Sat, 08 Sep 2018 Feature Article

The World Is In Trouble Oh!

By Cameron Duodu

K1 – Koo, the world is in trouble oh!
K2 – Why do you say that? Hasn't the world always been in trouble? Suez….

1956!

….

1956!

Oh that's enough! Right now, we have Yemen, Libya, Syria… Iran! ……Are you going to recount all of that?

The trouble I am talking about right now is not a shooting war.

Are you talking about President Donald Trump?

Yep!

Well, he hasn't done anything crazy?

No! It's what has been done tohim that's worrying me.

Ho – I know what you're referring to. So, a member of his staff in the White House writes an anonymous article in the NewYork Times saying that people in the administration have formed a “Resistance” group to sabotage his bad policies? Does that mean the end of the world?

But Koo, put yourself in Trump's place. Right now, everyone in Washington is trying to guess the identity of this “Resistance” guy, right? If you were Trump and a policy paper landed on your desk, what would be your instinctive reaction?

It would be to wonder whether it is from the “Resistance” people! I'd wonder whether my Chief of Staff [is it him?] had placed it before me for my signature because the policy paper is NOT in my interest!?

Ahah! So he calls the Chief of Staff and spends one hour trying to trick him into saying something that can betray his identity as….!

Gee! And when the Chief of Staff goes back to his office, heasks for the names of every official who had an “input” into the paper!

“Could it have been so-and-so”? (Don't know!

“Or them-and-they?” (Don't know)

You get what I'm saying? As the fear of being the object of the guessing game spreads, papers that should have been dealt with in five minutes take five Or are thrown away altogether! Who's to know? Safety first.

Everyone becomes afraid.

If you take a “line”, you may be a “Resistance Agent!”

And if you don't take a “line”, you may be trying to cripple Government business by inaction, just to make Trump look bad!

Meanwhile, departmental, and — especially — diplomatic communications, pile up. That message from Angela Merkel, is it her own original idea or has it been slipped past her by the international collaborators of the “Resistance Movement”?

What about that pop star guy from France?

And that woman in Great Britain who is so hungry for allies that she went and danced an arrhythmic number with school children in Cape Town?

What about that one from Putin?

Now, that would be extremely dangerous to ignore. It could have something new to say about the Mueller investigation?

But would it be genuine?Couldn't “The Resistance” inside the State Department doctor…..?

Koo, the “Resistance” has won the battle. When everyone is afraid of everyone else in an organisation, that organisation becomes

And when an organisation becomes paralysed….

It neglects to act, even in its own interest!

That's why I said the world is in trouble. The Mexican trade deal; the Canadian version; neither may be opened when it reaches the desk of POTUS for signature!

Even if it's opened, POTUS might suspect that the American negotiators have pulled a fast one on him behind his back. On the instructions of the “Resistance” of course!

Koo, do you know the saying, “When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches cold”?

Yes, of course.

Well, doesn't America control the IMF?

It does.

The World Bank?

The United Nations?

America pays most of the UN's bills, doesn't it?.

And Wall Street's power ….?

Hey – be careful there! The Chinese ….

Ho! The Chinese don't want to confront the American financial system. Yet!

Hmmm! But they can complicate matters for Wall Street?

Well, if you put it that way, then I can see what trouble any paralysis in Trumpland can bring to the world economic system….

But even that is not the real trouble I'm worried about.

Eh?

Well, you know that Trump believes that the media in the US have been trying to bring him down with “fake news”?

And you see how the article of the “Gutless Resistance Man” was published almost at the same time as account of craziness in the White House by Bob Woodward of Watergate fame, in a book called Fear?

Yes?

Now, when a neurotic guy begins to see “corroborative” attacks on himself in the media, what do you think his conclusion will be?

Oh, I see! Plot! Yes, he smells a plot! A conspiracy!!

Yes – in Ghana in the 1960s, we used to have a charge incongruously called “a conspiracy to conspire!”

So Trump will consider every word written against him to be part of aconspiracy to bring him down by “fake news.” But since his mind can't operate in a vacuum, actual “fake news” will rather be the source of his information.

Gede! If some red-neck nutter in Trump's Deep South catchment area Tweetsthat African-Americans are arming themselves to march on Washington, Trump will believe it and call out the US Army?

