End of Dilemma: The Tower of Babel

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Akadu Mensema 12 years ago

Baldwin!

Baldwin!
george zimmerman 12 years ago

Hello,

See William Smart's "Eight Modern Essayists" (page 300, 3rd Edition, 1980).

Thanks.

Hello,

See William Smart's "Eight Modern Essayists" (page 300, 3rd Edition, 1980).

Thanks.
TA 12 years ago

Write short essays ok

Write short essays ok
francis kwarteng 12 years ago

Hello,

The name "Gorge Zimmerman" is a name my friends gave me after the acquittal of George Zimmerman.

With regard to your question, Mansema, please see William Smart's "Eight Modern Essayists" (page 300, 3rd Edition, ...
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Hello,

The name "Gorge Zimmerman" is a name my friends gave me after the acquittal of George Zimmerman.

With regard to your question, Mansema, please see William Smart's "Eight Modern Essayists" (page 300, 3rd Edition, 1980).

Thanks.
francis kwarteng 12 years ago

Hello TA,

How are u doing?

This essay takes 5 minutes to read in its entirity (I guess we are all different in our reading abalities; please I don't mean this as an insult).

I am sorry if it's too long. I don't want ...
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Hello TA,

How are u doing?

This essay takes 5 minutes to read in its entirity (I guess we are all different in our reading abalities; please I don't mean this as an insult).

I am sorry if it's too long. I don't want to present my articles on Ghanaweb in multi-parts, which is why I present in sweeping "bulks."

I believe this article should not take more than five minues to read.

Anyway, let's see what I should do in the near future.

Thanks for sharing your concern.
Media Mogul 12 years ago

I beg your pardon, Sir!

This essay will take at least 15 minutes for the average ghanaweb visitor to read. You see, he has to pause over “uterine churches and mosques”, “psittacine tongue-twisters”, “ideational ...
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I beg your pardon, Sir!

This essay will take at least 15 minutes for the average ghanaweb visitor to read. You see, he has to pause over “uterine churches and mosques”, “psittacine tongue-twisters”, “ideational synchronicity”, “rhetorical ornateness” if he has the courage to get so far. If he has even more courage to go on from there, he will meet more of the same. And if he is really determined, he will pause over some of these and try to find out what Webster online says about them. Then he will get back to where he left off to see if he gets it (often, he will still not!). By the time he plods his way to the end of the piece, he would have been at it for at least 20 minutes!!! Then he will try to make sense of the whole thing and realise that he understands what you’re trying to get at in an overall sense (after all, it is a topic that is dear to his own heart too) but not at all in the particulars. He will try to contribute something to the debate (he is a good citizen) but will find out he doesn't really know what to say. He still forces himself and what comes out bears no relation to what the author had in mind when he was writing his piece.

This is the dilemma of the determined average ghanaweb reader. Most will not even touch the article (which is not about our dirty politics and ethnic differences! They won't tell it indirectly relates to it!). Those who do not or leave off after the first two paragraphs would have done themselves a disservice without knowing it. The rest of the piece is relatively easier to understand, more straightforward and has less “exotic” words and phrases.

The above average ghanaweb reader will, indeed, use five minutes to read it. She will get the drift of your argument even though he skips over many of the things written especially the longish quotations. He is smart. Whatever comment he writes will make some sense. She is a rare object on ghanaweb!

NB. They say the average American reads between 250-300 words per minute of prose. This article is 2200 words long. The average American will have to average 440 wpm to finish it off in 5 minutes. He will not be able to. If we equate the average American’s speed with that of the average ghanaweb reader (there is no good reason to do that, anyway) most ghanaweb readers will not be able to finish this in 5 minutes. Add to it the fact that this is really not a simple text.

