Remembering Gede
Publish Date: Sun 16th Nov 2025
Commemorations of Veterans Day (US), Memorial day (UK) this last week and across the world at different times in the year remind us of important lessons about our shared humanity, sacrifice and respect for the dead and departed.
These political rituals are not only of historical importance, but also have socio-cultural functions of uniting communities in a Nation; where representations of all races, creed, shade, religions and age gather to show appreciation for the ultimate sacrifices paid for the continuance of peace and harmony.
Respect for the departed, those who have gone before, Ancestors of those now living is a key feature of all cultures and inscribed in various scriptures.
Isn’t it time then to ask why African cultural ceremonies with the same intent and purpose are still treated with disdain, dislike and still misconstrued as ‘witchcraft’?
On what merit do Black Christians, Muslims and those of other global religious affiliations still hold on to this superstition about their own Ancestral Traditions. Do they not also feel that their Ancestors, on whom their very existence depends, are also worthy of remembrance in a manner of their own cultural prescriptions?
Why is it ok to believe that Ancestral remembrance ceremonies constitutes malevolence whilst the same in the European and other cultural contexts don’t?
We know this resistance exists because even in the few countries where African spiritual systems are nationally and legally recognised, such as Brazil, Cuba, Haiti or Benin they still remain marginalised or ridiculed and face intense persecution, as evidenced by the recent pogroms in Brazil by evangelical Christians this year during their Carnival celebration venerating their African sacred heritage .
We saw the same levels of contempt from Black (and some white) Christians in South Africa in 2021 to the creation of a national Ancestors day for traditionalists. They campaigned en masse to try to prevent its establishment – why?
Why is it ok to hold commemoration for Europe’s departed but not African ones?
Lest we forget some of the European Ancestors were the same to brutalise African Ancestors in the quest for European dominance over the world. How is it ok to only show respect to the same people who burnt to death Kimpa Vita, pregnant with child, solely for resisting colonial subjugation, or those who would dismember and melt the body of Patrice Lumumba to permanently erase his existence to turn the Congo into the forever crisis currently unfolding?
This year are you willing to at least learn one small nugget about what your Ancestors have also done in pursuit of the freedoms you enjoy today? Then why not come along to learn about the 1803 Battle of Vertieres, the only recorded battle in western history where the side with the superior weaponry of the day would pause fighting to congratulate the opposing side, largely armed with nothing more than farming tools and the burning passion to be free, and then surrender to them later in the day.
The side that lost was the French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte and the side that achieved victory were the liberated Africans, oppressed people of colour and the Indigenous people of Ayiti/Haiti under Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who became its first Emperor.
If the significance of the achievement is still lost in the colonial haze, then perhaps the words of one of history’s most eminent figures, Frederick Douglas in 1893, may reset the programming.
“We should not forget that the freedom you and I enjoy to-day; that the freedom that eight hundred thousand colored people enjoy in the British West Indies; the freedom that has come to the colored race the world over, is largely due to the brave stand taken by the black sons, of Haiti ninety years ago. When they struck for freedom, they builded better than they knew. Their swords were not drawn and could not be drawn simply for themselves alone. They were linked and interlinked with their race, and striking for their freedom, they struck for the freedom of every black man in the world.”
The Season of Gede this Tuesday the 18th is to commemorate exactly on the same day 222 years ago, this victory that still defies the odds, an apparent impossibility made possible!
Haitian Historian and Scholar Activist Prof Bayyinah Bello will share in depth, key figures in this decisive battle and their reflections of the Loa principles known as the Gede; the departed.
We will also cover how these natural principles are imminent in our character and personality traits and how understanding them deeply can transform our own self-development.
Make this the first year to participate in a virtual African remembrance commemoration without prejudice if you haven’t done so before.
Written by Dalian Adofo
(Ancestral Voices Co-Founder)
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