Anton Wilhelm Amo: Ghana’s greatest philosophical genius [3]

Read Comments Comments (18)

• THE REAL C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  Nyebro Yaw,
  
  Your series reminded me of a long abandoned rejoinder I started writing to an earlier series of yours. This, in a way, is a return to the same themes. Incidentally, I quoted the remark of the Rector of the Uni ...
  read full comment

  Nyebro Yaw,
  
  Your series reminded me of a long abandoned rejoinder I started writing to an earlier series of yours. This, in a way, is a return to the same themes. Incidentally, I quoted the remark of the Rector of the Univ Wittenberg on Amo in my rejoinder which I didn't reallly complete, as you raised so many issues and I didn't have the time to tackle them. Besides, I observed that you're on track, actually echoing some issues I had raised on Okyeame in the '90s with no one capable of discussing them with me too.
  
  My trajectory is to go beyond the standard "History Month" recount of some questionable "glories" past/kingdoms or personalities, and build on that for something new; not to say a return to the MAAT. I shall post it here as it is.
  --------------------------------
  
  RE. THE END OF THE DILEMMA: THE TOWER OF BABEL
  
  Upon second reflection, I decided to expand the comment I made on Francis Kwarteng’s thoughtful philosophical piece/s into a full rejoinder, and it turns out to be a bigger task than bargained for, made more difficult by his adding new dimensions to the issues raised, which kept on raising the bar. In his rather longish pieces, he lumped together so many topics which have been treated in articles and books on their own. In short, it is a survey of several intellectual, topical and pertinent issues, which I am afraid, many of the readers of Ghanaweb would struggle to understand, as they are indeed above their air-heads. No wonder the responses were scanty even though he hit on many topical issues. How many readers even understand what “existentialism” means? Are we indeed really free agents, and not the microcosm of the several factors that impinge upon us and shape our consciousness, perceptions, awareness or knowledge [of the world or cosmology], and what decisions we make and actions taken? Perhaps, brief explanations of such “European” philosophical concepts in the future may help many readers to understand better what Francis writes.
  
  Now, as I wrote then, if I had to comment comprehensively on all aspects of what he wrote, I wouldn't go to bed then, and then, I found out to my horror, I couldn’t go to work either for days, so I had to complete this when time permitted, if ever! I shall be eclectic in my rejoinder to make it easier to handle.
  
  His quote of Baldwin to highlight the current unequal-and-non-reciprocal-blacks-genuflecting-to –white-superiority relationship we face hinges on images of each other: black and white, and its evolution. When the white barbarians met the Africans in ancient times, it was unquestionable that the relationship was hardly equal, as whites (Caucasians, represented then by the Greeks before the Romans and Germanic hordes emerged) were regarded as barbarians by the ancient Egyptians, and no Egyptian damsel would kiss a Greek because the Greeks ate pork, a sacrilege to the Egyptians. Jump to the period during the Dark Ages in Europe, and in spite of what had befallen African civilisations from Egypt to North Africa, the Moors (from Spain to N. Africa) were undoubtedly the more civilised and superior race and this was recognised by the whites who credited the African as the originator of civilisation. That was before the onset of the ravages caused by the slave trade and racism turned history upside down, with the white barbarians, on the rampage again after emerging from the 1000 years of solitude and darkness they plunged Europe into, now seeing Africans as savages. But yet, when Wilhem Amo presented his doctoral dissertation at the Univ. of Wittenberg in the throes of the slave trade, the Rector found it necessary to say this of Africa:
  
  "Great once was the dignity of Africa, whether one considers natural talents of mind or the study of letters, or the very institutions for safeguarding religion. For she has given birth to several men of the greatest pre-eminence by whose talents and efforts the whole of human knowledge, no less than divine knowledge had been built up".
  
  The quote is from Chief Obafemi's Awolowo's Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Lectures at Univ. of Cape Coast, 1976, even though he also lifted it from Fage’s voluminous Cambridge History of Africa. And he went on to quote how the Rector noted "that Africa had become prolific in things other than learning. Therefore William Amo's career was supposed to prove the mental capacity of African people ...."
  
  Unfortunately, the rise of German racism drove Amo back to the Gold Coast where he died in the midst of the slave trade unsung and in obscurity, as fellow Africans competed to send more slaves to the New World! As put by Awolowo, this created new problems for Africans, and I think it is very appropriate to quote him verbatim, as many Afrocentrics, the genre of African patriots Francis Kwarteng belongs to or advocate, tend to gloss over these facts.
  
