Ama Ata Aidoo Quotes

There are powerful forces undermining progress in Africa. But one must never underestimate the power of the people to bring about change.

But what she also came to know was that someone somewhere would always see in any kind of difference, an excuse to be mean.

The best way to sharpen a knife is not to whet one side of it only. And neither can you solve a riddle by considering only one end of it.

I started writing when I was very young. I didnʼt know at the time that I was to become a writer. I know that I read all the time. The house was full of books, and I remember rummaging through the cupboards and drawers looking for books to read. There were always books to read. I grew up in a village, a small town in the central region called “Abiadze”. My father was the chief of the village then called “Kyiakor”. He actually opened the village school with our class and some excellent teachers. My mother and another man from the village used to tell us stories every night. I think all of this prepared me to be a good writer.

People are worms, and even the God who created them is immensely bored with their antics.

Feminism is not an ‘ism’ that belongs to women only, but a way of looking at the world.

I survived as a woman where men dominated because my people were supportive of women. In so many places in the world, there is an assumption that African women are the most oppressed. It is not true, we are not! At least not all. As an Akan, Fante woman, I grew up in a society where there was not much discrimination against girls. That is why I could be a writer and nobody could tell me writing was a man’s job. I had to go to University to be told by someone that I speak and do other things like a man. My regret is that we Ghanaian girls are not using the freedom we have inherited, and men are now moving in to colonise us.

Yes, I agree! Adult education in our environment is a very necessary complement for education. Adult education as an institution has to be re-energised and reorganised by reminding the public of its importance. In a society like ours with so many adults literally having had no formal education, adult education should be dynamic so that it helps fill some of these gaps. The fact that adult education seems to have declined so drastically is also a symptom of what has happened to us as a people and as a country, both in terms of education itself and in the application of knowledge generally.

My regret is that we Ghanaian girls are not using the freedom we have inherited, and men are now moving in to colonise us.

Well I think it is because first of all, they assume that feminism is equal to lesbianism, which it is not. Feminism is an ideological orientation, a perspective on the world and life. The other is a sexual orientation, and the two shouldn’t conflict as they belong to different spheres of human life. One is a mental state, and the other is sexual. In a paper that I worked on in the 80s, entitled African women at century’s end, I stated that everybody should be a feminist, including men. Feminism is not an ‘ism’ that belongs to women only, but a way of looking at the world. It insists that young women in this life should be given the best possible facilities for our development, health, well-being and employment, so that when we become old we can be catered for like old men are.

Nobody could tell me writing was a man’s job.

Love? Love? Love is not safe, my lady silk, love is dangerous. It is deceitfully sweet like wine from a fresh palm tree at dawn. Love is fine for singing about and love songs are good to listen to, sometimes even to dance to. But when we need to count on human strength, and when we have to count pennies for food for our stomachs and clothes for our backs, love is nothing. Ah my lady, the last man any woman should think of marrying is the man she loves.

In so many places in the world, there is an assumption that African women are the most oppressed. It is not true, we are not! At least not all.

Yes I am. It is about a group of people who escaped a terrible epidemic like AIDS, and they felt the only way they could be saved would be to leave their current surroundings and build a new place somewhere else and stay there. Putting some mechanism in place will help them stay safe from the rest of the world, possibly away from other human beings. Inside that country, they have some rules and regulations that they thought could help them, including a decision to build a steel wall higher than the Great Wall of China. Since I don’t know how it ends, I cannot say how they will end it. Whether it will help them, and whether they will be saved or not.

One of the issues that parents educating their wards around here unfortunately donʼt seem to be aware of is that, to help young people develop, you just have to give them positive stimulants, like interacting with them nicely, loving them, taking care of necessities, talking by word of mouth and correcting them where necessary.