So amazing how this world was made, I wonder if God is a woman. The gift of life astounds me till this day, I give it up for the woman
She’s the constant wind that fills my sail, Oh that woman
With her smile and her style, my She’ll protect you like a child; That’s a woman
Woke up this morning, I got up with the scent of a woman
Just picture if you could what life would be; Ain’t much good without a woman
She can nag and be a constant pain, Oh that woman
But those hips she’s got me whipped, And it’s just too hard to resist, What a woman
Tender lips that’s so, so sweet. Gentle words she softly speaks
Such an angel when we need. God bless the ground beneath her feet
She can take you on a high, Be your comfort when you cry
But if you look into her eyes, You’ll see the strength of a woman.

She’ll put a smile upon your face. And take you to that higher place
So don’t you under estimate The strength of a woman

Those lyrics by the renowned Dancehall musician, Shaggy, resonates well with many men. Very well written and arranged, that song, Strength of a Woman brings to the fore in just a few words how a lot of men, maybe most, feel about the women in their personal lives.

However, the strength of a woman goes beyond her fertility, her beauty, her encouragement and the comfort she provides. While those are part of her strength, they only picture just one side of the scale. To illustrate how the other side comes in to balance the scale, as it were, let’s take a look at Yaa Asantewaa.

“If you, the men of Asante, will not go forward, then we will. We, the women, will. I shall call upon my fellow women. We will fight! We will fight till the last of us falls in the battlefields.”

Yaa Asntewaa

As queen of Ejisu-Juabeng in the Ashanti Empire in what is now Ghana, Yaa Asntewaa stood up when all the men had gone to sleep! The King of Ejisu, the Asante King, Prempeh I and other members of the Asante Government had been exiled from their own land to the Seychelles by the British colonialists.

There are just a few dastardly acts that can be more grotesque, preposterous and despicable! At such a critical time, it took this brave woman to demonstrate the African resistance to the British. She reportedly told the rest of the Asante Government at a meeting following the demand by British governor-general of the Gold Coast, Frederick Hodgson to have the Golden Stool: “Now I see that some of you fear to go forward to fight for our King. If it was in the brave days of [Osei Tutu], [Okomfo Anokye], and Opoku Ware I, chiefs would not sit down to see their King to be taken away without firing a shot. No European could have dared speak to chiefs of Asante in the way the governor spoke to you this morning. Is it true that the bravery of Asante is no more? I cannot believe it. It cannot be! I must say this: if you, the men of Asante, will not go forward, then we will. We, the women, will. I shall call upon my fellow women. We will fight! We will fight till the last of us falls in the battlefields.” With that she led her famous rebellion against the British.

That side of the strength of a woman is hardly seen nor acknowledged.

“If you educate a man, you educate an individual. If you educate a woman, you educate a nation.” James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey

Today, something more sinister is happening to Africa than colonialism and slavery; than a demand for a Golden Stool. It’s the worst form of subjugation—the insidiousness of mental slavery! Unfortunately, most of the men, especially, those in leadership positions have relinquished their responsibility for preserving the sanctity of the knowledge, the culture, the values—indeed the mind of Africa and have by-and-large fallen for this incipient subjugation which is becoming chronic. Is there another Yaa Asantewaa to the rescue?

Education and Women

“If you educate a man, you educate an individual. If you educate a woman, you educate a nation.” (James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey) This very popular quote sums up succinctly the importance of educating women. Mothers spend more time with children than fathers do, invariably. And this affords them the opportunity to instill in the child ethics, values, culture, morality, discipline and customs. No wonder the first language one speaks is called mother tongue since it is the mother that transfers language with all that it involves to the child. The question though is what kind of education does a mother give to her children these days? That question is critical since whether the child is properly educated or not depends to a large extent on the kind of information or education the mother received.

In Africa, the advent of the European on the continent to a large extent influenced the kind of education mothers pass on to their children, both positively and negatively. To be sure, it is not wrong, in itself, to learn other people’s culture and borrow aspects therefrom. Indeed, the different cultures and their dexterous synthesis bring about superior and more beautiful cultures. On that score, learning European culture through formal education and/or otherwise, is in itself not wrong. However, there is a big problem when the student is brainwashed subtly and subliminally into believing that the Whiteman and his western culture is superior to the African and his culture. And that is the trap mothers of Africa have fallen into!

