Narrating 1979

Abstract

On June 4, 1979, young officers and soldiers staged a coup d’état in Accra. Over the course of thirty-six hours, they overthrew an authoritarian military regime and installed the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a populist collective led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings. Although the event appeared spontaneous, it sprang from a complex set of conditions allowing a small group of soldiers and activists to transform the terms of power and turn unquestioned socio-political norms on their heads. The 1979 coup created a radical break with the past that forever changed Ghanaian society. This coup was one of numerous events around the globe at the end of the 1970s in which a rising generation sought to fulfill the lost promises of independence movements and freedom struggles of previous decades. Narrative is crucial to political change and to legitimating the violence it requires. At the heart of revolutionary stories is how participants from across the political and social spectrum make sense of violence, and when violence is justified for maintaining state order or for initiating radical change.