Kwame Nkrumah’s construction of ‘the African people’ via the Unite or Perish myth: A discourse-historical analysis of populist performance

Nartey, Mark

Abstract

Employing Wodak's discourse-historical approach, this paper examines how Ghana's independence leader - Kwame Nkrumah - in his creation of the Unite or Perish myth constructed 'the African people' in a manner in sync with populist performance. It argues that Nkrumah's discourse, in its focus on the formation of a Union Government of Africa as the only means of Africa's peace, progress, security and survival in the post-independence era, can be characterized as a form of populist rhetoric that presupposes an antagonistic relationship between two homogeneous social groups. To this end, the paper analyzes three discursive strategies utilized by Nkrumah in promoting anti-establishment sentiments while celebrating or valorizing 'the ordinary people': nomination and predication of social actors and actions, the construction of a man of the people image and the exploitation of familiarity and historical memory. It concludes with a discussion on the implications of the study for political discourse analysis in terms of the interrelationship between political myth and populist performance.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 21, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Nov 4, 2022
• Publication Date: Nov 4, 2022
• Deposit Date: Nov 16, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 17, 2022
• Journal: Pragmatics and Society
• Print ISSN: 1878-9714
• Electronic ISSN: 1878-9722
• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 605-624
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.19023.nar
• Keywords: Critical discourse analysis, discursive strategy, discourse, historical analysis, Kwame Nkrumah, populist style, political discourse analysis
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10146004
• Publisher URL: https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ps.19023.nar