Hello, my brother, happy Easter to you.
I beg, no Easter for me, please.
Do you mean to tell me that you don’t celebrate Easter?
No, this True Born African doesn’t waste his time on such nonsense.
Serious, you are saying that Easter is nonsense?
Precisely, it is sheer nonsense and the only surprise is that many otherwise educated and intelligent Africans continue to celebrate this shambolic cultural imposition.
What, are you calling the celebration of the rise from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ a sham and Christianity a cultural imposition?
Rise from the dead? Get serious! Do you believe the fanciful tale that someone rose from the dead. And were it to be true, what has that got to do with me? Christianity is definitely a cultural imposition on Africans and we know how it was imposed.
I know that you hold very strong opinion, but this is just too much. This is sheer blasphemy.
You started it and the only profane sacrilege I see is intelligent people that refused to use their brains. It is sheer nonsensical for Africans to continue to celebrate their cultural enslavement. If every scientists in the world today agree that we Africans were the first human beings on earth, I say that we Africans have no business supplicating to a Caucasian god and his supposed son. It is damned stupid. The only blasphemy I see here is people that go around telling stupid lies, concocting falsehood to create a religion for a non historical person.
Holy Zimbabwe, are you claiming that Jesus Christ is a non historical person?
You certainly have fanciful phrases, holy Zimbabwe. Jesus was never a historical person and Christ is not the name of a person? There is absolutely no record to prove the historicity of Jesus.
What!
If you don’t know it, Christ simply means ‘anointed,’ it is not the name of a person. Outside of the Bible, there is not a single historical record that mentioned a Jesus. There was an obscure Yesu ben Pandera in some Hebraic text, but it has nothing to with the fantasy you called Jesus Christ. Were he to have even existed, why should a Jewish lad whose birth, life and death remain disputed be of relevant to us in Africa?
You are certainly blasphemous. Are you questioning the integrity of the Bible?
To begin with, the Christian Bible has no integrity, so it is difficult to question what does not exist.
So you don’t accept that the Bible is the work of God?
Ah, the book you called the bible has too many errors, contain too much atrocities, and hold too many absurdities that it cannot be considered the book of the devil, much less that of a god.
Huh! You don’t believe in the Bible?
Believe what in the Bible?
That is was inspired and that it was accurate.
Only the most ignorant, the most uneducated, the most gullible would even begin to defend the accuracy of the Bible.
But it is the word of God?
You sound like a lame priest trying to defend the indefensible. Apart from Ecclesiastes, there is hardly a book in the Bible that makes any sense. What can we learn from Genesis, Deuteronomy, the ranting of those crazed Hebraic Prophets or that loony book they called Revelation? Or what spiritual benefit can we derive from those stupid, conflicting tales of the so-called New Testament?
Do you refute the historical accounts recounted in the Bible?
If you choose to call those fanciful and infantile tales in the Bible historical accounts, you would have to support it with historical facts.
But the Bible has been proven to be word of God.
Proven by whom? No one but a charlatan would prove a poorly written, historically inaccurate, scientifically untenable pack of ignorant lies called the Bible as the word of a god?
So you don’t believe in the story of the Creation?
I beg you not to insult my intelligence with such crappy tales like that of the Biblical accounts of the creation which, by the way, have two unnecessary accounts.
Do you mean to tell me that the Biblical Creation story is not accurate?
It is not only inaccurate, it is patently false. No one can create anything out of nothing.
But God created the heaven and the earth and all the things therein.
Be real. It is impossible to create something out of a void. You simply cannot create something from nothing. Magicians do it, but we know that they play sleight of the hands.
So how did we come to be?
That is among the most idiotic questions the Christians go around asking. Why do we have to be created from something?
How did we come to be then? Where did we come from?
Why is impossible to give the only honest answer which is that we don’t know?
But we must have come from somewhere?
Not necessarily. We could have been here all along. The honest truth is simply that where we come from and where we go remain unknown mysteries, but that does not mean that we have to attribute it to some stupid tales of a god baking human beings from clay?
You are ridiculing the Biblical Creation account?
The tale is so infantile that it is worthy of only ridicule.
But are you not afraid?
Afraid of what? Should I be afraid for speaking my honest mind? Should I be afraid for expressing my incredulity that people will go around hallucinating and flagellating themselves because they believe that some Messiah died for their sins thousand years ago?
Don’t you accept that Jesus died for your sins?
Please, how could a Jesus die for my sins? How could I commit a sin long before I was born?
But the Bible said that he died to cleanse our sins.
Please stop dragging the Bible into the argument. Does it make any sense that I am capable of committing a sin two thousand years before I was born? Does it make any sense that a god will blame me for a crime committed before I was born? Why will people simply not use their brains?
But it was written that he came to clean the Original Sin?
Do you honestly believe in an Original Sin? If only the Christians will realise the enormous amount of damage they are doing to their own cause with all these stupid and totally incredible credos about original sins. What type of god will keep on punishing generations upon generations because some ancestors committed some crime? What manner of tyrannical and vengeful god is that, and is that a god worthy of our veneration? If the president of Ghana decided to punish a child for the crimes committed by its parent, we all will be repulsed and rise up in anger. Why are we celebrating a god who purportedly continues to pursue and punish its enemies into eternity?
This is serious.
No, it is not. All that is required is that people will stop to think. They should ask themselves simple questions as to the veracity of what they are told. Buddha asked us not to believe anything unless it agrees with our reason. The Christians would want us to believe the most stupid and incredible tales.
Do you assert that the whole Bible is false?
I assert no such thing. What I assert is that the tales contained in the Bible hold no unalloyed truth that could inspire any reasoning person. They have absolutely nothing to do with us as Africans, and it is time we free ourselves and our minds from the dungeon of its falsehoods.
But can you point to any falsehood in the Bible?
The Bible is packed full of falsehoods that are simply too numerous to recount here. Suffice to say however that the story of the Creation is the stupidest tale ever invented. It simply contradicts everything we know about astronomy and geology. We live in a Solar System; that means that all our lives depend on the Sun. The only intelligent thing for any god to do was to create the sun first. The two accounts of the biblical creation did not put sun first. And we know that the universe is considerably older than the about six thousand years given by the Biblical account. How could I continue to believe that the Earth is the center of the universe and that the sun journey around it? How am I to believe that by stopping the sun the day could be lengthened or that a Hebrew General can stop the sun so that he could massacre his enemies? And don’t I have to ask why a compassionate and loving god will choose a merciless people like the Jews as his Chosen people?
But don’t you think that we all could learn from the exemplary life of Jesus?
What is exemplary about the life of the Biblical Jesus? He was intolerant as his supposed father, Jehovah. He exemplified the ignorance of his time. He cursed like a drunk sailor and did no deed that is worthy of emulation? He was not tutored in any discipline; he never did an honest work or earned an honest wages. He roamed the countryside with his discipline and lived on alms. Is that a life worthy of emulation?
How about his many miracles?
Who believe or want miracles? Why should any honest and intelligent person want something for nothing? There is nothing more elevating than to earn an honest living. It is time we in Africa get off this miracle, miracle things. It only makes us lazy. It only makes us dependent on begging. No honest man can perform a miracle. Miracle is nothing but a child of mendacity. And am I to think highly of a man stupid enough to utter these words: “If thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out. If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off,” “If any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also,” “Think not I come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword,” “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother,” “And every one that hath forsaken house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life?”
But what do you say to the millions who celebrate Easter?
I have no message for anyone; I’m not a prophet. What I believe every honest person should do is to get a good education and to question every assumption until it agrees with his own reasoning. Honest people should desist from participating in falsehoods. The history of Christianity is not shrouded in any mystery; ditto the stories behind the Bible. It behooves us as Africans to learn about the tools that were used to enslave and colonized us. The Bible was not inspired by any god; it was collected and sanctified by men at their Nicean Conference for the purpose of enslaving the earthen among which they counted Africans.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Stop teaching the Bible to school children
"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?" - Mark Twain
"Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell." - George Orwell
"A deity who remains silent and invisible should not get angry or surprised at doubt of his reality." - Graham Kendall
"If there is one subject in this world worthy of being discussed, worthy of being understood, it is the question of intellectual liberty. Without that, we are simply painted clay; without that, we are poor, miserable serfs and slaves." - Robert Ingersoll
“I charge and purpose to prove, from unimpeachable texts and historical records, and by authoritative clerical confessions, beyond the possibility of denial, evasion, or refutation:
1. That the Bible, in its every Book and in the strictest legal and moral sense, is a huge forgery.”
2. That every Book of the New Testament is a forgery of the Christian Church; and every significant passage in those Books, on which the fabric of the Church and principal dogmas are founded, is a further and conscious later forgery, wrought with definite fraudulent intent.”
3. Especially, and specifically, that the famous “Petrine text” – “Upon this Rock I will build my church” – the cornerstone of the gigantic fabric of imposture, - and the other, “Go, teach all nations,” – were never uttered by the Jew Jesus, but are palpable and easily-proven late Church forgeries.
4. That the Christian Church, from its inception in the first little Jewish-Christian religious societies until it reached the apex of its temporal glory and moral degradation, was a vast and tireless forgery mill.” – Joseph Wheless, ‘Forgery in Christianity,’ pp. xviii-xix.
In the 1980s while working as a Research Supervisor for a Marketing Research firm, I used to travel to the northern part of Nigeria a lot.
That was in pre-Boko Haram era when Nigeria was still Nigeria, and the northern part of the country was a blissful paradise.
Northern Nigerian cities like Kaduna, Sokoto, Jos, Kano, and Bauchi were especially delightful and pleasing to the eye. Many of them like Kano are very ancient indeed and they have history that stretches back many, many centuries.
Few people who visited Jos in those days will not be wowed by its sheer beauty. Perched atop the undulating, scenic Jos plateau, Jos was simply enthralling in his majestic beauty. The beauty of Jos plus its mild climate gives one an experience to take to the grave.
Sadly, Boko Haram has devastated much of Northern Nigeria with a violence unseen since the Biafran War of 1967-1970.
I loved the north of those days. Food was plentiful and cheap. There was unsurpassed security of life and property. Life was pursued at slower pace than the rat-race people ran in the southern part of Nigeria.
But as our elders say, one thing spoils the beauty of the flying rat: its arms are longer than its legs.
I found the feudalism of the north most appalling.
The first time I saw it at close quarter was when a nasty din woke me up from my hotel room on my first night in Sokoto, the capital of the state that bears its name.
Peeping out, I saw armies of young boys banging their bowls together moving from house to house.
On enquiry I was told that they are almajiris, or students of a Koranic school. I learnt that these children are kept at these schools by a teacher (Mallam) who provides them with lodging and gives them instructions in Koranic and Islamic studies.
The children are made to chew and pour Koranic verses day and night. They have been turned into pure automatons that can think of little else outside of what has been crammed into their impressionable brains.
In return the children have to provide food for their teacher. They do these by begging for alms – in cash or kind.
Sometimes, a well-heeled philanthropist, who want to thank Allah for his blessings, will take over the school, and he will be responsible for its maintenance including the upkeep of the instructor and the children.
Where I come from in the south, begging is heavily frowned upon. It is considered a big shame for a member of one’s family to be seen begging. Only the infirmed, who are without family, are supposed to beg.
Last week, I had an experience that both shocked and shook me severely. It also reminded me of my experience in Sokoto.
A video documentary expedition took me to Amanfrom, a suburb of Accra. Part of the activities took us to a school where a Bible-reciting contest took place.
I watched in horror as school children were turned into mindless Zombies and awarded marks and gifts for abilities to recite, machine-like, quotations from the Christian Bible.
I was totally flabbergasted that these types of stupid brain-washing go on in our schools, and that these types of mindless exercises are what goes for education in our dear country.
It is sad to see that Christians have been allowed to extend their propaganda to our schools, and allowed to pollute the minds of our children with their special brand of lies.
I have no problem with anyone who takes it upon himself to believe in whatever he fancies for religion.
I have problem however when the Christians take it upon themselves to force-feed me with their jejune nonsense. And I find it most abhorrent that little innocent children are being exposed to the Christian lies, absurdities, indecencies, violence and atrocities at such impressionable ages.
What exactly is the point of teaching the Christian Bible in our schools? How do we tell our children to abhor lies and then turn around to feel them on lies from the bible?
How do we expect our children to be moral, ethical and upright when we forced them to read all the lies, forgeries, absurdities, atrocities, larcenies, pornography and wholesome violence of the Bible?
I have said it several times that I do not know why the Christians fail to realize the enormous damage they do to their god by their claim that he commanded to be written a pack of lies and absurdities we see in the Bible.
The simple truth is that from beginning to the end, the Christian bible is a pack of lies and forgeries.
In the age when few can read and write, dishonest and lying priests can claim that their book was inspired by a god and that it was free of errors.
Today, only a dishonest, lying and ignorant priest can make this claim.
There are enough historical documents available (for free) to debunk the Christian’s claim about the accuracy of their Bible.
In philosophy, when the premise of a proposition is false, it is a given that the proposition cannot be correct.
If the Christian Bible opens with a lie (as it demonstrably does), we can safely assume that the whole pack was false, since the whole edifice was constructed on the original lie.
