Opinions of Monday, 8 April 2013
Columnist: Osei-Poku, Emmanuel
“IF YOU WANT TO KEEP ANYTHING FROM THE BLACK MAN PUT IT IN A BOOK” IN THE LIVES OF AFRICANS
The white man wants the black man to read his literature which will benefit the white man in the end so he uses the tool of reverse psychology. It goes like this; I want to keep something from the black man so I will put it in a book, think into this statement, this should be a secret right? Let us ask ourselves, why is this statement known to the black man and he thinks he is very wise by knowing and struggling to dig into the books in search for non-existing treasure?
No one will want to keep something valuable from a person and tell the person where he can find it when he needs it.
I always call for African writers to wake up and change the world with the pen more than what the white man can, changing the global literature. The white man has always used his literature as a brainwashing mechanism, as black as the white race is, and I think that is the definition of blackness. The 21st Century crime of giving people the wrong information for them to self-destruct. So if we have no power in changing the global literature to ensure justice on all then let us as Africans be very wise and resort to the study and patronise of our own African literature.
It is so clear after reading the Western literature that there is no big deal for Africans in the book, everything in them is in their favour because they wrote them. What Africans needed in the past and needs now is to gain our Good Spirit back which we lost due to divisions caused by Westerners and build on our Wisdom from our forefathers. As an African student who takes pride in the great discovery of the white man’s weapon of mass destruction of the African race in their literature. After the classical renewal of my mind after building my Pan-Africanist spirit in advance day after day, I distinguish myself from the bad impact of the western literature in our African educational system which I nearly became a victim. And now here I am, free from the chains of the black race which was effected by Westerners by their invasion years ago. If I stand alone on this, that makes me the only hope of Ghana and Africa as a whole who heals the Black race now and future to come after my people realize the vision of isolationism from the negative impact of international relations, THE WAY FORWARD FOR AFRICANS.
I believe that the 21st century is characterized by the modernity in enlightenment in critical and revolutionary knowledge from African knowledge which the African governments and media must see to its activation. There should also be preconditions laying down laws and regulations for knowledge circulation in Africa which the media must respect. I think knowledge must not have free flow without limitations because it gets violent when it gets to the wrong recipient especially the youth on our side of the world.
I think the environment we live in must determine the knowledge imparted on you, which calls for laws and constitutions restricting the bad impact of knowledge on the people subjected to them. The media must encourage the content of African literature over the western literature which we mostly patronize on because there is a clear difference in the two cultures producing the knowledge in Africa and Europe. We must build on our knowledge originating from our environment; on this issue I take interest in Nkrumahism as a source of knowledge to restore the foundation of the country’s development. Nkrumah stated that “there is undoubtedly considerable evidence of much that is noble and glorious in our African past, there is no need to gild the lily nor to try to hide that which ignoble. But here again it is a question of whose standards and values you are applying in assessing something as noble or ignoble, and I maintain (we) must reject non-African value judgments of things African.”
I envision a Writer’s Club in the Africa made up of great writers and journalists of Great honour and integrity who will take up the stage to defend the African heritage of the country. The media as a 21st Century Disciple standing up for Justice against the ills and maladies of the African societies by the free flow of the pen as a weapon against evil. I say a truthful pen is powerful than Moses’s staff, paving the way to success of every society through the exercise of impartiality and justice on all matters arising in the society.
Journalists and writers exercising the power in their works through the usage of powerful words in the form of “must” and “will” to effect change positively. Wake up African writers, let us write our way out of darkness to the light which will lead the country to progress, let us put it on the paper and realize it through its positive imposition on the mind of our mass readers to drive our societies to greater developments. As a writer I say, they can take the stage but they cannot take the pen so let us all bring the pen to life, fellow Africans. I also encourage readers to read wide and read ours, awake Africa. A message to Africans “Let Us Stand for Our Own, which is the way forward!
MR. EMMANUEL OSEI-POKU
POLITICAL SCIENCE STUDENT,
UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, LEGON.
0246041723