President Obama

Guest Columnist: Renford Reese, Ph.D. The Afro News International ;In the age of political polarization, perpetual finger-pointing, and accusatory rhetoric, being a popular president in today’s time seems to be an impossible task. In a recent Gallup Poll, President Obama’s approval rating was at 46 percent. Some 81 percent of Democratic voters and 12 percent of Republican voters approve of the president’s performance. The visceral hate found in the disapproval of the president’s job performance is partially based on irrationality.

 The controversial Tea Party billboard in Iowa showed a photo of Adolf Hitler with the caption “National Socialism.”

It showed Vladimir Lenin with the caption “Marxist Socialism” and Obama with the caption, “Democrat Socialism.” Comparing Obama to Hitler and Lenin is irrational.

Conservatives refer to the president’s leadership as unabashedly socialist without a nuanced deconstruction of the nature of American public policies. The word socialism means collectivism or community. During the Cold War, socialism and communism were propagandized by the U.S. to mean bad, dark, evil. Today, the definition of socialism has been appropriated and reinterpreted as meaning misguided.

 The idea that the true American spirit is the “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” phenomenon lacks sophistication.

Adam Smith’s capitalism, in its purest form, allows the “invisible hand” of the market to work its magic without interference from the government. So at any point there is government interference in domestic affairs, it can be construed as socialism.

 In modern times, we have accepted the progressive tax system, which is socialist in nature. Federal, state, and local governments give big businesses tax-breaks, which is a form of socialism. Farmers receive welfare by way of subsidies, which is socialistic. College students receive financial aid, which is socialistic. K-12 public education is compulsory; this is not the case in all countries. This educational feature in U.S. society is also socialistic. Unemployment benefits are socialistic—so too is Medicare and our social security system. The fact is that no developed country in the world functions without embracing some elements of socialism.

 When Obama gave his special address on K-12 education, I heard a parent say she would not allow her children to listen to the president’s socialist propaganda, which encouraged students to be disciplined, focused, and committed in school. The president’s

message broadly stated that school is important to future success. It did not matter to this woman that her children could have benefitted from these encouraging words from the president.

Although Obama passed historic health care reform legislation that protects ordinary citizens from the insensitive treatment of insurance companies, there is someone that has a pre-existing condition and could not get insurance without this bill that still hates the president. Obama allotted a significant portion of the stimulus money to help those whose houses have been foreclosed on yet there is someone in this situation that hates the president. The president recently passed a historic financial reform bill that protects consumers from predatory lenders and other exploitative business practices yet there is a person that has lost everything because of these practices that still hates Obama. The president has worked tirelessly on multiple occasions to extend unemployment benefits to the unemployed; however, there are millions of those that directly benefit from the president’s advocacy on this issue who hate him anyway.

Of course people have the right to oppose the president’s policies, but irrationality is reflected when people that are directly benefitting from Obama’s agenda vehemently oppose him. These Obama-haters will not give him a slither of credit for making efforts to better their lives. Why? Because they are shortsighted, naive, and easily manipulated by a handful of rabble-rousers that

want the president to fail by any means necessary.

 Our democracy was designed for bargaining, negotiation, conciliation, and reconciliation. Our democracy was designed for informed

citizens to elect independent-minded representatives that would reflect the will of the people. Republican lawmakers are undermining the spirit of our democracy because of their lack of independent-mindedness. When Republican senators Scott Brown, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins recently sided with Democrats on financial reform legislation, conservative talk show hosts characterized them as idiotic sell-outs.

 Moreover, any Republican that tries to reach across the aisle and effectively participate in the democratic process of policymaking is lambasted and ridiculed. Senator Lindsay Graham has attempted to moderate his conservative stance on a number of hot button issues.

For these efforts, conservative radio host Mark Levin called Graham an “irrelevant weirdo that speaks gooberish.”

In Federalist Paper #10, Founding Father James Madison warned us against the threat of factions undermining our democracy. Today, a few guys with a microphone and access to the public airwaves are leading a dangerously counterproductive faction that is undermining our democracy. Madison and his founding colleagues did not intend for a handful of non-accountable citizens to have this embarrassing level of control over our lawmakers.

In order for American citizens to heal the wounds of our broken democracy we must transcend the politics of hate and hold each rabble-rouser (on the Left and the Right) accountable for their divisive language. We must begin to elect lawmakers that are independent-minded. As this nation is immersed in multiple crises, now is not the time to embrace the “Us v. Them” perspective. This is the time to argue, debate, reconcile, and move forward collectively. This is the democratic formula that has made America great. This is the American way.

Renford Reese, Ph.D. is a professor of political science and the founder/director of the Colorful Flags program at Cal Poly Pomona University. He is the author of “American Bravado” (2008), “Prison Race” (2006), and the widely discussed “American Paradox: Young Black Men” (2004). See Reese’s work at: http://www.RenfordReese.com

Africa Old Leadership, New Leadership

Development/ Africa  ; By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong :Leadership has become a buzz word for practitioners, bureaucrats and theorists of African development. The term variously means a process of getting work done through people. Leadership may not be science but it is committed responsibility. Africans in civil service, in business schools, in NGOs, in the mass media, in think tanks, in academic, in State Houses, in opposition political parties use leadership as a sort of reality refiner – a way of contrasting past and present, an implement for cataloging out history at a moment of African changes, the flowering of The African Century.

African leadership, being heavily over burdened and scatterbrained, is part of the Old Leadership. For the past 50 years, Africa has been sorting itself up into categories of Old Leadership and New Leadership. We see this in one of Africa’s foremost leaders, Kwame Nkrumah. Prof. A.K.P. Kludze, former Justice of Ghana’s Supreme Court, observes that although President Kwame Nkrumah was a freedom fighter and committed Pan-Africanist, he later succumbed to the Big Man syndrome, turned Ghana into a one-party state and became the life chairman of his ruling Conventions People’s Party and general secretary of the party’s Central Committee. It was considered treason to challenge him. Nobody could stand as a candidate unless his candidature was approved by the General Secretary of the party (read-himself).

