Strife Journal, Issue 5 (May/ June 2015) 20 History Production after Undemocratic Regime Change: The Impact of Ghana’s Competing Independence Narratives after the First Coup d’É tat on Peace and Political Stability Clement Sefa-Nyarko Introduction The turbulence that accompanies undemocratic regime changes often shakes the socio-political and economic structures of societies that experience them. Among others, the new centres of power restructure history through the manipulation of memory, ‘since they decide which narratives should be remembered, preserved and disseminated’. 1 Controversies over the memory of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and the different narratives about Kwame Nkrumah and G hana’s First Republic typify this scenario. Narratives are subjective recall of events, real or abstract, and form fundamental part of collective memory. It is in fact sine qua non for national history reconstruction. Some scholars believe that the official Rwandese government narrative of the genocide ‘selectively highlights some civilian memories of violence, and represses others in order to hide complicity of the K agame regime in the hundred days of atrocities of 1994. 2 The Rwandese government has also responded angrily to such attempts to accuse it of manipulating the history of the genocide. In October 2014, for instance, the government suspended British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) radio programmes from Rwandese airwaves through national legislation, in protest against a BBC documentary that the Rwandese government found offensive. 3 The BBC has 1 Nascimento Araujo and Myrian dos Santos, ‘History, Memory and Forgetting’, RCCS A nnual Review , 2009, par. 12, online at http://rccsar.revues.org/157 (all online sources accessed last on 27 April 2015 unless otherwise stated). 2 E lizabeth K ing, ‘Memory Controversies in Post- Genocide Rwanda: Implications for Peacebuilding’, Genocide Studies and Prevention: A n International Journal, Vol. 5 (2010), p. 293. 3 ‘Rwanda bans BBC broadcasts over genocide documentary’, The Guardian , 24 October 2014, online at since defended the airing of the documentary and insisted on its neutrality in all its broadcasts. The dominance of the victor’s narrative is a common phenomenon in all post-conflict societies, especially those conflicts which are resolved through outright victory of one party. Conflicts that end through settlements have different dynamics, since main actors in the conflict come together for peace-building and state-building, and by implication, production of history for society. E ducational policies and curricula are designed to achieve certain agenda suitable to the victor or main actors. These are likely to affect peace-building and reconciliation, since collective remembrance has healing effects on people who are grieved. 4 T he complexity of post-conflict history production is characteristic of post-Cold War Africa. Prior to this era, coup d’états were the main instruments of regime change, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, and these became tools for both political stabilization and destabilization. G hana presents a typical case where the writing and re-writing of history through coup d’états has progressively created a culture of silence which has contributed to political stability in the last third of its fifty- seven (57) years of existence. In history construction, culture of silence occurs when ‘there is enduring absence of the whole truth’ in narratives about the past and inherent deficiencies that lack fairness, accuracy and sensitivity to all members of society. 5 When www.theguardian.com/media/2014/oct/24/rwanda- bans-bbc-broadcasts-genocide-documentary 4 But this is true only as far as the remembrance is from their perspective. 5 Rea Simigiannis, ‘Do memory initiatives have a role in addressing cultures of silence that perpetuate impunity in South Africa?’, Perspectives Series Research Report for Impunity