The End of the Dilemma: The Tower of Babel

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• The Sentinel 12 years ago

  A superfluous, pithless chaff to no where!
  
  Bets me.
  
  
  The Sentinel

  A superfluous, pithless chaff to no where!
  
  Bets me.
  
  
  The Sentinel

  reply
• Yaw Amofa 12 years ago

  Unfortunately most folks will not bother to read this, because its not about Supreme Court judgement. Kudos to the writer.

  Unfortunately most folks will not bother to read this, because its not about Supreme Court judgement. Kudos to the writer.

  reply
• Kojo T 12 years ago

  Only one point Idi Amin was very Afro centric. Did you ever hear of him sitting in a cave to make sure Whites had to bow before him and later cary him in a palanquin? They all happened in kampala Uganda. Other wise keep them ...
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  Only one point Idi Amin was very Afro centric. Did you ever hear of him sitting in a cave to make sure Whites had to bow before him and later cary him in a palanquin? They all happened in kampala Uganda. Other wise keep them short for easy reading

  reply
• Francis Kwarteng 12 years ago

  Hello Kojo T,
  
  Thanks for your observation. Henceforth, I shall take size/length into consideration.
  
  You know I am new on Ghanaweb, and, therefore, not used to readers' expectations.Sometimes there is so much to write a ...
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  Hello Kojo T,
  
  Thanks for your observation. Henceforth, I shall take size/length into consideration.
  
  You know I am new on Ghanaweb, and, therefore, not used to readers' expectations.Sometimes there is so much to write about.
  
  Also, as you may have noticed, I don't necessarily want to raise or touch upon issues which everyone talks about.
  
  Other times, too, we need to move beyond our immediate space in order to closely examine, understand, or appreciate ourselves. This is the path I have chosen to pursue. I don't want Ghanaweb to get too monotonous. Finally, I know you will agree with me that widening our intellectual spaces is the right thing to do!
  
  In any case, your suggestions are relevant to questions of literary improvement. Like I said before, I have duly taken note of them.
  
  And continue to read our work.
  
  Thanks.

  reply
• Francis Kwarteng 12 years ago

  Yaw Amofa,
  
  I address my comments to Kojo T to you too.
  
  Thanks for your brief yet positive critique.
  
  Good day.

  Yaw Amofa,
  
  I address my comments to Kojo T to you too.
  
  Thanks for your brief yet positive critique.
  
  Good day.

  reply
• Francis Kwarteng 12 years ago

  Yaw Amofa,
  
  I address my comments to Kojo T to you too.
  
  Thanks for your brief yet positive critique, anyway.
  
  Good day.

  Yaw Amofa,
  
  I address my comments to Kojo T to you too.
  
  Thanks for your brief yet positive critique, anyway.
  
  Good day.

  reply
• Kojo T 12 years ago

  Ur welcome

  Ur welcome

  reply
• C.Y. ANDY-K 12 years ago

  Francis,
  
  I started reading this late at work, stopped to just complete reading it now at home. In this rather longish piece, you've lumped together so many subjects which can be articles and books on their own. In short, i ...
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  Francis,
  
  I started reading this late at work, stopped to just complete reading it now at home. In this rather longish piece, you've lumped together so many subjects which can be articles and books on their own. In short, it is a survey of several intellectual and pertinent issues, which I am afraid, many of the readers of Ghanaweb would struggle to understand, as it is above their air-heads. No wonder the responses were scanty even though you hit on many topical issues.
  
  Now, if I've to comment comprehensively on yours, I won't go to bed to today. I shall therefore be eclectic in my rejoinder to yours.
  
  Your quote of Baldwin to highlights the current unequal and non-reciprocal, blacks genuflecting to white superiority hinges on images of each other: black and white and its evolution. When the white barbarians met the Africans it was unquestionable that the relationship was at worst equal but definitely whites (Greeks) were regarded as barbarians by the ancient Egyptians. During the Dark Ages in Europe, the Moor was undoubtedly the superior race and this was recognised by the whites who credited the African as the originator of civilisation. That was before the onset of the ravages caused by the slave trade. But yet, when Wilhem Amo presented his doctoral dissertation at the Univ. of Wittenberg, the Rector found it necessary to say this of Africa:
  
  "Great once was the dignity of Africa, whether one considers natural talents of mind or the study of letters, or the very institutions for safeguarding religion. For she has given birth to several men of the greatest pre-eminence by whose talents and efforts the whole of human knowledge, no less than divine knowledge had been built up".
  
  The quote is from Chief Obafemi's Awolowo's Kwame Nkrumah Memorial lectures. And he went on to quote how the Rector noted "that Africa had become prolific in things other than learning. Therefore William Amo's career was supposed to prove the mental capacity of African people ...."
  
