It’s Africa’s Moral Responsibility To Keep Nelson Mandela

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• Yaw 10 years ago

  You are perfectly right, it is high time Africans write our own story. We need to start now. Mandela is a global figure but authentically African

  You are perfectly right, it is high time Africans write our own story. We need to start now. Mandela is a global figure but authentically African

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• Kojo T 10 years ago

  Africans should start a serious project on Ben Bella, Nasser, Gadhafi, Sekou Toure, Modibo Keita, KWAME NKRUMAH, Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere, Samora Machel. Milton Obote and then Nelson MANDELA . We need not be fooled

  Africans should start a serious project on Ben Bella, Nasser, Gadhafi, Sekou Toure, Modibo Keita, KWAME NKRUMAH, Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere, Samora Machel. Milton Obote and then Nelson MANDELA . We need not be fooled

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• francis Kwarteng 10 years ago

  Hello Yaw,
  
  Remember I am Yaw too.
  
  You have given us a good summary on our collective resposibility as far as protecting our image in the international community is concerned. A good one indeed.
  
  Thanks.

  Hello Yaw,
  
  Remember I am Yaw too.
  
  You have given us a good summary on our collective resposibility as far as protecting our image in the international community is concerned. A good one indeed.
  
  Thanks.

  reply
• Osei Yao 10 years ago

  Mandella's legacy is turn the right cheek after being struck on the left. Ask the poor in South Africa if his poverty has been reduced by the legacy of Mandella? GHANA SOLD ASHANTI GOLD TO SOUTH AFRICA. SOUTH AFRICAN WHITES ...
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  Mandella's legacy is turn the right cheek after being struck on the left. Ask the poor in South Africa if his poverty has been reduced by the legacy of Mandella? GHANA SOLD ASHANTI GOLD TO SOUTH AFRICA. SOUTH AFRICAN WHITES ARE ASKING "why were we so stupid not bring Mandella on earlier. They are laughing all the way to the bank.

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• francis Kwarteng 10 years ago

  Hello,
  
  Go to my two-part articles "Stop Shedding Crocodile Tears for Nelson Mandela."
  
  They address the issues you raise here. In fact, you should have read them first before reading this.
  
  Thanks.

  Hello,
  
  Go to my two-part articles "Stop Shedding Crocodile Tears for Nelson Mandela."
  
  They address the issues you raise here. In fact, you should have read them first before reading this.
  
  Thanks.

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• Ayirebi Asante. 10 years ago

  This tribute is a must for students of African history. It's brilliant piece of work and this author deserves commendation from those of us mourning the transition of Madiba. Thank you Francis Kwarteng.
  T

  This tribute is a must for students of African history. It's brilliant piece of work and this author deserves commendation from those of us mourning the transition of Madiba. Thank you Francis Kwarteng.
  T

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• Ayirebi Asante. 10 years ago

  Your brilliant tribute to Mandela is must for students of African history. As a fan of this author I cannot help but thank him for making us proud of such an intellect originating from The land of our birth.

  Your brilliant tribute to Mandela is must for students of African history. As a fan of this author I cannot help but thank him for making us proud of such an intellect originating from The land of our birth.

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• abra kuma 10 years ago

  Mr. Kwarteng,initially, the average, genuine African would consider the above title a non-issue, given that Mandela was a Blackman who fought against Apartheid, paying the ultimate price of being incarcerated for twenty-seven ...
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  Mr. Kwarteng,initially, the average, genuine African would consider the above title a non-issue, given that Mandela was a Blackman who fought against Apartheid, paying the ultimate price of being incarcerated for twenty-seven years;however, that same average African would not have been able to explain so eloquently why "It's Africa's Moral Responsibility to Keep Nelson Mandela." Written, unapologetically, like a true Son of Africa! Indeed, your activism is already in progress. This compelling article empowers every son and daughter of the soil. Never stop uniting us, please. May this inspire many more of us to give of our expertise in the development of our African minds and communities. I wish you guidance and protection!

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• francis kwarteng 10 years ago

  Dear Our Good friend,
  
  Thanks for your positive encouragement. Not everyone has been so liberal with his/her critique.
  
  I am not giving out my email address here because my yahoo account has been inexplicably locked. I am ...
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  Dear Our Good friend,
  
  Thanks for your positive encouragement. Not everyone has been so liberal with his/her critique.
  
