It’s a Mistake to Treat Culture as Entertainment — Otumfuo
The King of the Asante Kingdom, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has criticised the tendency of modern societies to reduce indigenous culture to mere performance.
According to His Majesty, stripping culture of its intellectual and moral value undermines social progress and self-identity.
Delivering a distinguished lecture at Howard University in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, Otumfuo asserted that culture must be placed at the centre of serious policy discussions regarding governance and national development.
The Asantehene cautioned against viewing heritage solely through the lens of tourism and ceremonial displays.
“Culture is frequently treated as entertainment, appearing at festivals, tourism events, diplomatic ceremonies and national celebrations while being too often absent from serious conversations about development.
“This is a mistake. Culture is not merely music, dance, clothing, food and ceremony. Important though these are, culture includes language, morality, historical memory, family organisation, spirituality, political philosophy, customary law, artistic knowledge, methods of conflict resolution, environmental understanding and ideas about what constitutes a good human life.”
The King emphasised that culture serves as the primary lens through which a people interprets existence, providing the moral framework for understanding life’s defining milestones.
His Majesty warned that any society that loses confidence in its culture eventually loses confidence in itself.
Defining culture, Otumfuo noted that it is a living inheritance that must be practised, questioned, renewed, and transmitted rather than treated like a dead object placed behind glass.
Turning to the relationship between tradition and global progress, the Asantehene stressed that modernity must not be confused with imitation. While Africa should adopt useful scientific discoveries, technologies, and administrative systems from other civilisations, participating in the modern world must never require Africans to abandon their own languages and intellectual traditions.
“Progress should never require a people to despise themselves,” the King declared, calling for urgent attention to the preservation of African languages. “Language is more than vocabulary. It carries history, philosophy, moral reasoning and the categories through which a people interprets reality. When a language disappears, humanity does not merely lose a method of communication. Humanity loses a distinctive way of understanding the world.”
To safeguard this heritage, the Asantehene advocated for integrating cultural preservation into formal educational policy through collaborative efforts among universities, traditional authorities, museums, families, and governance institutions.
His Majesty also highlighted modern technology as a vital tool for digitising archives, recording oral histories, and documenting endangered languages across continents.
That notwithstanding, the occupant of the Golden Stool cautioned that digital preservation must remain ethical, ensuring that sacred traditions are documented without stripping them of their dignity, context, and inherent meaning.
Click to read more: https://opemsuo.com/author/hajara-fuseini/
