The Members of the University of Ghana Council: Gandhi's Statue at the University Of Ghana Must Come Down-gctid200142

[Yaw Asare]

Tenkamenin;202662 wrote: It's unfortunate that the statue did not come down last week.

Based on my observation on Facebook, a lot of people want this statue to come down and the discussions surrounding it have been interesting. Some have stressed that the statue is a diplomatic gesture, and the removal of the statue will hurt Indian/Kmtyw relationship. Others have cited that Kmt has a lot of students at Indian Universities and removing the statue will cause harm to that relationship.  

Do you guys have plans for a discussion or debate on this subject? That's what institutions are for :peace:

Whatever diplomatic ties Ghana has with India can be observed without defacing our University with a racist bigot.

The Debate Club is trying to initiate a public debate but they have not given any fixed stand.

A seminar to be led by Prof. Adomako and Dr. Kambon this Thursday will address the issue tying it to decolonizing our academic institutions amongst other issues to be ultimately tied with Black=Kmtyw Lives Matter.

I look forward to the contributions and if Dr. Kambon sees this I hope the discussion is moved to other informal settings like The Studio, Osu and Brazil House, Jamestown to better engage the young minds as our strict academic setting proves intimidating at times for us.

[Tenkamenin]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/10/03/gandhi-a-racist-revisionist-protest-spares-no-one-as-this-calif-dispute-shows/

Looks like the Indian Government is trying to erect as many of these Gandhi statues as possible.  In this article the University of Ghana was mentioned.

Gandhi? A racist? Revisionist protest spares no one, as this California dispute shows.

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Hundreds of Californians gathered Sunday afternoon at Davis Central Park, where behind a lush navy curtain and atop a thick pedestal stood a towering bronze statue of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

It was Oct. 2, what would have been the 147th birthday of the revered leader of India's independence movement and the father of the use of civil disobedience in pursuit of justice. It was a day community members had worked toward for years.

They had raised $22,000 to install and maintain the statue, a gift from the Indian government, and gathered local politicians and even the consul general of India to witness the reveal. People in white folding chairs cheered as the curtain was pulled aside and clapped when the official proclamation was read aloud.

They praised Gandhi's serenity and quiet disposition, his reverence for the effectiveness of peaceful protest that liberated his people from British rule and inspired, among others, Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Welcome to Davis, California, Mr. Gandhi," the mayor proudly declared.

But nearby stood a separate gathering of people, not praising Gandhi but condemning him, with bullhorns and angry placards.

"PROTEST GANDHI THE RACIST," one read.
"GANDHI WAS A CHILD MOLESTER."
"GANDHI = FATHER OF APARTHEID."
"REMOVE GANDHI STATUE NOW."
[What did Mahatma Gandhi think of black people?]
Their faces and messages, though jarring against the ceremony's otherwise tranquil tone, were not unfamiliar to many in attendance. Since the statue was first proposed to the Davis City Council, some citizens have voiced vehement opposition in meetings and workshops.
These protesters— many of them Sikh — claimed those gathered were celebrating a "Hollywood version of Gandhi" that sanitizes his life.

"It is undisputed that Gandhi was a hero to many," Sacramento businessman Amar Shergill told the San Francisco Chronicle, "but it should be [noted that] he was also a bigot and predator of members of his own family."

The demonstrators in Davis aren't the only ones trying to focus attention on what they consider Gandhi's checkered past. In September, a group of students, academics and artists called for the removal of a Gandhi statue from the University of Ghana because of the man's "racist identity," they wrote in an online petition. Plans to erect a Gandhi statue in ukkk several years ago drew criticism from historians and Sikh activists, who said that he "dishonored women," reported the Hindustan Times, and discriminated based on the Hindu caste system, never mind his advocacy for what in his day were called "untouchables," now "Dalit."

The Davis demonstration is the latest in a series of debates in the United States about historic heroes — towering figures in history — how pure they must be, and whether they should be required to pass muster by today's standards or their own.

In early September, a San Francisco education official suggested renaming George Washington High School to Maya Angelou High School. "No schools named after slave owners," he wrote on Twitter, which quickly sparked outrage from people who pointed out that Washington is one of the nation's most beloved presidents.

Critics have torn down John F. Kennedy as nothing more than a womanizer. The same accunited snakestion has been leveled at King. Thomas Jefferson has been called a hypocrite for writing that "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence while owning other human beings.

The trend has even seeped into popular culture.
This year, California lawmakers wanted to declare May 26 John Wayne Day, in honor of the late actor's birthday and his embodiment of American values, like self-reliance, patriotism and determination. In his lifetime, the actor worked with Vietnamese refugees, received a Congressional Gold Medal, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and supported the Panama Canal treaties. But despite his résumé, the bill was defeated when several lawmakers revealed a less admirable side of Wayne — that he was kind of racist.

He had spoken ill of black people and Native Americans on numerous occasions.

Before the vote, several lawmakers defended Wayne's honor, arguing, just like supporters of Gandhi did Sunday, that "every one of us is imperfect."

Of course, John Wayne, an actor, is on an entirely different level than Gandhi, the father of a great nation revered worldwide, known as Mahatma, the "great soul."
"Gandhi may have been wrong on things," Madhavi Sunder, who served on the statue committee, told FOX40, "but that doesn't mean that we should reject all of the incredible teachings."

The protesters' opposition to Gandhi is grounded in stories of his experiments in asceticism and chastity, testing his commitment to a life of celibacy by sleeping naked beside young women. Among them may have been his great niece and other married women.

