At independence in 1957, we assumed we were all “equal” citizens
in the country of our birth, which we were to strive to build into a “nation”.
But that notion – sold to us by the British – was based on a
confidence trick.
Yes, we all had the vote. But only those in the populace who could
read and write English could be voted for!
Now, this provision in our electoral regulations immediately
precluded around 90% of the people of this country from directly taking part in
the administration of their own country. The British knew that this was wrong –
because, after all, they had yielded to protests, sometimes violent, and
allowed full participation of women in their own government.
If women could become ministers in Britain, what prevented so-called
“illiterates” from becoming mere MPs in Ghana?
Are teachers, clerks, merchants, lawyers and priests the only
people who have enough wisdom to rule a country governed for centuries by
people who had never heard a word of English?
Again, our main
source of income in 1957, cocoa, was produced by farmers almost ALL of whom
were illiterate. But when it came to disposing of that income, only teachers,
lawyers merchants and the rest, were “qualified” TO take part directly and
take the vital decisions that affected where roads and health facilities and
schools were to be established with tax-payers’ money?
We were living under the weight of such a monstrous contradiction,
yet we thought we had a nation?! Even worse, the price farmers got for their
cocoa was more or less decided by the government. Do the wine producers of
France get told how much their wine can be sold for? Do the car-makers of
Germany and Japan obtain their prices from a German or Japanese Automotive Marketing
Board? Do American grain farmers and cattle ranchers wait for their government
to tell them how much their crops or animals would be sold for?
Cocoa farmers in our country have suffered from this
discrimination in economic decision-making from the colonial days to this day.
But we think we are building a nation. Can you build a nation on the basis of
“economic apartheid”? Go and ask the Boer population of South Africa.
Well, confidence tricks have a way of getting unraveled almost by
– cosmic imperatives! Because we have not taken action to prove to the main
care-takers of our land and eco-system that we value them, many of those who
work on the land have unconsciously decided to wreck the land
for all of us. They have been sitting down with folded arms whilst vandals,
armed with bulldozers, excavators and something called changfang machines, are
dredging our rivers and waterways, killing our water resources.
In the past, when the Gold Coast Department of Agriculture decided
that cutting out diseased cocoa trees was the best method of fighting the
swollen shoot disease, the cocoa farmers rose like one man to resist violently
– until they were compensated for every diseased tree that was cut out. Today,
some cocoa farmers sell their farms to galamsey operators, who kill the
rich bio-constituents of the land, with such poisonous chemicals as mercury!
Our chiefs were once our valiant
war-captains who led their people to resist threats to their lives. Today,
galamseyers can count on the collaboration of some chiefs, although
the galamseyers pose an existential threat to our lives.
The mainstay of our traditional armies, the asafo or kyirem groups,
have had their claws pulled by chiefs who draw allowances from the government
and keep it for themselves. Chiefs sold collectively-owned lands to individuals
for personal gain. This use of chieftain for personal gain has become so
widespread that when a chief dies, all manner of claimants surface, each
deploying considerable sums of money to buy “king-makers” who can promote their
usurpation efforts.
And where are the “writers” of Ghana who are exposing these
societal diseases? There is a proverb that says: “You do not begin to suffer
from pains in your ribs on the very day you hurl a stone across the Volta River”. (Ennye
da a wobeto obuor atwa Firaw no ara na wobeyare mpafe). As writers,
you are supposed to have imagination. So I shall leave you with the following
scenario:
Fifty years have passed. You are dead and gone, but thankfully,
someone has placed a headstone on your grave, on which you are described as
someone who held such-and-such office in the Ghana Association of Writers in
the year 2019. Out of a pious desire to pay his or her respects to you, your
grandson or grand-daughter, or great grand-son or great-grand-daughter, pays a
visit to your grave. And he or she sees the word “writer” on the inscription.
And he or she has read the powerful works of other nations’ writers, who
changed their societies – John Steinbeck, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Charles
Dickens, George Orwell, Jean Paul-Sartre, for example.
And that kinsman or kinswoman of yours says, “Ah, but My Grand
Old/Woman man was alive when galamsey was destroying Ghana’s irreplaceable
water resources for those of us who were to follow his/her generation! What did
he/she write to oppose that?”
Each of you must answer that question, even as you spend your time
happily engaging in activities that can result in procreation. Thank you very
much.
But
we think we are building a nation. Can you build a nation on the basis of
“economic apartheid”? Go and ask the Boer population of South Africa.
Well, confidence tricks have a
way of getting unraveled almost by – cosmic imperatives! Because we have not
taken action to prove to the main care-takers of our land and eco-system that
we value them, many of those who work on the land have unconsciously decided
to wreck the land for all of us. They have been sitting down with folded arms
whilst vandals, armed with bulldozers, excavators and something called changfang
machines, are dredging our rivers and waterways, killing our water resources.
In the past, when the Gold Coast
Department of Agriculture decided that cutting out diseased cocoa trees was the
best method of fighting the swollen shoot disease, the cocoa farmers rose like
one man to resist violently – until they were compensated for every diseased
tree that was cut out. Today, some cocoa farmers sell their farms to galamsey
operators, who kill the rich bio-constituents of the land with such poisonous chemicals as mercury!
1. pl change the ff para to”
From Cameron Doudu
The post A Conversation With The Writers Of Ghana (2) appeared first on DailyGuide Network.
