The 12 months, 52 weeks, 366 days, 8,784 hours, 527,040 minutes and 31,622,400 seconds of the year 2008 has come and gone! This column takes a cursory look at five of the noteworthy events of the year. They are: sanitation, pair-trawling, crude oil, free maternal care and the elections.
Sanitation: The UN declared the year 2008, the whole 12 months of it, as the first International Year of Sanitation. It was such a great opportunity for Ghana to make a dent in our deplorable environmental sanitation situation. But we couldn’t scratch the surface of the problem. We are in a new year. All fingers and toes should be kept crossed that as we usher in a new political administration, God will raise leaders to champion the fight to bring sanity into our insane sanitation situation.
Pair-Trawling: During the year, we were introduced to a new vocabulary – pair-trawling. It took me a while to understand it. Here is my elementary explanation of pair-trawling. It is tantamount to taking a gigantic double-edged broom, dipping it into the ocean and doing a grand sweep of the very bottom of the Ocean. During the cursed sweep, anything and everything the great broom touches is up for grabs. In the process, grandfather fishes, grandmother fishes, uncle fishes, aunt fishes, cousin fishes, baby fishes and distant relatives of fishes the teeth of the broom can touch is caught. If the eggs of the fishes are trapped in the great pair-trawling broom, so be it.
If only this sort of grand sweeping of the ocean floor would be applied to clean out our gutters and streets and backyards and schools and homes and businesses, Ghana would become a better place.
As a ‘fishtarian’ (I don’t eat meat), naturally and probably selfishly, I’m very concerned because this situation sounds like big trouble. Fish is my key source of protein so if pair-trawling is not stopped, I can see malnutrition coming my way. Days before the December 7 elections, news trickled in about definite efforts to stop pair-trawling. But if history and experience are anything to go by, this might be another nine-day wonder with electioneering colouring. If we can’t put an end to pair-trawling that potentially takes fish from our cooking pots, then we should be very concerned about the crude oil our politicians and their cronies have salivated about with bizarre promises as the one-item-covers-all solution to our myriad problems.
Crude Oil: Apart from Jubilee House that beckons, one key matter at stake in our elections is the crude oil find. Last July, when the frenzy of elections was at a fever pitch, crude oil was selling on the world market at $147 a barrel. The price has dropped to a five-year low of $36, bobbling up and down. We are toast! We have carelessly counted the chicks of Ghana long before the hens got down to the business of laying the eggs and to even decide whether they should commit to pausing their lives to spend precious time to provide needed body heat so nature will respond and hatch those eggs! With oil money, we might all have resorted to eating salad everyday with cake for desert and Champaign to wash it all down. But now, we might have to settle for cassava and ‘kobi’.
Free Maternal Care: During the year, through a British grant to reduce deaths during child birth, free maternal care was introduced. There are unintended consequences of well-intended policies. Free maternal care is a bonanza to irresponsible men who just impregnate women and move on as if life is just one big party. It is an everyday-Christmas gift to them; they sing the hallelujah chorus with impunity. Then, they gift the pregnancy to Ghana. They might later brag, “This is my child,” and you just want to slap the foolishness out of them.
Irresponsible men are those who are stingy, who view pregnancy and child birth as the financial responsibility of a woman. Some are damn broke but some are not – just irresponsible. I’ve heard gut-wrenching stories of vulnerable pregnant women whose men have drastically cut down chop money because hospital care is free.
There is a possible impact of free maternal care on population growth. Consider the frightening fact that Ghana’s population has doubled in a generation – from about 12 million in the late 1980s to the current estimated 23 million. This policy might be a license to keep unwanted pregnancies and indeed to excuse bringing about unwanted pregnancies with the laughable and dismissive explanation, “It’s free!” There is also the inevitable increase in the sheer numbers of children who must fend for themselves in all sorts of unacceptable ways, least among them being selling Chinese-made products by the road-side.
Elections: During the year, we ate and drank politics so we can select a fresh bunch of parliamentarians and a new president. We voted in a re-run for president to select one of two men to occupy the new palace. The December 7 elections turned into a December 28 round-up, run-on, run-off or just running. And then Tain came along! So we wait!
Let the truth be told – the past few weeks, especially the last few days, have been so tense and nerve wracking. We have sat on tenterhooks. Whatever tenterhooks are, they are definitely uncomfortable. Those hooks have pinched us in places where it hurts the most. We’ve been afraid.
All the prayers for peace and talk of peace and advertisements for peace and admonitions for peace and marches for peace assume that we are close to the opposite of peace and the opposite of peace does not sound peaceful. When going to the polls and counting votes sound like a preparation for war; when our boarders are closed tight; when the security agencies are placed on high alert; when you hear any mention of a group of young people wielding cutlasses and/or stones; when gloom is over-cast on a nation; when the rhetoric of NDC and NPP supporters, Radio Gold and Oman FM sound like war drums – you can’t help but be afraid; very afraid.
We don’t have this part of the democracy thing figured out – yet. Our democracy is fledgling like an egg, still being hatched. The egg shell is tough with naughty NPP and NDC and the many other baby political parties stuck in between the hard shell cracks. Fact: We’ve got a long way to go on this democracy path.
But on the bright side, as a people, we showed our political sophistication and maturity through the elections. First, we showed that none of the political parties or presidential candidates is a phenomenon. They don’t have what it takes to take our breath away. No wonder the results indicate a split for the two leading parties and presidential candidates. The next president will have a slim margin of victory.
Mighty trees fell during the December 7 elections. Nkrumah’s baby girl, Samia Yaaba, whipped NDC’s giant Lee Ocran. It’s a beautiful thing when a pint-sized woman whips a grown man who is thought to be ‘unwhippable.’ Ouch! NPP’s arrogant Asamoah-Boateng was booted out by his home town folks to save Ghana from his annoying ranting on our air waves. Thank you, Dear Lord for a good, funny and interesting year!
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Christmas and New Year Wishes for Ghana: No More Open Gutters
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For the past few weeks, this column has been dense. Mighty toes have been stepped on, pushing some soft buttons of society. So in the spirit of Christmas, and as is the tradition of this column, we break for a soft issue – gutters. Here are two gutter tales.
Man meets woman. Man and woman wait – for love to happen. Then, boom, it happens. In the early days of love, they hold hands to walk. He holds her hands delicately. Reason: she is delicate. She needs protection. When crossing a road, she is shepherded, lest she hurts herself. Is it happiness? Yes, it is nirvana. In our world of gutters, you need protection from gutters to get to nirvana. Your legs, my legs, our legs are in constant danger, with gutters staring threateningly. So man holds woman’s hands to cross the smallest of gutters. He says, “Darling, watch the gutter,” long after woman has crossed. Well, she is an experienced gutter-crosser. She knows the ways of gutters.
Then, time passes. Love grows dim. Rust sets in. Love fatigue looms. Love wanes. Hand holding ceases, left firmly in the distant past. Now, man and woman simply walk, crossing gutters on waned love’s journey. Baby gutters, grandfather gutters, mama gutters, uncle gutters, cousin gutters. Woman walks slowly, pained from many life’s ordeals. Then it happens. One day, man walks with woman. Man walks past hurriedly from woman. Woman trips, falls in gutter. Man continues to walk on. Then looks back and yells at woman, “You fool! Have you gone blind? Didn’t you see that big gutter?”
Man continues to walk away, into the gloomy distance – dulled antennae reigning supreme. Clueless! Woman drags her sore self out of gutter – mud and all. Woman continues walk, limping on, deeply hurt. She leaves remnants of love behind – in the gutter. A severe love body-blow has just occurred – a watershed moment with gutter as principal witness. Gutter is also the smoking gun.
Another gutter tale. This girlish woman I know was driving a pack-of-tin, an engineering feat called a car. Her cell phone rings. She picks up. The caller was a very close friend, a sort of boy friend. He needs to talk, so badly. She needs to talk, for no particular reason. Smoothly, she drives on, yapping, not paying attention to the world around as if a vehicle is nothing but jelly. Soon, the conversation settles in a place between the devil and the deep blue sea. Meanwhile, she was dodging pot holes, baby coffins, bounces hunch-back speed bumps, and sidesteps several careless but confident road-crossers and many other categories of predators in-built into our roads. She slows down, wallops and gallops on.
Then suddenly, it happens! She drives car into a muddy gutter. In the cell phone distraction, she did not notice the accident so kept accelerating, wheels spinning, until yells and teasing laughter from youthful passers-by brought the message home. So she got off the phone to see to the predicament. It took more than a dozen men and a gutter engineering feat, with planks, to yank car out of gutter. She thanks helpers with some cedis and speeds off, still yapping on the phone. Within minutes, car begins to lose power. Then, yells from a new batch of onlookers bring another message home – the car was puffing out smoke, almost burning. She parks the car, shaken.
What are the lessons from these gutter tales? It is plain folly to drive and talk on the cell phone. It could even be suicidal. But more so, there are too many monstrous gutters waiting with smiles, to suck us into their gaping mouths. And, there is no one to sue if you become a gutter casualty. Decentralized assemblies? Let’s explore that!
Open gutters are a prominent canvas on our landscape. Gutters here, gutters there, gutters everywhere! Gutters have drawn battle lines between humans and nasty falls. The battle rages on as more gutters are constructed with cement cast firmly into the earth. The more our development and civilization take shape, the more roads we construct. And wherever there are roads, gutters with gaping holes appear.
What makes our gutters unique is that they are open. In developed countries, gutters are not seen. Well, gutters are not meant to be seen. They belong in the underworld. So I asked a gutter expert, Engineer Kofi H (he begged me not to disclose his surname) why our gutters are not covered but left open to stare at us rudely, teasingly and dangerously. If our goal is to become a middle-income country by 2015, when will it show in our gutters?
His responses were instructive. He said bluntly, “We’re not ready for covered gutters. We’re not there yet!” In shock, I exclaimed, “What!!” He explained: “What we call gutters are ‘drains’ constructed for storm/rain water. There are roadside drains (small gutters) and storm drains (large gutters). But our gutters are choked with garbage and silt. Covered gutters are so difficult to clean.”
I retorted, “If gutters are covered, the bad people of Ghana will not be tempted to dump garbage into them.” He responded, “Some bad people go to the extent of lifting slabs of covered gutters to push in their garbage!” He insisted that until behavioral change occurs, our gutters will be left uncovered! So I’m left wondering – how about enforcement? Set example with some culprits through arrests, stiff sentencing and publicity. Let’s name and shame the bad people, consistently.
It is Christmas and we are on the cusp of a New Year. Yet, I’m grumpy about open gutters! You should too! They are inelegant; no, they are ugly. And, they are stinky, spewing out nasty leachate. Gutters are dangerous. People, animals and vehicles fall into them. Besides, gutters are at the heart of our sanitation dilemma because they are receptacles for strange things including obnoxious ‘take-aways’ of people who live in homes without toilets. When it rains, gutters become turbo-charged and gush out water and the numerous things stashed in them. Choked gutters cause floods which lead to misery and death.
I’m terrified of gutters. They stare at me menacingly and with such intensity that I suspect they beckon me to enter whether I’m driving or walking. I suspect that gutters are living beings with eyes, ears, mouths and brains. And souls too! And, living beings breed and/or live in them. Gutters provide comfortable home for insects, frogs, weeds, germs and many despicable creatures of the underworld.
A little gutter psychology. When you go through life seeing the insides of gutters over and over again, and they stare right back at you, how does that experience affect the way you think, your world view and your very psyche? Are open gutters messing us up psychologically in such a deep way to the point that we don’t find much wrong with overwhelming our environment with filth? Could it be that open gutters have become like tumors on our national conscience? In Les Miserables, Victor Hugo said: “The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers…. The sewer is the conscience of a city.” Wherein lies our collective conscience? Chew on this. Merry Christmas!
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
Monday, December 22, 2008
Christmas and New Year Wishes for Ghana: No More Open Gutters
For the past few weeks, this column has been dense. Mighty toes have been stepped on, pushing some soft buttons of society. So in the spirit of Christmas, and as is the tradition of this column, we break for a soft issue – gutters. Here are two gutter tales.
Man meets woman. Man and woman wait – for love to happen. Then, boom, it happens. In the early days of love, they hold hands to walk. He holds her hands delicately. Reason: she is delicate. She needs protection. When crossing a road, she is shepherded, lest she hurts herself. Is it happiness? Yes, it is nirvana. In our world of gutters, you need protection from gutters to get to nirvana. Your legs, my legs, our legs are in constant danger, with gutters staring threateningly. So man holds woman’s hands to cross the smallest of gutters. He says, “Darling, watch the gutter,” long after woman has crossed. Well, she is an experienced gutter-crosser. She knows the ways of gutters.
Then, time passes. Love grows dim. Rust sets in. Love fatigue looms. Love wanes. Hand holding ceases, left firmly in the distant past. Now, man and woman simply walk, crossing gutters on waned love’s journey. Baby gutters, grandfather gutters, mama gutters, uncle gutters, cousin gutters. Woman walks slowly, pained from many life’s ordeals. Then it happens. One day, man walks with woman. Man walks past hurriedly from woman. Woman trips, falls in gutter. Man continues to walk on. Then looks back and yells at woman, “You fool! Have you gone blind? Didn’t you see that big gutter?”
Man continues to walk away, into the gloomy distance – dulled antennae reigning supreme. Clueless! Woman drags her sore self out of gutter – mud and all. Woman continues walk, limping on, deeply hurt. She leaves remnants of love behind – in the gutter. A severe love body-blow has just occurred – a watershed moment with gutter as principal witness. Gutter is also the smoking gun.
Another gutter tale. This girlish woman I know was driving a pack-of-tin, an engineering feat called a car. Her cell phone rings. She picks up. The caller was a very close friend, a sort of boy friend. He needs to talk, so badly. She needs to talk, for no particular reason. Smoothly, she drives on, yapping, not paying attention to the world around as if a vehicle is nothing but jelly. Soon, the conversation settles in a place between the devil and the deep blue sea. Meanwhile, she was dodging pot holes, baby coffins, bounces hunch-back speed bumps, and sidesteps several careless but confident road-crossers and many other categories of predators in-built into our roads. She slows down, wallops and gallops on.
