Anton Wilhelm Amo, Ghana’s greatest philosophical genius 1

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• ADJOA WANGARA 9 years ago

  I will not waste my time to read another garbage fron the lunatic Francis Kwarteng because as usual he has again copied another nonsense from the internet and worsen it with his bogus English grammatical.
  
  A silly article f ...
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  I will not waste my time to read another garbage fron the lunatic Francis Kwarteng because as usual he has again copied another nonsense from the internet and worsen it with his bogus English grammatical.
  
  A silly article from a stupid columnist.

  reply
• C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  This is a great read, beyond the minds of the usual hoi polloi that haunts Ghana.
  
  As a Philosophy Minor, Legon, I became aware of Amo and his exploits in the '70s. There is a dedication to him in front of the Philosophy D ...
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  This is a great read, beyond the minds of the usual hoi polloi that haunts Ghana.
  
  As a Philosophy Minor, Legon, I became aware of Amo and his exploits in the '70s. There is a dedication to him in front of the Philosophy Dept, Legon.
  
  I believe definitely that it was the rise of racism in Germany/Europe that forced him to leave to the Gold Coast.
  
  Andy-K

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• Prof Lungu 9 years ago

  C.Y. ANDY-K,
  Thanks greatly for the insight!
  
  In a piece we never completed or published, we are arguing that it would be a great and very useful lesson (scholarship, commerce and promotion, culture) for Ghanaians, Africa ...
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  C.Y. ANDY-K,
  Thanks greatly for the insight!
  
  In a piece we never completed or published, we are arguing that it would be a great and very useful lesson (scholarship, commerce and promotion, culture) for Ghanaians, Africans, and the world, if Gandhi's statute was replaced with these 4 people who crossed paths in Ghana, all African/international legends and icons:
  
  Martin Luther King
  Muhammad Ali
  Malcolm X
  Kwame Nkrumah
  
  Now, we will add "Dr. Anton Wilhelm Amo".
  
  That would not be too difficult to fund.
  
  Just an inspirational and catchy name, some imagination, and a large dose of the can-do spirit.
  
  Peace!
  Peace!

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• KA 9 years ago

  Interesting. I don't think many people in Ghana know about this Nzema man. I must admit I didn't either. But now I know...
  
  One must cast his mind back 300 years to place the man's achievements. It should be no surprise tha ...
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  Interesting. I don't think many people in Ghana know about this Nzema man. I must admit I didn't either. But now I know...
  
  One must cast his mind back 300 years to place the man's achievements. It should be no surprise that he had studied so many subjects and languages. It was common practice among intellectuals at the time. Many areas of study were also not very distinct from each other at the time.
  
  I hope in the next part we'll know more about what he did when he returned home.
  
  I can understand why he was regarded as a European philosopher. He was trained in the European philosophical tradition at a time when African philosophy as a tradition was unknown. Perhaps today, we may claim him as an African philosopher (if he, indeed, expoused some African philosophy) but he can hardly be uprooted from his European academic roots.
  
  Under your Special Note, I think you wanted to place the defence of his second dissertation in 1734 rather than 1934... It is said that doctoral dissertations in those times involved dilating or expounding on aspects of your supervisor's philosophical theories. It is after your defense that you could expand on your own ideas and then get students who you would also supervise to promote your own school of thought. There's still a bit of that today too, anyway.
  
  Wiredu taught me first year philosophy in Legon in 1975. I think he taught Logic and Acheampong taught the Intro to Philosphy course. I suspect Kwame Appiah was in the department then. He may have then been working on his Cambridge PhD and may have taught some tutorials... It was all a long time ago.
  
  The British (VSO) lady who taught me English in secondary school used to collect books from the British Council for us to read. She borrowed like 20 copies each of several titles which were rotated among the students for a few weeks after which she returned the books and broughtf new ones. I still remember two of those books: The Jacaranda Tree and The Colditz Story. But the ones we remember most were the Ananse story books by Peggy Appiah - Anthony Appiah's mum...

