Subj: Educating the Uneducated and Miseducated

Date: 27/02/97

To: KADzilla.Roch803@xerox.com

, Okyeame@mit.edu

CC: Okyeame@mit.edu, fasamoah@eng.uwi.tt

CC: jtogo@chat.carleton.ca

, GHS_948645@debet.nhh.no

CC:

 

 

Dear Kadzillah - aka Still Pious - aka Kwaku (or is it Quarcoo?) A. Darkwah,

Your last post to me suggested that I had failed to answer several questions that you had raised with me. What makes you think you are entitled to replies from myself when you neither respond directly to my questions nor engage in any serious writing or debate worth considering. Your incoherent and vitriolic outpourings are becoming sickening.

Does a reasonable man bite back at a mad dog? I am not amused by your theatrical exaggeration of facts and manifest lack of comprehension of simple writing. Once your writings are elevated to the level of serious and/or rational contemplation and analysis, however inelegantly expressed, I will respond to them. But will the cactus ever flower? You are probably playing above your league; fighting above your weight. You have elected to treat my posts in a way that produces confusion and in language that almost amounts to delirium. Your frenzied hatred, venom-spouting and the copious fury of your opinionated rantings do not stand you in good stead among reasonable readers.

Incivilities and absurdities

Among your many incivilities and vituperative charges you have dared to call my arguments revisionist and pre-historic when no such terms can possibly apply to anything Brother Onukpa Kwei and I have written; you have also asked if Jerry Rawlings is a Yoruba. What have the Yoruba got to do with what we have been writing? Have you lost your thinking cap? Your silence on the question regarding Asante atrocities is also deafening.

You choose to ask me puerile and jejune questions such as whether Fantis have appointed me to collect reparations; I need not educate you (lest you blame me for miseducation and consequent lack of an enquiring and analytical mind; and who knows, you might also claim damages), but I might remind you that the better thing would be for you to express your own ideas as to whether reparations are called for or necessary for atrocities arising out of Asante attacks on Fantiland; although I cannot attempt a full emendation of your errors here, this is the way to conduct intelligent and civil discussion on a forum such as this, not your elementary Question and Answer style.

Furthermore, you must realise that merely making a statement, such as "Ganyobi is a revisionist" or "Ganyobi is an extremist" is not enough; you must establish the basis of your claims - this you can only do by supplying supporting evidence. You should take specific examples of my writing and/or those of Brother Kwei and prove that they are false. It is on this basis that you can challenge what we have said about Yaa Asantewaa, Abiri Osei Kwame, Adu Boahen and the others.

A greater absurdity cannot present itself to subscribers than your sanctimonious insistence that Brother Kwei and myself treat the writings of Boahen, et. al. as sacrosanct. Perhaps, you consider the interpretations of our history ala Boahen, Buah, etc. as the Authorised Standard Version to which no other individual can lend poise of objectivity. I should hasten to remind you that our history is not contained merely in anything written by those writers, but in the Sources, the majority traceable in mouldy manuscripts, diaries, daybooks, and postings scattered all over Ghana, Denmark, England, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, etc.

What your favourite pro-Asante writers do is to interpret such material, studiously excluding or underassessing the contributions of other peoples, and composing them into expositions that cannot but leave out, either in whole or in part, pertinent material. Pointing out gaps, contradictions, and invalidly drawn conclusions in the works of others as well as identifying deliberate omissions and retrieving our history from its backward stasis are not exercises in revisionism; they constitute a genuine and legitimate exercises of one's critical faculties.

I am doubly saddened that while Europeans once described Africans as collectively having no history, we now have African historians busily pushing other peoples to the periphery while they write their favourite tribe's history as the history of particular countries. Gentle attempts at correction are met with the bigotry of Kadzillah and his kind.

A few years ago one K. Asare of London (not Azar of Okyeame) writing in the letters column of West Africa magazine actually made the brazen statement that unlike Asante, Accra had no history.

I urge you to read Kwame's article and witness for yourself the spewing forth by a half-wit of undigested ideas, the magnification of Asante history and culture, the diminution of other Ghanaians and the making of wholly unwarranted statements; and his intellectual godfathers, having successfully finished their ugly handiwork, sit back smugly looking on and paring their fingernails. You expect us to be grinning imbecilically in the face of the tribalistic garbage published almost daily in the Ghanaian press and in other quarters?

The Devil Quotes Scripture

What Brother Onukpa Kwei, myself and our colleagues have been doing is taking the same basic facts and more of our history and drawing the most valid conclusions from them in the light of all the evidence. Kwei’s Comment on Asamoah's SIR CHARLES MACARTHY is a case in point. Either Asamoah or the source upon which he relied seemed to have imperfectly understood the Sources.