  I am not giving out my email address here because my yahoo account has been inexplicably locked. I am not too sure if it's viral attack!
  
  I have since reported it to yahoo customer care and currently awaiting prompt resolution of the problem.
  
  Once it's resolved, I shall let you all know so that we continue the conversation.
  
  Thanks.

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• KK 10 years ago

  This is another good piece from you, Francis. One of your best in recent times.
  
  First, one definitional issue. When you say "Eurocentrism" you also mean "Americocentricism" since they are now the leaders of a Conradian tr ...
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  This is another good piece from you, Francis. One of your best in recent times.
  
  First, one definitional issue. When you say "Eurocentrism" you also mean "Americocentricism" since they are now the leaders of a Conradian tradition of regarding Africa with sympathetic eyes which belie a certain condescension. Some readers will are likely to miss this fact but the informed reader will not.
  
  Your point in this article really goes beyond Mandela which you use here as an example. It is nice that you don't mince your words when it comes to praising Mandela and also saying what he could have done better.
  
  But now, it is about the African story. Interesting too that you referred to Chimamanda's Ted lecture on the danger of a single story that went viral on the net some time ago. But for one thing, Chimamanda wasn't the first to be calling attention to our African voice not being heard. Her idol, Achebe, did that long before she was born. And all the Africans who wrote before her did that. The fact that her mention of it raised so many eyebrows shows that the problem is still with us but she should really not be credited with being the first to mention it. (By the way, I was surprised when Chimamanda said in that lecture she didn't get African books to read as a child. She was born in the 80s. Even I born in the 50s in Ghana got African books to read when I was growing up. Her dadaba parents didn't allow her to read African books. That's a different matter).
  
  But my main problem, Francis, is, what right do we have to tell the West (Eurocentrists) not to tell our (African) story? Should we tell them not to write about Mandela? Should we tell them not to appropriate (your own word from a previous article) Mandela as their own too and for humanity? Here is a situation where a few Africans are shouting loud but our voices are not being heard. The few that are heard have to move to the West or couch their cries in Western (Eurocentric) terms. Euro-Americans don't read African books unless these books have won some major Euro-American prize (Chimamanda, Soyinka, Achebe...)
  
  I could continue on this but I must stop somewhere. But I wish to conclude with this quote for this week's The Economist (an Eurocentric paper, if there was one - forget about its liberal claims) leader on Mandela to show how the man was a gift to the entire world rather than someone Africans (alone) should lay a claim to even if we have a responsibility to be the ones to tell our own story to the world as your article is trying to say.
  
  "It is hard to think of anyone else in the world in recent times with whom every single person, in every corner of the Earth, can somehow identify. He was, quite simply, a wonderful man."

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• francis kwarteng 10 years ago

  Hello KK,
  
  Thanks for your constructive critique.
  
  Well, among other reasons, I used Chimamanda for a good reason.
  
  I wanted to use her relative youthfulness for effect. I know she learned a lot from her mentor, Chinu ...
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  Hello KK,
  
  Thanks for your constructive critique.
  
  Well, among other reasons, I used Chimamanda for a good reason.
  
  I wanted to use her relative youthfulness for effect. I know she learned a lot from her mentor, Chinua Achebe.
  
  In fact, her story is similar to Achebe's primary reasons for writing and therefore making Africans the center of his writings. Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" was what pushed him to go in that direction.
  
  In the meantime, Cheikh Anta Diop, Theophile Obenga, Kwame Nkrumah, Molefi Kete Asante, Ama Ata Aidoo, WEB Du Bois, Ama Mazama, Toni Morrison, Julius Nyerere, Harold Cruse, etc., have all advanced the same argument in favor of our telling our story.
  
  Then again, I specifically used Chimamanda because I want the youth to listen to that speech because she said so many important things. Her delivery was a masterpiece.
  
  And this has nothing to do with her receiving awards. I don't measure the literary skills of an author by the awards he/she receives. Of course, recognition matters. I have read enough writers, recognized and unrecognized, to know that, indeed, recognition via awards matters.
  
  There is no way anyone can convince me that Amos Tutuola was a better writer than Soyinka, though his work, "The Palm Wine Drinkard," in my opinion, is one of the best literary works to come from Africa.
  
  Even the late Ivan Van Sertima, once an advisor to the Nobel Committee as far as literature was concerned, marveled at the sheer literary potential of Tutuola's book after reading it. Sertima was a Guyanese-Brtitis-American scholar, an athropologist, historian, and linguist.
  
