<<<"Therefore, it is wrong to ask a person or group of persons to stay off the politics of his or her country. Asking a person to stay off politics amounts to asking him or her to cease to be a citizen of a particular country and this is nothing else but deprivation of one's citizenship.">>> ******* AS IS THE CASE IN UGANDA!! ** ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Mensah" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 8:05 PM Subject: [unioNews] Fwd: Let's engage in National Politics Thursday, January 15, 2004 <H3>Let's Engage In National Politics</H3> <B><i>POLITICS comes from the Greek word politicos or polites which means "a citizen". It should therefore understood that politics has to do with citizenship; so in a sense any citizen of a nation is a political being or a politician.</i></B> Therefore, it is wrong to ask a person or group of persons to stay off the politics of his or her country. Asking a person to stay off politics amounts to asking him or her to cease to be a citizen of a particular country and this is nothing else but deprivation of one's citizenship. If a citizen directly or indirectly exercises a say in the way and manner the affairs of his or her country are run, that person is doing politics, therefore every voter is a politician. We are, therefore, to understand that doing politics is nothing else but exercising one's civic right as a citizen of a nation. Politics can therefore be described as the management of the affairs of a nation. A citizen can directly or indirectly engage in the management of the affairs of his or her nation. It can be adduced from this that politics by its very nature is not evil, and as such, nobody should be asked to stay off it. It is only when we give politics a partisan twist instead of a national twist that it becomes very divisive and leads to all kinds of unnecessary troubles. The divisive nature of partisan politics in Ghana scares many prominent and genuine people who feel reluctant to engage in the country's struggle for political and economic emancipation. Partisan politics can be described as a big business venture that helps a minority of the citizens of a nation to enrich themselves to the detriment of majority of the citizens. Africans should therefore rise up and reject partisan politics because it is doing more harm than good to majority of our people. Let us eliminate partisan politics and engage in national politics which l believe, will help us to achieve the peace and unity that we need for the spiritual, social, political and economic development of our continent, Africa. Partisan politics is not working well in Africa because it is not homegrown and it does not reflect the African culture and socio-economic background of the continent. In fact, partisan politics is now breeding too much evil in Africa and it is doing a great damage to the continent. It is doing more harm to majority of our people. Partisan politics in Africa, breeds politically motivated violence, character assassination, blood-shed, votes rigging and malicious lies with the sole aim of making a political opponent unpopular in the eyes of the electorates. It creates unnecessary atmosphere of fear, panic, alarm, chaos, rancour, lawlessness and destructive conflicts. The history of partisan politics in Ghana and Africa as a whole has a tale of acrimony and hatred that has indeed marred the relationship between the leadership and supporters of a ruling government and the opposition parties. During political campaigns, a lot of rumours and wicked lies go around and because circumstances have not helped many of us to develop analytical minds, people tend to believe the lies and rumours and, therefore, cast their votes, devoid of the valuable and genuine information that could have helped them to make an informed choice. It is true that elections, because they deal with choice, naturally engender conflicts but conflicts need not be disruptive or destructive. However, because some politicians have financial difficulties, the situation forces them to use destructive and dirty means to handle the conflicts, the mentality being that by destroying the opponent or making the opponent unpopular in the eyes of the electorates, one has a better chance of winning the votes of the electorates as well as the seat of power. Indeed, Africa's effort at adopting a multi-party system of government can be likened to a very poor beggar trying to build the same expensive castle that a fabulously rich person has put up. In such a situation, there is every likelihood that the beggar would be servicing debts for the rest of his life. Now, some citizens of Ghana are calling for funding for political parties. I am not against this, but, the result would be that partisan politics would become more expensive. What is the wisdom in spending ¢213 billion to enable the electorates to cast their votes through the ballot box when at the end of the voting, majority of them cannot make ends meet and that they simply would have no access to the basic necessities of life. Having gone thus far, it should be expected that some people would push for partisan politics to be given a chance to develop in Africa. The question is: For how long should we allow partisan politics to divide us, and make us, fight with guns. <B>Africa is of age, if indeed, it is true that partisan politics is doing more harm than good to us, as a people, then, let us not sit down and wait for someone to tell us what to do. Let us take our own destiny into our hands by developing our own African democracy, a homegrown system of democracy that takes account of the African system of governance, her cultural values and socio-economic background, a democracy free from the appendages of partisan politics.</B> If choosing a leader through the ballot box, a practice handed down to us by our foreign partners, is causing Africans, a great deal of hell, let us do well to find a new way of getting leaders to lead us, because choosing a leader through the ballot box, is not more important than God's gift of life to us, it is not more important than having access to the basic necessities of life a pre-requisite for our survival as human beings. <B>May God lead us in our search for an African democracy that will unite us and give us peace to develop our great continent to manifest His own glory.</B> Copyright © Graphic Communications Group Limited All Rights Reserved. lllll QUOTATION: "All of us may not live to see the higher accomplishments of an African empire, so strong and powerful as to compel the respect of mankind, but we in our lifetime can so work and act as to make the dream a possibility within another generation" -<html><A HREF="http://members.aol.com/GhanaUnion/afrohero.html">Ancestor Marcus Mosiah Garvey <i>(1887 - 1940)</i></A></html> llllllllll * //\\//\\ unioNews Newsgroup //\\//\\ * * http://members.aol.com/GhanaUnion * * We're One People * * Join the Chorus * - African Union Shall Succeed - ===================================== A luta Continua! 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