Then suddenly, it happens! She drives car into a muddy gutter. In the cell phone distraction, she did not notice the accident so kept accelerating, wheels spinning, until yells and teasing laughter from youthful passers-by brought the message home. So she got off the phone to see to the predicament. It took more than a dozen men and a gutter engineering feat, with planks, to yank car out of gutter. She thanks helpers with some cedis and speeds off, still yapping on the phone. Within minutes, car begins to lose power. Then, yells from a new batch of onlookers bring another message home – the car was puffing out smoke, almost burning. She parks the car, shaken.
What are the lessons from these gutter tales? It is plain folly to drive and talk on the cell phone. It could even be suicidal. But more so, there are too many monstrous gutters waiting with smiles, to suck us into their gaping mouths. And, there is no one to sue if you become a gutter casualty. Decentralized assemblies? Let’s explore that!
Open gutters are a prominent canvas on our landscape. Gutters here, gutters there, gutters everywhere! Gutters have drawn battle lines between humans and nasty falls. The battle rages on as more gutters are constructed with cement cast firmly into the earth. The more our development and civilization take shape, the more roads we construct. And wherever there are roads, gutters with gaping holes appear.
What makes our gutters unique is that they are open. In developed countries, gutters are not seen. Well, gutters are not meant to be seen. They belong in the underworld. So I asked a gutter expert, Engineer Kofi H (he begged me not to disclose his surname) why our gutters are not covered but left open to stare at us rudely, teasingly and dangerously. If our goal is to become a middle-income country by 2015, when will it show in our gutters?
His responses were instructive. He said bluntly, “We’re not ready for covered gutters. We’re not there yet!” In shock, I exclaimed, “What!!” He explained: “What we call gutters are ‘drains’ constructed for storm/rain water. There are roadside drains (small gutters) and storm drains (large gutters). But our gutters are choked with garbage and silt. Covered gutters are so difficult to clean.”
I retorted, “If gutters are covered, the bad people of Ghana will not be tempted to dump garbage into them.” He responded, “Some bad people go to the extent of lifting slabs of covered gutters to push in their garbage!” He insisted that until behavioral change occurs, our gutters will be left uncovered! So I’m left wondering – how about enforcement? Set example with some culprits through arrests, stiff sentencing and publicity. Let’s name and shame the bad people, consistently.
It is Christmas and we are on the cusp of a New Year. Yet, I’m grumpy about open gutters! You should too! They are inelegant; no, they are ugly. And, they are stinky, spewing out nasty leachate. Gutters are dangerous. People, animals and vehicles fall into them. Besides, gutters are at the heart of our sanitation dilemma because they are receptacles for strange things including obnoxious ‘take-aways’ of people who live in homes without toilets. When it rains, gutters become turbo-charged and gush out water and the numerous things stashed in them. Choked gutters cause floods which lead to misery and death.
I’m terrified of gutters. They stare at me menacingly and with such intensity that I suspect they beckon me to enter whether I’m driving or walking. I suspect that gutters are living beings with eyes, ears, mouths and brains. And souls too! And, living beings breed and/or live in them. Gutters provide comfortable home for insects, frogs, weeds, germs and many despicable creatures of the underworld.
A little gutter psychology. When you go through life seeing the insides of gutters over and over again, and they stare right back at you, how does that experience affect the way you think, your world view and your very psyche? Are open gutters messing us up psychologically in such a deep way to the point that we don’t find much wrong with overwhelming our environment with filth? Could it be that open gutters have become like tumors on our national conscience? In Les Miserables, Victor Hugo said: “The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers…. The sewer is the conscience of a city.” Wherein lies our collective conscience? Chew on this. Merry Christmas!
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Twists and Turns of Presidential Saga
For the history books: In the year of our Lord 2008, grown men in Ghana danced the ugliest inelegant dance moves ever, without feeling shy. Who would have thought that decent men, desperate for high public office, would imitate kangaroos in motion! We don’t even have kangaroos in this part of the world! Why Samuel Essiene has not claimed exclusive rights to the kangaroo dance moves and loads of money from the NPP is beyond me.
And then there is the awkward rotational hand movements, quite meaningless but for the sake of symbolism to get the message out, respectable men with their eyes firmly focused on the ultimate political price, pretend to love such awkward tongue-biting dance moves. The things people will do for gains! And for love too!
D.H. Lawrence’s poem, entitled “GOD” sums up this phenomenon best: “Only man can fall from God. Only man! That awful and sickening endless, sinking sinking through the slow corruptive levels of disintegrative knowledge…..the awful katabolism into the abyss!”
So it appears that we have arrived at the crossroads of rotational politics in which we give one party the chance to rule for the limited duration as enjoined by the 1992 Constitution. Then, when their time expires, the very next time around, we automatically reverse to the other party so we can try them too, applying the rule of “Moko aya ni moko aba” – a Ga expression for taking turns. Attah Mills and Akufo Addo are contemporaries who in their days, danced twist; so they have set up a nation to dance twist with them – a game of musical chairs just so one of them would become president.
In a bizarre way, this appears to be the best way for the political elite to share the national cake, a ‘You chop small, I chop small’ arrangement. Meanwhile, the situation of the ordinary person does not change in any significant manner under either of the two parties; and we know it.
What we are yet to figure out is how to get the best out of our leaders. We vote for them, place them on pedestals as lords so we can’t touch them or hold them accountable. Even when we witness or suspect that they are taking us for granted, that they are amassing wealth at our expense, we don’t seem capable of doing much to stop them.
For instance, since we know the temptation of leadership and their cronies to become corrupt, why is it that the assets they declare do not become public knowledge so at the time of exit from office, we can openly compare their before and after wealth status? Why is it that we just complain but are helpless in stopping corruption, and the annoying display of pride and hooliganism?
So three days after Christmas, we will return to the ballot box to cast votes in our characteristic bi-polar fashion, for either Akufo Addo or Attah Mills with petty reasons informing our choices. The winner may win the vote not for reasons of superior ideas. Sadly, the win may be due to good campaign songs, awkward and ugly dance moves, and uninspiring and meaningless candidate-centred slogans. The good songs and exotic dance moves only act as balm to soothe our deep-seated wounds, albeit temporal.
There is the pretence of using words and slogans which are not clearly defined but used as anchors for deceit. Take for examples the campaign slogans of moving forward and change. Why is it that many people are still stuck in poverty without any significant success chalked in the poverty alleviation realm? What categories of our people have so far moved forward? Is it that the privileged are moving forward while the poor majority cheer them on? As they cheer, what are the definite plans to push them forward so they don’t stand still in stinky poverty? The NPP campaign theme does not answer my deep-seated questions.
But the NDC change rhetoric makes me nervous. Change! What change? The funny thing is that the change rhetoric was borrowed from Obama. It migrated to Ghana when it caught on so well in the USA. Clearly, it was taken out of context without any relevant retrofitting.
One of the frightening things about change is that it can be mismanaged, a lot. When mismanagement occurs, the system is left worse off than it was before the implementation of change initiatives. Also, beware of change that is implemented just for the sake of change. It is said that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Just crying wolf about change can end up running a system aground. As a country, we are at a point where the least we need is for our progress to be run aground.
Professor Mills, why have you not dropped Koku Anyidoho, the head of your Communications team, like a load of garbage? He and his likes, through their reckless pronouncements, are the type of characters who can run our beautiful country aground.
We’ve been bombarded with other weak slogans during this lengthy campaign season. When one of the presidential candidates claimed that he is the “Best man for Ghana”, the other quickly hit back with claims that he is “A better man for a better Ghana.” These claims have left me wondering if the presidential bid between Akuffo Addo and Attah Mills is a mere context in erectile functioning and/or mal-functioning. It is as if they are rubbing it in for us women that it takes a man to rule Ghana and that the presidential election is nothing but a show and test of manhood. Damn!
A demand on manliness clearly eliminates lip-stick-wearing, high-heeled shoes stomping and kaba-slit head-gear spotting females. Meanwhile, women have become endangered species in political leadership. From 25 parliamentarians in the out-going parliament, women’s representation has dropped to 15, a mere 6.5% of the 230 membership of the law-making fraternity. Ouch!
So this Christmas, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ, whom Christians and Muslims revere and call Lord, we dare not break into singing certain religious songs or dance carelessly, lest we betray our political leanings and be charged in God’s house as NDC or NPP supporters. Woe unto you if you insult the sense and sensibilities of your pew neighbours! Christmas is a season to be Christ-like but we quickly turn around to crucify the Christ without blinking an eye lid or feel any sense of guilt and shame.
While waiting for the presidential run-off elections next week, the naughty part of me is tempted to suggest that we should place the two men in a boxing ring and let them slush it out. After all, once upon a time, Nelson Mandela was a boxer! Or, we should put each person at the end of a tight rope and leave them to pull until one of them pushes the other to the ground or the rope breaks. Whoever falls first, or whoever the rope breaks closest to, should be declared the loser. Preferably, the iconic Mohammed Ali or flamboyant boxing promoter Don King should referee. And, the context should be broadcasted live on large screen TVs throughout the country. It will be so much fun.
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
The Twists and Turns of Presidential Saga
For the history books: In the year of our Lord 2008, grown men in Ghana danced the ugliest inelegant dance moves ever, without feeling shy. Who would have thought that decent men, desperate for high public office, would imitate kangaroos in motion! We don’t even have kangaroos in this part of the world! Why Samuel Essiene has not claimed exclusive rights to the kangaroo dance moves and loads of money from the NPP is beyond me.
And then there is the awkward rotational hand movements, quite meaningless but for the sake of symbolism to get the message out, respectable men with their eyes firmly focused on the ultimate political price, pretend to love such awkward tongue-biting dance moves. The things people will do for gains! And for love too!
D.H. Lawrence’s poem, entitled “GOD” sums up this phenomenon best: “Only man can fall from God. Only man! That awful and sickening endless, sinking sinking through the slow corruptive levels of disintegrative knowledge…..the awful katabolism into the abyss!”
So it appears that we have arrived at the crossroads of rotational politics in which we give one party the chance to rule for the limited duration as enjoined by the 1992 Constitution. Then, when their time expires, the very next time around, we automatically reverse to the other party so we can try them too, applying the rule of “Moko aya ni moko aba” – a Ga expression for taking turns. Attah Mills and Akufo Addo are contemporaries who in their days, danced twist; so they have set up a nation to dance twist with them – a game of musical chairs just so one of them would become president.
In a bizarre way, this appears to be the best way for the political elite to share the national cake, a ‘You chop small, I chop small’ arrangement. Meanwhile, the situation of the ordinary person does not change in any significant manner under either of the two parties; and we know it.
What we are yet to figure out is how to get the best out of our leaders. We vote for them, place them on pedestals as lords so we can’t touch them or hold them accountable. Even when we witness or suspect that they are taking us for granted, that they are amassing wealth at our expense, we don’t seem capable of doing much to stop them.
For instance, since we know the temptation of leadership and their cronies to become corrupt, why is it that the assets they declare do not become public knowledge so at the time of exit from office, we can openly compare their before and after wealth status? Why is it that we just complain but are helpless in stopping corruption, and the annoying display of pride and hooliganism?
So three days after Christmas, we will return to the ballot box to cast votes in our characteristic bi-polar fashion, for either Akufo Addo or Attah Mills with petty reasons informing our choices. The winner may win the vote not for reasons of superior ideas. Sadly, the win may be due to good campaign songs, awkward and ugly dance moves, and uninspiring and meaningless candidate-centred slogans. The good songs and exotic dance moves only act as balm to soothe our deep-seated wounds, albeit temporal.
There is the pretence of using words and slogans which are not clearly defined but used as anchors for deceit. Take for examples the campaign slogans of moving forward and change. Why is it that many people are still stuck in poverty without any significant success chalked in the poverty alleviation realm? What categories of our people have so far moved forward? Is it that the privileged are moving forward while the poor majority cheer them on? As they cheer, what are the definite plans to push them forward so they don’t stand still in stinky poverty? The NPP campaign theme does not answer my deep-seated questions.
But the NDC change rhetoric makes me nervous. Change! What change? The funny thing is that the change rhetoric was borrowed from Obama. It migrated to Ghana when it caught on so well in the USA. Clearly, it was taken out of context without any relevant retrofitting.
One of the frightening things about change is that it can be mismanaged, a lot. When mismanagement occurs, the system is left worse off than it was before the implementation of change initiatives. Also, beware of change that is implemented just for the sake of change. It is said that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Just crying wolf about change can end up running a system aground. As a country, we are at a point where the least we need is for our progress to be run aground.
Professor Mills, why have you not dropped Koku Anyidoho, the head of your Communications team, like a load of garbage? He and his likes, through their reckless pronouncements, are the type of characters who can run our beautiful country aground.
We’ve been bombarded with other weak slogans during this lengthy campaign season. When one of the presidential candidates claimed that he is the “Best man for Ghana”, the other quickly hit back with claims that he is “A better man for a better Ghana.” These claims have left me wondering if the presidential bid between Akuffo Addo and Attah Mills is a mere context in erectile functioning and/or mal-functioning. It is as if they are rubbing it in for us women that it takes a man to rule Ghana and that the presidential election is nothing but a show and test of manhood. Damn!
A demand on manliness clearly eliminates lip-stick-wearing, high-heeled shoes stomping and kaba-slit head-gear spotting females. Meanwhile, women have become endangered species in political leadership. From 25 parliamentarians in the out-going parliament, women’s representation has dropped to 15, a mere 6.5% of the 230 membership of the law-making fraternity. Ouch!
So this Christmas, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ, whom Christians and Muslims revere and call Lord, we dare not break into singing certain religious songs or dance carelessly, lest we betray our political leanings and be charged in God’s house as NDC or NPP supporters. Woe unto you if you insult the sense and sensibilities of your pew neighbours! Christmas is a season to be Christ-like but we quickly turn around to crucify the Christ without blinking an eye lid or feel any sense of guilt and shame.
While waiting for the presidential run-off elections next week, the naughty part of me is tempted to suggest that we should place the two men in a boxing ring and let them slush it out. After all, once upon a time, Nelson Mandela was a boxer! Or, we should put each person at the end of a tight rope and leave them to pull until one of them pushes the other to the ground or the rope breaks. Whoever falls first, or whoever the rope breaks closest to, should be declared the loser. Preferably, the iconic Mohammed Ali or flamboyant boxing promoter Don King should referee. And, the context should be broadcasted live on large screen TVs throughout the country. It will be so much fun.