Hmmm...
Nii Ashitey 12 years ago

The imposition of foreign culture on Africa has been captured succinctly by James Baldwin, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh and co. Whilst the west imposed their values and culture and used it as a tool for exploitation, they als ...
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The imposition of foreign culture on Africa has been captured succinctly by James Baldwin, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh and co. Whilst the west imposed their values and culture and used it as a tool for exploitation, they also introduced formal education which was the only shield and sword we could use to redress whatever negatives and disadvantages that process entailed. Even though Francis and co will disagree because they will point of Africa ,Egypt as the cradle of civilization and scholarship before western civilisation. Notwithstanding, there had been a conscious effort, even though adulterated, by leaders like Nkrumah and his generation of progressives to harp on the new consciousnesses as a powerful force in the consciousness of the African elites today. So after centuries of exploitation we have become conscious of our direction with education as the appropriate tools to dismantle the shackles we find ourselves so we have no more excuses.

As James Baldwin said “The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated”.So we are in a position to say no to homosexuality if that is what we choose. We are in a position to question the influence of foreign religion which is being used by our own people to enrich themselves and to exploit us. In fact we have the right to say that our children should be brought up within our own culture rather than from so called western values addressed as universal values. That the African child must respect his parents and conform to our well tried and tested values other the the so called Child right which gives more power to the child than our culture will allow.

We are in a position to say away with some of our primitive cultures like female genital mutilation and trokosi.We have come of age and should be left to tow our own path. At the appropriate time we would ask the west to make reparation to Africa to atone for depriving us of our energetic manpower which could have developed Africa. Perhaps this is the time to say come home African elites because the battle had scarcely began.

To quote Balwin again: The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions. We have to define our world and make it what we want. Maybe this is the challenge for what Francis Kwarteng calls the third side of the coin the youth to address.
francis kwarteng 12 years ago

By Brother Nii Ashitey,

You've given my piece a befitting interpretive diagnosis, an eulogia, if you will.

Indeed, your understanding of my piece constitutes a befitting analytic sequel.

It should resolve some of t ...
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By Brother Nii Ashitey,

You've given my piece a befitting interpretive diagnosis, an eulogia, if you will.

Indeed, your understanding of my piece constitutes a befitting analytic sequel.

It should resolve some of the corollary questions readers may have.

What more can I say? It was as if you were hiding somewhere in the nooks and crannies of my brain when I wrote this piece. Are a clairvoyant?

You know why? I was on the verge of raising an objection, a friendly one, of course, when I saw your reference to ancient Egypt! You're right.
You killed me with ancient Egypt, the seat of human wisdom (among others)!

In addition, your cautious interpretation places that position of mine (ancient Egypt and others) and yours (the benefits of contemporary Western education) within the contextual perimeter of what I intended to do with this essay, that is, the post-colonial power we wield now, as individuals and as a people, to improve ourselves and our societies, to change our societies for the better.

Your mentioning of "trokosi" and "female genital mutilation" are perfectly in order. In fact, those are two topics we shall be exploring in much detail in the future.

Fially, your interpretive extrapolations jibe with the foundational ethos of my article.

Please, don't end with this piece, for, my brother, we may need you to interpret our work, as you've always done.

Indeed, your cautious approach to exegesis ties in with your "international law" background.

We're grateful to you for your genesity.

Thanks.
Media Mogul 12 years ago

"We are in a position to say away with some of our primitive cultures...".

Yes, we are in a position to change many things to fit our own values and the path we want to choose for ourselves. The question is, having reache ...
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"We are in a position to say away with some of our primitive cultures...".

Yes, we are in a position to change many things to fit our own values and the path we want to choose for ourselves. The question is, having reached that position, what do we discard, what do we tweak a bit and what do we maintain?

For instance, are we really in a position to say no to homosexuality? I don't think we are in the same position to decide about homosexuality as we are to demand that our children be brought up within our own culture rather than from someone else's or to ask for fgm and trokosi to be stopped. Yes, we should be left to tow our own path. But we should by now have a fair idea of what that path is...

