THE HELP YELP

The HELP YELP on wheels!!!!

I penned the free verse below which I titled the THE HELP YELP close to a year ago sickened by the beggar mindset that seemed to have enveloped an otherwise very proud people, Ghanaians. My research shows that “Ghana” means “ warrior King.” Warriors confront challenges; kings lead. Warriors do not buckle at the slightest challenge and extend a cupped hand waiting for crumbs to fall into them nor make a virtue of toothy smiles around solicited items from used panties to paltry loans while the cameras flash. The refrain I heard from the highest levels of government when the little rains almost stopped the frenetic pace of this 100 some capital of ours was worryingly reflective of this beggary: “ government is sourcing funds from our donor partners to build storm drains yadayadayada.” Are we children? Or we are admitting that the donors use their minds and hands better than we do? To be a Republic means you have taken your destiny into your very own hands; this reality our politicos and elites must come to grips with at the neural level I strongly submit.  Please read on:     

Everywhere one hears the help yelp

Almost inescapably it floods your ears and your very mind

Our presidents use it and ministers and the high and mighty and the ordinary man and woman too

On official cars; on walls; on TV; on radio

The help yelp howls: DONATED BY

And then smiling faces, items in the background, obsequiousness and then groveling

Where did Ghana’s pride go?

How did our DIGNITY escape us?

When did a perennially outstretched hand become de rigueur?

How did the help yelp become fashionable?

Our ancestors said: if you don’t WORK HUNGER will stalk you

The venerable Paa Willie had echoed this sentiment: animguase mfata Ghana ni

To wit: Shame cannot be the lot of the Ghanaian

We have forgotten so soon

How do we restore our Pride?

How do we stop this Help Yelp?

How do we reclaim our Dignity?

Its starts with you and me

When we refuse to be overcome by any little adversity

And look within to solve our problems by hard thinking and unrelenting hard work

Then we would realize the fine gems we have that we thought were useless stones!

                               

AGAINST ALL ODDS

A chip of the many broken boards

Disciplined Focused Force for Ghana's Tomorrow !!!!!

There was a certain psychic dissonance I contended with as the last week end approached. I was trying to understand why the bloodied, contorted and utterly dead body of the former president of Libya Col. Muamar Gaddafi(Rest in Peace; I do this in the millennia old tradition of Africa in which the dead is NEVER dishonoured) would be literally splashed over all the major global media outlets. In their inexplicably pathetic and infantile mimicry some of our local media houses followed their “leaders” reminiscent of the Pied Piper of Hamerlin. True to its latest form as a lover of cadaver pictures our Daily Graphic bannered Gaddafi’s corpse with blood congealed hair and contorted visage on its front page. TV3 during its prime time news on Sunday showed the man in his 

dying throes and later on scores of weapon wielding youths animatedly posing and taking pictures with the corpse( so the murdered man who was vermin in life was worth taking a picture with in death; the irony of the logic; utterly perverse!!!). What was the point of this frenzied demon like feeding on blood and gore visually? Does anybody care about at the very least children and what such images can have on their minds and ultimately their humanity? Maybe in a weaponized world held hostage by unadulterated violence this moment must be seen as following the script: de-sensitize all of the world’s population to bloodshed so the military-industrial-academic complex will laugh all the way to the bank!!!!

But my mental pulverization was rescued by these children last Saturday. The arena was packed tight with energized children all decked out smartly in their Tae Kwan Do uniforms. At the behest of their hardworking instructors they set the stage in a sweet synchrony for the moment: board breaking. This probably eight year old lady took her turn. She was the first. A hush fell over us the audience made up principally of parents. Her first punch left the board intact. The second  ditto. She span her punching hand in pain. I could feel her pain in my gut; wrenchingly. She did not stop. She struck a sturdy posture for the next go; her face intense pouring with concentration. Her instructor goaded her on. Then she let go: the board let out a croaky squeal of acquiescence and parted into two halves. We applauded. The lessons were clear: endurance, perseverance and will power in the face of overwhelming odds. This is what the world needs for the untamed greed that is impoverishing too many of the world’s population and disorientating the planet’s ecology and balance. That is the response the world needs to confront absolute power that can at a whim flatten cities, incinerate newborns and take over a sovereign republic in the pursuit of one man( the calculus is barbaric even if the man is Lucifer himself!) in Libya while too many applaud. And that is what we need sorely in our wretched Republic  if we are to confront the moral degeneration, political profligacy, economic lethargy, religious fakery, social distress, infrastructural decay and all the other solvable ills staring at us in our ebony faces. You gave me hope little girl in showing such courage so many adults have abandoned.

I can only but re-echo finally and in sobriety the flaming, life –affirming words of one of my favourite contemporary poets  Haki Madhubuti(1984):

                           

                            the  word is

                            the women & men

                            will love again

                           families will reappear

                           & children playing and growing

                           will be commonplace

                           & contiguous

    ps: Papaye(on the Spintex Road) please get your toilet in shape(gents). Dishwashing fluid is for washing dishes not our African hands (and for decency sake and all the profits you make get a dispenser) and get some tissue for us as well.  And also I do not get the hustle over tomato ketchup. I was considered strange when I made a demand for it and then the waiter returns in a bit asking to take it back; now that is CHEAP!!!!!

