A
ON 11 May 2019, I had the occasion to address the congress
of the Ghana Association of Writers. I was in two minds when I received the
invitation from the [then] president of the Association, Nana Akwasi Gyan-Appenteng.
For I knew the message I would give them would not necessarily be a pleasant
one.
And I do love to entertain! I write amusing stories in some
of my columns (as anyone who has read “Under The Neem Tree” (New African) or
Ghana Plaba (Drum Magazine) can testify. And, of course, writers in
particular would remember the humour in my novel, The Gab Boys, and
expect the writer of things that had made them laugh to be a cheerful fellow
who wouldn’t come to bore them with things they might not particularly want to
think about.
But what about duty? Would it not be remiss of
me to ignore an invitation that would enable me, personally (as against in
print) to share my thoughts on serious issues of the day? Who could tell
whether there were people in the audience who would remember my words decades
after I’d spoken them? Hadn’t I, as a young writer, been influenced a lot by
what I’d heard in conversations (often intimate) with other
writers?
I’d heard [unwritten] stories and advice from writers, more
experienced in life than me: Efua Sutherland, Cecile McHardy, Michael
Dei-Annang, Joe De Graft, Andrew Amankwaa Opoku, Mrs K K Apeadu, Mrs
Spio-Grabrah, Geeormbeyie Adali Morty and others – all founding members of the
[then]
Ghana Society of Writers! No – I had to go.
So, for the first time, my feet touched the ground of “PAWA
House.” I was right to go. A blind writer called Mr Essel (I think) told me
about a talk I’d given to a group of young writers at Achimota School many
years ago! I’d forgotten all about that speech. But he remembered it and quoted
profusely from it. Very gratifying. Others who had either read my stuff or seen
me on TV were happy to “touch flesh” with me.
I was so touched that against my better judgement, I told
them about how the Ghana Society of Writers had started in 1956-57, and went on
to lament how it became hijacked by the late Atukwei Okai, who had carried out
a “coup” against us, the original members, with the help of some hecklers h he
had brought to our meetings , no doubt from “Rent-a-crowd”! People who had
never written a word in their lives! And probably read even less! Brought to
disrupt a writers’ meeting by – an aspiring writer! Laughable, but we all
promptly ceased to be members of the newly-renamed Ghana Association of
Writers!
Okay, that was a peroration. I then told my listeners about
the real origins of their organisation: how Efua Sutherland and her husband
Bill (an African-American), Geeormbeyie Adali-Mortty, Willis Bell (an American
photographer/film-writer) Bonito Olympio and others now forgotten, used to
gather, of an evening, in the modest, wooden bungalow occupied by Efua
Sutherland and her husband in the Airport Residential Ares of Accra, to converse
about writing.
We would tell each other about books we had read; what we
were writing ourselves or, more important, trying to write;
what was going on in the world that had attracted our notice. We became friends
and even loved one another! We just talked to
each other freely, and offered any help we could, to each other. There were no
signs of envy or even competition among us, for we were all pre-occupied with
producing the best work that we could produce, and so, very humbly listened
attentively – and politely – to what everyone else had to say. Where can one
find such a crowd in today’s Ghanaian society of certified egomaniacs?
I told the gathering that as someone who had only had formal
education up to the middle school level (Standard Seven), I was fascinated to
sit at the feet of these people, many of whom could have shut me up by
flaunting their University degrees – but didn’t! I must have said many daft
things at our meetings, but so “posh” were their attitudes that showing me up
was alien to their nature. Yes – Ghana had its quota of real ladies and
gentlemen in those days. And Efua Sutherland gave us Coca Cola to drink (while,
in the mean time, she and Cecil McHardy – sophisticated and desirable as you
like – steadfastly turned us into secondary smokers!)
Were the writers in Ghana today conversing with one another?
I wondered. If so, what were they conversing about? I had been
given a topic to speak on! You invite a writer and give him a topic?
Why not converse with him? Ah, a formal meeting demands a
formal topic, no? A Structured meeting has its demands, no? Writers demolish
formality, don’t they?
Well, never mind: the topic given to me was: “The role of
the Writer In National Development.” I set about destroying it by first deconstructing it.
“Let’s first take the word “role”, I said. Who assigns a
“role” to writers? Who could do that? Writing is done privately
for private reasons, although, paradoxically, it is done for public
consumption. “It’s such a complex enterprise that it’s futile to try and
prescribe perimeters for it. Who was I to tell other writers – if they were
real writers – what their “role” should be in the society in which they live
and work? Each individual writer has to define – or find – for himself or
herself, what “role” was best suited to him or her,” I said.
Next word of importance in the topic came the word “national”.
Well, it must be discussed in relation to its root, “nation”. We
presume we have a “nation” called Ghana. But do we in fact have such a
“nation”? Sixty-two years after we obtained our independence,
eight people had just been taken to court on treason charges. They wanted
to secede from Ghana! After sixty-two years!
Hadn’t we “settled” the Togo/Volta Region issue (that’s exercising them) by a
United Nations-organised plebiscite in 1956?
(TO BE CONTINUED)
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