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A fisherman, window, Cape Coast, Ghana, Photo: Albin Hillert/Life on Earth Pictures

Cape Coast, Ghana, Photo: Albin Hillert/Life on Earth Pictures

Infamously called the transatlantic slave trade, the guide to the Cape Coast castle challenged the group to rethink and acknowledge that this was not a transatlantic but a European slave trade” or a European enslavement of Africans.

The two castles stand in history as remnants of the diabolical mass enslavement of Africans from the 15th century until formal enslavement was abolished in the 19th century,” said Dr Masiiwa Ragies Gunda, WCC programme executive for programmatic responses on overcoming racism. 

These castles were used to hold captured Africans, auctioning of the captured Africans as chattel, sexual exploitation of captured African women, and through the doors of no return’ spat Africans into the Atlantic Ocean never to return to their homes, to their people.”

Rev. Prof. Dr Margit Ernst-Habib, from Germany, professor of Systematic Theology at Goethe University in Frankfurt, embraced the view that this was not simply a transatlantic slave trade, that it was indeed a genocidal European enslavement of Africans.” These castles were killing fields, with Africans held in despicable conditions, in the infamous dungeons,” which were ironically sitting under Christian chapels; in Elmina the chapel was on top of a female dungeon while in Cape Coast, the chapel was on top of a male dungeon. The dungeons were packed beyond capacity, poorly ventilated, without ablutions, with food thrown through some feeding holes, meaning the enslaved had to attempt to separate food from human waste in almost total darkness. 

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The WCC Reference Group on Overcoming Racism, Xenophobia, Casteism, and all other forms of Discrimination, Accra, Ghana, Photo: WCC

The WCC Reference Group on Overcoming Racism, Xenophobia, Casteism, and all other forms of Discrimination, Accra, Ghana, Photo: WCC

Walking through the castles—for most members of the reference group this was their first time—was a harrowing experience. According to Mary Akosua Mantey, from Ghana, Breathing the same air that the enslaved breathed, in the space where they were held captives like they were lifeless objects made me ask, were the enslavers preaching the gospel to humiliate the Word of God?’” 

Laquitissa Tseco, from Mozambique, said: I was emotionally damaged by the whole experience.” 

Rev. Dr Kenneth Mtata, WCC programme director of Public Witness and Diakonia, spoke of the difficulty processing the magnitude of what confronted him in the castles, and noted how some European countries have never openly acknowledged their own involvement in the European enslavement of Africans, having learnt of the involvement of Sweden and Denmark in the untold stories of these castles. 

Mtata said: Enslavement prepared the way for colonization, and the segregation and marginalization of Black people continues unabated, as a consequence of what these castles stand and stood for.” 

Throughout the debriefing session, members of the group shared their shock, disgust, anger, disappointment, inadequacy, and emotional damage—paralysed. There was a sense of being overwhelmed by the magnitude of what happened.

Rev. Marvia Lawes of Jamaica declared: The magnitude of what happened means we are not doing enough to allow Africans and people of African Descent to heal and recover from this genocide.” To this, Dr Natasha Klukach of England, staff of Global Christian Forum and member of the reference group, spoke of being paralysed by the inadequacy of repentance, and finding Psalms of repentance as extoling cheap and quick release to the point of trivializing the hurt inflicted.” 

While this immersion was clearly distressing for the group members, it was inspiring in other ways. One group member after another, spoke of the inspiration gained from one of the memorial messages outside of the dungeons in Cape Coast, we are the children of those who refused to die.” While this message was seen before going into the dungeons, its meaning when coming out of the dungeons, was stark and inspirational. The dungeons were not meant to nurture life, of anything let alone of human beings,” said Gunda. The survivors of these torturous dungeons are best described as having refused to die.”

The group committed to itself to tell the story anew and to proclaim this was a genocide or was genocidal. Prof. Johnathan Jodamus of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, challenged the group to break the cycle of statements, noting, We have had decades and decades of saying great things and we are still finding new great things to say – I am angry because we should be doing the right things.” 

Rev. Dr. Joshuva Peter, from India, general secretary of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in India and member of the reference group, challenged the churches, using the Zacchaeus gospel narrative, raising the question, Can the church repent to the point of reparations?” He went further to note that in the parable of the Good Samaritan, he now identifies with the wounded man.

 

"WCC reference group meets in Ghana to discuss realities of racism, xenophobia, and casteism around the world" (WCC feature story, 12 December 2024)

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