Stop Mourning The Ghost Of A Dead Empire 3

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Auntie Rose 11 years ago

Nkrumah should not have died so soon. He was a great man.

Nkrumah should not have died so soon. He was a great man.
AKadu Mensema 11 years ago

You are now a desert of ideas! Tell us what you have also published! This site is not a place to showcase your intellection. It is for people like who have too much to do! Okoampa does. And you seem to be treasuring the very ...
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You are now a desert of ideas! Tell us what you have also published! This site is not a place to showcase your intellection. It is for people like who have too much to do! Okoampa does. And you seem to be treasuring the very craft you critique!
francis kwarteng 11 years ago

Hello Akadu Mansema,

Yes, this is my last idea. I have nothing else to write about or on.

In fact, this is my last idea before I leave this life. I have exhausted all. How sad! Have pity on the poor boy!

Do me a fav ...
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Hello Akadu Mansema,

Yes, this is my last idea. I have nothing else to write about or on.

In fact, this is my last idea before I leave this life. I have exhausted all. How sad! Have pity on the poor boy!

Do me a favor. Do send me any new ideas you might want me write about!

Hey, I have not mentioned any names here. This is another satire and open to multiple or diverse interpretation or misinterpretation.

Anyway, you have every right to read whatever you want into this piece. That is your right.

Again, I have not mentioned any names. Well, "who the cap fits, let him or her wear it."

Finally, I don't publish. I sing! I am a talented crooner! I can sing you a good song from any mainstream genre you might want me to choose from.

In other words, publishing is not my thing, singing is! Let's sing then!

All errors are mine. I do not usually proofread my comments.Have fun as I have been having here on Ghanaweb.

Thanks.
Yoa 11 years ago

Interesting reply to her.

Interesting reply to her.
Kosoko 11 years ago

Kwarteng , At the beginning, you were writing great and therefore I urge you to desist from this intellectual warfare. It would not win you friends and admiration.

Kwarteng , At the beginning, you were writing great and therefore I urge you to desist from this intellectual warfare. It would not win you friends and admiration.
Yoa 11 years ago

He is only making a point.

He is only making a point.
Mozato 11 years ago

Kwarteng has now fallen from grace to grass. What a big fall. He has wishfully turned himself into a beast of burden by chosen to settle scores with his ancestral kingsmen, the porcupine warriors, the enviable Kookoase Nkuras ...
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Kwarteng has now fallen from grace to grass. What a big fall. He has wishfully turned himself into a beast of burden by chosen to settle scores with his ancestral kingsmen, the porcupine warriors, the enviable Kookoase Nkurasefuo, in this public forum. Our elders has a saying in Akan which goes; 'ye nsi afisem nhata abonten', literally translated as ' do not wash your dirty linen in public'. " Stop mourning the ghost of a dead empire? Really! And this same Ghost was highly celebrated is an enviable grand (state of the art) fashion in Kookoase just last Sunday, at the Baba Yara Sports stadium, which saw thousands of dignified LIVING SOULS, from around the globe, pay homage to the ghost of the supposedly dead empire. I need not mention the number of your newly found friends, the Trokosi chiefs,including Togbui Avaklasu Rawlings and their ancestral Togolese subjects, who trooped to Kookoase to scramble and steal the cultural/mortal remains of the empire which they, out of jealousy and envy, helped to kill. What a 'Five Star' decorated Ghost? I want it to reach Kwarteng and the Ashanti haters, especially Trokosi Andy K, that the Ghost of this dead empire will forever be mourned until their killers join them in the land of the dead. Who born dog?
MINOR CASE 11 years ago

