The Missing Dialogue (III)

Even so, there subsequently was a Louis XVIII, whose reign was terminated by Napoleon in 1824. In Russia, obscurity was a problem, and a Monk seemed in charge, not His Majesty Nicholas II. He and his entire sib-ship paid the ultimate price. The Shah is said to have been “negligent.” In Ghana, we were made to ride at a tempo post independence by a man, who through no fault of his, failed to foresee some force, or any forces, could ever derail him and his ideals. For sure, those taking over in 1966 were for too short a period in power. Their agenda was to re-establish “some democracy”, which they thought Nkrumah had stolen away from the people, hence they could not “design” any useful manifesto. Prof. Busia emerged and was talked of by many intellectuals as “a gentle Scholar” who might have been better placed “only teaching.” His admirers disagree. Col/Gen. Acheampong enjoys admiration as having done better “to feed the nation.” General Akuffo is difficult to place, since many seem not to know exactly what he was up to. Was he just supervising an impending electioneering? It was not to be. For the sake of avoiding a vacuum, the two former heads of state in our midst may do the “Paternity” the favour for saying what they know, or how they knew it. The incumbent should be spared commenting on, because, up-coming elections should put him on a Gold-Scale. Recently, the questions have been answered by two men, whom people thought had an awful lot of questions to answer to their nations first, but to the rest of the world too. They are Mr. G.W. Bush, Jr., former United States President, and Mr. Tony Blair, erstwhile Prime Minister of Great Britain. Mr. Bush, found himself in a situation, in which, after his country had been attacked on September 11^th, 2001, saw “tit-for-tat” as the most appropriate response. Mr. Tony Blair saw a good reason, as America’s best European ally (World War I/World War II), to stand by America, through thick and thin. There have been critics, as well as those who saw justification in what some intellectuals go, as far as dubbing “Clash of Civilisations.” Luckily, the two men have served the world well, many would like to say, by each writing a memoir in which in detail they talk about the war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq. First, Mr. Tony Blair (dubbed at the time by many in Britain as POODLE), followed by Mr. Bush Jr., whom his compatriots (and many of them want to call him “Mr. Warmonger numero uno”). For the next hundred years, ordinary citizens of America and England, as well as the world at large, many intellectuals, and, above all, historians, would digest the material and let the world draw lessons there from. Was it worth it? Could there have been another solution? Without doubt, one is always wiser after the events. Did history lead? Was Saddam Hussein in any way comparable to Adolf Hitler? What if he had been left alone? Studying world scenarios is more difficult than solving mathematical formulas such as Einstein’s enigma (E=MC squared), which still pre-occupies physicists, and mathematicians. Well, people were hungry in Ghana in the years which saw so much trouble. In those periods lives were lost, people got subjected to torture and suffering, apparently, like in the French Revolution, like in the Bolshevik Revolution, or the Cuban Revolution, 1959, or the Islamic Revolution in Iran, 1979. The intentions in all the examples have been to create a better society. The world, as we have it today, has an awful lot of examples in which better societies have been created, albeit without so much unpleasantness in the process. The examples have been Singapore, Malaysia, and Dubai. Many questions are posed: What good does it do anybody to write books about anything, including our past history, or whatever, if nobody would read them? There is always the danger of being branded the man/woman, who cannot be pleased – a grumbling fault finder. All the same, there should be the need to write down for posterity what has happened in our “historical surroundings.” How would you like to see the world changed? Europe will teach you their history since thousands of years, America keeps what has been written, since “the arrival of the three little ships” in 1492, captained by Columbus. On any visit to Germany, since “THE TWO ESTRANGED WORLDS” have re-united in 1989, I have been “awed” waiting at the otherwise beautiful railway station in Frankfurt/Main. All the trains come to stop at a point from where they no longer can continue, but “must reverse” from their position to continue the journey. It is an old architectural engineering trick, which suited cities like Frankfurt, Munich, and Leipzig, some five hundred kilometres eastwards. The Germans call it “Kopf-Bahnhof”, which in English translates into “Head-Railway-Station.” There stood a man, tottering now and again from the standing position, who must have had quite a number of beers. He was very obsessed with Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s actions, which had put so much of the tax-payers’ money into the hands of “empty-headed Communists, and as a result, pensioners’ money had been “seeped” into. No money, therefore, for pensioners, and he (the tottering man) had just reached the “mandatory pension age.” He looked drunk, but there was some truth in what he was saying. A lot of intellectual Germans were also of the opinion, only they would not, as “an element of nationalism,”, UTTER ANYTHING AKIN TO WHAT OUR DRUNKEN QUEST WAS SPEWING OUT. Germany had just re-united East and West. Never mind the high cost, said their Chancellor, Helmut Kohl. Future generations deserve knowledge of “how they were, and how they may be today, and what has made them the way they may be PRESENTLY”. Then try and plan the future. Someone guessed the best way to tell people about themselves would be to have an orator, who, at a definite moment in time, and place, would be speaking, just speak anything, many days, many years. In England, “Trafalgar Square” is the relic. I guess you could continue, and say for many years. A famous Greek philosopher, many Centuries BC, had to take “the poison Chalice” for allegedly poisoning the minds of the Athenian youth.” Chopsadeh, an intellectual and architect of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, was sacrificed for “having fallen off the course of the revolution”. [He disagreed with something]. Bani Sadre, the 1^st “elected President after the Iranian Revolution, was only saved cleverly by being bundled out of his country, in the form of a gift as a Tiger for the French Government, and France was seen in Iran as a friend, who facilitated the Iranian Revolution, by giving Ayatola Khomeini subterfuge, after the then Iraqi dictator, Sadam Hussein, had thrown him out of Iraq. An Air France Jumbo Jet carried Ayatollah Khomeini and his entourage from the Charles de Gaul Airport in Paris to Teheran, THE TRIUMPHANT RE-ENTRY. Among the “crimes” the Shah of Persia was accused of by the revolutionaries was that, he “had constructed highways, dividing villages, and thereby hindering access of villagers to contact their people to pray together.” A clause was found in the Holy Book making such an offence punishable by death.

To be continued.

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