Forbes’ Absurd Report on Ghana: Western Hegemony & Junk Economics

On 10th June, 2010, Forbes Magazine issued a report on Ghana, titled “Ghana Ranked 9th Worst Economy in the World” We believe that the report is being done with 2008 and 2009 as the reference years. If this is the case, then most of the data and information used have a lot of factual inaccuracies (Ghana web, June 25, 2010)

Ghanaian government
The good people of Ghana
Tell Forbes Magazine to go to hell
Live in its hell of junk economics
Keep digging its right-wing hole
Into their paradise of glory lost
Of unequal freedoms & violence
Of their miragic displays of wealth
Ghanaian government
The good people of Ghana
Tell Forbes Magazine to go to hell
Don't ever say”We believe…”
Debunk negative categorizing
Tell them our sun also rises
Tell our delirious foes
Those who feel good
When they put us down
Who only want our gold
Diamonds, Bauxite, oil
Yet happily demonize us
Ghanaian government
The good people of Ghana
Tell Forbes Magazine to go to hell
Let us criticize our government(s)
But let us discredit hegemony
False categorizing by foreigners
Our hegemonic delirious foes
Forbeses of this unequal world
Ghanaian government
The good people of Ghana
Tell Forbes Magazine to go to hell
That we have come a long way
Along pathways of slavery
Depredations of colonialism
Predatory neocolonialism
In a Petri-dish of globalization
Of unidirectional globalization
That privileges the West
That disempowers Africans
Africans have come a long way
Unique achievements in 50 years
Only 50 years of independence
Stellar achievements denigrated
Being marginalized by the Forbeses

Ghanaian government
The good people of Ghana
Tell Forbes Magazine to go to hell
Hell holes of Western societies
To apply their junk economics
In Western dungeons
Of social depravities
Of economic downturns
Of moral decay
Of urban violence
Of provincialized incests
Of Western hegemony
Of exploiting Africans
Of demonizing Africans
Of Western duplicity
Of self-righteousness
Of global inequalities
Of global terrorism
Of gun-toting domestic violence
Of urban-knife-wielding violence
Of patriarchal violence against women
Of crimes celebrated by the media
Ghanaian government
The good people of Ghana
Tell Forbes Magazine to go to hell
Don't allow Forbes to define us
Imputing bad things to us
Africanization of all bad things
Africa as the global dustbin
All the worst things in the world
Of HIV/AIDS
Of political violence
Of underdevelopment
Of corruption
Of decay & putrefaction
Of being brutish beasts
Africans must sit up
Ghanaians must sit
Let us empower ourselves
African Journalists
Ghanaian journalists
It is time to ask new questions
Rethink the framing of Africa
Cast in immemorial terms
By the Forbeses of this unequal world
Demonizing, patronizing Africans
Exploiting our rich resources
While they sanitize the West
Tell Forbes Magazine to go to hell
Live in its hell of junk economics
*Akadu N. Mensema, Ph. D., is a nationalist Denkyira beauty. She is a trained oral historian cum sociologist and Professor in the USA. She lives in Pennsylvania with her great mentor and teaches Africa-area studies at a college in Maryland. In her pastime, she writes what critics have called “populist hyperbolic, satirical” poetry. She can be reached at [email protected]