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Let's admit, tribal
discrimination and stereotypes are so alive in Ghana
Commentary, Feb 17, Ghanadot -
I must confess one of my favourite all-time calypso
tracks is ‘Ugly Woman’, the Mighty Bomber version,
originally written and performed by Roaring Lion in
1933, the calypsonian whose music career spanned 65
years.
This hilarious song has Roaring Lion advising the world,
“If you want to be happy, living a king’s life, never
make a pretty woman your wife. All you got to do is just
as I say. From a logical point of view, Always marry a
woman uglier than you.”
It is one of the best tracks ever composed and
performed, I think.
But, there is something about the song which may be lost
on the listener as he or she enjoys it: it answers to a
long-held prejudice that physically attractive women are
sexually promiscuous and unfaithful. Well, certainly, it
had no effect on me when it came to making a bridal
choice.
But, is there any truth in that stereotype about pretty
women? Or does it stem from the fact that more men are
attracted to pretty women therefore putting more
pressure on pretty women to yield to more men than their
less attractive counterparts? Or is there possibly an
element of self-fulfilling prophecy, which dictates that
once I am expected to be therefore I must be?
I chose to take this seemingly longer route to make a
point, which I believe, has been lost on this national
debate on what Nana Akufo-Addo said when he met his
party executives and members in Koforidua last week.
Yes, Sir John, in his typical abrasive manner lambasted
the regional party for failing its ‘son’ when Nana Addo
contested in 2008 and lost the presidency by a small
margin of votes. Yes, in their defence, they cited,
among other things, anti-Akan propaganda by their
political opponents in a region known for its strong
ethnic diversity.
Still, what is hitherto lost in the debate is that
discrimination is alive and kicking in Ghana like it is
in any other society. Specifically, the statement brings
to the fore some of the unhelpful ethnic slurs or ethno-phaulisms
that cut across Ghana’s multiethnic society.
The silliest part of the whole debate is that it has
been made to sound as if Nana Addo was preaching
ethnocentrism. In fact, what he was rather doing was
seeking to attack a negative ethnocentric stigma about
Akans. He simply said: ‘They say we Akans are soft and
can be bullied. No. That is not the case. Don’t let that
stereotype win!’
Since when have those who advocate against negative
stereotypes become the enemies of cultural diversity?
Kwame Nkrumah was a hero to the entire black race
because he would not accept the prejudice at the time
that black people were inferior and he did not deal with
it by exhorting blacks to go and attack whites. He
inspired blacks to stand up and fight for their right to
self-determination and believe that they were capable of
running their own affairs.
Ironically, Nkrumah called himself a Hegelian-Marxist, I
guess he did not know that the 19th century German
Communist philosopher, Hegel, declared that “Africa is
no historical part of the world” and that blacks had no
“sense of personality; their spirit sleeps, remains sunk
in itself, makes no advance, and thus parallels the
compact, undifferentiated mass of the African
continent.”
Indeed, one of the philosophers I admired during my
college days, the Scottish philosopher and economist
David Hume was no better. He said, “I am apt to suspect
the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites.
There scarcely ever was a civilised nation of that
complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in
action or in speculation. No ingenious manufacture among
them, no arts, no sciences.”
Immanuel Kant was generous enough to add the Asians,
including the Japanese and Chinese to the equation. He
said, “The yellow Indians do have a meagre talent. The
Negroes are far below them, and at the lowest point are
part of the American people.”
Do not despair. In 19th century Europe, Jews were
classified as an ‘inferior’ race with specific physical
and personality characteristics. In the early 1900s,
studies and reports were commissioned in the U.S. to
‘prove’ that southern and eastern Europeans were
racially inferior to northern and western Europeans.
Immigration policies were influenced by these reports
and studies, and also contributed to the growing
isolationist viewpoint of U.S. government policymakers.
Now they know better (well, we hope).
Nana did not say all Akans should go out there and teach
the other ethnic groups that they were not soft. He did
not preach hate messages against any ethnic group. He
simply told Akans to not fulfil the prejudice that they
could be bullied. Such pacifist postures only embolden
the bully. Is it not true that the uncompromising
defensive posture taken by the people of Atiwa, an Akan
area, against hired macho men brought there to arguably
intimidate the locals ran contrary to that stereotype?
Those who would see this as bad can only be those who
believe their purposes are served well by fanning that
stereotype that Akans are easy preys.
The primary critical question is this: are we saying
that there is no ethnic slur of that nature against
Akans? Since there is are we saying it is wrong to
challenge it?
There are several ethnic stereotypes against all the
ethnic groups in Ghana, even intra-ethnic ones such as
Akyems are litigants and Kwahus are stingy. Are we happy
with the situation where the negative ones of these
generalised representations of our ethnic groups are not
challenged?