Let us examine some of the lies on which the Christian religion is foundated.
The God Forgery
“The first sentence of the translated Bible is a falsification and forgery of the highest importance.
We read with awed solemnity of faith: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’ (Gen. 1.1).
The Hebrew word for God is el; the plural is elohim, gods. The Hebrew text of Genesis 1.1 reads: “Bereshith bara elohim,” etc., - “in-beginning created gods the heavens and the-earth.”
And in the same chapter we read in Hebrew honestly translated, thirty times the word “elohim,” gods, to whom are attributed all the works of creation in six peculiar “days” of Genesis.
This is plainly evident from the Hebrew texts of Genesis I, which even false intention could not hide in translation, “And-said elohim (gods), Let-US-make man (adam) in-image-OUR, after-likeness-OURS” (1,26).
And when “adam” had eaten of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, “the Lord God” said, “Behold, the-man has become like one of US, to know good and evil” (III, 27).
And when the Tower of Babel was abuilding, “The Lord (Hebrew Yahveh) said… Come, let US go down,” etc.
And thus, some 2,570 times the plural, elohim, gods, is used in the Hebrew text, but is always falsely translated “God” in the false singular, when speaking of the Hebrew deity, Yahveh.
The Adam Forgery
“There was no first “Adam,” according to the Hebrew texts of the story.
The word adam in Hebrew is a common noun, mean man in a generic sense; in Genesis 1,26, we have read: “And elohim (gods) said, Let us make adam (man)”; and so “elohim created ha-adam (the-man); … male and female created he them” (1,27).
And in the second story, where man is first made alone: “Yahveh formed ha-adam (the-adam) out of the dust of ha-hadam – the ground” (11,7).
Man is called in Hebrew adam because formed out of adamah, the ground; just as in Latin man is called homo because formed from humus, the ground, - homo ex humo, in the epigram of Father Lactantius… The forging of the common noun adam into a mythical proper name Adam, was a post-exilic fraud in the forging of the fictitious genealogies from “in the beginning” to Father Abraham.” …” - (Joseph Wheless, “Forgery in Christianity,” pp. 75-77.)
The Abraham Forgery
“In popular belief the story of Abraham is very simple. His original name was Abram, and he lived in “Ur of the Chaldees”; but God called him and change his name to Ab-ra-ham, which is the Hebrew for “the father of many peoples.”
Blessed are the ignorant, for they have no difficulties. The word Abraham does not mean “the father of many peoples.” No Hebrew scholar can make it mean anything. It has no meaning in Hebrew. Abram may have come from Ur; but it was not a “city of the Chaldees” until ages afterwards.” (The Story of Religious Controversy by Joseph McCabe, pp. 126-133).
New Testament Forgeries
“The simple fact is that the New Testament, as we know it, is a helter-skelter accumulation of more or less discordant documents, some of them probably of respectable origin but others palpably apocryphal, and that most of them, the good along with the bad, show unmistakable signs of having been tampered with.
‘No Biblical scholar of any standing today,” says Weigall, “whether he be a clergyman or a layman, accepts the entire New Testament as authentic; all admits that many errors, misunderstandings and absurdities have crept into the story of Christ’s life and other matters.” (Treatise On The Gods,” H. L. Mencken, pp. 209-220).
The Virgin Birth Forgery
“The most colossal of the blunders of the Septuagint translators, supplemented by the most insidious, persistent and purposeful falsification of text, is instanced in the false translation of the notoriously false pretended “prophecy” of Isaiah vII, 14 – frauds which have the most disastrous and fatal consequences for Christianity, and to humanity under its blight; the present exposure of which would instanter destroy the false faith built on these frauds.
The Greek priest who forged the “Gospel according to St. Matthew,” having before him the false Septuagint translation of Isaiah, fables the Jewish Mary yielding to the embraces of the Angel Gabriel to engender Jesus, and backs it up by an appeal to the Septuagint translation of Isaiah VII, 14: “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.” (Matt. V, 23.)
Isaiah’s original Hebrew, with the mistranslated words underscored, reads: “Henneh ha-almah harah ve-yeldeth ben ve-karath she-o Immanuel”; - which, falsely translated by the false pen of the pious translators, runs thus in the English: “behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isa. vII,14.)
The Hebrew words ha-almah mean simply the young woman; and harah is the Hebrew past or perfect tense, “conceived,” which in Hebew, as in English, represents past and completed action. Honestly translated, the verse read: “Behold, the young woman has conceived – (is with child) – and beareth a son and calleth his name Immanuel.”
Almah means simply a young woman, of marriageable age, whether married or not, or virgin or not; in a broad sense exactly like girl or maid in English, when we say shop-girl, parlor-girl, bar-maid, without reference to or vouching for her technical virginity, which, in Hebrew, is always expressed by the word bethulah. But in the Septuagint translation into Greek, the Hebrew almah was erroneously rendered into the Greek pathenos, virgin, with the definite article ha in Hebrew, and e in Greek, (the), rendered into the indefinite “a” by latter falsifying translators… And Jerome falsely used the Latin word Virgo.
As early as the Second Century B.C., “ says the distinguished Hebrew scholar and critic, Solomon Reinach, “the Jews perceived the error and pointed it out to the Greeks; but the Church knowingly persisted in the false reading, and for over fifteen centuries she has clung to her error.” - Joseph Wheless, “Forgery in Christianity,” pp. 62-65
We have thus established the fact that the book Christians peddle as the word of their God is nothing but pack of consciously forged lies. The stories that the Christian solemnly preach to their gullible congregation are mere collections and re-hashed stories, myths and legends from Babylon, Chaldean, Mesopotamian, Egyptian and other places the Hebrews collected from their wanderings around the ancient world.
The Christian Bible is not only a collection of dangerously forged lies; it contains enough indecencies that it should be kept away from decent people, especially our children.
My humble plea is that the Christian Bible should cease to be used as a moral guide for our children.
Pray, what moral are children supposed to learn from Biblical stories and quotes like:
1. Abraham marrying his father’s daughter – “And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.” - Gen 20:12.
2. Lot’s offers his two daughters to a mob – “Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them good as is good in your eyes.” – Gen 19:8.
3. Two daughters of Lot seduced their father – Gen 19:30-38.
4. Zipporah has to circumcise her son in order to restrain the Lord from killing Moses – “And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.” ”-Exodus 4:24-26.
5. Ammon ravishes his sister Tamar – 2 Sam. 13:1-14.
6. Women conceive after interviews with prophets – Manoah’s wife (Judges xiii, 3, 6, 9, 24). Elkanah’s wife (Sam I, 1, 2, 17,20) the Shunnamite and Elisha (Kings II, iv, ii, 16, 17).
7. Kind David is revived by a virgin – Kings I, I, 1-4).
8. "I will send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children," and "ye shall eat the flesh of your sons and daughters." But if you humble your uncircumcised heart, God won't do all these nasty things to you. It's your choice. Leviticus 26: 16-41.
9. "The spirit of the Lord came mightily upon Samson and he found a new jawbone of an ass ... and took it, and slew 1000 men therewith." Judges 15:14-15.
10. God offers David a choice of punishments for having conducted the census: 1) seven years of famine (1 Chr.21:12 says three years), 2) three months fleeing from enemies, or 3) three days of pestilence. David can't decide, so God chooses for him and sends a pestilence, killing 70,000 men (and probably around 200,000 women and children). 2 Samuel 24: 13.
11. Anyone who adds to the words in Revelation (or to the rest of the Bible?) will be struck with plagues, and anyone that tries to remove anything from it will have his name removed from the book of life. Rev. 22:18-19.
"Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell." - George Orwell
"A deity who remains silent and invisible should not get angry or surprised at doubt of his reality." - Graham Kendall
"If there is one subject in this world worthy of being discussed, worthy of being understood, it is the question of intellectual liberty. Without that, we are simply painted clay; without that, we are poor, miserable serfs and slaves." - Robert Ingersoll
“I charge and purpose to prove, from unimpeachable texts and historical records, and by authoritative clerical confessions, beyond the possibility of denial, evasion, or refutation:
1. That the Bible, in its every Book and in the strictest legal and moral sense, is a huge forgery.”
2. That every Book of the New Testament is a forgery of the Christian Church; and every significant passage in those Books, on which the fabric of the Church and principal dogmas are founded, is a further and conscious later forgery, wrought with definite fraudulent intent.”
3. Especially, and specifically, that the famous “Petrine text” – “Upon this Rock I will build my church” – the cornerstone of the gigantic fabric of imposture, - and the other, “Go, teach all nations,” – were never uttered by the Jew Jesus, but are palpable and easily-proven late Church forgeries.
4. That the Christian Church, from its inception in the first little Jewish-Christian religious societies until it reached the apex of its temporal glory and moral degradation, was a vast and tireless forgery mill.” – Joseph Wheless, ‘Forgery in Christianity,’ pp. xviii-xix.
In the 1980s while working as a Research Supervisor for a Marketing Research firm, I used to travel to the northern part of Nigeria a lot.
That was in pre-Boko Haram era when Nigeria was still Nigeria, and the northern part of the country was a blissful paradise.
Northern Nigerian cities like Kaduna, Sokoto, Jos, Kano, and Bauchi were especially delightful and pleasing to the eye. Many of them like Kano are very ancient indeed and they have history that stretches back many, many centuries.
Few people who visited Jos in those days will not be wowed by its sheer beauty. Perched atop the undulating, scenic Jos plateau, Jos was simply enthralling in his majestic beauty. The beauty of Jos plus its mild climate gives one an experience to take to the grave.
Sadly, Boko Haram has devastated much of Northern Nigeria with a violence unseen since the Biafran War of 1967-1970.
I loved the north of those days. Food was plentiful and cheap. There was unsurpassed security of life and property. Life was pursued at slower pace than the rat-race people ran in the southern part of Nigeria.
But as our elders say, one thing spoils the beauty of the flying rat: its arms are longer than its legs.
I found the feudalism of the north most appalling.
The first time I saw it at close quarter was when a nasty din woke me up from my hotel room on my first night in Sokoto, the capital of the state that bears its name.
Peeping out, I saw armies of young boys banging their bowls together moving from house to house.
On enquiry I was told that they are almajiris, or students of a Koranic school. I learnt that these children are kept at these schools by a teacher (Mallam) who provides them with lodging and gives them instructions in Koranic and Islamic studies.
The children are made to chew and pour Koranic verses day and night. They have been turned into pure automatons that can think of little else outside of what has been crammed into their impressionable brains.
In return the children have to provide food for their teacher. They do these by begging for alms – in cash or kind.
Sometimes, a well-heeled philanthropist, who want to thank Allah for his blessings, will take over the school, and he will be responsible for its maintenance including the upkeep of the instructor and the children.
Where I come from in the south, begging is heavily frowned upon. It is considered a big shame for a member of one’s family to be seen begging. Only the infirmed, who are without family, are supposed to beg.
Last week, I had an experience that both shocked and shook me severely. It also reminded me of my experience in Sokoto.
A video documentary expedition took me to Amanfrom, a suburb of Accra. Part of the activities took us to a school where a Bible-reciting contest took place.
I watched in horror as school children were turned into mindless Zombies and awarded marks and gifts for abilities to recite, machine-like, quotations from the Christian Bible.
I was totally flabbergasted that these types of stupid brain-washing go on in our schools, and that these types of mindless exercises are what goes for education in our dear country.
It is sad to see that Christians have been allowed to extend their propaganda to our schools, and allowed to pollute the minds of our children with their special brand of lies.
I have no problem with anyone who takes it upon himself to believe in whatever he fancies for religion.
I have problem however when the Christians take it upon themselves to force-feed me with their jejune nonsense. And I find it most abhorrent that little innocent children are being exposed to the Christian lies, absurdities, indecencies, violence and atrocities at such impressionable ages.
What exactly is the point of teaching the Christian Bible in our schools? How do we tell our children to abhor lies and then turn around to feel them on lies from the bible?
How do we expect our children to be moral, ethical and upright when we forced them to read all the lies, forgeries, absurdities, atrocities, larcenies, pornography and wholesome violence of the Bible?
I have said it several times that I do not know why the Christians fail to realize the enormous damage they do to their god by their claim that he commanded to be written a pack of lies and absurdities we see in the Bible.
The simple truth is that from beginning to the end, the Christian bible is a pack of lies and forgeries.
In the age when few can read and write, dishonest and lying priests can claim that their book was inspired by a god and that it was free of errors.
Today, only a dishonest, lying and ignorant priest can make this claim.
There are enough historical documents available (for free) to debunk the Christian’s claim about the accuracy of their Bible.
In philosophy, when the premise of a proposition is false, it is a given that the proposition cannot be correct.
If the Christian Bible opens with a lie (as it demonstrably does), we can safely assume that the whole pack was false, since the whole edifice was constructed on the original lie.
Let us examine some of the lies on which the Christian religion is foundated.
The God Forgery
“The first sentence of the translated Bible is a falsification and forgery of the highest importance.
We read with awed solemnity of faith: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’ (Gen. 1.1).
