Revolutionary zeal is expressed through mammoth demonstrations of support for the PNDC.

The leader of the Revolution, Flt-Lt Rawlings has in a long speech to the people of Ghana, said a number of things, which as is usual with him, has meant all things to all people.

Some people have interpreted the speech to mean that the Revolution is entering a new sector and some people have actually heard in the speech an indication that the Revolution is changing course!

"Populist nonsense must give way to popular or unpopular sense...... to scientific sense whether it is popular or not" the Flight Lieutenant said in his speech and this is what has set people speculating.

Why after 20 months of encouraging, yea instigating and being the cheerleader for "populist nonsense" does Flt Lt Rawlings want it to give way to scientific sense whether it is popular or not?

The Flight Lieutenant also had a lot to say on the Peoples Defence Committees and the Workers Defence Committees.

He said that out of the decentralisation programme and the National Defence Committee's structures, some people had got the mistaken notion of parallel structures of government "I I want to make it absolutely clear that without central authority, only confus- ion and frustration will result from our efforts at national recovery. We must not get into the way of thinking that revolutionary activities are substitutes for productive work.........."

Again, very strange words from somebody who has spent 20 months insisting that the WDC's and PDC's had the answer to all the problems. He had stranger things still to say about property ownership. "We have spent too much time worrying about who owns what" and this after 20 months of a lot of energy having been spent by Vetting Committees doing precisely that worrying about who owns what.

No wonder some people are marking this speech as a major policy shift and some others have seen an even bigger ideological shift in the grudging admission that "the individual profit motive has led privately owned institutions to be more careful in the use and maintenance of profit".

But far from such straightforward and clear cut stating of policy anybody who wants to read a condemnation of the individual profit motive will find a lot to reassure him of his beliefs and those who believe like Professor Mawuse Dake, that the "people have lost confidence in the intellectuals" will have their opinions reinforced by the speech and yet there is comfort in it for the believers in "intellectuals.".

But it is not so much the apparent contradictions in the speech that require pause for thought. It is the matters on which Flt. Lt. Rawlings makes his lamentations that need to be examined. Successive rulers of Ghana have always found a lot to complain about in Ghanaians, giving the impression that they are doing a good job, the reason there is nothing to show for their efforts is that Ghanaians are lazy, unimaginative, rumour- mongers and everything else under the sun. Flt. Lt. Rawlings it was who started the slogan shouting; he it was who led everybody to believe that having revolutionary credentials was more important than being efficient at one's work.

He it was who divided the country into an imaginary rich and poor class and his lieutenants took up the cry: somebody was poor because another was rich and the Citizens Vetting Committees were urged to extract retribution from those said to have cheated the people.

The impression was thus created that the problem in Ghana was one of in- equitable distribution; take the money from the rich and distribute it among the poor and everything will be alright...

The people simply went where they were led and sang the chorus.

It now seems to have dawned on the Leader of the Revolution that the problem is not one of distribution but of PRODUCTION and who does he blame? Not those who started it, but the people who took up the chorus.

Flt. Lt. Rawlings is now claiming that 20 months is too short a time for the fruits of his efforts to be shown. Many people will remember that the man he deposed was in power for 27 months and 20 months into the Limann administration, there was no starvation in the country.

Flt. Lt. Rawlings is now saying that "anyone who will not admit the necessity of certain economic measures clearly shows himself to be ignorant of basic economic realities., REALITIES WHICH ARE VALID WHATEVER KIND OF GOVERNMENT MIGHT BE ADMINISTERING THIS NATION"!

Surprise, surprise. Is the Flt. Lieutenant admitting that he might himself have been ignorant of basic economic realities 20 or so months ago? And what is this about whatever kind of government might be administering this nation? One had been led to believe that Ghana can only be administered successfully the Rawlings way.

Now that those "economic realities" appear to be the very measures that he held out to the nation as the horror of horrors that Limann had planned for the nation, are we going to be told one day that it had all been in vain and that Limann was probably right?

It will not do at all for the Flt. Lieutenant to hide behind 'double-talk' to talk his way out of the mess he has led the country into.

It is a little late in the day to be discovering that it is possible to do good work without proper revolutionary credentials. More importantly now that he has sown the seeds of envy and distrust among the people he can hardly now be protesting dismay at the chaos.

Flt. Lt. Rawlings, it was, who at the very beginning of his Holy War branded anybody who did not agree or share his political views as an enemy of the revolution.

This is the Ghana he has nurtured, he cannot shift the responsibility on to "Ghanaians."

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