“High-tech lynching of an uppity black man” – America’s Day of Shame

By Ekow Nelson

So the United States, the most advanced nation on earth capable of dropping precision-guided missiles to pick out targets in the thickest of forests, had been hoodwinked by a 49 year-old into voting for him even though he knew he was not born in the US. And this guy has managed to maintain the ‘lie’ that he was born in the US ever since he was elected State Senator in Illinois without anyone checking whether it was indeed true that his original birth certificate was in a vault in Hawaii. Does anybody really believe that anyone, let alone President Obama, could have constructed such an elaborate lie to con the American people and the entire world into believing he was born in America when he knew he wasn’t?

What we have witnessed over the last several years and in particular the past few weeks, since property developer Donald Trump’s faux entry in the 2012 Presidential race, is what Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas might have described as the “high-tech lynching of an uppity black man” who dreamed and dared to be President of the United States of America. Above all, this must be one of America media’s day of greatest shame that it provided the technological ‘field’ for such lynching.

Barack Obama has been forced, not only by cranks, but by so-called respectable members of American society including Donald Trump, clergymen and even national and state politicians from senators to Governors like Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, to do what no citizen or native of Hawaii is required to do. Although both Republican and Democratic officials of the State of Hawaii have unequivocally vouched for the veracity of the certificate of live birth Obama released during the 2008 campaign, many of these people and their friends in the mainstream and cable media, have persisted in their belief that Obama was born outside the US. The certificate of live birth may be sufficient proof for any Hawaiian to obtain a driving licence or passport but apparently it is not enough proof for Obama to be President.

There is absolutely no doubt that if Obama were White this issue would not have arisen. But ever since the founding of the Republic that declared them three-fifths of a man, African-Americans have had to prove they were full humans, entitled to the same inalienable rights promised their White counterparts by the constitution of the United States of America.

It was not until after the thirteenth amendment when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 over President Andrew Johnson’s veto, that Blacks were granted the “same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.”

Even so, although the fourteenth amendment asserted the right of freed slaves and their descendants to citizenship and the fifteenth prohibited the denial of voting rights to any citizen on the basis of colour which was prevalent across much of the South then, Blacks were still unable to exercise their franchise and had at best to pass literary tests and at worst, endure intimidation, physical violence and sometimes death just because they dared to exercise their rights as the constitution had granted.

It was not until nearly a century (some 99 years) after the 1866 Act that the Voting Rights of 1965 was passed at the height of civil rights movement that residual discriminatory practices were eventually outlawed across all states.

Forty-six years on, the occupant of the office of President has been subjected to the indignity of having to prove what he said was the case all the along. No President before him has had to prove he was born in the US ; no White President would have been required to prove he was born the US. Rather than his detractors having to prove his guilt (that he was lying about his birth place) - after their various attempts at forging Kenyan Birth Certificates to disreputable distortions of interviews with his paternal Grandmother - Obama had to prove his innocence, like no other President before him or indeed is required of any citizen of the United States of America.

That the US national media fuelled this frenzy and did not speak out against the injustice that was being done and the iniquitous and exceptional treatment of the first African-American President will remain a blot on its reputation for a long time to come. The ignominy that the President has had to suffer because some chose not believe him over such a fundamental issue as to where one was born is a disgrace and a shame on America which has proved once again that it has still to come to terms with its original sin.

Ekow Nelson

© London, April 2011

Fidel Castro steps downFidel Castro confirmed he had resigned from the top leadership of the Cuba Communist Party in an article published on Tuesday,

Former Cuban president Fidel Castro.




Fidel Castro confirmed he had resigned from the top leadership of the Cuba Communist Party in an article published on Tuesday, after the party approved a raft of economic reforms.

"Raul knew that I would not accept a formal role in the party today," Castro said in an article on the Cubadebate.cu portal, referring to his brother Raul and his own absence from the party's new Central Committee, elected on Monday.

Castro (84) had served as first secretary in the Central Committee of the party — which underpins the country's Communist government — since the party's creation in 1965.

