The French just announced that they will be shuttling off more troops into Osama bin Laden’s Afghanistan. Bush says more US soldiers are on their way there too. So are soldiers from other NATO / western states. Maybe its good news which might help end all this bloodshed in Afghanistan once and for all.
But in the plains and deserts of Africa, no one seems to care. Those big mouth politicians went to the world and said that we should be left alone. Africans are capable of solving African problems- African solutions for Africa problems. Nice slogan but they forget that Africa at this moment cannot adequately manage its myriad of problems at national levels, lest end conflicts in neighbouring countries. And nice slogans don’t end conflicts.
Continue reading about Of Darfur and Sudan- A conundrum we can’t solve?
Nigeria aka Naija has a place called the Niger Delta. And they have a group there called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). Nice name, especially considering what they are trying to do. And no it’s not a political party. This group, it is believed, started life as unorganised youth who were armed by corrupt politicians and some members of the Nigerian security forces to help in rigging elections and stealing state resources such as oil. Now the tide has turned. The young men, after realising that beating up their parents and siblings for the coins thrown at them by the politicians was not in their best interest came together to fight for themselves and their people against these same greedy politicians and their unwholesome alliance with foreign companies which had been brought in to help loot the Delta.
I first heard the story of this man on BBC World Service radio. It was amusing the way the folks at the BBC seemed to be amazed at this. One man having 86 wives and over 170 children. Incredulous? Well, what can’t happen in the west does happen everyday here in Africa. In Ghana, you can marry all you want and no one can challenge the legitimacy of what you’ve done. Just make your marriages traditional marriages and its ok.
For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s about this man in Nigeria who, saying he’s been blessed by God to be able to perform his duties- both to wives and 170 kids. I wonder if he’s able to recall their names when addressing them.
Growing up in Ghana is really, really interesting. With our cultural identification conflicts, and our refusal to create a unique identity for ourselves, it is not suprising that a lot of us go around feeling confused. And if you are a visitor to Ghana, these conflicts within us can leave you confused as you go around your daily business. I’ll try putting up a list of commonly used and mis-used words which I hope the first time visitor to this part of the equator would find useful. (Maybe)
(This page would be updated as and when new terms come to our attention.)
Abroad
Forget any country in Africa.You travel abroad when you’ve been to either Europe or America
African Movie
A joke played on Ghanaians by local television stations. No other African country is featured in these movies. Mostly Nigerian movies with a few Ghanaian movies sprinkled in to silence the critics.
It’s now over. Fears of pollution, human rights issues and protests taking over the Olympics never materialised. The Chinese pulled it off grand style, making the 2008 olympics theirs, and in those three weeks, owning it, in terms of sporting performance and the way the whole Olympic affair was executed from start to finish. It was truly wonderful.
Not only did China host the Olympics but they set themselves high standards in the different sporting events- participating in virtually all the events, with the hope of topping the medals table. And they did that too. Even though the Americans had more medals in total, China took over the top spot in the gold medal slot, and in so doing broke the hold of the Americans on the medal table since the fall of the Soviet Union.