Subj: SIMPLE LIES & COMPLEX TRUTHS - Majorities, Minorities and
the Rest of Us !
Date: 28/11/97
To: KDanso@compuserve.com, Okyeame@mit.edu
CC: africa_think_tank@databack.com, yarak@tamu.edu, eddtorto@hackney.gov.uk,
enikoi@spelman.edu, africa@Africaonline.com.gh, chaindzi@aol.com , kotobabi@mcs.net,
saryee@HKBU.edu.hk, samaddy@uiuc.edu, ayittey@american.edu, quaynor@ncs.com.gh,
CpCoaster@aol.com, addyy@rpi.edu, akwawukume@usa.net, M.AMOAH@lse.ac.uk, fmanu@morgan.edu,
masallar@unixg.ubc.ca, ade@equinoxc.demon.co.uk, Gilbert_Addy@europe.notes.pw.com,
ades@equinoxc.demon.co.uk
Mr. Rt. Hon. Kwaku Danso ( Presidential Aspirant ),
SIMPLE LIES & COMPLEX TRUTHS - Majorities, Minorities and the Rest
of Us !
I notice that you referred to me several times during your recent emotional exchanges with
Ade Sawyerr. For instance you, on a couple of occasions, questioned why
somebody of my advanced years should be living outside Ghana. I would like to inform you
that I spend as much time in Ghana as I do outside of it every year. I have family and
Ga-Dangme community commitments in North America and the U.K. which require me to visit
these places regularly.
I also decided many years ago to spend this evening of my life in scholarly pursuits in
the belief that in knowledge lies the truth, honesty, humanity, humility and a host
of other qualities and virtues which are evidently foreign and anathema to you. Unlike you
and some others, I have never run away from Ghana. In fact I was there only two
months ago and will be there again in a few weeks time.
Since my last posting to you, I have decided to try to forget about you in the firm belief
that you are your own worst enemy and that politically you will inevitably be your own
hangman as a result of your monumental arrogance, materialism, ignorance and tribalist
bigotry.
One of the pleasures of the past week has been observing the way in which the brilliant
Nii Addy and some others have made you look like an intellectual paperweight. To be
brutally frank, Nii Addy has not only made you look like an intellectual paperwieight - he
has actually neatly and cleverly exposed you as one !
Since you are in the habit of using the net to spew a lot of ignorant garbage, I feel
obliged to correct you, and others who may have been influenced by you , on a number
of issues which have led to your recent fights with just about everybody who stands up to
your unique blend of ignorance and arrogance. Let me speak finally on this political
obsession of yours : the myth of the Akan majority.
The Akanfo or Akan Concept
It is never been cogently argued who the "Akan" are, and why that definition
should exclude, for instance, the Ga and Ewe who share some Akan traditional institutions
and nomenclature. So far the main criteria for Akanness seem to be matrilineality, alleged
original or first known settlement at Bono-Techiman, the sharing of common borders and the
non-practice circumcision.
As to language for example, the Xhosa and Zulu of South Africa speak mutually intelligible
versions of the Nguni language without being considered one people. Strictly-speaking one
becomes an Akan through possession of the female blood. This means that a son of e.g. the
Asantehene by a Dagomba woman is not Akan.
In case, you consider this too academic, I can assure you it is the definition adopted by
the courts of Ghana in succession to the property of intestate Akans. The venerable
John Mensah Sarbah, for instance, wrote that: "Fanti laws and customs apply to all
Akans and Fantis and to all persons whose mothers are of Akan and Fanti races" (See
JM Sarbah, Fanti Customary Laws, London 1897, p. 15).
It would be interesting to know whether this factor was taken into consideration in
compiling statistics in the past on ethnic composition in Ghana. If it wasn't the
census-takers must have been in some very gross error indeed. It may further be noticed
from the above quote that Sarbah himself appears to make a distinction between Akan or
Twi-speakers and the Fanti.
By the above criteria for "Akanness" other peoples in South-eastern Ghana, say,
the Gá-Dangme, the Ewe and certain Guan groups could easily create their own ethnic bloc
based on the practice of circumcision, patrilineality, migration from the East and
historical inter-mingling through settlement on each other's territory.
Such a group could be designated the Boka ("East"), emphasising their origin
Eastern origin. Like the Akan they would not all share a common language but would be
cohesive and numerically strong enough to polarise Ghana (at least the Southern part of
it) along an Akanfo/Boka faultline.
Development of the Akan Concept
Reference has been made on Okyeame to the influence of Fanti "philosophers" to
the development of Southern Ghanaian, specifically Akan, culture. The term Akan was
actually introduced by John Mensah Sarbah, Kobina Sekyi, J.E.Casely-Hayford, J.B. Danquah,
etc., deriving it from the term "Akanfo" of which "Akan" is the
anglicised version.
A 1629 map reproduced in John Bosman's A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of
Guinea, London 1967 reprint (plate opposite p. 1), shows that Akan was actually one of a
number of small states in what is now Southern Ghana.Questions of common origin and the
like, as considered by the early native intellectuals, were at best guesswork.
JB Danquah, for instance, suggested that the Akanfo originated in Mali, arguing that they
were the builders of the ancient Ghana empire, and therefore succeeding in his argument
that the Gold Coast should be re-named Ghana. In fact, the ancient Muslim empire of Mali
had nothing to do with any of the peoples of present-day Ghana; the Mandingo and kindred
peoples were the known builders of the Ghana empire.