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• francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  KA,
  
  Thanks for the reminder.
  
  Yes, it is 1734 and not 1934. I have since corrected this before publishing it on Modernghana about a minute ago.
  
  Thanks for reading.

  KA,
  
  Thanks for the reminder.
  
  Yes, it is 1734 and not 1934. I have since corrected this before publishing it on Modernghana about a minute ago.
  
  Thanks for reading.

  reply
• C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  KA, good rejoinder, keep educating and supporting Kwarteng with your powerful knowlegde.

  KA, good rejoinder, keep educating and supporting Kwarteng with your powerful knowlegde.

  reply
• Francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  Nyebro Yao,
  
  How are you? And the family?
  
  Thanks for your informed support of my little efforts.
  
  KA has been doing a fantastic job critiquing my little efforts where and when he has to. I have been learning a lot fro ...
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  Nyebro Yao,
  
  How are you? And the family?
  
  Thanks for your informed support of my little efforts.
  
  KA has been doing a fantastic job critiquing my little efforts where and when he has to. I have been learning a lot from you two, though.
  
  Please keep up the good work.
  
  Thanks.

  reply
• KA 9 years ago

  The first comment by ANDY may be by the authentic ANDY. I am doubtful of this second one, though. It's not in the nature of the authentic ANDY to ask someone to educate you. He knows your capabilities all too well.
  
  Rememb ...
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  The first comment by ANDY may be by the authentic ANDY. I am doubtful of this second one, though. It's not in the nature of the authentic ANDY to ask someone to educate you. He knows your capabilities all too well.
  
  Remember someone has been impersonating him?
  
  Just wondering...

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• THE REAL C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  You are absolutely right. It is the impostor at work. There is nothing I can educate Nyebro Yaw on this. In fact, he is more abreast than myself on Amo. I only stated my opinion based on my biased of what he already knew and ...
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  You are absolutely right. It is the impostor at work. There is nothing I can educate Nyebro Yaw on this. In fact, he is more abreast than myself on Amo. I only stated my opinion based on my biased of what he already knew and wrote about.
  
  Andy-K

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• Prof Lungu 9 years ago

  Same as KA, we've never heard or read about Amo.
  
  A fascinating read we must say. And again, Kwame Nkrumah made the invisible visible, recognizable.
  
  We tried to get a copy of the Kwame Anthony Appiah talk but failed. Ap ...
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  Same as KA, we've never heard or read about Amo.
  
  A fascinating read we must say. And again, Kwame Nkrumah made the invisible visible, recognizable.
  
  We tried to get a copy of the Kwame Anthony Appiah talk but failed. Apparently, it is on BBC and you must listen, which we do not have time to do.
  
  But the byline seems to suggest: "....Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah says race and nationality are social inventions being used to cause deadly divisions...".
  
  WE SAY: Na true!
  
  But why do you stop there?
  
  Why don't you add religion, which to day seems to have just as bad a record?
  
  
  The other point is, we would be interested to know if Dr. Appiah provided information about the efforts of Kwame Nkrumah in making the invisible, visible, so to speak, during the "lecture", per Francis Kwarteng's note at the head of his paper.
  
  Anyway, we recently got wind of a lady in the UK, Ms. Heather Adjapong, a socio-cultural performer of the African experience who did some work on a woman called Sarah Forbes Bonetta.
  
  
  FROM FRANCIS KWARTENG's ACCOUNT READ THIS: "...For the Duke, the gift of an African child was an opportunity to conduct an Enlightenment experiment, exploring what would happen to an African immersed in modern European scholarship...".
  
  
  WE SAY:
  On following up on the work of Ms. Heather Adjapong (and Sarah Forbes Bonetta), we quickly learn it is a type of exchange they called "diplomatic gift."
  
  As in "diplomatic gift" in the form of a human being...an African, to an imperial power outside the jurisdiction of the African's forebears.
  