This Francis "Kwarteng " Dzakpasu , is a triple distilled Ewe tribalist masquerading as an Asante. Anybody at all can site a town in any region , know somebody there and claim to be a relative , after all who is going to auth ...
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This Francis "Kwarteng " Dzakpasu , is a triple distilled Ewe tribalist masquerading as an Asante. Anybody at all can site a town in any region , know somebody there and claim to be a relative , after all who is going to authenticate his claim. Asante a dead empire ? That is the height of infantile ignorance. Can't he see Ewe chiefs do not wear singlet with their drab Kente anymore or wear a shoe with Kente cloth courtesy of Asante culture ? Where is Ewe music and language ?
One thing other African nationals in the diaspora envy Ghanaians is that we communicate among ourselves easily courtesy of Asantes, and you tell me we should not be proud ? This Francis "Kwarteng " has become a liability for his people , the Ewes, and is turning most of us into "tribalists " .He should not expect Asantes to sit and see their rich heritage demeaned by a lunatic Ewe . The cap of this crap you pour on Ghanaweb fits us so we wear it. Yes, we are arrogant , assertive ,aggressive , a proud people etc. That is our nature and we do not owe anybody apology .
AKadu Mensema 11 years ago

Duh!

Duh!
AKadu Mensema 11 years ago

You cant' write about news. Yours is plucking garbage from the tree of knowledge. Ok your new assignment is this: write about anti-Ewe news! I used to look forward to reading your articles because I thought you were a breath ...
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You cant' write about news. Yours is plucking garbage from the tree of knowledge. Ok your new assignment is this: write about anti-Ewe news! I used to look forward to reading your articles because I thought you were a breath of fresh! But then again you have ended up like your kinspeople, such as, Nana Amma Obenewa, Bokor, Danny Price and all. Sadly, you denigrate Akans but are too eager to use Akan names! That can also be a new topic!

Vodoo Xebieso 11 years ago

Akadu I challenge you to also write about anti-Akan news!!! Don't just forget that your own four fingers point back at you whenever you point an accusing finger at someone.

If those names you mentioned denigrate Akans, I ...
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Akadu I challenge you to also write about anti-Akan news!!! Don't just forget that your own four fingers point back at you whenever you point an accusing finger at someone.

If those names you mentioned denigrate Akans, I Vodoo Xebieso would want to believe that Akadu Mensema, the Akyem dog and bastard Okoampa Ahoofe and others of like persuasion eulogise Ewes in their write-ups!!!!!
AKadu Mensema 11 years ago

Think about yourself! When Ewe writers display their rabid anti-Akanisms, ye the the fool rise to praise them!

Think about yourself! When Ewe writers display their rabid anti-Akanisms, ye the the fool rise to praise them!
Vodoo Xebieso 11 years ago

And you weep when your coterie of savages vent their spleen on Ewes!!!!!

And you weep when your coterie of savages vent their spleen on Ewes!!!!!
Thessa 11 years ago

Do you understand the meaning of savages? Ewes who fuck their own daughters and fuck sheep are savages because animals even know better not to inbred like ayigbes.

Do you understand the meaning of savages? Ewes who fuck their own daughters and fuck sheep are savages because animals even know better not to inbred like ayigbes.
Kwadwo 11 years ago

This so called Kwarteng has revealed his anti Akanism with his pieces. Inferiority complex is a painful affliction.

This so called Kwarteng has revealed his anti Akanism with his pieces. Inferiority complex is a painful affliction.
Kojo T 11 years ago

Akadu , can you not post without refering to tribes especially Ewe? Yours is to write anti Ewe ditribe so why shouldhe do the same?Bokor writes against the NPP. Is that tribal, unless you want to say NPP is Akanism . Do not f ...
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Akadu , can you not post without refering to tribes especially Ewe? Yours is to write anti Ewe ditribe so why shouldhe do the same?Bokor writes against the NPP. Is that tribal, unless you want to say NPP is Akanism . Do not forget Afoko, Bawumia and Okudjeto are not Akans
Fromtomfrom 11 years ago

Francis, keep on with your wonderful, creative exploration. You've already distinguished yourself as formidable rhetorician-polemicist. This new approach to your writing using dramaturgy is also ALL GOOD!

Beware, however, ...
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Francis, keep on with your wonderful, creative exploration. You've already distinguished yourself as formidable rhetorician-polemicist. This new approach to your writing using dramaturgy is also ALL GOOD!

Beware, however, of the idolization of Molefi Kete Asante! If you haven't seen it already, check out the Black Agenda Report critique.
francis kwarteng 11 years ago

To Fromtomfrom,

I have communicated with Dr. Molefi Kete Asante on the matter and this is his version of events.

