No need
to continue to explain the world
by reference to the gods
the people, the body, and the soul
of the nation
a colony is any territory
mounting for a hundred years
or more
indulged in history
infected by European ideals:
Plato's anti-egalitarianism
bow of Heraclitus
Anaximander was not a lotus-eater
however glibly Berkeley said
neo-colonialism is negative action
playing possum
ferret out Janus-faced politicians
call the God complex.
There is always a dialectical
cardinal principle of ethics
place of competing ideologues
index of development
a social contention
solve the mind-body split
foregoing the Cartesian philosophy
unionists merged
Descartes was assailed
by the critical acumen of
Anthony William Amo
an attunement of tensions
thought without practice is empty
completely windowless as every other monad
demands of harmonious development
basic unity of matter
active principle of justice.
This piece is composed solely out of phrases taken randomly from Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s (1964/1970) “Consciencism: Philosophy and ideology for decolonization”. I bought this book in 2001, but I am yet to read it beyond the introduction.
Still, if Nkrumah’s (1980) “Class Struggle in Africa” is anything to go by, I am certain it will be a cogent and powerful read on decolonization and how best to respond with agency to rampant neo-colonialism.
If you do get to read this work by the Republic of Ghana’s very first president, you might also like to follow it up with “Kwame Nkrumah: The Conakry Years: His Life and Letters”. This is a unique collection of Nkrumah’s personal correspondence, as compiled by the British historian June Milne (1990).
You might also want to check out this great exhibition, on The Literary Life of Nkrumah, which is currently being hosted by the Library of Africa and The African Diaspora (LOATAD).
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