  
  READ EXCEPTS FROM MS. ADJAPONG's WORK:
  
  "....Artist Reenacts 19th-Century Portraits To Topple The ‘Strong Black Woman’ Stereotype
  
  Heather Agyepong, along with nine
  other young artists, are working to show black women in the U.K. and beyond that they are not alone.....//
  
  //...In 1843, Sarah Forbes Bonetta was born a princess of the Egbado clan of Nigeria’s Yoruba people. However, when she was 4 years old, her entire family was killed in a slave raid, and King Gezo, the most infamous slave trading monarch in West Africa, took her as prisoner. Shortly after, a British commander named Frederick Forbes suggested Gezo give Bonetta to Queen Victoria as a diplomatic gift. “She would be a present from the King of the Blacks to the Queen of the Whites,” he said.
  
  Thanks to this bizarre turn of events, Bonetta wound up at Windsor Castle in 1850. The Queen, impressed with Bonetta’s intelligence and musical talents, declared the girl her goddaughter and agreed to take on her educational expenses. Until her death in 1880, Bonetta lived among the British middle class ? ostensibly happy, or, at least, financially comfortable. Her story is often framed as a bizarre sort of fairytale, of a woman saved from horrific circumstances and plopped into a life of luxury.
  
  When London-based contemporary artist Heather Agyepong learned Bonetta’s story, it touched her on two levels. First, due to the lack of visibility of black diasporas predating the 1940s, Agyepong was surprised that there were black people in Britain in the 19th century. “It was both overwhelming and embarrassing as I was a little ashamed I didn’t know that the diaspora has been around for over 500 years,” she explained to The Huffington Post.
  
  But Agyepong’s fascination with Bonetta went deeper. She found herself wondering, despite the happily-ever-after tone that normally accompanies Bonetta’s life story, how she really felt inside. What would it be like to lose your entire family and live in a world so different from the one you once knew? “How can a black woman living in Victorian Britain within the realms of aristocracy have such an pleasant experience?” Agyepong asked...."
  
  Read more/research: www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/heather-agyepong-photographs-black-mental-health_us_57d18e39e4b06a74c9f33997.
  
  
  Greetings, all.

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• Francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  Thanks Prof Lungu for your insightful contribution.
  
  However let me just add this: This interesting book "African Presence In Early Europe," a powerful book authored by the late Ivan Van Sertima takes a surprising look at ...
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  Thanks Prof Lungu for your insightful contribution.
  
  However let me just add this: This interesting book "African Presence In Early Europe," a powerful book authored by the late Ivan Van Sertima takes a surprising look at Africans in Europe (including England) going back further past 500 years.
  
  How are you Sir? I will get in touch.
  
  My regards.
  
  Thanks.

  reply
• Prof Lungu 9 years ago

  Ha! Ha! Ha!
  
  As you must already know, for reasons of geography, economics, and culture, including religion, most Africans, rare was it to have parents, let alone grand/great-great-grand parents, and so forth, who could rea ...
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  Ha! Ha! Ha!
  
  As you must already know, for reasons of geography, economics, and culture, including religion, most Africans, rare was it to have parents, let alone grand/great-great-grand parents, and so forth, who could read, or let alone had a library with books, other that primary 1-4 exercise books, if they were lucky.
  
  We are thinking C.Y. ANDY-K was one of the lucky ones.
  
  In fact, it is rather enlightening this emerging Donald Trump era to know that there's been a "dedication" to Dr. Anton Wilhelm Amo since the 1970, most likely from the 1960s, during the Nkrumah era.
  
  Correction requested, if necessary!
  
  Anyway, all this to say that for many of us who ever went to any school in Ghana, we tended to know a lot more about other countries, compared to Ghana.
  
  Our sense is, things are getting better, slowly.
  
  I'd be curious, though, for the current discussion, how many cases of "diplomatic gifts" of Africans were recorded in Dr. Ivan Van Sertima's, African Presence In Early Europe, or by anyone, for that matter.
  
