Full text: Mahama’s speech at high-level side event on return and restitution of cultural properties and heritage
Imagine, for a moment, Africa before the distant galleries of London, Paris, Berlin, and New York became the main repositories of our history. Imagine a continent where history was not locked behind glass across oceans, but lived among the people. History was carved into sacred wood. Cast in royal bronze. Forged in iron. Woven into Kente. Written in manuscripts. And embodied in sacred objects through which generations remembered who they were. Then imagine those treasures torn from their homes. Seized in punitive expeditions. Stripped from royal compounds. Carried away after conquest. And scattered across the globe. For generations, Africa’s history, memory, and identity have been held far from the hands that created them.