Cosmopolitanism by Kwame Anthony Appiah

Author:Kwame Anthony Appiah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2006-10-23T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

IMAGINARY STRANGERS

Waiting for the King

My mother and I are seated on a large veranda. From its high ceiling, eight fans are turning at full speed, and a light breeze from the garden blows through the screened openings; and so, though it is hot outside, we do not feel hot. Before us, on a dais, is an empty throne, its arms and legs embossed with polished brass, the back and seat covered in a fabric vaguely reminiscent of a scarf by Hermès. In front of the steps to the dais, there are two columns of people, mostly men, facing each other, seated on stools, the cloths they wear wrapped around their chests so that their shoulders are bare. Between them there is an open path to the throne. Around the throne itself are other men; some of them have one shoulder covered, toga-style, so we know they are higher in rank. But in front of them on the top step sits a young man, shoulders bare, holding an umbrella open above the throne.

There is a quiet buzz of conversation. Outside in the garden, peacocks screech. We are waiting for the Asantehene, king of Asante. It is a Wednesday festival day, in Kumasi, during which the king will sit here for a few hours and people will come up to shake his hand, say a few words, pay their respects.

At last, the horn player blows the ram’s horn, and its tune tells us that the man we have been waiting for has come, the ktkhene—the porcupine chief, the horn names him, for the porcupine has a multitude of quills, each signifying a warrior ready to kill and to die for the kingdom. Everyone stands until he has settled on the throne. Then, when we sit, a chorus of men in the rear sings songs in praise of him, interspersed with the playing of a flute. When, in the course of this music making, I catch his eye, he smiles at me. But mostly he sits there impassively; he has been king for five years now, but he looks as though he could have been sitting in state all his life.

By custom on this day, his first greetings will be for members of the royal family, children and grandchildren of his predecessors on the throne. They will not shake his hand. They will come and bow or curtsey, the men uncovering both shoulders, as one does for all the chiefs of Asante. The rest of us will wait our turn. And when it comes, each of us will be presented by the king’s linguist and then summoned up for a word or two of conversation.

When my moment comes, I am introduced by the linguist as my father’s son, as a professor at Princeton, as the bearer of some bottles of Dutch schnapps (for several centuries now an appropriate gift for a West African royal) and a gift of money (a million cedis, actually, or about a hundred dollars).

When I step up for my few words, the king asks me how things are in America.

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