The 1960s to the 1990s have become a transforming boundary between one age and another, between a format of things that has crumbled and another that is taking shape. A millennium has come, a celestial divide. Kwame Nkrumah’s era of autocracy of the 20th century is dead; the 21st is a kernel, revealed in continental giant Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan. New Leadership-Old Leadership makes a match of lists: what’s in, what’s out in the African experiences. More imperative, it is a way of considering what works (New Leadership) and what doesn’t work anymore (Old Leadership).

The horrible Central African Republic’s Jean-Bedel Bokassa was the Old Leadership. The New Leadership is what we are seeking for – Liberia’s Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson. One-party system and military juntas are Old Leadership. African communism as seen in Ethiopia’s Menghistu Haile Mariam is Old Leadership. Big one-party systems, military juntas and Jerry Rawlings’ emotionally charged aggressiveness style are dead. Democracy brewed from within African experiences is becoming more and more alive as a development fertilizer. Botswana is one example; Mauritius is another.

With over 45 years in Ghana’s and Africa’s turbulent politics, ex-president John Kofi Kufour is more than qualified to examine Africa’s leadership from very close range. His analysis: “Leadership is key to unravelling the problems of Africa. With the right leadership, good policies would be enacted that will create the right condition for economic growth, respect of the rule of law and the conducive atmosphere for business to thrive,” observed Kufour. Kufour said this in South Africa during the launch of “Why Africa is Poor and What Africans can do about it,” written by Greg Mills, Executive Director of the Brenthurst Foundation of the Oppenheimer and Son Group.

Kufour diagnosed the awful Old Leadership this way: “Africa’s problem was that people assumed leadership positions without being adequately prepared for it and they lacked the vision and drive to pursue policies to the benefit of their people … Studies of individual historic leaders exemplified in the likes of Biblical Moses, among others, would show conclusively that each one of them had come through relevant experiences to be imbued with epochal visions of great and abiding development of their nations … The time when people just jumped into leadership positions should be by-gone. Budding leaders must bide their time and go through the apprenticeship exposures and institutions to better prepare them to assume the rightful role expected of them.”

Old Leaderships: Mobutu Sese Seku, military juntas, one-party and communist systems, Sekou Toure, Mamadou Tandja, the Big Man syndrome, tough talk, imperially threatening attitude (Yaya Jemmeh), arrogance (Idi Amin), centralized bureaucracy and Big government, the leader as a massive juju-marabou dabbler (Samuel Doe), the leader mired in extreme superstitious believes (Marcias Francoise Nguema), the leader under the control of warped spiritualists (Sani Abacha and Bokassa), refurbished ancient paternalism (Siaka Stevens), dictatorship, “God has destined me to be leader” (Jerry Rawlings), heavy cultural inhibitions (all Africa), charisma, tribalistic blood-feud payback, primordial corporate loyalties, Guinea Bissau, and Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (the military politician as the face of the unrepentant African traditional autocracy).

New African Leadership: Humility. God fearing. Deep decentralization so much so that decision-making is pushed down as much as possible to the people affected. Truthfulness. High sense of African history and traditions. Traditional consensus building mixed with modern leadership practices. John Kufour. Evans Atta Mills, Nana Akufo Addo, Ian Khama. Balances. Democratic tenets, human rights, freedoms, social justice, the rule of law. Goodluck Jonathan, Ernest Koroma, Jakaya Kikwete. The African Union, the Economic Community of West African States. Television news network, participatory communication, information, facebook, fax machines, tweeter, myspace and other new media. David Mark (the Nigerian soldier greatly democratized). The new Liberia. Pluralism. The new Sierra Leone. Kwasi Pratt Jr. Botswana.

In the African context, Old Leadership is a mixed bag. New Leadership isn’t necessarily the best. There are sham democracies and leaderships – The Gambia and Yaya Jammeh. The New Leadership is an on-going project that needs a lot of socio-political engineering constructed from within Africa’s traditional values, but better than Old Leadership. New Leadership is about output instead of input. The assessment of the New Leadership is what works. It Africanizes Botswana’s leadership skills, the capability to mix the traditional with the modern so as to refine any inhibitions within the traditional.

Old Leadership and New Leadership are often intermingled. Jerry Rawlings and Jacob Zuma as awkward, stalled in stupidity, complete dumbness, are Old Leadership. Foolhardiness is New Leadership, as seen in Central African Republic’s Francois Bozize and the entire leadership of Guinea Bissau, can be different style – small-minded, dishonorable, blank, and uninformed of Africa’s painful past of agony and sadness. New media, the medium of the New Leadership, has an overwhelming addiction to the mediocre that it constantly wrestles with. The New Leadership is a distraction that sometimes reveals simple-mindedness.

In Emilio Mwai Kibaki’s mind, Old Leadership and New Leadership circle each other suspiciously, as Kenya struggles for better leadership and governance. Kibaki is often New Leadership in regional issues but Old Leadership in domestic affairs. Under his watch, Kenya’s 2008 general elections descended into fatal violence and saw over 1,300 people killed and over 300,000 homeless. The International Criminal Court coming into Kenya and planning to put six top Kenyans on trial saw Kibaki dashing back toward patriarchal conclusions.

Rawlings and Atta Mills? Object lessons on how Old Leadership and New Leadership clash with each other. Dictatorial Rawlings wants members of the opposition National Patriotic Party arbitrarily arrested for suspicion of being corrupt. With enormous pressure from Rawlings, Mills reveals how fragile the New Leadership could be, how it could be menaced by Old Leadership. Rawlings sticking to Old Leadership despite the fact that its time is gone has become a dilemma for Mills. The trouble is there is no New Leadership for Rawlings to migrate to. Maybe never.