Kwei clearly and scholarly showed, for instance, that rather than the British Army the forces that the Asantes fought in the Gold Coast prior to 1874 would in today's Ghana be analogous to the UAC organising a few locals, setting up a militia officered by white personnel drawn from UAC management to take on an aggressive rural chief who chooses to attack those who elect to live peaceably - such a force cannot be called the British Army; if the Chief Executive of UAC was decapitated such development would, of course, reach Westminster where politicians would express concern. The issuing of Orders-in-Council and descriptions of European traders as constituting a settlement make little difference to this picture.

Moreover, hearings before select committees at Westminster would not change the fact that UAC was pursuing its own private interest. In all this he explained or implied that the Royal Africa Company which ran the forts and castles was merely a commercial enterprise. In the above scenario which, as stated, is largely analogous to what happened in pre-1874 Gold Coast, any historian characterising the UAC force as the British Army needs his head examined and his purposes questioned. If Boahen, etc. do not tell our children that the Asante were fighting a corporate body and its local militia, but state that they were fighting the British Army does that not amount to misrepresentation of facts?

If you want to dispute this version of things, by all means do so on empirical grounds, but do not fail to cite your proofs. You have undertaken no such task. Instead you have behaved like a vulture or hyena - the choice is yours -circling frenziedly over the intellectual exertions of others, salivating and then madly picking over the bones of what has been carefully and meticulously articulated. Furthering your animal imagery you also talk about marking tribal space in Ghana and in cyberspace. And you, an unreformed tribalist, had the cheek to quote Thomas Paine at Ganyobi.

It reminds me of Antonio in the Court scene in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice describing Shylock (in dogged pursuit of his pound of [Polish?] flesh) as the devil quoting scripture to suit his purpose, when Shylock described Portia as a Daniel come to justice. Paine, devoted as he was to the inalienable rights of man, would turn in his grave to know that a tribal obscurantist is using him to pursue his non-rational tribalist agenda.

It was Paine who observed: "Freedom has been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and slavery of fear had made men afraid to think." See T. Paine, Rights of Man, London: Wordsworth Classics of World Literature 1996, p. 117. Emboldened by Paine one must not stand idly by and through "slavery of fear" permit the writings of tribalistic historians, inadequate aspirant intellectuals and mean gutter journalists to stand as truth.

Or to paraphrase (quote?) the English poet, John Donne and the motto of Commonwealth Hall, University of Ghana:

"On a hill, cragged and huge/Truth Stands and he that will approach her/About and about must go."

Truth stands. Poor Kadzillah, by all means challenge us but show your sterling scholarly qualities in doing so. You do not win over anyone by mechanically and thoughtlessly spewing questions and generalisations off the top of your head. Say something worthwhile, something meaningfully and systematically articulated, supported by relevant evidence. My last posting was in response to specific articles. You could begin your attack on me by letting us have the benefit of your opinion on those writings. Afterwards you can challenge my own contributions both on their factual basis and the validity of the conclusions drawn. Do not bother attempting to communicate with me if you fail to do both; take eternal shelter in your usual infantile whingeing.

 

Developments in Ghana - The Way Forward

I am a disinterested observer of developments in Ghana - a dangerous and iron-hearted free thinker, if you like. I fear neither the wrath of governments nor the displeasure of any particular tribal lobby; those are for the faint-hearted. We must encourage reasoned debate up front, before the fierce whirlwind blows and the Augean stables are cleansed of charlatans and self-seekers as well as the detritus of corruption and pollution; not prove to be expert post-mortem analysts when the bitter hand-wringing starts and our words have no use.

If you asked me what ought to be done to arrest the ethnic fermentation currently developing across my motherland, and the mentality of the writers of odiously tribalistic articles in the national press, I would say: firstly, change the primary and secondary curricula to ensure that our children learn about all of Ghana's peoples.

The Ghana education system is rotten, but formulating curricula, as has been the case since the 1960s, in which some children read only about their people and therefore think no one else is important in Ghana leads particularly to jingoism and false perceptions. At present the majority of material covers mainly the coastal peoples (basically Fanti and Ga) and Asante; there is scope for re-arranging the presentation of such material and including other material on peoples from the north and the Volta region.

As Ghanaians in the West would fully appreciate, the absence of Black history of the national curricula of Western countries has been a favourite means of undermining Black confidence and increasing White assertiveness. Should we, knowing fully well the consequences of such education, tolerate such a situation in the land of our birth? Any generation of men or women fed on the material currently constituting the history of Ghana in primary and secondary school curricula is bound to produce the ignorance and pigheadedness shown in Abiri Kwame's article in the Ghanaian Chronicle. When that happens people who have hitherto taken no interest in the plight of their own ethnic groups would sit up, take notice and draw conclusions.

