Letter to ABC Nightline - 2007

Dear Nightline Team:

Thank you for reading my e-mail comments to you and for your kind reply. I am enclosing two DVD copies on the History of Africa, and both of the same information, for you to watch and for your review. Africa and her affairs have always been of great importance to me. This is because I treasure my African upbringing in Ghana, West Africa. It has therefore been very disappointing to me and many other Africans in the U.S. that mainstream America knows so very little about the continent and her people except for her troubles and tragedies. While such broadcasting to the world is of great need for awareness and for help to be possible, there is indeed much more to Africa than her calamities and western fantasies of the demeaning Tarzan images. Africa’s potential for achievement, the good that the African countries have actually attained and their continued progress become overlooked and her acknowledgement as a great continent of close to a billion people, meriting economic investments gets perpetually denied by the western world. Yet of the 54 countries on the continent, the majority of them has never seen war or had any coup d’etas. Of those who did, the majority of them has returned to peacetime and has been stable for decades, like Ghana and Guinea. The different African nations are at different levels of economic development, and progress is being made over the years. This however goes unnoticed by the American media, while the rising progress of China and India is continuously receiving praises. Africa as a developing continent shares a lot in common with other Third World areas of the world, such as in their similar struggles for democracy and difficulty in building middle class nations. Yet by the way African nations are so very narrowly viewed, they seem to be put them into some “4th” World continent of their own by the rest of the world. This needs not be so. The philosophy of democracy is a very complex process and it will take a very long time for most Third World countries, including African nations, to fully launch into the concept, just as it took centuries for Europe and America to get to their affluent levels where basic necessities of life reach many of their citizens. African countries deserve Fair trade treatment by the rich industrialized nations to boost their very abysmal national incomes to help Africans develop themselves, that the poor nations supplying needed raw materials get fair sale for their products. By such economic ability, basic necessities become available to many of these countries so that their citizens could feel the pleasure and comfort to remain in their homelands but not flee away in droves and in desperation to America or Europe for possible greener pastures.

Politically, most African nations, upon their independence, instituted a universal formal education, so that all children are mandated to go to school at age six. I see myself as a direct beneficiary of such an enactment in Ghana and so do millions of African children for literacy, because prior to independence and under the colonial dictatorships, it was estimated that only 1% of African children were allowed formal education. Now countries like Ghana is said to have as high as 75% literacy rate within the 50 years of her independence, Botswana 86%, Nigeria 68%, and etc. African students taking the American SAT usually perform with such high scores that a number of them get into top American universities every year. Additionally, we do also have a number of African individuals who have distinguished themselves in the world of academia and in leadership, like Kofi Annan of Ghana as the former Secretary General of the U.N., Nelson Mandela of South Africa, the 27-year imprisoned freedom fighter until 1990, and Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, a flamboyant born-diplomat who led Ghana into her independence from British colonial rule in March, 1957, and thus opened up doors for the rest of African countries under imperialism to get their freedoms as well.

Traditionally, African children are nurtured by great family expectations where they cannot afford to fail. They are steeped into education to succeed in order to get themselves and family members out of poverty. Africans bond to extended family systems, great community living, sharing what they have with others in the family and having great respect for the adult and elderly. These in turn sustain their sense of belonging and instill high self-esteem. In the schools students are taught about their history and Africa’s historical contribution to the world as we see it today. Students read about the history of ancient African empires established and led by powerful black rulers like, King Mansa Musa and King Sundiata of the Old Mali empire. The present-day Republic of Ghana, for example, was named for one of those empires which all ran in the period of the 9th –16th centuries. The plain fact remains that America’s heritage is both black and white and as such African history should also be seen as important to teach and to know just as European history has always been an important part of the American Education System, proclaiming the great successes, conquests and inventions of the European experience and enterprise. White Americans therefore are forever proud of their ancestry. All Americans need the exposure to African history as well, so that African American history would not be perceived and taught as only beginning with the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, but instead with the historical truth of a rich heritage of black rulers and kingdoms who were among the most powerful in the Medieval world. It was said that Europe depended on Africa for its monetary stability and trading partnership in the Renaissance culture, and that, " A powerful and peaceful network of trade already existed in Africa, which was a vast commercial system, stretching out to India and China, before the arrival of Europeans to the shores of Africa. It was an economy based on the African gold." Ghana, for instance, was named the Gold Coast by the Europeans for her enormous gold deposits. By these facts we build positive impact and a sense of belonging for black Americans as well. If they do well all Americans do well too. The reminders of these old empires and successes of Africans are still seen as the pyramids of the Nubians (Blacks of the River Nile) of Egypt, black arts and paintings of the hinterlands and prominences and African palaces and ancient African cities now being dug up by archaeologists on the African continent. Nothing can be more uplifting for young African-Americans than the knowledge and accessibility to such history of theirs to give them a sense of pride just as much.

For diversity to be more effectively understood, I have come to believe that the histories of other population groups of the American melting pot must be adequately taught to convey the historical facts of who they were and their contributions to history and society in order for them to be appreciated. America's educational system must be able to accommodate such teachings through reformed school curricula and to the general public reading for all Americans to be exposed to such knowledge and understanding. By this ignorance is reduced and discrimination could be put to rest. The world as we see it today must be viewed as contributions of various human populations at different times in history and with all of them converging to create the present-day modern world. All those groups of people should be acknowledged and respected for who they were and are. A closer look at the tapes and videos enclosed make my point clearer. The documentaries are fine masterpiece of work by both the British historian, Basil Davidson, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard's African-African American Studies Department. My thanks to them greatly.