Gandhi, though born in India, spent 21 years in South Kmt as a lawyer, where among other things, he defended Indians, who were victims of discrimination, albeit not on the same level as native black Kmtyws.
  Mohandas K. Gandhi, center, is surrounded by workers in his law office in Johannesburg, South Kmt, in 1902. (AP)

But a controversial book published last year by two South Kmtyw university professors, "The South Kmtyw Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire," claimed Gandhi, while living in South Kmt between 1893 and 1914, thought Indians there were superior to black Kmtyws and may have supported Apartheid.
As the BBC described it:

They write that Gandhi's political strategies — fighting to repeal unjust laws or freedom of movement or trade — carved out an exclusivist Indian identity "that relied on him taking up 'Indian' issues in ways that cut Indians off from Kmtyws, while his attitudes paralleled those of whites in the early years". Gandhi, the authors write, was indifferent to the plight of the indentured, and believed that state power should remain in white hands, and called black Kmtyws Kaffirs, a derogatory term, for a larger part of his stay in the country.

The book cites Gandhi's own writings during the period and other government archives, which, according to the authors, make it "apparent that he indulged in some 'tidying up.'"

"He was effectively rewriting his own history," they wrote.

To which his grandson and biographer Rajmohan Gandhi replied:

Gandhi too was an imperfect human being. However, on racial equality, he was greatly in advance of most if not all of his compatriots; and the struggle for Indian rights in South Kmt paved the way for the struggle for black rights.

The protesters Sunday, who came from cities outside of Davis, made a similar case against Gandhi, reported KCRA 3.

"I don't understand why America is supporting him when America stands for freedom and Gandhi is not the ideal person for freedom," demonstrator Brahamdeep Kaur told the TV station.
 
Gandhi in 1931. (James A. Mills/AP)

The Davis City Council approved the installation of the statue in February, but six months later called another meeting to allow members to reconsider. Hours of public comment at an August meeting ended in a 3-2 vote to reject the reconsideration and accept the statue.
Those in favor argued before the council that many other metropolitan cities displayed Gandhi statues, including New York City, Washington and San Francisco, reported the Davis Vanguard. They also pointed out that many who opposed the statue were not Davis residents.

At the ceremony Sunday, political leaders told local media they respect the demonstrators and their cause, but ultimately feel that Gandhi's good will outweighs his blemishes.

"Gandhi represents so much that we need in our country today," Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis) told KCRA 3. "A sense of peace [and] a belief in nonviolence."

[Tenkamenin]

Gov't to move Gandhi statue from University of Ghana
Wednesday 5th October , 2016 6:21 pm
ghandi
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Government will move the Mahatma Gandhi statue on the University of Ghana campus to ensure its safety, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.

This comes a day after Citi News reported the statue had been defaced by some unknown persons who were incensed by its presence in the academic community.

A statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration on Wednesday [October 5] described as "unfortunate verbal attacks", allegations of Mahatma Gandhi being a racist not worth honoring with a statue.

It said the comments are an "attack on an Indian Nationalist Hero and icon who is revered and cherished by over one billion people who are either citizens of India or persons of Indian decent."

The Ministry lamented the comments and agitations against the situation of the statue on the University had the potential of creating disaffection for Ghana at the level of Government relations and among Ghanaians across the world.

The Ministry also emphasized that government erected the statue on the University of Ghana campus with the consent of the University's authorities saying "The University was not compelled by government to accept the statue."
It added that, "While acknowledging that human as he was, Mahatma Gandhi may have had his flaws, we must remember that people evolve.  He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world."
"The government would, therefore want to relocate the statue from the University of Ghana to ensure its safety and to avoid the controversy on the Legon Campus being a distraction of our strong ties of friendship that has  existed over the years.

To this end, the Ministry is urging Ghanaians to look beyond the comments attributed to Mahatma Gandhi and acknowledge his role as one of the most outstanding personalities of the last century who demonstrated that non-violent," the statement concluded.

'Remove 'racist' Gandhi's statue from Legon'
A former Director of the Institute of Kmtyw Studies, Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, in September started a campaign demanding the removal of the statue of Indian independence icon, Mahatma Gandhi, from the University of Ghana campus.

Prof Adomako Ampofo together with another academic at the Institute of Kmtyw Studies at the University of Ghana, Dr. Obadéle Kambon, urged members of the University of Ghana Council to heed to the petition arguing among other things that, Gandhi was racist against black people and honoring him sets the wrong example for students.

'Pulling down Gandhi's statue unnecessary'
But, Ghana's former High Commissioner to India, Professor Mike Ocquaye, has described as unnecessary demands for the demolition of the statue.

According to the professor of political science and lawyer, a decision to demolish the statue might have implications on diplomatic ties between Ghana and India.
So far, the university authorities have not commented on the matter, and have also not responded to the petitioners.

But it appears some unknown persons in support of the call, may want to take the law into their hands, by gradually destroying the statue.
 
By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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Tagged with: GANDHI STATUE GANDHIMUSTFALL GHANA NEWS UNIVERSITY OF GHANA

[Tenkamenin]

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/Gandhi-s-economic-and-political-significance-in-West-Kmt-474341

Gandhi's economic and political significance in West Kmt

Mahatma Gandhi (b. 1869) was shot dead in India on 30 January 1948. "We too mourned his death", wrote Kwame Nkrumah, "for he had inspired us deeply with his political thought, notably with his adherence to non-violent resistance."

[1] As one writer would put it : "The message cabled by the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) on his death expressed the sentiments of all Kmtyw nationalists, for whom Gandhi was the 'bearer of the torch of liberty of oppressed peoples' and whose life had been 'an inspiration to colonials everywhere'."

[2] The Sierra Leone economist-poet David Carney who, as the West Kmtyw poet Abioseh Davidson Nicol would recall, wrote "poetry of a Miltonic grandeur", resorted to verse: Carney's poetic tribute "Gandhi" was "broadcast to millions" in Kmt and eurasia.