He has also asked me to share this with my readers:

.......................................
THE MONT ...
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To Fromtomfrom,

I have communicated with Dr. Molefi Kete Asante on the matter and this is his version of events.

He has also asked me to share this with my readers:

.......................................
THE MONTEIRO AFFAIR AT TEMPLE UNIVERSITY

On May 8, 2014 a congregation of white and black people gathered at the corner of Cecil B. Moore Avenue and Broad Street in Philadelphia in a protest to “Save Black Studies” and “Rehire Dr. Tony Monteiro as a Tenured Professor.” I am the chair of the Department of African American Studies and its only full professor but I was not invited to help save Black Studies.

The entire event was a fraud upon the community and poor imitation of a serious event in support of real struggle. A poorer excuse for a demonstration has never been seen in the history of the Philadelphia African American community. This is why there were so few members of the community in attendance and why a cadre of white leftists was in the leadership of the protest.

Black Studies does not need saving and it is quite vibrant at Temple University as a result of the re-organization of the undergraduate and graduate programs; in effect, Temple has just re-asserted its leadership in Black Studies by celebrating 25 years of the first doctoral program in the nation and consequently few students in the program and none of the faculty members approved or supported the protest.

Headlined by Cornel West and Marc Lamont Hill the protest was a spectacle of misguided and misinformed people eager to be a part of a public event. Although one could say that West and Hill, two outstanding contemporary commentators, were simply doing their leftist duties to give voice to a “community issue”; this would be a generous admission. They were either duped or willingly participated in an empty charade. If they were duped, they are not as politically or socially intelligent as they have seemed. If they willingly participated in the event it was a vile and obscene demonstration of political underhandedness meant to muddy the waters surrounding the Monteiro affair.

Tony Monteiro is a low level purveyor of Marxism and anti-African ideas who gained a following among a handful of people in Philadelphia. Being a communist is not his crime but using his position as a teacher in African American Studies at Temple to promote an anti-African ideological view was an intellectual injustice and a disservice to African American students. He held a one-year contract with Temple University and used the fact that he was not renewed as a rallying cry against the University and the African American Studies department. Getting a diverse handful of people who have no understanding of the singular fact that Monteiro was not a tenured faculty, was not fired, and is not a Du Boisian scholar, is apparently quite easy to do. Monteiro was hired several years earlier in a series of one-year appointments on what was called a Non-Tenure Track contract. This means that the person serves at the pleasure of the program; he is not tenured and is not even on a tenure track. Essentially, he was like an elevated adjunct professor. Such a contract meant that the University could at the end of the contract refuse to renew it.

In Monteiro’s case the African American Studies department had changed its academic direction to seek a more cultural orientation based on an Africological interpretation of African American, African Caribbean, and African experiences in Africa and in South America. The department’s tenure-track professors made this decision. The department also voted to change the name of the department to Africology.

The non-renewal of Monteiro’s one-year contract is normal practice in the university. He was neither fired nor attacked personally in any way. He personally chose to sign a contract for one year. He could have refused to sign such a contract but like many individuals who have not published he took a teaching position at Temple that is a temporary rather than a tenure track appointment. You cannot turn around at the end of the contract and demand a permanent contract.

Tony Monteiro paraded himself as a scholar of Du Bois when in fact he was neither an authority on Du Bois nor one interested in Du Bois from a theoretical perspective. He was a Marxist who masqueraded under the banner of Du Bois. To say that you are a Du Bois scholar but refuse to see Du Bois in his Pan African dimension is to miss most of Du Bois. More interested in Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky than he was in Du Bois, Nkrumah, and Malcolm X, Monteiro was an intellectual fraud skilled at propaganda in the vein of a leftist apparatchik. Unfortunately this protest was an experience of agenda-building. While I found it troubling that someone I had helped to train, as a member of his doctoral committee, had become such a charlatan, I also knew that the truth would seal his fate with history once it was known. Of course, the people he had trapped in his web like Cornel West, Pam Afrika, and Marc Lamont Hill would have to fend for themselves in the court of public opinion. It appeared that each sought to gain the attention of the public on the waves of general anxieties about institutions. They claimed that Temple University did not renew the contract of Tony Monteiro because he was an activist against the university’s gentrification plan. They claim the contract was not renewed because Tony Monteiro tried to save the Black Studies department. They said that Tony Monteiro was not renewed because the dean of the college resented him. I am the first to cry “foul” in the face of discrimination and injustice. I have had many battles with university administrations but I have always tried to tell the truth. Nothing in the Monteiro story is true. It is a false struggle, a hollow event, used to practice the art of hollering with no real substance.

