TAN – The Afro News

Le Gravy Train

L’archaïsme a-t-il fait son temps?

Un politicien populiste se faisait élire récemment pour avoir dénoncé une situation de “Gravy Train” ayant cours dans la mairie d’une grande métropole canadienne. Pourtant la plupart des gens aspirent à embarquer sur un tel train en temps de déclin économique. Que le train tourne en rond et n’aille nulle part importent peu. Il est après tout rassurant de voir de la continuation à quelque part en ces temps incertains. Read the full story

Sergeant John Faught

STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA

Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued the following statement today on the death in Afghanistan of Sergeant John Wayne Faught:

“It is with great sorrow that I extend my condolences, and those of all Canadians, to the family and friends of Sergeant John Wayne Faught, who died today in Afghanistan. He was killed by an improvised explosive device while on a joint Afghan National Army-Canadian Battle Group dismounted security patrol in the Panjwayi District.

“I join with Canadians, who stand proudly with our men and women of the Canadian Forces as they courageously risk their lives every day to bring peace and security to the people of Afghanistan.

“The courage demonstrated by Sergeant Faught speaks volumes of his dedication to our country and to this mission. Canada will remain steadfast, and Taliban attacks will not deter our efforts to help Afghanistan achieve peace and stability.

“Sergeant Faught was helping to bring back hope to a population that has seen much hardship and turmoil. He gave his life not only to protect Canadians and our national interests, but also to provide hope to Afghans for a better future.

“The sacrifice Sergeant John Wayne Faught made in the name of Canada and the Canadian people will not be forgotten.”

By Jack Toronto The Afro News Delta

Sex for sale. It’s everywhere but at age 22 I’d never seen it as openly before. In bars and night clubs, in the lounge of the Government Rest House, at the movie theatre, alongside the fresh vegetables hawked outside Kingsway Stores and door-to-door. Sexuality was treated openly and casually in Ghana, certainly more than in Southern Ontario in the mid-‘60s. Add widespread poverty and the prominence of female sex workers was hardly surprising.

Getting an honest-to-goodness date with a young Ghanaian woman was a completely different matter, at least for me. And I wasn’t alone in this. Looking back I can’t recall any white male in a dating relationship with a Ghanaian woman that was based on mutual attraction and respect.

But I tried… and I tried… and I tried…and I tried…

A waitress at The Café de France, a top-end chop house restaurant serving rice with great meat sauces, was cute, animated and petite. I chatted with her in my most congenial manner, I smiled at her when I saw her get on the bus that rattled around Tamale on its erratic schedule and I thought we’d reached the stage of exchanging names that day when she came to my Café table, leaned close and said softly, “You’re wasting your time.” I saw her with her Ghanaian boyfriend at the movies later that week.

A woman at an end-of-term staff party invited me to dance Kpanlogo, a dance that originated with the Ga people in the ‘60s and then swept the country. ”Provocative” is one word that could be used to describe Kpanlogo. “Raunchy” would be better. Would a woman invite me to do this dance without actually liking me? You bet. I never saw her again.

I first saw “Vanessa” at the Tamale polo field. She had accompanied a member of the Accra polo team on their northern excursion to play the Tamale squad. (I was not a member of the Tamale Polo Club but it was a good place to hang around in hopes of being treated to a drink.) I was enchanted and entranced but not too stunned to step up and talk to her. We conversed! We exchanged addresses and after she returned to Accra we began a regular correspondence. She asked me to send her a snapshot of myself and sent me her picture. Through Vanessa I came to know a bit about Ghana’s financial and cultural elite. Her father owned rental property in London and she had studied fashion design there. Quason Sackey, former Chairman of the General Assembly of the United Nations, was a family friend. No longer on air with Ghana Broadcasting, Vanessa worked in production at the GBC when I knew her.

We got together a few times when I made vacation trips to Accra – a movie, a few informal dinners and a visit to Broadcast House where I met some of her friends and colleagues. I was blithely unaware of the attitude of many people in the street when we were out together until one fellow’s scowl was too obvious to ignore. Could it be that many people who saw us together assumed she was a prostitute? Yes, it could. Our face-to-face time in Accra was never as relaxed and flowing as in our letters and before long the relationship was over.

The lesson? Full communication and understanding in a relationship is hard, doubly so when the two people involved come from vastly different backgrounds. That I was an avid student of Ghanaian life and that Vanessa had extensive knowledge and experience of British life were not enough to bridge the assumptions and belief systems of the cultural chasm.

It’s hard but not impossible. Kuk Yan, my wife, is Chinese.

Contributing Ghana memories to The Afro News since June has been a personally rewarding trip into my past and a stimulus to bring myself up-to-date on the country’s current reality.

Ghanaians deserve to be proud of the progress toward democracy and effective governance which led President Obama to choose their country for his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa in July but more is needed.  One of the major problems the country now faces is intertribal violence on its northern grasslands.  Rooted in tribal relationships dating to the 15^th Century or earlier and abetted by British indirect rule policies introduced in 1932, ethnic conflict in the north smouldered for centuries before erupting thirty years ago.  The best historical overview, analysis of causes and consequences of recent violence and recommendations for positive change that I have encountered are in “Conflicts in Northern Ghana,” a paper by John Kusimi and others, Ghanaians all.

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Prof. George Ayittey

SPECIAL INTERVIEW (Part 2)  Development/Africa

Emerging African development thinking (2)

Kofi Akosah-Sarpong continues his discussions with Prof. George Ayittey on his argument that US President Barack Obama’s Accra speech that Africa’s future is in Africans hands is an “intellectual vindication” for the “Internalist School” of African development

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Special to The Afro News – Vancouver

Aug 30 La Palabre radio show in studio panelists John Nuraney, MLA Burnaby-Willingdon Patience Nzamakunda Deidre Heim Honore Gbedze (DJ KMG) Jenipher Wasike, REACH Multicultural Family Services Jenny Francis MA student at UBC Bitisho Bembeleza

On August 30, 2008, a public radio forum sponsored by The Afro News and La Palabre Radio Program aired live on the topic of “Settlement Issues of African Immigrants & Refugees. The panel discussion and call in segment explored the theme of “How can we make Vancouver a better place to live?” The show was hosted and sponsored by La Palabre’s director and Afro News Publisher, Honore Gbedze. The show runs weekly on Saturdays in the 11:00 a.m to noon time slot on 96.1 FM in Vancouver. It offers local and international listeners news, interviews, special features and music of interest to Afric peoples, their co-workers and friends round the globe. The special call in show featured guest panelists: Dr. Charles Quist-Adade, Professor of Sociology and Geography at Kwantlen and UBC (phone in), John Nuraney, MLA Burnaby-Willingdon, Jenipher Wasike, REACH Multicultural Family Services, Patience Nzamakunda, a Vancouver refugee claimant, Bitisho Bembeleza, a government assisted refugee and Jenny Francis, MA student at UBC, author of forthcoming HRSDC report: African Immigrants/Refugees’ Experiences of Housing & Homelessness in Greater Vancouver.

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By Thomas J. Powell

The following is a fictional example. It never happened, except for in my head.  June, 2006  Las Vegas, Nev.

There is and always has been stiff competition between Las Vegas casinos. Located miles from the strip, Sin and Tonic Casino relies on clever ideas from their owner, Dale, to increase profits. In the summer of 2005, Dale decided to unveil a ‘Play Now, Pay Later’ program to his loyal customers. Dale’s customers, most of whom rarely left the casino because they had no home or job to maintain, were allowed to gamble and drink while management kept tabs on how much money they were each blowing through.

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