Either in the analysis of Kufour’s African leadership impasse or Botswana’s and Mauritius’s ability to mix modern leadership practices with their traditional ones that has paid off remarkably, the Ghanaian Joseph William Addai argues in Reforming Leadership in Africa that transformations in African leadership, as a way of improving the quality of governance, should start from African traditional values and then mixed with global governance practices. This means African leaders should have a high sense of African traditional leadership values in relation to global governance ideals.

In this sense, Africa’s leadership struggles are rationalized from within Africa’s soul. It is a new intellectual construct to make things work. A way of thinking about change. For long, Africans have taken their leadership for granted seeing the likes of Bokassa, Doe, and Amin mount power and destroy their countries. The New Leadership is above all struggling toward a working model for the progress mechanisms of The African Century.

Short of this, there will be huge imbalances in the quality of leadership and governance, and this will impact negatively on Africa’s progress. Kenya’s and Nigeria’s struggles for better governance practices, as progress act, seen in their attempts to reform their constitutions, illustrates Africa’s tussles to grapple with its leadership challenges.

Fifty years after freedom from colonial rule, Africa is largely still Old Leadership. But as the flowering of The African Century reveals, Africa’s brilliance would be how it renew itself, how it improvise itself, technically how it quickly grow New Leadership as a replacer of Old Leadership, as part of its transformative endowment. This means New Leadership should be the overarching idea, the signature of The African Century.

Hand washing

Comment/Ghana/Africa

By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong : The Afro News International :It is human, and wise, that hand washing and general sanitation campaigns are heightened Ghana-wide. It borders on morality, too. Across Ghana, the sanitation situation isn’t good. That makes it instructive that in Ghana’s Upper East Region 14 junior high and primary schools in the Kassena-Nankana West District were brought together in hand washing campaign. It sound naive but simple hand washing could save a lot of lives.

It is surprising that such simple public hygienic practices – washing hands before and after eating, washing hands after using the toilet, washing hands after holding dirty objects and other such sanitation practices have become a national problem, veering into serious health issue. In 2010, it should have been the other way round.

Such public civility should normally start from homes and schools, and then into the larger society. Schools, as part of their civic studies, are expected to teach appropriate hygienic and sanitation practices. And this should be reflected in the public domain. The measure of any society’s depth of health is seen in its public sanitary practices. You don’t have to be a public health expert to know this. It is simple, if people urinate or spite or defecate in public, then they have poor sanitary and hygienic upbringing.

You see this shameful health picture on landing in Kumasi, Accra, Cape Coast, or Takoradi. The visitor quickly realizes that hygienic and sanitation practices are poor to the extent of interpreting that the people aren’t healthy. In markets, beaches, traditional “chop bars” (restaurants), banks, internet cafes, road-side food sellers, among others, people move through ramble through with unwashed hands under the sweltering sun. The people might have either come from toilets or might have blown their noses and with wipe their hands with it or touched dirty objects without washing their hands. Either they ignorant of the implications of their unhealthy actions or they do not consider the health implications of their actions.

Recently, at Adabraka, suburb of Accra, where I was staying, across my apartment, I used to see a khebab seller, a young man, blow his nose repeatedly beside the stove he is using to roast the meat. And without washing his hands, immediately touched the meat being roasted. In the scorching sun, sometimes, too, I used to see him wipe his face from his sweat with his bare hands, and without washing his hands, touched the meat being roasted. Almost everyday, I saw him do this. Despite all these unhygienic practices, the young man was selling the khebab to people, some of whom, I am very sure, might have seen his unhygienic practices. He was passing diseases to the public.

Globally, health experts say over 80 percent of diseases start from the hands. And if the hands aren’t cleaned and sanitized properly, diseases are transmitted into the larger society. The heavy incident of cholera and malaria that attack and kill most Ghanaians reveal the level of civility in public health practices. If you urinate or defecate in public and die from cholera then one’s civility is bad.

Like the Foundation for Grassroots Initiatives in Africa (FGIA), a non-governmental organization, that mounted the Upper East hand washing campaign, in Canada for the past years public health promotion by Public Health Agency of Canada has been advising people to wash their hands thoroughly in order to limit the spread of diseases. Across Canada, in banks, internet cafes, restaurants, offices, groceries, malls, convenience stores, libraries, shops, university halls, etc hand sanitizers are everywhere for the public to use. And Canadians are using them as part of their civic health duties.

My sense here is that whether you are Canadian or Ghanaian, we all human beings and at certain level we have to conduct ourselves in the same ways, as the import of the hand washing campaigns reveal. There is hand washing campaigns in Canada, the same is underway in Ghana’s Upper East. But more seriously is the fact that since health-care services are more inadequate in Ghana, Ghanaians should be more serious about the hand washing issues as a way of lessening the burden on the health-care system. The Adabraka khebab seller will help the Ghana health-care system if he can simply wash his hands any time he wipes his face with his hands or blows his nose with his hands.

At the web site of Public Health Agency of Canada, as part of its public health promotion, tips are giving about how to clean one’s hands. The campaigns have saturated the Canadian public so much so that, in some cases, if one forgets to wash his or her hands after using a public toilet (they call it washroom in Canada), another person who might happen to be around will remind the person to wash his or her hands. That isn’t rudeness, that’s part of civility.

The Canadian hand washing campaign became more pronounced during the flu outbreak recently. “Preventing the flu is everyone’s responsibility!,” charged Public Health Agency of Canada in its promo, using mass communication tools such as radio, public transport, e-health, television, flyers, newsletters, public bill boards, presentations, participatory communication, community organizations, etc to drum home the benefits of hand washing to one’s self and to the Canadian society.