I recall that one of the appellations my mom used to pamper me with as a toddler was ‘Brofono’ (Whiteman). And she would encourage me to study hard so that I could have the opportunity to travel abroad. But this was not just my mother; invariably every mother inculcated that in their children. Along with the fact that the schools the generation of leaders yesterday and today attended were European “Christian” mission schools that demonized everything African, the student grew up viewing the Whiteman and his culture as superior to his. The result then has been to study everything western to make oneself feel superior to his fellow African. And this has led to the state where everything western is viewed as better than everything African.

No wonder that in all five institutions of society, the western way of doing things is viewed as superior to that of the African—in Politics, Economics, Marriage and the Family, Religion and Education. Hence, today, everything about Africa is Western: African Democracy, inherent in chieftaincy is backward while western democracy is superior; Preservation and conservation as a form of economics enshrined in the axiom that land and natural resources belong to the dead, the living and the yet-to-be-born is subservient to voracious exploitation of natural resources to the detriment of the environment in order to feed western industries and markets, thus jeopardizing the future generation’s livelihood. All that is shrouded in western economic theories rooted in European artificial ‘scarcity’ taught in African classrooms.

Now, after killing her mind, all that Africa has left is her natural resources. Once those are siphoned successfully to depletion, what would remain of the continent? A polluted, grief-stricken and impoverished continent! Africa would not even be “honoured” with the designation The Dark Continent. She would be called The Abyssed Continent!

The extended family system which provided home, security, love and unity has given way to the nuclear family system based on selfishness due to perceived ‘scarcity’ of resources; True Christianity which was originally propagated in Africa, namely Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya as far back as the first century AD has been supplanted by western “Christianity” with European pagan customs christened and forced down the throat of the unwary in the names of Christmas (Saturnalia), Easter (Ishtar), Trinity (about which The Encyclopedia Americana notes: “The full development of Trinitarianism took place in the West, in the Scholasticism of the Middle Ages, when an explanation was undertaken in terms of philosophy and psychology”) and many more.

The educational curriculum has everything to do with western culture and civilization with little or nothing about African science, technology, thought and scholarship.

With this background, it is clear why leadership in Africa, throughout society—in politics, business, religion and so on—is bankrupt and devoid of creativity. This has resulted in heavy reliance on the west for so-called development. Will Yaa Asantewaa rise again?

Today’s Yaa Asantewaa

Since the form of slavery and colonialism today is of the mind, there’s the need for a Yaa Asantewaa-like “revolution” or “rebellion” in the minds of mothers of Africa to redirect the younger generation.

This would involve teaching them to conscientiously not kowtow to political elites who have sold their consciences and minds to western hegemony. In this respect, a public or civil servant who lives true to their profession and good education would not allow the sold-out politician to lead them along in subjugation to the west and to corruption. They would rather resign or be fired from their posts and starve than sell themselves along with the past, present and future generations to the west!

Today, Africa is touted as the last frontier of development in the global economy. But, what kind of development? In a nutshell, it is rhetoric for voraciously exploiting its natural resources.

Now, after killing her mind, all that Africa has left is her natural resources. Once those are siphoned successfully to depletion, what would remain of the continent? A polluted, grief-stricken and impoverished continent! Africa would not even be “honoured” with the designation The Dark Continent. She would be called The Abyssed Continent! And that is just where the continent is headed. Hence since the men at the helm and their female compatriots have woefully failed the continent, it is time for the Yaa Asantewaas to rise and fight with all their might the battle for the minds of their children and children’s children. Are you such a “mother”? Even if you are a male, you can become such by cultivating intellectually and transmitting, the defiance of Queen Yaa Asantewaa! It is my responsibility. it is yours too!

The author Jules Nartey-Tokoli is Founder and Group CEO at Groupe Soleil Vision, comprising Soleil Consults (US), LLC, NubianBiz.Com, ShopNubian.Com and Soleil Publications. He has lived and worked in both Ghana and the United States, having extensive experience in Strategy, Management, Entrepreneurship, Premium Audit Advisory and Web consulting. He has also published several articles on Strategy, Management, Corporate Governance, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Economics, e-Commerce, Information Technology (IT), Customer Service/Care, Sales, Marketing, Communication, Branding, Education, among others. 

Jules Nartey-Tokoli

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