  “The first is the brutalisation and dehumanisation of Black Africans on an utterly infernal and satanic scale. In this infamous enterprise, the dominant class among Africans were close and devoted partners of the White people. For 389 years, to be exact, they hunted down their weaker fellow Africans like lower animals and sold them into slavery. The White slavers never went beyond the coast into the hinterland where most of the slaves were captured.
  
  The second is that, in the process, the minds of the dominant class became thoroughly warped, debased and imbued with callousness and contempt towards their fellow Africans. At the same time, the minds of the dominated weaker class were gripped by fear of, and profound hatred for, those who were responsible for their miseries and dehumanisation.
  
  The third is that, because of the superiority in arms and technology, the Africans cultivated an inferiority complex towards the White Race, which complex became more and more deep-seated as the centuries wore on.
  
  The fourth consists in the depopulation of African towns and villages, and the consequent total disruption of family and community life.
  
  The fifth is the neglect - indeed, the destruction – of agriculture and pastoralism, and the killing of initiative for manufacturing, as a result of which the entire populace minus the dominant class were compelled to eke out a living which was below subsistence level. … [He quoted Walter Rodney to buttress this point]
  
  The sixth is that the subjective phase of the Black African’s mind, which was underdeveloped at the time of the intercourse with the White Race, became depressed, darkened and worse underdeveloped than before.”
  
  The seventh is that the terms of trade between Africans and the White Race were both unfair and unconscionable. In return for slaves our ancestors received spirits and firearms with which they degraded themselves and slaughtered one another. ….”
  
  Awolowo mentioned in all up to nine additional problems created for Africans by the Slave Trade. I have left some out not because they are not important but the focus here is on the damages to the minds and psyche of Africans, which underpin and form the most important solution for redeeming Africans from their present state of backwardness: the mind set!
  
  The subsequent dehumanisation, warping of the mentality of Africans and their development of inferiority complex and deference to whites mentioned by Awolowo, thanks to the slave trade and colonisation, continue to weigh heavily on Africans today, even more than before. Awolowo did not touch on the paradox that the “Legitimate Trade” after the abolition of the European Atlantic Slave Trade led to more demand for slaves to be used within Africa itself to start the palm oil, coffee and cocoa plantations, and slavery on a mass scale continued into the C20th in Africa! So an estimated 24 million Africans were exported to the New World with an estimated casualty in Africa of 100 million deaths over a period of 400 years but King Leopold’s exploitation of the Congo led to the death of 20 million people within a few decades! How about that? About 5 million have just been killed there within a few years!
  
  Yet, even in the midst of the slave trade, Africans did not view very positively white people, as people superior to them. I quote from Reindorf to illustrate this encounter in the mid-C18th which Baldwin certainly did not know about. So what would Baldwin have thought of this quote below if he were aware?
  
  Reindorf recorded that the Akyem King Firempong (Frimpong) never saw a white person before and wanted to see one. I quote the record of the encounter:
  
  "He had never seen a white man and by the reports given by traders, especially the Akwamus, he thought that the Europeans were a kind of sea creatures. He expressed his desire to see a European, and Nicholas Kamp, book-keeper, was sent to Da, capital of the Kotoko, for the king to see him. A great meeting was held for his reception. Kamp approached, saluted the company, took off his hat to the king, bowed low; and the king thought he was a wild animal about to jump on him. Under this impression the king fell flat on his face off his stool and cried loudly to his wives to assist him. The drummer, Adam Malm, and Noi Afadi, the interpreter, did their best to convince the king that Kamp was a mere human being, and that all his movements were customary. The king arose from the ground and sitting on his stool, ordered his wives to sit between him and the European and his men. Upon seeing the cue, a tail-like wisp of hair hanging down Kamp's back, he said: "Dear me, all the animals have their tails at the end of their trunk, but Europeans have theirs at the back of their heads." The interpreter explained to him that it was no tail, but hairs twisted to look like one. Not being satisfied with all he had seen. Firempong asked Kamp to take off his clothes, which he declined to do unless at home when no ladies would be present. The meeting over, Kamp retired to his quarters, when a table was prepared for him. During the repast the king's wives stood by looking at him, one said: "He eats like a man, really he is a human being."
  At last Kamp took off his clothes before King Firempong, who could now touch him, and said: "Ah! you are really a human being, but only too white, like a devil." Another meeting was arranged, and Kamp was given two slaves as a present and returned to the coast."(Reindorf pp.78-9)
  
  There you have it! What the white man had to undergo to prove himself a human being! Mr Kamp could hardly be overjoyed at the first image of him by King Firempong and his Akyem subjects. Images of the other! So to the African at one time, the colour of the devil was white! When did it change to black even in the minds of Africans?
  