In a simple public health promotion, Public Health Agency of Canada advises Canadians to wash their hands “several times a day with soap and warm water, especially: before meals; before feeding children, including breastfeeding; before and after preparing food; after using the toilet; after changing diapers or helping a child use the toilet; after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing; after playing with shared toys; before and after visiting with people who are sick; and after handling animals or their waste.” It may sound basic but that’s why the power of the message lies.

This is despite the fact that public health in Canada is among the best in the world, if not the best. But while public health promotion anywhere may use the same mass communication tools like Canada, in Ghana, as the FGIA thoughtfully did in Upper East Region, should include traditional institutions, traditional rulers, traditional values, education institutions, drama and churches as part of its campaign. This is a reflection of the Ghanaian/African reality. FGIA’s inclusion of Ghana Health Services is laudable. But, like Canada, Ghana Health Services should take the lead, pro-actively, and work with non-governmental organizations. This is for fuller authority and sustainability of the hand washing campaigns.

In promoting hand washing as a way of preventing diseases, it is also reducing the health- care expenditure. Though hand washing exercises have the same positive health effects, in Ghana, unlike Canada, the implications are larger. There are cultural believe dimensions in Ghana. Hand washing and its added reduction of diseases will help push away the awful cultural believe that diseases are the work of evil spirits, the devil, demons, or witches and not poor hygienic and sanitation practices.

Simple hand washing will help rationalize Ghanaians in regard to evil spirits, the devil, demons, or witches and diseases. The diseases and ailments come from disturbing unhygienic and unsanitary practices. There is no evil spirits, the devil, demons, or witches involved. And Canadians have better health indicators than Ghanaians because of proper hygienic and sanitation practices and not because Ghanaians are under some sort of siege from evil spirits, the devil, demons, or witches.

And so when the evil spirits, the devil, demons, or witches are eliminated from the mindset of Ghanaians in relation to diseases and ailments, Ghanaians will come to the same conclusion as Canadians that “Hands spread an estimated 80 percent of common infectious diseases like the common cold and flu” and “…when you touch a doorknob that has the flu virus on it and then touch your mouth, you can get sick. But these disease-causing germs slide off easily with good hand washing technique.”

This is simply part of civilization. And the Foundation for Grassroots Initiatives in Africa has shown the lead. The Ghana Health Services in collaboration with the Ghanaian mass media (as part of its public service duties) should join the hand washing bandwagon, for higher utilitarian reasons. A simple jingle or bumper – “Please, wash your hands,” “Please, wash your hands,” “Please, wash your hands” – will swab away most diseases and ailments.

Ghana President Atta Mills’

Comment/Ghana/Central African Republic By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong TAN: The Afro News International

Despite receiving little media coverage, Ghana’s President Atta Mills’ short stop-over on his way to the just ended 15th Ordinary Session of African Union in Kampala, Uganda in the isolated Central African Republic (CAR) has democratic significance. In other words, it was to throw democratic light into a close, authoritarian African enclave – forget about CAR’s talks of democracy, it is one of the sham democracies in Africa.

No doubt, Mills visit surprised even the Central Africans, Ghanaians and African watchers. But astounded or not, Mills small visit was to send serious message to CAR’s President Francois Bozize, an autocrat who arm-twisted his way to insert “indefinite presidency” in CAR’s new constitution so that he can rule for life. And also to Central Africans that despite their apparent cut off from rest of Africa, because of very bad leadership over the past 50 years, Africans are concerned about their grim situation.

In Mills, Ghana was just showing its famed Pan-African side, its African humanity and its African brotherhood. But underneath all this is democratic radiance. The big message was that if Ghana can re-order itself after years of disorder, CAR, too, can do so, but that has to start from within CAR itself. One of the main ways of bringing CAR out of the cold is engagement – most African countries do not have full diplomatic representation in CAR, including Ghana. That may be one of the reasons for CAR’s seclusion. To break this, Mills is thinking of setting-up diplomatic relations with CAR and bring it into not only the current African democratic governance trend but throw more light into the dark recesses of its excruciating life.

Development-wise, which is the basis of CAR’s existence, like any nation, CAR isn’t doing well, even in the African context. All development indicators about CAR point to depressing existence. The Ibrahim Index of African Governance says CAR is among the six worst governed in Africa. At one point in its life, its former colonial master, France, has to pay its civil servants. The country is so weak that at one point, Libya’s mercurial leader, Murmur Gaddafi, had thought of taking over the country. Today, still hugely vulnerable, CAR has become the playing ground of Uganda’s the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), one of Africa’s most brutal rebel groups, and that is bringing CAR into its campaigns of threat to security and stability.

Still, on CAR’s progress, the United Nations, through UNDP’s Human Development Index, says, repeatedly, that CAR “has the most grim human development indicators in the region. A least developed country (LDC), it is ranked 178th out of 179th countries in the 2008 UNDP Human Development Index” that measures human wellbeing. Other yearly UN measures aren’t better either – virtually the same awful news.

Hear this from the UN: “Repeated political and economic crises – including four coups in the last decade – have devastated the country and have resulted in an overall deterioration of living conditions. The country lacks basic services, and hospitals have only the most rudimentary equipment and medicine. The security situation is precarious especially in the north, characterized by the flow of arms and acts of violence. OCHA (The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) currently estimates that 85,000 of the more than 200,000 IDPs (Internally displaced persons) have returned to their villages of origin or resettled elsewhere while there are 108,000 still too scared to return.”

The appalling state of mind of CAR was amply seen in its late President Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who ruled from 1966–76. Bozize is a reminder of Bokassa. With the presidency under his grip for life and consumed with extreme negative African superstition practices (including juju cannibalism) and deeply infested with African Big Man syndrome, Bokassa destroyed human rights to the extent of being involved in the brutalization of protesting school children over school uniforms to death. Bokassa implanted unfreedoms, muzzled the rule of law, and set the stage for CAR’s long paralysis.

