Living outside the borders of Ghana, as I do, one of the few self-preserving delusions I allow myself to harbor and indulge in regularly is this puritanical and idealistic image of Ghana and Ghanaians-the feel-good this-type-of-sh*t-can-never-happen-in-Ghana lines, refrains and pretences Ghanaians so love to carry like a badge of honour.
Perhaps, like many a Ghanaian, I have developed an image of Ghana largely based on false idealism- a hollow concept that places Ghana on an impeccable pedestal of high moral excellence.
On many occasions, I have found myself comparing the Ghanaian way of life to those of other people, cultures and value systems and puffing out my chest proudly in the belief that our way, the Ghanaian way, is far superior. I have always contented myself - that Ghanaians are not criminally minded as others; that the cases of teenage pregnancies in Ghana is below the continental average even though I do not have the facts to support such an assertion; that Ghanaians are a breed of hard-working geniuses; that Ghanaian men do not rape their women and girls; that our education system is one of the best, if not the best in the whole continent; that Ghanaians are the most friendly and peace-loving people in the entire world. . . . .I suppose that I am referring to my own irrational assumptions of Ghanaian exceptionalism.
I am perfectly aware of the fact that Ghana is far from this idyllic picture of perfection I have chosen to believe in, however I cannot seem to bring myself to admit that the view I hold of Ghana, when outside, is outright naive, unreasonable and even deceptive. Call it patriotism, nationalism or whatever you like.
Every time I am in Ghana, my idealist views come into sharp confrontation with what pertains in the real world of today's Ghana. But as soon as I am outside Ghana's borders, guess what, the same idiosyncratic mindset creeps in. So today I want to dwell on some Ghanaians peculiarities for a change.
This preconceived Ghanaian 'superiority complex' has got to go.
To accept an image of Ghana which is totally different from the enormously deficient one I have been carrying, I believe, is the beginning of a therapeutic release from my self-imposed idealism. So? ? ?
Here are a few of my observations regarding the absurd contrivances we so cherish and love to pursue.
Our funerals
We are a bunch who love entertainment. So we even trivialise the funerals of our departed ones and turn what is supposed to be solemn moments into mindless occasions for parties, where all sorts of debauchery are not only permitted but encouraged with glee. How we love to lavish attention on the dead as supposed to the living! No wonder funerals are the primary occasions where families and communities come together. In many cultures, a funeral is short and simple-solely built around bidding farewell to the dead.Nothing more nothing less.
Our cultural mindset is the opposite. We are always looking back such that we place obscene value on what is dead and past and not enough focus on the future, on our children, our jobs and our dreams.
Perhaps, it is a symptom of our collective fear of the future? So we hold unto the past?
Valentine day celebrations
Not only have we embrace the vanities of other cultures but have jump into them head first. A case in point is the celebration of valentine day. We have managed to take it to levels previously unheard of any where else. Husbands leaving their wives at home and splurging on mistresses and other people's wives with wanton gifts they cannot afford, whilst their children walk around in tattered clothes. Misplaced priorities.
Sakawa
The get-rich-quick by-all-means phenomenon of sakawa is another contrivance in Ghana today. We have perfected the science of swindling other people of their hard-earned money for our selfish use.
We have become a society gripped by the urgency of 'having, using and enjoying' instead of one concerned with 'doing, creating and becoming'. And the sad reality is that nobody bothers any more to ascertain the source of people's wealth.
To us wealth is wealth irrespective of the source and the processes involved in its acquisition. That is why many Ghanaians never bother to learn and develop the habits, skills and the value systems needed to create wealth for ourselves and our communities.
Disregard for integrity
We are as vain as it gets. Most of us claim to be believers but our actions do not bear testimony to our faith. The idea of integrity is a foreign concept to most Ghanaians. Our own kith and kin do not brink when it comes to taking advantage of us. Comfort and convenience triumphs over integrity and accountability in our corner of the world.
And I think that we are not as awesome as we think we are!
Showing posts with label Sycophancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sycophancy. Show all posts
Friday, March 19, 2010
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
The Obviousness Of The Mushrooming Sycophancy
It is given that leaders are a breed of seasoned, mature and principled men and women who exhibit a certain measure of honour, dignity and personal pride as well as a great deal of level-headedness in all their dealings.
Let us be frank, there are certain standards we expect from those to whom leadership has been entrusted. Wimps, sycophants and praise-singers have one pathology in common: they are all good-for-nothing, incompetent, desperate, despicable and untrustworthy bunch who will go to every length to sell even their mothers for the sole purpose of keeping a turf that is not theirs in the first place. They do so because really they have no morals, no ethics and obviously no backbone and they know that there is no prospect of landing another job similar to what they fear they are about to lose.