The Hebrew word for God is el; the plural is elohim, gods. The Hebrew text of Genesis 1.1 reads: “Bereshith bara elohim,” etc., - “in-beginning created gods the heavens and the-earth.”
And in the same chapter we read in Hebrew honestly translated, thirty times the word “elohim,” gods, to whom are attributed all the works of creation in six peculiar “days” of Genesis.
This is plainly evident from the Hebrew texts of Genesis I, which even false intention could not hide in translation, “And-said elohim (gods), Let-US-make man (adam) in-image-OUR, after-likeness-OURS” (1,26).
And when “adam” had eaten of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, “the Lord God” said, “Behold, the-man has become like one of US, to know good and evil” (III, 27).
And when the Tower of Babel was abuilding, “The Lord (Hebrew Yahveh) said… Come, let US go down,” etc.
And thus, some 2,570 times the plural, elohim, gods, is used in the Hebrew text, but is always falsely translated “God” in the false singular, when speaking of the Hebrew deity, Yahveh.
The Adam Forgery
“There was no first “Adam,” according to the Hebrew texts of the story.
The word adam in Hebrew is a common noun, mean man in a generic sense; in Genesis 1,26, we have read: “And elohim (gods) said, Let us make adam (man)”; and so “elohim created ha-adam (the-man); … male and female created he them” (1,27).
And in the second story, where man is first made alone: “Yahveh formed ha-adam (the-adam) out of the dust of ha-hadam – the ground” (11,7).
Man is called in Hebrew adam because formed out of adamah, the ground; just as in Latin man is called homo because formed from humus, the ground, - homo ex humo, in the epigram of Father Lactantius… The forging of the common noun adam into a mythical proper name Adam, was a post-exilic fraud in the forging of the fictitious genealogies from “in the beginning” to Father Abraham.” …” - (Joseph Wheless, “Forgery in Christianity,” pp. 75-77.)
The Abraham Forgery
“In popular belief the story of Abraham is very simple. His original name was Abram, and he lived in “Ur of the Chaldees”; but God called him and change his name to Ab-ra-ham, which is the Hebrew for “the father of many peoples.”
Blessed are the ignorant, for they have no difficulties. The word Abraham does not mean “the father of many peoples.” No Hebrew scholar can make it mean anything. It has no meaning in Hebrew. Abram may have come from Ur; but it was not a “city of the Chaldees” until ages afterwards.” (The Story of Religious Controversy by Joseph McCabe, pp. 126-133).
New Testament Forgeries
“The simple fact is that the New Testament, as we know it, is a helter-skelter accumulation of more or less discordant documents, some of them probably of respectable origin but others palpably apocryphal, and that most of them, the good along with the bad, show unmistakable signs of having been tampered with.
‘No Biblical scholar of any standing today,” says Weigall, “whether he be a clergyman or a layman, accepts the entire New Testament as authentic; all admits that many errors, misunderstandings and absurdities have crept into the story of Christ’s life and other matters.” (Treatise On The Gods,” H. L. Mencken, pp. 209-220).
The Virgin Birth Forgery
“The most colossal of the blunders of the Septuagint translators, supplemented by the most insidious, persistent and purposeful falsification of text, is instanced in the false translation of the notoriously false pretended “prophecy” of Isaiah vII, 14 – frauds which have the most disastrous and fatal consequences for Christianity, and to humanity under its blight; the present exposure of which would instanter destroy the false faith built on these frauds.
The Greek priest who forged the “Gospel according to St. Matthew,” having before him the false Septuagint translation of Isaiah, fables the Jewish Mary yielding to the embraces of the Angel Gabriel to engender Jesus, and backs it up by an appeal to the Septuagint translation of Isaiah VII, 14: “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.” (Matt. V, 23.)
Isaiah’s original Hebrew, with the mistranslated words underscored, reads: “Henneh ha-almah harah ve-yeldeth ben ve-karath she-o Immanuel”; - which, falsely translated by the false pen of the pious translators, runs thus in the English: “behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isa. vII,14.)
The Hebrew words ha-almah mean simply the young woman; and harah is the Hebrew past or perfect tense, “conceived,” which in Hebew, as in English, represents past and completed action. Honestly translated, the verse read: “Behold, the young woman has conceived – (is with child) – and beareth a son and calleth his name Immanuel.”
Almah means simply a young woman, of marriageable age, whether married or not, or virgin or not; in a broad sense exactly like girl or maid in English, when we say shop-girl, parlor-girl, bar-maid, without reference to or vouching for her technical virginity, which, in Hebrew, is always expressed by the word bethulah. But in the Septuagint translation into Greek, the Hebrew almah was erroneously rendered into the Greek pathenos, virgin, with the definite article ha in Hebrew, and e in Greek, (the), rendered into the indefinite “a” by latter falsifying translators… And Jerome falsely used the Latin word Virgo.
As early as the Second Century B.C., “ says the distinguished Hebrew scholar and critic, Solomon Reinach, “the Jews perceived the error and pointed it out to the Greeks; but the Church knowingly persisted in the false reading, and for over fifteen centuries she has clung to her error.” - Joseph Wheless, “Forgery in Christianity,” pp. 62-65
We have thus established the fact that the book Christians peddle as the word of their God is nothing but pack of consciously forged lies. The stories that the Christian solemnly preach to their gullible congregation are mere collections and re-hashed stories, myths and legends from Babylon, Chaldean, Mesopotamian, Egyptian and other places the Hebrews collected from their wanderings around the ancient world.
The Christian Bible is not only a collection of dangerously forged lies; it contains enough indecencies that it should be kept away from decent people, especially our children.
My humble plea is that the Christian Bible should cease to be used as a moral guide for our children.
Pray, what moral are children supposed to learn from Biblical stories and quotes like:
1. Abraham marrying his father’s daughter – “And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.” - Gen 20:12.
2. Lot’s offers his two daughters to a mob – “Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them good as is good in your eyes.” – Gen 19:8.
3. Two daughters of Lot seduced their father – Gen 19:30-38.
4. Zipporah has to circumcise her son in order to restrain the Lord from killing Moses – “And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.” ”-Exodus 4:24-26.
5. Ammon ravishes his sister Tamar – 2 Sam. 13:1-14.
6. Women conceive after interviews with prophets – Manoah’s wife (Judges xiii, 3, 6, 9, 24). Elkanah’s wife (Sam I, 1, 2, 17,20) the Shunnamite and Elisha (Kings II, iv, ii, 16, 17).
7. Kind David is revived by a virgin – Kings I, I, 1-4).
8. "I will send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children," and "ye shall eat the flesh of your sons and daughters." But if you humble your uncircumcised heart, God won't do all these nasty things to you. It's your choice. Leviticus 26: 16-41.
9. "The spirit of the Lord came mightily upon Samson and he found a new jawbone of an ass ... and took it, and slew 1000 men therewith." Judges 15:14-15.
10. God offers David a choice of punishments for having conducted the census: 1) seven years of famine (1 Chr.21:12 says three years), 2) three months fleeing from enemies, or 3) three days of pestilence. David can't decide, so God chooses for him and sends a pestilence, killing 70,000 men (and probably around 200,000 women and children). 2 Samuel 24: 13.
11. Anyone who adds to the words in Revelation (or to the rest of the Bible?) will be struck with plagues, and anyone that tries to remove anything from it will have his name removed from the book of life. Rev. 22:18-19.
Retracing our steps from the abyss
Recent events in the country should give every Ghanaians and friends of Ghana reason to be very anxious indeed.
We all should be worried, very worried without a doubt.
Although many of us like to mouth the (now largely discredited mantra) that we are a peaceful people, recent happenings in the land suggest that there is absolutely nothing in our genes to suggest that we have less proclivity to violence like other human beings. Recent happenings in the land suggest that we possess in abundance, like many human, the capacity and the propensity to become violent.
National peace and cohesion are not to be taken for granted under any circumstance, especially in tenuous nation-states such as ours which, as I often said, are cobbled together to satisfy colonial logic.
Actually, in many instances, peace, at the national level, must be assiduously courted and worked for. We cannot have peace simply by wishing for it. Our behaviour, individually and collectively, is going to determine the type of peace we continue to enjoy.
Recent happenings in Mali should also tell us that we take our much touted democratic credentials for granted at our peril.
Like us, Malian democracy is about twenty years old. Like us, Malians have conducted four successful elections. Like us, Malians were also toasted by the international community (I actually used that word, ah!) for the steady progress they have made in building democratic capacity.
Sadly, all these achievements of Mali were wiped out overnight when aggrieved middle-ranked soldiers overthrew the government and sent shivers down the spine of complacent leaders in the ECOWAS sub-region.
Today, a shaky contraption of government rules in Mali and the country is effectively divided by a secessionist group that overran the northern part of the country and sundered it.
The pictures of Malians dancing at the violent overthrow of their elected represents should in no way suggest that they do not like democracy or freedom, or that they are demented masochists that enjoy being brutalized by gun-wielding soldiers ruling under decrees.
No, it should suggest to us that Malian politicians failed miserably to read the mood of the ordinary Malians, and change their evil ways before it was too late. It shows that the Malian political class, like the French Bourbons, refused to learn the lessons of history. The Malian political class was too obsessed with themselves, and in their self-masturbatory indulgence; they forgot the ordinary Malian people.
The result of this complacent was a comic coup that should not have happened had the politicians been up to their mettle.
Former President Rawlings is a man known to speak his mind. He is also one that leaves no one in doubt as to where he stands on major issue.
Few days ago, the ex president warned that our nation is poised on an abyss and that we should pray to god to help us.
Sadly, Mr. Rawlings apt warning was given every manner of political colorations that very few serious minds ponder over its aptness, significance and necessity.
It is less than eight months to the general elections in December and already the atmosphere in the country is charged and poised beyond belief. A first time visitor to the country would think that the nation is preparing for serious war, and not just the registration of voters who are to partake in elections that are still months down the road.
Ghanaian politicians, even those whom we have credited with much intelligence and who should know better, have turned a mere voter registration exercise into a do or die affair. They hop from radio station to radio station preaching their special brands of bigotry and intolerance, laced with the most vitriol of personal and tribal attacks. Some people have lost their lives. Many have been stabled and cudgeled. Many have made it their business to go around with every manner of instruments of violence.
And all of these in the name of politics!
Are all these tensions necessary in order to elect our leaders?
As a dispassionate observer of the political scene, I can only say that I feel distressed when I watch people, who are supposed to know better, joined the fray not only to muddle water, but also to contribute their own quota to the unnecessary cacophonous and totally unnecessary noises.
The gods know that this column has tried to focus on discussing ideas about how the country can best realize its objectives to use its god-given resources to improve the lives of the people of the country.
It is rather painful to watch all the passions and the energies that are daily dissipated on discussing politics.
I have travelled the length and breadth of this beautiful and immensely blessed country. In my travels, I have often been saddened by the crushing poverty I see all over the country, most especially in the northern half of the country.
To me, such poverty are totally unnecessary. Given the wealth we have in this country, there is absolutely no reason why we should not have the same standard of living that are among the top best in the world.
If only our leaders will act up, there is no reason whatever why Ghanaians should not have the same quality of life like Singaporeans or Norwegians.
Thrice this year our nation has been embarrassed by national blackouts. Our currency is sinking faster than the Titanic. Our debt burden is increasing exponentially. The price of our primary product, Cocoa, is falling alarmingly. We still beg for support to balance our budget.
The big question is why do all these development shortcomings we see around us not agitate our minds? Why do the sights of children studying under trees not excite our passions for us to want to want do something, anything about it? Why do spectacle of men doing back-breaking farm work in scorching sun not bringing tears to our eyes. Why is the scene of women carrying babies on their backs, balancing heavy loads on their heads in midday sun not moving us to try and do something, anything? Why do we not feel any personal or national shame that we contribute absolutely nothing to global science, technology or engineering? Why are we not shamed that we are mere consumers and not originators of ideas that benefit mankind?
I have seen villages and towns in Ghana that are of such poor quality that they won’t be allowed to function as pig sties in some country.
Even in the modern, urban concrete jungle that we call capital, Accra, our people are still dying of cholera – a disease that is caused solely by poor, unhygienic living - which should show how far behind we are in providing good health service for our people.
We have all these development challenges, yet very few of us make it our business to comment on them.
But bring on politics, and we all discover our vocal chords and we are galvanised into action. Like some long hibernating gnomes, we suddenly wake up from deep slumber, primed for action.
There will be little concern if the political discussions are intellectually elevating and can contribute to moving our political development in a smoother trajectory.
No, they are not. All we are treated to are mostly vomit-inducing, headache-causing political mis-analyses, personalized by crazy ideas, vituperative insults and high decibel shoutfests.
We utilize our numerous rag sheets of newspapers, our plentiful FM stations and TV stations not to engage in debating ideas that of could be beneficial to us, but only to propagate one jejune political idea or the other from morning to night.
Breathlessly, our men and women vociferate themselves silly on the air debating totally, totally useless political nonsense.