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
And then there is the awkward rotational hand movements, quite meaningless but for the sake of symbolism to get the message out, respectable men with their eyes firmly focused on the ultimate political price, pretend to love such awkward tongue-biting dance moves. The things people will do for gains! And for love too!
D.H. Lawrence’s poem, entitled “GOD” sums up this phenomenon best: “Only man can fall from God. Only man! That awful and sickening endless, sinking sinking through the slow corruptive levels of disintegrative knowledge…..the awful katabolism into the abyss!”
So it appears that we have arrived at the crossroads of rotational politics in which we give one party the chance to rule for the limited duration as enjoined by the 1992 Constitution. Then, when their time expires, the very next time around, we automatically reverse to the other party so we can try them too, applying the rule of “Moko aya ni moko aba” – a Ga expression for taking turns. Attah Mills and Akufo Addo are contemporaries who in their days, danced twist; so they have set up a nation to dance twist with them – a game of musical chairs just so one of them would become president.
In a bizarre way, this appears to be the best way for the political elite to share the national cake, a ‘You chop small, I chop small’ arrangement. Meanwhile, the situation of the ordinary person does not change in any significant manner under either of the two parties; and we know it.
What we are yet to figure out is how to get the best out of our leaders. We vote for them, place them on pedestals as lords so we can’t touch them or hold them accountable. Even when we witness or suspect that they are taking us for granted, that they are amassing wealth at our expense, we don’t seem capable of doing much to stop them.
For instance, since we know the temptation of leadership and their cronies to become corrupt, why is it that the assets they declare do not become public knowledge so at the time of exit from office, we can openly compare their before and after wealth status? Why is it that we just complain but are helpless in stopping corruption, and the annoying display of pride and hooliganism?
So three days after Christmas, we will return to the ballot box to cast votes in our characteristic bi-polar fashion, for either Akufo Addo or Attah Mills with petty reasons informing our choices. The winner may win the vote not for reasons of superior ideas. Sadly, the win may be due to good campaign songs, awkward and ugly dance moves, and uninspiring and meaningless candidate-centred slogans. The good songs and exotic dance moves only act as balm to soothe our deep-seated wounds, albeit temporal.
There is the pretence of using words and slogans which are not clearly defined but used as anchors for deceit. Take for examples the campaign slogans of moving forward and change. Why is it that many people are still stuck in poverty without any significant success chalked in the poverty alleviation realm? What categories of our people have so far moved forward? Is it that the privileged are moving forward while the poor majority cheer them on? As they cheer, what are the definite plans to push them forward so they don’t stand still in stinky poverty? The NPP campaign theme does not answer my deep-seated questions.
But the NDC change rhetoric makes me nervous. Change! What change? The funny thing is that the change rhetoric was borrowed from Obama. It migrated to Ghana when it caught on so well in the USA. Clearly, it was taken out of context without any relevant retrofitting.
One of the frightening things about change is that it can be mismanaged, a lot. When mismanagement occurs, the system is left worse off than it was before the implementation of change initiatives. Also, beware of change that is implemented just for the sake of change. It is said that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. Just crying wolf about change can end up running a system aground. As a country, we are at a point where the least we need is for our progress to be run aground.
Professor Mills, why have you not dropped Koku Anyidoho, the head of your Communications team, like a load of garbage? He and his likes, through their reckless pronouncements, are the type of characters who can run our beautiful country aground.
We’ve been bombarded with other weak slogans during this lengthy campaign season. When one of the presidential candidates claimed that he is the “Best man for Ghana”, the other quickly hit back with claims that he is “A better man for a better Ghana.” These claims have left me wondering if the presidential bid between Akuffo Addo and Attah Mills is a mere context in erectile functioning and/or mal-functioning. It is as if they are rubbing it in for us women that it takes a man to rule Ghana and that the presidential election is nothing but a show and test of manhood. Damn!
A demand on manliness clearly eliminates lip-stick-wearing, high-heeled shoes stomping and kaba-slit head-gear spotting females. Meanwhile, women have become endangered species in political leadership. From 25 parliamentarians in the out-going parliament, women’s representation has dropped to 15, a mere 6.5% of the 230 membership of the law-making fraternity. Ouch!
So this Christmas, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ, whom Christians and Muslims revere and call Lord, we dare not break into singing certain religious songs or dance carelessly, lest we betray our political leanings and be charged in God’s house as NDC or NPP supporters. Woe unto you if you insult the sense and sensibilities of your pew neighbours! Christmas is a season to be Christ-like but we quickly turn around to crucify the Christ without blinking an eye lid or feel any sense of guilt and shame.
While waiting for the presidential run-off elections next week, the naughty part of me is tempted to suggest that we should place the two men in a boxing ring and let them slush it out. After all, once upon a time, Nelson Mandela was a boxer! Or, we should put each person at the end of a tight rope and leave them to pull until one of them pushes the other to the ground or the rope breaks. Whoever falls first, or whoever the rope breaks closest to, should be declared the loser. Preferably, the iconic Mohammed Ali or flamboyant boxing promoter Don King should referee. And, the context should be broadcasted live on large screen TVs throughout the country. It will be so much fun.
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Election Awards for Hooliganism, Pomposity, Courage and No-Nonsense go to .......
Nerves frazzled. Sleep lost. Patience tested at wrist-splitting proportions. A nation is election-fatigued. If you’re thinking that democracy is tough; that it takes forever to vote and count votes; that it costs too much money, energy and time; and that it is taxing on our emotions, then try dictatorship in which one son-of-a-gun issues decrees and terrifies the hellish life out of a nation! So, we will stick with democracy and the bonus of free speech.
As we extend the pangs of birthing a president through a second round of elections, four people are hereby awarded for Hooliganism, Pomposity, Courage and No-Nonsense. The citations are:
Hooliganism Award: For committing the most irresponsible act of hooliganism, the award goes to Koku Anyidoho, Head of Communications of Professor Mills’ campaign. At 3am, just 10 hours after the close of the polls, he issued a press release titled, “We shall tolerate no nonsense”. Anyidoho, a poster-child of the NDC, caused me to tremble when he taunted the nation with a temper tantrum. He was on a fury-venting rampage, oozing a load of crap and ugly sticks.
Anyidoho insulted our electoral process, challenging the integrity of the agency which we, in our collective wisdom, have chosen to conduct and determine the outcome of our elections. Through his action, he sought to incite the electorate by claiming that the NDC had won the elections. He also threatened Dr Afari-Gyan and by extension, this country. How such an act of low-cost textual hooliganism can erupt from the office of a potential president is in itself troubling. Anyidoho must therefore apologize to Ghana for threatening to hijack our electoral process.
Pomposity Award: Personality matters. Asamoah-Boateng, a poster-child of the NPP, sounds more like a piece of ugly cloth torn from the blue-book of military autocracy. He has the capacity to be dreadfully rude, arrogant and annoying, not caring a hoot about what anyone felt or thought. His utterances easily made enemies for himself and the government. No wonder his constituency voted him out. The Pomposity Award therefore goes to Asabee, unopposed.
Why President Kufuor should place such a character at the helm of affairs at the propaganda arm of his government, the Ministry of Information and National Orientation, is difficult to understand. Asabee was the worst face and voice of the NPP. It was as if the Kufuor administration lost its head and officially embraced the ridiculous arrogance for which Asabee is highly reputed.
At 51, Ghana has come of age and the voice of the people has become the voice of God. We might be desperately dirt-poor, half-baked literate, unapologetically unsophisticated, but don’t walk over us. The Day of Thumbs has come to symbolize the day we speak our truth to power quietly, boldly and clearly.
From the Anyidoho immature gangster-style press release to the Asabee posture of disrespect and arrogance, the two leading political parties have shown that they suffer from the cancers of forgetfulness and power-drunkenness. Not surprisingly, Ghana is bi-polar, split – sharply divided at the middle of the centre with the NDC and NPP on either side. Neither party is a movement. Both parties are nauseatingly arrogant, crooked, greedy, selfish and stuck in thievery, pomposity and hooliganism, forgetting that public office is about public service. Our political leaders have become neo-colonialists, and like chiefs, sit in state, expecting us to become beholden to them and address them as Honourables despite their dishonourableness.
Our country is polarized because neither the NPP nor NDC has a mandate to rule us. Fact: we are suspicious of their rhetoric and actions. The lessons from the Pomposity and Hooliganism Awards of Asabee and Anyidoho are testaments to the maturity of Ghanaians. These are some of the cautionary tales of national governance, with deep lessons. When we vote for anyone, we expect to be put at the centre, and benefit. Watching politicians and their cronies improve their lot while the majority of our people go hungry is unacceptable.
No-Nonsense Award: At the centre of these elections is the Electoral Commissioner, Afari-Gyan who, together with his team, carry Ghana’s democracy. They are the unsung heroes. Afari-Gyan, a little-man giant, chain-smokes “cancer-sticks” (cigarettes) to carry Ghana’s democracy on his back. Contrary to the annoyingly flamboyant posture of politicians, Afari-Gyan is simple in appearance, unassuming, and easily approachable, with no colourful frills to show off. He has a healthy sense of humour, with a unique ability to make fun of himself.
But don’t be fooled; he is no push- or walk-over. He is principled, firm, opinionated, direct and no-nonsense. He is sharp at the brain and brilliantly engages in rhetorical but almost insulting line of questioning, searching and challenging intelligent adults to find answers. He operates in a tunnel vision with sharp focus and with one agenda only: to get the job done, and done well.
Not surprisingly, he comes across as a man with dictatorial tendencies. Such tendencies tend to protect him from being bullied by manipulative politicians with conflicting and often selfish motives, and render him functional in our indirect and often lackadaisical culture. His unique personality makes him most suitable for the position. Anything less and this country would have degenerated into chaos. Little wonder that he can work with opposing political parties. So Afari-Gyan and his team win the No-Nonsense Award for successfully managing Ghana’s elections.
Courage Award: Samia Yaaba Nkrumah wins the Courage award. She came from no-where (almost) and with audacity, entered the mud of politics with shit-bombing and all. A pint-sized 48 year-old journalist with a surname to die for, Samia returned to Ghana tagged with daddy’s name and entered the Jomoro constituency by way of Half-Assini, the hometown of her gold-smith grandfather. The hearts of her people melted in unison, for the only daughter of Osagyefo Nkrumah. Although she ran on the ticket of the CPP which failed miserably in the elections, Yaaba is poised to become the Yaa Asantewa who has emerged to finally salvage her father’s name.
She has uprooted an old tree, Lee Ocran, whose wife, Sati Ocran, is a known close associate of Konadu Rawlings. That in itself is a great feat. Samia’s win makes me wanna cry. It has brought a certain touchy-feeling of nostalgia about our first president, as if to re-echo the phrase, “Nkrumah never dies.” So finally, out of the seed of Nkrumah, a fresh flower has bloomed to exude fragrance to counteract stench in parliament.
She’ll be one of 23 women in the next parliament, constituting a sorry 10% female minority. This in itself is a sad commentary on us as a people – that women, who constitute 50% plus majority of the population sit precariously on the fringes of society cooking and cleaning, while the male majority rules.
Footnotes: The tribal colouring in the results from the Volta Region is disturbing for national cohesion. Why should it be predictable that people from a certain tribe will consistently vote for a certain political party because its founder is one of their own?
The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) is commended for kicking out the political parties from the International Press Centre after the first night of the vote count. They were using what should be the safe haven of journalists as a place to trade ugly punches, drag journalists into their mud and by that, undermine hard-earned sane press freedom.
Joy FM redeemed the sorry image of Ghana’s electronic media (radio, TV and Internet) with passable election results coverage.
Email: dorisdartey@yahoo.com; Blog: dorisdartey.blogspot.com
As we extend the pangs of birthing a president through a second round of elections, four people are hereby awarded for Hooliganism, Pomposity, Courage and No-Nonsense. The citations are:
Hooliganism Award: For committing the most irresponsible act of hooliganism, the award goes to Koku Anyidoho, Head of Communications of Professor Mills’ campaign. At 3am, just 10 hours after the close of the polls, he issued a press release titled, “We shall tolerate no nonsense”. Anyidoho, a poster-child of the NDC, caused me to tremble when he taunted the nation with a temper tantrum. He was on a fury-venting rampage, oozing a load of crap and ugly sticks.
Anyidoho insulted our electoral process, challenging the integrity of the agency which we, in our collective wisdom, have chosen to conduct and determine the outcome of our elections. Through his action, he sought to incite the electorate by claiming that the NDC had won the elections. He also threatened Dr Afari-Gyan and by extension, this country. How such an act of low-cost textual hooliganism can erupt from the office of a potential president is in itself troubling. Anyidoho must therefore apologize to Ghana for threatening to hijack our electoral process.
Pomposity Award: Personality matters. Asamoah-Boateng, a poster-child of the NPP, sounds more like a piece of ugly cloth torn from the blue-book of military autocracy. He has the capacity to be dreadfully rude, arrogant and annoying, not caring a hoot about what anyone felt or thought. His utterances easily made enemies for himself and the government. No wonder his constituency voted him out. The Pomposity Award therefore goes to Asabee, unopposed.
Why President Kufuor should place such a character at the helm of affairs at the propaganda arm of his government, the Ministry of Information and National Orientation, is difficult to understand. Asabee was the worst face and voice of the NPP. It was as if the Kufuor administration lost its head and officially embraced the ridiculous arrogance for which Asabee is highly reputed.
At 51, Ghana has come of age and the voice of the people has become the voice of God. We might be desperately dirt-poor, half-baked literate, unapologetically unsophisticated, but don’t walk over us. The Day of Thumbs has come to symbolize the day we speak our truth to power quietly, boldly and clearly.
From the Anyidoho immature gangster-style press release to the Asabee posture of disrespect and arrogance, the two leading political parties have shown that they suffer from the cancers of forgetfulness and power-drunkenness. Not surprisingly, Ghana is bi-polar, split – sharply divided at the middle of the centre with the NDC and NPP on either side. Neither party is a movement. Both parties are nauseatingly arrogant, crooked, greedy, selfish and stuck in thievery, pomposity and hooliganism, forgetting that public office is about public service. Our political leaders have become neo-colonialists, and like chiefs, sit in state, expecting us to become beholden to them and address them as Honourables despite their dishonourableness.
