End of the Dilemma: The Tower of Babel —(ll)

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• C.Y. ANDY-K 12 years ago

  Francis,
  
  Here I am struggling and contemplating completing my extended response to your 1st and you've just compounded my problem!
  
  You've raised issues and asked qs I had touched upon and glossed over superficially cos ...
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  Francis,
  
  Here I am struggling and contemplating completing my extended response to your 1st and you've just compounded my problem!
  
  You've raised issues and asked qs I had touched upon and glossed over superficially cos of the need for brevity. As it were, I've no option than return to the script and add some more meat to the bones.
  
  As I titled my rejoinder before, YOU ARE IN THE MIDST OF IT indeed! Like a kid in a candy shop, you are grabbing all the issues that underpin our current pathetic situation.
  
  In spite of what you said in your introductory par, expert the JB enthusiasts to come for your jugular.
  
  Andy-K

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• Francis Kwarteng 12 years ago

  C.Y. ANDY-K,
  
  Thanks for your comments. Expect more from Parts lll & V.
  
  In fact, I completed Parts l via V the very same day. I only send them in, one at a time, for publication once I see their prequels published on Gh ...
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  C.Y. ANDY-K,
  
  Thanks for your comments. Expect more from Parts lll & V.
  
  In fact, I completed Parts l via V the very same day. I only send them in, one at a time, for publication once I see their prequels published on Ghanaweb.
  
  Please, do expect to see my other installments, also four or five pieces, titled: "Africa's Development Facing Its Greatest Crisis--Response to My Critics." You will enjoy them, I hope.
  
  Finally, I look forward to reading your creative responses/criques.I really enjoyed your reactions to the first installment. Keep it up!
  
  Have a good day.
  
  Thanks.

  reply
• Mmoatia_Komfour 12 years ago

  The absence of any reponse from the 'defenders' of the JB Danquah cause, should we say 'legacy'.
  I would also have to go back to the opening article to refresh my memory,but I believe Tawiah may have overwhelmed his ideologi ...
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  The absence of any reponse from the 'defenders' of the JB Danquah cause, should we say 'legacy'.
  I would also have to go back to the opening article to refresh my memory,but I believe Tawiah may have overwhelmed his ideological opposition with his rapid-fire attacks. Call it an ideo-political ambush of sorts, but it is about time these largely anti-democratic elements in our midst were exposed for all to see!

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• Mmoatia_Komfour 12 years ago

  The absence of any reponse from the 'defenders' of the JB Danquah cause, should we say 'legacy'.
  I would also have to go back to the opening article to refresh my memory,but I believe Tawiah may have overwhelmed his ideologi ...
  read full comment

  The absence of any reponse from the 'defenders' of the JB Danquah cause, should we say 'legacy'.
  I would also have to go back to the opening article to refresh my memory,but I believe Tawiah may have overwhelmed his ideological opposition with his rapid-fire attacks. Call it an ideo-political ambush of sorts, but it is about time these largely anti-democratic elements in our midst were exposed for all to see!

  reply
• VOLUNTORY CONTRIBUTOR. 12 years ago

  SOME PASTORS:
  
  
  The bible is so simple, yet some pastors making themselves so important, without them the bible will not be known.
  
  I have already giving the bible in summary a diagram form to guide serious christians of ...
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  SOME PASTORS:
  
  
  The bible is so simple, yet some pastors making themselves so important, without them the bible will not be known.
  
  I have already giving the bible in summary a diagram form to guide serious christians of their expectations. Now they are talking about power. The book of corinthians listed Jesus Christ as the power of God, and this can further be explained.
  
  God's Love which is synonymous to grace is the nature of THE LORD GOD, which Jesus Christ on earth demonstrated to his disciples as written in the bible.
  
  Power which originated from the father God Almighty was exibited in Christ Jesus when he was walking "nupea" on earth. Thus making faith,word, endurance and wisdom the power of Jesus Christ.
  