Why don’t we make it our business to demand why those that we elect go ahead to sign away our oil for ten percent, whilst war-torn Afghanistan got eighty-five percent from the Chinese? Why don’t we begin to query why Ghanaian officials, with their head screwed on right, will agree to an agreement to cart away our oil unrefined in their crude form, whilst our refinery at Tema is starved of inputs? Why can’t we ask why for over a century, we have been contented to receive three to six percent for our gold, whilst the expatriate executives of the mining companies do nothing but play golf, stay in big hotels and get over ninety percent of our gold revenue? Why do we not feel passionate about the mining companies polluting our rivers and streams and despoiling our environment?
Why do we not feel concerned that our country, Ghana, has initialed the disastrous EPA agreement the European Union is forcing down the throats of African nations?
Why do we not make it our business to think about how we can use our children in school to clean and beautify our villages, towns and cities? Or why we cannot make the planting of flowers and grasses form part of our Environment Studies? Or make the growing and harvesting of agriculture produce form part of our syllabi on the subject? Or why we cannot task our universities and polytechnics to come up with practical solutions to some of the problems bedeviling us? Or why we cannot engage our parents to teach our culture to our children in our schools?
There are just too many questions and challenges that should agitate our minds rather than all the silly talks about politics, politics, and politics.
We all hail the Hypocrite in Chief, Brother Barack Obama, when he came and told us to build republic of strong institutions rather than states of strong men.
It was a good advice, but what are we to make of the sights of those that should know better doing their damn best to undermine state institutions?
What are we to make of the spectacle of crowds gathering at police stations to protest against the police doing their constitutionally-mandated duties? What are we to make of the threat by an ex minister to deal with a policeman doing his lawful duty? And why didn’t the police boss come out to defend his men under attack from politicians? What are we to make of a presidential aide (Nii Lartey Vandepuye) threatening to spill blood over bio-metric registration exercise? What are we suppose to make of political parties and groups storming police stations with their rented crowds to disturb officers that are lawfully discharging their duties? What are we to make of the chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) addressing his party’s supporters who besieged police headquarters without condemning them?
How and when did we reach this nadir of madness, whereby everyone thinks it normal to take the laws into his hand?
Of course, our well-crafted constitution guarantees freedom for all and we have ‘Freedom and Justice,’ as our motto, but is freedom not always to be tempered with responsibility and discipline?
What type of society do we aim to build when all that we know is freedom without its concomitant responsibilities?
More importantly, what can we begin to do to stem this creeping madness that is bound to shove us all into an abyss if not arrested and quickly too?
I listened to the MP from Adenta attempt to defend our president, who said that he is not a policeman and therefore cannot cause arrest. The MP asked rhetorically what rank the president has in the police force.
This is crass and belies an ill-thought response.
Are we to take it that because the president is not a farmer that we shouldn’t complain when the prices of food shot up under his watch? Or that because Mr. President is not a mason, we should keep mum when prices of building materials and housing become unaffordable?
Of course, the president is not a uniformed police officer, but he, as the Commander in Chief of all Forces in Ghana, is ultimately the Chief Police Officer.
The constitution entrusted enormous authority in the office of the president and we are in deep trouble when anyone that occupies that position try to duck and fudge.
The Adenta MP should be reminded that many people who have occupied the position of executives know that there is no way they could shirk the responsibility of the office. Maybe that explains why President Harry Truman has on his desk the famous sign: The Bucks Stops Here.
Since there is simply no higher authority in the land than the Executive President, the occupant must bear the ultimate responsibility for any failure in any of our state institutions. It is his job to ensure that he employs the best people to head the agencies. It is his responsibility to tell them what he wants done and ensure that his directives are complied with. He has the prerogative to hire and fire at his discretion. If mayhem happens anywhere in the country, and the police appear not be up to par, we do not say that the president should don a uniform and chase hoodlums. What we say is that he should summon the head of the police, ask him questions and fire him if he is not satisfied.
I have said severally in this column that if the president knows what is good for him, he’ll fire some of the people he surrounds himself with.
There is little doubt that the president has the intellectual capacity and also the good will, the best intentions to do his best for the nation, but could we say the same for those that surrounds him?
History is replete with stories of well-meaning leaders who, upon been disgraced from office, cursed their advisors for mis-leading them.
In Nigeria, General Yakubu Gowon lamented the role is advisors played in mis-leading him about the true state of affairs in the Nigerian nation.
Presidents are not superhumans; that explains why they are entitled to aides to advise and assist them. But we are left to wonder the caliber of advice a desperado like Nii Lante Vanderpuye can provide a head of state.
As Brother Obama advised, we must strengthen our institutions. We can begin by empowering the police and the judicial system to make examples of those in the habit of storming police stations to protest against lawful arrest.
I think there are laws against interfering with officials performing their duties. It is time the heavy sanctions of the laws are made to descend very heavily on those miscreants who have come to make a habit of storming police stations.
The president must take immediate step to arrest the creeping state of lawlessness, lest we are courting serious troubles. He could liaise with the leaders of the legislature and the judiciary to expeditiously put in place extra-ordinary measures to save the corporate integrity of the state, which today is being challenged as never before.
A stitch in time, they say, saves nine. If our police, performing their assigned duties, feel intimidated by rowdy rented crowds, how do we expect them to function optimally?
If we do not stamp down this creeping lawlessness down very firm, we will all regret to reap the whirlwind in the very near future. If a mere registration of voters can result in so much mayhem, what are we to expect from the election proper?
President John Atta Mills should try and remember that ultimately he is responsible for the actions and the inactions that happen under his watch.
An African adage says: “The king under whose rule the nation prospers shall never be forgotten; neither shall the king under whose rule the nation descended into chaos.”
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Independence, what independence?
How come you never celebrate Ghana’s Independence Day, my brother. Every year I watch you as you go about your business as though it does not concern you. I have never seen you raised the flag or make a toast on the glorious day?
Glorious, you say, what is glorious about it?
Blasphemy! Do you mean to tell me that there is nothing glorious about the day we threw off the yoke of colonialism or our saluting the men and women that fought so assiduously to free us from the yoke of the whiteman’s bestial rule?
Maybe we are reading from different scripts. Fighting for liberation from any tyrannical rule is glorious only if we make the effort worth the while for the gallant warriors that fought for it. And it remains debatable whether we actually throw off any yoke, colonialism or whatever.
Do you mean to tell me that we have not been honoring our heroes and that our acts have betrayed what they fought for? Do you mean to tell me that we are not free?
Look, I did not mean to tell you anything. You are the one that came to me asking all the questions. The answers to the questions you asked are staring you in the face, if only you’ll look.
But do you honestly believe that we have not been honoring our heroes and that our acts are unworthy of their heroics? Are you saying that Ghana is not free from colonialism?
Look, my brother, we have done absolutely nothing to show that we truly appreciate those that fought for our liberation. Our vast tragedy in this country is that we are so full of hypocrisy and we lack the capacity to tell one another the home truth. Do you know what independence means or what it meant to be independent? We keep on putting on hypocritical shows every year whilst by our very acts we tell the world that we are still in servitude. By our very acts, we tell the world that we are ashamed of who we are. We refuse to bear our indigenous names and we bleach our skin to look as white as possible, and hypocritically turn around to celebrate independence and shout how proud we are of being Ghanaian and African.
Those are grievous charges…
And I do not make them lightly. How many of us are proud of our Ghanaian or African heritage? We run away as fast and as far as possible from our cultural heritage and, then hypocritically, turn around to start celebrating Ghana’s independence. The majority of us are aping the same oppressors, the same colonizers our parents fought to remove from our land. How many of us answer to indigenous Ghanaian or African names? How many of us eat what is grown in this country? How many of us wear our traditional attires? Let’s not even talk about the institutions with which we manage our affairs. Have you taken a look at our judges and see how un-independent or badly colonized we remain. Have you seen the leader of our parliament and his principal staff; do they remind you of a liberated people?
All that could be true; but there is no running away from the fact that we have made giant strides since we got our independence.
Giant strides, you say, dear friend. Ah! Mayhaps it is time of the year for people to indulge themselves in silly self-congratulations.
Would you rather we indulge in self-flagellation instead?
With all sincerity, yes.
You cannot be serious!
And why not, dear friend?
Birthdays are occasions to indulge in celebration no matter how hard or bad things are; it is the one day set aside for individuals and nations to fete themselves.
Even if undeserved?
And do you think that our partying is undeserved.
You really want to put words into my mouth. Look, you and I spent last night in total darkness all because our electricity company cannot generate and distribute enough light. And we are fifty-five years old. There is no running water in our neighbourhood. Fifty years after we start governing ourselves, we have no industrial capacity whatever. We are one giant market for discarded and disused junks from foreign lands. We do not produce enough food to feed ourselves. We have no scientific or engineering capacity whatever. We have no manufacturing capability of any description. We cannot build even a culvert without rushing to the Chinese. We cannot construct any stretch of road without running to the Americans? Cubans still have to come all the way from their small island to come and help with our health service. None of our leaders ever mention how he intends to make us join the rest of humanity in creating things – anything. All we do is look for money, loan, grant, dash, whatever to splash on our depraved appetite for consumption. We do not manufacture even match stick, or bicycle spoke after over half a century of self-government and you expect me to join in some celebration. Sorry, I have much more respect for my mind, and I have better employment for my time.
You talk about independence, just yesterday, we are told that the government sought and got the IMF to approve a Chinese loan, and you sit here to tell me about some Mickey Mouse independence. Look, what among all the paraphernalia we so shamelessly displayed on our so-called independence day was a product of our indigenous brain? Please, don’t make me laugh. We have absolutely no sense of shame. There we are, with the whole world watching our shameless celebration of our sham independence. Our president would not even deign to wear Ghanaian attire on this day meant to showcase that we have come of age, ah! Look at all our dignitaries, how many of them came in local attire? Look at the armed forces we displayed; do they carry any made-in-Ghana weapon? We attired our military people in uniforms of foreign design, and our heads swelled with vain pride as we watch them parade with foreign made armaments. Perhaps I am going too far, was their common uniform made in our blessed republic? We have even reached the stage where our elite barred the worship of our local deities by the pouring of libation…
That Is not fair, the government excused itself and blamed it on the chieftaincy’s disputes in the Ga area…
Please, I do not want my intelligence to be insulted. I listened to the cock and bull story the deputy minister of state released and he should go and tell such inane nonsense strictly only to the marines? Was it Ga dispute that made the president also turned up in jacket and tie in a tropical heat to celebrate his nation’s supposed independence? And what about the president jetting off to the US just few hours after attending the shambolic celebration. Was meeting Obama a higher priority than sitting with Ghanaians to reflect on this solemn day? Would he die of starvation if he postponed his lunch with Almighty Obama for a day or two? You see, in politics and international relations, appearance matters as much as essence. I truly believe that our elite continue to play some big time game with us. Their hearts and minds are never in the show they put on for us. They knew that we are not truly independent but they also know that we love ceremonies, parties and stuffs. So, they allocate vast sums to organize useless jamborees to let us forget our continued oppression.
All that could be true, but shouldn’t we ordinary citizens celebrate our heroes in our own ways?
That is what I meant by our vast hypocrisy. If our independence meant something to us; if we truly appreciate the struggles of our heroes and heroines, we will do all possible to keep alive the ideas and ideals that they fought and died for…
Do you meant to say that we do not believe in our independence?
You have a way with words, but the short answer is: No, we don’t
How do you mean?
How do I mean, you asked. If we take the ordinary meaning of the word ‘independence’ to mean “Freedom from control: freedom from dependence on or control by another person, organisation or state,” then we cannot be, by any stretch of the imagination be described as independent.
Do you mean to tell me that the whiteman is still ruling us?
I don’t like these labels of ‘whiteman’ or ‘blackman,’ but yes, the same system that controlled us in the past still control us today. So long as we are tied to the same apron string of the Neo-Colonial system that retards our progress and keep us as hewer of woods for some people, it Is not only shambolic but quite nauseating to celebrate any independence.
But don’t you agree that we are the toast of the world when it comes to Africa? Is not true that our country is seen as the best performing nation in Africa?
Now you are lumping apple with garden eggs. But seriously, what is it with us in Ghana that we crave the adulation of the imperialists the way dogs crave bones? Why do we believe all the self-serving encomiums the masters of double-speak pour on us? So we are the toast of Africa, and so what. But, honestly, why do we keep believing such utter bunkum? Where does that leave South Africa then? Or Namibia or Botswana or even Nigeria, despite all her problems? We seem to forget that the imperialists make it their business to study the psychology of those whom they want to oppress and exploit. Few years ago, they touted us as the Golden Boy Wonder of African economy; it did not stop them from roping us into the HIPC club when it suited them. But if foreigners make it their business to tell us inglorious lies, it behooves us to have our feet firmly grounded in reality. It is only a child that is mesmerised by unearned exaltation. Our objective reality should be the sole criteria by which we adjudge ourselves. Do you honestly believe that those that fought and died for our liberation will be happy to see that we have managed to give everything back to the same person from whom they wrested it?
But you honestly don’t believe that we are again under colonization, do you?
The honest truth is that we are under a more insidious form of colonization than the ones our heroes and heroines fought and died for. At least there was a clear-cut racial divide when they were fighting; today we have our own people selling us short to the same historic oppressors of our race. The physical chain of colonial oppression was only replaced by a far more dangerous mental chain roped around our minds.