    

Overheard!!!!!

Yen na ye gyimi( It seems we are the simpletons)

                                                                       -Reggie Rockstone, hip-life impresario, poet, thinker 

Costs me more to be free than a life in the penitentiary

                                                                     - Tupac Amaru Shakur, poet, thinker, hip-hop meister

Encounters with ATMs that do not work can be dramatic; I had my moment a few weeks ago. I slotted in my card with great expectations. Machine began that raspy sound indicating the imminent flow of cash that can trigger an orgasm if you worship mammon. Then it ceased and then posted very mournfully that totally baleful note: “ Sorry blah blah blah.” I was almost cursing. There I was low on cash and time pressed and my best bet was waiting for an hour for the bank to open for business!!! I found a seat and waited. The drama began to unfold.  In the next few minutes all who came and could not withdraw their money had this caricatured long drawn, depressing look on their faces. Some will stare at the screen in disbelief; others shook their heads; some others literally froze. Money swine as we say in Ghana!!! As I watched the interaction between man/woman and machine I pondered on Ghana and modernity. The incontrovertible logic of the industrial/post industrial machine is that stuff must WORK ALWAYS except in compelling extenuating circumstances. If you erect traffic and street lights electricity MUST flow. Taps are not decorative pieces; water MUST flow through them. If you put workers on a single spine salary structure their accounts MUST reflect the change; essentially no buts and ifs are allowable. Maybe we have not come to terms with the brutality of this logic; maybe this logic is inhuman; maybe for us this logic is just a nightmarish pretence that we are pretending to flow with; just may be……

Ghana may yet get to this if........

And then I waited still more bearing Time’s excruciating march eavesdropping on a conversation. “They come around and then convince us to support them. I will leave my dwellings at dawn and go to their rallies. I used to play the drums at such gatherings; keeping the atmosphere feisty and charged. I will keep hitting the drums till my palms felt sore, numb and red. When we got hungry they brought us buckets brimming with soaked gari and sugar and gallons of akpeteshie(local gin). Then we will go and stand in those snarling queues while the sun pounded us mercilessly and wait and vote. When they win the elections they spit us out like the saliva from early morning sawi, ta kotcha(chewing sponge). Good riddance it seems. They simply vanish like the sun dipping over the horizon after a long day’s work. We stupidly give them jobs. They put on their suits in the morning and jump into those gleaming contraptions. We are the fools. This time I will not give a job to any one and starve.” This was the monological  conversation between two security officers at the bank. Was this the conception of politics, government and governance on the street? The ordinary citizen feels used, abused and neglected and that is a time bomb that may yet blow up in the face of  our political and other elites.     

“WOMANITY!!!”

I  wrote this piece in 2008. It appeared in my weekly column “Asia 601” in the Graphic Business  newspaper. In the last few days I have had to deal directly with a hospital emergency involving my dearest wife Sylvia because she is a woman. Questions I have been pondering about Ghana’s women and their welfare assumed a far more direct potency and force in the near nightmare I experienced. These questions I will return to in subsequent writings. But this piece I dedicate to Sylvia and all Ghanaian women for being women and all the courage it takes in our Republic. Change must come!!!!!!!!!!

Duafe-The Akan(Ghana) symbol for  femininity

   I am taking poetic license here with the word above. I hope readers will grant me that privilege and in fact bear with me. Writers suffer regularly from what is known as writers block. A situation in which the brain simply switches off and ideas for writing refuse to pop up. In such a bind one has to be creative and think out of the ordinary. That is why the Czechs say that : writing is witchcraft!!! I agree this word cannot be found in any dictionary. It is my own creation and hence the quotation marks and italics. But to be sure the word is derived from a play on the word “humanity,” and reflects my focus in this piece: women.

Traffic in Beijing has reportedly eased after the historic Olympic Games in August this year. Beijing city officials took advantage of the window of opportunity offered by the quest for environmentally clean Games. Beijingers were urged to patronize public transport and a cost was imposed for having your two cars out in town at the same time. The policy has since been in place. I have been caught several times in the grind of Beijing traffic when I visited the capital on my own trysts. Making the trip from the imposing and architectural marvel that the Beijing West Railway Station is to the Diplomatic Enclave (known as Sanlitun where Ghana’s embassy is located) launches you smack into the typical Beijing traffic in the morning and evening rush hours. But the irritation of it all vaporizes watching Chinese women deftly and confidently navigating trams, coaches, double-decker buses and indeed buses of all kinds through the labyrinthine maze of metals on wheels. This sight is replicated across China.

