There Are No Tribes In Ghana IV

The Groups Are Indeed Mixed!!

By Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo

Let me begin this part of the essay by restating that there is no valid taxonomy based solely on common language, and that the identification of tribal affiliation in Ghana on the basis of common language is a palpable misconstruction of the concept and meaning of tribe. More specifically, “common language” by itself is a fictional categorization, since language is a very organic phenomenon, variegated by strong historical, social, academic and professional experience. Further, the annexation of common ancestry, custom, culture and tradition to the categorization of the groups in Ghana does not automatically transmogrify them into tribes. For example, who knows the common ancestor of the Asantes? How many of us Asantes can pour libation, recount the clans or even know the clans to which we belong? How many of us can dance Kete or Adowa, let alone Fontomfrom? And when was the last time we wore our traditional clothing? Apart from those traditional people living in the countryside, how many of us Asantes remember Akwasidae or Memeneda Dapaa? Isn’t it almost laughable these days to observe any of thes so-called cultural norms? So exactly what makes an Asante an Asante or an Ewe an Ewe? A respected forumer wrote, "Tribe is a word which implies a collective identification with a group through some common linkage. A common language may be one such linkage, but what you completely ignore is the LINEAGE aspect of a tribal bond, which is based partly on a patrimonial or matrimonial genealogy" When I asked him, “ What is the patrimonial or matrimonial genealogy of the Ewes or the Asantes?”, he simply vanished.

Remember that many Asantes claim to belong to the Asante group although they have absolutely nothing in common with their fellow Asantes elsewhere. There is virtually no similarity and ( I daresay basic knowledge ) of the Asanté language; they have no knowledge of a single Asante culture, tradition or custom; they have no knowledge about Asante marital customs, the rights of genetricem, forms of inheritance…….absolutely nothing about traditional Asante culture. And this lack of knowledge is across board. Indeed, if anybody were to be defined by their ancestry, language, customs and traditions, there will be few Asante, Ewe, Gurusi or Frafra. Which so-called Asante speaks the language better than Ephraim Amo, Kofi Awoonor, Ben Abdallah? Who knows Asante culture and tradition better than these people? And yet don’t they claim a different group allegiance? And if all these people had said from the beginning, “We are Asantes”, who would have challenged them?

And who speaks Ewe worse than JJ Rawlings? If you think the man’s Twi is horrible, remember that his Ewe is worse, only that he might be slightly better in Ga. And what custom, culture or tradition can this man perform? How is he an Ewe and why? Let me rephrase the question….Exactly what is the common linkage and ancestry, if any, among the groups: Asantes or Ewes or Frafras or whatever? And those diasporians who have naturalized in America and fanning the flames of division from afar, what should we call their children who can’t say a word in any Ghanaian tongue, and who are ashamed to be called Ghanaians? Are they Asantes, Ewes or African-Americans? Even so, if they so choose!

The thrust of my argument is that there is no linkage or lineage for the so-called groups in Ghana. If in doubt, you can proceed to list all the items that you think will make one an Ewe or a Ga or an Asante, and you will see that a majority of those who identify with particular groups do not meet any of the elements at all. Simply put, there is no way to prove commonality in anything to establish the group identity as Ewes, Asantes, Dagombas, Frafra etc. The groups exist as an abstract, because one does not need any qualification to join. I choose to be an Asante today. Tomorrow, if I want, I can become an Ewe although I cannot speak the language. If I so choose, all I have to do is to go about saying that I am an Ewe. I don't need to do anything.....So to be this or that is indeed nothing at all; it is a matter of choice. Very few people can even trace their ancestry up to 1900, and they can't tell us why they are this or that. There is no genetic test to establish anything.....nothing at all as a basis for a so-called differentiation..... . The basis for "differentiation" is simply non-existent.

My purpose here is to demonstrate how stupid we have been in relying on groups that have no defining characteristics to destroy our unity as Ghanaians. What does it mean to belong to Ewe, Frafra, Asante or Dagomba? And of what use has that belongingness ever done to us except to provide a platform for hatred and insults? The greatest shame of our time is that we refuse to identify ourselves as Ghanaians; instead, we prefer to say we are Asantes, Ewes etc without pausing to question exactly what it means to belong to these groups. Dr. Bokor, my student at the University of Cape Coast, put it succinctly when he said, "I am Ghanaian first before Ewe!!" I, Samuel Adjei Sarfo, Doctor of Law, Teacher of Lore, Sage of Folklore…. I am a Ghanaian first and nothing further!!

