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Equipment??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.135.129.27 (talk) 22:46, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

British as opposed to "white" officers - "Ghanaians" as opposed to "black Ghanaians"

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Howzit all,

Buckshot06: I noticed one of my recent contributions to the article was reverted as "a goof" or "vandalism", and object to this sort of dismissal to what I believe was a perfectly justifiable revision. The edit entailed replacing use of the term "British", favouring "white" and specifying that black Ghanaians (as opposed to Ghanaians in general) were a minority in the army's officer corps at independence.

There were 15,600 whites in Ghana at independence, and many of them had been born there. They held military positions much like expatriate British service members but could not be regarded wholly as British; for instance, upon Ghanaian independence they would've been regarded as Ghanaian citizens. This is an important distinction; where the military history of Northern and Southern Rhodesia was concerned, most military scholars distinguish between white Zambians and Zimbabweans serving in the military at independence and British expatriates seconded by their government. Given that persons of European descent actually made up a larger percentage of the population in Ghana than Zambia at the time, I feel the same precedent should be extended to them accordingly. Consider that in all British territories with sizable white communities, local whites were heavily overrepresented in the colonial and immediate post-independence military establishments. Certainly they did not outnumber the number of British expatriate staff (at least, those on short-term contracts) but nevertheless the point stands.

Thanks, --Katangais (talk) 22:07, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That "goof" was finger trouble - you'll see the text was "goof faith or vandalism?" meant to be "good faith or vandalism?". I could understand to a degree why you might alter the wording, but did not understand why you removed useful exact numerical data. Given that removal of sourced data, I elected to simply revert the entire edit. Why did you remove the 29 out of 209, removing the exact numbers of officers in the army at a particular time?
I understand your rationale for the wording, but feel it needs minor tweaks - use wording something like "British Ghanaians"? Buckshot06 (talk) 09:16, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have that source on hand, and I wasn't certain whether both the percentage and the exact numerical figure of 29 out of 209 individuals were in the source. I know it sounds nitpicky but in the past, I've had issues with well-meaning contributors citing a source which stated "approximately X percent of this figure" but then proceeded to calculate that number themselves and include it in the text (something I consider original research). You can understand why in this context it looked to be a similar circumstance. Of course, if the same book cites both the percentage and the number I stand corrected.
"British Ghanaians" would work well for the tweaked wording, as it could cover both expatriates and former colonials who became Ghanaian citizens upon independence. --Katangais (talk) 10:03, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, the wording needs some tweaks. Greetings →Enock4seth (talk) 11:04, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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