  The glory of the Lord is show in the books of John revealing Christ Jesus as the only way to the kingdom of God and through his bloodshed we have automatic cleansing of sins from yesterday,today and future.His followers assembles in getherings to worship him for his glory and power which goes together in unity.
  
  Salvation comes in to incorporate human beings under his abode, in a sense his glory and power.Our response is to accept what we heard and try to live that love and grace that is giving, which is not easy to achieve because of the nature of the world we live in. The nature of the world we live in makes these godly attributes look weaklin or "sisi" as they say in the western cultures mostly.

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• Francis Kwarteng 12 years ago

  What I mean is, the comparison is not as straight forward as you make it out to be. In fact, any such serious analysis requires more than your simplistic reductionism.
  Recall also that men like Adolf Hitler didn't have anyt ...
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  What I mean is, the comparison is not as straight forward as you make it out to be. In fact, any such serious analysis requires more than your simplistic reductionism.
  Recall also that men like Adolf Hitler didn't have anything devious to learn from the trans-Saharan slave trade to apply to Gypsies, Jews, Homosexuals, and Communists during the Holocaust. Many of the diabolical Holocaust techniques he used, like eugenics, were acquired from American colonial white scientists who practiced these techniques on their African slaves. Even "concentration camps" came from pre-Nazi German "concentration camps" in South West Africa, today's Namibia. See Finkelstein's "The Holocaust Industry" and "The Kaiser's Holocaust: Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism."
  Have you read CLR James "The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution," where dynamites were put in the anus of stubborn slaves and blown off and where stubborn slaves were eaten alive by special breeds of European dogs?
  Have you seen Harriet Washington’s "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present," Joy Degruy Leary's "Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome," Randall Robinson's "The Debt," to name a few?
  Finally, you’re wrong about “some Afrocentric.” Your claim suggests to me that you are not familiar with the culture war going between Eurocentrism and Afrocentricity. First, let me say this. Mansa Musa l’s lavish spending improved many aspects of Egyptian economy (as well as other economies of the so-called Middle East). America did the same in Europe (though as not as lavish via its Marshall Plan), Japan after World War ll, and now China. Doesn’t America borrow heavily from Europe, Japan, and China? And who are struggling to pay with interest? Not American citizens? Mansa Musa l rebuilt the ancient empire and made it more prosperous than never before.
  Mansa Musa l made the empire one of the most respected, prosperous in the ancient world. The University of Sankore, the Hall of Audience, etc. were built under him. He increased mathematicians, jurists, astronomers, philosophers, medical scientists, etc., at the University of Sankore. Was this man an evil man? Your position is what Eurocentrists want taught in Western classrooms. It’s the same arguments Schlesinger makes in his “The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society.” Urbanization and extensive learning began under him. And these achievements are what the West (Eurocentrism doesn’t want to talk about; Eurocentrism’s interest is only on the negative aspects of that civilization.” Your “some Afrocentric” neutralizes Eurocentric negativism with the positive things Africans have done in history. We know all the negatives about ancient Africa history! Do we have to repeat them when the West is already doing that? In fact, the respect the history of Africa enjoys in the West today is because of the prescience and brilliance of men like Mansa Musa l. Finally, the medieval African kingdoms and empires were not as evil as their European counterparts. Please see Diop’s “Pre-colonial Black Africa: A Comparative Study of the Political and Social Systems of Europe.” Send me resources on Yaa Asantewaa and slavery (I believe you’re not making the same disingenuous arguments made against Angola’s Queen Nzingha by Eurocentric scholars).
  franciskkwarteng@yahoo.com

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• Kakraba Cromwell 12 years ago

  Massa,My advice to you is to keep your article simple.
  Also you seem to be blaming every one?
  This is like saying everyone else is the cause of our challenges. Is this really correct?
  You have some good points but you con ...
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  Massa,My advice to you is to keep your article simple.
  Also you seem to be blaming every one?
  This is like saying everyone else is the cause of our challenges. Is this really correct?
  You have some good points but you confuse the reader with your political leanings. I do not know if you are deliberately opening yourself for attacks
  my grade for this article would be 6 out of 10. you seem to be well read but

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• Francis Kwarteng 12 years ago

  Kakraba Cromwell,
  
  Criticism well-taken. Continue to read our work. We love you all, our readers.
  
