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| RE: The Nandom Chieftaincy Dispute – The Other Side Of The Story |
11/18/2005 |
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RE: The Nandom Chieftaincy Dispute – The Other Side Of The Story
In an article published on Saturday October 29, 2005 captioned “The Nandom Chieftaincy Dispute – The Other Side of The Story”, a certain Mr. Chrisanthus Dambole-Naa rises to the defense of Mr. Ambrose Dery the Upper West Regional Minister, while at the same time rubbishing the Nandom Royal Family, currently embroiled in a dispute over the legitimacy of the current occupant of the Nandom Skin. While I must state upfront that Mr. Dambole-Naa’s tirade makes a bizarre connection in the way he presents his case, his entire article is most symptomatic of a more serious problem of intellectual falsehood, historical and factual inaccuracies, which are the hallmark of a deeply dishonest person. This article therefore is intended to address some of these intellectual and analytical transgressions as peddled by Mr. Dambole-Naa and to set the records straight.
Hear (read) Mr. Dambole-Naa as he waxes philosophical: “To understand this, the words of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the well known French philosopher is instructive. He once said in French the following: “Nous aimons toujours ce qui nous admirent. Mais, n’aimons pas ce que nous admirons”, which when translated means “We always like those who admire us, but we never like those we admire””
The truth is, to simply wax philosophical is not by itself sufficient. One must be accurate and truthful to the philosophy and the philosopher one cites so brazenly; and of course the citation must be appropriate. For instance, I doubt completely that Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French who worked hard and rose to aristocratic levels (from an odd jobs man to Ambassador), with the accompanying education, would write or speak such extremely bad French. The grammatical and semantic structure of the piece Mr. Dambole-Naa quotes is fraught with pitfalls: “Nous aimons toujours ce qui nous admirent. Mais, n’aimons pas ce que nous admirons” -
the use of “ce” in “ce qui” and “ce que” are unacceptable in French in this particular sentence and structure. The third person plural form of the verb admirer (to admire in English) which is “admirent” as used in Mr. Dambole-Naa’s quotation, should agree with the demonstrative pronoun/adjective “ce qui” which is in admissible in this sentence because it is in the third person singular, which again conflicts with the verb “admirent”. Further, translating these phrases as “those who” and “those” is completely wrong, and “ce qui” and “ce que” in this context would refer more appropriately to a situation and an inanimate subject and since inanimate things and situations are incapable of admiring people (and only the reverse is true), what is the point of Mr. Dambole-Naa’s bad French? If indeed Jean Jacques Rousseau said this, he would more appropriately have said: Nous aimons toujours ceux qui nous amdirent, mais n’aimons pas ceux que nous admirons. This should then translate somewhat into what Mr. Dambole-Naa renders in English. Poor Rousseau, he must be turning in his grave to have been so vastly misrepresented and misquoted. If Mr. Dambole-Naa did study French, he apparently did not learn his French well enough and his French Teachers must be disappointed reading his piece. So why did he not simply spare readers the pain of his bad French? The answer is simple – this style is characteristic of many a secondary school debater of the days of old, during which citing even non-descript and non-existent authorities, erroneously indicated to a more sensationally focused crowd of cheering and under informed students that the debater was widely read. If this is the case with Mr. Dambole-Naa, then he is simply holding on to hackneyed quotations from an era and a glory long dead and vastly irrelevant to the adult world of serious thinkers today.
True Quotes and False Quotes So is Mr. Dambole-Naa’s bad French simply a case of poor linguistic ability? Certainly not, it is worse than that; it is a case of grievous mis-quotation and mis-attribution. To set the records straight, Mr. Dambole-Naa’s rendering in English of the philosophical saying under review here should more appropriately have read: We always like those who admire us, but we do not always like those whom we admire. In this case, one of the controlling words here would be “always”, but he deliberately or ignorantly omits this emphasis. In addition, there are significant factual inaccuracies pertaining to this quotation which I feel compelled to point out, not only as a duty to properly inform and educate, but also do give credit where credit is due and do justice to the hard work of deserving people.