On reparations from the west. I don't think we should pin our hopes on that. We will just have to take what belongs to us (by force if necessary???). If by that you mean the return home of African elites, well, we don't even need force to effect that.
Daniel K. Pryce 12 years ago

It is fair to argue that some of our churches have become conduits of misogyny, voracity, and spiritual anarchy. But to label all churches as vestibules to marital distress, sociocultural cacophony, widespread abuse of fideli ...
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It is fair to argue that some of our churches have become conduits of misogyny, voracity, and spiritual anarchy. But to label all churches as vestibules to marital distress, sociocultural cacophony, widespread abuse of fidelity, and the exaltation of sanctimony is grossly inaccurate. Particularly disturbing is your attribution of these ills to a strong slavocolonial mentality or a variegated tapestry of congenital illogicality in the African brain. The sodomizing of a 14-year-old boy by a so-called pastor in Tema is not representative of the “sins” of the clergy, neither is the thievery of a few with sacerdotal “callings” emblematic of all things Christian. In every society, fraternity, or sorority, there are – and will always be – rogues. The widespread abuse of boys by Catholic priests is more of a Western phenomenon than an African one, yet you write hundreds of words lambasting the mind and condition of the African.

Additionally, while your “Marleyian” and “Mutabarukan” quotations may hold some truth in the contexts in which you relay them, these artistes’ philosophical renditions were more of cascades of sentimentalism and soliloquy than they were of expressions of facts and/or allegory. Marley was a womanizer, and he had several children with women who were not his wives. In other words, Marley’s lyrical renditions about the essence of sagacity, chastity, and ecclesiasticism did not apply to his personal life. What a hypocrite he was! In a similar vein, Mutabaruka’s criticism of the West – and everything it stands for – may have raised the decibel from the gavel of Black consciousness, but it did not achieve much in terms of Black exodus out of Europe. Why? Because the socio-politico-cultural malaise found in society is not a strictly African phenomenon. Those of us who live in the U.S.A. can attest to the fact that corruption, greed, nepotism, and cronyism are just as endemic in this “polished” society as they are anywhere in Africa.

Back to the problem of greed and evil in churches. Just last week, a pastor was shot dead in Louisiana by a former church member who had “intercepted” sexually explicit text messages on his wife’s cell phone from the so-called pastor. And a week prior to the aforementioned dalliance-turned-murder event, a pastor in Georgia had shot to death his business partner, the partner’s wife, and a customer who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. King Leopold, a former Belgian king, murdered between two and 15 million Central Africans, in what is present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, because of greed. No African dictator’s savagery comes close to King Leopold’s!

Divorce rates may be higher in contemporary times than they were in the days of yore, but you cannot simplistically blame the churches for the problem. 50 years ago, wives stayed at home while husbands worked, and divorce was seen as a personal failing, at least in African societies. Today, half of all wives hold a job, which means that the discontented wife has the pecuniary backing she needs to end her marriage. In other words, the rates of divorce reflect more of societal changes than simply a phenomenon attributable to the failings of religion.

Kwarteng, evil is a human phenomenon, not an Afrocentric problem.

francis kwarteng 12 years ago

Mr. Pryce,

Thanks for the "clarification."

Let me point something out to you: I use the word "Afrocentric" or "Afrocentricity" to draw our attention to the "evils" we as a peple are doing to ourselves (and to draw our ...
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Mr. Pryce,

Thanks for the "clarification."

Let me point something out to you: I use the word "Afrocentric" or "Afrocentricity" to draw our attention to the "evils" we as a peple are doing to ourselves (and to draw our attention to the fact that it's our responsibility as a people to deal with them.)

The time for the West to stop helping us deal with the problems we are creating for ourselves is over. So, my use of the word and its derivatives must be understood in that context. Who doesn't know "evil" is human in nature?

Our proplem is our problem and we must handle them as such. I see it as an Afrocentric problem because no Westerner is asking our leaders to steal their people's money and put them in Western banks while their people go hungry.

