Is Democratic Imperialism The Answer (2)?

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• JIM KELLY (USA) 11 years ago

  Boy, you went all out, didn't you?.Your article , though wonderful, is wrought with unnecessary "big words". Very few people will read it to the end.By the way , some of your punctuation need work.

  Boy, you went all out, didn't you?.Your article , though wonderful, is wrought with unnecessary "big words". Very few people will read it to the end.By the way , some of your punctuation need work.

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• francis kwarteng 11 years ago

  Dear Kelly,
  
  The punctuation is perfect. Nothing wrong.
  
  And the so-called "big words" are all appropriate.
  
  Thanks.

  Dear Kelly,
  
  The punctuation is perfect. Nothing wrong.
  
  And the so-called "big words" are all appropriate.
  
  Thanks.

  reply
• ADJOA WANGARA 11 years ago

  KWARTENG TELL US WHAT THIS YOUR NONSENSE MEANS?
  
  
  -> "Accordingly, the issue of ethnicity, the focus of our dialectic contentions, cannot be swept under the carpet for political or intellectual expedience, granted that it ...
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  KWARTENG TELL US WHAT THIS YOUR NONSENSE MEANS?
  
  
  -> "Accordingly, the issue of ethnicity, the focus of our dialectic contentions, cannot be swept under the carpet for political or intellectual expedience, granted that it is as real as the glittery smile of the sun or the certainty of death, as unreal as the chimera of witchcraft or the insubstantiality of ghostliness."
  
  YOU JUST STAND UP AND BEGIN TO WRITE ANY NONSENSE AT ALL WHICH HAS NEITHER HEAD NOR FEET. NO DICTIONARY IN THIS WORLD CAN GIVE A CLEAR MEANING TO YOUR ABOVE STUPIDITY.
  
  KWARTENG "IF YOU HAPPEN TO EAT FISH DON'T THROW THE HEAD AWAY, EAT IT TOO, TO AT LEAST GET SOME SOUND BRAINS IN THAT FOUR SQUARED THING YOU CARRY ON YOUR SHORT NECK."

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• YAW 11 years ago

  Do you need a surgical incision or Wangara translation from Mr Kwarteng?

  Do you need a surgical incision or Wangara translation from Mr Kwarteng?

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• francis kwarteng 11 years ago

  Yes,
  
  This is what I have been saying all along. No emotions here, please. Critical thinking and critical reading!
  
  This is not critical reading (pun intended). You don't take statements in selective isolation and attempt ...
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  Yes,
  
  This is what I have been saying all along. No emotions here, please. Critical thinking and critical reading!
  
  This is not critical reading (pun intended). You don't take statements in selective isolation and attempt to pin an entire essay's, not to talk of a whole series', meaning on it.
  
  That is not how to read critically! You are not likely to locate either the head or tail of a piece of writing if you read superficially! Even if at all! A dictionary may even give you the definition of a word that is entirely different from the contextual connotations intended by a writer!
  
  Besides, you don't need a dictionary to help you pick up the meanings of words in a piece of writing. You can and should understand words, no matter how "big" or "small," through a simple technique of critical contextualization.
  
  Interestingly I hardly use dictionaries when I read. I know others who don't rely on dictionaries when reading! I pick up meanings from context. Again, I write down words I am not familiar with when I read and look up their general meanings when I am done reading. Some writers use words in ways that are quite different from their dictionary meanings.
  
  Other writers rely on their (words) lost etymologies (which you can't even discover in most standard dictionaries). We don't even have to touch on philology! And "most" words have multiple meanings outside the immediate general context of writings. Contextual nuances and subtleties are additional factors to consider!
  
  Did you read the comments on the science and sociology of race/ethnicity? And yes, some believe witchcraft and ghosts are real, others don't. Others also believe ethnicity/race are real. Others don't.
  
  There is even scientific justification for the existence of ghosts! I have read about this and seen demonstration of the scientific evidence on American science programs.
  
  But it is not everything I see on TV and read in books I believe to be true or scientific. I have an independent mind of my own!
  
  Always read with the bigger picture in mind!
  
  Look forward to my piece on "Dr. Kofi Dompere On Kwame Nkrumah's Scientific Thinking" and "Fate Of A Sick Scholar." And always remember to read critically and think critically.

