A hello and welcome to another episode of The Heritage on air series heritage air series is brought to you by Miss cookie spices no blending no peeling just scoop and cook my name is David Kus now when we come back after a short break we will get right into the conversations
All right welcome back now I have once again historian quu daku anra as my guest today and we’re going to be talking about the role of Freemasons in Ghana’s Independence K you’re welcome thank you all right so why is it even important at all to talk about
Freemasons when it comes to Ghana or organized Independence that is very critical because um the Masonic Brotherhood or the Freemasonry all over the world are people who care about issues of democratic rights good governance and the care for another human being so if you look at their Moto the truth the
Charity okay is talking about the giving to society and again the association of men of intellect well educated Professionals in their various field in whatever they engage they try to make or try to change society and bring something good for the benefit of mankind so the truth the Brotherhood and
The charity is very critical you wherever they found themselves so wherever missons find themselves they try to better that place unfortunately over the years particularly in our Gold Coast from from the post-independent Ghana Freemasonry has been demonized as a CTIC institution has been demonized by both the churches by organized religions Islam particularly
And then when you come to organize read particularly the M day Charismatic Church who do not understand understand the historic underpinings and the emergence of masonic society as a Brotherhood of people of intellectual Minds who meets and share the ideas together and think on how to better
Society those ideals for those of us who study as an academic area you come to understand that the Masonic institution is more than what the modern day Christianity Young people even go around they try to kind of equate freem with Illuminati some cultic practices with Freemasonry okay simply because
Freemasony like all organization have their secret but they are a society of men and people which people know them in society they are the big and the best and greatest of Minds wherever you find them in the world and that role they have played historically they’ve used it also
When it comes to issues of fighting for the right of the Common Man as well as self-government of society and it is in this direction that we are going to see the emergence of the Freemasonry and the Gold Coast and how the Masons in various professions use the Masonic lodges as
Places they meet as a Citadel of Civic democracy and through the sociability we’re able to use the ideas of governance to fight in the open political arena for self-government in the Gold Coast interesting interesting now I understand that um the Freemasons themselves come from a tradition of
Stone masonry U from way back and they built castles and built Cathedrals and they built over the years yes from The medevial Times They were doing all of these things how did they then impact and if you can just share with us some of that our transition to Independence
Yeah so from the some the history of has different uh uh traditions of where they came from some go back to medeval time some go back back way back than that even to the time of creation some go back to the time of Neo go back to
The ham ab and the building of the solomonic Temple and so on okay whatever it is it is a gathering of men of intellect special capability okay who came together and form that sociability of like-mindedness for the betterment of society that is what people have to understand first and foremost so they have
Been medical doctors lawyers judges um re ministers people from Aller clergymen of All Sorts until recently matter this clergy men were all femin Anglican clergymen were Freemasons even some Catholics until the the the church the Catholic Church banded they were Freemasons before they founded their uh
St John’s and then the masalan were all ordered in line with certain Masonic ideals okay if you travel to some Catholic churches there are building itself shows you certain Masonic architecture yeah showing that the hand that birth this within the church with MES so it is how we supposed to see them
As a men of special talent and ideas who meet together in the place the place they meet is the lodge where the initiation will take place with their temples and so on so when they meet in these places they share about their common Brotherhood ideas of betterment
They will help society and so on that is why normally politics is not shared that much there but when issues B the country Brothers try to find a way and that’s how Masons called them themselves Brothers try to come together and find ways of also contributing towards
Society and it development okay so when we go to go back to history there are three forms of frees that developed in England back in the day so we have the grand Lodge of England which started in England then you have the Grand Lodge of Ireland so the Irish have their one then
The one on the Scotland okay so this were the misses that there during the colonial times misses from these three lodges were posted as soldiers and Colonial workers to Colonial Africa to America and other places so the free merary most of them from the England for
Their home the grand L’s home in England some of the members were posted by as workers of Her Majesty’s government were posted to various Colonial territories some in Americas some in Europe some in Asia some to Africa so in Africa the first place they came was in gambay when
One of the Gun Masters was sent there to start and work and then in in the Gold Coast the first to come here the first Gold Coast Freemason that was there was the Castle Lodge was when Dr David Katon was H seconded to the Gold Coast to come
And work there and appointed as a master and he started there from 1700 there about so that’s how the merary started from the cap but this Masonic Brotherhood at that time that came was only for the white Europeans okay but even before that Mason will start there
