Tear Down The Gandhi Statue 2

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• C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  Now, this is the big brouhaha that tollgate charge imposing former VC has brought down upon the heads of all Ghanaians for unilaterally accepting to have that statue erected in Legon, and a clueless Minister of Education in t ...
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  Now, this is the big brouhaha that tollgate charge imposing former VC has brought down upon the heads of all Ghanaians for unilaterally accepting to have that statue erected in Legon, and a clueless Minister of Education in that Prof. who doesn't even know how to deal with even people buying PhDs from Internet sources. Pathetic!
  
  Now those who tried to argue that University of Ghana is an autonomous, independent body that can impose its own tolls and "laws" upon Ghanaians should come out to defend this ill-thought of action too. I wouldn't have accepted Gandhi's statue to be erected at Legon, knowing what I knew about him. Only intellectually bankrupt academics and politicians who don't read outside their field of study will, and they did that.
  
  I was struck very negatively by Gandhi's blatant racism when I read his autobiography in the mid-80s while in Nigeria. It was in the library of the secondary/commercial school where I was teaching. I wasn't the least convinced by his justifications for rallying Indians to support the British in the war to suppress the last African uprising against their oppression and the Boer Wars.
  
  I equally viewed as very dodgy his excuse for deciding not to have sex with the wife anymore. I suspected it stemmed from a lingering guilty feeling that he was having with the young wife when the father died. They were married when both were under 15. Then, I read an expose a while ago on him which might better explain his decision. He might have been suffering impotency problems and found an excuse to shield that, I thought then.
  
  The article revealed something else. Instead of sleeping with the wife, he started sleeping with young women, even some married, who he compelled to sleep with him all stark naked; he claimed to buttress his celibacy vow! Who knows what else he was compelling them to do to him? Wanked him, for instance, and excusing that as not sex? One such woman committed suicide and others becamne mentally ill. There is a movement dedicated to exposing him and seeking justice for the abused women, some related to him.
  The man was a sexual pervert too!
  
  Andy-K

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• Francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  Nyebro Yao,
  
  Thanks for the insightful observations.
  
  I recently even read a powerful article by an Indian writer who says most of these women Gandhi slept with were kids and that they were even forced to sleep with him. ...
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  Nyebro Yao,
  
  Thanks for the insightful observations.
  
  I recently even read a powerful article by an Indian writer who says most of these women Gandhi slept with were kids and that they were even forced to sleep with him.
  
  Then there is a controversial book on him that explores his possible amorous relationship with a man.
  
  I provided a reference for all these "facts" in Part 1. Like you also said, there are movements in both India and the rest of the world to expose Gandhi for what and who he was.
  
  The Dalits have been opposing him and challenging historical accounts on Gandhi, his relationship with the Dalits, and his controversial positions on the Dalit issue.
  
  I have provided some authoritative references for some of these claims throughout the four-part series.
  
  I hope those of my readers who are not familiar with the issues will consult these references.
  
  Again, thanks for your insights.

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• THE REAL C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  Nyebro Yaw,
  
  I couldn't read your Part before it disappeared into the archives. had wanted to go read it before making my comments but time was not on my side. So, readers should take as an independent corroboration of what ...
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  Nyebro Yaw,
  
  I couldn't read your Part before it disappeared into the archives. had wanted to go read it before making my comments but time was not on my side. So, readers should take as an independent corroboration of what you wrote in Part I.
  
  The man's legacy is really in trouble. Only bloody ignorant, miseducated Ghanaian academics and populace alike who don't read don't know about crucial world events. See the quagmire we are in. It is the same with the obnoxious E&P Bill which the ignorant and compromised MPs passed under cover of silence, very nichodemously.
  
  Andy-K

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• francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  Thanks Nyebro Yao.
  
  I hope Part 3 will be published today (possibly with Part 4). I sent both in yesterday.
  
  Have a great weekend.
  
  Thanks.

  Thanks Nyebro Yao.
  
  I hope Part 3 will be published today (possibly with Part 4). I sent both in yesterday.
  
  Have a great weekend.
  
  Thanks.

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• Chris Kwame Awuyah 9 years ago

  Undoubtedly, Gandhi influenced leaders of black liberation movements such as Dr Nkrumah, Dr King, and Bayard Rustin. However, Gandhi also professed virulent racist positions about black populations.
  Univ. of Ghana might not ...
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  Undoubtedly, Gandhi influenced leaders of black liberation movements such as Dr Nkrumah, Dr King, and Bayard Rustin. However, Gandhi also professed virulent racist positions about black populations.
  Univ. of Ghana might not have engaged in the difficult conversation on Gandhi's blatant contradictions, prior to setting his statue in granite at Legon. Such a debate would have had healthy implications for the campus and beyond.
  The myth of Gandhi must be rated against the insistent historical reality of his actual work and life in South Africa and India. The philosophy of active peaceful resistance has shaped and still defines world wide-movements against oppression. Gandhi's defiant anti-British rally cries of his March 1930 “India Salt" peaceful resistance has epic dimensions. Yet, his previous activities in South Africa are fraught with memorable racist statements and positions. His leadership of the sub-continental India Liberation struggle also has the checkered tragic history of the mass slaughter of Moslems, Hindi, Sikhs, and other populations.
  Legon has erected a statue without giving the university community opportunity to have engaging conversation about the philosophy, values, and historical relevance of the persona. How is Gandhi a figuration for the present and future of Legon when his past has remained largely un-examined by the campus community?