  You began with a quote on the double standards and hypocrisy of the whites with a quote from Frederick Douglas, what Marimba Ani dubbed the "rhetorical ethics", in her "Yurugu: An African-centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior," with which whites operate. This book should have been the Bible and Qu'ran we Africans should be reading. Prof. Ani, of course, devoted a lot of pages to examining the Images of Others, what images the whites have about the people they plundered, colonised and still exploit, and the images the plundered, colonised and still exploited have about them. Franz Fanon has of course done justice to the subject in his Psychology of the Oppressed. I wish I could dwell much on this with loads of quotes but just a brief foray from Ani.
  
  "Below an indigenous American describes European behavior:
  They would make slaves of us if they could; but as they cannot, they kill us. There is no faith placed in their words.
  
  They will say to an Indian, "My friend; my brother!" They will take him by the hand and, at the same moment destroy him...
  Remember that this day I warned you beware of such friends as these. I know the Long-Knives. They are not to be trusted."
  
  Ani went on:
  
  "It is an inherent characteristic of the culture that it prepares members of the culture to be able to act like friends toward those they regard as enemies; to be able to convince others that they have come to help when they, in fact, have come to destroy the others and their culture. That some may "believe" that they are actually doing good only makes them more dangerous, for they have swallowed their own rhetoric - perhaps a convenient self-delusion. Hypocritical behavior is sanctioned and rewarded in European culture. The rhetorical ethic helps to sanction it" (Ani, p.315).
  
  Yes, some may become deluded like Obama who thinks going to bomb Syrian women, children and men and destroying their infrastructure, just as Bush did in Iraq, will be helping Syrians; just as it helped Libyans!
  
  So did the whiteman justify the slave trade and colonisation as doing good to the black man. Yes, the The Three Cs and the Whiteman’s Burden! And the World Bank and associates impose their obnoxious policies on us and proclaim that as doing good to our economies, despite the signs that only the whites and the few African equivalent of the slave factors and traders of old, dubbed the middle class, are benefiting! Yes, while the net capital outflow - not to mention the illegal capital flight which far exceeds total so-called Aid to Africa about three times - is negative against Africa, they continue to claim they are aiding and investing in our economies. Johann Galtung, an iconic intellectual of the West with a good heart put it symbolically at a conference in the Artic Circle in the mid-90s: the white man is smart. Once he has convinced you to believe that a whale swallowed Jonah, you can believe anything else he said; however outrageous! And is the Blackmen not lapping like dogs at their Master’s hands, with the big crosses dangling at their necks and annotated bibles firmly in their hands?
  
  I have started watching ABN TV's re-broadcast of Joy News and I am often shocked by the debilitating state of schools, houses and the environment in the rural areas of Ghana and parts of the urban areas. Worst than in the 1970s since much deterioration had taken place on those infrastructure and their surroundings! This is the dedifferentiation some white scholars such as Tilly and Others have been writing about stirring me in the face. How can one reverse this trend?
  
  Well, I'll cut the cackle here.
  
  Andy-K

  reply
• Dr. Otto 9 years ago

  Andy-K, you have asked a very good question at the very end of your rejoinder, thus, ...How can one reverse this trend?
  Andy-K, the answer is very simple.
  with you lazy, primitive, greedy, tribal, wicked, and selfish usele ...
  read full comment

  Andy-K, you have asked a very good question at the very end of your rejoinder, thus, ...How can one reverse this trend?
  Andy-K, the answer is very simple.
  with you lazy, primitive, greedy, tribal, wicked, and selfish useless Ewe people nothing ever can be reversed in our dear country.How can one reverse this trend?
  
  Well! let me also cut the raucous, clucking cry here

  reply
• THE REAL C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  That sounds like a NAZI campaign against the Jews. And I bet you also think the far right in Europe and Trump are evil!
  
  Gosh!
  