But that is not the same thing. We had colonizers then given us direct order, today we have our own kith and kin ruling us. That definitely is a very tangible manifestation of self-rule.
A great mind once said that appearance can be deceptive. It was the great Frantz Fanon who wrote the classic ‘Black skin, white mask,’ a book I’ll recommend to all African and every anti-colonial person. Don’t you think that the imperialists will only be too glad that we have our local compradors willing to lift the burden of direct colonization of their soldiers. Rather than have the unsavory spectacle of white overlords, is it not more profitable to have black men and women looking after the masters interests like the overseers did in the plantations? Today, the imperialists can second themselves safely in Washington, London and Paris knowing full well that their lackeys are doing the arduous job of securing the best for them.
Are you counting Ghana among these neo-colonial states?
I am counting among the neo-colonial states any African nation that had no indigenous participation laws in it’s a statue books. I am counting as colonial any African nation where the commanding heights of the economy are controlled by foreign multi-nationals. I am counting as neo-colonial any African country that pays foreigners more than her own citizens. I am counting as neo-colonial any country in Africa that still seeks approval from foreign governments or institutions for sovereign loans she contract. It remains a colonial the African state which receives two, three, four or ten percent for her minerals whist foreign multinationals run home with over ninety percent. It remains a colonial any African state that still depend on benevolent handouts to feed and cloth her people. I count as neo-colonial any African nation that refuses to industrialise or have well articulated industrial policy. It remains a colonial any African state that depends entirely on imports for her basic needs. It remains a neo-colonial nation any state in Africa that refuses to take pride in its culture or that refuses to have a cultural policy which strongly emphasise local indigenous and traditional ways of life. It remains infirmed and colonial any county in Africa that refused to have a language policy and which allows the leader to continue to address his people in foreign languages.
Don’t you think that is rather a long order?
What is long or short there? Do you think a European, Arab or Asian will accept anything less? Have you ever seen or hear a European chief of state addressing his or her people in a foreign language?
But are you not discounting the fact that we live in a globalised world?
Another nauseating word: globalization. How global is the so-called globalization? What is the African content in the so-called globalization? Did we have any say or input into its imposition? Give me a break. We have foreign words and foreign ideas imposed upon us and we glibly and gleefully accept it as universal praxis.
You catalogue all the woes besetting us. Don’t you see any redeeming feature, and do you know of any country that has managed to solve all her developmental challenges?
Again, you lump together two totally unrelated issues. The way things are, I must say that I honestly do not see any redeeming feature. Every day we sink deeper into the abyss. We have lost almost all our culture and we remain unique among Africans for not practicing or partaking in our indigenous culture. Not only would we not speak our languages, but in speaking the foreign ones, we want to be known and praised as speaking it without Ghanaian accent. As soon as an American or Indian or a Nigerian opens his mouth, he leaves no doubt about his national origin. But in Ghana, our heads sway when we mimic fake Oxford accent. And, I never said that any nation has managed to solve all her challenges. What I see, however, are nations making strenuous efforts to tackle these challenges unlike us, whose instinct is to seek foreign assistance for every problem we have.
Glorious, you say, what is glorious about it?
Blasphemy! Do you mean to tell me that there is nothing glorious about the day we threw off the yoke of colonialism or our saluting the men and women that fought so assiduously to free us from the yoke of the whiteman’s bestial rule?
Maybe we are reading from different scripts. Fighting for liberation from any tyrannical rule is glorious only if we make the effort worth the while for the gallant warriors that fought for it. And it remains debatable whether we actually throw off any yoke, colonialism or whatever.
Do you mean to tell me that we have not been honoring our heroes and that our acts have betrayed what they fought for? Do you mean to tell me that we are not free?
Look, I did not mean to tell you anything. You are the one that came to me asking all the questions. The answers to the questions you asked are staring you in the face, if only you’ll look.
But do you honestly believe that we have not been honoring our heroes and that our acts are unworthy of their heroics? Are you saying that Ghana is not free from colonialism?
Look, my brother, we have done absolutely nothing to show that we truly appreciate those that fought for our liberation. Our vast tragedy in this country is that we are so full of hypocrisy and we lack the capacity to tell one another the home truth. Do you know what independence means or what it meant to be independent? We keep on putting on hypocritical shows every year whilst by our very acts we tell the world that we are still in servitude. By our very acts, we tell the world that we are ashamed of who we are. We refuse to bear our indigenous names and we bleach our skin to look as white as possible, and hypocritically turn around to celebrate independence and shout how proud we are of being Ghanaian and African.
Those are grievous charges…
And I do not make them lightly. How many of us are proud of our Ghanaian or African heritage? We run away as fast and as far as possible from our cultural heritage and, then hypocritically, turn around to start celebrating Ghana’s independence. The majority of us are aping the same oppressors, the same colonizers our parents fought to remove from our land. How many of us answer to indigenous Ghanaian or African names? How many of us eat what is grown in this country? How many of us wear our traditional attires? Let’s not even talk about the institutions with which we manage our affairs. Have you taken a look at our judges and see how un-independent or badly colonized we remain. Have you seen the leader of our parliament and his principal staff; do they remind you of a liberated people?
All that could be true; but there is no running away from the fact that we have made giant strides since we got our independence.
Giant strides, you say, dear friend. Ah! Mayhaps it is time of the year for people to indulge themselves in silly self-congratulations.
Would you rather we indulge in self-flagellation instead?
With all sincerity, yes.
You cannot be serious!
And why not, dear friend?
Birthdays are occasions to indulge in celebration no matter how hard or bad things are; it is the one day set aside for individuals and nations to fete themselves.
Even if undeserved?
And do you think that our partying is undeserved.
You really want to put words into my mouth. Look, you and I spent last night in total darkness all because our electricity company cannot generate and distribute enough light. And we are fifty-five years old. There is no running water in our neighbourhood. Fifty years after we start governing ourselves, we have no industrial capacity whatever. We are one giant market for discarded and disused junks from foreign lands. We do not produce enough food to feed ourselves. We have no scientific or engineering capacity whatever. We have no manufacturing capability of any description. We cannot build even a culvert without rushing to the Chinese. We cannot construct any stretch of road without running to the Americans? Cubans still have to come all the way from their small island to come and help with our health service. None of our leaders ever mention how he intends to make us join the rest of humanity in creating things – anything. All we do is look for money, loan, grant, dash, whatever to splash on our depraved appetite for consumption. We do not manufacture even match stick, or bicycle spoke after over half a century of self-government and you expect me to join in some celebration. Sorry, I have much more respect for my mind, and I have better employment for my time.
You talk about independence, just yesterday, we are told that the government sought and got the IMF to approve a Chinese loan, and you sit here to tell me about some Mickey Mouse independence. Look, what among all the paraphernalia we so shamelessly displayed on our so-called independence day was a product of our indigenous brain? Please, don’t make me laugh. We have absolutely no sense of shame. There we are, with the whole world watching our shameless celebration of our sham independence. Our president would not even deign to wear Ghanaian attire on this day meant to showcase that we have come of age, ah! Look at all our dignitaries, how many of them came in local attire? Look at the armed forces we displayed; do they carry any made-in-Ghana weapon? We attired our military people in uniforms of foreign design, and our heads swelled with vain pride as we watch them parade with foreign made armaments. Perhaps I am going too far, was their common uniform made in our blessed republic? We have even reached the stage where our elite barred the worship of our local deities by the pouring of libation…
That Is not fair, the government excused itself and blamed it on the chieftaincy’s disputes in the Ga area…
Please, I do not want my intelligence to be insulted. I listened to the cock and bull story the deputy minister of state released and he should go and tell such inane nonsense strictly only to the marines? Was it Ga dispute that made the president also turned up in jacket and tie in a tropical heat to celebrate his nation’s supposed independence? And what about the president jetting off to the US just few hours after attending the shambolic celebration. Was meeting Obama a higher priority than sitting with Ghanaians to reflect on this solemn day? Would he die of starvation if he postponed his lunch with Almighty Obama for a day or two? You see, in politics and international relations, appearance matters as much as essence. I truly believe that our elite continue to play some big time game with us. Their hearts and minds are never in the show they put on for us. They knew that we are not truly independent but they also know that we love ceremonies, parties and stuffs. So, they allocate vast sums to organize useless jamborees to let us forget our continued oppression.
All that could be true, but shouldn’t we ordinary citizens celebrate our heroes in our own ways?
That is what I meant by our vast hypocrisy. If our independence meant something to us; if we truly appreciate the struggles of our heroes and heroines, we will do all possible to keep alive the ideas and ideals that they fought and died for…
Do you meant to say that we do not believe in our independence?
You have a way with words, but the short answer is: No, we don’t
How do you mean?
How do I mean, you asked. If we take the ordinary meaning of the word ‘independence’ to mean “Freedom from control: freedom from dependence on or control by another person, organisation or state,” then we cannot be, by any stretch of the imagination be described as independent.
Do you mean to tell me that the whiteman is still ruling us?
I don’t like these labels of ‘whiteman’ or ‘blackman,’ but yes, the same system that controlled us in the past still control us today. So long as we are tied to the same apron string of the Neo-Colonial system that retards our progress and keep us as hewer of woods for some people, it Is not only shambolic but quite nauseating to celebrate any independence.
But don’t you agree that we are the toast of the world when it comes to Africa? Is not true that our country is seen as the best performing nation in Africa?
Now you are lumping apple with garden eggs. But seriously, what is it with us in Ghana that we crave the adulation of the imperialists the way dogs crave bones? Why do we believe all the self-serving encomiums the masters of double-speak pour on us? So we are the toast of Africa, and so what. But, honestly, why do we keep believing such utter bunkum? Where does that leave South Africa then? Or Namibia or Botswana or even Nigeria, despite all her problems? We seem to forget that the imperialists make it their business to study the psychology of those whom they want to oppress and exploit. Few years ago, they touted us as the Golden Boy Wonder of African economy; it did not stop them from roping us into the HIPC club when it suited them. But if foreigners make it their business to tell us inglorious lies, it behooves us to have our feet firmly grounded in reality. It is only a child that is mesmerised by unearned exaltation. Our objective reality should be the sole criteria by which we adjudge ourselves. Do you honestly believe that those that fought and died for our liberation will be happy to see that we have managed to give everything back to the same person from whom they wrested it?
But you honestly don’t believe that we are again under colonization, do you?
The honest truth is that we are under a more insidious form of colonization than the ones our heroes and heroines fought and died for. At least there was a clear-cut racial divide when they were fighting; today we have our own people selling us short to the same historic oppressors of our race. The physical chain of colonial oppression was only replaced by a far more dangerous mental chain roped around our minds.
But that is not the same thing. We had colonizers then given us direct order, today we have our own kith and kin ruling us. That definitely is a very tangible manifestation of self-rule.
A great mind once said that appearance can be deceptive. It was the great Frantz Fanon who wrote the classic ‘Black skin, white mask,’ a book I’ll recommend to all African and every anti-colonial person. Don’t you think that the imperialists will only be too glad that we have our local compradors willing to lift the burden of direct colonization of their soldiers. Rather than have the unsavory spectacle of white overlords, is it not more profitable to have black men and women looking after the masters interests like the overseers did in the plantations? Today, the imperialists can second themselves safely in Washington, London and Paris knowing full well that their lackeys are doing the arduous job of securing the best for them.
Are you counting Ghana among these neo-colonial states?
I am counting among the neo-colonial states any African nation that had no indigenous participation laws in it’s a statue books. I am counting as colonial any African nation where the commanding heights of the economy are controlled by foreign multi-nationals. I am counting as neo-colonial any African country that pays foreigners more than her own citizens. I am counting as neo-colonial any country in Africa that still seeks approval from foreign governments or institutions for sovereign loans she contract. It remains a colonial the African state which receives two, three, four or ten percent for her minerals whist foreign multinationals run home with over ninety percent. It remains a colonial any African state that still depend on benevolent handouts to feed and cloth her people. I count as neo-colonial any African nation that refuses to industrialise or have well articulated industrial policy. It remains a colonial any African state that depends entirely on imports for her basic needs. It remains a neo-colonial nation any state in Africa that refuses to take pride in its culture or that refuses to have a cultural policy which strongly emphasise local indigenous and traditional ways of life. It remains infirmed and colonial any county in Africa that refused to have a language policy and which allows the leader to continue to address his people in foreign languages.
Don’t you think that is rather a long order?
What is long or short there? Do you think a European, Arab or Asian will accept anything less? Have you ever seen or hear a European chief of state addressing his or her people in a foreign language?
But are you not discounting the fact that we live in a globalised world?
Another nauseating word: globalization. How global is the so-called globalization? What is the African content in the so-called globalization? Did we have any say or input into its imposition? Give me a break. We have foreign words and foreign ideas imposed upon us and we glibly and gleefully accept it as universal praxis.
You catalogue all the woes besetting us. Don’t you see any redeeming feature, and do you know of any country that has managed to solve all her developmental challenges?