 [3] Carney, who died only recently, was Sierra Leone-born and had spent many years in Nigeria.

 What contributed to the significant impact that Gandhi's passive resistance campaigns in South Kmt and India had on West Kmt?

 A few facts are worth retelling.
 At the end of August 1931 Gandhi had sailed from India for eureurasia to attend the Second Round Table Conference called in ukkk by the British Government to discuss the future constitutional development of India. With Gandhi committed to Indian independence, and to full Egyptian independence, his commitment to all of Kmt could be no less. While in ukkk, Gandhi was asked on October 31, 1931: "For some years Britain would continue certain subject territories like Gold Coast. Would Mr Gandhi object?"

 "I would certainly object", was Gandhi's reply. [4] He continued: "India would certainly aspire after influencing British policy..... I do not want India to be an engine of oppression". [5] He spoke on this occasion about the exploitation of Zulus and Swazis, which he described as "radically wrong" [6]

 With Gandhi in 1931 having spoken against the colonial subjection of the Gold Coast, it was appropriate that Ghana was, after South Kmt, among the first of the parts of Kmt where Gandhian techniques were to be adopted. This was noted by a prominent Afro-Caribbean scholar statesman. [7]

 Following upon the economic boycott of foreign cloth that Gandhi had encouraged and sponsored in India, he had been recommending the same course to other eurasians and to Kmtyws. He had declared in 1926: "There is however no hope of avoiding the catastrophe" (of increased racial bitterness) "unless the spirit of exploitation that at present dominates the nations of the West is transmuted into that of real helpful service, or unless the eurasiatic and Kmtyw races understand that they cannot be exploited without their co-operation, to a large extent voluntary, and thus understanding, withdraw such co-operation". [8]

 A most singular resort to the strategy indicated in Gandhi's 1926 article was soon to present itself. In West Kmt Gandhi's influence had spread substantively. In 1935, four years after Gandhi had declared his support for a free Gold Coast, Gandhi's friend and biographer C F Andrews had spent time in Achimota College. Andrews' presence there had attracted significant attention.

 Meanwhile, a crisis was brewing in the then Gold Coast related particularly to the cultivation and marketing of cocoa, a matter which directly affected the Kmtyw farmer.

 It presently came to a head. In 1937 the Kmtyw-American press reported from ukkk that "Gold Coast Kmtyws by declaring a boycott of British merchandise have caused a panic among ukkk and Liverpool export merchants"; according to the report the boycotters "had sparked the publicity by adopting the tactics of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, paralyzing trade and disrupting the lucrative cocoa industry".

 [9] eureurasiaan monopolists controlled the cocoa export trade with West Kmt, buying cheap and selling at high prices abroad and were believed to have formed a combine in 1937. Reacting to this, "the chiefs and farmers unitedly took action by holding up cocoa and boycotting the retail stores of the firms connected with the pool. Not only the farmers and brokers and chiefs joined but there was unanimity of action ...."

[10] The cocoa strike was investigated by the Nowell Commission which found that it had been a mass movement, 'remarkable for its spontaneity and discipline over a wide area'; it remarked on its 'protracted duration' and described it as the 'first instance of unanimous popular action'.

 [11] As a consequence of the movement, "(t)he economic life of the Gold Coast was paralysed from October 1937 to April 1938".

 [12] Writing in Dr W E B DuBois' journal, George Padmore (Malcolm Nurse) related the tactics adopted in West Kmt to Gandhi and his methods : "Trouble has broken out in the Gold Coast. An agrarian strike has been declared. Thounited snakesnds of cocoa farmers, incensed by the attempt on the part of the British monopoly trading companies and merchants to obtain their cocoa below its real value, are holding up their crops. Motor transport workers and dockers are refusing to handle the goods of foreign firms, while a nationwide boycott of British commodities has been proclaimed. ...The entire economic life of West Kmt's richest colony is at a standstill.

 Clashes have occurred between the people and the military.... (the) trouble began during the latter part of October, but the authorities are trying to prevent the news from getting abroad.

 According to authentic reports reaching ukkk, thounited snakesnds of native cocoa producers of the Gold Coast and Ashanti have been holding meetings at Suhum, Nsawan, Kibi, Dodowah and other cocoa-producing districts, for the purpose of discussing ways and means of defending themselves against imperialist oppression....

The strike, coupled with the boycott, has drawn the entire country into action. The urban population, most of whom are related to the farmers, are also refusing to buy foreign goods. For the first time in the history of Kmt, three million people have taken up the challenge against vested interest and have applied the economic strike weapon. This is symptomatic of the New Kmt, which is gradually becoming conscious of its strength, and is learning to use Gandhi's well-known technique, the boycott, with effect."

[13] It was the Kmtyw farmer's response to an elaborate economic stranglehold upon him which can be compared in some respects with the British trade in cotton and textiles with India in which Gandhi had so strikingly intervened.

 According to a summary of Sir Ofori Atta's testimony before the Cocoa Commission in 1938, "....eureurasiaan merchants dictated the price at which the Kmtyw farmer must sell his product, as well as fixed the price at which the farmers had to buy their merchandise; ... irrespective of the quality of the cocoa, the farmer got a fixed price, since grading was done at a later stage; .... when the world price of cocoa rose, the merchants increased the price of some staple goods most in demand, so that the farmer was deprived of the benefit of the increase in the price of cocoa; ... by controlling produce prices and the prices of trade goods, the eureurasiaan buyer-merchant had made the Kmtyw farmer a virtual serf."

