African Renaissance, Who Says?

 
Anybody reading the title of this attempt at an essay might be inclined to imagine the author is just attempting to mimic history. That would be neither fair, nor quite right. But where the gesture might rhyme with events, until some four hundred years ago, where a lot of nations would be involved, as in the European example, from the Mediterranean to up North, where the sun shines only a couple of hours a day in winter, and from the East, where Vodka is the 'supreme drink', and to the West, where Christopher Columbus was able to charm the Iron Lady, and Queen of Spain, Isabella 'the Beautiful?', to sponsor a trip, which only few would  believe was going to 'end back in Spain', where it would have started.

This was also a time when the Turks [Ottoman Empire] had crumpled Constantinople.  Nicolo Machiavelli would write into the epoch, his view on politics in the book, 'The Prince', which would be accepted as perhaps, something like 'The end Crowns the Work.'

One would not end anywhere by getting all the 'titled men, and perhaps women' too, into it. But who would dare leave those out, who were called William Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, Martin Luther King, Johannes Gutenberg, but also the creator of Mona Lisa, and in case you could be mistaken, I am referring to  Leonardo da Vinci, the man who was everything that was known, plus skills, that people did not yet have names for. It was all the way from the 14 th to the 17 th Century.

The shaping of the new world had unstoppably begun. The events of that world, which did revolve around Europe and the Far East, from where it was to be known later, came also the 'Black Death' and 'the Bubonic plague'.

Did anybody know then that fleas carried by chance on the merchant ships into Europe from the 'Spice Islands' made any contribution?  The Portuguese led the way, which was explored by two Italians, namely:  Chritofus Columbus, and AmerigoVespuci. But, it was not the European Renaissance that we would wish to deliberate upon, our aim is on the 'African Renaissance.' Does it exist?  Should it not be, we would create it!

The journey seems to have started in 1957. Or, we could even say, in 1947.  We still could be doing some of our 'gallant men' and women a grave injustice, who were then already such organised that they needed erudite, but also 'bold cum energetic, and still young men and women'.

Nana Prempeh I, Asantehene, and the Queenmother of Ejuso (Edweso) had been incarcerated on 'The Seychelles'  where part died, including the Queenmother, but the King surviving, and allowed by the British to return to Ashanti (the Gold Coast), where he eventually died of natural causes at Manhyia on May 12, 1931. His nephew, who would reign as Prempeh II, was enthroned from 1931 till his death in 1970. [Nana Yaa Asantewaa had died on the Seychelles in 1921].  Then you would not be able to skip names like 'Paa Grant'.

There was Joseph Boakye Dankwah, a prominent United Kingdom-trained Barrister-at-Law, and a man named E.C. Quist, an enlightened Civil Servant. Do others have to stand so behind him that they could be imagined to be part, but could not be seen?  That is where the 'thirty-eight year old boy' had been spotted at his 'London interim abode', not hideout.

He would be part of the struggle. The 'struggle', which in the German language translates into 'Der Kampf', is the title of a book, infamous, but like the 'Prince', is read by the 'Prominence', the destructive and over-ambitious, as well as the true freedom fighters like Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Africa, but before him, and others aforementioned.

Mr. Komla Agbele Gbedemah was the trusted follower, who would organize everything, and with perfection, as Nkrumah was thrown in and out of political prison.The struggle against the Colonial 'looters', as well as internal feuds among the freedom fighters, should not become our pre-occupation, it seems to be a natural phenomenon.

The successful fight for the independence of Ghana was by the big six, led by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, as agreed upon, nationally, and internationally.  The demise of the black race, since the rush to America after 1492, had been heavy.

African Americans, and people from the West Indies, who desired to 'return home', so to speak, included names like George Padmore, Professor W.E.B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington [1856 to 1919]. Some of these gallant men came to rest eternally, and in commemoration inside Africa.

On the African scene, people from Egypt, whose plight would obviously fit into a slightly different sac as ours, saw good reason to join the struggle.

The Egyptian President then, G. Abdel Nasser, King Hassan of Morocco, Ahmed Bourgiba of Tunisia, and Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria, were all part of it.

In South Africa, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Albert Zuzuli, and Dr. Steve Biko were engaged in similar fights for the same goal …freedom!  It would be unfair to forget Kenya, Jomo Kenyata.

Dr. Kwegyri Aggrey and Mensah Sarbah contributed to the struggle from a different direction.  When are Africans going to show first their own sons and daughters what we can do ourselves, for ourselves, and thereafter, show to the rest of the world?

In Europe, it was a fight among themselves (for supremacy); Germany against France, Portugal against Spain, England against France, and Scandinavia, against the Heartland. When they had exhausted resources, there was Africa and the rest of the world to turn to. Loot the world, catch the people, pay very little, or sometimes, pay zero!

The African King did the same, so why worry?! The strength of muscles that made us Africans of interest to weed the cotton and sugar-cane fields, and died in our millions over three hundred years, is no longer required.

What is still at stake is: 'What is it that interests the African most today? By the way, the African is, since almost half a century no more that black! He eats differently; he sleeps differently.

When he falls ill, he desires to be flown out of his country, except when he is South African. If he is not, he dies either at home, or in the poorly equipped mostly government-owned, and government-run hospitals. Whereas the White Race has almost dumped the automobile, the 'V8 super-powerful four-wheeler' is the dream acquisition of the African.  He reproduces until a house is filled.

The Africans' 'white-skinned brothers', also UN-members, would soon be 'sailing' out to colonise and live on the Planet Mars. Which African would be granted a visa?  The question: When does our Renaissance, the African rebirth, begin?

Kofi Dankyi Beeko, M. D.  E-Mail: [email protected]