05.08.2004
Standing on holy ground
From the modern facility of the University of Ghana in Accra to the shame-drenched “slave castles” of the Ghanaian coast – this was the journey back in time that delegates to the 24th World Alliance of Reformed Churches general council made on Tuesday August 3.
The council had adjourned its normal business to enable participants to experience the physical settings of the slave trade of which their ancestors – both captors and captured – had been part.
The general secretary of WARC, Dr Setri Nyomi, welcomed delegates to the National cultural centre on the southeastern coast, and set the tone for the visit when he said: “We are on holy ground.”
Not even those solemn words could help delegates to anticipate fully the emotional roller-coaster on which they were about to embark. Groups visited two former sites of the slave trade – the castles (former forts) at Elmina and Cape Coast, from where captured slaves were transported, in horrific conditions, to Europe and the countries of the western hemisphere.
Reactions differed. Rev. Prince Dibeela, principal of the Kgologano College in Botswana wrote: “A wave of anger and hatred gripped my soul. As the guide explained how our ancestors had been brutalized and forced through the little hole into the sea, I hated white folks. I hated them for what they did there, and for what they continue to do to black people.”
He found himself amazed that, for once, he was not in control of his emotions.
Dr Roderick Hewitt of Jamaica, who is moderator of the Council for World Mission, experienced a sense of awe. “As the tour guide shared the story, the castle walls became my ‘wailing wall’,” he wrote. “The scent of the place made me shiver. I was standing on holy ground. My mind went to another level of ‘seeing and hearing’ my ancestors. In the dungeon of no return, I heard their wailing, and I could take no more.”
For Wieske de Jong, a theology student from Kampen in the Netherlands, the shock came from a different perspective. She explains: “I knew I was on holy ground as I saw the Dutch inscription on the wall at the entrance of the castle. It wasn’t the message as such that struck me most. It was the fact that it was written in my language.
“Not long ago, people speaking my language decided not to recognize other people as being human and then abused them in a way I still cannot quite imagine. I belong to a small part of the world. Where Europe once profited from slavery, now I profit from globalization.”
On reflection, many participants were able to process their initial emotions into future commitments. Dr Hewitt, for instance, wrote: “Elmina is a dark epiphany that graphically records what life is like when human beings lose all sense of seeing others as sacred beings. Slavery was the African holocaust. However, the experience does not motivate me to engage in vengeance, because there can be no future for humanity without repentance and forgiveness.”
His feelings were echoed by Rev. Dibeela, who records: “Some Korean folks came and embraced us, and it felt like the spirit of the ancestors had been appeased. The spirit that had momentarily possessed me, with its hate and quest for revenge, left me. I knew that I had experienced liberation. I knew that I could leave the room of no return free. I resolved in my heart, more than ever before, to fight against oppression, hatred, injustice and domination of one group by another.”
Dave Wanless – August 5 2004