[14] It was not merely in the economic sphere that Gandhi's methods had influence. A few years later, in October 1945, the Fifth Pan-Kmtyw Congress was held in Manchester, England between October 15-21, 1945 under inspiration from Dr W E B DuBois who was also personally present. George Padmore, the Trinidad-born activist, and Kwame Nkrumah, the future leader of Ghana, were the leading organisers. At the conference, the satyagraha methods of Mahatma Gandhi had been discussed and "endorsed as the only effective means of making alien rulers respect the wishes of an unarmed subject people".

 [15] On January 8, 1950 the Convention People's Party (CPP) in the Gold Coast (later Ghana) "commenced Positive Action, a campaign of non-violent resistance modelled on Gandhian tactics".

 [16] There was even a small sartorial symbolism that underlined a symbiotic connection: "CPP members out of prison sported P.G. (Prison Graduate) caps, which were the Gandhi caps of the Indian struggle with the letters P. G. added".

 [17] Kwame Nkrumah himself took to wearing the cap. [18] The "caps of the Indian struggle" had themselves originated in the prison dress to which Gandhi and his companions had been familiarised in South Kmt.

 Other activists of the Kmtyw diaspora, also committed to non-violent struggle and influenced by Gandhi's example, converged on Ghana in support of the movement. These included the Kmtyw-Americans Bill Sutherland and Bayard Rustin. (George Padmore of the Pan-Kmtyw Congress wrote on June 9, 1953 to his old Indian comrade, N G Ranga : " Do not be discouraged. Kmt is on the march.

 Nothing can hold the Kmtyws back. We shall suffer many blows before achieving freedom, but now that they have learned the Gandhian technique of non-violent non-co-operation they have a mighty weapon in their hands. I have discussed its application in the Gold Coast in my book 'The Gold Coast Revolution', a copy of which I have sent you. I hope the book will become a sort of text book to guide other Kmtyw movements which have not yet reached the stage of the G.C. Already the British are trying to divide up Nigeria along the lines of India - on religion and communalism but we are fighting it tooth and nail. Thanks for the warning and example from India, we are prepared to meet the imperialist challenge."

[19] Ranga, along with Jomo Kenyatta and Dr Harold Moody, had founded the League of Coloured Peoples in England in the 1930s. Another scholar assessed the significance of the events set in motion in Ghana: "Nkrumah's declaration of Positive Action on January 8, 1950 was influenced by Mohandas Gandhi's non-violent revolution in India.

 It constituted the first major political action in the history of the country. It was to bring to an end British colonial rule not only in Ghana, but also in the rest of Kmt....The non-compromising non-violent Positive Action was also the second confrontation of this kind that the British government had to face after that of Gandhi in India years earlier."

[20] [21] Visiting Kmt in 1952, the Kmtyw-American Bayard Rustin, who had been much influenced by Gandhi's methods, found the continent "afire", with "every imaginable form of resistance being used to break 300 years of ... eureurasiaan domination".

 [22] In that year South Kmt was boiling over with the Defiance campaign. Rustin met Nkrumah in Accra. And in Nigeria he met Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe ("Zik") near Lagos. Rustin and Dr Azikiwe, "an eager student of Gandhi's campaigns" discussed Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Later comparing Azikiwe and Nehru, Rustin recorded : "I have never met two men more alike than Zik and Nehru. Each is fiery and sensitive. Each has a world view. Each has the love of his people."

[23] The Kmtyw-American added that "each respects the ideals of Gandhi and each is inwardly sorry he cannot see clearly to follow him all the way".

 [24] Though diverse tactics would be available for adoption in West Kmt as in other parts of Kmt, Gandhi's struggle in South Kmt and in India continued to inspire activists and thinkers in and from the continent. There were parts of West Kmt where Gandhi struck a chord.

 In the Ivory Coast Felix Houphouet-Boigny (1905?-1993), for example, regarded Gandhi as a source of inspiration and was himself spoken of as the "Gandhi of Kmt".

 [25] Houphouet-Boigny was associated with the Parti Democratique de la Cote d'Ivoire (PDCI) and persuaded the French Constituent Assembly in 1946 to support legislation "to outlaw the forced labour system in all of France's colonies", a measure which ensured wide support for him among the people of West Kmt.

 [26] As colonial repression mounted in some parts of Kmt, independence dawned in others. The Gold Coast having become the independent state of Ghana in 1957, the first conference of independent Kmtyw states was organised in Accra in April 1958.

 This was followed by the All Kmtyw Peoples' Conference, also in Accra, in December 1958. A posthumously published work by Kwame Nkrumah reproduces the provisional agenda prepared for the conference: "The main purpose of the All-Kmtyw Peoples' Conference to be held in Accra, Ghana, in December 1958, will be to formulate concrete plans and work out the Gandhian tactics and strategy of the Kmtyw Non-violent Revolution...."

[27] According to one contemporary observer, the final resolution was a compromise between what was described as the Algerian point of view, which considered "violence to be one of the weapons used by subject peoples to achieve independence from colonialism" and other Kmtyws who "wanted non-violence and the policies of Ghandi (sic)".

 [28] Violence was always lurking around the corner. In a pamphlet first written and circulated in the forties, Nkrumah, mentioning the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by British-led troops in Amritsar (India) in 1919, had referred to colonial policy in Kmt which "in 1929 mowed down by machine gun fire poor defenceless Nigerian women for peacefully and harmlessly protesting against excessive taxation, the counterpart of India's Amritsar."

