President John Mahama says Africans and people of African descent no longer have the luxury of silence, forgetting or excusing discrimination in a world where racism is becoming increasingly open and unapologetic.
Speaking at the opening of the Diaspora Summit 2025 on December 19, the President said the global African community has reached a pivotal moment in its historical journey. A moment, he stressed, where “we do not have the luxury of forgetting.”
He warned against attempts to downplay or erase the painful history that shaped Africa and its diaspora.
According to him, some forces want Africans to “go all the way back” by developing “some sort of amnesia about the blood that was spilt, the lives that were lost and the years that were sacrificed in order to fight for our freedom.”
President Mahama said such forgetfulness is impossible at a time when discriminatory language and actions against people of African descent are becoming normalised.
He cited instances where “government officials can so easily use the words like garbage and filth to describe our kith and kin,” and where countries of African origin are dismissed as “shitholes.”
He also pointed to situations where people are “indiscriminately stripped of citizenship that they have earned” simply because they look African.
“We do not have the luxury of forgetting or of either excusing the racist dog whistles or explaining the overtly discriminatory and divisive statements that are made daily to our hearing,” he said.
Against this backdrop, the President said the time has come for Africa and its diaspora to move forward with clarity and courage.
“This is precisely the time when we must advance and begin the process of reclamation,” he stated, adding that Africans must speak “loudly and clearly naming what it is we have lost as well as what it is we hope to gain.”
He recalled remarks by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, who said “the conspiracy of silence has diminished the horror of what our people faced.” President Mahama said Ghana is determined to break that silence on the global stage.
He disclosed that at the United Nations General Assembly this year, he served notice that “Ghana will move a motion next year to recognise the transatlantic slave trade as the greatest crime against humanity.”
The President expressed confidence that the motion would receive full backing from Africa and the diaspora, stressing that the continent has endured “slavery, colonialism, genocide and apartheid.”
“We demand acknowledgement of these crimes against humanity,” he said. “We demand the establishment of legal, institutional and international mechanisms to advance reparative justice.”
He outlined what reparations should entail, insisting they must go beyond symbolism.
“Reparations must include tangible measures such as debt cancellation, monetary compensation, return of stolen artefacts, institutional reform and transformative economic redress in the global economic system,” he said.
President Mahama also drew attention to the lasting emotional and psychological toll of historical injustice.
Referencing studies on epigenetics, he noted that trauma can be passed down across generations, raising serious questions about health and well-being.
He asked what impact “traumas from yesteryears, coupled with traumas of today and the injustices that we are currently facing,” have on African children and families, and how healing can begin.
Quoting Ghanaian-British actress and writer Michelle Cole, he said, “We can put fear of the future in front of us to block us or put it behind us to drive us forward.”
As delegates debated ideas at the summit, President Mahama urged them to remember that “the future is upon us and that the future is African.”
“And as I said at the UN, let me say it louder one more time for those in the back, the future is African,” he declared.
He concluded with a call for unity, saying Africans must be “more intentional about our unity than those who oppressed us were about our division,” adding that with a united Africa and diaspora, “there is nothing we cannot achieve.”
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