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| The Life And Times Of J. J. Rawlings - Part 7 |
10/29/2005 |
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The Life And Times Of J. J. Rawlings - Part 7
In the wake of my ongoing series of essays titled “The Life and Times of JJ Rawlings,” quite a remarkable number of Mr. Rawlings’ apologists impudently and variously styling themselves as “Trokosi Nationalists,” “Trokosi Theorists” and “Trokosi Ideologues” have opportunely emerged out of the proverbial woodworks. This simply means that our righteous and relentless campaign aimed at extirpating - or thoroughly stamping out - terrorism in Ghana is fast gaining ground. And while we are quite impressed by the impact registered thus far, we also fully recognize the fact that we cannot rest on our oars - or proverbial laurels - for much more needs to be done in order to definitively put the sacred reins of governance and the people’s mandate beyond the sinister, lethal and regressive reach of the terror-minted pseudo-political machinery that is the so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC).
The latest Trokosi Theorist to identify himself as such, or more appropriately bare his fangs, as it were, is a Dr. Ahmed Bawa Kuyini, a presumable Ghanaian exile resident in Melbourne, Australia. He is known to write on religious issues; thus, when he vituperatively lit into this writer, both personally and intellectually, it might have quite erroneously come off to many of his unsuspecting and “non-specialist” readers as an event of moment or worthy of their sedulous attention. The pity here, alas, is that quite the diametrically opposite was, in fact, the case. For while he wisely steered clear of subjects and issues of whose expertise he was completely unschooled, Dr. Kuyini might almost certainly have come off to his readers as a scholar and an astute intellectual - almost a genius, in fact. Unfortunately, since the man is veritably none of the above, it was just a matter of time before he pathetically and embarrassingly exposed himself for what he essentially is - an intellectual façade, a cardboard and a scam-artist of the most disgusting and vile order.
For starters, Dr. Kuyini imperiously assumes the pontifical pose of master-defender of the patently indefensible. The man rather vacuously asserts: “I am here to defend Rawlings” on the morally opprobrious question of “Trokosi,” almost as if there is anything worthy of a defense, including the abominable personality of Mr. Jeremiah John Rawlings (see “J. J. Rawlings, Trokosi and Dr. Okoampa-Ahoofe,” Ghanaweb.com 10/15/05). No wonder, Mr. Kuyini almost immediately hits a stonewall. In sum, here is how the Trokosi National Theorist defends his trade and his master: “For many peoples of other cultures whose ways of life are disrupted by the singular acts of Governments through regulation/legislations[sic], there always occurs [sic] periods of psychological disequilibrium that may even lead to more negative consequences. Trokosi had/has both merits and demerits for those who practised it, and in cultural relativity terms, other peoples who found/find it unacceptable must work from other positions to influence [effect?] change. And clearly, one does not have [to?] be part of the [a particular?] ethnic group to work towards its abolition. Many centuries before the coming of the Europeans, different groups in Ghana practised other atrocities, which have now been prohibited, but some are still inclined to engaging in these practices. Are we to hold Nkrumah, Ankrah, Afrifa, Busia, Acheampong, etc., liable? Yet Dr. Ahoofe holds Rawlings accountable for failing to stop a practice that is engrained in the spirit of a community, and in some way defines the meaning of life as well as their existence as a people”(Ghanaweb.com 10/15/05).
Indeed, it is the preceding kind of patent and brazen intellectual dishonesty that should earn the utmost contempt of any scholar worthy of such designation. First of all, Mr. Kuyini cavalierly ignores the fact that, for example, the Rawlings-championed Intestate Succession/Inheritance laws were almost singularly and squarely about the “way…of life [and] existence” of the Akan people. Or is Mr. Kuyini implying that the Akan people of Ghana have no traditional ways of meaningful existence worthy of being respected by the erstwhile Rawlings-led Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC)? Or is it simply that under the critic’s understanding of “cultural relativity,” the Ewe people belong to the human species while the Akan people do not? Needless to say, the issue at stake here is not whether the Intestate Succession/Inheritance laws had any merits or demerits but, rather, squarely the fact that the unelected and undemocratic PNDC regime deemed it quite appropriate to proscribe an essential aspect of the traditional lifestyle of the majority of Ghanaians, even while at the same time pretending that the even more deleterious practice of Trokosi was simply mainstream or normal. There is a well-known term for such brazen and impudent practice of double-standards: Where I come from in Ghana, we call it “Abject Hypocrisy.” Also, cynically applying the logic of “Internal Selective Exclusion” by claiming that though an Ewe, Mr. Rawlings does not practice Trokosi, nor do all Ewes subscribe to the practice, and therefore the former head-of-state cannot be held responsible for his failure to proscribe the odious practice of Trokosi, would not wash. I am no more partially my ethnicity than either Mr. Rawlings or Mr. Kuyini, for that matter. In sum, we cannot expediently decide which aspects of our cultures to own up to or summarily disown on grounds of public embarrassment, as Mr. Kuyini deviously appears to be doing.