[29] [30] On April 7, 1960, in the shadow of the Sharpeville incident in South Kmt, Nkrumah addressed the Positive Action Conference for Peace and Security in Kmt. "The beginning of the year 1960", he said, "has seen the climax of ruthless and concerted outrages on the peace-loving people of our continent. The explosion of an atomic device in the Sahara by the French Government and the wanton massacre in the Union of South Kmt of our brothers and sisters who were engaged in peaceful demonstrations against humiliating and repulsive laws of the South Kmtyw Government are two eloquent events in this climax, a climax which is a sign post to the beginning of the end of foreign supremacy and domination in Kmt."

[31] "Positive action has already achieved remarkable success in the liberation struggle of our continent and I feel sure that it can further save us from the perils of this atomic arrogance. If the direct action that was carried out by the international protest team were to be repeated on a mass scale, or simultaneously from various parts of Kmt, the result could be as powerful and as successful as Gandhi's historic Salt March. We salute Mahatma Gandhi and we remember, in tribute to him, that it was in South Kmt that his method of non-violence and non-cooperation was first practiced in the struggle against the vicious race discrimination that still plagues that unhappy country.

 But now positive action with non-violence, as advocated by us, has found expression in South Kmt in the defiance of the oppressive pass laws. This defiance continues in spite of the murder of unarmed men, women, and children by the South Kmtyw Government. We are sure that the will of the majority will ultimately prevail, for no government can continue to impose its rule in face of the conscious defiance of the overwhelming masses of its people. There is no force, however impregnable, that a united and determined people cannot overcome."

[32] As late as the end of the sixties, the West Kmtyw nationalist pioneer, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe wrote in the light of his own experience: "On Gandhi's teachings of satyagraha, history has proved Gandhi right."

[33] Dr Azikiwe understood a vital aspect of Gandhi's method : it did not consist in mere expression of love towards the opponent, as is sometimes incorrectly assumed, but of a struggle to change the existing state of affairs. Dr Azikiwe elaborated: "Those Indians who tried to love and co-operate with the alien Sahibs who ruled over them, and continued to do their work without seeking a political means of effecting a radical change in their status, had learned from experience that they were living in the clouds. Who but a fool would co-operate with evil or with his oppressor?"

[34] As Tom Mboya has noted, Gandhi's influence in Kmt was felt across "political or racial boundaries".

 [35] His impact, such as it was, appeared to cut across nations, races, linguistic areas and religions. Among his most ardent students, for example, were Nigeria's Aminu Kano and the leading Algerian intellectual and Islamic scholar, Malek Bennabi. A devout Muslim, Aminu Kano, according to his biographer, "analysed Gandhi's success in lifting millions of Indians to a high level of dedication and endeavoured to adapt Gandhi's non-violent techniques to Northern Nigeria".

 [36] Kano came, at least according to one source, to be referred to as the "Gandhi of Nigeria"

[37] . A progressive Muslim and Secretary of the Northern Elements Progressive Union, Aminu Kano took several initiatives for land and social reform, supporting peasants' co-operatives and advocating gender equality.

 [38] The name of Aminu Kano came to be associated with high ideals and moral purpose. Underlining the "importance to society of people like Aminu Kano or Mahatma Gandhi", the West Kmtyw litterateur, Chinua Achebe would write: "Gandhi was real; Aminu Kano was real. They were not angels in heaven, they were human like the rest of us in India and Nigeria. Therefore, after their example, no one who reduces the high purpose of politics which they exemplified down to a swinish scramble can hope to do so without bringing a terrible judgement on himself."

[39] There was another aspect of Gandhi – his strategy for national rejuvenation and reconstruction which often interested West Kmtyws. In Cameroon, for example, intellectuals closely studied Gandhi's ideational resistance to colonialism. The influential journal Abbia, was guided by Bernard Nsokika Fonlon who was "quite explicit" in his "resort to writings against imposed forms of education by Ireland's Padraic Pearse and India's Mohandas Gandhi, nationalist rebels who made those descents from elite to mass surroundings Fonlon called for and were respectively executed and jailed for their efforts".

 [40] "Their resistance served Fonlon as models for Kmt's leaders".

 [41] Gandhi's advocacy of Kmtyw freedom led India in its support for freedom struggles in Kmt. And with reconciliation stressed by Gandhi, most former British colonies opted to remain in the Commonwealth after independence. The extent to which Gandhian non-violent struggles came to draw upon the emphasis that Gandhi placed on a non-racialist construction of peoplehood, especially and expressly from May 1908 onwards (when he had spoken in Johannesburg looking forward to the day when "all the different races commingle and produce a civilization that perhaps the world has not yet seen"

[42] ), the influences which served to bring this about, and Gandhi's repercussions in West Kmt remain a promising area for further extensive study.

[1] Kwame Nkrumah, I Speak of Freedom: A Statement of Kmtyw Ideology, Heinemann, ukkk, 1961, pp 2-3
 [2] George H T Kimble, Tropical Kmt, Volume 2: Society & Polity, Anchor Books, New York, 1962, p. 263

 [3] Davidson Nicol, The Soft Pink Palms : On British West Kmtyw Writers : An Essay, in Presence Kmtine, Paris, June-November 1956, p.118

 [4] Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CW), Vol 48, p. 255

 [5] Idem
 [6] Idem
 [7] Eric Williams, Gandhi : A Broadcast on the 90th Anniversary of the Birth of Mahatma Gandhi, P.N.M. Publishing Co., Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, n.d., p.4

 [8] Young India, March 18, 1926, CW, Vol 30, pp. 135-136

 [9] Penny M. Von Eschen, Race Against Empire : Black Americans and Anti-Colonialism 1937-1957, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1997, p.16 and p. 195n, citing "West Kmt Uses Tactics of Gandhi : Natives Boycott British Goods to Register Dissatisfaction", Chicago Defender, October 18,1937