  Andy-K

  That sounds like a NAZI campaign against the Jews. And I bet you also think the far right in Europe and Trump are evil!
  
  Gosh!
  
  Andy-K

  reply
• Francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  Guess so!

  Guess so!

  reply
• Francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  Nyebro Yao,
  
  This is a huge lecture.
  
  Well l, it adds poignantly and richly to some of the pertinent issues I have raised in a number of articles.
  
  Thanks for adding your authoritative voice to the public discourse.
  
  ...
  read full comment

  Nyebro Yao,
  
  This is a huge lecture.
  
  Well l, it adds poignantly and richly to some of the pertinent issues I have raised in a number of articles.
  
  Thanks for adding your authoritative voice to the public discourse.
  
  Enjoy the week.

  reply
• THE REAL C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  Nyebro Yaw,
  
  I just scratched the surface. Unfortunately, our intellectually bankrupt academics don't even know that these are urgent issues to discuss.
  
  Today, live Africans are not exchanged as gifts amongst whites, or ...
  read full comment

  Nyebro Yaw,
  
  I just scratched the surface. Unfortunately, our intellectually bankrupt academics don't even know that these are urgent issues to discuss.
  
  Today, live Africans are not exchanged as gifts amongst whites, or between blacks and whites, as we saw the Akyem King doing. Our monies are looted and put in white banks, and our natural resources handed to whites by our so-called leaders on golden platters. We are witnesses to how Kufuor and Mahama, two people from two major slave supplying kingdoms, have handed over our oil and gas boon to whites for the crumbs. And this is considered by even the most highly educated Ghanaians as normal. Where's that mind-set from? From the past, of course. Africans still enslave themselves and the fellow Africans to whites. That's why we must turn our attention and struggle inward towards the dim-witted rapacious neo-colonial stooges and lackeys now misruling the continent. Yes, Amo has proven that the African is also capable, so has Nkrumah, but we don't have a critical mass of Africans we can call heirs to them who can liberate the people from the mass illiteracy, poverty and disease and squalid living conditions.
  
  Andy-K

  reply
• ANDREWS 9 years ago

  Andy-K, you bloody dirty hypocrite Ewe, what about Alfred Agbesi Woyome's 52 million Ghana Cedis?

  Andy-K, you bloody dirty hypocrite Ewe, what about Alfred Agbesi Woyome's 52 million Ghana Cedis?

  reply
• THE REAL C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  You are the only moron here. I had written an article on how Waterville and Co. hired Woyome to collect that money and how he gave the bulk of the money to them. He himself claimed Waterville took him to court for allegedly ...
  read full comment

  You are the only moron here. I had written an article on how Waterville and Co. hired Woyome to collect that money and how he gave the bulk of the money to them. He himself claimed Waterville took him to court for allegedly taking too much of the booty for his expenses. Martin Amidu took the easy way out by dragging only Woyome to court, leaving out that Englishman and the Italian Mafiosi who engineered the whole plot. It is only you idiotic NPP people that see the whole damn hit as solely a Woyome operation.
  
  In any case, the Woyome scam is just a drop of water compared to the $6bn plus lost so far and more to come thanks to Kufuor and now Mahama! I prefer to focus on the real gigantic fraud.
  
  Andy-K

  reply
• francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  Well said.
  
  Thank you.
  
  Enjoy the week.

  Well said.
  
  Thank you.
  
  Enjoy the week.

  reply
• Francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  Amo's dissertation defense year is 1734 AND NOT 1934.
  
  Please take note.
  
  Thanks.

  Amo's dissertation defense year is 1734 AND NOT 1934.
  
  Please take note.
  
  Thanks.

  reply
• C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  It's a pity that the writer couldn't tell readers that Anton Wilhelm Amo is an Nzema, a native of a town near Axim.

  It's a pity that the writer couldn't tell readers that Anton Wilhelm Amo is an Nzema, a native of a town near Axim.

  reply
• THE REAL C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  You're so stupid. You must be a school drop out with very low self-esteeem you've to be using some else's name and initials as your moniker.
  
  Andy-K

  You're so stupid. You must be a school drop out with very low self-esteeem you've to be using some else's name and initials as your moniker.
  
  Andy-K

  reply
• Francis kwarteng 9 years ago

  I don't understand why some will steal others' monikers. For what? It beats my imagination. It is not a smart move at all, and rather demonstrates how dumb such persons are or can be.