Are Westerners and Asians forcing us to subject our young youngs to "trokosi" and "female genital mutilation."

Those are our problems, our Afrocentric duty to handle. Why must we allow Westerners to tell us what to do as far as eliminating trokosi?

In fact, one of the reaons, I believe, we are not respected by non-Africans partly has to do with our overreliance on the West and Asia for "shameful" crumbs. Afrocentricity teaches self-reliance. Period.

The Japanese, Chinese, Indians, in fact, Asians, in general, are solving their "evil" problems on their own. Why must we always rely on others.

In fact, it was never my intention to lump all churches together as corrupt. Two of my maternal uncles in New York are pastors (Church of Church). Both have been pastors for close to 35-40 years apiece.I was a Christian for most of my life.

Both uncles are good people and the churches where they "pastor" are good churches. My reference to "our churches" are the corrupt ones.

Moreover, I have friends in leading positions in Dag Mill's Lighhouse International Church (some of my mates are pastors there, here in America and Ghana; good people). I know the good works International Central Gospel Church is doing in Ghana (Africa).

I know the philanthropies all these churches do in Africa (and the rest of the world).

I know what the church did during the Civil Rights era and for Western Abolitionism. I know what Desmond Tutu's Anglican church did in bringing Apartheid to death.

Yes, the problems I cite are human in nature. That's true. But I chose to contextually "Afriacnize" them because, as Nii Ashitey, said in his review, we have come of age to deal with our problems as a people, as African people.

Being bold in acknowledging our problems, our weaknesses, as a people and dealing with them confidently as a people is essentially what Afrocentricity means.

Moreover, both Dr. Mambisa Moyo, Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, and Dr. Yaw Nyarko, a very good friend and one of America's respected authorities on African national economies,have been making the same arguments.

In fact, the new generation of African, diasporic and continental, scolars are advancing the same thoery.Call it whatever you want. I prefer Afrocentricity.

But while we say all the good things about religion (and christianity), we must not fail in our responsibility to call the church to order when it mishaves.

We must not lose sight of the evils Christianity (or Chrsitians) has commited against humanity and continues to today! I will debate anyone on this. These are some of the questions I'd like to ask the Christian God on Judgment Day.

In fact, the Christian church has probably done more harm to humanity than communism, social Darwinism, racism, and Enlightenment thinking put together. The Christian Church hasn't changed that much even today.

Anyway, see (if you've not already done so)Dr. Frederick K.C. Price's (your name sake) "Race, Religion & Racism: A Bold Encounter With Division in the Church" and its sequels (two of them).

You can also get the videos (during the late '90s). These books should tell you what is going within the Christian church today.

Please see also the writings of James Hal Cone and Jeremiah Wright on "black liberation theology" for additional scholarly work on what is going on in the church. Do read the writings of Dr. Ahmed Deedat as well if you've the time.

Finally, we can communicate more about the churcy, its "evil" deeds and its hypocrisy (my email is franciskkwarteng@yahoo.com).

The Church (and its history) is one of expert. In fact, let me say comparative religion. Eckanker, Ba'hai, Zoarastrianism, Mormornism, Buddhism (esp. Nichiren Buddhism), etc., are a few I have practiced and studies.

There is not enought space and time to say more.

Enjoy my writings. More are coming.

Have a good day.
francis kwarteng 12 years ago

Please overlool the typos

Please overlool the typos
Media Mogul 12 years ago

Yes, evil is a human phenomenon. I think Kwarteng also agrees and spends a lot of effort in his reply to say that.

So evil is beyond "Afrocentrism" and must be beyond "religiosity" as well. Kwarteng concentrates on the il ...
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Yes, evil is a human phenomenon. I think Kwarteng also agrees and spends a lot of effort in his reply to say that.