With all avenues for dissent and balances crippled, there were numerous attempts to either overthrow or assassinate Bokassa. This gave Bokassa an excuse to implement even brutally tougher decrees to consolidate power, increased arbitrary and authoritarian measures, and in his madness, was involved in the massacre of civilians. Bokassa was implicated in these killings. Bokassa made himself President-for-Life in 1972 and this saw CAR further descending into governance deficit that it has had difficulty shaking itself from. In CAR, the argument of the quality of governance informing progress is more pronounced, despite being endowed with world class natural resources.

From Bokassa’s time to now, CAR, more or less, have not changed – it’s almost the same as it was during Bokassa’s dark period. And that’s why Mill, radiating with democratic order, visit to CAR is instructive to Central Africans and seriously to Bozize and CAR’s undemocratically weakling political class.

The Black Stars Of Ghana at Royal Bafokeng Stadium on June 26, 2010 Rustenburg,in S Africa FIFA World Cup

The Good. The Black Stars’ advance to the quarter finals of the World Cup captured the hearts of a continent and of friends around the world and in the process became a symbol of African hope and unity that transcended sports. South Africans adopted the Black Stars as BaGhana BaGhana after their national team, Bafana Bafana, was eliminated and some there wondered if the spirit of soccer might overcome the smouldering tensions that have fueled attacks on African migrants in that country for years. Kwesi Nyantakyi, president of the Ghana Football Association, said the team’s success could “heal and unite” the African continent. “Even in troubled places like Somalia, people are cheering for us…That’s the power of football. People in Darfur and Somalia who should be fighting are glued to their televisions. For 90 minutes, there is no war.” (The Globe and Mail, July 1, 2010.)
The Bad. Euphoria crashed with the Black Stars loss to Uruguay, a defeat made all the more agonizing by the closeness of the play and by the kinds of questionable calls by the officials that led to world-wide demands that FIFA employ modern technology to bring greater fairness to the beautiful game.
The Questions. First, will the spirit of hope survive the loss of a football match? Will the shared heartache of a mere game work to strengthen African unity? We will have to wait for the answer while some of us work to ensure that the answer is, Yes!”
Second question. What has happened to youth soccer in Ghana since I left in 1968 to propel the national team onto the world Stage? In my time kids played soccer with enthusiasm and joy on makeshift fields and on school teams. There must have been a national soccer program because I saw The Black Stars play Nigeria at Black Star Stadium in 1968 but there were few signs of a system of children’s leagues guided by organized coaching in Northern Ghana where I lived. A bit of Internet research reveals that much has changed. Now youth coaches in Tamale and throughout the north bring their stars to try-outs held by elite soccer academies who pay the parents of successful candidates before taking them four hundred miles or more to the south where they will live and train for several years. The children do not see their parents during this time. The goal is to train players for elite foreign leagues where the financial return will be greatest for the athletes, their families and the academy. Hungry for a Better Life, a feature on the ESPN site, frames this as a once in a lifetime chance for young boys from Northern Ghana to escape grinding poverty. www.elllo.org presents the situation as verging on child slavery. “…some of them (young athletes) even end up not actually meeting their potential, and end up doing some other stuff, end up in crime, end up doing some other stuff, and there’s a lot of corruption in that. People actually go, there are families in Ghana which actually pay people, pay teams, just to sell their young kids to these foreign scouts. So it’s really unfortunate. It’s really unfortunate.”
Third Question. Has life improved for children of Northern Ghana? I don’t think so.
jacktoronto@telus.net

Fabulous Kumasi Asante Kotoko, founded in 1935

Comment/Sports/Ghana/Africa :By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong ;Aside from politics, nowhere in Africa is the intersection between juju and groups more pronounced than soccer. From high schools to professional soccer teams, juju is heavily appropriated, so much so that it obscures tactics, efficiency, technicalities, discipline and team work.

Though there are no official figures, millions of dollars are spent on juju supposedly to help soccer teams win their tournaments every year. But yet most do not win and yet they go back to the juju mediums all the time. It is like being hooked on illicit drug, they can’t extricate themselves from juju, to their detriment.

But gradually as the debate to refine inhibitions within the Ghanaian/African culture (of which juju is one aspect) gains momentum and higher reasoning and rationality battle irrationality, strange and erroneous thinking, the cultural inhibitions are under siege. It is in this atmosphere that one of Ghana’s and Africa’s top soccer clubs, the Fabulous Kumasi Asante Kotoko, founded in 1935, have come to the conclusion that juju and other such African native spiritual practices are charade, irrational, wasteful and counter-productive.

In a way, Kotoko has “banned” juju from its operations. I was surprised to read Kotoko’s action. “Really,” I said to myself. Such actions also embolden Ghanaian/African enlightenment thinkers, who are campaigning to refine the inhibitions within the African culture, to push on. For any small step, in this direction, no matter where it comes from, such as Kotoko’s, is highly welcomed and further enrich the enlightenment campaigns.

The reasons for such radical conclusion from Kotoko managers are that the proud Kotoko didn’t do well and was nearly relegated in the 2009/2010 premier soccer season, that Kotoko spent nearly US$1-million on juju in the 2009/2010 season to no avail, and that despite all these juju dipping the level of motivation among Kotoko players was abysmally low to the point self-destruction. Kotoko’s comeuppance has come from such awful experiences and it has opened Kotoko to enlightenment.

Shaken to disbelieve, the Accra-based Daily Guide reported that “The newly appointed Kotoko Board of Directors, led by Dr. K.K. Sarpong, has stated that it has no interest in voodoo known in local parlance as ‘juju’, and would not spend the club’s money on ‘juju’ to win matches in the coming seasons.”

