The things said at many funerals do not impress me, Sir.. I, like Mao, “seek truth from facts.”
I have actually been thinking about writing something about why, in my view, Nyerere was wrong to say he got the approach to Pan Africanism wrong, and Nkrumah’s was right.
I consider Nyerere and Amilcar Cabral to have been very practical implementers. They understood real world constraints and fed it into their plans.
Therefore, my view is that Nkrumah sketched a thriving Utopia that was needed to inspire Pan Africanist solidarity at the time. And Nyerere and Cabral had a more realistic route to make that Utopia a reality. None was wrong, we must learn from both.
Nkrumah’s role cannot and should not be diluted. But the temple of Pan Africanism is big enough for many deities. We should never be forced into trying to tear down anyone to make space for the other.
What for example, did Kwame Nkrumah mean, when upon his overthrow, in exile in Conakry, he said to Amilcar Cabral:
“Cabral, I tell you one thing, our problem of African is very important, really, but now if I had to begin again, my approach would be different.”?
The great Amilcar Lopez da Costa Cabral, to my mind, one of the most far-seeing, original and analytical revolutionaries of human history; all of it, not just post-colonial Africa, was himself deeply impressed by Nkrumah. But he recorded this comment from Nkrumah.
Cabral who had remarked: “I can tell you, the head of state in Africa I admired the most in my life was Nkrumah… he was one of my best friends, I’ll never forget him; and you can read my speech at his memorial.” He was a great fan of Nkrumah. But he was also very honest.
From the lives of many great people, I have learned never to admire someone so much that it leads me to fear the truth about that person, as revealed by facts. This remains my position, one that often gets me into trouble. Because I will never shy away from reviewing a person holistically.
People are human and therefore fallible. The expectation of perfection from any human being is infant fantasy.
I admire Kwame Nkrumah for many things, I can also write a tome on his minuses. Some Nkrumaists go insane when you say the man was fallible. Which human is not?
Thankfully, I am not easily intimidated. No one was perfect; not Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kwan Yew, Mao Zedong, or Ho Chi Minh. Nor were Nyerere, Cabral or Mandela. Great, yes. Infallible, no. Deng said: when my time comes to go if it is said I got 60% right and 40% wrong, that is enough.
The person that tries had enough to make an impact will make some mistakes. It is the nature of innovation and failure is an opportunity to learn and improve. But this crazy Robinson Crusoe generation of Africans sometimes seem in search of the perfect man.
I find this way of living – not expecting anyone to be perfect – liberating. Whatever people want to say or think about Jerry Rawlings is their business. So long as they do not interfere with the facts. For, I lived through the Rawlings era. If there is a quarrel with what I put forward factually, I am happy to engage.
Beyond that, even Satan has his worshippers. I therefore have no issue with who someone chooses to admire, so long as there is no attempt to impose their choices on me. Thank you for causing me to put down what I have postponed many times about Pan Africanist approaches from the early generation of Post-Independence leaders.
Yaw Nsarkoh,
7 October 2023.
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