Word: nkrumah
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Instant Unity? As the conference got under way last week, Ghana's "Redeemer," Kwame Nkrumah, offered his usual proposal for instant Pan-African unity, was instantly cold-shouldered by most of the delegates, who realize that though federation is a fine hope for the future, it cannot work now. The grand items on the agenda promised the customary condemnation of Africa's remaining white-dominated nations, a pledge to tighten the existing boycott on the Union of South Africa, and plenty of high-flown words on the benefits of pulling together...
Good as His Word. But howls of protest arose from Algeria's Ahmed ben Bella, Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, and even Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser. To them, Tshombe is still the renegade who played on the side of the Belgians, the man who connived at the murder of Leftist Patrice Lumumba, the Congo's first Premier. Worried at the reception they might receive in Cairo, Kasavubu nervously canceled both his and Tshombe's appearances at the O.A.U. meeting...
...interesting to note that in the photograph of Kwame Nkrumah he is holding aloft an egg. This is one of his favorite symbols, "the egg of power." If one holds it too lightly, it will drop and smash; if one holds it too hard, it will break in one's hand. Osagyefo, of course, says that he knows exactly how to hold...
Colonial administrators found it easier to make major decisions without consulting the populace. In the same way, one-party leaders like Nyerere and Nkrumah insist that they cannot afford the luxury of dissent and opposition. Many argue, by way of rationalization, that the one-party state is a modern adaptation of traditional tribal society, in which the individual was free to ex press his viewpoint under the baobab tree, but had to accept the tribe's (or chief's) decision once rendered. And indeed a certain amount of discussion filters up from the ranks...
...preconditions needed a third, however, to make Tanganyika a successful independent state. That ingredient-leadership-is provided by Julius Nyerere. A slender, soft-eyed man with a Chaplinesque mustache, Nyerere is the antithesis of most African leaders. Where others affect high-flown nicknames like "Redeemer" (Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah) or "Lion of Malawi" (Nyasa-land's Kamuzu Banda), Nyerere is content to be known as Mwalimu-Swahili for teacher. Where other leaders use their high-powered, government-owned radios for propaganda messages, Nyerere uses his to broadcast casual eco nomic lessons. Recently he translated Shakespeare's Julius...