First, Jean Jacques Rousseau, while a philosopher, did not provide that saying. The author of this saying is actually Francois de La Rochefoucauld, a French author and moralist who lived from 1613 – 1680, long before Rousseau lived from 1712 - 1778. Rochefoucauld was a keen observer of the Court of Louis XIV. The intention here is not to provide a lecture on Rochefoucauld, but to state unequivocally that Mr. Dambole-Naa misquoted, one more indication of the intellectual dishonesty which characterized his article.
Second, the closest Jean Jacques Rousseau ever came to discussing love and admiration, is in his well-known work Narcissus also known as The Self-Admirer, a comedy written some time earlier in 1752 and first performed for the King’s Court on or about December 18, 1752. In this play, Rousseau discusses a man so pre-occupied with his own qualities that he ignores the genuine attentions of a beautiful woman. Eventually, the woman tricks him to fall in love with a portrait of himself, disguised as a woman, thereby making a fool of the man. If this was the intended quote of Mr. Dambole-Naa, then it more appropriately applies to Mr. Ambrose Dery and lackeys like Dambole-Naa himself, who are so indulgent in self-praise, and like the sheep in George Orwell’s Animal Farm are so fixated on bleating the Master’s praises, that everybody else’s positive contributions to anything good simply cease to exist. By contrast, this is what is particularly uncharacteristic of Dzang, famous for preferring to work hard behind the scenes in quiet honesty and diplomacy. This is a trait of Dzang that Mr. Dery and Mr. Dambole-Naa must truly be envious of.
On October 30, 2005, a certain Paschal, comments on Mr. Dambole-Naa’s French on SIL Ghana (Ghanaweb’s opinion platform), succinctly pointing out the elements of bad French and the misrepresentation of Rousseau’s quote, perhaps as a diplomatic way of nudging Dambole-Naa to correct the errors or even to admit to the misquotation and misrepresentation. Yet, either out of stubbornness or due to gross ignorance, Mr. Dambole-Naa only yields slightly, blaming the mistakes on typographical errors, while still insisting that the quote is correct in its entirety. The following is Mr. Dambole-Naa’s response in its entirety: [To Paschal, the translation is correct. The typo s in the french sentence. What is typed as "Mais, n’aimons pas ce que nous admirons" should read "Mais nous n''aimons pas ce qui nous admirons". Sorry for the error, and other typos you may still find in the article.” Thanks. Dambole-Naa].
How can erroneously citing a source be blamed on mistakes typographical? This remains baffling to many readers. This begs the somewhat clichéd sayings attributed to Sir Richard Burton and several other sources, to wit:
He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool; shun him. He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a student; teach him. He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep; wake him up. He who knows and knows that he knows is a wise man; follow him.
Perhaps, Mr. Dambole-Naa was counting on being the one-eyed man in a land of blind people. Too bad, Nandom boasts of very highly enlightened people and Mr. Dambole-Naa cannot insult their intelligence. If Mr. Dambole-Naa made a name bamboozling others with this questionable behaviour, then he is completely out of luck this time.
I would not like readers to think that this is simply a critique of Mr. Dambole-Naa’s linguistic ability and false quotations alone. His ability to analyze very fundamental issues lacks both substance and logical premise. He makes chieftaincy a development issue and, for once, I concur that chieftaincy ought to play a more concrete and constructive role in development. Development is partly about welfare outcomes benefiting the majority of people, right? Well if “within the short period that Ambrose has been in politics, he has contributed more to the development of the ordinary people of Nandom” according to Mr. Dambole-Naa, then how does one explain the fact that he lost the last Parliamentary Election 33% to 62%, in which the winner Dr. Ben Kuubuor almost doubled the percentage of votes garnered by Mr. Dery? How is it that the “ordinary people” eligible to vote and voting in the last election, (who form a majority in Nandom and Lawra) did not confirm this view of Mr. Dery? Is Mr. Dambole-Naa again impugning the intelligence of the Lawra-Nandom electorate? So why will Mr. Dambole-Naa make such an inordinately false claim? Simple, like his French and citations, his basic arithmetic is equally suspect or sketchy at best; so although the loss is a matter of record and statistical significance with real social and political implications, the real meaning of that number is completely lost on Mr. Dambole-Naa. Above all else, his proclivity for fabrication and peddling falsehoods is almost legendary as revealed in his piece. So clearly, but for an appointment by the President (which by itself is not bad), Mr. Ambrose Dery would not be the politician that Mr. Dambole-Naa falsely paints so glowingly; indeed Mr. Ambrose Dery would by now be facing the full import of the loss (33% to 62%) he suffered. Is Mr. Dery currently a creation of politics? Certainly, and that by itself is not bad; it is what the “creature” does with its existence or creation which matters.
