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Bravo Watson! Africans are grateful
A GNA Feature by Boakye-Dankwa Boadi
Accra, 19 Oct. Ghanadot/GNA – One
does not know how to thank the Nobel Prize winning DNA
pioneer, James Watson for that great interview he granted
Sunday Times, a British newspaper, in which he was quoted as
saying Africans were less intelligent than Europeans.
Our Elders say “se biribi a nko ka papa a papa nngye grede!”
to wit “there is always a trigger” and that is exactly what
Watson has done for Africans. Indeed some Africans had given
up the fight against the inferiority complex war with
Europeans.
One dares any person to go onto the streets of Accra to ask
the simple question. Are Europeans superior to Africans? One
would be surprised about the type of answers one would get.
Some would tell you that if you were going to church and you
met a European you must go back home because you had already
met God.
This mentality has translated into the situation where so
called high class Ghanaian women do not feel ashamed to buy
second hand braziers and panties imported from Europe to
wear and feel proud in them. Highly educated Ghanaians buy
and wear second hand coats that might have been discarded by
toilet cleaners in Europe.
Just as the war against European superiority seemed to be
coming to an end, this thunderbolt is heard and everything
changes in favour of Africans. A pile of scientific
knowledge that had been available to only a few is now awash
for everybody‘s benefit. Thanks to Watson.
According to BBC website, Dr Craig Venter, the
scientist/businessman who led the private effort to decode
the human genome, was quoted as saying: “Skin colour as
surrogate for race is a social concept not a scientific one.
There is no basis in scientific fact as in the human genetic
code for the notion that skin colour will be predictive of
intelligence.”
Another important fact that has been made available is that
the structure of DNA, the molecule that lies at the heart of
heredity in living organism, showed that there was no
scientific basis for the concept of race. “People from
different racial groups can be more genetically similar than
individuals within the same group. Genetic studies indicate
that there is more variability in the gene pool in Africa
than outside.”
Watson was quoted in the original interview as saying he was
“inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because
“all our social policies are based on the fact that their
intelligence is the same as ours- whereas all the testing
says not really”. He was further quoted as saying that his
hope was that everyone was equal but that “people who have
to deal with black employees find this is not true”.
Watson has since said that the way the words were presented
did not reflect properly his position. “I can certainly
understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in
the ways they have. To all those, who have drawn the
inference from my words that Africa as a continent, is
somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise
unreservedly.
That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of
view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief”.
Now that this knowledge has been made available, Africans
should walk this planet with their chests out that they are
equal to any other human being.
The Ministry of Information and National Orientation has a
huge responsibility to instil in Ghanaians self-worth so
that they would stop turning the country into the refuse
dump for second hand clothes; second hand cars; second hand
tyres; second hand refrigerators; second television sets;
second hand cooking utensils and second hand everything.
GNA
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