Secondly, set up a constituent college to amend or re-draft the constitution to recognise our diversity and harness it to national development. I particularly advocate the latter because we have seen cabinets with little or no representation of important peoples in Ghana and we have seen cabinets, notably Busia's, with no representation from particular regions; all university vice-chancellorships as well as governorship of the central bank held by people of a particular ethnic background.

Perhaps, the Asantes may even state a convincing case for ensuring that people from their region have as fair a chance of becoming president as anyone else, and find a constitutional way of getting round this. As our country develops and the yearning for stability grows we must address these and other potentially destabilising factors. Kadzillah and co. should be coming forward with constructive ideas not doggedly holding on to the past, dribbling into their beards and kicking and screaming against the throwing of new light on our past and present conditions.

You referred to oral traditions describing Elminas as being of the same stock as Asantes. I am aware of the literature documenting such; but I am also aware that in the same vein one could link up the entirety of humankind, at least in so far as we all claim descent from Adam or if you subscribe to the view of the evolutionists, whichever pair of monkeys survived best on the African savannas and developed into homo sapiens. Whatever their origin the Edinas are today not considered to be Asante, but Fanti.

As to the origin of the Asantes I also refer you to traditions of emergence from a hole in the ground documented by Meyerowitz in Akan Traditions of Origin; but you would probably rather not hear my candid opinion of that book. It is not for me to comment on the accuracy or absurdity of such traditions; nor is it for me to tell where the Asantes originated simply because I have stated that their alleged origin in ancient Ghana appears unfounded. It is for you, if you still stick to the discredited ancient Ghana theory, to adduce the necessary evidence.

Whatever next?

Kadzillah, you may well take a pair of gelding shears to anyone who questions the accuracy of the statements of Asante or pro-Asante writers. You would rather nothing was said about the outrageous article by Kwame and the tendentious posting of Asamoah regarding Sir Charles MaCarthy. You claim to have a pint of Polish blood; yet you pontificate freely on matters affecting Ghana, no doubt ready to question the opinions of any full-blooded Ghanaian. I contend neither for the Ewe nor the Asante; Ghana is bigger than those two groups. Serious things have been said about ethnic discrimination in Ghana. What's your stand on these? Are they justified or not?

The Ewe have been attacked and are now practically everybody's whipping boy on tribalism. Kofi Awoonor's book, The Ghana Revolution is virtually treated as a document agreed upon by all Ewes. If the Ewe are tribalistic and pursue the course alleged then that is despicable and should be condemned in the strongest terms. But regarding the writing of Awoonor as expressing the opinion of every Ewe is misguided. Tribalism cannot in the long run benefit the Ewe. However long Ewe tribalism lasts an Ewe cannot rule Ghana forever; for there are ebbs and flows in all powers, and the back-lash would entail a diminution of Ewe role in Ghana for the foreseeable future.

Like the Asante, the Ewe are predominantly a rural people. Like other Ghanaians, the problems of either group are manifold; but both are apt to interpret any underdevelopment they may see in their rural environment as evidence of government neglect or discrimination, leading to insularity and a seige mentality. Yet there are other rural peoples in Ghana against whom one never hears charges of ethnic discrimination.

The key may lie elsewhere; and while dwelling on the subject of ethnic insularity, I take the liberty to state a theory of subversion in Ghana articulated by a participant at a recent seminar. She believes that the fact that one hardly finds any coup-makers amongst the original coastal and central Gold Coast groups (Fanti, Nzima, Guan, Ahanta, Kwahu, Ga, Akwapim, Krobo, Akwamu, Ada, etc.) whereas a mere glance at the names of coup-makers and their confederates shows an over-representation of predominantly rural peoples and of regions added to the Gold Coast at a latter period, suggests a linkage between coup-making and rural or peripheral insularity.

Before you start your usual Gadarene rush take note that this view is not mine; neither do I endorse it; it was uttered at a seminar and I consider it to be now in the public domain, entitling subscribers to read it.

You are probably better off keeping your lips firmly buttoned (superglued, if you care), Kadzillah. As far as answering my posts sensibly is concerned, you seem in fact utterly stuck; lost in a bottomless bog. Or is it caught in a fit of inarticulacy? I do not have to add an Asante gloss to my meanings before you are able to make sense of what I write and answer them intelligibly. You are yet to particularise, list and prove my crimes of revisionism; that is eagerly awaited.

Also, your strange fixation with apparently Ga contributors on Okyeame, just as your fixed manner with unsubstantiated and illogical arguments, is becoming nauseating. Are my contributions an unwelcome jerk on the reins of your tribal programme? I do not know, and do not care, where you hail from but it seems appropriate to end with the hackneyed observation: "You can take a man out of the bush but cannot take the bush out of him."

 

Long Live Ghana !

Numo Notse Amartey