Features
British monarchy and the African revolution
• King Charles III
On September 8 this year, the world was assailed by the news that the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, had died, aged 96. Easily the longest serving British monarch, Elizabeth II was the only British monarch the modern world has known, having served for 70 years as queen.
Her death means different things to different people. Some people think the monarchy should give way to a republican status, while others hold the view that it has guaranteed stability in the United Kingdom (UK). Some claim that it has become archaic in the face of current world politics and tenets of modern democratic practice.
There are yet others who believe that maintaining the monarchy is a drain on the British public purse since members of the royal family are taken care of by the taxpayer. It is said that the funeral of the queen cost a whopping £4 billion at a time the UK is experiencing an economic downturn.
A group calling itself the Young Communist League of Britain has issued a statement in response to the death of Queen Elizabeth II. “The death of Elizabeth Windsor highlights to our generation and working people across Britain that the abolition of the monarchy remains a pressing and important issue,” it said in part.
“It is fundamentally clear, now more than ever, that Britain must become a modern republic. A tiny interbreeding sect of a decaying aristocracy cannot and will never reflect the interests of working people in Britain…..the imposition of an obscenely wealthy, unrepresentative, unelected head of state is offensive to all working people. But this is not just a matter of important democratic and egalitarian principles,” it continued.
It did not end there. “The Royal Family’s wealth and the Crown estates, vast tracts of land and resources across Britain, are centuries of stolen wealth from the working people of this country and the oppressed and exploited peoples in Britain’s colonies……the monarch’s position as the head of state, not just of Britain, but of various former colonies and as head of the Commonwealth plays an important symbolic and ideological role in maintaining British imperialism around the world,” and advocates “…….the immediate abolition of the monarchy and its replacement with a democratically elected head of state.”
The firebrand leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of South Africa, Julius Malema, warned his country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, not to order flags to fly at half mast. If he did, his EFF would marshall people to raise them up all across the country. His beef was that the British plundered the resources of his country.
Many commentators speak of British atrocities in Africa, especially in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe in the name of the Crown.
I confess that, personally, nothing about the British excites me, but I watched the Queen’s funeral with a journalistic interest. Forget about the Crown making money on every single slave sold in the Americas. Forget about the two Barclay brothers who made money as underwriters to slave ships and ended up setting up Barclays Bank from the proceeds, and later Liverpool FC. All blood money, if you asked me.
Yes, some of the expensive diamonds and emeralds that adorn the imperial crown might have been plundered in India and Africa. Some might have been gifts from coercive influence but what else would have been expected from the Brits?
Today, we grouse, rave and rant about what colonialism did to us. I do not yet know if we do this to massage our inadequacy and pain as a people or expect recompense. This behaviour is like closing the door to the barn after the horses have bolted.
Today, we elect leaders who plunder our resources far in excess of what the colonial Europeans did. We elect characters who take millions from multinational companies and grant them concessions to mine our minerals and our countries make less than 10 per cent from the proceeds.
I was sorely disappointed watching almost all leaders bussed to the Westminster chapel for the Queen’s memorial service. I wished to God that only our African leaders were bussed. I would have laughed loud and said, “You guys got your just desserts. Serves you right.” But that did not happen. If it did, that would jolt them into knowing how little they mattered in the geopolitical scheme of things. The final act of humiliation.
Those developed countries know some of our leaders for the rogues they are; for the frauds they are and for the plunderers and corrupt characters they are.
We elect leaders who dance to the tunes of the imperialists, yet shout their voices hoarse to their people about reparation for the obnoxious slave trade. We elect people who, assuming office, become overlords running roughshod over the people.
The whole nation becomes their ‘spoils of war’ that must be shared among lackeys, friends, family and bootlickers. They account to no one and, as a result, manipulate the system to keep winning elections.
How many foreign politicians syphon their countries’ resources into African banks, buy properties or invest in Africa? Our leaders do not have confidence in the countries they lead. And we turn around to blame everything on the characters that colonised us. Do we not have minds of our own?
All this has to change one way or another. And this I call the African Revolution. It must be a revolution of like minds among the youth and of the continent; be it francophone, anglophone, lusophone or any other phone.
The youth will rise up and declare that enough of the plundering is enough and will take leadership of the continent; and with one voice. It is an epoch I will love to live and witness. Thankfully, I am aware of the undercurrents.
Our young women who have been subdued into pigeonholes of subservience must strive for leadership roles as men. There are quite a number of young women leaders in many countries. And they are doing a good job too.
The African Revolution must question the usefulness of the Commonwealth. Who controls the wealth that is supposed to be common? If this group does not benefit our economic growth, let us walk out of it. How can a group of economic vampires sit on the comfort of their couches and determine how much they buy what we produce, yet determine what price we buy theirs?
These are the issues we must avert our minds to and bargain on equal terms. Because world trade is conducted in American dollars, the USA will never go to the IMF for a bail out; America will just print more dollars and still remain atop the food chain of economic might.
What stops Africa from a common continental currency? Even the talk of sub-regional currencies that has been on the table for decades has not seen any concrete action. The European Union has become a powerful trading and economic bloc, even if the British, in their egotistic nature, have exited. The African Revolution will take us there.
By Dr. Akofa K. Segbefia
Writer’s email address: akofa45@admin
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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