[Forwards] KWAW deGraft Johnson's forward to "The Persistence of Paradox"

Francis Lodowic Bartels traces his name and ancestry to a German in the service of the Dutch West India Trading Company with commercial interest in Elmina and other coastal townships in Ghana who married into a Ghanaian family. This line of descent made him more open to both African and European cultural influences. His mastery and promotion of both Fante and English as means of communication gave indications that he was at home in both cultures.

In his character, which Mfantsipim helped to form, he exhibited a high sense of integrity supported by a stubbornness that made him persevere with whatever course he was bent on, no matter how unpopular it might seem at first. He had the guts to live by his convictions.

 

The Persistence of Paradox is not about Mfantsipim as such. It is about how the experience at that school, shaped by the vision of its Founding Fathers, helped to mould the author’s character and commitment to certain values. His understanding of what education can achieve for man fuelled his mission as an educationists whether in Africa, Europe or America.

 

He poses what he calls the Golgotha question: “is it nothing to you all ye that pass by?” He had seen Ghana achieve political independence under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah. But the hopes and aspirations of a proud and happy people were soon stifled as Nkrumah proclaimed himself “messiah” and sought to crush – even to death – any one, however eminent in his own right, who would not bow to his wall. A Prevention and Detention Act was applied ruthlessly. Nsawam prison became Ghana’s Golgotha. A ‘culture of silence’ and shameless sycophancy settled on the country for the first time in her history, ushering in one of the earliest examples in the African independence struggle of patriotic leaders and freedom fighters who turned into tyrants and corrupts leaders.

 

As a powerless witness to the unfolding tragedy, the author could only renew his commitment to education and to the training of young people who would want to uphold humanitarian values and human dignity and work for social justice; people who would not ask with callous cynicism, when duty calls, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’

 

Francis Bartels is saying that the answer to the question is “yes”, Educators have a sacred duty to provide the kind of education that draws inspiration from the culture of a people to open the mind of its beneficiary to new knowledge, liberates it for creativity and expands his heart to show a concern for improving the lot of those around him as well as their environment.

 

He who seeks to educate the youth, to help mould the future as a habitation of well-being and peace will learn much from The Persistence of  Paradox, which tells us as much about how not to do it, as how to do it.

 

 

KWAW deGraft Johnson

Formerly Professor of Sociology

University of Ghana 

 

Source: KWAW deGraft Johnson