大象传媒

50 years of a democracy is equivalent to the birth of a premature baby. Democratic nations need time to make their own mistakes and develop accordingly independent of the medalling west who only have themselves on their agenda. Remember, if we were to base our democracy on current day UK...Iraq...dogy dossiers...cash for honours..who paid for Mandlesons house...??? Not a very good role model really?!

Sir,

The item on Ghana allowed the usual received opinion 'black man good, white man bad' to go through on the nod. It is now abundantly clear that African states are incapable of good government if they try to use the Westminster model. This is true of Arab countries too if under Islamic rule. Government depends critically on the culture from which it arises and if two cultures are different the syatem of government should also be different. Democracy is a western arrangement and it is futile to try and impose it elsewhere. We shall live to regret our inability to accept this fact of life, whether in the Middle East or Africa, but fact it remains.

Anthony Back

I am a Ghanaian but, unlike most of my fellow country people, I am sad today. Fifty years ago, we had a lot of hope and potential. We were "freed" from colonial rule, to determine our own lot.
Now our leaders want us to rejoice in the fact that we are still free, and there has been no wars in Ghana, unlike some other African countries.
My sadness stems from the fact that I don't buy their arguement. Our leaders have failed us over the years and they now want to lower our expectations. Under British rule there were no civil or tribal wars in Ghana so we cannot claim the abscence of wars is an achievement.
We should have at least maintained the level of development we enjoyed under colonial rule. But we have fallen far below that. The colonial powers did more for Ghana than our own leaders, and that makes me sad.
"Independence" is a good idea, but it has been hijacked to rob Ghana.
Ghana has nothing to show today, we are still talking about the potentials of the country 50 years after Independence. Symbolically, the anniversary clothes were imported, testimony to the fact that we are not able to produce very basic things for ourselves.
I hope the next 50 years would be different. But I fear this is just another dream!

I am a Ghanaian but, unlike most of my fellow country people, I am sad today. Fifty years ago, we had a lot of hope and potential. We were "freed" from colonial rule, to determine our own lot.
Now our leaders want us to rejoice in the fact that we are still free, and there has been no wars in Ghana, unlike some other African countries.
My sadness stems from the fact that I don't buy their arguement. Our leaders have failed us over the years and they now want to lower our expectations. Under British rule there were no civil or tribal wars in Ghana so we cannot claim the abscence of wars is an achievement.
We should have at least maintained the level of development we enjoyed under colonial rule. But we have fallen far below that. The colonial powers did more for Ghana than our own leaders, and that makes me sad.
"Independence" is a good idea, but it has been hijacked to rob Ghana.
Ghana has nothing to show today, we are still talking about the potentials of the country 50 years after Independence. Symbolically, the anniversary clothes were imported, testimony to the fact that we are not able to produce very basic things for ourselves.
I hope the next 50 years would be different. But I fear this is just another dream!

I am a Ghanaian but, unlike most of my fellow country people, I am sad today. Fifty years ago, we had a lot of hope and potential. We were "freed" from colonial rule, to determine our own lot.
Now our leaders want us to rejoice in the fact that we are still free, and there has been no wars in Ghana, unlike some other African countries.
My sadness stems from the fact that I don't buy their arguement. Our leaders have failed us over the years and they now want to lower our expectations. Under British rule there were no civil or tribal wars in Ghana so we cannot claim the abscence of wars is an achievement.
We should have at least maintained the level of development we enjoyed under colonial rule. But we have fallen far below that. The colonial powers did more for Ghana than our own leaders, and that makes me sad.
"Independence" is a good idea, but it has been hijacked to rob Ghana.
Ghana has nothing to show today, we are still talking about the potentials of the country 50 years after Independence. Symbolically, the anniversary clothes were imported, testimony to the fact that we are not able to produce very basic things for ourselves.
I hope the next 50 years would be different. But I fear this is just another dream!

Anthony @ 2 and Thomas @3+
I agree with your comments.the fact that African states have not progressed is no surprise at all.
when anybody who cares to looks at the progress that Africans in Africa as a collective has made,it would be fair comment that the conclusion you can only come to is they have not moved from the graph base line,ever,..well you could still chart the progress but you would need to add a blank sheet below your original chart to record its decline.South Africa has major serious problems and the once bread basket of Africa,Zimbabwe is now just a basket case of staggering proportions,add another sheet below your original chart to record that nightmare.The African peoples have had there culture and lands raped from past european colonialist,and when independence swept across this vast continent,a new hope for its future was born,but interference from outsiders,including international bankers and past overlords still had major influence,and place men were put into power ensuring the status quo.The sale of western ideals too western military hardware was a disaster for Africa and the winners can only be the beneficiaries of the spoils of war,and the charity aid industry which on the surface seems admirable,but hampers Africans need to stand on its own two feet,Sir Bob and Bonos job was a genuine effort to help,but new tactics needs to be employed.My suggestion is to leave them to it,as this is becoming the general consensus,albeit quietly within some quarters who have dealt with african affairs,politically or other,but I fear unfortunately, if you use the caribbean island of Haiti as a model of black african rule,(made up of decendents of slaves from french rule)even after billions of dollars of aid and assistance,it ain't looking good for african countries in their future governence.The charge of racism will always shut down analysis of Africans progress in comparison to europeans, but someone needs to say it,so at least denial of their shortcomings can be removed as the first hurdle of acceptance that Africans need to make,to move upwards,rather than continuously downwards.