  I don't understand why some will steal others' monikers. For what? It beats my imagination. It is not a smart move at all, and rather demonstrates how dumb such persons are or can be.

  reply
• C.Y. ANDY-K 9 years ago

  Kwarteng, do you fools want to tell me there is only one person in this world called C.Y. ANDY-K? ...I do 't know in which forest you Apes are living.

  Kwarteng, do you fools want to tell me there is only one person in this world called C.Y. ANDY-K? ...I do 't know in which forest you Apes are living.

  reply
• ADJOA WANGARA 9 years ago

  Kwarteng the only thing that you wrote yourself in the whole posting of your one to one copy and paste from the internet is (Amo's dissertation defense year is 1734 AND NOT 1934.) but nonetheless you made a mistake and wrote ...
  read full comment

  Kwarteng the only thing that you wrote yourself in the whole posting of your one to one copy and paste from the internet is (Amo's dissertation defense year is 1734 AND NOT 1934.) but nonetheless you made a mistake and wrote instead of 1734 (1934), I thought you idiot has something to do with Mathematics?
  ...Till yesterday you squeezed brain was not in the capacity to even write your own name correct instead of Kwarteng you wrote Kwartent, what a stupid fool!
  
  From A to Z of your essay is a direct copy work from the internet, which every kid can research alone in the internet.
  
  Look being a columnist is all about imagination or personal experience writing with may be some little reference from other writers or publishers but not "copy and paste" from the internet.
  
  Fortunately for you today you made just little grammatical mistakes simply because about 99,9% of your essay is a direct copy and paste from the internet.
  -------------------------------
  
  Author: Francis kwarteng
  Date: 2016-11-14 03:36:47
  Comment to: Anton Wilhelm Amo, Ghana’s greatest philosophica
  
  Amo's dissertation defense year is 1734 AND NOT 1934.
  
  Please take note.
  
  Thanks.
  ----------------------------
  
  Kwarteng, it's needless saying thanks, because such mistakes are part and parcel of all the garbages you have been posting to Ghanaweb and Modernghana platforms...due to your tiny "Bird (5,5% I.Q.)Brain"

  reply
• BERNARD 9 years ago

  ARE (0540527508) YOU A STUDENT,GOVERNMENT
  WORKER,
  OR UNEMPLOYED LOOKING FOR A BUSINESS TO DO ON PART TIME / FULL TIME.

  ARE (0540527508) YOU A STUDENT,GOVERNMENT
  WORKER,
  OR UNEMPLOYED LOOKING FOR A BUSINESS TO DO ON PART TIME / FULL TIME.

  reply
• Prof Lungu 9 years ago

  Another one, a "diplomatic gift" in the form of a human being, an African, stolen from Africa.
  
  READ: "...Abram Petrovich Gannibal, also Hannibal or Ganibal, or Abram Hannibal or Abram Petrov, was an Afro-Russian nobleman, ...
  read full comment

  Another one, a "diplomatic gift" in the form of a human being, an African, stolen from Africa.
  
  READ: "...Abram Petrovich Gannibal, also Hannibal or Ganibal, or Abram Hannibal or Abram Petrov, was an Afro-Russian nobleman, military engineer and general... ...".

  reply
• Akua Faraji 9 years ago

  Mr. Kwarteng, you are an amazing scholar and as a budding Pan-Africanist getting ready to graduate from highschool you have inspired me to want to become an Nkrumah scholar!
  
  As soon as I graduate from highschool I would l ...
  read full comment

  Mr. Kwarteng, you are an amazing scholar and as a budding Pan-Africanist getting ready to graduate from highschool you have inspired me to want to become an Nkrumah scholar!
  
  As soon as I graduate from highschool I would love to get my hands on the books that you would feel would best transform us youth into formidable future Nkrumah scholars to help be leaders of the future in uniting black people everywhere in a solid PAn-African vision.
  
  I am especially interested in Economic and Community Development and plan on reaching out to a Ghanaian PhD here in the States to help me out with doing some development work in Ghana and maybe even repatriation once I have shown myself worthy.
  
  I would love as much advice as you could give me on how to best prepare myself for becoming one of the greatest Nkrumah scholars of the 21st century!
  
  The 21st century is going to be a great era for African people globally where we will finally be on the move and will set the agenda for the rest of the third millenium!
  
  I look forward to hearing back from you and your immense wisdom!
  
  Akua Faraji

  reply