Fidel said he had handed over the functions of the party head to Raul when he ceded power to his brother because of his own declining health in 2006, though he retained the first secretary title.

"(Raul) has always been who I described as First Secretary and Commander in Chief," Fidel wrote in the article.

"He never failed to convey to me the ideas that were planned," he added.

The move came after the sixth Communist Party Congress approved a flurry of measures on Monday aimed at keeping Cuba's centrally planned economy from collapse but without any broad embrace of market-oriented economic change.

The changes inject a modicum of the free market into the island's economy ahead of a vote Tuesday expected to officially relieve 84-year-old Castro of his position as party head after more than four decades.

The 1000 delegates gathered in Havana for the four-day party congress approved some 300 economic proposals and elected a new central committee leadership.

Reforms include the cutting of, eventually, a million state jobs, and decentralising the agricultural sector.

Many of the measures have already been adopted over the past year, with the Congress now formally approving them.

Results of the voting on leadership term limits will be presented on Tuesday, when Fidel, who ceded power to his brother when he fell ill in 2006, would be finally, officially replaced as party chief.

Raul, who turns 80 on 3 June, likely would officially become the party's new first secretary.

Raul Castro said on Saturday that he backed political term limits of 10 years at most for the top leadership spots, in a country he and his brother have led for more than five decades.

Focus will be also on the party's number two position, which could possibly signal the direction of eventual transfer of power in the years to come.

Raul has rejected broader market-minded reforms like those adopted by China, saying they would be "in open contradiction to the essence of socialism... because they were calling for allowing the concentration of property."

AFP

So, what exactly is a sod?

The attached first appeared in the Graphic on Saturday.

(Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng, Journalist & Communications Consultant)
Programme Coordinator, Cultural Initiatives Support Programme
Du Bois Centre, PMB CT 219, Cantonments, Accra
Tel: +233 21 770677
Please copy OFFICIAL correspondence to kgapenteng@cispghana.org