When so-called leaders resort to unbridled sycophancy to keep their job as demonstrated recently by Mr. William Ampem Darko, the Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) [read here], and Mr. Ras Boateng, the CEO of the National Health Insurance Authority which administers the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) [see this], then we as Ghanaians must begin to ask ourselves whether these individuals are capable of rendering a competent service in their assigned positions in the first place or they are in it for their own selfish pursuit.
To order a programme live on air to be cancelled because somebody from the ruling party is not pleased with the opinions being expressed on air is simple unbelievable.
The GBC is not an extension of the NDC nor is it a mouthpiece of the government. So the Director-General should have sent Mr quashigah of the NDC, who phoned the DG demanding the programme to be taken off air, packing. Why should the interest of the whole nation be held to ransom by the partisan interests of a dictatorial regime? Where is the adherence to the independence of the national broadcasting service provided under the law.
Anybody with half a brain will tell you that no insurance scheme can be sustainable on a single premium. It will never work. Those who have studied actuarial science will laugh at you if you expressed such a view. That was the cheap, unreasonable, impractical populist campaign promise of the NDC and Mr. Ras Boateng should have known better to point out the futility of the idea. But to go to the extent of suggesting that he, Ras Boateng, is capable of instituting a scheme where every body pays a single premium for life, in my humble opinion, bothers on gross sycophancy and pronounced lunacy.
Mark my words, the NHIS will not survive under the NDC regime and then they will turn around and blame the previous government for implementing an unrealistic scheme.
As I write this post, reports are emerging of the harassment of businessmen in Kumasi who are perceived to be sympathetic to the NPP. The main perpetrator of this arbitrariness is one Samuel Sarpong, an NDC apparatchik, working in the Kumasi Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Another obvious sycophant trumpeting the herald of human right abuse and the trampling of our constitutional rights!
It appears to me that every minute a new breed of goons are being hatched! And like the biblical locusts, they are about to turn the nation upside down.
Nation wreckers, if you ask me!!
Let us be frank, there are certain standards we expect from those to whom leadership has been entrusted. Wimps, sycophants and praise-singers have one pathology in common: they are all good-for-nothing, incompetent, desperate, despicable and untrustworthy bunch who will go to every length to sell even their mothers for the sole purpose of keeping a turf that is not theirs in the first place. They do so because really they have no morals, no ethics and obviously no backbone and they know that there is no prospect of landing another job similar to what they fear they are about to lose.
When so-called leaders resort to unbridled sycophancy to keep their job as demonstrated recently by Mr. William Ampem Darko, the Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) [read here], and Mr. Ras Boateng, the CEO of the National Health Insurance Authority which administers the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) [see this], then we as Ghanaians must begin to ask ourselves whether these individuals are capable of rendering a competent service in their assigned positions in the first place or they are in it for their own selfish pursuit.
To order a programme live on air to be cancelled because somebody from the ruling party is not pleased with the opinions being expressed on air is simple unbelievable.
The GBC is not an extension of the NDC nor is it a mouthpiece of the government. So the Director-General should have sent Mr quashigah of the NDC, who phoned the DG demanding the programme to be taken off air, packing. Why should the interest of the whole nation be held to ransom by the partisan interests of a dictatorial regime? Where is the adherence to the independence of the national broadcasting service provided under the law.
Anybody with half a brain will tell you that no insurance scheme can be sustainable on a single premium. It will never work. Those who have studied actuarial science will laugh at you if you expressed such a view. That was the cheap, unreasonable, impractical populist campaign promise of the NDC and Mr. Ras Boateng should have known better to point out the futility of the idea. But to go to the extent of suggesting that he, Ras Boateng, is capable of instituting a scheme where every body pays a single premium for life, in my humble opinion, bothers on gross sycophancy and pronounced lunacy.
Mark my words, the NHIS will not survive under the NDC regime and then they will turn around and blame the previous government for implementing an unrealistic scheme.
As I write this post, reports are emerging of the harassment of businessmen in Kumasi who are perceived to be sympathetic to the NPP. The main perpetrator of this arbitrariness is one Samuel Sarpong, an NDC apparatchik, working in the Kumasi Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Another obvious sycophant trumpeting the herald of human right abuse and the trampling of our constitutional rights!
It appears to me that every minute a new breed of goons are being hatched! And like the biblical locusts, they are about to turn the nation upside down.
Nation wreckers, if you ask me!!
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