Feature Article of Tuesday, 23 September 2014 <\/p>\n
Columnist: Kwarteng, Francis <\/p>\n
The most powerful organ in human anatomy is the brain. It is also where the mind has a notable presence and where an individuals personality is probably manufactured and stored. Mans world therefore translates to the state of his mind. What is more, the restricting orthodoxies of culture, traditions, or customs, for instance, are made and institutionalized by man and it is only man who can unmake and de-institutionalize them. This requires destoolment of those specific cultural practices deemed antagonistic to actualization of national development, personal growth, and homogenization of multiethnic sociality, given that a nations greatness and relative stability have direct relation to how a group of people puts mutual knowledge of its ethnic or racial diversity to good use, among other indices. <\/p>\n
It is also equally important to point out that those who have taken it upon themselves to criticize leadership failure and questionable national policy decisions need to do so constructively and impartially without the garrulous pen of moral smugness, taking note of the additional fact that state management is not the same as petty trading, babysitting, or sole proprietorship. Statecraft is an intellectually and emotionally exhausting, complex and sophisticated enterprise, and, what is more, its successful effectuation requires the services of outstanding individuals at the head of operation in close partnership with the popular support of the masses following from behind. It also means that leadership is more than just leading a people. Leadership in our opinion is a double-edged phenomenon where a leader simultaneously stays ahead of and follows from behind the people he leads. This concept implies mutual prodding between leader and people in the cause of national progression. <\/p>\n
That leader in question is of the community from which he or she evolves; that leadership is not any kind of tree that grows apart from the soil of his or her community. It is analogous to a dead, uprooted, or living tooth and its relationship to the human gum. An uprooted tooth cannot be said to have nothing in common with the relative isolation of the gum. An ectopic tooth owes its existential standing to the anatomic grounding of the human gum. Such a model leader was the great Kwame Nkrumah, an outstanding thinker whose achievements, prescience, bravery, intelligence, mastery of statecraft, and tactical decisions shaped the politics and well-being of the Gold Coast, Africa, and the larger world. <\/p>\n
There is another exciting fact not worth glossing over at this crucial historical moment. Here is it: Basil Davidson, the world-famous British Africanist historian, captures the force of Nkrumahs intellectual dynamics, his personality presence, and political rhythm in his authoritatively famous biography Black Star: A View of the Lives and Times of Kwame Nkrumah. In fact, according to Harvard Universitys Dr. Emmanuel Kwaku Akyyeampong, a Loeb Harvard Professor of History and a Fellow of UK-based Royal Historical Society, Davidsons authoritative biographic account humanizes Nkrumah. This brings us to Mr. Obamas historic speech in Ghana in which he said Africa needed to move past the epoch of the strongman. There is a disturbing irony implied in his well-intentioned homily when re-considered in the light of contemporary political developments. Visionary, intelligent, patriotic strongmen like Nkrumah is what Ghana and Africa need today. This is not an understatement. It is a bold statement born of a conscious mind. <\/p>\n
We all know about Mr. Obamas illicit spying of Americans and foreign governments as revealed to the world by Edward Snowden (a former National Security Agencys contractor). We all know about Mr. Obamas endorsement of and clandestine, sometimes even open, collaboration with brutal theocracies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. We all know about Mr. Obamas drone assassination of suspected terrorists without due process. We all know about Mr. Obamas moral resistance to public calls to give Marcus Garvey a posthumous pardon in light of mounting evidence establishing the FBI as the mastermind of Garveys frame-up. We all know Mr. Obamas secretly pressuring the Cuban government to extradite Assata Shakur, a civil rights activist, to the US for trial when many believe she was actually framed up by the FBI, the New Jersey State police, and the CIA as her previous trials and subsequent acquittals in the US proved. <\/p>\n
Finally, Prof. Cornel West and radio\/television personality Tavis Smiley have demonstrated one of the abject failures of Mr. Obamas presidency (See their book The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto). Other American public intellectuals have written about Mr. Obama and his presidency (See Chris Hedges essay The Obama Presidency: Why Cornel West Went Ballistic). Mr. Obamas foreign policy decisions and internal politics exonerate Kwame Nkrumah. How? We strongly believe Mr. Obama has finally come to realize it is always easy and cheap to pontificate from the outside, but crucial challenges posed by the internal and external dynamics of politics require draconian proaction, sometimes exertion of military might and operational suspension of legal instruments. Of course wisdom, intelligence, prescience, experience, and reliability of practical solutions are born of individuals tactical and strategic approaches to challenges. <\/p>\n
Nkrumah probably understood this better than Mr. Obama and as a result Nkrumahs government worked hard to make sure appropriate laws were put in place to protect the new nation and private citizens as well as public officials against the subversive tendencies and terroristic acts of internal and external enemies. The survival instinct is not something one puts out so easily since it is under the spell of biology or nature. Hopefully Mr. Obama understands this too. Moreover, Mr. Obamas failures are not uniquely and distantly different from Nkrumahs from our point of view. Nkrumah always worked within the confines of the law, not always so with Mr. Obama at every point. Besides, Mr. Obama is a lawyer and a professor of law, Nkrumah was not. Finally, Mr. Obama is lucky to have had the rich experience of an elderly nation behind his proactive decisions, unlike Nkrumah. <\/p>\n
Let us therefore give Nkrumah his due. Dr. Kwame Amuah, Nelson Mandelas son-in-law, has this to say about Nkrumah: The time Nkrumah was recovering from a major assassination attempt on his life and therefore access to him was restricted. Mandela, though, met all the relevant cabinet and party officials and the ANC was accorded fulsome support. This bit of history is important here as there are some who attribute Mandelas failure to meet Nkrumah as a snub. They claim the reason was that the ANC was open to all races and was losing its Pan-African identity, and that Nkrumah was leaning towards the Pan-African Congress. The idea that Nkrumah refused to meet Mandela because the ANC was opened to all South African races is far from the truth, and in fact it is not even a historical fact in the least. Nkrumah, while Pan-Africanist to boot, was equally non-racial. <\/p>\n
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Read more: Feature Article of Tuesday, 23 September 2014 Columnist: Kwarteng, Francis The most powerful organ in human anatomy is the brain. It is also where the mind has a notable presence and where an individuals personality is probably manufactured and stored. Mans world therefore translates to the state of his mind. Continue reading
\nWhat Sort Of Democracy Is This, Ghana (2)?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"