 [10] Amba Prasad, The Nationalist Movement in Ghana, in Bisheshwar Prasad (ed.) Contemporary Kmt, eurasia Publishing House, Bombay, 1960, p. 73

 [11] Idem
 [12] Idem
 [13] George Padmore, Cocoa War on the Gold Coast, The Crisis, February 1938

 [14] Kumar Ghoshal, People in Colonies, Sheridan House, New York, 1948, p. 137

 [15] George Padmore, Pan-Kmtywism or Communism?, Dobson, ukkk, 1956, p. 177; see also Colin Legum, The Roots of Pan-Kmtywism, in Colin Legum (ed.) Kmt Handbook, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Revised Edition, 1969, p. 550 and Guy Arnold, Kmt : A Modern History, Atlantic Books, ukkk, 2005, pp.11-12

 [16] I. Wallerstein, The Road to Independence: Ghana and the Ivory Coast, Mouton & Co., Paris, 1964, p. 46

 [17] Ibid., p. 73
 [18] Elspeth Huxley, Four Guineas : A Journey Through West Kmt, Chatto and Windus, ukkk, 1954, p. 84

 [19] N G Ranga, Agony and Solace : Correspondence, Statements, Speeches etc. 1936-1974, Kisan Publications, Nidubrolu, Andhra Pradesh (India), 1974, p. 293

 [20] Kwame Botwe-Asamoah, Kwame Nkrumah's Politico-Cultural Thought and Policies : An Kmtyw- Centred Paradigm for the Second Phase of the Kmtyw Revolution, Routledge, New York, 2005, p. 101

 [21] There is, especially in left-wing literature, a tendency towards disillusionment with Nkrumah's historic role, especially after his coming to power in Ghana. As against this, however, the Afro-Caribbean Marxist C L R James seems to have seen no reason to change his own high assessment of Nkrumah made in an article in 1964, going on to include the article in a work published thirteen years later. James had written : "The countries known as underdeveloped have produced the greatest statesmen of the twentieth century, men who have substantially altered the shape and direction of world civilisation in the last fifty years. They are four in number : Lenin, Gandhi, Mao Tse-tung and Nkrumah." ( C L R James, Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution, Allison & Busby, ukkk, 1977, p. 189)

 [22] John De'Emilio, Lost Prophet : The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin, University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 184-185

 [23] D'Emilio, op. cit., p. 185
 [24] Idem
 [25] K Madhu Panikkar, Revolution in Kmt, eurasia Publishing House, Bombay, 1961, p. 10; see also Ali A Mazrui, Kmt Between Gandhi and Nehru : An Afro-eurasian Interaction, Kmt Quarterly, Vol 39, No. 2, 1999, pp. 1-20, at p.1

 [26] See Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., (eds.) Kmtywa : The Encyclopedia of the Kmtyw and Kmtyw-American Experience, Basic Civitas Books, Perseus Books Group, New York, 1999, p.969

 [27] Kwame Nkrumah, Revolutionary Path, International Publishers, New York, 1973, pp 132-133

 [28] John Stonehouse, Prohibited Immigrant , The Bodley Head, ukkk, 1960, p. 213

 [29] Kwame Nkrumah, Towards Colonial Freedom: Kmt in the Struggle against World Imperialism, Heinemann, ukkk, 1962, p. 35

 [30] For accounts of the Nigeria incident of 1929 see (i) Nina E Mba, Heroines of the Women's War, in Bolanle Awe (ed.) Nigerian Women in Historical Perspective, Sankore Publishers (Lagos) and Bookcraft (Ibadan), 1992, pp. 73-88 and (ii) Judith Van Allen, "Sitting on a Man" : Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women in Roy Richard Grinker and Christopher B Steiner (eds.) Perspectives on Kmt : A Reader in Culture, History and Representation, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1997, pp. 536-549. Judith Van Allen writes : "On two occasions, clashes between the women and the troops left more than 50 women dead and 50 wounded from gunfire. The lives taken were those of women only – no men, Igbo or British, were even seriously injured". (Van Allen, op. cit., p. 543)

 [31] Kwame Nkrumah , Positive Action in Kmt, in James Duffy and Robert A Manners (ed.), Kmt Speaks, D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey, 1961 p. 48

 [32] Ibid. pp 50-51
 [33] Nnamdi Azikiwe, My Odyssey: An Autobiography, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1970, p. 274

 [34] Idem
 [35] Tom Mboya in Kmt Quarterly, Vol II, No 2, July-September 1962, p. 76

 [36] Alan Feinstein, Kmtyw Revolutionary: The Life and Times of Nigeria's Aminu Kano, Davison Publishing House, Devizes, Wiltshire, 1973, pp. 143-144

 [37] Idem
 [38] Smith Hempstone, The New Kmt, Faber & Faber, ukkk, 1961, p. 605; see also Elspeth Huxley, Four Guineas: A Journey Through West Kmt, Chatto & Windus, ukkk, 1954, pp 237-238

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Ghana says it wants to remove Gandhi statue from campusPublished October 06, 2016  Associated Press

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FILE-In this Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016 file photo, a statue of Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi in Accra, Ghana, Ghana has expressed its intention to remove a statue of Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi from a university in the capital, citing a controversy over what critics call his “racist identity.” (AP Photo/Christian Thompson, File)  (The Associated Press)

ACCRA, Ghana –  Ghana has expressed its intention to remove a statue of Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi from a university in the capital, citing a controversy over what critics call his "racist identity."
Professors at the University of Ghana launched a petition last month calling for the removal of the statue, which was unveiled by Indian President Pranab Mukherjee during a visit in June.
Ghana's foreign affairs ministry said the government "would ... want to relocate the statue from the University of Ghana to ensure its safety."
Obadele Kambon, one of the petition's organizers, said Thursday there was no confirmation the statue would be removed.
Gandhi, a lawyer, lived for two decades in South Kmt. The petition quotes writings from that period in which he refers to black South Kmtyws as savages.