As educated people, we are supposed to be the paragons of the nation, the gatekeepers of its mores and ethos. That most of us fan illusionary group hatred through insults and calumniation is the mother of all anachronisms. Here we are, the first-borns of privilege, with unparalleled opportunities, regularly victims of the injustices of racism meted out to us by people not of our race.….. One will think that group separatism will be a veritable anathema among people like us who have everything in common except language! Yet it remains the attitude in chief on this forum. Every topic is seen through the prism of illusory group identification and transposed to feed the fat monster of self-induced bigotry. And there are clear explanations to this phenomenon. Firstly, it is the mantra of non-achieving persons. For example, the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan attracted desperate individuals trying to bolster their depressive feelings of low esteem through the crude imposition of natural superiority on the system. In other words, archetypes of bigotry advocate a short-cut to recognition, knowing fully well that their ignorance and laziness will not allow them to compete on a level ground, and that they are doomed to remain at the dregs of the society forever unless they make unsubstantiated claims to natural superiority.

Secondly, the advocates of bigotry are psychologically challenged persons with dual-personality syndromes that lie at the root of their hypocrisy, logical incoherence and contradictory existence. Consider that most bigots and haters are devoutly religious, and yet they substitute the universal teaching of love inherent in all religions for hatred of others. As a result, they create hell for themselves here on earth while looking up in the skies for a future heaven. Consider also that these people, by carrying years of animosity in their hearts, evolve into emotional beasts of burden whose mental development is circumscribed by the inability to adjust to societies or get along with others. As a result of the stress they put on the brain, they forever remain dwarfs in analytical reasoning and creative cognition. Their very existence is a contradiction because while most claim to be patriotic citizens, their attitude towards nationhood is at best nihilist. This is simply because a nation cannot exist without the unity of its discrete groups, and therefore there is no nation to love if one repudiates the very essence of nationhood. Further, if there is no unity, there can be no peace and security or development. It is therefore a paradox for one to talk of being patriotic while remaining ethnocentric. Another psychological issue with ethnocentric persons is that they tend to be reactive generalists. Their hatred of a group may have been triggered by a certain member’s offence against these individuals. Because they are unable or unwilling to admit to the uniqueness of every individual, they react by persecuting whole groups and stereotyping them according to the single isolated experience with one member. To the parochial mind of a typical bigot, one bad example represents the group, and the group represents the one bad example. Thus, the thinking process among bigots is one dimensional, since they are unable to grasp concepts holistically. Because of this, they are easy victims of what I call the transformative power of their enemies. This is a term I coined to describe the situation where individuals, in desperate desire to be vengeful, become carbon copies and puppets in the hands of their enemies. In other words, they are as bad as their enemies because they do exactly what their enemies do; and they are puppets in the hands of their enemies because their enemies control their emotions by triggering their negative behavior.

Bigotry represents the single most absurd national outlook still persisting among Ghanaians in the diaspora. Over fifty years after independence, we should be talking about lofty projects and grand ideas. That we are still caught up in extreme bigotry implies that we have not even begun to see ourselves as one great nation. The mouths of our articulate citizens are still dripping with denunciations and calumniations against our fellow Ghanaians. We strain at the gnats in the eyes of our siblings while daily swallowing the great camel of self-crafted prejudice. Wherein lies progress for the people who have not yet begun to see themselves as one people?

Like Kwegyir Aggrey’s eagle, we are busy eating in a hencoop. Overnight, we can soar high and jettison the flotsam and jetsam in our lives- those self-engineered habits of bigotry eating at the entrails of our being. We are like blind wayfarers on a quest for our destiny’s keystone. Each Ghanaian group carries a piece of the secret code that solves the puzzle of our lives. Behind us, the great wasteland of missed opportunities, harboring the earthquakes of yesteryears, the tumultuous upheavals of the days gone by. Before us, the dense evergreen forest of hope. All around us is the vast deceptive mirage. Together, we walk the meandering trajectory to the great oasis, our hands clasped in each others’, our feet in lock-step. We trudge the winding paths in slow motions, each of us a vital link to the other. Thus we complete our existential chain. We work together, dream together, think together, see together, guide each other and inspire one another towards yonder hope wherein lies the progress of our country-one nation, one people, one destiny.

Samuel Adjei Sarfo, Juris Doctor, lives in Austin, Texas. You can email him at sarfoadjei@yahoo.com