Again, you lump together two totally unrelated issues. The way things are, I must say that I honestly do not see any redeeming feature. Every day we sink deeper into the abyss. We have lost almost all our culture and we remain unique among Africans for not practicing or partaking in our indigenous culture. Not only would we not speak our languages, but in speaking the foreign ones, we want to be known and praised as speaking it without Ghanaian accent. As soon as an American or Indian or a Nigerian opens his mouth, he leaves no doubt about his national origin. But in Ghana, our heads sway when we mimic fake Oxford accent. And, I never said that any nation has managed to solve all her challenges. What I see, however, are nations making strenuous efforts to tackle these challenges unlike us, whose instinct is to seek foreign assistance for every problem we have.
Interview with new Malian strongman
Hello sir, or should I call you Your Excellency
Call me Captain Sanogo. My name is Amadou Sanogo.
But, sir, you are the new president…
Me no President, me Captain Sanogo. I am head of the Committee for the Re-establishment of Democracy and the Restoration of the State. I am no president.
But are you not going to declare yourself president when things calm down, are you not?
But I’m no president.
Are you waiting for things to calm down?
Things calm down in Mali already, everything fine, no problem.
But there are still reports of looting in your capital, Bamako. And the Tuareg rebels have gained more territory. But to the question of your presidency, when do we hear an announcement to that effect?
I tell you things calm in Mali. Everyone goes about his business. Me no president; me leader of the Committee for the Re-establishment of Democracy and the Restoration of the State.
Sir, but don’t you see the contradiction in those wordings? You have just overthrown a democratically-elected government and the rebels are advancing and gaining territory, how can you claim to be protecting the state and restoring democracy?
The Army protects the state, the country. You see, many things happening in the war. The politicians don’t care. The Army will restore the dignity of the state.
But how does the Army want to protect democracy by overthrowing an elected government?
The government does not care about the people; that’s why the army intervened.
But the elections are just one month away. Why was the army impatient to let the elections hold and let the people decide who should govern them?
We waited for twenty years, but it was the same system, the same strategies the politicians use. The poor people of Mali suffer and the army suffers. Only the politicians enjoy? They ride in big cars. They sell the resources of the nation to their foreign friends and collect big bribes. They build big, big mansions in Bamako and other places. While they and their friends enjoy, the people are suffering. There is famine in the country; millions are dying. We are a very proud people with a history that goes back long time. We should be able to feed ourselves. Today, we are reduced to begging for food from foreign donors. Our politicians do not see any shame in that? We have lost our dignity. The army will restore our people’s pride in themselves.
Looking at your record, captain Sanogo, you attended one Marine Corps class, the staff noncommissioned officer academy career course in Quantico, Virginia in 2003, You also graduated from four other classes with the US Army: a basic non-commissioned officer course at Fort Benning in Georgia in 1998, a language instruction course in 2004, an intelligence basic officer’s course at Fort Huachuca, Arizona in 2007 and an infantry basic officer’s course at Fort Benning in 201. Many people belief that you have betrayed your Marine Corps training by overthrowing an elected government.
What do you say to that?
Me no understand your question.
You were trained by the highly-regarded American Marine Corps. In the US, the military does not go about overthrowing government. Why did you betray this tradition?
You don’t know American Military tradition. American military don’t overthrow their government, that is true, but it is only a crazy American soldier that would want to overthrow a government that take good care of him. When America sends its soldiers to battle, it makes sure that they are well equipped and well taken care of. They take good care of their military. In Mali, in Africa, the politicians stay in the capital, steal all the money and send poor soldiers to go and do their dirty jobs for them. They do not give us good equipments. They don’t pay our salaries in time. We rely on foreign donors for our weapons. You don’t fight wars on charity, do you?
You promised to restore power to a democratically elected government at an unspecified date. The question is why didn’t you wait for the next election which is slated for mid April, that is just six weeks away. Why the hurry to organize a coup?
Ah, you don’t organize coup in a hurry otherwise you fail and you will face court martial and the penalty is firing squad. No, we didn’t organise the coup in a hurry. We bided our time and we planned. We were fed up with the situation in the army, in the country. There was apathy and hopelessness in the country. We pleaded with our officers to talk on our behalf to the politicians. But sadly, our officer corps are in cahoots with the politicians. They get good pay and contracts from the politicians, and tell them that everything is fine. No, things were not fine. The duty of the army is to protect national sovereignty and integrity. We watched as rebels humiliate our army and destroy the country. The politicians did not care. Do you know how many of our young boys were massacred at the military base at Aguelhok on January 24 when the terrorist rebels overran the base? They were killed in cold blood and the politicians did nothing except enjoy life in Bamako.
One of the accusations you leveled against President Amadou Toumani Toure is “inefficiency in fighting the terrorists…”
Hey, Amadou Toure is no president. He is former president.
Ok, former president. You accused him of “inefficiency in fighting the terrorists,” but you don’t appear to be doing any better as the rebels have overran several army garrisons in the north and have threatened to attack Timbultu and Gao?
We shall face and conquer them when we stabilize the situation.
But you claimed that everything is calm in Mali.
There are still many issues to deal with before we face the terrorist rebels.
How do you expect to do that without outside support?
We shall manage to tackle the problem once we stabilize the situation.
Looks like hope is your greatest strategy. The regional body, ECOWAS, has slapped sanctions on you and have frozen your account. You don’t manufacture weapons and you have no access to your money. Mali is landlocked and now you cannot import anything. What do you do now; it appears that you have been boxed in?
No, we are not boxed in. we are soldiers and we shall defend the integrity of the republic.
I meant that you have the entire world against you. The ECOWAS body has slapped a sanction on you…
No, no, no. no one come to slap us.
I meant that ECOWAS has imposed very stiff and unprecedented sanctions on you and the EU and the US have also announced some measures against your regime …
Please, you see, we are anti imperialist’s revolutionary vanguards. We shall defend the integrity of the republic.
Are you accusing ECOWAS of being in league with the imperialists?
No, ECOWAS leaders are hypocrites. They don’t tell the truth. Where were they when the terrorist rebels attacked our country? What did they do when millions of Malians starve? ECOWAS is one useless club of effete leaders who do not care about the plight of their people. Can you tell me for good thing ECOWAS has done for the people of West Africa since they started their useless meetings in 1975? All that they do is to meet in big hotels; drive around in big cars and talk nonsense. The ordinary people do not benefit from all their useless meetings.
All that could be true but the message appears to be that there will be zero tolerance for military intervention in West African politics.
That would be nice if the politicians will wake up and start thinking of the people. Let me tell you, the army doesn’t want to interfere in politics. It is not our job to run government. But what happen when terrorist rebels overrun large part of our country and the politicians refused to show that they care. The only way to stop military intervention is for the politicians to start to do the right and correct thing. That is the only way to stop military interventions.
But elections are just six weeks; why didn’t you have the patience to let the people decide?
You talk as though there is a difference between the politicians. They are all the same. They are birds of the same feather out to manipulate the system to their parochial advantage. There have been no coup in Mali in twenty years, but the situation of the ordinary people has only worsened. The politicians are only in power to take care of themselves; they don’t care about anyone else. They only think of the next election. That the army has not intervene in twenty years should show you the degree of patience and self-restraint the officers and men of the Malian armed forces. You can come to Mali and ask the ordinary Malians what they think. They have come out to show solidarity with us.
The leaders of ECOWAS would do well to get their acts together. They should stop taken their people for granted. The only cure for coup is good governance. Government should provide quality service to the people. Our politicians should stop wasting the scarce resources of our nation on themselves and the people will rise to protect them against any army.
ECOWAS leaders can take any measure they like against us, but they will do well to stop deluding themselves. They will do well to remember the recent admonition of former Ghanaian President JJ Rawlings who said, among other things: “Africa’s major challenge has been in the area of leadership across the board – we can over the past decade lay claim to expanding democracy across the continent with multi-partyism flourishing. Electoral victory for some, however, means a leadership of impunity. This culture of impunity is widespread, affecting economic, political, judicial and almost every sector of our society in some parts of our continent.
The fallout of this impunity is the emasculation of opposition groups, effectively ensuring that the opposition is rendered inefficient and of late leading to uprisings of wide-ranging nature from internal terrorism to popular uprising.”
Call me Captain Sanogo. My name is Amadou Sanogo.
But, sir, you are the new president…
Me no President, me Captain Sanogo. I am head of the Committee for the Re-establishment of Democracy and the Restoration of the State. I am no president.
But are you not going to declare yourself president when things calm down, are you not?
But I’m no president.
Are you waiting for things to calm down?
Things calm down in Mali already, everything fine, no problem.
But there are still reports of looting in your capital, Bamako. And the Tuareg rebels have gained more territory. But to the question of your presidency, when do we hear an announcement to that effect?
I tell you things calm in Mali. Everyone goes about his business. Me no president; me leader of the Committee for the Re-establishment of Democracy and the Restoration of the State.
Sir, but don’t you see the contradiction in those wordings? You have just overthrown a democratically-elected government and the rebels are advancing and gaining territory, how can you claim to be protecting the state and restoring democracy?
The Army protects the state, the country. You see, many things happening in the war. The politicians don’t care. The Army will restore the dignity of the state.
But how does the Army want to protect democracy by overthrowing an elected government?
The government does not care about the people; that’s why the army intervened.
But the elections are just one month away. Why was the army impatient to let the elections hold and let the people decide who should govern them?
We waited for twenty years, but it was the same system, the same strategies the politicians use. The poor people of Mali suffer and the army suffers. Only the politicians enjoy? They ride in big cars. They sell the resources of the nation to their foreign friends and collect big bribes. They build big, big mansions in Bamako and other places. While they and their friends enjoy, the people are suffering. There is famine in the country; millions are dying. We are a very proud people with a history that goes back long time. We should be able to feed ourselves. Today, we are reduced to begging for food from foreign donors. Our politicians do not see any shame in that? We have lost our dignity. The army will restore our people’s pride in themselves.
Looking at your record, captain Sanogo, you attended one Marine Corps class, the staff noncommissioned officer academy career course in Quantico, Virginia in 2003, You also graduated from four other classes with the US Army: a basic non-commissioned officer course at Fort Benning in Georgia in 1998, a language instruction course in 2004, an intelligence basic officer’s course at Fort Huachuca, Arizona in 2007 and an infantry basic officer’s course at Fort Benning in 201. Many people belief that you have betrayed your Marine Corps training by overthrowing an elected government.
What do you say to that?
Me no understand your question.
You were trained by the highly-regarded American Marine Corps. In the US, the military does not go about overthrowing government. Why did you betray this tradition?
You don’t know American Military tradition. American military don’t overthrow their government, that is true, but it is only a crazy American soldier that would want to overthrow a government that take good care of him. When America sends its soldiers to battle, it makes sure that they are well equipped and well taken care of. They take good care of their military. In Mali, in Africa, the politicians stay in the capital, steal all the money and send poor soldiers to go and do their dirty jobs for them. They do not give us good equipments. They don’t pay our salaries in time. We rely on foreign donors for our weapons. You don’t fight wars on charity, do you?
You promised to restore power to a democratically elected government at an unspecified date. The question is why didn’t you wait for the next election which is slated for mid April, that is just six weeks away. Why the hurry to organize a coup?
Ah, you don’t organize coup in a hurry otherwise you fail and you will face court martial and the penalty is firing squad. No, we didn’t organise the coup in a hurry. We bided our time and we planned. We were fed up with the situation in the army, in the country. There was apathy and hopelessness in the country. We pleaded with our officers to talk on our behalf to the politicians. But sadly, our officer corps are in cahoots with the politicians. They get good pay and contracts from the politicians, and tell them that everything is fine. No, things were not fine. The duty of the army is to protect national sovereignty and integrity. We watched as rebels humiliate our army and destroy the country. The politicians did not care. Do you know how many of our young boys were massacred at the military base at Aguelhok on January 24 when the terrorist rebels overran the base? They were killed in cold blood and the politicians did nothing except enjoy life in Bamako.
One of the accusations you leveled against President Amadou Toumani Toure is “inefficiency in fighting the terrorists…”
Hey, Amadou Toure is no president. He is former president.
Ok, former president. You accused him of “inefficiency in fighting the terrorists,” but you don’t appear to be doing any better as the rebels have overran several army garrisons in the north and have threatened to attack Timbultu and Gao?
We shall face and conquer them when we stabilize the situation.
But you claimed that everything is calm in Mali.
There are still many issues to deal with before we face the terrorist rebels.
How do you expect to do that without outside support?
We shall manage to tackle the problem once we stabilize the situation.
Looks like hope is your greatest strategy. The regional body, ECOWAS, has slapped sanctions on you and have frozen your account. You don’t manufacture weapons and you have no access to your money. Mali is landlocked and now you cannot import anything. What do you do now; it appears that you have been boxed in?
No, we are not boxed in. we are soldiers and we shall defend the integrity of the republic.
I meant that you have the entire world against you. The ECOWAS body has slapped a sanction on you…
No, no, no. no one come to slap us.
I meant that ECOWAS has imposed very stiff and unprecedented sanctions on you and the EU and the US have also announced some measures against your regime …
Please, you see, we are anti imperialist’s revolutionary vanguards. We shall defend the integrity of the republic.
Are you accusing ECOWAS of being in league with the imperialists?