Our country is polarized because neither the NPP nor NDC has a mandate to rule us. Fact: we are suspicious of their rhetoric and actions. The lessons from the Pomposity and Hooliganism Awards of Asabee and Anyidoho are testaments to the maturity of Ghanaians. These are some of the cautionary tales of national governance, with deep lessons. When we vote for anyone, we expect to be put at the centre, and benefit. Watching politicians and their cronies improve their lot while the majority of our people go hungry is unacceptable.
No-Nonsense Award: At the centre of these elections is the Electoral Commissioner, Afari-Gyan who, together with his team, carry Ghana’s democracy. They are the unsung heroes. Afari-Gyan, a little-man giant, chain-smokes “cancer-sticks” (cigarettes) to carry Ghana’s democracy on his back. Contrary to the annoyingly flamboyant posture of politicians, Afari-Gyan is simple in appearance, unassuming, and easily approachable, with no colourful frills to show off. He has a healthy sense of humour, with a unique ability to make fun of himself.
But don’t be fooled; he is no push- or walk-over. He is principled, firm, opinionated, direct and no-nonsense. He is sharp at the brain and brilliantly engages in rhetorical but almost insulting line of questioning, searching and challenging intelligent adults to find answers. He operates in a tunnel vision with sharp focus and with one agenda only: to get the job done, and done well.
Not surprisingly, he comes across as a man with dictatorial tendencies. Such tendencies tend to protect him from being bullied by manipulative politicians with conflicting and often selfish motives, and render him functional in our indirect and often lackadaisical culture. His unique personality makes him most suitable for the position. Anything less and this country would have degenerated into chaos. Little wonder that he can work with opposing political parties. So Afari-Gyan and his team win the No-Nonsense Award for successfully managing Ghana’s elections.
Courage Award: Samia Yaaba Nkrumah wins the Courage award. She came from no-where (almost) and with audacity, entered the mud of politics with shit-bombing and all. A pint-sized 48 year-old journalist with a surname to die for, Samia returned to Ghana tagged with daddy’s name and entered the Jomoro constituency by way of Half-Assini, the hometown of her gold-smith grandfather. The hearts of her people melted in unison, for the only daughter of Osagyefo Nkrumah. Although she ran on the ticket of the CPP which failed miserably in the elections, Yaaba is poised to become the Yaa Asantewa who has emerged to finally salvage her father’s name.
She has uprooted an old tree, Lee Ocran, whose wife, Sati Ocran, is a known close associate of Konadu Rawlings. That in itself is a great feat. Samia’s win makes me wanna cry. It has brought a certain touchy-feeling of nostalgia about our first president, as if to re-echo the phrase, “Nkrumah never dies.” So finally, out of the seed of Nkrumah, a fresh flower has bloomed to exude fragrance to counteract stench in parliament.
She’ll be one of 23 women in the next parliament, constituting a sorry 10% female minority. This in itself is a sad commentary on us as a people – that women, who constitute 50% plus majority of the population sit precariously on the fringes of society cooking and cleaning, while the male majority rules.
Footnotes: The tribal colouring in the results from the Volta Region is disturbing for national cohesion. Why should it be predictable that people from a certain tribe will consistently vote for a certain political party because its founder is one of their own?
The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) is commended for kicking out the political parties from the International Press Centre after the first night of the vote count. They were using what should be the safe haven of journalists as a place to trade ugly punches, drag journalists into their mud and by that, undermine hard-earned sane press freedom.
Joy FM redeemed the sorry image of Ghana’s electronic media (radio, TV and Internet) with passable election results coverage.
Email: dorisdartey@yahoo.com; Blog: dorisdartey.blogspot.com
Saturday, December 6, 2008
The Day of Thumbs – for progress or a load of wood
Ghana is like a great tree in leaf. The branches have tell-tale signs of birth and rebirth, of pain and misery, of joy and hope. Tomorrow’s presidential and parliamentary elections are nothing but a branch formed out of the mighty tree; part of our history writing exercise – the fifth elections in the Fourth Republic. But there should be no more counting of the republics. All counting must cease; have ceased. One independent nation; one republic!
We were colonized once; yes, we were. After years of living in a colony, one of the then sprawling back-yard premises of England, we successfully fought for and won our independence; yes, we did. Whatever has happened since then have been growing up pains, akin to teething problems. During the period, we have had seasons that can be likened to a pile of rained-on manure. We hated it. So praying folks got onto their knees and some have remained there as the story of our beautiful great tree unfolds.
The beauty of democracy is that the ‘Kayayo’, manager, politician, Imam/Pastor, the privileged and downtrodden, literate and non-literate, young and old, tall and short, male and female, wise and semi-idiot – if considered to be of sound mind (who determines that? What level of sanity/insanity is acceptable as sound?), and above 18years of age – all have one vote – with the thumb. No one is superior. The thumb is the great equalizer.
So, tomorrow is the big Day of Thumbs. The thumb will rule, as it must. The collective thumb will select our next president and parliamentarians from across the country. What power! I suspect that if the other four fingers don’t normally envy the thumb, on Election Day, they frown in envy.
The thumb is special. It is the first digit of the human hand; and of the monkey too! The thumb differs from all other fingers. While the four fingers have three parts (phalanges), the thumb has two. The thumb is short and stout. Yet, despite what might appear on the surface as disadvantages, the thumb is the most flexible finger with the greatest freedom of movement. It can do what other fingers cannot dream of doing. The thumb can touch each and all the other fingers; the others can’t. Try it!
The thumb has gripping power. It is when the thumb joins forces with other fingers that we can hold things. Just imagine a handshake without a thumb! And cleaning and eating! So the thumb is the power-house in finger-land. It can grip to express love and it can grip to express hatred beyond measure. Some even use the thumb to insult, as in, ‘taflatse,’ – “Your moda!”
But some thumbs are berry-sweet and great suckers! The thumb appears to be the preferred sucking finger of all-knowing babies. The thumb has, from time immemorial, given solace and rocked many to sleep. It is likely that some adults secretly indulge in thumb-sucking for one reason or the other, not excluding bizarre enjoyment.
But thumbs vary. Some are messed up, crooked and disfigured with no semblance to a thumb at all. There are hunch-back thumbs with ugly bunions oddly sticking out. Some thumbs appear flat and lifeless as if pressed on, run down by a truck. On the contrary, some thumbs are fleshy and juicy as if picked out from the other fingers and overfed. Some thumbs are stiff, worn out from aging, arthritis and the victim of many other life’s ordeals. And, there are ailing thumbs with rotten nails, eaten up by fungus, leprosy or other funky possibilities.
Some thumbs appear directionless, absent-minded and might confuse their owners tomorrow whether that is the right finger to use in the voting booth. So what should be an easy task of using a specific finger to cast a vote could become complicated for some who will quietly suffer the challenge of figuring out which finger to use.
Some thumbs are shrunk like old tree stumps. Sadly, some are lost through accidents and other acts of living. What is the EC’s policy on those who are unfortunate not to have thumbs? Would they cast their votes with any other existing fingers? Thumbless folks should not be disenfranchised for after all, thumbless people are people too!
I do have a thumb, but a funny thing happened on my way to the polls. I’ve been on my way to the polls a long long time but have never had the privilege of voting. This one time, I was so close to experiencing the democratic act of casting a vote but the EC came in like a rough bully and stole my vote. I was disenfranchised before December 7 because of the unruly manner in which the limited registration exercise was organized. But I’m not bitter. I trust the electorate. My vote lies in the collective thumb. Once all the votes have been counted, all our individual preferences become mute and we must give way to the voice of the collective. After all, an election is nothing but the central nervous system of democracy and helps nations to stand tall.
Here is an important matter to consider tomorrow. While in the voting queue, woe unto you if nature calls you! Question: Should you get a pressing need to pee-pee, what would you do? Answer: Men will face bushes, walls and target gutters. Don’t imagine what women will do because it is one messy, lousy embarrassing exercise. Well, pee-pee is messy but poo-poo is indescribable.
On November 19, we celebrated World Toilet Day. As a country, our toilet situation is nothing to write home about. So you are likely to lose your dignity if while in a queue to vote nature calls you to do the big one. So before you set out on tomorrow’s Thumbs Day, cure yourself of pee-pee, and especially of all poo-poo matters. You should resolutely avoid loading on fluids, keeping in mind that whatever goes in must come out and force you to contend with nature in strange places. Riddle: why is it that chickens drink water but don’t pee?
Over 2000 years ago, a witty ex-slave, Aesop, told simple clever stories known as Aesop’s fables. Hear him in The Seaside Travellers. “Some travellers, journeying along the seashore climbed to the summit of a tall cliff and looking over the sea, saw in the distance what they thought was a large ship. They waited in the hope of seeing it enter the harbour. But as the object on which they looked was driven nearer to shore by the wind, they found that it could, at the most, be a small boat and not a ship. When however it reached the beach, they discovered that it was only a large faggot of sticks. One of them said to his companions, “We have waited for no purpose for after all, there is nothing to see but a load of wood.”
Moral: “Our anticipations of life usually outrun its realities.” Those who win the votes might not succeed in changing the circumstances of your individual life. Today, the elections might sound like such a big deal and worth hyperventilating over. But tomorrow, it might turn out to be less than a pimple on the face – here today, gone tomorrow. So in times like these, let your anchor hold. Below the surface and below the radar – stay grounded.
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
Friday, December 5, 2008
The Day of Thumbs – for progress or a load of wood
Ghana is like a great tree in leaf. The branches have tell-tale signs of birth and rebirth, of pain and misery, of joy and hope. Tomorrow’s presidential and parliamentary elections are nothing but a branch formed out of the mighty tree; part of our history writing exercise – the fifth elections in the Fourth Republic. But there should be no more counting of the republics. All counting must cease; have ceased. One independent nation; one republic!
We were colonized once; yes, we were. After years of living in a colony, one of the then sprawling back-yard premises of England, we successfully fought for and won our independence; yes, we did. Whatever has happened since then have been growing up pains, akin to teething problems. During the period, we have had seasons that can be likened to a pile of rained-on manure. We hated it. So praying folks got onto their knees and some have remained there as the story of our beautiful great tree unfolds.
The beauty of democracy is that the ‘Kayayo’, manager, politician, Imam/Pastor, the privileged and downtrodden, literate and non-literate, young and old, tall and short, male and female, wise and semi-idiot – if considered to be of sound mind (who determines that? What level of sanity/insanity is acceptable as sound?), and above 18years of age – all have one vote – with the thumb. No one is superior. The thumb is the great equalizer.
So, tomorrow is the big Day of Thumbs. The thumb will rule, as it must. The collective thumb will select our next president and parliamentarians from across the country. What power! I suspect that if the other four fingers don’t normally envy the thumb, on Election Day, they frown in envy.
The thumb is special. It is the first digit of the human hand; and of the monkey too! The thumb differs from all other fingers. While the four fingers have three parts (phalanges), the thumb has two. The thumb is short and stout. Yet, despite what might appear on the surface as disadvantages, the thumb is the most flexible finger with the greatest freedom of movement. It can do what other fingers cannot dream of doing. The thumb can touch each and all the other fingers; the others can’t. Try it!
The thumb has gripping power. It is when the thumb joins forces with other fingers that we can hold things. Just imagine a handshake without a thumb! And cleaning and eating! So the thumb is the power-house in finger-land. It can grip to express love and it can grip to express hatred beyond measure. Some even use the thumb to insult, as in, ‘taflatse,’ – “Your moda!”
But some thumbs are berry-sweet and great suckers! The thumb appears to be the preferred sucking finger of all-knowing babies. The thumb has, from time immemorial, given solace and rocked many to sleep. It is likely that some adults secretly indulge in thumb-sucking for one reason or the other, not excluding bizarre enjoyment.
But thumbs vary. Some are messed up, crooked and disfigured with no semblance to a thumb at all. There are hunch-back thumbs with ugly bunions oddly sticking out. Some thumbs appear flat and lifeless as if pressed on, run down by a truck. On the contrary, some thumbs are fleshy and juicy as if picked out from the other fingers and overfed. Some thumbs are stiff, worn out from aging, arthritis and the victim of many other life’s ordeals. And, there are ailing thumbs with rotten nails, eaten up by fungus, leprosy or other funky possibilities.
Some thumbs appear directionless, absent-minded and might confuse their owners tomorrow whether that is the right finger to use in the voting booth. So what should be an easy task of using a specific finger to cast a vote could become complicated for some who will quietly suffer the challenge of figuring out which finger to use.
Some thumbs are shrunk like old tree stumps. Sadly, some are lost through accidents and other acts of living. What is the EC’s policy on those who are unfortunate not to have thumbs? Would they cast their votes with any other existing fingers? Thumbless folks should not be disenfranchised for after all, thumbless people are people too!
I do have a thumb, but a funny thing happened on my way to the polls. I’ve been on my way to the polls a long long time but have never had the privilege of voting. This one time, I was so close to experiencing the democratic act of casting a vote but the EC came in like a rough bully and stole my vote. I was disenfranchised before December 7 because of the unruly manner in which the limited registration exercise was organized. But I’m not bitter. I trust the electorate. My vote lies in the collective thumb. Once all the votes have been counted, all our individual preferences become mute and we must give way to the voice of the collective. After all, an election is nothing but the central nervous system of democracy and helps nations to stand tall.
Here is an important matter to consider tomorrow. While in the voting queue, woe unto you if nature calls you! Question: Should you get a pressing need to pee-pee, what would you do? Answer: Men will face bushes, walls and target gutters. Don’t imagine what women will do because it is one messy, lousy embarrassing exercise. Well, pee-pee is messy but poo-poo is indescribable.
On November 19, we celebrated World Toilet Day. As a country, our toilet situation is nothing to write home about. So you are likely to lose your dignity if while in a queue to vote nature calls you to do the big one. So before you set out on tomorrow’s Thumbs Day, cure yourself of pee-pee, and especially of all poo-poo matters. You should resolutely avoid loading on fluids, keeping in mind that whatever goes in must come out and force you to contend with nature in strange places. Riddle: why is it that chickens drink water but don’t pee?
