From: GB Singh
Date: September 22, 2016 at 1:47:25 PM MDT
To: Dr. Obadele Kambon
Subject: Re: Gandhi’s Statue at the University Of Ghana Must Come Down
Dear Prof. Kambon,
I googled your name and learned about your background. I salute you, the faculty and so many people of Ghana for standing up to this insult at black people by way of racist Gandhi statue.
This insult has a history. Back in 1980’s, the Indian Govt. started to funnel money to erect Gandhi statues in the West and then to other parts of the planet in a major fashion. I have been involved ever since to stop this nonsense. Later my untouchable brother Dr. Velu Annamalai joined me and we together were successful at times to stop these statues from being unveiled. I can cite you one example: Morehouse College in Atlanta.
Ever since my first book (Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity) was published in 2004, the movement to stop these statues of Gandhi have picked up (see www.gandhism.org ) and so has the change of tactics employed by Indian Govt. to sneak in the Gandhi statues. What happened at your university campus is the latest phase of sneaking in.
We have a historic opportunity to dismantle Gandhi statues; let University of Ghana be the first. The Gandhi statue at Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta is both illegal and unauthorized. I have all the paperwork. We must join hands as brothers and sisters to cleanse our historic and public places from this racial insults perpetrated by the Govt. of India.
Back in 2005, I appeared on Penn & Teller show. The link is provided, I covered on Gandhi side of the story.
The rough language is that of Penn and not mine.
Please feel free to share this letter of mine with other faculty members as you see fit.
Sincerely,
GB Singh.
Sometimes, others say it best. So I shall preface this letter written by Singh to Kambon with Nii Moi Thompson’s own words:
“Imperialism never had it so easy in these parts of God’s creation: Ghanaian against Ghanaian over the imperial agenda of another country. India, a poor country whose per capita income is lower than that of Ghana and indeed of Sub-Sahara Africa, is donating statues and making bogus trade deals with Africa not because it loves us but because it must promote its own civilisation and pursue its commercial interests. I’m more worried about the present and the naivete of our so-called intellectuals and self-described “scholars”, their utter failure to understand how the world works and help us shape it to our advantage.”
Enjoy the letter!
Interesting indeed, when acclaimed history scholars want to claimed authority over economics and political studies as well, there is bound to be such dysfunctional intellectualism.
Won’t border to read the text just gone.
Adios!!!
My dear Tweneboah Senzu, you paaa?? “Adios”? Come on! Anyway, but to say that history cannot adequately inform us about Gandhi is a tad bit insincere. History is the key here. And in this example what else are we analyzing other than the history?
Let’s consider Elwin Wilson:
a former KKK member.
Elwin repented his racist ways before he passed.
Elwin deserves a statues in black communities in USA for repenting.
Each statue comes with some benefits.
How dare black communities reject these benefits and repentance.
Poor comparison here! And the sarcasm is badly deployed….This man is not a national hero in the US whose statue was presented by an embassy of a friendly nation!
Great Work Prof. Bodomo wonder how people conduct analysis. This even lack basic common logic to be classified relevant and measure it as a standard to scientific argument he seek to intellectual portray. I gave you Korku homework to do by responding to our counter-petition in a form of a critique. Done none of them then forever be silent
As a matter of Fact if not the respond above i would have ignored to comment, because it a waste of time to engaged in a scholarly exercise of mediocrity. I was on TV-3 yesterday on this agenda and was connected to the spoke person of the other fashion on telephone, lost the argument rather claiming scholarly pontification on Ghandi research of racism and emotional exhibit, that is funny and jokes. I have 60 books written about Ghandi not even by Hindus fraternity but the so called scholars this spokes person request their statue to be on campus. Dr. NKrumah, Martin Luther Jr. Melcom X & Co. and will reference peer review evidence based not opinion based
This kind of attitude is invoking my library including my friends to be stock with free donated books globally.
Do you know why UN nonviolent day is connected to the birth day of Ghandi
How could you proof racist application to non violence….. Unless this kind of myopic researchers
Prof, you say national hero, but forget it was in his nationalism that he invoked the oppression olympics premised on prejudice against blacks. So whose national hero are we talking about here? KKK figures are national heroes to some. Where blacks are to KKK sympathizers, what colonizers are to freedom fighters.
Bro. Senzu, I would surely get back at you on that petition. The only thing I took away from it was the fact that we need to acknowledge and appluad people who repent from evil actions and views of thiers in the past, BUT NOT PUT UP STATUES for them in the home of victims of their prejudiced actions and views. That was the only powerful thing about the apology the counter-petitioners put up for a former racist.
I would surely get back to this.
