Sitting under the big baobab tree
On day three
A day forbidden for us to go to the sea
I remembered the time and works of a people whom past time
Then promised them a future
Of greatness.
I watched their works as time permitted me
And for those time did not permit me
I heard.
When I murmured their names in so much melancholy
The birds of the skies
The fishes of the waters
The creatures of the lands seemed to know them too.
The sang while I sang sadly
For the days gone by
They mourned as I mourned more
Of heroes forgotten so fast.
Forgotten Heroes - Martin Elorm Dogbo
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Mr Dogbo,
I hope you do not take offence if I read your poem differently from what you may have intended, but since today is Remembrance Sunday, I believe it also speaks for the Africans who were recruited for the First & Second World Wars,(both as soldiers and load carriers), a significant number of whom were never to return home.
But those who returned, especially after the First World War, did so having lost their fear of the European, and so sowed the seeds for the various independence movements after 1914.
Your poem is also poignant because the First World War actually started in Kamina, Togo, and some of the first men to die were Ghanaians sent from the Gold Coast to attack the German Radio Transmitting Station at Kamina. They were really our first heroes who paved the way for an independent Ghana, and they have mostly been forgotten.
Cheers, and have a great Remembrance Sunday.
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