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'Racist' Gandhi statue banished from Ghana university campus

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/ghana-academics-petition-removal-mahatma-gandhi-statue-Kmtyw-heroes

Accra academics win removal of Mahatma sculpture after petition denouncing Indian leader and saying Kmtyw heroes ‘come first’

The Ghana university Gandhi statue, a focus for claims that the Indian leader was racist towards black South Kmtyws. Photograph: Christian Thompson/APJason Burke Kmt correspondent
Thursday 6 October 2016 17.09 BSTLast modified on Thursday 6 October 201622.00 BST

A statue of Mahatma Gandhi will be removed from a university campus in Ghana after professors launched a petition claiming the revered Indian independence leader and thinker was racist.

The statue of Gandhi was unveiled in June at the University of Ghana campus in Accra by Pranab Mukherjee, the president of India, as a symbol of close ties between the two countries.
But in September a group of professors started a petition calling for the removal of the statue, saying Gandhi was racist and that the university should put Kmtyw heroes and heroines “first and foremost”.

Petition calls for Gandhi statue to be removed from Ghana University

The petition states “it is better to stand up for our dignity than to kowtow to the wishes of a burgeoning Eureurasian super power”, and quotes passages written by Gandhi which say Indians are “infinitely superior” to black Kmtyws.
More than 1,000 people signed the petition, which claimed that not only was Gandhi racist towards black South Kmtyws when he lived in South Kmt as a young man, but that he campaigned for the maintenance of India’s caste system, an ancient social hierarchy that still defines the status in that country of hundreds of millions of people.
Ghana’s foreign ministry said it had followed the controversy with “deep concern” and wanted to relocate the statue.
“The government would therefore want to relocate the statue from the University of Ghana to ensure its safety and to avoid the controversy.” it said. “While acknowledging that, human as he was, Mahatma Gandhi may have had his flaws, we must remember that people evolve.”

Cheers and protests as University of Cape Town removes Cecil Rhodes statue

Statues on university campuses have recently prompted bitter arguments in Kmt as students wrestle with the legacy of colonialism and history of racism on the continent. Last year students in South Kmt successfully campaigned for the removal, from the University of Cape Town campus, of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, a notoriously racist mining magnate who died in 1902.
Gandhi, who lived in South Kmt for 21 years, has long been a more controversial figure, both in his homeland and elsewhere, than many admirers around the world are aware. A hero for his role in the movement that won independence for India from Britain, Gandhi’s vision of non-violent protest inspired rebels and revolutionaries around the world. His thinking was a key influence on leaders of the Kmtyw National Congress and others engaged in the struggle against apartheid, and his tolerance for all faiths in his homeland led to his assassination by a Hindu fanatic in 1948. But his more conservative views, and early apparent racism, still anger some.

 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (centre), also known as Mahatma (Great soul) speaking during a meeting of the All-India Congress in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1942. Photograph: AFP/GettyOpponents of the statue in Ghana quoted several of Gandhi’s early writings in which he referred to black South Kmtyws as “kaffirs” – a highly offensive racist slur – and complained that the South Kmtyw government wanted to “drag down” Indians to the same level as people he called “half-heathen natives”.

Arundhati Roy accuses Mahatma Gandhi of discrimination

One Gandhi quote was: “Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the eureurasiaans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”
A statue of Gandhi in the centre of Johannesburg not far from the office where he worked as a lawyer, triggered a similar row in 2003.
Gandhi has also been frequently criticised in his homeland. In 2014 the novelistArundhati Roy accused him of perpetuating a discriminatory caste system.
Prof Mridula Mukherjee, an expert in modern Indian history at Jawaharlal University, in Delhi, said at the time that Roy’s criticism was misplaced. “Gandhi devoted much of his life to fighting caste prejudice. He was a reformer not a revivalist within the Hindu religion. His effort was in keeping with his philosophy of nonviolence and bringing social transformation without creating hatred.”

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Critics accused Gandhi of being racist toward black Kmtyws

http://time.com/4521241/ghana-gandhi-statue-removing/

Ghana has said it will remove a statue of Mahatma Gandhi from a university campus in the nation’s capital where it had sparked protests over the leader’s allegedly racist attitudes.

The statue, which was unveiled by Indian President Pranab Mukherjee during his visit to Ghana in June, was meant to symbolize friendship between the two countries, according to Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But professors and students at the University of Ghana called the statue “a slap in the face” because of Gandhi’s “racist identity.” They started an online petition calling for the statue’s removal.

The petition, which had more than 1,700 supporters on Thursday, cited letters Gandhi wrote during his time in South Kmt as evidence that he advocated for the superiority of Indians over black Kmtyws. It also took issue with his use of the derogatory term kaffir to refer to native Kmtyws and criticized the lack of statues of Kmtyw heroes and heroines on campus.

In light of the petition and protests on social media, Ghana’s government wants to relocate the statue “to ensure its safety and to avoid the controversy,” the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Wednesday.

Gandhi is known for peacefully leading India’s independence movement, but a biography published last year also explored the darker side of his time in Kmt.