Of course Ghandhi is a national hero for India and it was the government of India that presented the statue gift…so you stretch the comparison too far with the KKK fellow. Mind you great men are usually also controversial fellows. Not everybody likes Nkrumah in Ghana, not everybody likes Ghandhi in India and not everybody likes Mandela in SA, who was even seen as a terrorist before he fought through to liberate his people. It is quite offensive to compare any of these great men to a KKK person. Ghandhi is said to have said things against Blacks but he didn’t go around hanging Blacks on trees like the KKK does, did he?
I’m glad we’ve departed from the dogmatic view of national heroes as you’ve cited examples.
Note, Gandhi’s change of heart per one of the works cited by counter petitioners’ apology made mention of some untouchables whose persistent efforts made Gandhi change his views on the caste system and inter-ethnic marriage. This man I would give you his name is an Indian too if the Indian government negates its cavalier it/he/she could have given us a statue of this man instead of Gandhi.
That is how diplomacy works.
Gandhi did incite violence against the untouchables and blacks in SA.
1. Did you know why he took the temporary Sagent-major in SA
2. Do you know his structure of house built in SA how it look like and stayed there with the people
3. Do you have the full script of his lecture in Oxford University
4. Do you have the Minute of conversation between Rev. Tema( lead member of African congress) and Ghandi
You see history as a subject intertwined with other speciality for analysis and methodology in interpretation of fact.
Do not prescribe it as if it a novel or a creative writing
Your summary now is a full misinterpretation of what the text seek to deduce and that is the error created by your fashion-group of thinkers
Refusing to interpret text from it original meaning but rather elevating it in the opinion of the Interpreter that is scholarly mischievous or incompetency.
I am a research scholar therefore scholarly ethics are hold in high esteem with high level of authenticity
Your constant departure from this scholasticism is now sounding somewhat condescending.
This is my interpretation of your text. You either point out the misinterpretation or we can’t make any progress. I find all the other reasons you stated as not strong enough to merit Gandhi a statue. Nii Moi Thompson butchered the diplomatic and Aid bit.
The only powerful one is the repentance bit. I’m speaking specifically to the repentance bit.Thus, if repentance is enough to merit one a statue?
Prof, Gandhi is a hero to some but a villain to some of us. The klansman was a hero to some but a villain to us. They were both racists who recanted. I don’t see why one should be absolved and the other rejected merely because of the actions of their governments. State action whether hostile or friendly will never wash away their transgressions. Isn’t it selective justice?
Tweneboah Senzu,Those who seek to reinterprete Gandhi’s words in a bid to marginalize them to the betterment of Gandhi and make the statue stay, yet point to his alleged recantation of those same views, have trapped themselves in a grand contradiction. That is what I take from that counter petition.
1. Did you know why he took the temporary Sagent-major in SA
2. Do you know his structure of house built in SA how it look like and stayed there with the people
3. Do you have the full script of his lecture in Oxford University
4. Do you have the Minute of conversation between Rev. Tema( lead member of African congress) and Ghandi
You see history as a subject intertwined with other speciality for analysis and methodology in interpretation of fact.
Do not prescribe it as if it a novel or a creative writing
Johnson Ayoka unless your definition of contradiction is contrary to mine…. Hence will be lost from the context of your argument.
Is the man racist yes or no…. My answer is no, why? because there is a significant difference of authoring a “word” and “acting”.
So a good researcher will further extrapolate a graph to understand what led to the cause of such autterance and deduce the true meaning of the text.
Unless the researcher has an agenda then it easy to myopically make complete deductions, which to me is bogus and unprofessional
The counter petition made extraordinary efforts to depict the evolution of Gandhi from references to blacks as living in ‘nakedness and indololence’ and therefore not fit to be categorized with his Indians, to Gandhi as someone allied to Zulus and Bantus and associating with the universal black course. In your bid to project the latter day Gandhi, even if for the sake of argument we agree that that transition was sincere, you only succeeded in drawing attention to old Gandhi, but you do not notice this. If you need the old racist Gandhi to market the new non-racist Gandhi, then there is a problem, a problem of blemish and backward symbolism not worthy of being elevated in statue form.
Johnson could you ever tell me a single soul on earth as a hero who has no flaws as an imperfect being?.
But why do we still uphold such statues to honour them. It because of a unique call and outstanding commitment to that call in all weakness man is bound to found, even at the detriment of their own interest.
That is what we define it as “philosophical construction” such is not easy for common men…. note that.
Great men indeed do have flaws. They are human like us. The fundamental question is: what is the nature of these flaws? I think Gandhi big flaw outweighs his Universalist humanism
Now… I am getting to understand the real import of your argument. Just one question
Under which standard methodology, did you use to arrive to that deduction: to classify your assertion as valid or invalid
Tweneboah Senzu, what is “standard methodology”? What is that? When someone calls you subhuman, and then later his supporters turn around to tell you he never meant it without evidence of his repentance from the words he used (You claim he repented through actions. But I am deeply sorry M. Senzu, that is a bunch of baloney!), you want to tell me I must use “standard methodology”? Why don’t you try explaining how your “standard” arrived you at the decision to keep the statue of a racist at the grounds of the University of Ghana? Tell us how you weighted each variable. Please!