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• francis kwarteng 11 years ago

  Dear Kelly,
  
  I wish you had dealt with the central issues. Those are the things that matter most to me. Seriously grammar is of tangential interest to me! That said, there is not one single unnecessary word in this entire e ...
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  Dear Kelly,
  
  I wish you had dealt with the central issues. Those are the things that matter most to me. Seriously grammar is of tangential interest to me! That said, there is not one single unnecessary word in this entire essay.
  
  And regarding the question of punctuation, I have consistently asked readers who are not familiar with the wide range of stylistic freedoms which a particular write-up enjoys to look at the vast array of disambiguation techniques available to literary critics and writers in general and how they conform to the character of punctutional integrity.
  
  Kelly, try to figure out how many stylistic elements are embodied in this piece and we can begin to deal with the propriety or impropriety of punctuational integrity thereafter!
  
  For instance, a simple stylistic construction like your comment does not need a period after a question mark! This is one of the basic rules of punctuational distribution! But that does not matter to me in the least. What matters most to me is your critical apraisal of the piece!
  
  Finally, I have one or two readers who will surely read the piece in its entirety. We happen to discuss them privately once they are done reading my pieces on Ghanaweb.
  
  All errors are mine!
  
  Thanks.

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• Theophilus 11 years ago

  If you only have one or two readers who will read it to the end,then you should have emailed the article to them. Sorry I didn't readone line of this aarticle because I know the kind of writer you are.
  
  
  You have your nich ...
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  If you only have one or two readers who will read it to the end,then you should have emailed the article to them. Sorry I didn't readone line of this aarticle because I know the kind of writer you are.
  
  
  You have your niche of readers. Unfortunately I am not an admirer, good luck.

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• francis kwarteng 11 years ago

  Theo,
  
  I always forward them (these two friends) copies but they always prefer to read them online, either on modernghana or on Ghanaweb.
  
  And there are other friends of mine who hardly come to Ghanaweb to read at all. S ...
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  Theo,
  
  I always forward them (these two friends) copies but they always prefer to read them online, either on modernghana or on Ghanaweb.
  
  And there are other friends of mine who hardly come to Ghanaweb to read at all. Some of these friends prefer modernghana instead! They prefer modernghana's journalistic cosmopolitanism and diversity of writers (non-Ghanaians, Africans, African Americans, etc).
  
  As far as I am concerned, neither of these two friends you refered to earlier has made specific reference(s) to any of the articles I have privately been sending them in the two years I have been posting articles on Ghanaian forums (fora).
  
  To them it is either my modernghana article or Ghanaweb article! For instance, Ghanaweb columnist Kwesi Atta Sakyi sends me copies of his Ghanaweb articles before they postings on Ghanaweb but I always come to Ghanaweb to read them and comment on them nonetheless.
  
  Thanks.

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• C.Y. ANDY-K 11 years ago

  Soul mate Yaw, they simply have no clue what you were writing about. It is above their pin-heads. And yet, in every line, you made poignant points.
  
  I was a loner on Okyeame in the 90s when I was addressing the very issues ...
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  Soul mate Yaw, they simply have no clue what you were writing about. It is above their pin-heads. And yet, in every line, you made poignant points.
  
  I was a loner on Okyeame in the 90s when I was addressing the very issues you are addressing now. Only lack of time is preventing me from completing the series on intellectual bankruptcy in Ghana I am working on now which complements what you have written here. Two series are ready but I feel should do the third before starting to post. But what the heck, I might send to press before the week ends. You are saying everything I had already written!;-) Leave some for me too! I don't want to be like D.K. Poison. Ha! ha! ha!
  
  Andy-K

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• francis kwarteng 11 years ago

  Brother Yao,
  
  Thanks for the encouragement.
  
  I have always enjoyed your D.K. Poison analogy. This is the second time I am reading this from you. Very thoughtful. Of course those who are complaining have no clue what I am ...
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  Brother Yao,
  
  Thanks for the encouragement.
  
  I have always enjoyed your D.K. Poison analogy. This is the second time I am reading this from you. Very thoughtful. Of course those who are complaining have no clue what I am taking about.
  