Over 2000 years ago, a witty ex-slave, Aesop, told simple clever stories known as Aesop’s fables. Hear him in The Seaside Travellers. “Some travellers, journeying along the seashore climbed to the summit of a tall cliff and looking over the sea, saw in the distance what they thought was a large ship. They waited in the hope of seeing it enter the harbour. But as the object on which they looked was driven nearer to shore by the wind, they found that it could, at the most, be a small boat and not a ship. When however it reached the beach, they discovered that it was only a large faggot of sticks. One of them said to his companions, “We have waited for no purpose for after all, there is nothing to see but a load of wood.”
Moral: “Our anticipations of life usually outrun its realities.” Those who win the votes might not succeed in changing the circumstances of your individual life. Today, the elections might sound like such a big deal and worth hyperventilating over. But tomorrow, it might turn out to be less than a pimple on the face – here today, gone tomorrow. So in times like these, let your anchor hold. Below the surface and below the radar – stay grounded.
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
We were colonized once; yes, we were. After years of living in a colony, one of the then sprawling back-yard premises of England, we successfully fought for and won our independence; yes, we did. Whatever has happened since then have been growing up pains, akin to teething problems. During the period, we have had seasons that can be likened to a pile of rained-on manure. We hated it. So praying folks got onto their knees and some have remained there as the story of our beautiful great tree unfolds.
The beauty of democracy is that the ‘Kayayo’, manager, politician, Imam/Pastor, the privileged and downtrodden, literate and non-literate, young and old, tall and short, male and female, wise and semi-idiot – if considered to be of sound mind (who determines that? What level of sanity/insanity is acceptable as sound?), and above 18years of age – all have one vote – with the thumb. No one is superior. The thumb is the great equalizer.
So, tomorrow is the big Day of Thumbs. The thumb will rule, as it must. The collective thumb will select our next president and parliamentarians from across the country. What power! I suspect that if the other four fingers don’t normally envy the thumb, on Election Day, they frown in envy.
The thumb is special. It is the first digit of the human hand; and of the monkey too! The thumb differs from all other fingers. While the four fingers have three parts (phalanges), the thumb has two. The thumb is short and stout. Yet, despite what might appear on the surface as disadvantages, the thumb is the most flexible finger with the greatest freedom of movement. It can do what other fingers cannot dream of doing. The thumb can touch each and all the other fingers; the others can’t. Try it!
The thumb has gripping power. It is when the thumb joins forces with other fingers that we can hold things. Just imagine a handshake without a thumb! And cleaning and eating! So the thumb is the power-house in finger-land. It can grip to express love and it can grip to express hatred beyond measure. Some even use the thumb to insult, as in, ‘taflatse,’ – “Your moda!”
But some thumbs are berry-sweet and great suckers! The thumb appears to be the preferred sucking finger of all-knowing babies. The thumb has, from time immemorial, given solace and rocked many to sleep. It is likely that some adults secretly indulge in thumb-sucking for one reason or the other, not excluding bizarre enjoyment.
But thumbs vary. Some are messed up, crooked and disfigured with no semblance to a thumb at all. There are hunch-back thumbs with ugly bunions oddly sticking out. Some thumbs appear flat and lifeless as if pressed on, run down by a truck. On the contrary, some thumbs are fleshy and juicy as if picked out from the other fingers and overfed. Some thumbs are stiff, worn out from aging, arthritis and the victim of many other life’s ordeals. And, there are ailing thumbs with rotten nails, eaten up by fungus, leprosy or other funky possibilities.
Some thumbs appear directionless, absent-minded and might confuse their owners tomorrow whether that is the right finger to use in the voting booth. So what should be an easy task of using a specific finger to cast a vote could become complicated for some who will quietly suffer the challenge of figuring out which finger to use.
Some thumbs are shrunk like old tree stumps. Sadly, some are lost through accidents and other acts of living. What is the EC’s policy on those who are unfortunate not to have thumbs? Would they cast their votes with any other existing fingers? Thumbless folks should not be disenfranchised for after all, thumbless people are people too!
I do have a thumb, but a funny thing happened on my way to the polls. I’ve been on my way to the polls a long long time but have never had the privilege of voting. This one time, I was so close to experiencing the democratic act of casting a vote but the EC came in like a rough bully and stole my vote. I was disenfranchised before December 7 because of the unruly manner in which the limited registration exercise was organized. But I’m not bitter. I trust the electorate. My vote lies in the collective thumb. Once all the votes have been counted, all our individual preferences become mute and we must give way to the voice of the collective. After all, an election is nothing but the central nervous system of democracy and helps nations to stand tall.
Here is an important matter to consider tomorrow. While in the voting queue, woe unto you if nature calls you! Question: Should you get a pressing need to pee-pee, what would you do? Answer: Men will face bushes, walls and target gutters. Don’t imagine what women will do because it is one messy, lousy embarrassing exercise. Well, pee-pee is messy but poo-poo is indescribable.
On November 19, we celebrated World Toilet Day. As a country, our toilet situation is nothing to write home about. So you are likely to lose your dignity if while in a queue to vote nature calls you to do the big one. So before you set out on tomorrow’s Thumbs Day, cure yourself of pee-pee, and especially of all poo-poo matters. You should resolutely avoid loading on fluids, keeping in mind that whatever goes in must come out and force you to contend with nature in strange places. Riddle: why is it that chickens drink water but don’t pee?
Over 2000 years ago, a witty ex-slave, Aesop, told simple clever stories known as Aesop’s fables. Hear him in The Seaside Travellers. “Some travellers, journeying along the seashore climbed to the summit of a tall cliff and looking over the sea, saw in the distance what they thought was a large ship. They waited in the hope of seeing it enter the harbour. But as the object on which they looked was driven nearer to shore by the wind, they found that it could, at the most, be a small boat and not a ship. When however it reached the beach, they discovered that it was only a large faggot of sticks. One of them said to his companions, “We have waited for no purpose for after all, there is nothing to see but a load of wood.”
Moral: “Our anticipations of life usually outrun its realities.” Those who win the votes might not succeed in changing the circumstances of your individual life. Today, the elections might sound like such a big deal and worth hyperventilating over. But tomorrow, it might turn out to be less than a pimple on the face – here today, gone tomorrow. So in times like these, let your anchor hold. Below the surface and below the radar – stay grounded.
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
The Day of Thumbs – for progress or a load of wood
Ghana is like a great tree in leaf. The branches have tell-tale signs of birth and rebirth, of pain and misery, of joy and hope. Tomorrow’s presidential and parliamentary elections are nothing but a branch formed out of the mighty tree; part of our history writing exercise – the fifth elections in the Fourth Republic. But there should be no more counting of the republics. All counting must cease; have ceased. One independent nation; one republic!
We were colonized once; yes, we were. After years of living in a colony, one of the then sprawling back-yard premises of England, we successfully fought for and won our independence; yes, we did. Whatever has happened since then have been growing up pains, akin to teething problems. During the period, we have had seasons that can be likened to a pile of rained-on manure. We hated it. So praying folks got onto their knees and some have remained there as the story of our beautiful great tree unfolds.
The beauty of democracy is that the ‘Kayayo’, manager, politician, Imam/Pastor, the privileged and downtrodden, literate and non-literate, young and old, tall and short, male and female, wise and semi-idiot – if considered to be of sound mind (who determines that? What level of sanity/insanity is acceptable as sound?), and above 18years of age – all have one vote – with the thumb. No one is superior. The thumb is the great equalizer.
So, tomorrow is the big Day of Thumbs. The thumb will rule, as it must. The collective thumb will select our next president and parliamentarians from across the country. What power! I suspect that if the other four fingers don’t normally envy the thumb, on Election Day, they frown in envy.
The thumb is special. It is the first digit of the human hand; and of the monkey too! The thumb differs from all other fingers. While the four fingers have three parts (phalanges), the thumb has two. The thumb is short and stout. Yet, despite what might appear on the surface as disadvantages, the thumb is the most flexible finger with the greatest freedom of movement. It can do what other fingers cannot dream of doing. The thumb can touch each and all the other fingers; the others can’t. Try it!
The thumb has gripping power. It is when the thumb joins forces with other fingers that we can hold things. Just imagine a handshake without a thumb! And cleaning and eating! So the thumb is the power-house in finger-land. It can grip to express love and it can grip to express hatred beyond measure. Some even use the thumb to insult, as in, ‘taflatse,’ – “Your moda!”
But some thumbs are berry-sweet and great suckers! The thumb appears to be the preferred sucking finger of all-knowing babies. The thumb has, from time immemorial, given solace and rocked many to sleep. It is likely that some adults secretly indulge in thumb-sucking for one reason or the other, not excluding bizarre enjoyment.
But thumbs vary. Some are messed up, crooked and disfigured with no semblance to a thumb at all. There are hunch-back thumbs with ugly bunions oddly sticking out. Some thumbs appear flat and lifeless as if pressed on, run down by a truck. On the contrary, some thumbs are fleshy and juicy as if picked out from the other fingers and overfed. Some thumbs are stiff, worn out from aging, arthritis and the victim of many other life’s ordeals. And, there are ailing thumbs with rotten nails, eaten up by fungus, leprosy or other funky possibilities.
Some thumbs appear directionless, absent-minded and might confuse their owners tomorrow whether that is the right finger to use in the voting booth. So what should be an easy task of using a specific finger to cast a vote could become complicated for some who will quietly suffer the challenge of figuring out which finger to use.
Some thumbs are shrunk like old tree stumps. Sadly, some are lost through accidents and other acts of living. What is the EC’s policy on those who are unfortunate not to have thumbs? Would they cast their votes with any other existing fingers? Thumbless folks should not be disenfranchised for after all, thumbless people are people too!
I do have a thumb, but a funny thing happened on my way to the polls. I’ve been on my way to the polls a long long time but have never had the privilege of voting. This one time, I was so close to experiencing the democratic act of casting a vote but the EC came in like a rough bully and stole my vote. I was disenfranchised before December 7 because of the unruly manner in which the limited registration exercise was organized. But I’m not bitter. I trust the electorate. My vote lies in the collective thumb. Once all the votes have been counted, all our individual preferences become mute and we must give way to the voice of the collective. After all, an election is nothing but the central nervous system of democracy and helps nations to stand tall.
Here is an important matter to consider tomorrow. While in the voting queue, woe unto you if nature calls you! Question: Should you get a pressing need to pee-pee, what would you do? Answer: Men will face bushes, walls and target gutters. Don’t imagine what women will do because it is one messy, lousy embarrassing exercise. Well, pee-pee is messy but poo-poo is indescribable.
On November 19, we celebrated World Toilet Day. As a country, our toilet situation is nothing to write home about. So you are likely to lose your dignity if while in a queue to vote nature calls you to do the big one. So before you set out on tomorrow’s Thumbs Day, cure yourself of pee-pee, and especially of all poo-poo matters. You should resolutely avoid loading on fluids, keeping in mind that whatever goes in must come out and force you to contend with nature in strange places. Riddle: why is it that chickens drink water but don’t pee?
Over 2000 years ago, a witty ex-slave, Aesop, told simple clever stories known as Aesop’s fables. Hear him in The Seaside Travellers. “Some travellers, journeying along the seashore climbed to the summit of a tall cliff and looking over the sea, saw in the distance what they thought was a large ship. They waited in the hope of seeing it enter the harbour. But as the object on which they looked was driven nearer to shore by the wind, they found that it could, at the most, be a small boat and not a ship. When however it reached the beach, they discovered that it was only a large faggot of sticks. One of them said to his companions, “We have waited for no purpose for after all, there is nothing to see but a load of wood.”
Moral: “Our anticipations of life usually outrun its realities.” Those who win the votes might not succeed in changing the circumstances of your individual life. Today, the elections might sound like such a big deal and worth hyperventilating over. But tomorrow, it might turn out to be less than a pimple on the face – here today, gone tomorrow. So in times like these, let your anchor hold. Below the surface and below the radar – stay grounded.
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Bursting a hernia for democracy
I’m fascinated by the hot unguarded phone calls on radio stations preceding the December 7 elections so I went traditional – to “see the Old Lady.” In the chief’s courtyard, when the elders are stuck with decision-making and need to access real wisdom, they go behind to consult the Old Lady. Today, I report to you the wise commonsense-based wisdom the Old Lady shared with me. She lamented about her disgust and unhappiness regarding the free flow of testosterone throughout this land, especially on radio stations. Ours is a young democracy that must be protected.
Testosterone is a libido hormone. Men have it more than women. Hold your breadth. I’m woman enough to make this statement – It’s a man’s world! The men of Ghana are responsible for the current flaming of passions in the media. Granted, there are a few women who also freely let go of hot-bed estrogen and testosterone. If you are in doubt of my assertion, please try this exercise for a few days. Tune in to radio discussion programmes and call-in shows from sun-up to sun-down. You would hear mostly men yelling and screaming hoarse about one topic or the other, endangering their hernias.
A super-charged combination of poisonous testosterone and unrestrained free speech on FM stations is dangerous. Two key outcomes of our development and democratic enterprise are the diffusion of radio stations and mobile telephony. Current figures obtained of privately-owned FM stations in Ghana are 166. The regional spread is as follows: The Ashanti Region tops the list with 38, followed by the Western Region (26) and Greater Accra (25). Brong Ahafo has 22, Central (15), Eastern (14), Northern (11), Volta (7), Upper West (4) and Upper East (4). So clearly, some regions are doing a whole lot of talking into the airwaves than others. The Volta and the two upper regions (East and West) are not running their mouths as much.
Technology, especially the mobile phone, is a major tool that facilitates the rapid run of restless mouths from dusk to dawn. Give Homo sapiens the freedom to speak with unguarded adrenalin rush, and throw in ICT (Information Communication Technology) innovations and what you could potentially end up with are flagrant abuses.
Times past, we had drums and gong-gong beaters who went through towns and villages to make announcements and disseminate messages. Those traditional drums have now been muffled, their places and roles taken over by the pervasive modern-day gong-gong – the mass media. The electronic media of television is more passive but radio is king.
The mass media is an agenda-setter. Callers to FM call-in shows, by default, contribute in setting our agenda in as much as they also put some opinions out there. Democracy benefits, in the final analysis. But telephone companies benefit immensely, immediately. While our radio stations get on heat with phone calls and text messages, those at the receiving end of the talking business thrive. For some callers, it is an addiction. Even when they are broke, they still find money for phone cards. Call it misplaced priority but it is gratifying to them.