Temple University did not fire Tony Monteiro. It did not write him a letter saying that he had been fired; the university simply opted not to renew his contract and to allow the department that I chair to move in another academic direction.

If Tony Monteiro were a Du Bois scholar he would have looked for a permanent position at a university, not a temporary one-year contract. Perhaps West or Hill can find him a position at Union Theological or at Columbia. Had he written a critical analysis of Du Bois that could be considered a worthwhile volume he would have endeared himself to his students and his colleagues. There is almost nothing noteworthy or notable in Monteiro’s career at Temple University and the faux demonstrations are examples of defrauding the public.

The real story is that Monteiro had been asked by Professor Ama Mazama, head of the departmental search committee, to put his name forward as a candidate for the chair of our department in order to give the dean of the college two names, mine and his, knowing that she would reject the department sending her just one name. I was chosen as the chair of the department and the reaction of Monteiro seemed that of a sore loser. He refused to come to the committees that he had been asked to serve on, pouted that he had been rejected because of his activism, and whipped up a local activist to the point where she was incoherent in his her assaults and attacks. I knew then that Monteiro would do everything he could to contest the vote of the faculty and my appointment by Dean Teresa Soufas. He leaned heavily on students to campaign for him, but those who knew him and understood his situation avoided all emotional entrapment and continued to work on their degrees. There was enough activism in our department to legitimately engage students in the genuine issues of the community.

Scores of people have asked me to say something and I have said something. On youtube.com I made an initial comment and then Nick Taliaferro interviewed me on his WURD-AM program. My first reaction to all of this was to refuse to counter-act a “brother” in the public spaces. I believe that this courtesy on my part may have emboldened the Monteiro faction. If so, it is a mistake to assume that I will now be quiet in this case. I have yet to respond publicly to Glen Ford (although I wrote him a personal letter as one should do) or to the obscenely villainous Blackbird. I have waited for the ancestors to give me the wisdom to respond to both the Black Agenda Report and Blackbird in a manner worthy of the radical tradition I honor. I am closer to that day.

When I heard that the protest at Cecil B. Moore Avenue and Broad Street was largely a white affair with a sprinkling of a few black students and not one student from the Department of African American Studies it was clear that the attempt on the part of the white leftists was to use the Monteiro issue to hijack the African American agenda. This is an old pattern and it has not worked in the past and it will not work now; the black radical tradition is not Marxist and it cannot be usurped. The black radical tradition has always been Black Nationalist, which it was before Marx was born, with the desire to be self-defining and self-determining; our resistance to racism, discrimination, and oppression has always been authentically-based on concrete realities, not on some “created personal insult” to an individual whose contract ran out. Tony Monteiro’s campaign is slavishly selfish, self-indulgent and pathetic. Whatever the real reason for Marc Lamont Hill and Cornel West’s association with this faux protest it is even more disappointing given the fact that Monteiro and Glen Ford have had the audacity to resort to name-calling when they have no real argument of fact. As for me, my works as an Afrocentric Pan-Africanist speak for me.

Molefi Kete Asante (PhD, UCLA) is Professor and Chair, Department of African American Studies, Temple University. He is the founder of the Afrocentric Movement and the President of Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies. He is the author of 75 books and had directed more than 100 PhD dissertations.
.....................................
francis kwarteng 11 years ago

Hello My Good Friend,

This is hardly intellectual.

I chose this path from the "scholarly" ones.

Some readers consistently complained about that approach and that pushed me to this!

Now I am being forced to go b ...
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Hello My Good Friend,

This is hardly intellectual.

I chose this path from the "scholarly" ones.