Perhaps Mr. Kuyini and his fellow Trokosi journeymen and women ought to have been present in New York City in the wake of the historic appointment of Mr. Kofi Annan as the first indigenous African Secretary-General of the United Nations Organization (UN). This writer vividly remembers the quite influential and three-term mayor of New York City, Edward I. Koch’s vehement call for the summary withdrawal of Mr. Annan’s appointment on the quite specious, albeit understandable, grounds that as UN Secretary-General, His Excellency could not morally advocate for the cessation and proscription of multivaried atrocities committed elsewhere around the globe while in his own country, and among his own people, there existed one of the most primitive and barbaric forms of ritual enslavement. Back then, if memory serves this writer accurately, Mr. Annan had to publicly make a statement assuring the proverbial international community that progressive efforts were under way to stamp out the egregious practice of Trokosi.
And here also, we recall the fact that in 1979, in the wake of his so-called June 4th Revolution, Flt.-Lt. Jeremiah John Rawlings was invited by the Chief and people of Winneba, in the Central Region of Ghana, to keynote their annual Aboakyir Festival. It is interesting to note that the Aboakyir Festival is also known as the Deer-Hunting Festival. In brief, festal activities culminate with competing Asafo (or traditional military) companies returning from the forest with a game of deer. On the occasion during which Mr. Rawlings was invited, the extant Chairman of the erstwhile Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), literally, “disgraced” the entire people of Winneba and their chief by impugning their capacity for common sense vis-à-vis their persistence in pursuing the Deer-Hunting festal regime even as the forest population of deer appeared to be drastically at the risk of complete depletion. And so it is quite interesting for Mr. Kuyini to be pretending that Mr. Rawlings is being gratuitously arrogated a “revolutionary vision” that is patently out of hock with our subject’s own singularly defined revolutionary ideals, assuming that Mr. Rawlings, indeed, was or is capable of any such ideals, be they noble or ignoble. It is also significant to point out that as an incorrigibly self-centered terrorist, Mr. Rawlings has no peers or kin among the likes of Presidents Nkrumah, Limann, Busia, Akufo-Addo, Kufuor, Kotoka, Ankrah, Afrifa, Akuffo and Acheampong. And it is rather intellectually dishonest, fatuous and atrocious to pretend, as Mr. Kuyini does, that Mr. Rawlings is a conventional leader, even by the most liberal, or watered-down, standards.
It is also quite interesting for the cynical Melbourne exile to accuse this writer of unconscionably purveying “a black African classical racists [sic] philosophy” even while immitigably maintaining a brazenly racist attitude of abject contempt towards the Akan majority of Ghana (Ghanaweb.com 10/15/05). For instance, while the ardent Trokosi Theorist claims a special pleading for his trade, impudently asserting: “If Rawlings had instituted and executed such draconian measures against those who practice Trokosi, I am very certain that his actions would have drawn criticism from many a quarter [sic] because it would amount [sic] to religious persecution,” while regarding the Mafia-style execution of the three Akan Ghanaian High Court judges and the retired army officer, Mr. Kuyini disingenuously writes: “It is important to state here before I proceed, that revolutions bring incredibly unacceptable consequences - suffering and pain to lots of people unleashed by unjust acts of the prevailing power intoxication. So for Rawlings and his men of the AFRC, any injustices that came with June 4th (if they ever reflect over them) should/ought to invoke a sense of guilt, pity, and/or regret, which would haunt them for the rest of their lives”(Ghanaweb.com 10/15/05).