Regarding the morning shows, I’ve imagined the state in which some people are when making calls. My guess is that some callers wake up, fresh, with their mouths and faces unwashed and call when stricken by a subject matter under discussion on a radio station. You can tell by listening to some callers that their voices still have that leathery feel of not fully woken up. So with stinky mouths and sleep-cracked faces, and without checking themselves, they arrive on air, and by that, in our homes and in our consciousness – to speak their unprocessed and not fully thought-through ideas. They drop these on us in the name of blessed free speech.
There are various types of callers to FM stations. Some are invited to share their expertise or respond/react to specific issues. And then, there are callers from the rank and file who just call because they too must be heard. Speaking in either English or local languages, they appear to love the experience of putting their voices out there for a feeling of satisfaction and bloated ego. These callers provide pure entertainment money cannot buy. But they are scary too. Following are descriptions of a few types of callers.
1). The Gentleman Caller (GC) starts off in a gentlemanly manner – so composed like he can’t hurt a fly. He calmly announces, “I want to contribute to your programme.” Unsuspectingly, the presenter gladly accepts and welcomes his call. Like a train, GC typically begins in low tones. But suddenly, without warning, his voice begins to crank up to a high pitch, adopting a goat-like voice. When GC arrives at this stage, he shuts off from hearing the presenter because he is in a zone and can only hear himself. At that point, if the radio presenter doesn’t cut GC off, he could slide into the gutters and may insult anything that crosses his tender mind because he is doing only one thing: speaking his mind. Afterwards, he would walk away knowing that he has just made a big fool of himself but feels good anyway.
2) The Angry Caller (AC) is already charged, temper frayed, fully warmed up before making the call. Typically, his radio is on, very loud in the background. Some of these callers are so full of hatred you couldn’t cut through the hatred with the sharpest blade. AC is like a corn-mill that grinds without getting tired. As soon as the presenter says, “You are on air. Please turn your radio off,” AC takes off grinding coarse corn, spewing out hot anger. Without apology, he is usually angry about a particular subject matter. He appears to be sponsored, with calling cards paid for by sponsoring organizations with unending re-fill privileges. After the call, he smiles with the full satisfaction that he has let off steam onto opponents, the direct target of the call. He changes the radio dial to another station to make yet another call.
3). The Clueless Caller (CL) wakes up early to do the radio rounds. He is fully armed with cell phone units. He usually has nothing of substance to say to Ghana or to himself but must call anyway. When the phone line connects, he pauses to clear his throat and asks the presenter, “Ehhm, what is the topic about? I want to make a submission.” Then he might stammer his way through, talking nothing but pure trash. Afterwards, he goes away, content and grinning with erect ears.
Some of these callers sound as if they’re just about to burst their hernias. As you listen, you can tell that something within the caller is shifting position and possibly, about to burst or drop out of him. Oh democracy, thou art great!
All these radio callers might sound annoying to our ears every morning. But on the brighter side, such annoyances are better than guns. Foul mouths, wagging tongues and ear-splitting voices are preferable to gun shots and stray bullets, if we can keep it that way forever without fists. So long as we are talking, even if we are talking shrill and hoarse, talking is still much better than guns. With talking, we will live to see another day. But with guns – well, don’t even imagine guns instead of hot talk. Tofiakwa!
+233-208286817; dorisdartey@yahoo.com;
Thursday, November 20, 2008
White-Dove Royale demands peace in Ghana
The other day, for no particular reason at all beyond probably being a little bit sick upstairs in the head, I found myself in an imaginary theatre, watching a play. Screenplay: Written and produced by WW Incorporated. Revised, Fourth Draft. November 17, 2008.
FADE IN: At a residential complex of former colonial neighbourhood in the heart of privileged part of Accra. Air-conditioned room. Three guests seated on cushy-cushy couches. Outside, the hot tropical sun refuses to let off; red dust abound. Along the main road-side are children of no particular fixed addresses, beyond being unfortunately born to parents who permanently suffer from Third World credit crunch disease. The children are filled with joy as they dangerously chase after vehicles in fast motion to sell Chinese-made products. They live for today. Who cares about tomorrow? “One day at a time”, they seem to say through the purity of their innocent smiles.
CAST: Lings-Raw, White-Dove Royale and three members of Pope-Locale Club.
Lings-Raw, a tall, broad-hairy-chested, light-skinned, wealth-blossomed, gray-bearded opinionated man is pacing up and down the sprawling hall and frantically scratching his tough beard. He sits awkwardly, but briefly. He clears his throat, rises with a body stretch and growling to welcome the strange guests whose presence he has just noticed. Lings-Raw has just had a good-old breakfast. He looks bored but glad to receive guests, any guests. He enjoys the chance to speak out, to anyone, in what ordinary folks call ‘boom’ talk.
LINGS-RAW (hissing): Why has it taken you so long to come here to talk about White-Dove Royale?
Pope-Locale Club, a select white-robe wearing holy-book folks with red sash tied awkwardly around their bloated mid-sections remain calm, with a determined demeanour. They are message carriers who deliver peace messages. The messenger is also the message. Pope-Locale Club don’t fear a thing. After all, they have access to the bigger man upstairs’ mighty umbrella for protection so don’t fear any whatamacalhim bloke down here.
POPE-LOCALE CLUB: We bring greetings from God almighty! We ask that you join us on this peace journey.
LINGS-RAW: Why can’t Ghana be managed in my way? It is either my way or the high-way. (Suddenly, he notices a dove in the living room). What is this dove doing here? It will be perfect for soup. This dove will be delightfully tasty in okro soup and banku.
White-Dove Royale, a beautiful, ageless silvery-white dove, looking almost heavenly, hovers around, boldly flapping its strong wings, insisting that it gets attention.
WHITE-DOVE ROYALE: You earthly folks are talking about me as if I wasn’t here. I bring you the peace that passeth all understanding. God’s peace I bring to you! You people dare not do anything against my wishes. You can’t handle the truth. You better figure things out. No drama for Ghana! And oh, Lings-Raw, I’m not soup material. I’m heavenly. You would choke on me if Nana puts me in soup. You would chew more than you have ever dared. Leave your insatiable appetite out of my matters. Eh, you are looking very good lately!
As I watched the play, lost deeply in thoughts, my beloved grandchildren interrupted, lovingly. Thoughts of White-Dove Royale lingered on with the words, God’s peace I bring to you! But I snapped out of the zone with words of Zora Neale Hurston, the celebrated African American novelist and anthropologist, one of my favourite authors, buzzing in my head. In particular, her highly acclaimed novel, “Their eyes were watching God” enveloped me. If you are a Zora lover, you know that when she grabs you, you submit. So I gave in to her voice and let her inform my understanding of the play.
To Ghanaians who were alive, even if they were not yet politically conscious at the time, any memories of the PNDC, the much-touted revolutionary era, take us into what Zora would call an “infinity of conscious pain.” Last Monday, members of the National Peace Council, led by Cardinal Appiah-Turkson, the Catholic Archbishop of Cape Coast, visited the former Flt Lt Rawlings of the PNDC, who morphed into President Rawlings and founder of the NDC, and then by default became Ex-President Rawlings to discuss, matters of peace in the December elections. He was quoted as asserting, with crass impunity, that “there is so much injustice in the country” and set conditions for peace to prevail.
Such words from him scrape old wounds which years have not healed. Injustice? What injustices didn’t this country not suffer under his revolution? Do we even need to play-back proceedings of ‘Reconciliation’ hearings? Injustice should not be like beauty which lies in the eyes of the beholder. Fortunately, no misfortune of collective amnesia has occurred.
Zora again: “There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.” Despite the fast decreasing life-span of Ghanaians, there are still citizens alive who remember the terror, the callousness, the tables with women being whipped for selling milk above the “control price” with crowds looking on, the stray bullets that passed through homes, the deaths, those lost forever and unaccounted for, and the many other atrocities.
Such memories continue to float in the basin of the mind but to maintain sanity, the memories are simply left as formless feelings without thought and words. If you are religious, if you believe in anything higher above the ordinariness of your humanity, there is the temptation to simply drop on your knees and forget that you are there! Then, in a deep prayer without words, you plead to God, “Father, protect Ghana. Give us grace to continue. Be our guide. Forgive us our trespasses.” Afterwards, you awkwardly sweep yourself off your knees, already drooling at the mouth, toss yourself on the bed, and continue the sleep.
Zora again: “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” Why in the world is there a political party with the Rawlings of AFRC/PNDC fame as founder and father? On the verges of the sweaty maddening crowd and high anxieties of electioneering campaigning, why is Rawlings still so much at centre stage of Ghana’s politics? Wasn’t the almost two decades of his post-colonial rule from the slave castle just about enough? When will he get tired and permit Ghana to figure things out, relieving us from his grip? Is he more Ghanaian than the rest of us? Doesn’t he also have just one vote? Why is Rawlings the person to be setting conditions for peace in this country? Fact: Rawlings has over-stayed his time in Ghana’s politics.
What is and who is a ‘Social Democrat’? How do we know one when we see one? Along the same line of questioning – What is the ‘Danquah-Busia Tradition’ and ‘property-owning democracy’? What happens to the many wretched poor of the land left in the stinky cracks of properties? Ouch! What is the meaning of these jargons and what are their implications for our democracy and for our future as a nation-state as we struggle to transcend our challenges?
I’m choking with questions without answers. But I’ll stay put without answers and simply float with Zora who said, “No matter how far a person can go, the horizon is till way beyond you.”
+233-208286817; dorisdartey@yahoo.com
We don’t need a corpse to have a funeral
Death, corpses and funerals; probably, no-go topics to pursue. But this week, we will go after one of them – the trend of extended refrigeration of corpses and allowing decomposition to occur before burial. Let’s yank this stinky matter up to the surface and shoot it straight so we can resolve this increasingly ridiculous phenomenon in our society.
On the surface, this topic appears to be a gloomy subject matter but it is one of the run-away issues that is going down, sinking fast, degenerating, and needs to be knocked right back up. Come with me please, for a brief but cold examination of this matter. I will be gentle. “I promise on my honour, to be…”
You are born. You live. You die. That is the order of nature. Imagine trying to delay nature by delaying child birth! Picture this: all tactics unethical and unnatural adopted to delay a pregnant woman from giving birth because the family is not ready for a grand “out-dooring.”
A husband tells his wife: “Akos, please wait for two months for my back-pay to enable us organize an impressive welcoming for the baby.” We do not do that. Yet, we have unquestioningly adopted the ridiculous habit of pushing the dead into refrigerators for prolonged periods, while we plan elaborate burials and funerals. That is unnatural. It is unsanitary. We forget that it is not called a “corpse” for nothing! A corpse is not useful or viable no matter how much we try to force it.
We place the dead very high on the agenda, soak in grief and compassion to undo our very purpose for living. We heighten the drama and immediacy of the dead by holding on to the corpse. This might be a way to stay in touch with our own mortality while we trivialize our lives. On the subconscious level, it could be our excuse designed to rob us of the opportunity to live and to thrive.
Muslims seem to have a better grip over this matter; Christians are in a sorry state. Wiser counsel must therefore prevail. Although Muslims have access to the same refrigeration opportunities, they promptly bury their dead. Surprisingly, the two religions are sibling faiths that originated from the same region of the world. Ghana is a predominantly Christian country; some even pride themselves to be super-Christians. The church and Christiandom must therefore initiate a national conversation on this subject matter and come up with solutions.
Enduring Questions: What is the matter with us Christians in Ghana? What kind of Christianity is this? What kind of civilization is this? Why are our Christian leaders condoning this? Why do we use funerals to show off non-existent wealth instead of investing in the education of children, our future? Why do we prolong mourning and suffering for the living? On a deeper level, what does that say about us as a people? Isn’t it about time, as a country, we did a cost-benefit analysis of the effects of the funeral craze on national development?
We did not use to wait forever to bury our dead. In the past, you died and loved ones scurried around to bury you. Then later, your funeral was planned and loved ones from far and near travelled for the funeral rites to say final farewells. We did not use to stare at decomposing faces in their stinky grand-standing last-show just to bury them. This increasingly ridiculous act is uncivilized, to say the least. It is NOT our culture. Or, has it become our NEW culture?
We have now invented a funeral torpedo that is eating us up. The need for a corpse to organize a funeral has become amplified. The balance has tipped from ridiculous love for corpses and funerals to downright abuse. Some corpses are kept for months and years, while the senseless grand planning and posturing continues, stressing out loved ones whose responsibility it is to finance a funeral
The typical excuse given is: “Let’s keep the corpse for a while so we can find the money.” That’s a cock-and-bull excuse because delaying a burial only increases the cost and complexity of the funeral. Some extended family members and leeches gladly use it as an ideal opportunity to move in to suck dry the bereaved relatives.
Stories abound. If you buried a relative promptly without doing the forever waiting, you stand the risk of being insulted: “When your father died, didn’t you bury him hurriedly in just a month like a goat?” To which you are not supposed to have a defence. One month of freezing a corpse should in itself be an abominable act but now it is about the minimum. That, in no doubt, signifies a sad deterioration and rottenness in our Christian culture.
A POPE has died in very recent memory. He was buried within five days. Yes, the Pope! Pope John Paul II. More recently, operatic legend Luciano Pavarotti died and was buried within four days. Lest we forget: Jesus the Christ, the one we claim to fashion our lives after, was buried on the same day so he could rise on day three!
Technology appears to be the perpetrator – refrigeration to store corpses. Just because you can do something shouldn’t become the reason to do it! Refrigeration presents convenience, of course. In the so-called developed world where the refrigerator was invented, the dead are buried promptly, as should happen, unless there is the need to conduct forensic investigations into the cause of death. But we unashamedly abuse the refrigerator to clutch on to corpses. It is as if we try to live vicariously through the dead.
As a result, we attend funerals to mourn over de-frosted corpses, decaying corpses, stinky corpses, scary corpses, unidentifiable corpses, mutilated and deformed corpses as well as cases of refrigeration and preservation gone badly. Corpses are handled crudely in mortuaries, a phenomenon that takes away the dignity of the dead. It is abusive but the dead cannot speak for themselves. Let us therefore speak loudly for the dead and especially for us, since that is the way we are all going.
