Page 88 - Afrika Must Unite

BRINGING UNITY IN GHANA 73

had been right in insisting that we were not ripe for indepen­
dence.
Ghana was the cynosure of all eyes, friendly and unfriendly.
The world’s press was represented in our capital, and what they
missed the opposition filled in for them with their own explana­
tions. No occasion, no event, was too small to exploit in order
to discredit both Ghana and the government before the world
and reduce the high prestige which our struggle and attainm ent
of freedom had won for Ghana. Not often, surely, has an opposi­
tion been so active in sacrificing the interests of its country
to serve its own ends in disrupting the essential national
unity.
I saw the state being undermined, its independence in danger
of destruction, all in the name of democracy and freedom of
expression. O ur opposition used the press as a forum in a way
that it had not been used in Europe, to vilify and attack us as a
means of destroying our young state. To have served writs upon
them for libel would have kept us busy in the courts to the ex­
clusion of our proper duties. Though under extreme pressure
from my party, I was still hesitant to take action. Having placed
our faith in the working of a liberal democracy, I ardently
desired to give it every chance, even at the risk of some abuse to
which I knew it was open, especially in the absence of a legal
code such as operated in the U nited Kingdom but had not been
applied to the archaic laws of the Gold Coast. We were finding
that an administrative and legal pattern under which a colonial
regime could contrive to m aintain itself required constant piece­
meal adaptation to deal with the very different problems of our
need to bring order and unity within a democratic framework
and to establish a firm base for our national development.
O ur toleration of the disruptive excesses of the opposition was
accepted not as an expression of good faith in the democratic
process but as a mark of weakness, and stimulated them to ever
bolder action. The disinclination to take salutary measures was
also being misunderstood abroad, where it was being regarded
as a trial of strength between us, the lawfully constituted govern­
ment, and the subversive non-governmental elements. We
watched the antics of the foreign press with misgiving. It seemed
as though our overseas critics were intent upon destroying us