No, ECOWAS leaders are hypocrites. They don’t tell the truth. Where were they when the terrorist rebels attacked our country? What did they do when millions of Malians starve? ECOWAS is one useless club of effete leaders who do not care about the plight of their people. Can you tell me for good thing ECOWAS has done for the people of West Africa since they started their useless meetings in 1975? All that they do is to meet in big hotels; drive around in big cars and talk nonsense. The ordinary people do not benefit from all their useless meetings.
All that could be true but the message appears to be that there will be zero tolerance for military intervention in West African politics.
That would be nice if the politicians will wake up and start thinking of the people. Let me tell you, the army doesn’t want to interfere in politics. It is not our job to run government. But what happen when terrorist rebels overrun large part of our country and the politicians refused to show that they care. The only way to stop military intervention is for the politicians to start to do the right and correct thing. That is the only way to stop military interventions.
But elections are just six weeks; why didn’t you have the patience to let the people decide?
You talk as though there is a difference between the politicians. They are all the same. They are birds of the same feather out to manipulate the system to their parochial advantage. There have been no coup in Mali in twenty years, but the situation of the ordinary people has only worsened. The politicians are only in power to take care of themselves; they don’t care about anyone else. They only think of the next election. That the army has not intervene in twenty years should show you the degree of patience and self-restraint the officers and men of the Malian armed forces. You can come to Mali and ask the ordinary Malians what they think. They have come out to show solidarity with us.
The leaders of ECOWAS would do well to get their acts together. They should stop taken their people for granted. The only cure for coup is good governance. Government should provide quality service to the people. Our politicians should stop wasting the scarce resources of our nation on themselves and the people will rise to protect them against any army.
ECOWAS leaders can take any measure they like against us, but they will do well to stop deluding themselves. They will do well to remember the recent admonition of former Ghanaian President JJ Rawlings who said, among other things: “Africa’s major challenge has been in the area of leadership across the board – we can over the past decade lay claim to expanding democracy across the continent with multi-partyism flourishing. Electoral victory for some, however, means a leadership of impunity. This culture of impunity is widespread, affecting economic, political, judicial and almost every sector of our society in some parts of our continent.
The fallout of this impunity is the emasculation of opposition groups, effectively ensuring that the opposition is rendered inefficient and of late leading to uprisings of wide-ranging nature from internal terrorism to popular uprising.”
Monday, March 19, 2012
Letting Nigerians be Nigerians
Oga (elder brother in the Yoruba language), do you know that I don’t understand you self? (typical Nigerian grammatical construction)
What do you mean, my brother?
For whose benefit are you writing all those big, big grammar in the newspapers and on the internet?
What do you mean?
Oga, don’t be angry, but I always read you and your big grammar, complaining about this and that about Nigeria, Ghana and Africa. Don’t be angry with me, sir, but it looks like you’ve nothing better to do with your time. I don’t think that you even have a family.
What do you mean; I have got a family. Do you mean to tell me that no one should write about the shortcomings one sees around him? Isn’t it said that writers are the conscience of their society?
That could be true, but I think that writers also should be realistic about the type of society in which they live. They need to have their feet firmly on terra-firma and not cocooned themselves in some cuckoo land from where to hurl invective against one and all. Those things you call shortcomings are the spices of life. They are the things that make our sweet world goes on its merry rounds in a smooth trajectory. Why waste time and effort to write all those headache-inducing grammar which very few people even bother to read?
I am not following your logic.
Oh! It’s quite simple. If I may ask you, how many of our people do you think have the time or the inclination to read all those ponderous things you write? The average Nigerian wants to have fun. He wants to eat his eba with egunsi and drink his Guinness. He is satisfy as long as he can get suya to eat, a lovely and shapely woman to screw and a place he can perch. He is hardly interested in anything more intellectual than his Bible and Lottery papers. Occasionally, he wants a place he can dance himself silly and on Sunday, he visit his God in his church and give thanks for a blessed week. That is his ritual which you only try to upset with your iconoclastic views.
Really?
Yes. Think of it this way. I once read a piece where you wrote that Nigerians consider laws as mere suggestions.
Yeah, what is wrong with that?
Ah, Oga, can’t you see that everything is wrong with that position! Let me, with all due respects, ask you a question?
Ok, go ahead
It’s a theoretical question, purely academic
Stop beating around the bush. What’s your question?
Are laws anything more than suggestions?
Of course they are. What would the world be without the benefit of the ordered society governed by the rule of law whereby everybody is equal before the law?
Do you really believe that?
Believe what?
Do you really believe that everyone is equal before the law?
Of course. Don’t you?
Of course, not. Theoretically everyone is equal before the law, but everyone knows that the agents of the law treat people differently based on the size of their pocket. That is what Nigerians, realists that they are, know. They live with the reality that the state and its laws treat people differently. There is no running away from that simple fact. So, they do their best to adjust to the bad situation foisted upon them by the state and its actors and agents.
But that precisely is the core problem. When people hold such cynical view of modern states, the result is the problematic chaos, disorder and corruption we all see around us?
Who is complaining?
We are all losers when we have to spend inordinate hours in hot traffic because people refuse to obey simple traffic rules and regulations. We all suffer, don’t you see?
All that could be true, sir. But you can also try to see it from the average Nigerian point of view. Oga, supposing, just supposing that you are to go and sign a ten million naira contract, you are in your car driving to meet the appointment. Your adrenaline is pumping and all that. Along the way you ran into one of those hopeless Lagos traffic logjams that leaves your brain frying in the hot sun. The person with whom you are going to sign the contract is a renowned no-sense woman who doesn’t believe in not keeping appointment. You can kiss the contract goodbye if you are a minute late for the appointed time. Your only option is to take a one-way side road to beat the traffic. But it really was not your day for as soon as you branched, a policeman stopped you. And you know our police, now. The officer demanded that you settle am before he’ll allow you to continue your journey. The question now is: would you give the policeman one thousand naira or kiss ten million contract goodbye?
But…
Oga, sorry, but let me land before you bury me. How about this, your beloved wife developed serious complication during child-birth. You know the conditions in our hospitals. The doctor hinted that both mother and child will die unless you can give him something to arrange some emergency surgery to save their lives. Would you stand on your principle on not giving bribery and allow them to die? Will your conscience be at peace?
That would not be necessary if things are well-ordered and…
Ah, there you are. Well-ordered! Are things well-ordered in this dear country of our death?
But the system will continue to rot if people give bribes. More over…
There is no moreover there. The saying is that when you’re in Rome do as the Romans do. Take our education system for another example. I am using system here advisedly since there is no manner to the parlous state of affairs at our places of learning. You have this brilliant daughter whose chance of getting a place at the university depends on you giving something to someone who knows someone who might help. Would you let her education suffer because you want to stand on principle?
That is just the problem. If everybody will only stand on the principle of not giving bribe…
There you have it: everybody not giving bribe. But who is going to bell the cat? That is the question. Who will be the first one to stand on principles in this our unprincipled nation?
But we have to start from somewhere…
Agreed, but where do we stand in a situation like ours which, beg your pardon, is quite hopeless. Say you live in a residential area where all your neighbours pay bribe in order to get their electricity meters, would you stand on principle and keep your family in darkness. What would your wife and children say to that?
If I explain to them…
What are you going to explain to them? That you keep them in darkness on principle? Do you think that they will understand your thinking? Are you going to tell your wife that she cannot buy and use a fridge, like all her neighbours, because you want to stand on principle? Or do you expect your children to understand principle when they come home from school and cannot watch the TV, or use the Computer to do their homework because their father is standing on principle?
But…
There is no but, sir. You just got to learn to stand on reality and not principle. If you cannot beat them, join them. No one eat principle in this country of our death. Talking of death, would you elect to stand on principle if you go to hospital and discovered that you needed a dialysis machine like yesterday and the waiting list is longer than your arm. The doctor can do something, I am using the Nigerian parlance here. But you have to see him, to use another Nigerian terminology. What would you do? Would you allow your principle to send you to an untimely grave, or would you pay some bribe to get you the machine that will save your life? Let’s assume that you even decided on principle and refused the machine; don’t you think that your own wife will curse the day she marry you. Don’t you think that your children will think you the biggest fool this side of the ape divide? Don’t get me wrong, I am for principle and all that, but I am also a realist. I take stock of my situation, my environment and make my decisions based on what accrued in my society. Do you remember the late, bemoaned Soviet Union.
Yes, but…
No, just be patient and let me explain. The Soviet leaders believed that they have managed to create the most endearing paradise on earth. The Nomenklatura lived in a totally different world from the real world of the ordinary Soviet citizens. So, when they see people protesting their assumed paradise, they concluded that such citizens must be delusional paranoid and totally crazy. They send them to their Gulag best described by the novelist, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
And the moral of your tale?
Don’t get me wrong, sir. I am not a celluloid moralist. I told you that I am as a realist as they come. What I am saying is that our leaders here in Nigerian might also conclude that people like you are mad. To them, they have managed to create a system which makes it possible for people to steal billions of dollars from the national kitty and parade themselves as the toasts of town with degrees and chieftaincy titles from all over the place. We have a system whereby an unlettered politico can fight his way into a local government council and start to earn salaries and emoluments higher than a university don with forty years experience. We have a system whereby the Personal Assistants of our Senators earn more than University Vice-Chancellors. All these are possible in our dear land of our death. Our leaders must conclude that they have evolved the perfect system that give every citizen equal rights to become whatever he wants as long as he is prepared to deploy his brain and brawn in the right direction.
But…
There is no ‘ifs’ or ‘buts.’ In your heart of hearts you know that I tell nothing but the gospel truth. In this country of our death, the president of senate earns more than the president of almighty America. And the man brandished nothing more than a stint in the army. Look at those whom we call legislators, what have they legislated that benefitted the common man? At the end of their four year sitting in the parliament they allocate to themselves ex-gratia awards that dwarf what the average Nigerian earn in a lifetime. So, you see, sir, our leaders would be right to think that Nigerians that complain about hard lives are insane. They will rightly ask why people like you busy themselves with complaining about the short-comings instead of seeing the big picture. They will be right to think of people like you as crazy-bananas that deserved to be shot or incarcerated, Amnesty International and all the Human Rights organizations be damned!
But, with that type of cynical mindset, how do you expect the country to prosper?
Ah, Oga, why should you worry your head about the country prospering? Countries are abstract entities. We should concern ourselves with real, tangible human beings. So long as Nigerians are prospering, the nation should prosper. No be so?
What do you mean, my brother?
For whose benefit are you writing all those big, big grammar in the newspapers and on the internet?
What do you mean?
Oga, don’t be angry, but I always read you and your big grammar, complaining about this and that about Nigeria, Ghana and Africa. Don’t be angry with me, sir, but it looks like you’ve nothing better to do with your time. I don’t think that you even have a family.
What do you mean; I have got a family. Do you mean to tell me that no one should write about the shortcomings one sees around him? Isn’t it said that writers are the conscience of their society?
That could be true, but I think that writers also should be realistic about the type of society in which they live. They need to have their feet firmly on terra-firma and not cocooned themselves in some cuckoo land from where to hurl invective against one and all. Those things you call shortcomings are the spices of life. They are the things that make our sweet world goes on its merry rounds in a smooth trajectory. Why waste time and effort to write all those headache-inducing grammar which very few people even bother to read?
I am not following your logic.
Oh! It’s quite simple. If I may ask you, how many of our people do you think have the time or the inclination to read all those ponderous things you write? The average Nigerian wants to have fun. He wants to eat his eba with egunsi and drink his Guinness. He is satisfy as long as he can get suya to eat, a lovely and shapely woman to screw and a place he can perch. He is hardly interested in anything more intellectual than his Bible and Lottery papers. Occasionally, he wants a place he can dance himself silly and on Sunday, he visit his God in his church and give thanks for a blessed week. That is his ritual which you only try to upset with your iconoclastic views.
Really?
Yes. Think of it this way. I once read a piece where you wrote that Nigerians consider laws as mere suggestions.
Yeah, what is wrong with that?
Ah, Oga, can’t you see that everything is wrong with that position! Let me, with all due respects, ask you a question?
Ok, go ahead
It’s a theoretical question, purely academic
Stop beating around the bush. What’s your question?
Are laws anything more than suggestions?
Of course they are. What would the world be without the benefit of the ordered society governed by the rule of law whereby everybody is equal before the law?
Do you really believe that?
Believe what?
Do you really believe that everyone is equal before the law?
Of course. Don’t you?
Of course, not. Theoretically everyone is equal before the law, but everyone knows that the agents of the law treat people differently based on the size of their pocket. That is what Nigerians, realists that they are, know. They live with the reality that the state and its laws treat people differently. There is no running away from that simple fact. So, they do their best to adjust to the bad situation foisted upon them by the state and its actors and agents.
But that precisely is the core problem. When people hold such cynical view of modern states, the result is the problematic chaos, disorder and corruption we all see around us?
Who is complaining?
We are all losers when we have to spend inordinate hours in hot traffic because people refuse to obey simple traffic rules and regulations. We all suffer, don’t you see?
