Features
Religion and the Ghanaian diaspora in Finland
African Catholic Chaplaincy in Finland
The last time, I wrote about how Ghanaian groups or companies operate in some Finnish cities, especially in the Helsinki Metropolitan area.
As I keep pointing out, there are many positive things that Ghanaian individual migrants or groups (or their companies) are accomplishing or trying to accomplish for their wellbeing in Finland.
Today, I focus on the religious activities of Ghanaian migrants in Finland and the role of religion in their lives as part of the many positive things that are happening within the Ghanaian migrant community.
I have promised to write about such positive things at points in time as highlights of how Ghanaian migrants in Finland are making efforts to enhance their wellbeing in Finnish society.
Religious freedom in Finland
Finland is a Christian country where over 3.7 million people (about 66%) of the population of 5.5 million belong to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland, according to 2021 estimates. The remaining figures belong to other denominations, including people who do not profess to belong to any religion (see www.wikipedia.org).
Actually, there is religious freedom in Finland and any individual is free to choose the type of religion to belong to or not to belong to.
The constitution of Finland guarantees freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, according to information on the website of the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture (seehttps://okm.fi/en/freedom-of-religion).
Ghanaian migrants in Finland are free to belong to any religion in Finland or to worship in any church, mosque, synagogue, etc. Thus, the places of worship undoubtedly make up part of the personalities and institutions that have contributed to or ensured the smooth running of things for Ghanaian migrants in Finland.
Christians and Muslims
Many Ghanaian migrants in Finland identify either with Christians or Muslims. Many of the Christian Ghanaian migrants go to church on Sundays.
The Ghanaian Muslim group is a strong, well-knit one, and they visit the mosque on Fridays.
It must be pointed out that there seems to be more Christian Ghanaian migrants in Finland, although this estimation is based on my own rough evaluation and not on any official statistics.
They go to various churches, and some of these churches are even dominated by Ghanaian migrants in Finland.
Churches dominated by Ghanaian migrants
One of the major Pentecostal or Charismatic churches dominated by Ghanaian migrants is the Church of Pentecost (COP) in Finland.
The COP Finland has become one of the major channels through which the Ghana Union Finland (GUF), an association for Ghanaian migrants in Finland, has made more contacts with members of the Ghanaian migrant community.
The church has two branches in Helsinki alone, both dominated by Ghanaian migrants in Finland. There is the Akan Assembly, where worship is done mostly in the Twi language, with the other branch known as the English Assembly (or the PIWC), which is attended by other nationalities and African migrants but is also arguably dominated by Ghanaian migrants.
Other churches frequented by Ghanaians are the Methodist, Temple of Praise (TOP), ICBC, Lighthouse, the Assemblies of God, the Catholic Church, etc. It is likely that other churches, such as the Apostolic Church and Charismatic ones, could also be established soon in Finland.
Ensuring integration
All this indicates the opportunities for members of the Ghanaian diaspora in Finland to integrate into Finnish society through their religious activities and affiliations.
As I keep pointing out, Finland encourages migrants’ participation in the planning of issues concerning the migrants themselves as one of the most efficient ways to improve their inclusion.
Thus, there is an enabling environment created within the Finnish religious ecology that undoubtedly helps migrants, including Ghanaian migrants, to generally integrate into the host Finnish society. Thank you!
• The writer is a Ghanaian lectur er at the University of Helsinki in Finland
By Perpetual Crentsil
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