Some readers consistently complained about that approach and that pushed me to this!

Now I am being forced to go back again. Besides, I could have given this series serious historical twists but I chose to cast them in political satire instead.

In fact, most of the things I have said this series so far are well documented and I know prominent historians who have worked on them.

I merely chose familiar cultural and historical symbols to explore the question of ethnocentrism, political kleptomania, and brain drain---the latter of which pimping, etc., symbolize.

Did you read the part dealing with Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers' "Brothers and Sisters"? Is that not positive? The central message of "Brothers and Sisters" is the focus of this very essay! What are we doing together as a people to fight ethnocentrism? What are politicians doing to stem the tide of brain drain? What are we doing about impunity and the culture of political lies? These are some of the principal questions this particular essay raises!

Mind you, Brother Kosovo, I can seriously engage any ethnocentric writer on Ghanaweb, anywhere, any time. That is not a complicated task I take seriously at all.

That said, I have heard you. You have spoken well. I will do as you say. But I hope I am not pushed by self-styled charlatan scholars who delight in inventing ethnocentric urban myths.

All errors are mine!

Thanks.
MINOR CASE 11 years ago

Sadly being , an Ewe you do not even know the difference between a satire and innuendo. We the Asantes understand and know the difference and understand proverbs too.You see , a leopard , they say can not hide his spots. We ...
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Sadly being , an Ewe you do not even know the difference between a satire and innuendo. We the Asantes understand and know the difference and understand proverbs too.You see , a leopard , they say can not hide his spots. We can smell an Ewe bigot a mile away no matter what colors he puts on. You have shown you are worse than Andy K, M Borkor ,

Kosoko 11 years ago

You guys should stop those name calling! It doesn't worth it. If he is an Ewe, so what? Are Ewes not part of the human race? He expressed his views as a scholar. He doesn't make definitive statements and leave them in a vacuu ...
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You guys should stop those name calling! It doesn't worth it. If he is an Ewe, so what? Are Ewes not part of the human race? He expressed his views as a scholar. He doesn't make definitive statements and leave them in a vacuum like others do. I can assure you all his articles are well written, insightful and erudite and would be accepted by any world class journal that concentrate on the issues he writes about. If you want to engage him, do so in areas that you differ and state the information to the contrary. I urge you to desist from those ethnic name calling. It's thing of the past and it's a character of those who can't due to deficiency in information and logic
Kojo T 11 years ago

You assume these security gurads and dish washers are scholars . You over rate them

You assume these security gurads and dish washers are scholars . You over rate them
MINOR CASE 11 years ago

Does my English sound like I am illiterate ? For your information , I werrnt through 6 th form to KNUST okay , and did real brain work . Because you do dishes , you think every body else does the same . We all do have red sp ...
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Does my English sound like I am illiterate ? For your information , I werrnt through 6 th form to KNUST okay , and did real brain work . Because you do dishes , you think every body else does the same . We all do have red sputum in our mouths but decency compels us to always spit out white sputum . When a person like this Francis who seems to loath his very identity takes it upon himself to denigrate anothers with abandon , he deserves to be insulted .
Kojo T 11 years ago

So either you are an engineering or a professional . Then behave as such. Could you have got your degree insulting your leacturers. But no wonder KNUST , with people like you still use cutlasses to cut the lawns

So either you are an engineering or a professional . Then behave as such. Could you have got your degree insulting your leacturers. But no wonder KNUST , with people like you still use cutlasses to cut the lawns
DusTY-FooT-pHiloSophER 11 years ago

Hahahahahaha, hehehehehehe, hohohohoho, gee man! You are killing me out here, Kojo T.

Hahahahahaha, hehehehehehe, hohohohoho, gee man! You are killing me out here, Kojo T.
MINOR CASE 11 years ago

The word "Ewe " in my comment means a she goat. How about that for a satire.

The word "Ewe " in my comment means a she goat. How about that for a satire.
Advisor 11 years ago

You are such a bad writer.
Its really abysmal. Writing is not mental diarrhea. Learn how to filter and refine your thoughts before setting them down in a written medium.