The Chinese say that the woman holds half of heaven. This reflects the importance that women issues have in the Chinese policymakers mind. And on the streets of the China the confident strut of Chinese women cannot be missed decked out as they often are in their trousers!!! Indeed in Asia China’s women are streets ahead of their counterparts in other countries in self actualization. In Japan and Korea the social standing of the Chinese woman is a dream to be pursued. In Singapore the assembling (computers, cameras, etc) industry was built to tap the delicate touch of women in mind. Women’s issues (health, education, career etc.) in China are not simply matters of rhetoric wrapped in patronizing platitudes and vain promises that never get acted upon policy wise. I give an example. There is a women’s and children’s PUBLIC hospital about fifteen minutes walk from my campus. The ambience, the facilities and the service blow the mind. There are escalators and lifts. My heart melts seeing pregnant women all comfy and at ease riding on them. Children have play rooms outfitted with toys to divert their minds from the pain of sickness. The consultation rooms are choked with doctors. And this hospital is not in Shanghai or Beijing or Macau where money literally oozes. It seems the Chinese fashion industry is for women. Women’s bras, panties, clothing and accessories seem to be everywhere and at affordable prices. And by God our beloved women in Ghana are so down on their luck some still settle for second hand panties and bras!!! And this is the reality of those who will bear and nurture the next generation!!!

Ghana’s women deserve a better DEAL. I have been following the discourse on women’s issues in Ghana closely. The Ghanaian ladies leading it are doing their bit. Only that I am sometimes irritated by a discourse that seems to be influenced too inordinately by the Western experience. What we require in Ghana is not a battle of the sexes but a conversation of the sexes. The Ghanaian woman played a vital role in the independence struggle. She has continued to move the Ghanaian economy and lent her silky inimitable skills to running the home. I have been influenced by three women: my mother, my primary school headmistress and my wife. They in their own ways have left deep marks on me I cannot quantify or downplay. We have a Women’s ministry, yes. But its worth will lie in the accelerated progress our women make and in the shortest possible time. Our society should bow its head in shame for the limited support we have offered our women over the decades. In this new century our Republic must rise to this challenge and quickly!!! On this matter some of us will not rest. That is a PROMISE!!!                      

Freakish Brain Gain

 Adwene nko, nyansa nko(the mind and wisdom are not twin born)

- Akan(Ghana) Sages

Nyansapo, the Adinkra(Akan) symbol for  wisdom

Jack London’s immortal “ Call of the Wild” and its riveting imageries of howling dogs could well have provided the context. In this case however it was the Accra of the 1980s. The wind will howl like a zillion demons baying for their nocturnal dinner as we sat at our Momma Ama Otwiwa’s feet on the seventh floor of Nkrumah’s Flats at Lartebiokorshie, Accra. Ghana was caught in a revolutionary fervor. Some of the central figures of this revolution lived a floor below and in the other block across us. Ama Otwiwa will spin her yarns about Kwaku Ananse the master trickster who in reality was a hallowed sage(thanks for the education Nana Nketsia V); that was how we occasionally spent those numbing curfews. In this particular story Agya Ananse will wage a war on the mind. Intent on becoming the smartest dude in the world he employs shenanigans to collect the brains of all human beings and stores them in a kuku(pot) . His next task: find a place to keep the brains where no mortal can have access. Agya Ananse settles on an arboreal location of dizzying height. The great pot with its prized content is strung over Agya Ananse’s belly; in order that his eyes will keep an eternal and ever alert watch.  A conundrum emerges: how to scale the tree. Several attempts fail.

Then the loquacious Ntikuma, product of Agya Ananse’s loins emerges. “Papa…..you cannot climb the tree that way.” “ Firi ho….abofra bone(get away….bad boy)….wo nyansa ye ahi?(what wisdom do you have?).” Ntikuma persists. “ Papa just place the pot behind you.” Ntikuma had cracked the puzzle. So someone else could think better than Agya Ananse after all. In a rage Agya Ananse smashes the pot. The moral: Tiriko nko agyina(One head cannot sit in council). Clearly Akan thinkers had pondered about the mind for millennia; trying to map out its form and function. In Western thought this cerebral wonderment is reflected in British philosopher Gilbert Ryle’s “ Ghost in a machine” phrase which wrestles with the absurdity of Cartesian dualism on the mind’s independent career vis-à-vis the body. In our times the mind has come to the fore in discourses on immigration from the global South to the global North. The case is being made that far from causing a brain drain this movement of some of Africa’s finest minds must be seen as a brain gain; these immigrants have gone to drink at the fount of knowledge where they went. I discussed this with a faculty colleague Charlie.

I will call it a freakish brain gain. The costs have been enormous in my experience. My Dad has five brothers and a sister. In the madness of Jerry Rawlings revolution(was it rather a convolution? It seems all the ills that era sought to deal with have returned; evolved; mutated) I lost two of my uncles and my only direct paternal aunt(Auntie Millicent) who simply migrated. And several other relations of the Som/Amoah Ebusua(Clan). True they have thrived intellectually, professionally and materially. But that gain must be weighed against uncles and aunties I never know personally; cousins who are strangers to me and cannot speak Akuapem Twi; a new generation born and raised in the Diaspora and alien to the rites, rituals, world view, wisdom, lore and legends of their most recent ancestors who they never knew. How will the Som/Amoah Ebusua ensure its continuity in the 21^st century and indeed will the Ebusua of yore be the same in its underlying logics as that of this century? More brutally will the Ebusua survive as the shaper of identity; as the social safety net; as the transmitter of ancient wisdom?  What a freakish brain gain!!!!