  Finally, I am not saying Americocentrists should not write about Africa or Africans. What I am saying is that, KK, we should take control of our affairs.
  
  The West has done a lot of damage to Africa because we have allowed them to do what we should be doing for ourselves. America's Founding Fathers, David Hume, Joseph Conrad,Arnold Toynbee, Friedrich Hegel, etc., have done a lot of damage to Africa.
  
  Now, there are a group of influential Westerners, like the late Martin Bernal, author of Black Athena (three volumes), who have made a strong case for Africans to be authorities over their stories.
  
  Westerners have imposed their intellectual authority over other people's cultures, histories, etc., without necessarily understanding them. The controversy surrounding Aslan's "Zealot" is a good example. Westerners, primarily Christians, have every right to write about Prophet Muhammad. Yet when a Moslem writes about Christ his credentials is questioned. This is what I meant. If we cant't write about others, we can, at least, write about ourselves.
  
  I don't know why Chimamanda's case should trouble you. It's not unique to her at all. And she did not specifically say she never read African books. This may be inferential at best. She may have been close to, I mean, read, non-African books than African books. This is my understanding of that speech.
  
  Moreover, there are some black folks who don't want their children to get close to things African. I know a few Ghanaians in America who will rather allow their children to read Jane Austen than Ama Ata Aidoo. I knew a few in Ghana in the 90s who always bought American/Western novels for their children. It only helped that secondary schools--SSS/JSS--forced them to read African authors. This problem still exists in the African world. Don't let that surprise you.
  
  Finally, thanks for your constructive critique.

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• KK 10 years ago

  Francis, I am not at all troubled by your use of Chimamanda as an example. Oh no. It was good. My mention of her is even more of an aside. Actually, I was more concerned with Chimamanda claiming in her Ted lecture that she di ...
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  Francis, I am not at all troubled by your use of Chimamanda as an example. Oh no. It was good. My mention of her is even more of an aside. Actually, I was more concerned with Chimamanda claiming in her Ted lecture that she didn't get African books to read when she was growing up which I think was a blatant lie. I taught English in secondary school in Nigeria in the early 80s - long before Chimamanda grew up! Your point in your last paragraph answers her and she should have known better - her parents didn't allow her to read African books. It is true that since she was a voracious reader from an early age (2 according to her doting mum, 4 according to herself) she didn't get enough of the African books to read, but...
  
  But, Francis, that is really not even the main point in your excellent article which raises many issues than just that. The point is not just that we are not sufficiently telling our story, the little that we tell is not even heard in the West (unless the teller has won some Western sponsored prize - which is why I brought in that thing about prizes). Why is it that only very few Westerners regard Amos Tutuola as a classic (all classes)? Even if we tell our own story, we have to tell it the way the Western world wants it told. Even Ngugi who has chosen to write in his own language translates his work into English. And Chimamanda hasn't really developed any narrative style of her own...
  
  Well, Francis, I think your piece is excellent and it isn't really that I have anything "against" it. These are very pertinent issues you raised. It is only that at times, even as we raise these burning issues, we still don't really know how to get about solving them.
  
  Well, the discussion continues...

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• francis kwarteng 10 years ago

  Hell KK,
  
  Thanks again for your prompt response.
  
  Let me just say that you never had any "negative" issues with my essay. You made that abundantly clear in your first critique. My response was not to question your critiq ...
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  Hell KK,
  
  Thanks again for your prompt response.
  
  Let me just say that you never had any "negative" issues with my essay. You made that abundantly clear in your first critique. My response was not to question your critique per se.
  
  Actually, my response was to offer additional clarification to those readers who may have misunderstood the good intentions of your constructive critique. You know we all read each other on this forum.
  
  I hope I have made myself clear. Besides, I have read enough of your comments on Ghanaweb, not necessarily in response to my articles,to know you are not the kind to throw ideas and words haphazardly around for the sake of throwing them around. They are measured, calculated, and well informed!
  
  Please don't misunderstand me. Please continue to read and to share your creative critiques with us. This makes us better writers.
  
  Finally, regarding Cheikh Anta Diop, I have some essays on him. I shall see if Ghanaweb will agree to publish them. Maybe we should also find time to discuss Tutuola's "The Palm Wine Drinkard" some day.
  
  Please have a good weekend. I love my readers.
  
  Thanks.

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