Were some Gold Coasters who had been overseas and they have gots involved as Masons so someone like Anon William AMU the famous Professor Anon AMU who was in Germany as a professor of philosophy was a member of the German Freemason where he was before he finally returned home okay
Also you have H Capitan who was also a member of the Holland Lodge where he was Dr Capitan who was also a teacher in the c c he came from Elan Elina he was called Elijah cap okay so these two people have been and also a gentleman called
William who was Al who was also sent into sling bados before he came to England and came in kast Castle itself said Philip Kaku who was stay to England to state by the Society of propagation of the Gospel SPG Upon returning when he was teaching in the C Coast Castle he
Also have an organization called The tonian Lodge so so his tonian Society was also granted the status of a lodge and it became a lodge in Cape Coast for some time so there was a tonian lodge there so it has been so and over the years there has been changes some of the
List on The Lodges we see some of them that were scabbed off because they don’t meet the status of certain International standard so in it was so until 1859 when Robert hatchers who was a head of the goost rifal committee and the astute Merchant mertile man and his brother as
Well as his cousin Char battels we who we met in the first lawyers himself and CH banan brothers and then other Gold Coast Brothers founded the first Gold Coast Lodge which is called the Gold Coast lodge number 773 at cap Coast which is the mother Lodge in West Africa
And that LOD belongs to the the the the the English Constitution so the English Constitution had their first LOD which is 773 in Cape Coast wow and from that time when it was founded haton himself become the first watchful Master of the lodge later on Samuel banan became the watchful master
And it was so that many members of The Lodge were produced and as you can see from the foundation of the lodge itself lawyers like Charles Berman was there Edmund Berman was there H blankson was also there pH Lon was there so all those first cracks of lawyers who were into
Politics yes were also Masons so if you look at the study of Masons all the way from 1851 all the way the lawyers in the Gold Coast all the way from 1851 up to even 1920 all the lawyers produced within that period were Freemasons with exception of only one
Lawyer which was James elus and this was so shocking to JB Dana that he didn’t understand that of all the astute lawyers someone like Kus was not the member of The Craft and this was something that was shocking to him so he wrote it to him that I mean how can that
Be because almost all of them had been and it is within this that we need to interrogate the role of the Freemason okay what were they doing in society the MS were involved in educational development of the Gold Coast without the involvement of the Masons there will
Be no school like infantum okay there will be no school like wow there will be no school like at they were involved in all this without the misses there will be no University of Ghana they played a critical role in convincing asant who was also a brother
To accept the committee set by the grand Masters um as well as umon all of them were Grand Masters while K was representing the Scottish free merary T Menon was representing the Scottish at that time Irish has not come the Irish Constitution came to go was in
1975 78 before they came by K am wow so that was what it is yeah so the Mason when it came when they founded the the first uh English Constitution free meding in 1859 it went on and they were the leading Ms in the West Africa for a very long time okay until
1922 when the Scottish Freemon was brought to the Gold Coast by William W Brew who was also a lawyer all right we’ll take a quick break when we come back we’ll continue and see how this leads us up to Independence we’ll be right back I’ve been using Miss cookie for a very
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[Laughter] on a all right welcome back and we’re having a conversation here on the Heritage on a series and today we’re talking about the role of Freemasons leading up to Independence all right so we are at the point where we’ve looked at um various uh freem setting up um various institutions and
Structures and so on take us on further yeah so to explain within the Contemporary settings that we have as I said the English the English Constitution came in 1859 and is the mother LGE of West Africa the Scottish Constitution came in 1922 okay then we have the uh the Irish
Which also came in the 1975 there about 78 so as today the and the Scottish Constitution have come together and they have come what is called the Grand Lodge of Ghana and they are independent from the Scottish and the Irish Constitution however the English Constitution is still attached to the mother Lodge in
England so we have the district Grand L of Ghana English Constitution that’s what we have so those are the two that we have operating within the system as a true of ancient and accepted members of the free menary that is around today the authentic so this organization from the
Beginning as I stated the people of the E when I say English Constitution which was founded in 1859 were involved in most of the nationalism struggle so people like Saba Kia who was a reverend Minister Dr M heord who was a a a Methodist pastor and his other brother
And stord who was and first second Gold Coast medical doctor they were all misses the first Gold Coast Medical practitioner doctor Benjamin Papa was amazing ason all of them were Masonic Brothers all these people came together and founded the aborigin right protection Society wow so every member of that organization all the politicians
At the time they were all missons that founded the aborigin right protection Society if you going in again to all the members who fought against the land law of 18978 1910 they were also Mason Brothers now the National Congress for British West Africa they were all Masonic brothers from the West African
Territories who have come so that meeting was a Congregation of M the best of the best or the cre deam of the Masonic brothers who had interest of achieving Independence for their various West African territory in the 90 if you look at the members that also founded the various political parties rers