While the departed remains in the fridge, nothing much happens with and around living loved ones. The focus is shifted onto the dead. The living wait, perpetually entangled in grief, and drained by the extended funeral drama. The burial is what brings some closure.
We have short life spans. Probably, the logic of extended refrigeration of corpses lies in a deep-seated and unmet need to prolong our lives – after the fact! So if you lived for 46 years, your corpse could be kept for five more years. That quickly puts your age at time of burial at 51! Brilliant! We seem to forget that when you are gone, you are gone.
This trend gives me a certain premonition of an impending ridiculous future when things might degenerate further. Someday, every hamlet, every street, every family will need its own ultra-modern mortuary! Yes, mortuaries must be ultra-modern because it appears to be very important to us to refrigerate corpses for prolonged periods. We would even need to build many more mortuaries than hospitals. Family-heads will be in bigger business. Official job description: Funeral Directors!
+233-208286817; dorisdartey@yahoo.com
On the surface, this topic appears to be a gloomy subject matter but it is one of the run-away issues that is going down, sinking fast, degenerating, and needs to be knocked right back up. Come with me please, for a brief but cold examination of this matter. I will be gentle. “I promise on my honour, to be…”
You are born. You live. You die. That is the order of nature. Imagine trying to delay nature by delaying child birth! Picture this: all tactics unethical and unnatural adopted to delay a pregnant woman from giving birth because the family is not ready for a grand “out-dooring.”
A husband tells his wife: “Akos, please wait for two months for my back-pay to enable us organize an impressive welcoming for the baby.” We do not do that. Yet, we have unquestioningly adopted the ridiculous habit of pushing the dead into refrigerators for prolonged periods, while we plan elaborate burials and funerals. That is unnatural. It is unsanitary. We forget that it is not called a “corpse” for nothing! A corpse is not useful or viable no matter how much we try to force it.
We place the dead very high on the agenda, soak in grief and compassion to undo our very purpose for living. We heighten the drama and immediacy of the dead by holding on to the corpse. This might be a way to stay in touch with our own mortality while we trivialize our lives. On the subconscious level, it could be our excuse designed to rob us of the opportunity to live and to thrive.
Muslims seem to have a better grip over this matter; Christians are in a sorry state. Wiser counsel must therefore prevail. Although Muslims have access to the same refrigeration opportunities, they promptly bury their dead. Surprisingly, the two religions are sibling faiths that originated from the same region of the world. Ghana is a predominantly Christian country; some even pride themselves to be super-Christians. The church and Christiandom must therefore initiate a national conversation on this subject matter and come up with solutions.
Enduring Questions: What is the matter with us Christians in Ghana? What kind of Christianity is this? What kind of civilization is this? Why are our Christian leaders condoning this? Why do we use funerals to show off non-existent wealth instead of investing in the education of children, our future? Why do we prolong mourning and suffering for the living? On a deeper level, what does that say about us as a people? Isn’t it about time, as a country, we did a cost-benefit analysis of the effects of the funeral craze on national development?
We did not use to wait forever to bury our dead. In the past, you died and loved ones scurried around to bury you. Then later, your funeral was planned and loved ones from far and near travelled for the funeral rites to say final farewells. We did not use to stare at decomposing faces in their stinky grand-standing last-show just to bury them. This increasingly ridiculous act is uncivilized, to say the least. It is NOT our culture. Or, has it become our NEW culture?
We have now invented a funeral torpedo that is eating us up. The need for a corpse to organize a funeral has become amplified. The balance has tipped from ridiculous love for corpses and funerals to downright abuse. Some corpses are kept for months and years, while the senseless grand planning and posturing continues, stressing out loved ones whose responsibility it is to finance a funeral
The typical excuse given is: “Let’s keep the corpse for a while so we can find the money.” That’s a cock-and-bull excuse because delaying a burial only increases the cost and complexity of the funeral. Some extended family members and leeches gladly use it as an ideal opportunity to move in to suck dry the bereaved relatives.
Stories abound. If you buried a relative promptly without doing the forever waiting, you stand the risk of being insulted: “When your father died, didn’t you bury him hurriedly in just a month like a goat?” To which you are not supposed to have a defence. One month of freezing a corpse should in itself be an abominable act but now it is about the minimum. That, in no doubt, signifies a sad deterioration and rottenness in our Christian culture.
A POPE has died in very recent memory. He was buried within five days. Yes, the Pope! Pope John Paul II. More recently, operatic legend Luciano Pavarotti died and was buried within four days. Lest we forget: Jesus the Christ, the one we claim to fashion our lives after, was buried on the same day so he could rise on day three!
Technology appears to be the perpetrator – refrigeration to store corpses. Just because you can do something shouldn’t become the reason to do it! Refrigeration presents convenience, of course. In the so-called developed world where the refrigerator was invented, the dead are buried promptly, as should happen, unless there is the need to conduct forensic investigations into the cause of death. But we unashamedly abuse the refrigerator to clutch on to corpses. It is as if we try to live vicariously through the dead.
As a result, we attend funerals to mourn over de-frosted corpses, decaying corpses, stinky corpses, scary corpses, unidentifiable corpses, mutilated and deformed corpses as well as cases of refrigeration and preservation gone badly. Corpses are handled crudely in mortuaries, a phenomenon that takes away the dignity of the dead. It is abusive but the dead cannot speak for themselves. Let us therefore speak loudly for the dead and especially for us, since that is the way we are all going.
While the departed remains in the fridge, nothing much happens with and around living loved ones. The focus is shifted onto the dead. The living wait, perpetually entangled in grief, and drained by the extended funeral drama. The burial is what brings some closure.
We have short life spans. Probably, the logic of extended refrigeration of corpses lies in a deep-seated and unmet need to prolong our lives – after the fact! So if you lived for 46 years, your corpse could be kept for five more years. That quickly puts your age at time of burial at 51! Brilliant! We seem to forget that when you are gone, you are gone.
This trend gives me a certain premonition of an impending ridiculous future when things might degenerate further. Someday, every hamlet, every street, every family will need its own ultra-modern mortuary! Yes, mortuaries must be ultra-modern because it appears to be very important to us to refrigerate corpses for prolonged periods. We would even need to build many more mortuaries than hospitals. Family-heads will be in bigger business. Official job description: Funeral Directors!
+233-208286817; dorisdartey@yahoo.com
We don’t need a corpse to have a funeral
Death, corpses and funerals; probably, no-go topics to pursue. But this week, we will go after one of them – the trend of extended refrigeration of corpses and allowing decomposition to occur before burial. Let’s yank this stinky matter up to the surface and shoot it straight so we can resolve this increasingly ridiculous phenomenon in our society.
On the surface, this topic appears to be a gloomy subject matter but it is one of the run-away issues that is going down, sinking fast, degenerating, and needs to be knocked right back up. Come with me please, for a brief but cold examination of this matter. I will be gentle. “I promise on my honour, to be…”
You are born. You live. You die. That is the order of nature. Imagine trying to delay nature by delaying child birth! Picture this: all tactics unethical and unnatural adopted to delay a pregnant woman from giving birth because the family is not ready for a grand “out-dooring.”
A husband tells his wife: “Akos, please wait for two months for my back-pay to enable us organize an impressive welcoming for the baby.” We do not do that. Yet, we have unquestioningly adopted the ridiculous habit of pushing the dead into refrigerators for prolonged periods, while we plan elaborate burials and funerals. That is unnatural. It is unsanitary. We forget that it is not called a “corpse” for nothing! A corpse is not useful or viable no matter how much we try to force it.
We place the dead very high on the agenda, soak in grief and compassion to undo our very purpose for living. We heighten the drama and immediacy of the dead by holding on to the corpse. This might be a way to stay in touch with our own mortality while we trivialize our lives. On the subconscious level, it could be our excuse designed to rob us of the opportunity to live and to thrive.
Muslims seem to have a better grip over this matter; Christians are in a sorry state. Wiser counsel must therefore prevail. Although Muslims have access to the same refrigeration opportunities, they promptly bury their dead. Surprisingly, the two religions are sibling faiths that originated from the same region of the world. Ghana is a predominantly Christian country; some even pride themselves to be super-Christians. The church and Christiandom must therefore initiate a national conversation on this subject matter and come up with solutions.
Enduring Questions: What is the matter with us Christians in Ghana? What kind of Christianity is this? What kind of civilization is this? Why are our Christian leaders condoning this? Why do we use funerals to show off non-existent wealth instead of investing in the education of children, our future? Why do we prolong mourning and suffering for the living? On a deeper level, what does that say about us as a people? Isn’t it about time, as a country, we did a cost-benefit analysis of the effects of the funeral craze on national development?
We did not use to wait forever to bury our dead. In the past, you died and loved ones scurried around to bury you. Then later, your funeral was planned and loved ones from far and near travelled for the funeral rites to say final farewells. We did not use to stare at decomposing faces in their stinky grand-standing last-show just to bury them. This increasingly ridiculous act is uncivilized, to say the least. It is NOT our culture. Or, has it become our NEW culture?
We have now invented a funeral torpedo that is eating us up. The need for a corpse to organize a funeral has become amplified. The balance has tipped from ridiculous love for corpses and funerals to downright abuse. Some corpses are kept for months and years, while the senseless grand planning and posturing continues, stressing out loved ones whose responsibility it is to finance a funeral
The typical excuse given is: “Let’s keep the corpse for a while so we can find the money.” That’s a cock-and-bull excuse because delaying a burial only increases the cost and complexity of the funeral. Some extended family members and leeches gladly use it as an ideal opportunity to move in to suck dry the bereaved relatives.
Stories abound. If you buried a relative promptly without doing the forever waiting, you stand the risk of being insulted: “When your father died, didn’t you bury him hurriedly in just a month like a goat?” To which you are not supposed to have a defence. One month of freezing a corpse should in itself be an abominable act but now it is about the minimum. That, in no doubt, signifies a sad deterioration and rottenness in our Christian culture.
A POPE has died in very recent memory. He was buried within five days. Yes, the Pope! Pope John Paul II. More recently, operatic legend Luciano Pavarotti died and was buried within four days. Lest we forget: Jesus the Christ, the one we claim to fashion our lives after, was buried on the same day so he could rise on day three!
Technology appears to be the perpetrator – refrigeration to store corpses. Just because you can do something shouldn’t become the reason to do it! Refrigeration presents convenience, of course. In the so-called developed world where the refrigerator was invented, the dead are buried promptly, as should happen, unless there is the need to conduct forensic investigations into the cause of death. But we unashamedly abuse the refrigerator to clutch on to corpses. It is as if we try to live vicariously through the dead.
As a result, we attend funerals to mourn over de-frosted corpses, decaying corpses, stinky corpses, scary corpses, unidentifiable corpses, mutilated and deformed corpses as well as cases of refrigeration and preservation gone badly. Corpses are handled crudely in mortuaries, a phenomenon that takes away the dignity of the dead. It is abusive but the dead cannot speak for themselves. Let us therefore speak loudly for the dead and especially for us, since that is the way we are all going.
While the departed remains in the fridge, nothing much happens with and around living loved ones. The focus is shifted onto the dead. The living wait, perpetually entangled in grief, and drained by the extended funeral drama. The burial is what brings some closure.
We have short life spans. Probably, the logic of extended refrigeration of corpses lies in a deep-seated and unmet need to prolong our lives – after the fact! So if you lived for 46 years, your corpse could be kept for five more years. That quickly puts your age at time of burial at 51! Brilliant! We seem to forget that when you are gone, you are gone.
This trend gives me a certain premonition of an impending ridiculous future when things might degenerate further. Someday, every hamlet, every street, every family will need its own ultra-modern mortuary! Yes, mortuaries must be ultra-modern because it appears to be very important to us to refrigerate corpses for prolonged periods. We would even need to build many more mortuaries than hospitals. Family-heads will be in bigger business. Official job description: Funeral Directors!
+233-208286817; dorisdartey@yahoo.com
On the surface, this topic appears to be a gloomy subject matter but it is one of the run-away issues that is going down, sinking fast, degenerating, and needs to be knocked right back up. Come with me please, for a brief but cold examination of this matter. I will be gentle. “I promise on my honour, to be…”
You are born. You live. You die. That is the order of nature. Imagine trying to delay nature by delaying child birth! Picture this: all tactics unethical and unnatural adopted to delay a pregnant woman from giving birth because the family is not ready for a grand “out-dooring.”
A husband tells his wife: “Akos, please wait for two months for my back-pay to enable us organize an impressive welcoming for the baby.” We do not do that. Yet, we have unquestioningly adopted the ridiculous habit of pushing the dead into refrigerators for prolonged periods, while we plan elaborate burials and funerals. That is unnatural. It is unsanitary. We forget that it is not called a “corpse” for nothing! A corpse is not useful or viable no matter how much we try to force it.
We place the dead very high on the agenda, soak in grief and compassion to undo our very purpose for living. We heighten the drama and immediacy of the dead by holding on to the corpse. This might be a way to stay in touch with our own mortality while we trivialize our lives. On the subconscious level, it could be our excuse designed to rob us of the opportunity to live and to thrive.
Muslims seem to have a better grip over this matter; Christians are in a sorry state. Wiser counsel must therefore prevail. Although Muslims have access to the same refrigeration opportunities, they promptly bury their dead. Surprisingly, the two religions are sibling faiths that originated from the same region of the world. Ghana is a predominantly Christian country; some even pride themselves to be super-Christians. The church and Christiandom must therefore initiate a national conversation on this subject matter and come up with solutions.
Enduring Questions: What is the matter with us Christians in Ghana? What kind of Christianity is this? What kind of civilization is this? Why are our Christian leaders condoning this? Why do we use funerals to show off non-existent wealth instead of investing in the education of children, our future? Why do we prolong mourning and suffering for the living? On a deeper level, what does that say about us as a people? Isn’t it about time, as a country, we did a cost-benefit analysis of the effects of the funeral craze on national development?
We did not use to wait forever to bury our dead. In the past, you died and loved ones scurried around to bury you. Then later, your funeral was planned and loved ones from far and near travelled for the funeral rites to say final farewells. We did not use to stare at decomposing faces in their stinky grand-standing last-show just to bury them. This increasingly ridiculous act is uncivilized, to say the least. It is NOT our culture. Or, has it become our NEW culture?