  Even one, a Ghanaweb columnist (you know him so well), has been using different monikers to make a fool of himself. I don't know how he writes his Ghanaweb articles when he is not conversant with the basic tools of critical reading and critical thinking!
  
  I asked him how he reads. He gave me no answer! Unfortunately he is the kind of demagogic pamphleteers you most likely to find among Hutu militants during the Rwandan genocide! I quite remember when I began publishing on Ghanaweb, Andy, this guy used one of his favorite monikers to ask readers to resist my writings/views on Ghanaweb! This was at time when I have not even read one of his articles!
  
  I don't mean this as insult, but I got confused when he says my writings are simple and in another comment tells me my articles are obtuse. He also comes to me with insults when he cannot tell me the difference between "critic" and "detractor."
  
  I also asked him to tell me FIVE UNSPOKEN ASSUMPTIONS in the first part of the series which he claims to have read. He could not give me one. He came back again, claiming he has read the article again.
  
  I asked him for FIVE UNSPOKEN ASSUMPTIONS the second time. He could not give me one. A commentator referred to this Ghanaweb columnist as "a basket-weaving scholar" just last week. And he is not someone whose articles I read. Most serious guys I know on Ghanaweb do not read him.
  
  I even asked him the third time to go back and read what others have written about the piece to see how to critically and intelligently glean unspoken assumptions from an essay. I advised him to use that as a template and tell me other underlying assumptions which others have stated. He couldn't give me one. He then says the article is obtuse!
  
  Andy, you are the master. One of the best of the best on Ghanaweb! You always have the flesh, I the bones. Let's see what you got!
  
  The detractors are going to run away before your articles arrive.
  
  Anyway I shall not mind. I will have my laughs when your masterpieces are finally ready.
  
  Thanks.

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• YAW 11 years ago

  The political leanings of Kweku Bonsam specialises not in creating ethnic harmony,but in the peddling of worn out confidence trick of tribal superiority.It is hard for the "Bonsams" to translate democracy into good governance ...
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  The political leanings of Kweku Bonsam specialises not in creating ethnic harmony,but in the peddling of worn out confidence trick of tribal superiority.It is hard for the "Bonsams" to translate democracy into good governance...alleviating poverty and other other structural deformities.He/She is conditioned in spewing out "Emotional Spasms" to his followers in their unwritten manifestoes.Kweku Bonsam owes his facts to his imaginations and his bigotry to his memory.There is nothing more disgusting than a supposedly "virtuous or educated" person with a mean and conceited mind.

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• Military Man 11 years ago

  Yaw,
  
  Sorry... no pun intended but it looks like your interpretation of this "Kweku Bonsam" character matches the machinations of Kojo Tamakloe to a tee.
  
  Francis Kwarteng might not have known consciously when he create ...
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  Yaw,
  
  Sorry... no pun intended but it looks like your interpretation of this "Kweku Bonsam" character matches the machinations of Kojo Tamakloe to a tee.
  
  Francis Kwarteng might not have known consciously when he created this character but I believe subconsciously , he had a fleeting idea who this fellow was or is. He just didn't believe that there are brainy chaps like you who will sieve through all his 'road blocks' and land on his buddy Kojo Tamakloe.
  
  Well done Yaw. Now it's up to Francis to break the sad news to Kojo T that somebody is on to him.

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• francis kwarteng 11 years ago

  Dear friend,
  
  Are you serious?
  
  This Kweku Bonsam character has a fluid personality.
  
  It could be anybody but I don't know if it fits Kojo T. And Kojo T is a good brother, you know, Military Man.
  
  I wonder why he i ...
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  Dear friend,
  
  Are you serious?
  
  This Kweku Bonsam character has a fluid personality.
  
  It could be anybody but I don't know if it fits Kojo T. And Kojo T is a good brother, you know, Military Man.
  
  I wonder why he is so close to me yet I did not have him in mind when I wrote this series. Military man, why do you think the series fits Kojo T's personality? I want to know.
  
  Like you Military Man, I love Abeeku Mensah's observations. It is what this series is about, anyway!
  
  Have a great day!

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• Military Man 11 years ago

  Francis,
  
  As a writer you should know that the human mind is a powerful 'instrument'.
  
