It’s such a regrettable thing to do. I mean to cue-in this year’s for this column on this, a riposte that has no options. It hurts and it is best to put a lid on, not to postpone it till either another day or, the next time it re-curs. The source has the potential. Without a contradiction, the African by nature is a pacifist. Here is the causal: The immediate former US president, Donald Trump has an obsession with Africa—its people and leaders. He disdains all as fit for nothing. In a second un-provoked onslaught Trump says inter alia of vitriolic:
‘’Africans are good in nothing else but making noise, dancing, marrying many wives, alcoholism, witchcraft, indulging in sex, pretending in church,jealousy, fighting and complaining of bad leadership ; but yet refuseto take a decisive action and protest to remove the brigands from position of power. …Black people with black sense. The worst tragedy in Africa is that if you dared stand up and speak up for what’s right , you may end up regretting. The few wise and open-minded Africans who have tried to educate these fools about civilization have met the worst. They have been pushed hard on the wall; they have been silenced and others have been killed. Before I finish, let me tell Africans before you jump and call me racist… or whatever, 1st tackle runaway corruption, dreadful terrorism, tribalism, poverty, unemployment, diseases, illiteracy, ignorance and inequality, that have put your whole continent on the verge of collapse.’’
In summary, the excerpts are ruffling and or revolting. But I would rather react adversely with circumspection for several reasons, truth, cultured as a proud African and from received wisdom such the following native wisdoms: it is grave don’t to talk down an elder in public, however rattled and or even deserved; you don’t rush out of the bath nude to retrieve the entrance-curtain; and you look at a face to determine his/her food ration. But by all means, you just don’t glance off and fizzle because the retort is not a bargaining chip. Also, because I have an inalienable responsibility rather than sit back and do nothing believing or expecting the African leadership today to do everything. Indeed, you will hear them singing the old hymn ‘’we are working behind the scenes’’ which translates ‘’we are doing nothing.’’ And the tramp gets away—but talk back for my African blackness, intelligence, dignity, equity, inclusion and not to kotow is part of my absolute responsibility, like all of us, except that not everyone of us has the opportunity. That makes it imperative, though honorable.
Explaining because:[i] you have to restrain passion to be brutally ruthless; [ii] aggregate feel it all, because of diverse sensitivities ref opinions and [iii] dispel emphatically falsehoods, publicity stunt–possibly out of ignorance or malevolent and indeed possibility of a publicity stunt. One cannot exhaust all and I am not in that pretentious; but the naïve shall be educated. I shall never forget early in May 1968 at the Accra High Court. Justice J.S.A.Anterkyi quoted the Latin ‘’ex turpi causa, non ituri actio’ delivering in favor of the Ghana Bar Association versus the Chief Justice Edward Akufo-Addo over the infamous solicitors license fees. The appeal overturned it; but country was rejuvenated to cry foul and that revived the suspicions of the country not to terribly belief in the system, lingering. The ruling military NLC had promised cleansing it because you never won against the CPP government [before and after independence into the First Republic at court until the advent of the NLC 1966, despite evidence. And that Military Junta said it had cleansed the justice delivery system two years before.
That little digression was to background an enhanced comprehension of our history. The major point of the Bar was that the Chief Justice did neither had to make himself the Income Tax Commissioner and then order the courts to inspect before the Solicitor could advocate. The setting aside was not impressive, at the least for the public just as Trump who held his own court in his reign. Briefly: he made the US a jinx and sphinx in global international relations—UN, UNESCO, G-7 and Global warming. US became an enigma for a trustworthy old ally. Hardly tolerated and if, then an incorrigible tooth ache, racism was his face and tension was his hall mark. Trump accuses Africans as marrying too many. Our heritage was a polygamous existence and of course we married properly, unlike him who was accused of several improprieties with women; we dance because rhythm is all our being our live; corrupt? Corruption was by Whittee.
I have explained many times here in this column and number of speeches and even lecturing. There is a moat of a distance between ‘’goodwill’’ and bothe subtle and crude ‘bribery’. A few lines down herein, I have stated that ‘it is for the sake of something…’ Nonetheless, our politicians have not done well allegedly; but who is the cause? Oh in the Abbot pharmaceuticals of Illinois we found out—then there were two others –two US and one Brit. The US is clothed in sweeping corruptibles; and coups? The US bribed our soldiers and opposition politicians to oust leaders who are awkward to their diktats –specifically, in Ghana, the US trailed Nkrumah from Feb.1958 to Feb. 1966. Years down the time, there was Col Chang in the US embassy in Accra deported Rawlings era.
Much of the havocs in our African countries today might be attributed to the US initiative. Trump can read to learn, because someone has to sit him down to teach him. My black ‘’mind’’ agilely has more. Africans are not ‘’stupid’’ Trump believes. “Asem ntsira’’—but, for the sake of something…. Above all, Trump is not the rightful person. Who? a man who would for greed of power turn against his own country’s citadel with riff raffs to upset what he had sworn to protect! Our elders say if bald-headed promises you hat gift, look at his top. Yet all said and responded, we shall do well to resolve doing better. Trump has some advisories: work hard, stop begging and our leaders shall be more truthful than him.
From his first step into his last out at the White House everybody was a ‘’LIAR’’ except him as he fired as much as they quit. And every new arrival at his hiring was ‘’a good chap’’ even Boris Johnson, former British Prime Minister. The English Court Justice in that divorce closure remarks translated ‘’ex turpi causa, non ituri actio’’ as ‘’the dog will not have its meal here’’. No innuendo. I believe I am too much of my ‘’black brain’’ too cultured. For just a comic relief:’’ who showed Trump that the color of the African brain is black? What I know is scientifically research is that neither African’s brain nor intelligence and DNA are inferior, keeping within the bounds of decency which I ought to as an African. In all, I am not claiming Africans are ‘’SAINTS’’. However, the quintessential difference is that no African child brought up in the remotest Hamlet would take on: [i] a whole race to destroy. Adolf Hitler failed in his extermination of the Jewish and the US power (wealth and influence) is in the pockets of them; and [ii] and play possum –‘the monarch of all he surveys’—a mortal!.
I guess the season shall add a poignant reminder to Donald Trump, except that he was not able to bring discipline of the ‘’Word’’ as pledged in his campaign to church or religion and the nation he headed into such a chaos, externally. ’’Asem ntsira’’. Incidentally, He ends his vilification: ‘’Hate me love me, I do not care. I know this is the plain truth which will never see the light of day to the cowards that are afraid to be told as it is.’’
A couple of historical references to let Trump and his likes be reminded: our fathers fought wars for them—WW Iⅈ then, our sons in Vietnam; black labor built the White House and throughout our kith and kin murdered in the streets in the US; and the policy was to leave Africa impoverished. He presided for his tenure—he who knows the best? ‘’Asem ntsira’’. But it might have to be noted that’ ‘you don’t throw stones if you live in a glass house’’.
By Prof Nana Esseilfie-Conduah
