There must be another Monday for sure...
Something is agitating my mind. Even up to the J.A. Kufuor (JAK) era; the last time I met Wole Soyinka in Accra at an event - the visits of some of these senior African scholars to Ghana, had almost the status of a state visit. Among the intelligentsia, that is.
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That certainly was my experience when I met Kwame Ture, Professor Ngugi wa Thiongo and Maya Angelou in Accra, during the Rawlings era. And when I encountered Nadine Gordimer and Ali Mazrui during the JAK and Mills era.
I had met Professor Femi Osofisan, a talented writer and a truly humorous man at the HQ of the Ghana Association of Writers. That building holds a lot of teenage memories for me. It was the residence of my great childhood friends, the Debrahs. I spent some quality time there as a child therefore.
Nadine Gordimer was in town, the woman who inspired this title of my write-up. Physically diminutive, a giant in intellect. Atukwei Okai had reacted like a possessed man when on account of her being white, someone had described the great Nadine, as a foreigner to the African people.
Nadine paid back the graciousness of Atukwei fully. Laying bare the dangers of Eurocentricity, in an expert but accessible manner. She had fulsome praise for Naguib Mafouz. Disagreed with Soyinka on the tiger not talking tigritude. I disagreed with her on her disagreement with Soyinka.
We were people who could disagree sharply but be united by a common cause. Later, Ngugi - about the same topic, the tiger not talking tigritude, that is - said, Soyinka was, "ever the prophet." Ngugi agreed with Soyinka, eventually.
After having been bashed for decades by significant sections of many prominent writers, for his early warning about Negritude - a precursor of the Africa Rising magical thinking that saddles more recent generations - consensus seems to have shifted to Soyinka's favour in his old age. Thank God.
Even up to the start of the 4th Republic, the W.E.B. Du Bois Centre was all green. A lush, well manicured lawn covered most of the grounds. The trees had leaves and a charisma that made you remember the Biblical Garden of Eden.
When I had watched Maya Angelou dance to talking drums, with such grace and sensuality, even at her age of 69 then, I was in my early twenties. But I fell absolutely in love with the woman. She could dance like she was divine. And she danced. Danced until tears rolled down her cheeks - her joy at being on the soil of her ancestors, possessed her totally. She moved gracefully and effortlessly, like the very earth was at the command of her charms.
We joined Maya. She had us all in a trance as we danced with her. She had magic. Pure magic.
The reticent Ngugi nearly caused pandemonium when Professor Kofi Anyidoho announced his presence and we realised he was there. Everyone wanted to see him. The great Ngugi, regal looking in a black African shirt, sat aloof with his trademark uncombed hair. Ever the intellectual warrior, inspired by the Mau Mau Land and Freedom Party, a worthy descendant of Field Marshall Dedan Kimathi himself.
I run into Professor Kofi Awoonor, who read a poem the night Maya spoke, he was mad at Kwesi Pratt jnr. Though the two, later in life, became the best of friends. The debonair C.B.K Zwennes, a lawyer's lawyer, in his resplendent smock, had introduced Akoto Ampaw, Pratt and I to Kofi Awoonor. Dentist Lee had spoken fondly of Maya's days in Accra.
I would often run into Akoto Ampaw and Professor Kwame Karikari at these kinds of events. Professor Atukwei Okai organised many of them. I am allowed a little nostalgia, I am after all a retired man. I mostly attended such events with my late mother.
I do not know whether it is good or bad. These days I am no longer sure I understand life in Ghana, especially among the Ghanaian elite; I find that group a baffling lot. The last time I went to the Du Bois Centre, I wondered how it could still be a worthy memorial to the great man. Is nothing sacred any more for us?
For God's sake, this was the great man's residence. Ghana housed the great man. He lived here among us. It is now covered with red soil where the lush lawns once lay in hushed praise of the great man. The grass Maya captivated us on is all gone. Wole Soyinka said about many of us Africans, that what we cannot eat, we do not treasure.
Du Bois was no minor figure. He remains one of the most globally significant scholars of the Global African world and of all oppressed peoples all over the world. A fecund mind if there ever was one. He was magnificently prolific.
When I met Kwame Ture a.k.a Stokely Carmichael - one of the most historically significant personalities of the Civil Rights Movement and Pan Africanism more generally. An author whose autobiography published posthumously can make your blood curdle in horror at what happened in America in the 50s and 60s. An orator of considerable power at the peak of his influence and charisma. A member of the few that dared to stand in the way of racist efforts at domination; an associate of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, member of the freedom ride and more - he was pensive.
I now know that having flown in from Guinea for the event, Kwame Ture knew he was in Ghana for the very last time. He had come to see the land of his ex-boss, Kwame Nkrumah, for the very, very, last time. Keen to understand whether W.E.B. Du Bois Centre was going to be a galvanising point for the peoples of Africa, or whether it would just be some bourgeois distraction. Kwame Ture had been diagnosed with terminal cancer at the time. He knew he did not have much longer to live, and in two years thereabouts - much longer than the doctors had given him initially, he was gone. Joined the ancestors.
The first time I saw Wole Soyinka address an audience, I took notes on public speaking that have served me well throughout my career. We learned from the very best. Soyinka before a crowd, shows you why he is one of the very best dramatists that ever lived on this planet. He can fill a room. Easily. He does what he wants with the crowd. You may not agree with Soyinka but you cannot ignore him.
So, will some kind soul help me understand please. When did it become the case that African writers of Wole Soyinka's calibre could come to Ghana for public events and it would remain so low key? Achebe is gone. Mazrui is gone. Ama Ata Aidoo is gone. Mkandawire is gone. Samir Amin is gone. Adu Boahen is gone. James Baldwin and Toni Morrison are gone too. Bantu Steven Biko and P.A.V. Ansah are gone.
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Soyinka, Ayi Kwei Armarh, Cameron Duodu, Ngugi, Micere Githae Mugo and their ilk are all now octogenarians. Kofi Asare-Opoku just turned 90. Angela Davis, the great Angela Davis is almost 80 now.
Why do we reward their lifework this way? Shifting priorities of the Ghanaian people? Too much hunger? Too much time praying at all-night services? Too much time spent on hedonist pleasures and debauchery? When one slave sees another slave cast into a shallow grave upon his death, he should know that when his time comes it will not be different.
A society that honours none, eventually produces no people of honour. Where are the present writers of Ghana? Gone with the wind? Also fallen captive to wringing claws of neoliberal capitalism, so much so that they only think about their own stomachs?
I only seek knowledge here. Please help me if you can. Do not be angry with me. I am merely trying to understand life in this new Ghana.
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If we cannot honour Du Bois, let us not desecrate his memory. When we meet as writers, perhaps at that miserable cathedral they are building in honour of the Sunday School Jesus of the Uncle Toms, someone can explain to me, why we no longer seem to want to show respect and honour to our forebears. It will not surprise me if, on that occasion, like the Achimotans at Founders Day, we would have forgotten our own forbears and yet we will be hailing Gordon Guggisberg, a racist colonialist governor.
Some Monday for sure, this must all change. We must change it. A luta continua.