Association D Bruce was a Freemon okay was a Free Mason was a Mason okay all of the members there were Masons if you take Thomson was himself was a was a free in second H was a brother too and when you bring it to Cape Coast AKA himself he was
Initiated into the Masonic institution in November 1922 by Willam WB who was his master okay and kakan will go on to become the first grandmas of the district Grand Lodge of of Ghana Scottish Constitution okay in the 1950s okay okay wow so this shows you how these people contributed from that
Period in terms of politics when JB Dana founded the Goos youth conferences all the members that congregated all those people who founded including K the a month people who gave all the speeches including Dan himself were Masonic brothers and all these people fought for the independence of the
Country yeah wow K when he founded the committee The Joint Committee of provisional councils of chiefs when they met him to come out with joint alternative Constitution to alam’s Constitution all the people AR BL who was then the pr the Primos of his of his lodge from second D all of them were
Freon brothers who were meeting to come out with alternative constitution for the gold cast the finest Hour of the Freemason was when they met even as a United Goos convention to found the ugcc at South Pawn the Canan Lodge itself from the infant Lodge around there shows you also
The contribution of the Masonic brothers who have met to think about how to get independence for their country from there inuma may not be a member but he was a fraternity member in the American Time alpab beta group okay but when you take him out people like BMA Boo and
Others I think and others they were all Masonic brothers so the Masonic Brotherhood was not linked to only specific nationalist organization the Nationalist organizations that came out most of them had Masonic brothers and they were the standard bearers who were heading this political organization usering Ghana into
Independence that is why J Dana a in his book on good ghanian establishment he argued that for instance if grandmas AKA had not shifted from politics and entered into the bench he would probably have been the first president of the Gold Coast and the M Masons would have scored
Their first person who is the president because this started the fight for Ghana’s independence from the beginning amazing so in the area of Education in the area of politics they were highly involved in the area of science they were there producing result taking care going to the Interiors to take care of
People what you unfortunately this organization suffered politics of propaganda during the Rollins Revolution where they became they came under attack over the revoltion particularly under the citizen vetting committee because most of the PNC caders have often pointed hands at the Masons as people who are behind the
CPS and they are also the people who also bring the democratic government so if pndc was to rule for a long time then the Masonic institution must been demonized and they must use it as an object of rical so they started accusing them of being ritualist whereever they have their
Meetings putting goat blood and other things there and then blacklisting Masonic people as people who are engaged in occultism in some places they did propaganda leflet names of masonic Brothers in their temples and in their lodges were being circulated and people became personal andr in their Community
During the Revolution it did not even end there they went further to start burning some of the mic lodges one of them at Jain at Jain on a highway was even being set on fire until at that time the grandm at the time was jot A’s
Own father who was also the grandm of the Scottish Constitution at that time calling his brothers and other Masonic sister Masonic lodges to come together to call on the chairman to stop the kind of H vandalism that was going on against the so from that time the propaganda assault
The Christian religious ethics of singing anybody who do not do things in their way as evil and so on casted the Masonic Fraternity in a bad light so when we were kids anybody who is older above the age of 40 you go back to your community you see Masons back in the day
When they having their funeral they have their bras bands they go around they do DOS they do anniversary it was it in fact in fanty communities misson became part of the society any church activities you see the M it’s not true that the Masons have always been
Secretive or secret society you see some of the questions that when I was doing work when you ask of them what is secret you cannot see people know where the Masonic lodges and Templars are okay if they are secrets you wouldn’t know yeah that is the argument they make
But every organization have its secrets so if brothers or the craft members are meeting somewhere and you are not a member why do you want to go and know what is happening there so if they are there having their meeting method this Sunday school members Roman Catholic women’s
Fellowship of order of Our Lady of mcy they are meeting in their place in their room yeah and if you are not a member would they allow you every institution the idea of being part of it is registering becoming a member and then you can talk you don’t stay outside
And you D on rumors and you use it as a yard stick to talk about that institution it is from that basis me as a researcher I come from to have an open mind to discuss the organization Nation as it is and their contribution which is so inable to the independence travel of
This country and as I have shown you the leadership the members who contributed in the various eports of our nationalism right from cultural nationalism protest nationalism and radical nationalism they have always been there and contributing in various ways towards the independence of the country fantastic all right thank
You very much thank you so we speaking with historian Kaku anra and today’s conversation has been about the involvement of Freemasons in the lead up to independent and ghanian politics well thank you very much for watching this episode of Heritage on air series Heritage on air series on City TV and
City FM is brought to you by Miss cookie spices no blending no peeling just scoop and cook my name is David qu see you next time
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