Ethnic jokes have been around for as long as different
groups of people have been mixing with each other. Some
are meant to ridicule and depreciate. Some do, in fact,
help to strengthen one’s sense of belonging and
identity. It is even argued that cross-ethnic humour can
help us deal with hostilities verbally instead of
physically.
However, there are no clear, deliberate policies in
Ghana to check, what sociologists call, ethno-pluralism,
where cultural differences are deliberately highlighted
to assert our ‘right to be different’ and our irrelevant
and false sense of superiority, in some cases. There has
been no study into how much damage this may be causing
us, as far as I know.
Two months ago, there was a discussion on how NPP is
perceived as an Akan party and the other ethnic groups
appearing to gravitate more naturally towards the other
party.
My take on it was that no national party could survive
in Fourth Republican Ghana without having an
identifiable ethnic base. The CPP, as big as it was
historically, has been dwindling from election to
election. They would not admit it but it has a lot to do
with the fact that it hasn’t got a ready ethnic base
from which to feed.
The trick, however, is to be able to spread your party’s
appeal beyond its ethnic base. This is what the PNC has
failed to achieve and that is why it is even losing its
attractiveness among its original ethnic or regional
base.
The NPP has been growing beyond the mainly Akan areas.
But, its problem, I argued, is an inherited prejudice
that has existed historically between the dominant Akan
group and the other groups long before party politics
but kept alive by their expediency of party politics. We
can only deal with this if the people themselves across
the ethnic divides are prepared to deal with it and that
calls for deliberate national education.
Is the NDC making a lot of noise about the reference to
Akan in the Nana message because it recognises the
inherent risk in all Akans identifying themselves with
the NPP? I am not so sure how true this fear is because
people vote not only according to their ethnicity. The
more the NDC makes an issue out of this the more they
risk building in the minds of Akans that the party in
which their interests are best served is the NPP,
perhaps.
Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, in his 1963 "I Have a Dream"
speech at the Lincoln Memorial, said, "I have a dream
that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the colour of
their skin, but by the content of their character." It
is pointed out that in taking a courageous stand against
racial hatred, Dr. King was subjected to personal
injustices which culminated in his murder at the hands
of a racist assassin. Yet his message of tolerance,
intergroup dialogue, of coalition-building, of
resistance to injustice, has endured.
We are all proud of the brave resistance which the
ordinary people of Tunisia and Egypt put up in defence
of their right to democratic governance even at the risk
of their lives. They did not turn their backs to the gun
shots, rubber bullets, tear gas, “Molotov cocktail,
stones, and all the intimidations that the state
security personnel and pro-government people threw at
them. Some died, some got injured but the consequences
of their courage should fundamentally change their
respective nations for better forever.
Dr J B Danquah and Obetsebi-Lamptey, the two
nationalists of the UP tradition, also made the ultimate
sacrifice. They died not like cowards but like men of
valour for their beliefs. They believed Ghana deserved
to be free from dictatorship and that the rule of law,
multiparty democracy, respect for human rights,
individual liberties and free enterprise should be the
principles by which this nation should be governed. This
has come to pass.
However, it is being threatened by electoral
malpractices, lack of trust in the institutions of state
and checks on the tools of democratic accountability.
Once again, men and women of courage are required to
stand up against the erosion of the above values.
Let us be conscious about our own prejudices, because
unchecked prejudice and bigotry lead to discrimination
and, in some cases, violence or even genocide in extreme
cases. The demagogues who are using propaganda to spread
ethnic hatred are the ones who are dangerous to our
society.
What we are fond of doing as a people is to resort to
prejudice by subscribing to ascribed characteristics
about a person based on a stereotype, without taking the
time to find out the facts for ourselves.
Virtually all scientists accept the fact that there is
no credible scientific evidence that one ethnic group or
race is culturally or psychologically different from any
other, or superior to another. It is your environment
that matters most. Let us focus on building a new
society where opportunities are not pre-determined by
the circumstances of one’s birth.
Let us consciously fight discrimination in Ghana. When
we judge people and groups based on our prejudices and
stereotypes and treat them differently, we are engaging
in discrimination, which makes us no different from the
Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis or other white extremists. Let
us review, what Walter Lippmann called, the “picture in
our heads” and look at things as they are and not what
we have been made to believe they are...
In the West, the stereotype about black people there is
that we are poor, scroungers, lazy, ignorant, criminals,
and violent. Groups are formed to fight those prejudices
there. What about us and our own demons here in Africa;
here in Ghana?
The Author is the Executive Director of the Danquah
Institute
gabby@danquahinstitute.org
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