  Thanks, anyway.

  Kakraba Cromwell,
  
  Criticism well-taken. Continue to read our work. We love you all, our readers.
  
  Thanks, anyway.

  reply
• srome 12 years ago

  I concur with your analysis of this article, I want to read it but it is not interesting, Mr Francis, may be you have some target audience you love to impress but ppl like myself are lost in the mist of the high level languag ...
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  I concur with your analysis of this article, I want to read it but it is not interesting, Mr Francis, may be you have some target audience you love to impress but ppl like myself are lost in the mist of the high level language you seem to prefare, please note that the essence of good communication is to be meaningful to anyone who can read at least at 8th grade level. God bless you.

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• Francis Kwarteng 12 years ago

  Srome,
  
  How are you doing, Srome?
  
  You should talk to Mmoatia_Komfour and C.Y.ANDY-K who demonstrate clear understanding of my writings.
  
  You can personally ask me questions via(franciskkwarteng@yahoo.com). I shall be ...
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  Srome,
  
  How are you doing, Srome?
  
  You should talk to Mmoatia_Komfour and C.Y.ANDY-K who demonstrate clear understanding of my writings.
  
  You can personally ask me questions via(franciskkwarteng@yahoo.com). I shall be ready to help you clear some of your difficuties.
  
  One more thing: You must remember an article/book doesn't necessarily have to be interesting to capture your attention.
  
  "Interest" has never driven me to read a particular piece, "education" and "insight" always have. I concede we all are not the same, however!
  
  Of course "interest" does sometimes count, but learning something worthwhile must be a reader's primary objective.I agree that "interest" piques the curiosity of many, if not most, readers. But then, my brother, you must be missing out on a lot of good things in life. Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, for instance, write essentially "different" things, yet both necessarily target the same group of readership, the African.But the former is easier to read than the latter. And if you are one who reads Achebe to understand Nigerian politics, for instance, then, my good brother, you are not part of the African world. Learn to appreciate writing in their structural diversity.
  
  Further, Wole Soyinka, for instance, turns many African readers off, but I have not regretted reading him. He's difficult to understand, yet if one wants to understand and appreciate the social and political depth of the so-called "African Condition," he's one of the most informed few, authorities, you have to read.
  
  Kofi Awoonor, Toni Morrison, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Nadine Gordimer, Aryee Kwei Armah, Farah Nuruddin, Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, to name a few, are not easy to read either. And each writer is defined by s peculiar style.Sometimes you have to learn to accomodate a writer's style, however difficult he or she is to read. That is how one grows. I for one am not intimidated by any writer, Soyinka or otherwise. You shouldn't be intimidated by any writer.
  
  I consult dictionaries when I have to, I write them when I am not clear about something they have said, I investigate an idea further when I don't reach them, etc.
  
  Finally, writers and journalists are not supposed to tell their readers everything. Sometimes you have to read between the lines; sometimes you have to read further, going outside the immediate sphere of the writer; sometimes you have to consult the bibiographies they mention in their write-ups; sometimes you have to reread their write-ups. That's the essence of good reading, or "education."
  
  Please I don't mean this as a lecture or an insult. That is how I have come this far.Literature and writing are not my areas of expertise. I learned to write by simply reading and studying the writing styles of numerous writers, some of whom I have mentioned above, to come this far.
  
  Also, many Ghanaweb readers have personally written to thank me for the issues I raise. This shows many Ghanaweb readers don't have issues with my writing style. In fact, I don't address my write-ups to any specific target groups. After all, I don't personally know who reads my articles and who doesn't.
  
  I look forward to hearing from you soon. And continue to read.
  
  Thank you.

  reply