to any struggle that takes place in any given generation. By that interpretation, historical personages are ‘‘easily and irresistibly classed into men who furthered progress and men who tried to hinder it’’. By so doing, it enables a historian of that persuasion to arrive at what seems to be self-evident judgements concerning historical issues even before any serious and deep study has been made. In conclusion, Herbert Butterfield, author of the Whig Interpretation of History, states on pp28-29, 38:

“It will enable him [i.e. the historian] to decide irrevocably, and in advance, before historical research has said anything and in the face of anything it might say, that Fox [the Whig leader], whatever his sins, was fighting to save liberty from Pitt [the Tory leader], while Pitt, whatever his virtues, cannot be regarded as fighting to save liberty from Fox.”

He continues:

“If we see in any generation the conflict of the future against the past, the fight of what one might be called progressive versus reactionary, we shall find ourselves organising the historical story upon what is really an unfolding principle of progress, and our eyes will be fixed upon certain people who appear as the special agencies of that progress. We shall be tempted to ask the fatal question. To WHOM do we owe our religious liberty? But if we see in each generation a clash of wills out of which there emerges something that probably no man ever willed, our minds become concentrated upon the processes that produced such an unpredictable issue, and we are more open for an intensive study of the motions and interactions that underlie historical change. In these circumstances, the question will be stated in its proper form: HOW did religious liberty arise?” (Butterfield p38) 

The Whig interpretation has been called the historians’ ‘‘pathetic fallacy’’. It results from the practice of abstracting things from their historical context and judging them apart from their context. In other words, it is characteristic of the Whig historian to study the past with reference to the present.

History’s importance in national development is not in doubt. An unbiased, non-discriminatory, non-controversial reconstruction of our country’s past can be a powerful tool for forging a sense of shared destiny which will strengthen the camaraderie between social groups in our multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society. By the same token, any calculated attempt to abuse History by using our past to discredit any group for unfair political advantage will polarise and paralyse our society. History should not be a figment of any body’s imagination. It must be based on evidence, essentially bits of the past that have left ‘traces’ of itself, traces that the historian calls‘sources’; bits which have survived in a variety of forms: documents, archaeological remains, eyewitness accounts and oral tradition. It must seek to paint a picture of the past, by connecting individual events together into a coherent account.

Admittedly there is a greater element of subjectivity in history than in science. A body of propositions is described as ‘objective’ if it is the case that all persons who seriously investigate them will accept them, because it has a universal character which makes it impartial and impersonal. Two or more competent scientists given the same evidence will achieve the same results. Objectivity of science is not a function of their subject matter. It arises from the existence of clearly defined, standardised methodologies or procedures. Historical works are incapable of achieving the same extent of objectivity as scientific works because knowledge acquired by the scientific method is demonstrable or verifiable. By contrast, historical conclusions are subjective because of the element of interpretation.