People and Power; How the Mighty are Falling

Little did anyone think that the imposing images of Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gadhafi et al would ever be ousted from their seats of power, but events in North Africa have clearly shown that power belongs to the people not the rulers who in their proper democratic sense are no more than vicegerents who hold power for and on behalf of the people. The abuse of power, threats, intimidations, lies and propaganda, pleonexia and avaricious theft of State property, autocratic autonomy etc, all have their end; it then behoves the clarion call that all die be die.

The world has since time immemorial seemingly suffered anosmia particularly to the smell of peace due to socio-political imbalance, most especially in the Arab world. The reason being that Arabs are naturally malleable with a sense of courtesy of self-abation before their superiors and all persons, so their leaders presume them to be the George Orwellian satirical sheep who would incessantly bleat ‘four legs good, two legs bad’ till “Thine Kingdom come”. At least, there is one step made towards self-assertiveness to long standing socio-political imbalance which has wobbled tyrants and despots of events to come if … History tells us how Mansa Musa (1312-1337) displayed massive personal wealth on his pilgrimage to Mecca irrespective of the socio-economic plight of his people. Similarly, the Sultan of Morocco, who I presume out of ignorance, craved to Her Majesty the Queen of England to join the European Union, paid a visit to Her Majesty in 1992 with an outrageous 1,000 strong entourage that cost his country several millions of pounds. Muammar Gadhafi has visited Ghana on two separate occasions in which he came by road from Tripoli with hundreds of cars and a similar large entourage. We need to ask ourselves why African leaders like to show off wealth whereas their subjects languish in poverty, sinking into further immiseration. Is it a show for recognition or as a sign of inferiority complex to strike an attitude? We should also ask why same would like to cling on to power as if it is their birth-right landed or otherwise property bequeathable to their issues as in North Korea and in other Communist countries where citizens are encaged by a griffin not for the general good but for the selfish end of a dictator.

All said and done, International Trade and World Powers take a share of the blame for the growing unrest in the world. British and American governments as well as their arms manufacturers condone and connive with cruel tyrants and dictators to further their trading and relations alike. The more countries engage in civil strife, the more they supply them with arms and the more they earn to build their economies. Britain and America would also want to court these tyrants by shutting their eyes to their misdeeds only if they would not let the cameras see what evils they commit and they do so because if they should berate them, the tyrants would turn to Russia and embrace the worst of all evils against human freedom and liberty. Their stance is therefore seen in the light of the lesser of two evils. Today, the bleating flock of sheep have had enough of it. All animals are equal and will remain equal to enjoy equal rights and privileges as citizens but will entrench accordance of honour and respect to our leaders only during good behaviour. Equality of all animals neither means incivism nor anarchy in the doctrines of Karl Heinrich Marx who was carried away by the anarchist thinking Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who would incite the shiftless to usurp at will and enjoy fruits they have neither sown nor reaped through the sweat of their toil.

The Arab revolt is therefore a precursor warning to all tyrants and would-be tyrants, despots and would-be despots in this contemporary world that it is not only the Arabs who are resisting any further suppression, the citizens of all nations across the globe are awoken to smell coffee. The fall of Gadhafi must be a lesson to the Rawlingses, who though out of power, have sunk the minds of Ghanaians into a continuum of lies, threats, tribalism, divisions and propaganda that they can no longer continue in their psychological exploitation to their selfish ends and their generations after them. Also the ilk of Robert Mugabe, Laurent Gbabo etc to sit up and think twice before any attempt to leap any further because enough is enough and “all die be die”. The epoch of dirty politics of intimidation is on its way into its grave for a perpetual burial, ceding to an era of clean politics devoid of any undue influence of ruling party characterised by rigging. Transparency in good governance and rule of law will forever triumph

Adreba Kwaku Abrefa Damoa, LLB; MPhil (London) London UK