In other words, for Mr. Kuyini, the Akan majority which disproportionately suffered Mr. Rawlings’ AFRC-PNDC atrocities have no constitutional and legal right to justice, on the rather preposterous grounds that such atrocities are quite conventional and, in fact, the routine fare of “revolutions.” In effect, says Mr. Kuyini, we should only hope that the pathologically criminal likes of Mr. Rawlings shall see remorse, or contrition, and voluntarily amend their evil ways in due course. Of course, it cannot be gainsaid that Mr. Kuyini is entitled to his own right of abject disrespect for the Akan people. And needless to say, we, Akans, do not have the luxury of sitting duck while the cream of our community, and Ghana’s, for that matter, is literally wiped out by ethnic chauvinists and racists, while we pray to God for peace in Jerusalem.
Indeed, the entire tirade of Mr. Kuyini’s appears to be ethnically directed, particularly against the Akan people. And for a purported intellectual who claims to be “objective” and “honest,” this is rather unfortunate. Read this instance of the Melbourne exile’s crass exhibition of ethnic chauvinism: “Dr. Ahoofe is right to hold Rawlings accountable for these [economic] failures, but time and again he fails to see eye to eye with people who put any blame at the feet of the UP tradition. (Check his article in which he heaped insults on Albert [sic] Bagbin of NDC and his northern extraction for having a different stand on issues with [sic] the NPP). This is not honest journalism”(Ghanaweb.com 10/15/05).
First of all, this writer does not respect claimants of the intellectual mantle who habitually misspell the names of the subjects of their discourse, vitriolic, as is the case of Mr. Kuyini, or otherwise. And, needless to say, the critic’s rather base attempt at reducing this writer’s ideological thrust to one of ethnic nationalism would not wash. Ghanaians are too intelligent for such hogwash. And for those who might not remember, the allusion to the P/NDC’s Mr. Albin Bagbin had to do with the P/NDC minority leader in the Ghanaian Parliament cavalierly impugning the political legitimacy of the Asantehene and the Okyenhene, unarguably two of the most significant Ghanaian rulers, even while also pretending that Mr. Rawlings had political legitimacy. But that Mr. Kuyini woefully fails to make any specific reference to my particular article in which Mr. bagbin’s name appears, tells more about the caliber of intellectual, or scholar, that he is than any egregious default or moral foible on my part.
And here also, I make bold to assert that I can never and will never write “objectively” about a dyed-in-the wool terrorist like Mr. Rawlings. I wasn’t raised to glorify such miscreants. Mr. Kuyini, on the other hand, appears to be made in the mold of a classical lickspittle. And that is his right and privilege.
Finally, it is also interesting to observe that Mr. Kuyini, in his article, appears to be in perfect agreement with this writer on the question of Mr. Rawlings’ inescapable criminal culpability. The basic difference between our viewpoints is that Mr. Kuyini pretends to be vehemently defending the most notorious executive murderer-assassin in postcolonial Ghanaian history. The Melbourne exile’s only grievance appears to be that I have singled out Mr. Rawlings for relentless and immitigable castigation, instead of collectively castigating all of the latter’s criminal accomplices. Fair criticism, on the face of it, except that in his abysmal mental and ideological immurement (or imprisonment), Mr. Kuyini woefully fails to appreciate the glaring fact that of all his fellow terrorists, Mr. Rawlings is the only one lunatically roaming the streets of Accra, as well as other Ghanaian regional capitals thumbing his mongrel’s nose at justice and brazenly and self-righteously leading “Wahala” demonstrations, and blasphemously claiming to be Ghana’s postcolonial Messiah - a curious composite breed and blend of Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad.
*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., teaches English and Journalism at Nassau Community College of the State University of New York, Garden City. He is the author of twelve volumes of poetry and prose, including “Dr. J. B. Danquah: Architect of Modern Ghana”(iUniverse.com, 2005), his most recent. All his books are available from Amazon.com, iUniverse.com, Barnes & Noble.com, Elibron.com and Borders.com, among a host of others. E-mail: .
Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.
Source: Okoampa-Ahoofe, Kwame
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