  There's easily a topic for a thesis, a dissertation, perhaps, for consideration and exploration. Or, a socio-political performance, a la Ms. Heather Adjapong, who, we just found out via Twitter, is on her way to South Africa, to perform, educate, and entertain.
  
  So, as we make these arguments and discussions, lets try to also big up the African woman, and her works.
  (So, of course, Kwarteng's essay on Mabel Danquah represents a fantastic example).
  
  Peace!
  FracisAny !

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• THE REAL C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  Prof Lungu,
  
  Indeed, I was one of the few privileged ones but I didn't know that until I joined Okyeame in the early 1990s. When your great great grandfathers welcomed and gave land to the missionaries to start the schools, ...
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  Prof Lungu,
  
  Indeed, I was one of the few privileged ones but I didn't know that until I joined Okyeame in the early 1990s. When your great great grandfathers welcomed and gave land to the missionaries to start the schools, you obviously get a head start (as for the slave fort, the Danes built in Keta, it was under duress when one of the wars went badly). I even had my own personal library at home, selected from the chop boxes full of books in the house not locked up, and I used to loan books to friends. One book I have to admit I couldn't complete reading cos it bored me so much was JB Danquah's "The Third Woman", a kind of play. Of course, all of Kwame Nkrumah's publications till the coup were there. And phew! Loads of Kim IL SUNG, probably holding the records for the world's most prolific writer!
  
  You see, some of us from the coast had behind us a history of up to 500 years of dealing with the white men in front role positions, fighting them and finally negotiating peace with them after the Sagrenti War/Glover War. That's why I find it so pathetic the wannabe leaders with slave mentalities like Kufuor and Mahama and their associates selling us down the river with the Mahama Oil Hybrid System.
  
  Andy-K

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• Wilson 9 years ago

  REAL C.Y. ANDY-K, since when did you start to lie and write nonsense? Do you now want to tell the people of Ghana that in the olden days Ewes at Keta (Coastal area) once fought with the whites? ...shame onto you bloody Ewe l ...
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  REAL C.Y. ANDY-K, since when did you start to lie and write nonsense? Do you now want to tell the people of Ghana that in the olden days Ewes at Keta (Coastal area) once fought with the whites? ...shame onto you bloody Ewe lier!
  
  I quote the so called "THE REAL C.Y. ANDY-K":
  "You see, some of us from the coast had behind us a history of up to 500 years of dealing with the white men in front role positions, fighting them and finally negotiating peace with them after the Sagrenti War/Glover War."

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• BERNARD 9 years ago

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  reply
• Tekonline.org 9 years ago

  Never heard of him either, until that BBC broadcast. And that's a real shame, considering what we know about the likes of Hume, Nietze, and Lao Tse.
  
  The nation should recognize our great scholars of the past, even regardin ...
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  Never heard of him either, until that BBC broadcast. And that's a real shame, considering what we know about the likes of Hume, Nietze, and Lao Tse.
  
  The nation should recognize our great scholars of the past, even regarding them as national treasures.

  reply
• Francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  Thank you Tekonline.org.
  
  I also did not know about the fact that Kwame Anthony Appiah was this year's nominate for the Reith Lecture Series.
  
  Like I told you the other day, I knew about Amo when I visited a paternal unc ...
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  Thank you Tekonline.org.
  
  I also did not know about the fact that Kwame Anthony Appiah was this year's nominate for the Reith Lecture Series.
  
  Like I told you the other day, I knew about Amo when I visited a paternal uncle (with my father) at Legon as a teenager. If I remember correctly, I saw a bust of him at Legon in those days.
  
  I began doing some serious reading on the man and his work while at KNUST. I expended my knowledge about him and his work since I came to the US.
  
  I have also learnt a lot from a number of academics, researchers, historians...who have done some serous, important work in this area.
  
  I thank you once again for mentioning this year's Reith Lectures to me.
  
  In fact, finally, I did consider Amo among those I think the University of Ghana should be named after.
  
  Thanks bro.

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