We all deserve equal respect – Edem reacts to ‘unfair’ comments in History textbook

Ghanaian artist, Edem has explored further his stance on the primary 4 history textbook which suggested Ewes are ‘Juju men’.

According to the award-winning artist, every tribe deserves equal respect and documenting the history of Ghana in books, movies, magazines shapes how others see the country but must be done with equal respect to avoid people casting insinuations on a group of people.

“I was very disappointed and appalled because, we are in a time where we are supposed to write our history, books, magazines, movies shape how people see things and are a powerful thing that is why people think Africans are monkeys, and so if ourselves, in the quest to rewrite history, are putting things that are going to cast a certain insinuation on a whole group of people and that is not to say they are people who wouldn’t do certain things, but a whole group of people is totally disrespectful, and I don’t feel that it should be done to any tribe in the country and we all deserve equal respect.

“Whether you are GA, Akan, Ewe, we deserve equal respect and I don’t think we should even say we deserve it, we should take our respect because Ghana is for every one of us, and so I tell everybody that as far as I am a son of the Eweland, I will not allow anybody to disrespect us,” he explained.

Edem further recounted how he was nearly denied a contract from a multinational company and how he was denied a show because he is an Ewe.

He told Berla Mundi in an interview on NewDay on TV3.

“I have fought it all through and it is because of my personal experiences, and I will recount one for you, there is a huge multinational company that refused to put me on shows because of the video of HEYBA, and because they think I engaged in ritual stuff and it took Okyeame Kwame to tell them to engage me.

“When I speak about these things I don’t speak about it from the place of opinion, I speak about it from the place of facts. I have sat at a table to be signed and I was going to be paid the least because I’m from the Volta Region, and I’m an EWE so my tribe is the smallest, so I don’t take these things lightly because I have experienced it all through my career, and there are others that are so sensitive that I wouldn’t want to speak about it,” he said.

However, a section of Ewes have called on the GES to withdraw the controversial history textbook.