Re: A Word of Advice. Mis-education or Mis-Advisement ? On a much higher note however, this debate is not about Dzang and Mr. Dery, for whatever it is that Mr. Dery is currently aspiring to, Dzang has “been there, done that and excelled”. What is at stake is salvaging a once respectable institution, now hijacked partly by people who have completely disregarded laid down customary procedure in order to, and continue to, illegitimately occupy the Nandom Skin, and partly by people with deep animosity against royalty in general and specifically against the further development of the Nandom Traditional Area, while benefiting from the illegitimate occupation of the position of Nandom Naa by a fraudulent individual. Most readers agree that this is the major thrust of Mr. Tierkaa’s article. The Nandom Chieftaincy institution is much larger than Dzang, and definitely more so than Mr. Ambrose Dery, who is an outsider to the Nandom Royal Family. Dzang is not.
Also, this debate is certainly not against what Mr. Ambrose Dery represents or claims to represent per se, for no one, least of all Dzang, gives a nun’s fart, as to Mr. Dery’s rise to power or his falling therefrom. However, in so far as Mr. Dery chooses to use his new status to subvert the Nandom Chieftaincy, on the basis of falsehoods and pure hatred, then he can rest assured that not only Dzang, but also citizens of Nandom, concerned for the welfare and development of Nandom and the Nandom Chieftaincy, will rise up to the defense of the area and that institution. It is in the defense of that institution that I write this piece and also to straighten out the inaccuracies and the ignorant or deliberate misrepresentations peddled by Mr. Dambole-Naa’s article.
Discerning readers know that if Mr. Dambole-Naa’s claim is true, that Dzang’s military background is sufficient indication of a secret plan on the part of Dzang to violently disrupt anything in Nandom, I am quite certain that Dzang is sufficiently endowed with the foresight to have exercised such an advantage much earlier in the days when he had that kind of power directly bestowed on him by his office. As irresponsible as such an act would have been, despicable characters like Mr. Dambole-Naa would have been long dead, sparing humanity and the people of Nandom in particular, the vermin that Mr. Dambole-Naa represents. Fortunately, Dzang can rise above such barbaric behaviour, which according to Mr. Tierkaa, is not the conduct Mr. Dery exhibited when he was faced with the problem of a peaceful demonstration in Nandom.
Finally, the worst one can do to himself is to continue digging when one is in a hole. Mr. Ambrose Dery, will do well not to heed the advice of persons such as Mr. Dambole-Naa, given the fact that the man can hardly get his facts right; in fact, he is more likely to grossly misrepresent Mr. Dery’s views and when the chips are down, and it will be Mr. Dery who takes the flak for all these inaccuracies and misrepresentations. It is equally sad, that given the level of education and expertise that Nandom can boast of, which is of course well-known, Mr. Dery’s choice of Mr. Dambole-Naa as an “Advisor” of some sort erroneously conveys the impression that this is the best Nandom has to offer – a bunch of half-baked, intellectually dishonest, analytically deficient, selfish and unlettered misfits, masquerading as persons working for the welfare of the ordinary people of the Nandom Traditional Area. On the other hand, if Mr. Dambole-Naa unilaterally arrogated to himself the job of “Advisor to Mr. Dery”, then his arrogance is typical of an ignorant fool and Mr. Dery can only suffer by that association. The best and brightest of Nandom far exceed the incapacities displayed by Mr. Dambole-Naa. Mr. Dery, please heed the advice of Sir Richard Burton – shun Mr. Dambole-Naa.
I rest my case for now, but look forward to Mr. Dambole-Naa’s fireless smoke, perhaps with more candour, more honesty and a deeper understanding and representation of the facts of the Nandom Chieftaincy dispute next time around. Oh, and he might do well to refrain from speaking for poor Mr. Dery, who has already lost quite a considerable amount of credibility following Mr. Dambole-Naa’s article.
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