  Unfortunately, the rise of German racism drove Amo back to the Gold Coast where he died in the midst of the slave trade unsung and in obscurity as fellow Africans competed to send more slaves to the New World!
  The subsequent dehumanisation, warping of the mentality of Africans and their development of inferiority complex and deference to whites are other facts mentioned by Awolowo, thanks to the slave trade and colonisation.
  
  Yes, even in the midst of the slave trade, Africans didn't view very positively white people. I quote from Reindorf to illustrate this encounter which Baldwin certainly didn't know about.
  
  Reindorf recorded that the Akyem King Firempong (Frimpong) never saw a white person before and wanted to see one. I quote:
  
  "He had never seen a whiteman and by the reports given by traders, especially the Akwamus, he thought that the Europeans were a kind of sea creatures. He expressed his desire to see a European, and Nicholas Kamp, book-keeper, was sent to Da, capital of the Kotoko, for the king to see him. A great meeting was held for his reception. Kamp approached, saluted the company, took of his hat to the king, bowed low; and the king thought he was a wild animal about to jump on him. Under this impression the king fell flat on his face off his stool and cried loudly to his wives to assist him. The drummer, Adam Malm, and Noi Afadi, the interpreter, did their best to convince the king that Kamp was a mere human being, and that all his movements were customary. The king arose from the ground and sitting on his stool, ordered his wives to sit between him and the European and his men. Upon seeing the cue, a tail-like wisp of hair hanging down Kamp's back, he said: "Dear me, all the animals have their tails at the end of their trunk, but Europeans have theirs at the back of their heads." The interpreter explained to him that it was no tail, but hairs twisted to look like one. Not being satisfied with all he had seen. Firempong asked Kamp to take off his clothes, which he declined to do unless at home when no ladies would be present. The meeting over, Kamp retired to his quarters, when a table was prepared for him. During the repast the king's wives stood by looking at him, one said: "He eats like a man, really he is a human being."
  At last Kamp took off his clothes before King Firempong, who could now touch him, and said: "Ah! you are really a human being, but only too white, like a devil." Another meeting was arranged, and Kamp was given two slaves as a present and returned to the coast." (Reindorf pp.78-9)
  
  There you have it! What the white man had to undergo to prove himself a human being! Images of the other! So to the African at one time, the colour of the devil was once white! When did it change?
  
  You began with a quote on the double standards and hypocrisy of the whites, what Marimba Ani dubbed the "rhetorical ethics", with which they operate in her "Yurugu: An African-centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior". This book should have been the bible and Qu'ran we African read. Prof. Ani, of course, devote a lot of page to examining the Images of Others, what the whites have about the people their plunder and colonised and the plundered and colonised have about them. I wish I could dwell much on this with quotes but just a brief foray.
  
  "Below an indigenous American describes European behavior:
  
  They would make slaves of us if they could; but as they cannot, they kill us. There is no faith placed in their words.
  
  They will say to an Indian, "My friend; my brother!". They will take him by the hand and, at the same moment destroy him...
  Remember that this day I warned you beware of such friends as these. I know the Long-Knies. They are not to be trusted."
  
  Ani went on:
  "It is an inherent characteristic of the culture that it prepares members of the culture to be able to act like friends toward those they regard as enemies; to be able to convince others that the have come to help when they, in fact, have come to destroy the others and their culture. That some may "believe" that they are are actually doing good only makes them more dangerous, for they have swallowed their own rhetoric - perhaps a convenient self-delusion. Hypocritical behavior is sanctioned and rewarded in European culture. The rhetorical ethic helps to sanction it." (p.315)
  
  Yes, some may become deluded like Obama who thinks going to bomb Syrian women, children and men and destroying their infrastructure, just as Bush did in Iraq, will be helping Syrians! So did the whiteman justify the slave trade and colonisation as doing good to the black man. And the World Bank and associates impose their obnoxious polices on us and proclaim that as doing good to our economies, despite the signs that only the whites and the few African equiv. of the slaver factors and traders of old are benefiting! I have started watching ABN TV's re-broadcast of Joy News and I am often shocked by the debilitating state of schools and houses in the rural areas of Ghana.
  
  Well, I'll cut the cackle here.
  
  Andy-K

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• Francis Kwarteng 12 years ago

  Thanks,
  
  Your comments may also fill pages of books.
  
  I have learned a great deal from you.
  
  Thanks.

  Thanks,
  
  Your comments may also fill pages of books.
  
  I have learned a great deal from you.
  
  Thanks.

  reply