Ghana coach Avram Grant
No culture in the world glorifies insults or careless speech. Many language users aspire to communicate their thoughts with decent words, or at least try not to offend the sensibilities of the people around them. It serves our purposes to learn the kind words that enable us to say ‘thank you’ when we are given directions to a good eatery.
In our Ghanaian context (that is, if we still do have anything quintessentially Ghanaian these days), we have made stereotypes of tribes and cultures that are more predisposed to using insulting words than others. We mock other tribal groups for being needlessly polite about everything, including when they want to insult another. They would typically apologise before offending a person with a word or two of insults.
In advanced and industrialised countries, there are strict rules on linguistic etiquette and acceptable social conduct. As it happens in conservative religious societies, foul language is frowned upon and parents advise their children to dissociate themselves from friends who use swear words. Usually, kids that are known to speak uncouth street language are from working class backgrounds and live in the bad parts of town. In such neighbourhoods, obscenities such as ‘f..k you’, ‘fu..k..g,’ ‘a..hole’ are common.
Bulls..t is one of those vulgar slangs and Avram Grant, the head coach of our Black Stars, is in the news for abusing our hospitality with his use of the word. Mr. Grant doesn’t know our culture well enough to understand how insults and innuendos work over here. Avram Grant is Israeli where they say things pretty much as it is. His children may well call him daddy but when they disagree on a matter, they could say “daddy, that’s bulls..t.” They may even say ‘fuck you dad.”
After winning against Mozambique in the 2017 Nations Cup qualifier, the coach said in a post-match media conference: “If this nation will concentrate on the football and not the bull***t, and just the football because there is a lot of passion, we can reach higher, high level. It is a long term target, but it’s achievable.”
The Israeli’s use of the vulgar slang ‘bulls..t’ did not sit well with Ghanaians, many of whom have demanded an apology from the head coach. Clarifying, he explained that he could not apologise for no wrong done. According to him, he and his wife and children often use the word at home: “There was no negative meaning behind it because I use it in punditry work and at home with my kids.”
He adds: “What I wanted to say is we need everybody not to focus on the unnecessary thing[s], only to focus about the most important things. [let’s] focus on the important things that can take us forward and not about negative things.” The coach insists that his words were taken out of context and that he would never insult the “kind’ and very welcoming” people of Ghana. He points Ghanaians to his unblemished credentials and professional record: “If you follow my career, I have never insulted anybody.”
Being a well-travelled man who has mingled and worked with footballers from different countries–in a long and successful coaching career, Ghanaians expected that Mr. Grant (let’s accord him some well-deserved courtesies) would know that the s..t of a bull is quite foreign to our lexicon of public discourse. We don’t even have bulls here; what we have are male cows and female cows. And we don’t use the s..t for anything, except manure on our agricultural lands. That’s our only business with cow..s..t.
Over here, we don’t do bulls..t and our kids do not call us by our first names. The friends of our kids revere us and would need to fold both hands at their backs when talking to us. Our Parliamentarians are addressed ‘Honourables.’ We make room for honour and do well to court honour when honour beckons. In public spaces, we are careful what we say, especially when children are listening. Besides, we are a very religious people who live by the good Book. We don’t have time for bulls..t.
In semantics and content analysis, Grant’s words may not be insulting. As a communications and public relations professional, I am involved in many marketing, campaign and advocacy programmes. In one of such campaigns, we settled on the tagline “Bollocks to Poverty,” which literally means “bulls..t to poverty.” This was displayed on billboards, posters and electronic digital platforms. We even made badges of the tagline, which we wore boldly on our chests. Bollocks means nonsense. It also mean testicles, falsehood, and lies. You could say “the man was talking bollocks.”
Well, this was in London, where ‘bollocks’ is a street slang. In England, if a girl said to her boyfriend that a suggestion he made was bollocks, he would not feel insulted or abused. It is a slang that would usually not appear in official communication or used among the lettered in a formal context. Well, occasionally, you would hear it on TV. It is not as bad as saying the f word, which is a terrible swear word.
Why did a team of communication professionals decide to use a near vulgar slang in a big international campaign? It was a matter of context. In that same context, a lady journalist asked former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, a very vulgar question during a press conference. The beautiful blonde asked: “Mr. Prime Minister, do you want to have me now?” Tony’s answer was a sexy one: “Anytime.”
She had practically invited the PM for sex in the full glare of cameras. This will be a sacrilege in our context. At the last Meet-the-Press session at the Flagstaff House, Nana Aba Anamoah inquired about President Mahama’s health, considering the work load on his head. Folks found the question unnecessary and childish. That is our context.
Avram Grant expected that the very ‘culturally sophisticated’ Ghanaian people would have punched-past their hypocrisy to appreciate the contextual application of the slang bulls..t. The Israeli have or may have heard worst things on radio and television, where men of God insult one another in more degrading ways. Lots of slang, pidgin vocabulary and careless phraseologies are gradually becoming acceptable here, at least on social media. The other day, a gentleman called my official office telephone and requested that he “will want to do internship with you guys.”
My 17-year-old niece repeatedly calls her family members “you people.” She doesn’t see anything wrong with the obvious insult. She occasionally refers to her elder brother’s actions as ‘kidstuff,‘ When you try to correct her, she retorts ‘geez.’
Let’s put a sock in it for Avram Grant. In his native Israel, they may respond ‘Lechaiyim’ (cheers) to bulls..t. Well, our context is different. Over here, we pretend a lot, so he should learn to pretend along and observe our unwritten rules on decent language, even if he hears us using worse obscenities. Maybe that is what he means by bull.s..t.