You bet!

Or that European Governments are about to attack Ukraine or Hungary…

By CAMERON DUODU

Okay – I surrender! But tell me — if Trump were to give an order to his Generals that they considered irrational, could they refuse to enforce it?

OYIWA! [Right you are!] That's the 1 trillion-dollar question!

Martin Cameron Duodu is a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian novelist, journalist, editor and broadcaster. After publishing a novel, The Gab Boys, in 1967, Duodu went on to a career as a journalist and editorialist.. More Martin Cameron Duodu (born 24 May 1937) is a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian novelist, journalist, editor and broadcaster. After publishing a novel, The Gab Boys, in 1967, Duodu went on to a career as a journalist and editorialist.

Education
Duodu was born in Asiakwa in eastern Ghana and educated at Kyebi Government Senior School and the Rapid Results College, London , through which he took his O-Level and A-Level examinations by correspondence course . He began writing while still at school, the first story he ever wrote ("Tough Guy In Town") being broadcast on the radio programme The Singing Net and subsequently included in Voices of Ghana , a 1958 anthology edited by Henry Swanzy that was "the first Ghanaian literary anthology of poems, stories, plays and essays".

Early career
Duodu was a student teacher in 1954, and worked on a general magazine called New Nation in Ghana, before going on to become a radio journalist for the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation from 1956 to 1960, becoming editor of radio news <8> (moonlighting by contributing short stories and poetry to The Singing Net and plays to the programme Ghana Theatre). <9> From 1960 to 1965 he was editor of the Ghana edition of the South African magazine Drum , <10> and in 1970 edited the Daily Graphic , <3> the biggest-selling newspaper in Ghana.< citation needed >

The Gab Boys (1967) and creative writing
In 1967, Duodu's novel The Gab Boys was published in London by André Deutsch . The "gab boys" of the title – so called because of their gabardine trousers – are the sharply dressed youths who hang about the village and are considered delinquent by their elders. The novel is the story of the adventures of one of them, who runs away from village life, eventually finding a new life in the Ghana capital of Accra . According to one recent critic, "Duodu simultaneously represents two currents in West African literature of the time, on the one hand the exploration of cultural conflict and political corruption in post-colonial African society associated with novelists and playwrights such as Chinua Achebe and Ama Ata Aidoo , and on the other hand the optimistic affirmation of African cultural strengths found in poets of the time such as David Diop and Frank Kobina Parkes . These themes come together in a very compassionate discussion of the way that individual people, rich and poor, are pushed to compromise themselves as they try to navigate a near-chaotic transitional society."

In June 2010 Duodu was a participant in the symposium Empire and Me: Personal Recollections of Imperialism in Reality and Imagination, held at Cumberland Lodge , alongside other speakers who included Diran Adebayo , Jake Arnott , Margaret Busby , Meira Chand , Michelle de Kretser , Nuruddin Farah , Jack Mapanje , Susheila Nasta , Jacob Ross , Marina Warner , and others.

Duodu also writes plays and poetry. His work was included in the anthology Messages: Poems from Ghana ( Heinemann Educational Books , 1970).

Other activities and journalism
Having worked as a correspondent for various publications in the decades since the 1960s, including The Observer , The Financial Times , The Sunday Times , United Press International , Reuters , De Volkskrant ( Amsterdam ), and The Economist , Duodu has been based in Britain as a freelance journalist since the 1980s. He has had stints with the magazines South and Index on Censorship , and has written regularly for outlets such as The Independent and The Guardian .

He is the author of the blog "Under the Neem Tree" in New African magazine (London), and has also published regular columns in The Mail and Guardian ( Johannesburg ) and City Press (Johannesburg), as well as writing a weekly column for the Ghanaian Times (Accra) for many years.< citation needed >

Duodu has appeared frequently as a contributor on BBC World TV and BBC World Service radio news programmes discussing African politics, economy and culture.

He contributed to the 2014 volume Essays in Honour of Wole Soyinka at 80, edited by Ivor Agyeman-Duah and Ogochukwu Promise.Column: Cameron Duodu

Disclaimer: "The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect ModernGhana official position. ModernGhana will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements in the contributions or columns here." Follow our WhatsApp channel for meaningful stories picked for your day.

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