Africa’s evil: An examination
Africa’s evil scene The eccentric atmosphere following the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s President, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity (short of genocide) in Darfur open the obscurities of evil in Africa for the past 50 years. In some sort of grim moment, al-Bashir and the [...]
Ghanaians’ dangerous tribalism, resolving the misunderstandings
The pronouncement by the Assin North Member of Parliament, from the opposition National Patriotic Party, the hot-headed Kennedy Agyapong, on the Accra-based Oman FM station, which he owns, that people from the Ewe and Ga ethnic groups should be killed in the Ashanti Region, once again opens the unresolved issues of tribalism in Ghana, 50 [...]
Traditional deities clash with development projects in Africa
In Ghana/Africa, some development projects could be difficult to discharge against rigid traditional beliefs. In some places, such as Kumasi, capital of the Asante Region and Ghana’s second largest city, traditional beliefs clash with development projects. Taxi drivers, whose illegal parking lots are being reclaimed for re-developed into modern markets by the Kumasi Municipal Assembly (KMA) [...]
The enlightenment and the Ghana culture day
Wednesday, 14th March, 2012 was Ghana Culture Day. Authorities say the day is to promote “mainstreaming of the culture in national development.” This has been going on over the years – basically pandering the same thinking. From Wednesday, 14th March, 2012 till now, I was expecting something more enlightening from the cultural connoisseurs but what I [...]
Integrating and differentiating the enlightenment voices
Prof. Esi Sutherland-Addy, of the University of Ghana’s Institute of African Studies, floating of a Ghana Cultural Forum to some sort of differentiate and integrate the Ghanaian culture for progress, once again, enhances the on-going enlightenment movement. For now, as the Ugandans say, deeds speak louder and make words nothing, as Ghanaians realize their culture [...]
Africa struggles for “Democratic Deepening”
Forget about the democratic hiccup in Mali, once of one of Africa’s emerging democracies. Or the fact that Mauritius is the only African country ranked as being “full” democracy by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual democracy index. Or the Economist Intelligence Unit also saying the shiny Botswana democracy is “flawed.” Democracy is rapidly breaking out across [...]
The enlightenment and the killing of deformed children
Realistically, the Ghanaian enlightenment movement is expanding. Traditional inhibitive values are being critically scrutinized boldly without fear of ethnocentrisms. It is in this sense that deformed children, for centuries killed in some parts of Ghana, for being evil, are getting not only media and civil society attention but of late officialdom. Some of the deformed [...]
Africa’s inhibitive values, International ideals collide
As Africa flowers and its traditional values play out naturally with international ideals, the ensuing schisms are helping to refine some toxic African values that have been entangling Africans’ wellbeing. The conviction for life in London, UK of Eric Bikubi and Magalie Bamu of murdering Bamu’s 15-year-old brother Kristy, accused of using witchcraft to cause [...]
Jerry Rawlings on the enlightenment cylinder
Suddenly, ex-President Jerry Rawlings has had epiphany about the on-going Ghana/African enlightenment movement. Face-to-face with some lethal cultural inhibitions that have been demeaning Ghanaians’/Africans’ humanity, Rawlings, in the manner of Archimedes and Isaac Newton, exclaimed “I need an explanation.” For long, some wrong-headed spiritualists have made it their craft to accuse children and old women as [...]
The tribal support of gargantuan crimes in Ghana
The mind-set of fifteen traditional chiefs and queen-mothers, from the Tongu area in Ghana’s Volta Region, descending on the National Police Headquarters in Accra, to sympathize with their tribes-man, Alfred Woyome, who was being held over financial crimes of about US$40 million, is disturbing and lacks depth; impinging on Ghana’s ethnic cohesion and values, and [...]