If you don’t remember, you will repeat the blunder

E. Ablorh-Odjidja

October 18, 2018

I thought I was done with writing on the National Cathedral theme. I wasn’t.

I forgot one thing - to deal sufficiently with the purpose of a National Cathedral.  In my view, the purpose should be clear and justified by our history and our link with slavery.

 A nation like ours needs atonement from that association with slavery.  Accordingly, any building planned as a sacred national space for God must be a place for contemplation, penitence, and renewal of hope.

 A new shining edifice, no matter how architecturally remarkable, will, not generate automatically, a remembrance or reason for atonement.  The best architect, with a mere design concept, cannot supply the spiritual need to fill this place.

Repentance is what it takes.  I am a Christian by heritage.  That said, I have no expertise or authority on Christianity or any other religion to offer.

But I do have a sense of history and regret - and a bit of common sense with which to go along to ask for a different approach to establish a national cathedral. 

To encounter the Truth and Reality of our past, people with our kind of history and need for repentance (Christians, Muslims, Traditionalists, and alike), must have a sacred space with a unifying motif for penitence.

This proposed ultra-new building cannot do it at this time.  Maybe in time, such a new edifice may acquire a spiritual presence like a shrine.  But why overlook our old castles, the museum pieces that stand begging for some different and positive branding than the slave fort image brought from the past? 

The Osu or Elmina castle, for use as a National Shrine/Cathedral can be a perfect fit.  A conversion to such status will not add a sectarian color to ceremonies held within them, nor would it acerbate any religious differences between us, since it would carry a non-schismatic resolve.

But consider this uplifting image:  An edifice, once a fort for holding slaves, now becomes a binding force for contemplation, regret, and hope for a better future.

No huge funding, relatively speaking, must be needed to transform the castle into a shrine, since it will not be meant as a place for comfort or hubris.

Likewise, no old buildings will be bulldozed, or a new one built as proposed for the current National Cathedral. 

The low cost of converting an existing castle into a humble place of assembly leaves little room for corruption or the perception of it as would otherwise be the case for the building of a completely new ultra-modern cathedral.  

There is no denying that we have a part of our history to regret.  The incidence of slavery from our shores – of humans held in these castles and then led in chains into servitude. 

The castles are still standing as witnesses and beckon us to use their spaces as sacred places of worship.  Spaces that are already expiated by the blood of hordes of ancestors who were trafficked through them as slaves. 

As spaces for worship, the sanctity of sacrifice within the walls of these castles is already assured.  God did not ask for the bloody sacrifice.  But the aura of perpetual sacrifice is already established in them.  The vile inhuman acts of slavery are already etched on their surfaces.  These castles may just as well be turned into shrines and symbols of penance now -  in dedication to the God of all humanity, miscreants, and victims alike. 

To these castles, now National Cathedral/Shrine, we can come from all religious sectors to contemplate, hold ceremonies, and pray for strength for the right approach to tackle the future.

 I had previously suggested an open space like the Black Star Square for national worship. But on second thought, the square must be reserved only for the vainglorious parades (in the hot sun) for our armed forces as penitence for the useless coups of the past.

The only presence of soldiers at the castle/National Cathedral should be at the front grounds, posing as standing guards, in silence and solemn posture for all days and hours of the week.

For those who would walk past the soldiers into the interior space of what once was a slave castle to worship, they can join a refrain borrowed from a Jewish song, or something with similar meaning from our languages:

“There are people with hearts of stone, and stones with hearts of people.”

The sense can then be collectively understood.  Past experiences as well as those of the present have in part originated from the hearts of our people - some stupid people with hearts of stone.

Conditions created by government policies in Africa that push people to flee the continent in the present day.  Sights of people in leaky boats, risking lives for greener pastures abroad, indeed, are the reenactment of the pains of slavery. 

 Truthfully speaking, the escapes on the leaky boats to countries abroad today are voluntary.  But the conditions propelling the escape are not.  These people are forced out by the bad conditions that our politicians, the people with hearts of stone, produce at home.  These are our people.  They have become the perpetrators of the same acts and conditions created for the slave trade that we ask others to be mindful of for reparations today.

So, if we ever need to cry for God’s forgiveness and repair, as we wish with the National Cathedral, that cry must come from the old slave castles, where some of our ancestors colluded with the slave traders and thereby offended God.  Our moment of catharsis will happen when we collectively say within this Castle/National Cathedral/Shrines, Never Again!

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, October 18, 2018.

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