Abeg, ask am give me. I tire sef
Solomon Azumah-Gomez do not misinterpret the text above…… kind of very good with that hahahah.
Johnson Ayoka state that “He Think Gandhi big flaw outweighs his universalist humanism” then I questioned the method he used to arrive at that deduction.
Johnson you see where I begin to dislike debate devoid of rationalisation and empiricism but fuel with emotions.
You see you couldn’t reply that is what those scholars are doing
I did not reply because I was taken aback my your question. Your request for a formal methodology left me shocked. You pointed out that great men had flaws. I agreed and replied that it depends on the nature of those flaws. In the Gandhi case the flaws to fundamental to make up for his good side. And you ask me for a methodology? Indeed, I was shocked, my friend. If you still want a methodology, you will find one in the interaction between the two of us.
Tweneboah Senzu, my brother for the other mother. M. Senzu, please keep an open mind. Do not assume we do not understand methodology. There’s no methodology to employ here but for “Content Analysis.” It seems amply clear here that many know how to do this, including myself, you, Johnson Ayoka, Zowonu Worlanyo Korku, Audu Salisu and many more. To say there’s anything else but a simple historical, political and sociological content analysis here is shocking. So I ask, how did you arrive at your answer (to put the statue at the UG) with your methodology whatever that may be. I read your petition, and I have read it again. I see no methodology my dear brother from another mother. Tweneboah Senzu, you ought to defend your point with facts, and you know I will be the first to salute you if you are right. But we must start with facts. The fact is that Gandhi considered us, in Africa, as subhumans. No matter how anyone slices this issue it does not refute the point that Gandhi was at one point a racist diplomat from Indian on African soil. We agree! Don’t we? Your additional claim is that he changed and fought for everyone. This is not clear to me. Hence the two questions: (1) Show me how his so-called non-violent fight included the fight for the African’s human rights and (2) Show me how he refuted the claim that he was racist? These are simple questions.
Adams Bodomo, what difference does it make to me that Gandhi is a national hero to India and the KKK member is not to the USA. None! The commonality here is that they both insult my humanity. The rest is none of my Ghanaian business! The analogy is pot on my brother Zowonu Worlanyo Korku.
Let me also address the mummery here that every hero has faults. There’s one fault the remains unacceptable in every circle, to all humans, to all mankind: The fault to label other human beings as subhuman. That is unacceptable ever!
Tweneboah Senzu What needs to be analyzed here properly is their actions, which are the same and amounts to violence against us. I think we risk falling into neocolonial antics if we should engage in any debate of what roles they may or may not have played in which part of the world. As blacks, both hated us and that is what matters.
The focus on race actually excuses the university of the intellectual bankruptcy that led to this morally bankrupt decision. The decision exposes a university that doesn’t seem to know a thing about how the world works, and that’s frightening.
I reproduce below excerpts from a press release I wrote in 2008 for the CPP, when I was director of research for the Party. Eight years later, they come with yet another Trojan Horse and our “intellectuals” hop on it, belly first. It’s a freaking shame (I had decided to go off FB for the rest of the year, but try as I may this egregious act of ignorance keeps pulling me back).
“Example from India-Africa Summit 2008:
India promised a US$5.4bn credit facility for African countries to import a range of industrial products from India, including tractors, water pumps, transportation equipment, and communication gear.
In return, India offered Africa “duty free” access to its market for the following: “cocoa, cotton, cashew nuts, sugarcane, ready-made garments, fish-fillets, copper and aluminium ore, as well as non-industrial diamonds.” With the exception of “ready-made garments”, which in any case may face resistance from India’s apparel industry, everything they offered us was straight out of the imperialism-colonialism play book.
In order to promote its leather goods industry, India imposes only 0.1% tariff on raw hides from Africa but charges 14.7% and 15.0%, respectively, on leather and leather products from Africa.
So much for South-South Cooperation!
What India is doing is a simple action of any political player who is awareness their own interest in international trade: thus search for weaker ones who have the resources you need, take what you can take and offer aid intermittently as you take.
But what amuses me is the fact that it is India and not some long standing classical hegemonic European state our folks have traditionally felt scared to stand up to.
What India teaches all of us is that, a nation only only need self-confidence, self-appreciation, self-awareness, and indeed, intrinsic and conscious interests, in order to dominate people of other nations who lack basic self-confidence and self-appreciation. Ghana has become a nation where all values are reduced to currency and a price for the highest bidder. We are also a nation totally and utterly uninterested in history and the inherent greatness of our forefathers who came before us. We are ready to settle for crumbs – always!
it is a big shame