- Catch me discussing Libya,Gaddafi's murder and its wider geo-political implications on Metro TV's " Good Evening Ghana" tomorrow 25/10/2011 @ 22:00hrs GMT.
- I go head to head with Prof. Chan of the School of African and Oriental Studies(SOAS) on the very provocative question of who is more racist: Europe or China?( June ,2011 edition of the Africa Report magazine).
Please see link: http://www.theafricareport.com/archives2/the-question/5140962-is-china-more-racist-than-europe.html
- The John Mensah Sarbah piece which was discussed on the g-mail thread(before the transition to this site) was published as a letter on page 10 of the 25th May, 2011 edition of the Daily Graphic newspaper. The full text is reproduced below:
I was grading the work of one of my students( I asked the student to review the biography of Sarbah written by Justice Azu Crabbe for her Leadership Seminar) when it hit me that 27th November,2010 marked the Centenary of the premature passing of this great compatriot,jurist,thinker, patriot and Africanist of the Gold Coast. It seemed to have passed without the slightest remembrance/commemoration in this our Republic( not even the lawyers remembered :)).
Famous for his trenchant and uncompromising stand against the Lands Bill of 1897 which sought to " vest waste lands,forest lands and minerals in the Crown' Sarbah refused to accept the handsome sum of 400 guineas which the Aborigines Rights Protection Society( of which he was a member) sought to remunerate him for a job well done(marshaling compelling legal arguments against the proposed law). This is what Sarbah wrote in immortal, fiery words :
I do not spurn or refuse the very handsome retainer of 400 guineas; but in serving my country the land of my birth within her own borders, I seek no reward nor expect any remuneration, and did I ever dream of any recognition for such humble services which I have performed, the fact that, at such a crisis my country men selected me to plead their cause is in itself a solemn honour which will not be unremembered or unappreciated by me. I shall always treasure the confidence which, in this instance, my country men have reposed in me.
To this his contemporary Danquah(1937) wrote: "nothing nobler was ever uttered from the heart of a patriot." Sarbah's(1906 in his work The Fanti National Constitution) admonition to his educated compatriots was as prophetic then as it is relevant then and now :
He who used his opportunities to help raise the masses of his brethren to his own high level is following his destiny, and cannot be engaged in a nobler work. But when, from indifference or deliberate choice, an educated African becomes a tool of Europeans of the baser sort, and keeps back, directly or indirectly, the masses in ignorance and superstition, he becomes the greatest enemy of his down-trodden and long-suffering race; and the greater his educational attainments and opportunities, the graver his fault and personal guilt.
As we tap the oil with faulty metres may we remember those of our compatriots like Sarbah who ensured that our heirlooms remained just that.