Kotoko’s ancient dabbling in juju emanates from the Ghanaian/African culture. Kotoko’s new found enlightenment reminds me of an interesting article I read weeks before the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. The author, a South African who sounds like an academic, suggested that either African juju mediums should use their craft to charm other non-African national teams to play bad for the six African teams to win hands down or individual African teams should seek the assistance of juju mediums to win the World Cup. (He failed to mention how the juju will work when two African teams play each other).

He recalled with seriousness how juju has been used in ancient African wars and other African endeavours and it is time juju is used by the African teams to win the World Cup. Anything like planning, tactics, discipline, efficiency and team work were minimized, or absent from the piece. After much laughter, I said to myself, here, Africa is moving backwards, the irrational outweighing the rational.

Whether Kotoko’s management enlightenment will have effect on individual players is different question in a culture where the players are socialized into juju and other such irrational beliefs. As a student at Kumasi High School (fondly called Kuhis), soccer-mad and one of Ghana’s top soccer schools, the intersection between juju and soccer was part of the soccer culture. In my years at Kuhis, during soccer matches, students were virtually forced to contribute money for juju rituals for the school to win games.

It doesn’t matter whether one belief in juju or not, one has to pay. The amusing part was that even the self-righteous “born again Christians” have to pay – you dare not refuse. Some of the top Kuhis players such as Simon Awuah (Sibo) and Albert Adade (Father) later played for top clubs Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko respectively. Before playing for these teams their minds had already been prepared, like other similar Ghanaian players.

Kotoko’s boss, Dr. Sarpong, wants the large amount of money used for juju used to “motivate” players, improve management and develop soccer infrastructure. That’s pretty sensible. And Dr. Sarpong is aware of the psychological implications of banning juju in a culture that has socialized the players and supporters into such beliefs. And to answer such implications, in a highly superstitious society of Ghana’s, Dr. Sarpong made it clear that “Kotoko fans that have firm belief in ‘juju’ could go ahead to do it at their own expense for the club. “They should not come to me for money for ‘juju.” That’s realistic, but it puts Dr. Sarpong’s thinking in a quandary.

And that makes Dr. Sarpong’s Kotoko enlightenment scheme limited, for whether Kotoko itself uses juju or supporters use juju to help Kotoko or individual players use juju, in the final analysis, Kotoko is using juju – it doesn’t matter where the juju is coming from. That makes the logical and the material in harmony, which in the Dr. Sarpong’s reasoning, shouldn’t be so – the juju shouldn’t mix with technicalities, discipline, tactics, efficiency and team work. Supposedly, to do so is to undermine Dr. Sarpong’s Kotoko enlightenment project.

For, the juju appropriation needn’t necessarily come from only Dr. Sarpong’s management; it could come from anybody – players, hardcore supporters and individual fans for Kotoko. Now come to think of Kotoko and Ghana in Dr. Sarpong’s thinking, Kotoko’s juju dilemma is a microcosm of the struggle Ghanaian/African enlightenment campaigners are going through – how to minimize the inhibitions within the culture and free the people for greater progress.

Garrison Duke Guest Bill Good show discussing StasCan Report on Hate Crimes

By Garrison Duke ,The Afro News Vancouver : Recently StatCan(Source) just released a shocking report on Hate Crimes, what was most startling about the report, was not the fact hate crimes existed in Canada, (being a Black Canadian I have known that for years especially growing up and living in Toronto.) The most surprising revelation was that Vancouver my home of now 17 years, was crowned the Hate Crimes capital of Canada! – yes Vancouver the city that most recently hosted the world for the 2010 games. The only good news in all of this is that the report was not released in January 2010 prior to the Games.

Make no mistake this is an alarming report and may have drawn attention to something foreboding! Something that perhaps has been quietly simmering below this city’s multi-cultural surface. The study indicates three major areas of concern, hate crimes that are directed at ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation.

The study released by StatsCan suggests the most offended group is the Black Community; they are the most common victims of hate crimes, especially by assault. This is very interesting to me, because when you think of the negative image that Blacks have received over the years- gangsters, pimps, wife abuser, muggers, and jailbirds you name it, in reality we are the ones that are the most victimized in society, and the history runs deep on this issue. Think about the Rodney King assault for minute or historical racial hotspots like Halifax, Toronto or Montreal where most often blacks are portrayed in a negative light in the news and media.

The disturbing fact about the Hate Crime report is that Vancouver with a small Black population 20-25,000 had proportionally the largest number of hate crime victims of the three major Canadian cities. That says something when you can beat Toronto with a Black population of over 300,000.

This report speaks to an issue I have advocated for years; Blacks need more representation in the top tiers of society. Our community needs political, economic and community influence. With the rise of Obama it may be perceived that blacks have arrived at the upper echelons of society. But here is the problem; there are not enough black mayors, senators and so on. In essence we can elect a Black Prime Minister but where are the black MPs, MLAs, Mayors and other community leaders of influence that really drive agendas and make laws that brings change to communities.

Our community also needs acceptance and inclusion, the level of tolerance must increase, marginalizing of particular groups must be discouraged at all levels of society. Until these issues are addressed reports like the one just released by StatCan will just amount to a passing fancy or topic of the 24 hour news cycle.

Garrison Duke, Guest Spot on The Bill Good Show June 16th .

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Ghana First President Dr Kwame Nkrumah and wife with Chieftains

Comment/Ghana/Africa  /By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong

Dr. Sekou Nkrumah, a member of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and third son of Ghana’s first President Kwame Nkrumah, has further added to the agony of the NDC by telling Africa Watch magazine that the so-called NDC founder Jerry Rawlings, who ruled Ghana as both a military dictator and elected president for almost 20 years, is “Ghana’s best leader compared to ex-president John Kufour and present President John Evans Atta Mills.”