You are such a bad writer.
Its really abysmal. Writing is not mental diarrhea. Learn how to filter and refine your thoughts before setting them down in a written medium.
francis kwarteng 11 years ago

Hello Advisor,

Thanks for your good advice.

Writing is not what I do for a living. It is not a career. If you have the message, then, Mr. or Mrs. Advisor, I have done my job.

Please take that good advice of yours a ...
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Hello Advisor,

Thanks for your good advice.

Writing is not what I do for a living. It is not a career. If you have the message, then, Mr. or Mrs. Advisor, I have done my job.

Please take that good advice of yours and share it with those who cannot survive or live without the English language.

Writing and the Engish language are the least of my problems. In fact, they are none of my problems. I hope they are not your headache either, for if they are, then I shall pray for you.

Call me Mr. Bad Writer and that will not make any dent in my thinking! This is part of the reasons why African education, Ghanaian in particular, is not making progressive.

We care so much about grammar than in critical thinking, science, technology, etc. English is not the headache of the Chinese, Japanese, Thai, South Korea, etc.

So, Mr. or Mrs. Advisor, tell me what you learned from the article and stop takling and writing skills and English grammar, because, as you can see, Francis Kwarteng does not care a bit!

I would have complained a lot if your reservations were about Twi, Ga, Ewe, etc. English? Forget it, my good friend!

Let me see you critque this article in your superb English!

Anyway, don't come back telling me I made grammatical mistakes in my response to you. I hardly read over my cmments to correct grammatical errors. I don't eat grammar. Good grammar is for starters. At this stage who cares?

Thanks.
Fromtomfrom 11 years ago

Do not pay attention to the obviously ridiculous and below par comments. You've already distinguished yourself as a formidable rhetorician-polemicist. Your new approach creatively exploring dramaturgy is wonderful and ALL GOO ...
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Do not pay attention to the obviously ridiculous and below par comments. You've already distinguished yourself as a formidable rhetorician-polemicist. Your new approach creatively exploring dramaturgy is wonderful and ALL GOOD!

"Keep on keeping on".
Fromtomfrom 11 years ago

And may I add: "a formidable rhetorician-polemicist, deeply rooted in philosphy and literary theory".

And may I add: "a formidable rhetorician-polemicist, deeply rooted in philosphy and literary theory".

Kwame Asante, Ny 11 years ago

People should not believe that this author is indeed an Ashanti. He is from the Volta region. Leave him alone. Hate will take him nowhere until he dies from this planet. Life is generally probational. We have to use our resou ...
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People should not believe that this author is indeed an Ashanti. He is from the Volta region. Leave him alone. Hate will take him nowhere until he dies from this planet. Life is generally probational. We have to use our resources and energy helping each other, rather than spewing nonsense on this forum against Akans.
Kosoko 11 years ago

I think the write-up is excellent as far as satire goes. My only problem is that he seems to respond to others like Dr. Ahoofe and I feel it doesn't worth it. He should continue to educate in his usual style or he prefers, he ...
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I think the write-up is excellent as far as satire goes. My only problem is that he seems to respond to others like Dr. Ahoofe and I feel it doesn't worth it. He should continue to educate in his usual style or he prefers, he engage them openly by pointing out where he has disagreements, state the facts and back it up in usual Afrocentric style. In that that way, it would be educative even if they insult or called him names or abuse him, public opinion will turn against those without facts but insults.
Fromtomfrom 11 years ago

Francis' satire is the best rebuttal to that attention-seeking, feudal obscurantist/unabashed tribal bigot, who plagues this forum with his neurotic propagandizing and revisionism of Danquah-Busia history. The critique does n ...
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Francis' satire is the best rebuttal to that attention-seeking, feudal obscurantist/unabashed tribal bigot, who plagues this forum with his neurotic propagandizing and revisionism of Danquah-Busia history. The critique does not respond to an individual but ridicules the untruths in the ideological aggrandizement of the reactionary icons.
MINOR CASE 11 years ago

The word "Ewe "in my comment here means a she goat not the tribe. How about that for a satire .

The word "Ewe "in my comment here means a she goat not the tribe. How about that for a satire .

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Stop Mourning The Ghost Of A Dead Empire 3

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