All that could be true, sir. But you can also try to see it from the average Nigerian point of view. Oga, supposing, just supposing that you are to go and sign a ten million naira contract, you are in your car driving to meet the appointment. Your adrenaline is pumping and all that. Along the way you ran into one of those hopeless Lagos traffic logjams that leaves your brain frying in the hot sun. The person with whom you are going to sign the contract is a renowned no-sense woman who doesn’t believe in not keeping appointment. You can kiss the contract goodbye if you are a minute late for the appointed time. Your only option is to take a one-way side road to beat the traffic. But it really was not your day for as soon as you branched, a policeman stopped you. And you know our police, now. The officer demanded that you settle am before he’ll allow you to continue your journey. The question now is: would you give the policeman one thousand naira or kiss ten million contract goodbye?
But…
Oga, sorry, but let me land before you bury me. How about this, your beloved wife developed serious complication during child-birth. You know the conditions in our hospitals. The doctor hinted that both mother and child will die unless you can give him something to arrange some emergency surgery to save their lives. Would you stand on your principle on not giving bribery and allow them to die? Will your conscience be at peace?
That would not be necessary if things are well-ordered and…
Ah, there you are. Well-ordered! Are things well-ordered in this dear country of our death?
But the system will continue to rot if people give bribes. More over…
There is no moreover there. The saying is that when you’re in Rome do as the Romans do. Take our education system for another example. I am using system here advisedly since there is no manner to the parlous state of affairs at our places of learning. You have this brilliant daughter whose chance of getting a place at the university depends on you giving something to someone who knows someone who might help. Would you let her education suffer because you want to stand on principle?
That is just the problem. If everybody will only stand on the principle of not giving bribe…
There you have it: everybody not giving bribe. But who is going to bell the cat? That is the question. Who will be the first one to stand on principles in this our unprincipled nation?
But we have to start from somewhere…
Agreed, but where do we stand in a situation like ours which, beg your pardon, is quite hopeless. Say you live in a residential area where all your neighbours pay bribe in order to get their electricity meters, would you stand on principle and keep your family in darkness. What would your wife and children say to that?
If I explain to them…
What are you going to explain to them? That you keep them in darkness on principle? Do you think that they will understand your thinking? Are you going to tell your wife that she cannot buy and use a fridge, like all her neighbours, because you want to stand on principle? Or do you expect your children to understand principle when they come home from school and cannot watch the TV, or use the Computer to do their homework because their father is standing on principle?
But…
There is no but, sir. You just got to learn to stand on reality and not principle. If you cannot beat them, join them. No one eat principle in this country of our death. Talking of death, would you elect to stand on principle if you go to hospital and discovered that you needed a dialysis machine like yesterday and the waiting list is longer than your arm. The doctor can do something, I am using the Nigerian parlance here. But you have to see him, to use another Nigerian terminology. What would you do? Would you allow your principle to send you to an untimely grave, or would you pay some bribe to get you the machine that will save your life? Let’s assume that you even decided on principle and refused the machine; don’t you think that your own wife will curse the day she marry you. Don’t you think that your children will think you the biggest fool this side of the ape divide? Don’t get me wrong, I am for principle and all that, but I am also a realist. I take stock of my situation, my environment and make my decisions based on what accrued in my society. Do you remember the late, bemoaned Soviet Union.
Yes, but…
No, just be patient and let me explain. The Soviet leaders believed that they have managed to create the most endearing paradise on earth. The Nomenklatura lived in a totally different world from the real world of the ordinary Soviet citizens. So, when they see people protesting their assumed paradise, they concluded that such citizens must be delusional paranoid and totally crazy. They send them to their Gulag best described by the novelist, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
And the moral of your tale?
Don’t get me wrong, sir. I am not a celluloid moralist. I told you that I am as a realist as they come. What I am saying is that our leaders here in Nigerian might also conclude that people like you are mad. To them, they have managed to create a system which makes it possible for people to steal billions of dollars from the national kitty and parade themselves as the toasts of town with degrees and chieftaincy titles from all over the place. We have a system whereby an unlettered politico can fight his way into a local government council and start to earn salaries and emoluments higher than a university don with forty years experience. We have a system whereby the Personal Assistants of our Senators earn more than University Vice-Chancellors. All these are possible in our dear land of our death. Our leaders must conclude that they have evolved the perfect system that give every citizen equal rights to become whatever he wants as long as he is prepared to deploy his brain and brawn in the right direction.
But…
There is no ‘ifs’ or ‘buts.’ In your heart of hearts you know that I tell nothing but the gospel truth. In this country of our death, the president of senate earns more than the president of almighty America. And the man brandished nothing more than a stint in the army. Look at those whom we call legislators, what have they legislated that benefitted the common man? At the end of their four year sitting in the parliament they allocate to themselves ex-gratia awards that dwarf what the average Nigerian earn in a lifetime. So, you see, sir, our leaders would be right to think that Nigerians that complain about hard lives are insane. They will rightly ask why people like you busy themselves with complaining about the short-comings instead of seeing the big picture. They will be right to think of people like you as crazy-bananas that deserved to be shot or incarcerated, Amnesty International and all the Human Rights organizations be damned!
But, with that type of cynical mindset, how do you expect the country to prosper?
Ah, Oga, why should you worry your head about the country prospering? Countries are abstract entities. We should concern ourselves with real, tangible human beings. So long as Nigerians are prospering, the nation should prosper. No be so?
Charles Taylor and his CIA pals
When conscious Africans blast the New Imperialists for their continual destabilization of our beloved continent, their rented journalists and quislings in our midst always jump to their defence.
They questioned why we keep blaming our continent’s woes on foreigners. They tell us to grow up and blame our greedy bastards of leaders. They remind us that the Asians were also colonized and they (Asians) have today dusted off the yoke of colonialism, rebuild their lives while we remained mired in poverty, misery and want. They ask why, after fifty years of self-governance, we still face the same development challenges our fathers face.
The apologists are clever but dishonest.
Any analysis that failed to consider the role (past and present) of European intrusion in Africa in the contemporary mess the continent presently is plainly wrong.
To begin with, modern African is a creation of European imperialism.
Apart from Ethiopia, all the modern nations of Africa are artificial creations totally bereft of geographic, historic, logical and economic sense. They make only imperial logic.
Another falsity is the argument that the colonialist granted independence to their colonies. Except for colonies that actually fought for their independence, what happened in Africa can be described as ‘Mickey Mouse,’ independence.
We must also dismiss the notion that a time there was when the European intruders actually packed their bags and left us alone to live our lives as we deemed fit.
In most cases, as Oginga Odinga informed us, trusted heirs of imperialism were simply promoted to position of power and authority to ensure that the imperial powers continue to enjoy the fruits of imperialism, but without the naked display of imperialism with the attendant opprobrium directed at it.
We need to ask how any honest commentator, African or foreigner, could read excerpts from the Colonial Pact France signed with its colonies and conclude that Franco-phone Africa is independent.
How could any honest analyst read about the shenanigans of the British in what is today Nigeria and tell us that the current crises bedeviling the country should not be blamed 9at least partly) on the colonialists?
Today, Nigeria is mired in inter-tribal and religious conflagration and brilliant analysts refused to configure the system and the institutions the British erected to ensure that what they left behind in Nigeria was a dangerous powder keg that was bound to blow up sooner or later.
For those not in the know, the British colonialists left a Nigeria where state power was transferred to the most feudal of the conservative elements of the Northern Nigerian elite.
They ensured this by leaving behind a Nigeria with a census figure that proclaimed that arid northern region is more populated than the rain forest of southern Nigeria. They left behind a Nigeria where northerners dominated the security services.
The reasons are simple: the British colonialists felt more comfortable with the Northerner feudalist, and so did everything possible to transfer power to them and put in place the structures necessary to maintain that usurped and illegitimate power.
Attempt to resolve these imbalances have resulted in numerous coups, a civil war and the now Boko Haram menace by those that claimed they want to turn Nigeria into an Islamic State.
The saddest part is that whilst the African apologists of imperialism are very vociferous in their defence of their masters, honest Western commentators do not try to defend the indefensible.
There are abundant literatures on the evil mischief the imperialist continue to perpetrate in Africa, but it looks like the apologists for imperialism don’t bother to read much.
Honest commentators like John Stockwell clinically chronicled the role imperialist’s agencies like the CIA played in so-called civil wars across Africa. Mr. Stockwell did not write fiction; he wrote firsthand accounts of what he and other agents of imperialism did to destabilize countries across the world.
Another operator who called himself, The Economic Hit man, whose conscience finally pricked him, recently told us about the sordid deeds he perpetrated across the world in the defense of imperialism.
Yet, commentators who expect to be taken seriously lament when we blame imperialism for some of our woes.
Again, take the case of the so-called civil war that destroyed the Republic of Liberia.
At the onset of the conflict, I wrote a piece that questioned how a convicted criminal could escape from a prison the United States of America (of all places) with enough cash to start a war in Liberia.
Charles Ghankay Taylor, a former head of Liberia's General Services Administration under Samuel Doe, had fled to the United States in 1983, after he was accused of embezzling money.
According to the tale, he not only escaped from prison but was able to get out of the United States.
He resurfaced later in West Africa and started a war that was very brutal in its ferocity. The objective of Charles Taylor’s war was murky enough. With no discernible ideology underpinning, many believed that it was launched by Liberians of the African-American stock who believe Liberia to be their personal fiefdom and were affronted by the Samuel Kanyon Doe coup that toppled their elitist regime in 1980.
In the intricate and foggy world of intelligence, Charles Taylor and his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPLF) were supported by the Americans, the Libyas (under Brother Moammer Ghadaffi), the Ivoriens and the Burkinabes.
Charles Taylor a very brutal warlord shot his way into the Liberian presidency and was treated with high protocol until he ran afoul of his Americans sponsors.
Again the reasons for the fallout are sketchy, but his forces were believed to have killed some American citizens. He thus incurred the ire of the Americans who hitherto had looked unconcerned at his atrociously tyrannical rule. The Americans start to gun for his head; the rest they say is history.
Liberia lay devastated, its infrastructures are ruined and its people traumatized.
Today, a puppet president, who does not speak any of Liberia’s indigenous languages, sits in the Presidential Palace in Monrovia busily making Liberia safe for the imperialist vultures. Large tracts of Liberian famed forests are being sold for peanuts. Liberian mineral resources are being sold for a song.
Who today benefit from the so-called civil war in Liberia? These are the questions patriotic Africans ought to ask ourselves.
It is only in Africa we think that things ‘just happen.’ Any Westerner will tell you that things, especially geo-political things, are planned and always well-crafted.
President Harry Truman put it correctly when he said that “In politics nothing happen by chance; everything is planned.”
Today, the Americans are gradually releasing details of their complicity in the devastation of Liberia.
According to a recent Myjoyonline news report: ”US authorities say former Liberian leader Charles Taylor worked for its intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the Boston Globe reports.
The revelation comes in response to a Freedom of Information request by the newspaper.
A Globe reporter told the BBC this is the first official confirmation of long-held reports of a relationship between US intelligence and Mr Taylor. Mr Taylor is awaiting a verdict on his trial for alleged war crimes.
Rumours of CIA ties were fuelled in July 2009 when Mr Taylor himself told his trial, at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in the Hague, that US agents had helped him escape from a maximum security prison in Boston in 1985.
The CIA at the time denied such claims as "completely absurd". But now the Defence Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's spy arm, has disclosed that its agents - and those of the CIA - did later use Mr Taylor as an informant, the Globe reports.
Globe reporter Bryan Bender told the BBC's Network Africa programme that Pentagon officials refused to give details on exactly what role Mr Taylor played, citing national security.
But they did confirm that Mr Taylor first started working with US intelligence in the 1980s, the period when he rose to become one of the world's most notorious warlords, Mr Bender says.
Mr Taylor was later elected Liberia's president.
He has been accused of arming and controlling the RUF rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone during a 10-year campaign of terror conducted largely against civilians.
If convicted, Mr Taylor would serve a prison sentence in the UK. He denies charges of murder, rape and using child soldiers.”
http://world.myjoyonline.com/pages/africa/201201/80108.php
I don’t feel sorry for the Charles Ghankay Taylor’s of this world. I feel sorry only for the victims of his vast crimes. As he gnashes his teeth in his prison cell, Charles Taylor will be wondering what hit him. He will have ample time to reflect on his tomfoolery. He will have enough time to realize that what he mistook for friendship with the imperialist was anything but. He will have time to ponder the truism of the saying by that: “There are no permanent friends nor permanent enemies, but permanent interests.”
People like Charles Ghankay Taylor are just stupid imbeciles who refused to read correctly their history lessons and learn from the mistake of quisling like themselves. These moronic idiots allowed themselves to be used and abused by enemies of their people. They mistook the tolerance of their masters for acceptance; they strutted around like important potentates whilst they remain nothing but puppets on string.
The list of these traitors that betrayed Africa is very long. In Africa, Idi Amin, Bokassa and Mobutu, all dictators of the highest brutality enjoyed the patronage of western governments until they ran afoul of their paymasters. Their sordid deeds are well known and well documented by their controllers who will think nothing of using the information against them.
And they say we shouldn’t blame the imperialists.
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