In a Mills presidency distracted by NDC internal preposterousness, Mills sacked Sekou within hours of his uncalled for denigration, as director of the crucial National Youth Council, demonstrating Mills’ strong-will and dynamism.

But at issue isn’t the sacking of Sekou. The implications are much deeper – bordering on leadership, stability and progress. The fact is Sekou is wrong. Sekou, a political novice to the complex Ghanaian political scene, also said Mills, who has ruled for just one-and-half years, has no “charisma, dynamism and strong-will to lead Ghana.” Sekou is also wrong, for democracy has a way of correcting all these inadequacies. Charisma or not, Mills was voted by Ghanaians, and democracy has to have its way till Mills ends his term. It was Mills’ “charisma, dynamism and strong-will” that saw him navigate through the rough terrain of the Ghanaian political topography to win the 2008 elections.

What got into Sekou’s head for him to add to the internal troubles of the NDC? It is sheer stupidity. In a way, Sekou is a copy cat of Rawlings, re-echoing what Rawlings has earlier poisonously said of Mills – that Mills is “mediocre,” “dull,” and “slow,” and by extension, lacks strong-will and dynamism. The fact is democracy doesn’t mix with such one-party/military junta bravado. This is the very man Rawlings virtually imposed on the NDC in the first instance and later became President. Why will today this same Rawlings say all disgraceful things about Mills?

Dr Sekou Nkrumah

As a PHD holder in African literature, Sekou is expected to show more sophistication than the high school mark off Rawlings. But, yet, as Rawlings himself will tell you, having worked with PHDs in his almost 20 years rule, not all PHDs can think properly or are emotionally and intellectually mature. Rawlings, like Sierra Leone’s Siaka Stevens, has disgraced some PHDs he worked with in public for their foolishness. Sekou is part of this low breed.

Sekou’s thinking reveals how he doesn’t know Ghana, has no deeper sense of Africa’s political history and might have forgotten how his father was overthrown in 1966 – gradually he became a tyrant and believed he was something of a “special one sent by God.” Sekou is contemptible. If Sekou says Mills is mediocre and Rawlings knowing this, especially so since Mills was his Vice President, influenced the NDC with his famed magic and bullying to elect Mills as its presidential candidate, and later Mills won elections and became the President of Ghana, then Sekou’s view that Rawlings is the “best leader” and “visionary” is farce. “Best leaders” do not play with mediocrity; they play with the first rate no matter their views, as US President Barack Obama did, drawing from President Abraham Lincoln’s experiences, by bringing first rate people into his government though some (like Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State) were his adversaries.

Rawlings imposed Mills in an apparent attempt to command-and-control Mills from behind-the-scenes. But Mills has deflated him in the power game and distanced himself from Rawlings’ poor image, which is worsening everyday. That makes Rawlings not “visionary” and not the “best leader.” Today, if Sekou says Mills is mediocre then Rawlings is as well mediocre, since in the view of Sekou, there were first rate NDCs who would have been better presidents than Mills but Rawlings run them down (that made Dr. Obed Asamoah, Rawlings’ Justice Minister, to resign from the NDC) and brutally schemed for Mills to head Ghana. Why didn’t Rawlings go for the best but the supposedly weak Mills? Because Rawlings, extremely power intoxicated and mindless, wanted to command-and-control Mills (Rawlings had attempted same on Kufour but Kufour snubbed him) but Mills out-smarted him and has maintained his independence.

The fact is Mills is first-rate leader and nature’s democrat. From continental giant Nigeria to Tanzania, Mills is part of the leaders emerging in Africa today – humble, balanced, thoughtful, sophisticated, fair-minded, democratic, calm, non-aggressive, intellectually sophisticated, morally upright/God fearing, non-imperially threatening, in tune with universal governance practices, and at home with African traditional leadership values of consensus building.

Nigeria’s late President Shehu Musa Y’Aradu, Nigeria’s current President Goodluck Jonathan, Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Koroma, Liberia’s President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, Botswana’s President Ian Khama and Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete, among others, are the faces of the best kind of leaders emerging in Africa today. And not the Rawlings type of threats, bashful, violence, demeaning people, undemocratic, circling in their minds death, deviousness, and so semi-literate that they cannot comprehend higher issues wheeling around them and in their confusion paralyze their countries.

In “Reforming Leadership in Africa,” J. William Addai argues for the Botswana type of leadership attributes in reforming Africa’s leadership challenges, where the traditional is grafted with the modern. Mills and Kufour (including Prime Minister Kofi Busia and President Hilla Limann) demonstrated such best leadership attributes. And they are better leaders than Rawlings. As psychologists will explain, Rawlings transferred his personal failings, emotional disturbances and anger onto Ghana and muddled the whole leadership culture so much so that he find it difficult to differentiate between good and bad leaders as we see in his resentful dealings with Mills and Kufour, and his jaundiced opinion (as repeated by Sekou) that he is the “best leader” Ghana has ever had.

In African tradition, as the Asante and Yoruba ethnic groups reveal, tyranny is abhorred, and tyrants are quickly removed, sometimes even killed. The fact that Rawlings is a tyrant heavily disqualified him as the “best leader.” Globally, in modern governance practices, too, tyrants are bad news; they are danger to progress as we saw in Liberia under President Samuel Doe.

More seriously, Rawlings’ bad behaviour is counter to Ghanaian/African tradition and modern governance customs. Rawlings beat and disgraced his ministers and other functionaries, have been agitating the youth against personalities and inciting them to destroy property. So-called “Best leaders” do not behave like that. If in Sekou’s universe that’s the hallmark of “best leaders” with their charisma, strong-will and dynamism, in the Ghanaian/African tradition and universally, it isn’t a way of leading people anymore.