So evil is beyond "Afrocentrism" and must be beyond "religiosity" as well. Kwarteng concentrates on the ills of religion especially in our society and says less about the good things that it has done. Perhaps he is, rightly, more concerned about the bad than the good. And he thinks the church (in history, not only in Africa) has done more harm than good. So the balance of the evidence is not in favour of religion.

Blaming religion for the failings of society.
Daniel, do I hear you implying that the church (religion) is not to blame for some of these things? Is this an extension of that argument that says the church (religion) in its pure form is all good but the (some?) wayward practitioners have derailed it from its noble purposes? My own position is that doing good and doing bad are in the very DNA of the church (religion). The church (religion) cannot help itself but do both. This is because religion is a human institution (irrespective of what the practitioners say) and "evil is a human phenomenon" just as "good is a human phenomenon". Need we look beyond that?
Media Mogul 12 years ago

Oh I see. You were feeling sleepy and hit the post button several times...

Your recommended reading list to Daniel (and the rest of us?) is enough to get us, at least, a Masters degree in the subject ... lol.

Hej, but ...
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Oh I see. You were feeling sleepy and hit the post button several times...

Your recommended reading list to Daniel (and the rest of us?) is enough to get us, at least, a Masters degree in the subject ... lol.

Hej, but I was telling my friend that this Kwarteng guy is a nice dude...
Nyansasem 12 years ago

1am to 1:30am is the time for reloading here. Most of the times, you can't send any messages. So if you keep on hitting the POST button, you will not see your post on the board, even though your post had been sent already. Wh ...
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1am to 1:30am is the time for reloading here. Most of the times, you can't send any messages. So if you keep on hitting the POST button, you will not see your post on the board, even though your post had been sent already. When webmaster stops reloading his website, all your posts will begin to show. I believe it was during this time that Francis tried to send his message to Danny, and not seeing his post on the board, he kept on hitting the POST button. He did not do that intentionally. It happens a lot here.
OGYANI 12 years ago

MR KWARTENG,YOU HAVE EXCELLED YOURSELF.

MR KWARTENG,YOU HAVE EXCELLED YOURSELF.
Dadwen 12 years ago

Francis,
You have written a very in-depth article. The only thing is...it is way too long and loaded with too many quotations but if that is what you needed to prove your point, then so be it.

But here is the crux of the ...
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Francis,
You have written a very in-depth article. The only thing is...it is way too long and loaded with too many quotations but if that is what you needed to prove your point, then so be it.

But here is the crux of the main problem. What your article yearned for, in almost poetic voice, is an utopian African society. It would be nice if we could achieve that, but that will never happen.

To begin with, the African migrant might escape the shackles of the west's racial profiling only to come home and be greeted with tribal profiling. You see?

And Baldwin's wish for learned individuals and professionals to build a better Africa might have been a problem in yesteryear. We still need to do better but Ghana today has so many PHDs coming out of her ears! You couldn't name any field of learning under the sun where there will not be a Ghanaian expert. No, we have gone way beyond that. The problem we are facing is how to harness all that knowledge for the better welfare of Ghana and Ghanaians.

My brother, our greatest challenge as a people is the political will to embark on deep-cleaning of corruption from our society. We have other major issues but butting corruption from our political system alone will go a long way in alleviating some of the pain and suffering of the African masses, with emphasis on Ghana.
Media Mogul 12 years ago

Some good comments, eliciting further good explanations.

Now, this Afrocentrism has been around for some time. Is it now making a comeback or has it always been on top of the discussion table among Africans? I get the fee ...
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Some good comments, eliciting further good explanations.

Now, this Afrocentrism has been around for some time. Is it now making a comeback or has it always been on top of the discussion table among Africans? I get the feeling it is the outcome of African American studies found in US universities. Am I right? All the scholars you mentioned are working in the US academic system.

Further comments in answer to others...
motherschild 12 years ago

one of the best article i have read on ghanaweb. Congratulations

one of the best article i have read on ghanaweb. Congratulations

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End of Dilemma: The Tower of Babel

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