Letters
Re-think your role
This is just to inform you of the shock I had after reading through your weekly magazine, the Talking Drums. I am a Ghanaian boy at the age of 21. I just completed my sixth form and rendering my service to the nation. I am very interested in reading magazines and newspapers especially those with blacks as editors. I greatly enjoyed reading your articles in the Daily Graphic some few years back, when you were in Ghana. I was there- fore shocked when I heard that you had left the country to live in London.On seeing the December 19/26 1983 issue of the Talking Drums, I thought I had an opportunity to read once again a good magazine fully edited by my Elizabeth Ohene, but I was shocked after reading it. I just don't know whether it is just because of frustration on your part that makes you publish such a useless work.
I wish you were in the country to see the development after three years in office of the PNDC. I am sure by now the so-called enemies of the revolution and refugees in exile will surely be ashamed of themselves. To be frank, the PNDC is proving to be the best government the country has ever had. Things have greatly changed during the past three years. People like you should not be allowed to fall into the traps of the true enemies of Ghanaians (the corrupt old politicians and the so- called businessmen).
You should re-think your role, change your attitude and come back to contribute towards the new process. Your opposition will have no effect on the government at all. You are rather wasting your time in a foreign country. You can never become British; you always remain Ghanaian and remember, home is home.
Concerned Admirer,
Owusu Adu Kwabena, Accra, Ghana
We stand by your magazine
We are really overwhelmed and lost for words to express our sincere and warmest appreciation to your outfit for the wonderful work that you are doing.The Talking Drums you would like to know is like manna from heaven to feed us in these days of general thirst and hunger for truth.
There is no gainsaying that the people of Ghana are now denied objective and analytical journalism through the barbaric use of arms, threats and censorship in suppressing all well-meaning contributions and criticisms in the few newspapers around.
Our hope and prayer is that not only we, who by virtue of our contacts will have the privilege of reading your magazine, but all the oppressed people of Ghana will have uninterrupted access to such magazines as their inalienable right and not a privilege.
It is most disheartening that in Ghana today those who should have defended the truth have, like Esau, disgracefully sold their professional birthright for cheap opportunistic gains to the shame and degradation of such a noble profession.
But thanks to the Almighty God we could still count on and point to modern-day Daniels, Shedrachs, Meshachs and Abednagos whose convictions for the truth in the teeth of acid criticisms and possible torture and humiliation, continue to be as firm as mount Zion.
More grease to your elbows. We stand behind you in the struggle to liberate our beloved country from the shackles of falsehood and revolutions of opportunism.
(Names Supplied),
University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
Searchlight on WDC executives
The Peoples Daily Graphic editorial on the Workers Defence Committee executives (Talking Drums, November 26, 1984) is disgusting. The Graphic states that the majority of the WDC executives in a number of organisations have acquired bourgeois life- styles and have caused the nation to lose millions of cedis; frustrated dedicated management and recommends that the PNDC government should bring all to book.The view of the Graphic implies that the 'dedicated management' should now be re-instated while bringing the WDC executives to book, but it is well known that the Peoples Daily Graphic itself had previously extolled to the skies the concept and functions of the WDCS which have terrorized professionally qualified management personnel in Ghana into exile.
When Rawlings thought, on 31st December, 1981, that he had colonised Ghana, he proclaimed at the height of his wild imagination that he was prepared to face the firing squad if the people of Ghana did not approve of what he was going to do for the country.
In his ignorance, Rawlings, aided by his cousins, unleashed monstrous terror, murder, executions, torture and intimidation on the peace loving people of Ghana and formed the so-called WDCS to harass qualified and experienced management personnel in all sectors of the economy to the detriment of Ghana's development efforts. These are the atrocities and wicked acts which Rawlings had in mind.
Highly qualified and experienced Ghanaians who have left the country recount horrible experiences in the course of their work under the so- called PNDC Government. In particular, they were unable to enforce discipline in their respective organisations without incurring the displeasure of the executive members of the WDC who had direct line of communication with the political bosses.
In a management situation of such nature, there is bound to be confusion and apathy resulting in low productivity, in that discipline is a concomitant of efficiency which is an indispensable element for reliable services and productive efforts. It is surprising that the Peoples Daily Graphic which had hitherto been a bulwark of the WDC organisation and Method (O&M) is now disillusioned, because the executive members have tasted power and are now living properly.
One should not lose sight of the fact that it is Rawlings and his mentors who introduced alien practices into Ghana. and turned the country upside down and not the notorious sycophants who are adept in hood-winking even colonels and generals in military regimes in Ghana for their selfish interest. Since the WDC philosophy was imported into Ghana by Rawlings and his gang in the first instance, they rather should be held fully responsible for the destruction of our father land.
In any case, all the PNDC members, secretaries and other political appointees are now living in luxury, while the plight of the ordinary worker for whom the so-called revolution was alleged to have been made is becoming more and more unbearable under the military regime.
If the Graphic has started becoming nervous, it will be better to advise the PNDC to return the country to sanity before Rawlings and all those who have identified themselves with the evil regime are overtaken by events.
Y. Salifu Islington, London.