“Hard, visible circumstance defines reality,” the journalist-thinker Lance Morrow quoted John Kenneth Galbraith, the American economist, as saying. Realistically, it was the wrong perceptions of strong-willed and charismatic leader in Africa, as Sekou might have imbibed from his father and Rawlings, that brought about years of tyranny, fear, destructive dictatorships, threats to life and threats to the foundation of the state to the extent of some African states exploding, and generally very poor governance regimes. The never-ending predicaments of the Democratic Republic Congo are as a result of this.

In such an environment, as Galbraith’s hard reality indicates, the African Big Man syndrome rapidly nurtures the likes of Rawlings, who grow quickly and with the help of sycophants and tribalists, juju-marabout mediums and other twisted spiritualists (and the likes of unsophisticated elites like Sekou), believes and thinks they are God sent, extraordinary ones, or something like that. And in the long run destroy their country.

The new face of Africa’s leadership corrects all these destructive one-party and military junta type of “strong-will, dynamism and charisma” mumbo-jumbo by nurturing leadership styles of consensus–building, intellectual sophistication, better grasp of Africa, non-aggression, calmness, moral worthiness, high thoughtfulness, humility and non-imperially threatening environment.

Honorable Evelyn Greaves, High Commissioner of Barbados in Canada Second Left Photo By KMG -TAN

NCBAC (National Council of Barbadians in Canada) in conjunction with the local organization BCABC (Barbados Cultural Association of British Columbia) celebrated its 26th anniversary in Burnaby, British Columbia on May 21st – 24th, 2010.

The weekend of activities included workshops, a cultural show and a grand gala banquet at the Hilton Vancouver Metro Town Hotel. The guest speaker at the banquet was the Honorable David Thompson, Prime Minister of Barbados. The Afro News had the opportunity to speak with the Honorable Evelyn Greaves, High Commissioner of Barbados in Canada.

We asked the Honorable Evelyn Greaves how he viewed the outcome of the celebrated event:

“I am very impressed with the work of the contributors and very proud of what we were able to achieve.”

He added that there are many Barbadian contributors in Canada that have done a tremendous work in our society. Their works and profiles should be recognized and are being captured in a book that will be released in November 2010 in conjunction with the Barbados Independence Day. This book will feature the works of modern day professionals, a Neurological Surgeon that practices here in Vancouver, a top doctor in Cancer Research that works in Alberta, and a doctor that works in Toronto who discovered a cancer gene along with past contributors, Colonel Richard Clement Moody, the founder of Port Moody and Joe Fortes a legendary figure in the early history of Vancouver who today has a popular restaurant located in downtown Vancouver and a public library branch in his name.

The High Commissioner encouraged not only Barbadians but everyone to get a copy of the book, because not only will it be a record of contribution of Barbadians in building Canada, but it will also be a conductor of inspiration in which our youth and young Barbadians will see as great figures and role models in society.

Honorable Evelyn Greaves added that education is important and that Barbadians put a high emphasis on education. One of the guest speakers at the event said that “I don’t understand how a small country of Barbados could produce people of such quality”.

We also asked the High Commissioner what his view of Canadian Entrepreneurship is:

He responded that Tourism is a vital part of Barbados economy and growth is expected in this sector. The culture in Barbados is a rich commodity; however, this can’t be exported but serves as a great promotion tool to have people visit Barbados.

Barbados also provides countries like Canada, USA and England with a clean record for offshore investments and that their country is on a ‘white’ list for the country’s effort in clean energy and quality of conditions for laborers.

Lastly we asked for his advice for our youth:

The youth are our future. We have to give, show and inspire them with the values of victories that have been raised in Barbados. They need to recognize that they live in a world with so many cultures and conflicts that they will have to live with but they have to pay attention to a value system like education and health in order to make a mark in the world!

TAN Le recensement des villes et provinces du Reste du Canada

Plusieurs semblent s’insurger devant la décision du gouvernement Harper de mettre fin à l’obligation de répondre au long questionnaire envoyé précédemment au cinquième de la population, la partie qui allait au-delà de la langue maternelle. Recensement après recensement, l’assimilation des francophones et une réduction de leur proportion dans la démographie canadienne sont pourtant déjà manifestes. Le déclin rappelle celui du manque de leadership ou volonté politique que le Commissaire aux langues officielles observe rapport après rapport.

D’autre part, on sait fort bien que les données du recensement sont utilisées par les bureaucrates et politiciens des villes et provinces du Reste du Canada (RdC) pour justifier toutes prestations de services potentiellement reliées au français : bibliothèque, musée, culture, relations publiques/affichage, service à la clientèle, personnel, écoles d’immersion, enseignement post-secondaire, etc. Il est électoralement donc rentable en temps de coupures de réallouer les budgets aux démographies asiatiques montantes, par exemple. Nos amis asiatiques, anglophones ou issus de la nouvelle immigration qui très souvent par le passé envoyaient leurs enfants en immersion réalisent que le français n’est plus considéré sérieusement et s’en éloignent. Inutile de mentionner l’impact sur notre prochaine génération de francophones, les nouveaux arrivants francos ou encore les derniers résistants.

Pourquoi donc alors tant s’entêter à continuer de mesurer le taux de mortalité des francophones dans le RdC aux 5 ans? Cette pratique n’a certes pas aidé à mettre à jour les politiques publiques canadiennes en matière de dualité linguistique et médias, parmi autres. Pourquoi ne pas plutôt essayer de voir quelle nouvelle réalité linguistique l’a remplacé dans un monde multilingue et super branché?

Témoin d’un déclin récent marqué de la situation du français dans l’Ouest canadien, je ne peux que conclure que ceux qui se préoccupent des données linguistiques du recensement sont isolés dans des ghettos linguistiques institutionnels autant dysfonctionnels que mal branchés. De meilleures politiques publiques reliées à une reprise de français pourraient être élaborées si plus de canadiens étaient motivés à leur brasser la cage. Entre temps, je désespère…

 Réjean Beaulieu, Vancouver