re Ghana
The Secretary General of the Commonwealth said that African countries are still hampered by Western interference. He was speaking the truth. Cote d'Ivoire, for example, has been embroiled in a civil war for several years now. The government there tried to break free of trade agreements made with the French at the time of decolonization and seek new trading partners. The result? France encouraged rebels from the north to rise against the government. Similar instances involving other countries and other colonial powers have been occurring in Africa over the past 50 years. Western powers simply won't let African countries be independent of their colonial masters but all the time give the peoples of America and Europe the idea that the problems African nations have is because their governments are corrupt. In truth, Europe and the U.S. will only allow corrupt men to rule: men who will do the foreigners' bidding for a price. Those who are genuinely working for their nations' prosperity soon find themselves facing coups financed by rich foreign powers aiming to install rulers who will give them lucrative trade deals. This is what is happening in Cote d'Ivoire right now. How often do we hear about it in the British news?

Last Saturday's "The Archive Hour" on Radio 4 revealed that the coup against Nkrumah in the '60s had been engineered by the U.S. and Britain and that Harold Wilson had favoured assassinating Nkrumah. The reasons given for the plotting were that Nkrumah wanted Ghana to develop good relations with the Soviet Union and wanted to develop a pan-African union. What right had we to interfere? No more than the U.S. had to interfere in Vietnam.

Re Honours for cash, one advantage of this comment board is to see how sensitive the 大象传媒 is on the subject, when frank postings are "binned".

However is was satisfying to hear on the Today programme this a.m. most of the points I originally posted were discussed especially my "publish and be dammed" query.
I still feel that Lord Levy and the "supporting cast" are being tried by media and could form a defence if anything was found and it came to trial. How you find unbiased Jurers would be difficult.
This case is taking as long for the police to solve as the incompetent "soap" police in Emmerdale in finding Tom King's muderer!!? Be prepared to see Zac Dingle in the frame before long?

I'm going to pick up on Anthony's point regarding imposed systems (which I thoroughly agree with) and link it to last night's comment made by Yasmin A-B. Yasmin compared India, Singapore, etc to Africa unduly in that these countries maintained their cultures (as Cameron said) and built upon them.

The cultures (including governing structures)in Africa were stripped during the period of slavery within that continent (and inspite of how long it's been, the reality is, the consequences and repercussions still remain). After the abolition, the land was then demarcated (further breaking down communities and what was left of the continent's cuture) and colonised.

Independence, etc was Ghana (and Africa's)chance to recover/restore. Unfortunately it has not been as we hoped for reasons that range from the simplest like corrupt leaders to the most complex ones like what is portrayed in the film "Blood Diamond". An example for Ghana is that it only owns a small percentage of its Gold mining company, with Britain and others holding larger shares. It is a wonder that Ghana is not at war, and for that I applaud its people.

That country's resources are stretched to support conflicts in other countries e.g. Liberia and Sierra Leonne through providing refuge, sending soldiers over and simply being a mediator. Ghana, post independence, made progress and built its own resource for electricity, a cocoa processing plant to process its top crop,among others. Why these discontinued is another story perhaps touched on by Angela Benson.

So, Mr Paxman, your slot on Newsnight last night did no justice at all to the subject of 6th March for Ghanaians, (and Africans for that matter). If after 50 years these discussions cannot be held fondly, we can deduce that there is more to it than meets the eye. That is why it is important that they are not trivialised as excuses, but laid out truthfully and factually.

Colonialism is an economic and not a political process or so the 'Scratcher Book of Africa' tells me. Which probably means the account books rather than the political climate should be consulted to find out if somewhere has really been decolonised?

is it possible to design a set of questions that detects lies? what strategy would one use? A chess board of subtle Socratic logic that checkmates the subject? A forest of quiet little questions that seem innocuous in isolation but when put together show up wild irregularities? A few big atomic questions put with all the tact of Reagan from the Sweeney? On the last point I wonder if it would take much to move newsnight to don the leather jackets and grasp the idiom of Life on Mars? Must be tempting.

If Martha was going through Gordon's Wardrobe [in my experience a sneaky poking about in men's wardrobes is something all women find irresistible] as a metaphor for possible future policy i would be interested if, in terms of foreign policy, there was anything that resembled 'a red coat'?

well over the yardarm

dicky