No abstract

This article interrogates the emergence of drug trafficking in contemporary Ghana and West Africa within the context of a global political economy, situated within a deeper historical perspective. It examines the earlier trafficking of cannabis along the coast of West Africa in the colonial period, and the later transnational networks that have emerged to promote international drug trafficking (cocaine and heroin). The article probes how the African diaspora and international travel service these emerging drug networks in Ghana, West Africa, Europe and the Americas. It suggests that the concept of an 'ideological diaspora' could shed light on a shared global popular culture, which constitutes a counter culture and rationalizes criminal activities. IN A RECENT, IMPORTANT ARTICLE ON WEST AFRICAN CRIMINAL NETWORKS in southern Africa, Mark Shaw highlighted the need for academic researchdespite the difficulty in researching crime-to provide a fuller understanding of African criminal networks, 'not least to provide an independent and strategic overview of developments and the identification of trends'. 1 Much of the existing literature on the trafficking of illicit narcotic drugs (cannabis, heroin, and cocaine) has been from a policy perspective, funded by agencies in consumer countries in the West. This article is a preliminary reflection on drug trafficking from a West African perspective, situating this development within the larger global political economy, as well as providing a deeper historical framework. The article examines how drug Emmanuel Akyeampong teaches in the History Department at Harvard University. He is grateful to Colonel (rtd) Isaac Akuoku, Executive Secretary of the Narcotics Control Board in Ghana, for his permission to consult the records of the organization. He is also indebted to his two deputies, Emmanuel Agyarko and Major Abdul Braimah, and to Mr Amankwaah, the Educational Officer, for several informal lectures. He also acknowledges his debt to Dr J. B. Asare, head of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, who has long supported a historian's interest in addiction and given him access to the hospital's records. He owes several insights on crime in Ghana to conversations spanning several years with D.S.P. Ayalingo, former head of the Police Narcotics Unit.

As we approach the post-colonial half century, transnationalism has become a major reality in Africa and the wider world with the proliferation of immigrants, refugees and displaced persons. But transnationalism is not a new development, and diaspora and globalization – both historical processes – have long served as contexts for the remaking of identity, citizenship and polity. Today, concepts such as ‘cosmopolitanism’ and ‘flexible citizenship’ are in vogue in a globalized world, as transnationalism challenges statist concepts of political citizenship. In this article, using the case of Ghana, I revisit the historic presence of a Lebanese diaspora in west Africa from the 1860s, and the intellectual and political obstacles that have worked against their full incorporation as active political citizens. I seek to understand why the prospect of non-black citizenship was considered problematic in black Africa during the era of decolonization, interrogating the institutional legacies of colonial rule and pan-Africanist thought. The intellectual rigidity of pan-Africanism on race is contrasted with current notions of the constructedness of identity. I probe the ways in which the Lebanese in Ghana constructed their identities, and how these facilitated or obstructed assimilation. As African governments seek to tap into the resources of the new African communities in Europe and North America, the article suggests the timeliness of exploring alternative criteria to indigeneity when defining citizenship in black Africa.

This article examines the history of akpeteshie (local gin) in Ghana from its illicit origins and widespread distillation in the 1930s to about 1967, when the Convention People's Party – seen as the ‘champion’ of the akpeteshie industry – was overthrown. Akpeteshie distillation proliferated when temperance interests succeeded in pressuring the colonial government into raising tariffs on imported liquor in 1930, just before the onset of a world-wide depression. Urban and rural workers, unable to afford expensive imported gin, became the patrons of akpeteshie. For urban workers, akpeteshie came to underpin an emerging popular culture.Akpeteshie distillation threatened the colonial government's prior dependence on revenue from imported liquor, raised the specter of crime and disorder, compromised colonial concerns about urban space, exposed the weakness of colonial rule and eventually led the British government into the embarrassing diplomatic position of seeking an alteration of the Saint Germain Convention of 1919 that had banned commercial distillation of spirits in the African colonies.By the 1940s, akpeteshie had emerged as an important symbol of African grievances under colonial rule. It became entwined in nationalist politics from the 1940s, and its legalization was one of the first legislative acts passed by the independent Ghanaian government. But the overwhelming African support for akpeteshie as an indigenous drink aside, the drink conjured images of class and popular protest that divided Ghanaian society and would unnerve independent African governments. As a cheap drink, akpeteshie became associated with the working-class experience, reflecting the social inequities within Ghanaian society and the undelivered promises of the independence struggle.

A vast literature has accumulated in recent years, examining the disease concept of alcoholism, and analyzing the interaction of biomedicine with indigenous healing systems in colonial and post-colonial societies. Social scientists have consistently emphasized the social context of alcoholism, although their works have been largely ignored. This article engages the literature on the social history of medicine in Africa, and works on alcohol use in non-Western societies, in an attempt to offer an understanding of alcoholism in Ghana rooted in Ghanaian cultures and history. It explores how alcohol's established ties with spirituality influences Ghanaian perceptions of alcoholism. Based on interviews, highlife music, popular literature, and the few written works on alcohol use in Ghana, the article examines the social construction of the alcoholic in independent Ghana.