We have now invented a funeral torpedo that is eating us up. The need for a corpse to organize a funeral has become amplified. The balance has tipped from ridiculous love for corpses and funerals to downright abuse. Some corpses are kept for months and years, while the senseless grand planning and posturing continues, stressing out loved ones whose responsibility it is to finance a funeral
The typical excuse given is: “Let’s keep the corpse for a while so we can find the money.” That’s a cock-and-bull excuse because delaying a burial only increases the cost and complexity of the funeral. Some extended family members and leeches gladly use it as an ideal opportunity to move in to suck dry the bereaved relatives.
Stories abound. If you buried a relative promptly without doing the forever waiting, you stand the risk of being insulted: “When your father died, didn’t you bury him hurriedly in just a month like a goat?” To which you are not supposed to have a defence. One month of freezing a corpse should in itself be an abominable act but now it is about the minimum. That, in no doubt, signifies a sad deterioration and rottenness in our Christian culture.
A POPE has died in very recent memory. He was buried within five days. Yes, the Pope! Pope John Paul II. More recently, operatic legend Luciano Pavarotti died and was buried within four days. Lest we forget: Jesus the Christ, the one we claim to fashion our lives after, was buried on the same day so he could rise on day three!
Technology appears to be the perpetrator – refrigeration to store corpses. Just because you can do something shouldn’t become the reason to do it! Refrigeration presents convenience, of course. In the so-called developed world where the refrigerator was invented, the dead are buried promptly, as should happen, unless there is the need to conduct forensic investigations into the cause of death. But we unashamedly abuse the refrigerator to clutch on to corpses. It is as if we try to live vicariously through the dead.
As a result, we attend funerals to mourn over de-frosted corpses, decaying corpses, stinky corpses, scary corpses, unidentifiable corpses, mutilated and deformed corpses as well as cases of refrigeration and preservation gone badly. Corpses are handled crudely in mortuaries, a phenomenon that takes away the dignity of the dead. It is abusive but the dead cannot speak for themselves. Let us therefore speak loudly for the dead and especially for us, since that is the way we are all going.
While the departed remains in the fridge, nothing much happens with and around living loved ones. The focus is shifted onto the dead. The living wait, perpetually entangled in grief, and drained by the extended funeral drama. The burial is what brings some closure.
We have short life spans. Probably, the logic of extended refrigeration of corpses lies in a deep-seated and unmet need to prolong our lives – after the fact! So if you lived for 46 years, your corpse could be kept for five more years. That quickly puts your age at time of burial at 51! Brilliant! We seem to forget that when you are gone, you are gone.
This trend gives me a certain premonition of an impending ridiculous future when things might degenerate further. Someday, every hamlet, every street, every family will need its own ultra-modern mortuary! Yes, mortuaries must be ultra-modern because it appears to be very important to us to refrigerate corpses for prolonged periods. We would even need to build many more mortuaries than hospitals. Family-heads will be in bigger business. Official job description: Funeral Directors!
+233-208286817; dorisdartey@yahoo.com
Thursday, November 13, 2008
THOUGHTS OF PRESIDENTIAL PALACES
Last Monday morning, two symbolic and historic events occurred on the Ghana and US sides of the mighty Atlantic Ocean. They were both presidential and palatial in character. And, they both left me mesmerized.
On the US side of the east Atlantic slave-receiving coast, in Washington DC, the president-elect with Kenyan ancestry was guest of out-going President Bush. It was an official tour of the 200 year-old White House as a first step in what would be a smooth transition from the war-weary Bush presidency to the high-octane global expectancy Obama presidency. The occasion was for Obama to have a feel and taste of what would become home next January. It was a beautiful show of democracy in practice.
On the Ghana side of the former Atlantic slave-trading coast in Accra, a newly constructed imposing edifice, a palace christened Golden Jubilee House, was unveiled. Built at the ruins of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah’s Flagstaff House, the occasion was a time for politicians, foreign diplomats, public servants, Chiefs and Queens, and anyone with a known middle-name, to get a feel and taste of the palace before it is handed over to the winner of the December 7 elections.
There is something in a name. By not naming the edifice Flagstaff Palace to show the up-grade in status from a house to a palace but rather Golden Jubilee House, the namers sought to acknowledge and remind Ghana of our post-colonial stature, especially the grandeur celebration last year of the golden jubilee anniversary dubbed Ghana@50. So why not call it Golden Jubilee Palace since that thing is not a house? I know a house and that edifice is not a house!
Regarding documentation: What are the facts and figures of the palace? For instance, what is the square kilometres of land size, the significance of various emblems, and names of rooms? Especially, the genie should be let out of the bottle on the total cost of constructing this sprawling palace. The bare facts should include the estimated versus the actual cost, and reasons. Detailed interesting information should be compiled and updated regularly and made available online because we are in an e-world.
A few minutes of Internet searches bring out interesting detailed facts, figures and photographs of official residences and government offices of various countries. For instance, the history of Britain’s Number 10 Downing Street is traced to how Sir George Downing, the notorious spy of Oliver Cromwell, purchased a parcel of land in 1654 to build townhouses for the rich. The story unfolds with intriguing details of how the property became the seat of government. Similar details about the White House, the Kremlin in Moscow and the Elysee Palace in Paris are also available online. Paintings and photographs on walls as well as details of interesting peculiarities of these seats of government give the reader a satisfying experience close to a virtual tour.
Take the White House for instance. Considered a national treasure, it has 132 rooms, 32 bathrooms, 412 doors, 147 windows, seven staircases, three elevators, five full-time chefs and receives approximately 6,000 visitors a day. It was built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted sandstone. Even the addition of a ramp during the Clinton presidency for wheelchair access is described.
Regardless of the direction and intensity of our feelings towards the construction of the palace, it is now our new national treasure and is almost ready for habitation, co-habitation and many other activities in between. On a purely silly note, some other records I’ll be fascinated to have access to are who will be the first to do the following in the palace: to kiss, play hanky-panky, get drunk at nonsense degree, engage in scuffles or shouting matches, receive a slap from a high-powered official, fight and be beaten up, choke on free food nyafu-nyafu, fall down and have injuries, and so on.
We will be watching the real first occupant of the palace. He would not just have a palace but crude oil for bonus to oil the creaky machinery of government and anything else that floats his boat. So our House must be maintained – regularly. And, he shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the majority of our people exist in stinky poverty. For a damn broke third world country, we have, without a doubt, played up our hands against the back-drop of crude oily dreams and international begging.
If I was a tax-paying citizen of a ‘donor country’, I would be getting more than a little upset on hearing the news that Ghana has built a presidential palace to the cost over $30 million. I would stage a demonstration just about now, the ‘we-no-go-sit-down-make-we-send-them-any-more-money-everyday’ kind of demonstration. My upset would be a result of knowing that I, a first or second World country citizen, sacrifice tax money and kindness to give to third world countries – to the poor of the world – while they build palaces.
But on the flip side, as a citizen of Ghana and for the fun of it, I am tickled that we too have a palace. Damn it! It’s about time, even in poverty. Apart from our own sickening foolishness of corruption and misplaced priorities, part of the reason for our developmental funk can be laid squarely at the doorsteps of failed destructive interventionist policies of 1st world countries who took us through slavery, colonialism, Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) and as if to say, “oops, we messed you up again”, they attempted to sooth our putrid wounds with a lousy balm through the laughable Program of Action to Mitigate the Social Cost of Adjustment (PAMSCAD).
I am holding my breath though, that we stick to simplicity and good taste with furnishings and decorations of the palace. An unscientific opinion suggests a tendency of formerly oppressed people to resort to a certain ridiculous level of tasteless opulence in excessive fashion. Our presidential palace should be spared such imprudent tastelessness borne out of low-cost poverty mind-set. Remember, less is more!
During last Monday’s inaugural ceremony to ‘open’ the palace, senseless traffic reared its ugly head. Although the ceremony was staged inside the sprawling compound, the road in front of the palace running from the 37 Military Hospital to the Afrikiko Restaurant junction was closed for several hours, causing challenging traffic jams all around. Drivers had to struggle through awkward diversions in Nima, Kanda and many other ‘ways-and-means’ roads. Is that a sign of things to come when business begins in earnest at the palace? Such a situation will more than irritate and annoy ordinary folks, particularly the many forgotten ‘little people’ who will never have the privilege to enter the palace to drink tea – sorry oh – cocoa.
Now that we have this controversial palace matter out of the way with guarantees that the privileged of the land have a cushy place to suit their need for opulence and ego, and probably enhance our national pride, we must now move on to tackle our funky developmental challenges. For starters, here are a few of such issues that should be positioned at true front and centre: the decreasing average life expectancy, low-quality health care delivery system, stinky environmental sanitation, urban slums, dying rural areas, and street children who are mortgaging their youthful lives to sell inconsequential Chinese-made products by roadsides.
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
On the US side of the east Atlantic slave-receiving coast, in Washington DC, the president-elect with Kenyan ancestry was guest of out-going President Bush. It was an official tour of the 200 year-old White House as a first step in what would be a smooth transition from the war-weary Bush presidency to the high-octane global expectancy Obama presidency. The occasion was for Obama to have a feel and taste of what would become home next January. It was a beautiful show of democracy in practice.
On the Ghana side of the former Atlantic slave-trading coast in Accra, a newly constructed imposing edifice, a palace christened Golden Jubilee House, was unveiled. Built at the ruins of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah’s Flagstaff House, the occasion was a time for politicians, foreign diplomats, public servants, Chiefs and Queens, and anyone with a known middle-name, to get a feel and taste of the palace before it is handed over to the winner of the December 7 elections.
There is something in a name. By not naming the edifice Flagstaff Palace to show the up-grade in status from a house to a palace but rather Golden Jubilee House, the namers sought to acknowledge and remind Ghana of our post-colonial stature, especially the grandeur celebration last year of the golden jubilee anniversary dubbed Ghana@50. So why not call it Golden Jubilee Palace since that thing is not a house? I know a house and that edifice is not a house!
Regarding documentation: What are the facts and figures of the palace? For instance, what is the square kilometres of land size, the significance of various emblems, and names of rooms? Especially, the genie should be let out of the bottle on the total cost of constructing this sprawling palace. The bare facts should include the estimated versus the actual cost, and reasons. Detailed interesting information should be compiled and updated regularly and made available online because we are in an e-world.
A few minutes of Internet searches bring out interesting detailed facts, figures and photographs of official residences and government offices of various countries. For instance, the history of Britain’s Number 10 Downing Street is traced to how Sir George Downing, the notorious spy of Oliver Cromwell, purchased a parcel of land in 1654 to build townhouses for the rich. The story unfolds with intriguing details of how the property became the seat of government. Similar details about the White House, the Kremlin in Moscow and the Elysee Palace in Paris are also available online. Paintings and photographs on walls as well as details of interesting peculiarities of these seats of government give the reader a satisfying experience close to a virtual tour.
Take the White House for instance. Considered a national treasure, it has 132 rooms, 32 bathrooms, 412 doors, 147 windows, seven staircases, three elevators, five full-time chefs and receives approximately 6,000 visitors a day. It was built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted sandstone. Even the addition of a ramp during the Clinton presidency for wheelchair access is described.
Regardless of the direction and intensity of our feelings towards the construction of the palace, it is now our new national treasure and is almost ready for habitation, co-habitation and many other activities in between. On a purely silly note, some other records I’ll be fascinated to have access to are who will be the first to do the following in the palace: to kiss, play hanky-panky, get drunk at nonsense degree, engage in scuffles or shouting matches, receive a slap from a high-powered official, fight and be beaten up, choke on free food nyafu-nyafu, fall down and have injuries, and so on.
We will be watching the real first occupant of the palace. He would not just have a palace but crude oil for bonus to oil the creaky machinery of government and anything else that floats his boat. So our House must be maintained – regularly. And, he shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the majority of our people exist in stinky poverty. For a damn broke third world country, we have, without a doubt, played up our hands against the back-drop of crude oily dreams and international begging.
If I was a tax-paying citizen of a ‘donor country’, I would be getting more than a little upset on hearing the news that Ghana has built a presidential palace to the cost over $30 million. I would stage a demonstration just about now, the ‘we-no-go-sit-down-make-we-send-them-any-more-money-everyday’ kind of demonstration. My upset would be a result of knowing that I, a first or second World country citizen, sacrifice tax money and kindness to give to third world countries – to the poor of the world – while they build palaces.
But on the flip side, as a citizen of Ghana and for the fun of it, I am tickled that we too have a palace. Damn it! It’s about time, even in poverty. Apart from our own sickening foolishness of corruption and misplaced priorities, part of the reason for our developmental funk can be laid squarely at the doorsteps of failed destructive interventionist policies of 1st world countries who took us through slavery, colonialism, Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) and as if to say, “oops, we messed you up again”, they attempted to sooth our putrid wounds with a lousy balm through the laughable Program of Action to Mitigate the Social Cost of Adjustment (PAMSCAD).
I am holding my breath though, that we stick to simplicity and good taste with furnishings and decorations of the palace. An unscientific opinion suggests a tendency of formerly oppressed people to resort to a certain ridiculous level of tasteless opulence in excessive fashion. Our presidential palace should be spared such imprudent tastelessness borne out of low-cost poverty mind-set. Remember, less is more!
During last Monday’s inaugural ceremony to ‘open’ the palace, senseless traffic reared its ugly head. Although the ceremony was staged inside the sprawling compound, the road in front of the palace running from the 37 Military Hospital to the Afrikiko Restaurant junction was closed for several hours, causing challenging traffic jams all around. Drivers had to struggle through awkward diversions in Nima, Kanda and many other ‘ways-and-means’ roads. Is that a sign of things to come when business begins in earnest at the palace? Such a situation will more than irritate and annoy ordinary folks, particularly the many forgotten ‘little people’ who will never have the privilege to enter the palace to drink tea – sorry oh – cocoa.
Now that we have this controversial palace matter out of the way with guarantees that the privileged of the land have a cushy place to suit their need for opulence and ego, and probably enhance our national pride, we must now move on to tackle our funky developmental challenges. For starters, here are a few of such issues that should be positioned at true front and centre: the decreasing average life expectancy, low-quality health care delivery system, stinky environmental sanitation, urban slums, dying rural areas, and street children who are mortgaging their youthful lives to sell inconsequential Chinese-made products by roadsides.
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
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