If anything, it was the serendipitous lumping together of various native groups of
uncertain origin within the forests of Southern and Middle Ghana which provided the
beginnings of a common culture as well as a lingua franca in the form of a common trading
language, Twi. Much of what is today depicted as being distinctly Asante culture, for
instance, derived from things introduced by the Portuguese - for instance the carrying of
notables in palanquins, the art of weaving, goldsmithery, deathmasks, etc.
There is no common history of unity, the dominant factor in defining a people, to link the
Asante to the other Akanfo. Further, day-names, such as Kofi, Kwame and their variations
are so widely spread over Southern Ghana, Southern Togo, Benin Republic, Southern Ivory
Coast (e.g. Kojo (Ga), Kwadwo (Asante/Fanti) and Kodjo (Ewe)) that it would be absurd to
suggest that they should constitute the basis of a common identity for only Akanfo
peoples.
There is evidence that the practice of chiefs sitting on stools was long practised in the
kingdom of Benin with which the Ga and Ewe have been associated during their migrations.
Also, history tells us that long before the Asante allegedly conjured and worshipped a
stool out of the skies (believe it if you wish; as far as I am concerned it is utter
mumbo-jumbo) (approximately 1700) the Ga stool had been sent by Ga royal migrants, the
present-day Gé or Genyi of Anecho in Togo.
Even more crucially, the Akwamu whose emergence really bequeathed the Asante with notions
of statecraft, learnt the art of government from the Ga; they sent their princes to the
court of King Okaikoi. The contention that the Asante and allied peoples taught the rest
of Ghana the art of chiefship is therefore of dubious validity.
But perhaps the greatest evidence of the meaninglessness of the Akanfo concept is Asante
tendency to go it alone politically, play mischief with the term, and lord or attempt to
lord it over other Akanfo. For the Asante, the term "Akan" is no more than
a tool of convenience to be used in furtherance of their majoritarian claims and covert
aims and aspirations. Herein lies the justification of the baseless claims by some
Ghanaian politicians and journalists ( like yourself , Otuo Acheampong of GRI as well as
some NPP politicians ) that Akans constitute over 60 per cent of Ghana's population.
Some more fanciful tribalsits put the figure at over 70 per cent. I wouldn't put it
past those who repeat this lie to massage population figures in Ghana at the least
opportunity.
Asante wars of aggression upon the Akanfo
Worse, Asante wars of aggression, waged mainly against other Akan at the least excuse
shatters any notion of the Asante ever realistically spearheading a drive for Akanfo
unity. Please refer to the statement of Bowdich ( "Mission from Cape Coast Castle to
Ashantee", London 1918, page 4): "Few [Fantis] were slain in battle, for
they rarely dared to encounter the invaders; but the butcheries in cold blood were
incredible, and thousands were dragged into the interior to be sacrificed to the
superstitions of the conquerors."
Mr. President -to-be, people like myself , Andy-K , Ade Sawyerr , Nii Addy and Dodoo
have provided enough factual and statistical evidence to disabuse your tribalist mind with
its divisive agenda of any fallacies regarding the ethnic make-up of Ghana's population.
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.
Your tribalistic rantings remind me of Antonio in the Court scene in Shakespeare's
Merchant of Venice describing Shylock (in dogged pursuit of his pound of flesh) as the
devil quoting scripture to suit his purpose, when Shylock described Portia as a Daniel
come to justice.
It was Thomas 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 ,
politicians 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 Danso, by all means challenge us but show , rather than claim,
your sterling scholarly qualities in doing so. You do not win over anyone by mechanically
( your qualification in mechanical engineering notwithstanding ) and thoughtlessly spewing
questions and generalisations off the top of your head. Say something worthwhile,
something meaningfully and systematically articulated, supported by relevant evidence.
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.
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?
Danso, You are probably playing above your league; fighting above your weight.
If anyone 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.
Moving On
One smells fear and defeatism in your recourse to dodgy argumentation, Mr. Danso. But you
needn't worry,. As far as I am concerned this particular issue has been over-squeezed; we
cannot perpetually dwell on the subject of the Akan / Asante proportion of the population
of Ghana
For all and sundry the 1996 elections may well go down in history as the moment the wheels
fell off the tribal bandwagon in Ghana politics, and the crushing realisation dawned on
the chauvinists that accession to leadership should primarily be on the basis of calibre,
not ethnicity or Asanteness or Akanness.
Arguments & Logic
Mr. Rt. Hon. Danso, your argumentation is prototypical intellectual rubbish: muddled
sequencing, baseless assertions, lack of hard evidence, spelling and grammatical mistakes,
and merely cottoning on to the points raised by others - nothing original; nothing
even by way of decent critique.
As Ghanaians in North America and Europe 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 by you and some others on Okyeame and by the chauvinist and
divisive articles one increasingly reads in some sections of the independent press in
Ghana.
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.
Unlike many I still have faith in Ghana, faith that we will overcome our problems even if
our triumph will not be in my lifetime. The prophets of doom and the myopic and divisive
politicians will always fail.
Long Live Ghana !
NUMO NOTSE AMARTEY