Beat the talking drums. Dance, even if your dance moves are awkwardly out of tune. Scream Hallelujah or simply, Halle! Yell out Hurray! Or just Amen! Or, if you so desire, combine Hallelujah with Amen. Be joyful. Sing praises to God’s Holy name. Why? The world body has spoken to establish the key markers of civilization and of humanity!
What? If you haven’t heard, just a week ago, on 28th July, 2010, while some of us were busy searching for water, and others were awkwardly easing themselves in unholy places, the United Nations (UN), in all its wisdom, declared that from this blessed time onwards, access to clean water and basic sanitation ceases to be a matter of privilege, but a right for all human beings on God’s earth.
Broken down, this means that for being one of the estimated 6,602,224,175 people on planet earth (July 2007 estimates) and specifically, for being one of the estimated twenty-three or so million human beings in Ghana, you have a right to clean water and basic sanitation.
Fact: A human being is a doing being. The moment you stop being, you are dead. As beings, we need water to do our thing. As for sanitation, it constitutes the output of our being and doing. So chew on the following profound statement of Victor Hugo, who wrote in Les Miserables, that “The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers…. The sewer is the conscience of a city.”
Human Wrongs
Anything that is supposed to be fundamental is necessary and essential for average functioning. Human rights are set against human wrongs. Lack of access to basic sanitation and clean water are so fundamental that their lack degrades a human being to an inhuman existence. And, that is wrong.
There is human wrongness in the situation of thirteen-year old Shamima Adams, a girl-child in a village near Tamale, who dropped out of school because she could not bear the humiliation of having to “manage” her menstruation. Why? There was no female toilet facility that guarantees her privacy and dignity. There is also wrongness in the matter of middle-aged menopausal Yaa Doris who lives in the far northern armpit of our sprawling capital city of Accra, who has water flowing through her pipes about six times in a year.
Water and sanitation occupy a two-way street. Although they stand alone, yet, they cross paths on the live-sustaining two-way street. They stir each other. They put each other to shame. They honour each other. But in the final analysis, they become one. In their oneness, they give either life or death. There is no middle-of-the-road. You are either a have or a have-not of water and sanitation. Period!
When the rights of humans are violated, they are wronged. Once upon a time, long long but not too long ago, having more than one house-hold toilet was criminalized in my motherland. If the gods did not smile on you, some god-forsaken bloody hooligans would tackle and beat you into an ugly pulp. That was then in Ghana. And this is now. Then, we were wronged. Now, we are still being wronged, 53 long years after Independence. Yet, Mahatma Gandhi said that ‘Sanitation is more important than independence.”
Many awesome things are said about water. In these oily days, water is even said to be the next precious liquid, after crude oil. But typically, they say that water is life. Fair enough. And they also say that sanitation is dignity. It must be. So let’s conclude that people without water are not guaranteed life and those with poor sanitation have lost the dignity to live. In both cases, the person without water and sanitation does not have much of a life.
Sanitation and Human Psyche
But beyond the obvious and immediate, what happens to the psyche of Ghanaians who live such a difficult life in an endless struggle to strategize on the how, why, what, where and when of water and sanitation? Imagine young Kwaku Ofori of Nkawkaw, who grows up in a water-closet house where toilet flushing is an occasional luxury. If such a person grows up and goes into civilized society, he would walk away from a toilet after use without flushing, leaving the stuff for others to stare at and smell. A horrible habit has formed. Dignity has been caste to the swine.
One of the key things said about sanitation is that it is a marker of dignity. Recounting the grievances of untouchables in India in 1896, Mahatma Gandhi once said, “‘Latrines for us!’ they exclaimed in astonishment. ‘We go and perform our functions out in the open. Latrines are for you big people’”
As a country, we have many homes with water closet systems installed but these homes do not have water flowing to flush. Imagine if the thousands of houses to be constructed by STX have fanciful water closet systems installed, but water does not flow through the pipes. As people do their thing without flushing, what a stinky thousands of houses we would have created!
We make a national mockery of hand-washing campaigns. We make do with unthinkable and disgusting sacrifices. For many of us, the abnormal has become normal. For instance, not flushing a toilet immediately excreta and urine are dropped, but waiting until we add some more before flushing is to say the very least, both unhygienic, hazardous and uncivilized.
Demanding our Rights as Humans
So, how do we make demands for these human rights? This declaration of the United Nations must be considered a gift to the world and to all Ghanaians who spend precious time searching for, strategizing, managing, scheming and worrying about water and sanitation.
Even when rights have been declared, if we don’t insist, they would not be given to us on silver platters. What silver! After all, we suck Hausa koko from sachet bags so who will give us water and sanitation rights on whose silver platter? No one! We must demand for clean water and basic sanitation. How?
I’m getting ideas, fast. You see, when I was growing up, I didn’t have water. Toileting was a challenge – at beaches, in bushes, and other unmentionable etceteras. Now, after half a century life span, I still don’t have water. Personally, I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired of adopting all sorts of unholy strategies to live a hygienic life. Water and sanitation should not be a privilege. They should be a matter of our human right – my right, your right.
So what? Should we run to the government to make demands when its illegitimate naughty children – the Ghana Water Company, Aqua Viten Rand and all other agencies with the responsibility to provide us with clean water and basic sanitation services fail us? This strategy has not worked. Effort is wasted year after year complaining to the government.
Would the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) come to our aid? Let’s test CHRAJ with such cases. Additionally, some of us should test this UN declaration by using the law courts. What’s the way forward?
No comments:
Post a Comment