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• francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  A big THANK YOU Chris Kwame Awuyah.
  
  I briefly raise the issue you touched upon in your last paragraph in Part 3 (see "A SPECIAL NOTE TO OUR READERS"), which I sent to the editor (together with Part 4) yesterday (I also ra ...
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  A big THANK YOU Chris Kwame Awuyah.
  
  I briefly raise the issue you touched upon in your last paragraph in Part 3 (see "A SPECIAL NOTE TO OUR READERS"), which I sent to the editor (together with Part 4) yesterday (I also raise the controversies surrounding his dealings with the Dalit issue and how the Dalits, and Indian and other international scholars and researchers and movements, are fighting his legacy today. Elsewhere I touched on the man who assissinated him and some intersting things about this assassin...as you know we can exhaust all the issues here as best as you and I and others try).
  
  I hope we have more to talk about this particular concern of yours once this segment (Part 3) is posted on Ghanaweb hopefully today.
  
  Thanks for your insightful contributions nonetheless. I do greatly cherish them.
  
  Thanks for reading and sharing.
  
  Thanks.

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• Chris Kwame Awuyah 9 years ago

  I look forward to reading the other segments of your insightful and well researched narrative. Thanks

  I look forward to reading the other segments of your insightful and well researched narrative. Thanks

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• francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  Thanks once again.

  Thanks once again.

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• Nii Teiko 9 years ago

  I don't know what informed the thinking of Legon School authorities who champion the erection of Ghandhi's Statue on Legon soil but methinks those atheist ( Kwarteng Lungu, Andy K...) who are making these disgusting noises he ...
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  I don't know what informed the thinking of Legon School authorities who champion the erection of Ghandhi's Statue on Legon soil but methinks those atheist ( Kwarteng Lungu, Andy K...) who are making these disgusting noises here must first look themselves in the proverbial mirror and reexamine their Africentric black 'asses' before pointing accusing fingers.
  
  I wouldnt have problems if the Legon authorities had considered the good works J.B. Dankwah(the perfect gentleman) - his enormous contribution towards the establishment of Ghana's premier and fagship University - and have accorded him with such an honor, in a form of a statue. You see, the argument of these crazy bald heads is that Ghandhi was anti-Black. If that is so, then I would have support any move to tear down the statue down if it was that of the Afrocentric, brutal dictator of the millinium, in the person of Kwame Nkrumah, alias Kofi Nwiah.
  
  Michael Jackson, who once said that he was disappointed for being born black, is a hero to these rabble rousing annoying talking-crickets who always position themselves as repository ( the alpha and omega ) of all wisdom on this forum where the wisest ones are the silent majority.
  
  They cannot insult our intelligence.
  
  The acts of Kwarteng, Andy K. and co is the exact reminiscence of the proverbial Kwaku Ananse who collected all the wisdom in this world in a bottle and decided to hung it up on the tallest tree so that he would be the only person with access to wisdom and knowledge. The funny side is that, Agyaaku, as Ananse is popularly referred to, after collecting all the wisdom in a tightly closed bottle forget that there was no wisdom left in his head. He instead hung in the bottle in the posterior side of his human anatomy and tried to cling the tree with it. The rest is story. He tried and tried and tried until his perpendicularity became apparently horizontal, he die in the course.
  
  Btw, Ghandhi - unlike Trokosis who hate Asantes for no reason other than jealousy which arises from the industrious and hardworking acumen of the later) was a human being and might have had his own reasons for hating ' Black South Africans'. It was his avowed decision to defend his colleague Indians from the racial segregation of the Whites. And did just that.
  
  
  Every individual has his strength and weakness, good and the bad. The mear fact that Kwarteng hates the Whitman, Andy K hates to hear the name of God, and Atinga-Trokosis hate Asantes to the core does not necessarily make them bad persons. There might be reason to that effect. On this not note, I would say shut up to Kwarteng and his Trokosis backers. Ghandhi was a human being and might have had his reasons to hate others. Bull's-eye.

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• YAW 9 years ago

  Whereas Francis Kwarteng offers the discerning reader a rich and varied historical facts, Stupid Ass Sarfo, posing as {Nii Teiko] butts in with nothing but insults. J B Danquah was a traitor who achieved nothing.

  Whereas Francis Kwarteng offers the discerning reader a rich and varied historical facts, Stupid Ass Sarfo, posing as {Nii Teiko] butts in with nothing but insults. J B Danquah was a traitor who achieved nothing.

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• francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  Dear Namesake,
  
  I apologize for not promptly responding to your question.
  
  I was so busy that when the time finally came for me to respond, the article had been pushed into the archives.
  
  I hope Prof Lungu's response w ...
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  Dear Namesake,
  
  I apologize for not promptly responding to your question.
  
  I was so busy that when the time finally came for me to respond, the article had been pushed into the archives.
  
  I hope Prof Lungu's response was okay.
  
  Please accept my apology.
  
  I have two interesting articles coming next week. I will not divulge it here until next week.
  
  Thanks.

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