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Amusing but not surprising.

Thomas Adeetuk
College Library
Helen C. White Hall
600 N. Park Street
Madison, WI 53706
(608)263-3145



----- Original Message -----
From: Aggo Akyea <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 5:18 pm
Subject: Fireworks Over Bush’s Delegation to Ghana
To: [log in to unmask]


> *****************************************************************
>  
>  Note: Fiscal year of AAM is October 1 - September 30.
>  *** Subscriptions for 2006/07 Membership are now due!!!!
>  
>  Join African Association of Madison, Inc. for $25 per year
>  
>  Mail check to: AAM, PO Box 1016, Madison, WI 53701
>  Phone: 608-258-0261 -- Email: [log in to unmask]
>  Web: www.AfricanAssociation.org
>  
>  *****************************************************************
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  Fireworks Over Bush’s Delegation to Ghana
>  General News of Tuesday, 13 March 2007
>  http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=120754
>  ACCRA, Ghana (NNPA) – As part of its celebration to commemorate 50 
> years of independence from Britain, the government of Ghana put on a 
> huge fireworks show. But the sparks launched high into the sky were 
> nothing compared to the ones generated on the ground by Jesse Jackson 
> and HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson and Jesse L. Jackson.
>  
>  After a series of television interviews in which he strongly 
> criticized President Bush for not attending the festivities Jesse 
> Jackson played the role of an ant at a picnic when he decided to blast 
> Bush at a reception hosted by U.S. Ambassador Pamela E. Bridgewater, 
> also an African-American.
>  
>  “In 1957, when the Union Jack [British flag] did fall, Adam Clayton 
> Powell was here, Charlie Diggs was here, Dr. King was here, A. Philip 
> Randolph was here,” he said, referring to Black Congressmen and civil 
> rights leaders. “The United States sent the vice president [Richard 
> Nixon] to honor that occasion,” Jackson said. “Now, 50 years later, 
> with quite a few members of the Black Caucus, a Secretary of State 
> who’s an African-American, we send the Secretary of Housing without a 
> diplomatic portfolio. That does not sit well with us.”
>  
>  Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus in attendance 
> applauded Jackson’s comments. But members of the diplomatic corps 
> cringed. Some were especially embarrassed because although Jackson led 
> an unofficial delegation to Ghana, the U.S. ambassador had extended 
> him many of the courtesies normally given to official delegations, 
> such as the use of vehicles and staff guides throughout his stay.
>  
>  The official U.S. delegation led by Alphonso Jackson included 
> Ambassador Bridgewater; Millennium Challenge Corporation CEO John J. 
> Danilovich; Ronald A. Tschetter, director of the Peace Corps; 
> Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer and 
> retired Navy Rear Admiral R. Timothy Ziemer, coordinator of the 
> President’s Malaria Initiative.
>  
>  Even though the CBC were part of officials events in Ghana, they did 
> not travel on the military plane assigned to transport the Alphonso 
> Jackson delegation to Ghana. Although Secretary Jackson’s group was en 
> route to Ghana when Rev. Jackson made his remarks, he was quick to 
> disagree with the criticism of his delegation.
>  
>  “As I said to Rev. Jackson, whom I have a great deal of respect for, 
> a Secretary is a Secretary. Wherever we go, we have portfolio,” he 
> said. Secretary Jackson said he had traveled to Ghana two months ago 
> earlier and his presented its president with a $30 million housing 
> planning grant.
>  
>  “President Kuflour was pleased that I was coming, representing the 
> president,” Jackson said. “In fact, he had asked if I could come about 
> a month ago, after I had been here. He had sent a note to the 
> president and the president responded by asking me to come. So, if you 
> don’t understand the facts, you can make some assumptions. I came here 
> because the president (of Ghana) wanted me here.”
>  The Jackson v. Jackson standoff notwithstanding, it was clear that 
> Ghananains wanted Jesse Jackson in Ghana. Everywhere he went, he was 
> widely recognized, with residents greeting him with calls as “Jess-see 
> Jackson” or “Mr. Jesse” and seeking to be photographed with him.
>  
>  As a group of mostly young people going over their last-minute 
> details as hosts for a fireworks show recognized Jackson, he was 
> invited to join them. Jackson did his “I am Somebody” 
> call-and-response routine and about 50 participants joined in, smiling 
> broadly.
>  
>  Surprisingly, African heads of state reacted the same way. At 
> receptions, dinners and parades, some of the best known names in 
> Africa – Presidents John Kufuor of Ghana, Olusegun Obasanjo of 
> Nigeria, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Robert 
> Mugabe of Zimbabwe, among others – joked and chatted freely with him.
>  
>  “These people know me and I know them,” Jackson said after one 
> reception. “I’m no stranger to Africa.”
>  Part of Jackson’s popularity stems from the respect the U.S. Civil 
> Rights Movement enjoys around the world. Jackson talked about that 
> parallel track, noting that the famous Brown v. Board of Education 
> Supreme Court decision outlawing segregated schools was issued just 
> three years before Ghana gained its independence.
>  
>  He said, “In 1954 in America, we broke the background of legal 
> apartheid in America just as we broke the legal backbone of 
> colonialism here in Africa.”
>  
>  
>  Source:
>  NNPA
>  
>   
>  <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
>  Aggo Akyea
>  http://www.tribalpages.com/tribes/akyea
>  http://www.attamills2008.com/
>  
>  "Instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my 
> baskets, 
>  I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them."
>  WALDEN by Henry David Thoreau – 1854
>  
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