CHAPITRE 12Neighbours

Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana

One Akan world, two colonial fates

✓ Verified · 2 sources

Akan culture spans the border. Ghana was a British colony and became independent in 1957; Côte d'Ivoire was French and became independent in 1960. They are the world's first and second largest cocoa producers, together about 60 per cent of global output.

A colonial border cut one cultural world in two, and the two countries then took different paths in language, law and politics.

CE QUE VOUS VERREZ · What you will see

Kita cloth looks very like Kente; Baoulé and Ashanti gold jewellery speak the same language; yet one country speaks French and the other English, and they joke about which is better.

POURQUOI · So what

Each is the other's most important reference point: they coordinate cocoa policy and are both rivals and siblings culturally.

SAVOIR-FAIRE · How to use it

Being able to explain how Kita relates to Kente, and Baoulé to Ashanti, marks you in both countries as someone who 'really knows West Africa'.

Asian and European parallelsLike Malaysia and Indonesia, both part of the Malay world: one cultural base split by British and Dutch colonisers, each with its own official language and path, yet still sharing food, dress and royal traditions.