The 21st September, this year is going to be celebrated by Ghanaians and Africans as a whole as the Founder’s Day. At least in Ghana, this day has been declared by the president of Ghana as a holiday. My Question is how many people on the streets of Accra really know the significance of this day?
The ordinary Ghanaian will hail anyone for another holiday, and would not really care whether it is a day to celebrate past heroes or a day to remember perishing souls, all they care about is, “It is just a holiday”, and with it comes no work, no school, no alarm clocks. The awareness created by the organizing committee has not been the best. Personally I feel like the little school boy in Class 6 knows more about ASEM or Bradez than they even know about their own Osagyefo. In my opinion there are not enough books about his achievements (and failures). The few that are available are either too expensive to be afforded by the average Ghanaian or are in not in the best of shapes.
I believe Ghanaians as a people have not done enough to celebrate the man Kwame Nkrumah. A writer once complained about how he was unable to obtain pictures of Kwame Nkrumah from the nations television network GTV. They did not have a single picture of the man who had been voted “The Man of the Century”. Who is to blame?
Today, I know of some people who can sing all the lyrics in the most popular Ghanaian hip-life songs, and yet cannot even recite a single quote by Kwame Nkrumah. Should we blame the readers who are not reading enough about him, the writers who are not writing enough about him, or maybe we should blame the committee tasked to put together a memorable Founder’s day celebration and go further to ask them what they are doing the tax payers’ $6 million.
4 comments:
Totally agree with you; very few young people and children seem to have a true appreciation for Nkrumah. I feel American youth have a greater appreciation for their past leaders such as George Washington,Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King jr. However, there is also the problem that these leaders are always presented in a very sanitized one-dimensional form for schoolchildren to consume. I suppose one-dimensional is better than no dimension at all!
Nice post but I have a few questions.. What are our Social Studies teachers doing? Do we still have some sort of history in the school syllabus?
Point taken about writers not writing enough about him. And as for quotes, they have to be accessible to you before you can know about them. That's why I'm working on a project to make Ghanaian quotes available online. I'm sure Nkrumah's quotes will feature prominently. Stay tuned.
@ Abena|| I think there is still a lot more WE as a nation can do to help the coming generations know a lot more about Kwmame Nkrumah
@ MJ|| Massa,I dont really know about today oh, but when I was in primary school, I learned a lot more about Gorden Guggisberg than I learned about my own Heroes.
@ Esi|| I cant wait to see your completed project. Please let us know about it when it is ready so that we can make more noise about it. Great initiative Esi!!!!
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