“Poor sod” is a familiar English expression used in dismay or pity, but in Ghana the sod has come into its own and has taken centre stage in our political debates as projected in the media. Poor sod is being cut left right and centre by the President and this has brought it right smack to the centre of the constant political quarrel between the NDC and NPP.
But what exactly is a sod? I was moved to ask this question when I heard a very amusing comment by a newsreader during an Akan radio news bulletin. According to the newsreader, the NPP had said that President Mills “has become so fond of sod-cutting that he does not leave home without a sod” (sic). I decided to pay attention to the sod debate, especially as conducted by “commentators” and serial callers on radio. Basically, the argument runs something like this: According to the opposition NPP, President Mills is on a meaningless sod-cutting spree which merely disguises the lack of progress on real issues affecting the people of Ghana.
The NDC retorts in the opposite direction, as you would expect: according to the government party, the President’s sod-cutting across the country is the manifestation of the action year which President Mills promised at the beginning of 2011. Sods are cut for projects which the government has initiated for a better Ghana and the NPP is jealous that the NDI is doing so much for a better Ghana for the people. That is the NDC view.
As usual, there is a lot of angry but futile frothing on the subject as on much else that forms the substance of political discussion in the media in general, but especially on radio. If you track the issues that have dominated our media discussions over the past few weeks, none of them deserves to be given more than a passing reference in any serious political and policy discourse. Even where there is a serious point to be made, the treatment is often limited to the superficial and sensational aspects of what could be an important point of politics or policy.
A case in point is the current focus on the reported rift between President Mills and his mentor and party founder, former President Rawlings. For a couple of days last week the centre of attention was on a perceived snub of the President by Mrs. Rawlings, his putative challenger, who is reported to have sat when the President entered their party caucus instead of standing as demanded by protocol. This issue was chewed to the marrow when all the meat on it had been devoured by the media vultures on the lookout for any juicy bit of flesh.
No-one can argue that the NDC’s intraparty squabbles are not important; there are key issues there, including the effect of a serious rift in the governing party on governance at the national level, but these have been downplayed or ignored. Instead the sitting versus standing debate ranged all over the place; Mrs Rawlings said she did not see the President enter while her detractors said her sitting was a snub or protest of some sort. The issue at the heart of this perception was only skirted.
It appears that our politicians and their media allies are more comfortable with superficial and sensational stories as a means of avoiding serious inquiry into matters that really affect our lives. There is almost no independent investigation into aspects of the economy and economic performance, including inflation and job creation, both of which remain deeply controversial and contested politically. A case in point is a media report in November last year which claimed that 100,000 jobs had been created in the first nine months of 2010 through foreigners investing in our economy. The story was sourced to Mr. George Aboagye, the Chief Executive of the Ghana Investments Promotion Centre. According to the story, the number of jobs created by the same route in 2009 was 20,000. You don’t need to be an economic genius to spot the questions that should have been asked: where are these jobs; what kind of jobs; what accounts for the jump from 20,000 to 100,000?
These important questions were not asked; in fact the story did not register at all on our political Richter scale because the political “aspect” did not arise or perhaps it came at a time when Rawlings or Nana Akuffo-Addo had said something or another to which the media would latch on, and which – let’s face it – would not require the kind of brain and leg work an economic enquiry would require.
Another case in point: a recent case of mob justice involving the extreme molestation of an alleged female thief at the University of Ghana horrified the country and was condemned by most right thinking members of society. What a surprise therefore to learn that there was a party-political angle to this story. I didn’t get it then, and can’t get it now, but Mr. Kofi Adams, Spokesperson for the Rawlings Family had to deny that the former President had any political interest in this issue. Is there no limit to politicisation of issues in this country?
Getting back to the sod, the cutting of which is an issue, it is obvious that something very interesting is being revealed in that rather fatuous debate. Obviously, the government feels that the electorate would be impressed when the President is unleashed on the country cutting sods all over the place, and they may well have a case, or at least reinforce a point. Ghanaians appear to judge a government by the number of infrastructural projects that are delivered in their constituencies and districts in the life of every government.
Given that a government has four years, which effectively means about three years of serious work, it is a tough task to find a project for every nook and cranny of the Republic and so the government has to find as many clinics, roads and bridges as it can to commission or inaugurate. Since there are not enough to go round, sod-cutting comes in very handy as a political insurance of the future.
You can cut the sod anywhere and anytime because essentially sods are cut for future projects. So the government can decide that a mighty nuclear station would be built at say, Asamankese in the next 20 years but decide to cut the sod just in time to wow the voters in 2012. So, cue the brass bands, party flags, bring out the chiefs and people – and bingo – His Excellency cuts the sod for a nuclear station. The nuclear station may or may not be built, but that is beside the point. The sod is the point. This is why the sod has allegedly been cut several times for the same project.
This may be a cynical view but it is how the opposition sees it, and by opposition I mean, in short memory terms, the NDC before 2009 and the NPP at present. If you play back radio tapes of “debates”, say in 2007, you would hear almost word-for-word the same arguments being made by the NPP and NDC today, only in reverse order. A simple formula would read thus:
The holder of the power cuts the sod;
The loser of the power hates the sod!
In truth, the preeminent place of the sod in our body politic may be completely misplaced and based on a long-held misperception of the role of government. This misperception is based on the assumption, fuelled by political propaganda, that a government’s main job for which it should be judged is the BUILDING of things. This is leading to all kinds of confusion of expectations and performance criteria. For example, a government can build schools and yet fail to provide education, or build clinics but fail to provide health, etc.

In fact, building things – schools, clinics, roads and the like – is the easiest part of the government’s job. The harder and more important work may be invisible to the eye. Governments must reform how we respond to threats from within and without on all fronts as at all times. In other words, the government’s main job is to protect the people, and that is not limited to building things – not even police stations.

So, what exactly is a sod? Sadly, it is not something kept in the boot of the presidential car; it is a piece of earth covered by a tuft of grass. Poor sod.

gapenteng@hotmail.com