  If you want to know why you latched on to this Kweku Bonsam character in your series just go back and search your mind why he became y ...
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  Francis,
  
  As a writer you should know that the human mind is a powerful 'instrument'.
  
  If you want to know why you latched on to this Kweku Bonsam character in your series just go back and search your mind why he became your focal point.
  
  After that, just try and read every single posting Kojo T has posted in this forum including his comments to other contributor's postings or comments and you will see why I think your fictional character came to life in the personality of Kojo Tamakloe.
  
  As a matter of fact if you can for a moment, put your friendship with Kojo on hold while you go back to read both Abeeku's and Yaw's analytical breakdown of Kweku Bonsam's characterization, you would be surprised at how your subconscious mind caught Kojo's manipulations and machinations of issues concerning our country's political governance and history vividly without you realizing it.
  
  Just read Yaw's response. It's all there and if you don't see it, then you are in denial and trying to protect your very tribalistic and divisionist friend.
  
  You got a great mind, Francis and you seem like a very open and an honest person. You are the kind we need in our political corridors of power and not Kojo's kind who have their minds shaped by tribalism and exclusivity.
  Very selfish, manipulative, educated and lying individuals. That's your 'Kweku Bonsam' living and breathing as
  Kojo Tamakloe.

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• francis kwarteng 11 years ago

  Dear friend,
  
  Thanks for your observations.
  
  You have given me a very difficult assignment. I shall do as you say!
  
  And of course, I recall Yaw's and Abeeku's comments very well. I do agree with you that inclusion and ...
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  Dear friend,
  
  Thanks for your observations.
  
  You have given me a very difficult assignment. I shall do as you say!
  
  And of course, I recall Yaw's and Abeeku's comments very well. I do agree with you that inclusion and honesty are what we need to move forward as a people. Let's all try as we fight "tribalism" and "dishonesty" in our society!
  
  I believe you quoted YAW's comment to Kojo T today?
  
  Thanks for the compliments!

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• Abeeku Mensah 11 years ago

  Humans are the driving force behind the systems of self governments in each nation. Where democracy has succeeded as in UK, USA and other countless nations and where they've failed as in most developing nations, from Afghanis ...
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  Humans are the driving force behind the systems of self governments in each nation. Where democracy has succeeded as in UK, USA and other countless nations and where they've failed as in most developing nations, from Afghanistan to Venezuela or where delusional democracy reigns such as Ghana and other West African nations it is humans who see to the successes and failures. It is the same with the system of communism or socialism for we see communism being practiced successfully in China while it fails in most nations that tried. But be it democracy or communism/socialism it has always required the practice of hypocrisy and abuses of others based on preferences for those that succeeded. They almost always require a section of the population to acquiesce to arm twisting even when detrimental to their very survival. It is therefore not objective to blame a system of government but to blame the people in societies where a seemingly successful system in most nations do fail even as advocates of the system seem not to know when they are failing. In Ghana it is not Nkrumah's progressive socialism that failed and it is surely not our incompetent deployment of democracy that failed but lack of understanding and the built-in greed that elevates our leaders over common citizens.

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• francis kwarteng 11 years ago

  Dear freinds,
  
  I am particularly grateful to YAW and Abeeku Mensah for your critical appraisal of this write-up.
  
  I believe anyone (ADJOA WANGARA) who has claimed not to see the "head" and "feet" of this essay can always ...
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  Dear freinds,
  
  I am particularly grateful to YAW and Abeeku Mensah for your critical appraisal of this write-up.
  
  I believe anyone (ADJOA WANGARA) who has claimed not to see the "head" and "feet" of this essay can always learn from you two, for I believe this is a straightforward piece.
  
  I say thank you (to the rest).
  
  Thanks.

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• Military Man 11 years ago

  "In Ghana it is not Nkrumah's progressive socialism that failed and it is surely not our incompetent deployment of democracy that failed but lack of understanding and the built-in greed that elevates our leaders over common c ...
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  "In Ghana it is not Nkrumah's progressive socialism that failed and it is surely not our incompetent deployment of democracy that failed but lack of understanding and the built-in greed that elevates our leaders over common citizens."
  
  No truer words ever spoken

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