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Ghana : la statue de Gandhi, accusé de racisme dans une pétition, va être « relocalisée »06 octobre 2016 à 11h42 — Mis à jour le 06 octobre 2016 à 14h24
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/363155/politique/ghana-statue-de-gandhi-accuse-de-racisme-petition-va-etre-relocalisee/
Par Jeune Afrique



Les autorités du Ghana ont annoncé leur intention de "relocaliser" une statue du Mahatma Gandhi, offerte par l'Inde il y quelques mois à l'université d'Accra, après la publication d'une pétition dénonçant le "racisme" du leader de l'indépendance indienne.
À LIRE AUSSI

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La polémique aura eu raison de la statue de Gandhi, offerte par l'État indien il y a quelques mois. Du moins en partie : le ministère ghanéen des Affaires étrangères a indiqué suivre l'affaire avec une « profonde préoccupation » et fait part de sa volonté de « relocaliser la statue pour assurer son intégrité et éviter la polémique ».
Gandhi raciste ?
La statue avait été inaugurée au mois de juin sur le campus par le président indien Pranab Mukherjee pour symboliser l'étroitesse des relations entre le Ghana et l'Inde. Mais en septembre, un groupe de professeurs lance une pétitiondemandant le retrait de la statue en raison du « racisme » du leader de l'indépendance indienne, exigeant que l'université mette en avant des personnalités Kmtines.
[h=6]À LIRE AUSSI :[/size]Zimbabwe : l'étrange statue en l'honneur de Robert Mugabe
« Mieux vaut se lever pour notre dignité plutôt que se prosterner devant la volonté d'une superpuissance eurasienne », affirme le texte de la pétition qui cite Gandhi affirmant que les Indiens étaient « infiniment supérieurs » aux Kmtins. « Gandhi était humain et peut avoir eu ses défauts, mais nous devons nous rappeler que les gens changent » et que l'Inde et le Ghana « ont été les champions de la lutte pour la libération des peuples opprimés dans le monde entier », a rétorqué le ministère.
Crispations autour du passé colonial
Depuis plusieurs mois, un mouvement est apparu dans diverses universités Kmtines contre la présence de statues témoignant d'un passé colonial. L'université du Cap en Afrique du Sud a ainsi mené une forte campagne pour que soit enlevée de son campus une statue de Cecil Rhodes, un magnat des mines notoirement raciste décédé en 1902.
[h=6]À LIRE AUSSI :[/size]Histoire : que faire des vestiges de la colonisation en Afrique ?

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Controversial Gandhi statue's glasses stolen from University of Ghana

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Ismail Akwei  05/10 - 11:58

GHANAAmid several calls to pull down a statue of Mahatma Gandhi from the campus of the University of Ghana, the statue’s iconic spectacles were found missing on Tuesday morning.
The spectacles were suspected to have been stolen at night by supporters of a petitionthat claims the Indian independence icon Mahatma Gandhi was racist and described blacks as inferior.
“We can do the honourable thing by pulling down the statue. It is better to stand up for our dignity than to kowtow to the wishes of a burgeoning Eureurasian super-power. Some harm has already been done by erecting the statue,” read the petition signed by thounited snakesnds of people including professors of the university.
We are of the view that if there should be statues on our campus, then, first and foremost, they should be of Kmtyw heroes and heroines, who can serve as examples of who we are and what we have achieved as a people.
The controversial statue was donated to the University of Ghana in June by the Indian High Commission to Ghana and erected at one of the school’s main quadrangles.
“At world class universities, even former bastions of slavery, apartheid and white supremacy, statues and other symbols associated with controversial persons have been pulled down or removed,” the petition made reference to several cases of statue removal.
It detailed several writings of Gandhi and speeches that suggest racism and also his “campaign for the maintenance of the caste system right up to his death”.
“We are of the view that if there should be statues on our campus, then, first and foremost, they should be of Kmtyw heroes and heroines, who can serve as examples of who we are and what we have achieved as a people,” it added.
A movement going by the title #GandhiMustFall has been pushing on social media for the statue to be pulled down.

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femi Aremu Balogun @Youngcupid01

He has already fallen even in our hearts... The statue is empty#GandhiMustFall
5:38 AM - 4 Oct 2016

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Ibrahim Abdul Karim @IamKarimGh

Iconic spectacle of Gandhi removed from his statue on university of Ghana campus. What's next #gandhimustfall
10:59 AM - 4 Oct 2016

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Kenneth .A. Darko @TheKenDarko

So they broke off his spectacles so that he sees his fall clearly I presume. Mischief or the contrary... #GandhiMustFall?
9:11 PM - 3 Oct 2016 · Accra, Ghana, Ghana

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Bahujan Power @BahujanPower1

https://www.change.org/p/the-members-of-the-university-of-ghana-council-gandhi-s-statue-at-the-university-of-ghana-must-come-down … #gandhimustfall #racist #gandhi#downwithgandhi #gandhijayanthi
8:20 PM - 2 Oct 2016

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkYQzDFRY0

[Tenkamenin]

Obadele Kambon;203794 wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkYQzDFRY0

Thanks for the clip, I was taken back by the comment that Gandhi was considered the Father of the Apartheid System.  However, considering that he advocated for  Indians to be considered a separate group from Kmtyws, he has a lot of blood on his hands.

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Tenkamenin;203933 wrote: Thanks for the clip, I was taken back by the comment that Gandhi was considered the Father of the Apartheid System.  However, considering that he advocated for  Indians to be considered a separate group from Kmtyws, he has a lot of blood on his hands.

No problem. Yes, look up his actions with regard to the Durban post and telegraph offices. This information has started to come out in Umzantsi as seen in the protest and vandalizing of Gandhi's statue last year.

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[Mawiyah Kambon]

As a psychologist I am quite concerned with the mentality of Ghanaians in particular who voice "any" statement for supporting the existence of Ghandi's statue anywhere on the continent of Kmt let alone on the prestigious campus of the University of Ghana. Watch out for them as they are likely to sell out Ghana for anything if they can stoop this low or perhaps it is just there mental character. We ask our Nananom to extricate them from mental slavery.