In class, we had been fascinated by attention-grabbing quotes by Shakespeare, Chinua Achebe, Chaucer and so on.
We beloved to commit them to reminiscence to be used in embellishing our personal language and writing. Among the quotes had been:
• “Buddies, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, to not reward him. The evil that males do lives after them; the nice is oft interred with their bones….” by Mark Anthony in his eulogy of Julius Caesar.
• “Et tu Brute?” (And also you too Brutus?) by Julius Caesar after his closest good friend Brutus stabbed him.
• “Radix malorum est cupiditas” (Greed is the foundation of all evil.) Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales
• “Until the penis dies younger, it would absolutely eat bearded meat.” Achebe in Arrow of God
• “Rubicon crossed.” “The die is forged” (alea iacta est) by Caesar daring the Roman Senate. I’m terrified of my very own driving!
August 2024
August 2024 has come and gone. Like every other month, it has left behind its personal historical past.
On the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games in France, the commentator who on the night time of August 4, 2024, noticed the 24-year-old Swedish pole-vaulter Armand Duplantis set a brand new world file of 6.26 metres/20 toes 6.5 inches acknowledged excitedly as follows.
“It will linger within the minds of the 75,000 individuals right here on the stadium who noticed it and can say ‘I used to be there’!” Duplantis’ legacy!
At residence on Friday, August 3, 2024, on the Arakan Officers Mess, Burma Camp, adjectives which got here out of our beer-lubricated mouths in eulogising a colleague buried that morning included, “daring, brave, trustworthy”.
For these of us who lived on the Arakan-Officers-Mess as younger single officers within the Nineteen Sixties/Seventies, Arakan is residence to us.
We, subsequently, thought-about the event “homecoming” for us “Arakanese” as we name ourselves. Our departed colleague was described as “a gentleman officer of Integrity.”
As soon as once more, I requested myself the identical query I’ve requested many instances! What legacy are we forsaking? My thoughts raced again to an earlier article during which I acknowledged as follows:
Kennedy Brothers
Two brothers who made vital statements for which they’re remembered are former President of the USA JF Kennedy, assassinated on November 22, 1963, and his Legal professional-Common and youthful brother Senator RF Kennedy who was assassinated on June 6, 1968.
On the foot of his grave on the Arlington Nationwide Cemetery, Washington DC the place a perpetual flame glows, President Kennedy’s well-known phrases are inscribed as follows:
“My expensive American! Ask not what your nation can do for you. Ask what you are able to do in your nation!”
Equally poignant are the phrases of Senator Robert Kennedy who mentioned,
“Some individuals see issues as they’re and ask, why? I dream issues that by no means had been and ask, why not?
These two pithy statements by the 2 brothers have been etched into historical past books as individuals who selflessly paid the final word worth for a trigger they believed in, for the advantage of their nation, the USA.
Whereas some have etched their names in historical past, being remembered for the nice legacy they left, others are solely remembered for the damaging legacy they left!
In 1648, Oliver Cromwell, then a Colonel within the British Military, led a gaggle to stage arguably the primary coup d’état in British historical past by overthrowing/executing the monarch King Charles 1, and changing the monarchy with a Republic. Ten years later, Cromwell’s skeleton was exhumed, tried and executed.
To this present day, Oliver Cromwell stays most likely probably the most controversial and divisive determine in British historical past. Certainly, his grave is unknown.
Dialogue
An inscription on the entrance of a cemetery reads, “Lead a very good life, in order that we don’t have to inform lies about you in your tribute!”
Usually, Ghanaian tradition doesn’t enable something damaging to be mentioned in regards to the useless even when that’s the reality. Half-truths are subsequently blended with half-lies in an try and carry some respectability to the deceased.
For instance, the story is instructed of the village goat-thief whose tribute went as follows:
“Brethren, our departed brother who lies earlier than his Maker right now was an excellent and kind-hearted man. So type was he that everyone favored him. Certainly, our brother was beloved not solely by us human beings, but additionally animals. Goats particularly had an affinity for him and beloved him dearly. Within the course of these goats sorely examined him.
As atypical mortals, we are sometimes tempted in life, simply as Christ was. However not like Jesus who was the son of God and whose shock absorbers in opposition to temptation had been specifically designed by his Heavenly Father, we people fall to temptation. And so was it with our brother who lies earlier than us right now.”
How do you wish to be remembered? Ghana’s first president Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah will at all times be remembered as a Pan-Africanist who might be extra revered outdoors Ghana, than in Ghana.
In 9 years, he set Ghana on the trail of semi-industrialisation. He didn’t issue himself into any equation of wealth acquisition and the resultant greed. Certainly, he didn’t personal a single home.
How do Ghanaian leaders wish to be remembered? A latest clip evaluating Abidjan’s clear waters getting into the ocean and our Korle-Lagoon getting into the ocean made one unhappy as a Ghanaian. The place is management?
As we spoke fondly of our departed colleague, it was apparent that what was mentioned was the reality, the entire reality and nothing however the reality. He was described as trustworthy, selfless and with integrity. His tribute was not doctored just like the goat thief’s.
Can our leaders confidently beat their chest to make such a declare? Bear in mind Oliver Cromwell continues to be remembered as a despicable man who dedicated regicide.
The American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson mentioned: “What you’re, shouts so loudly in my ears, I can not hear what you say about your self!”
Holy Baby Faculty, Cape Coast, has for its motto “Facta, non verba,” which implies “Motion, not phrases!” On August 31, 2024, Ghana-Water-Firm-Restricted attributed the present water disaster within the Central Area to galamsey, ensuing from insufficient water on the Sekyere-Hemang Water Therapy Plant!
Within the phrases of anti galamsey crusader journalist, Erastus Asare Donkor, galamsey is the results of failed management. “Galamsey” is a nationwide shame! Galamsey is a dishonourable legacy!
Management, it’s mentioned, is trigger, the remaining is impact! Management, lead by instance! Fellow Ghanaians, get up!
The author is former CEO of African Peace Help Trainers Affiliation, Nairobi, Kenya/Council Chair Household Well being College School, Accra.
E-mail: dkfrimpong@yahoo.com