‘Vandalism’: Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow

By: Ekwow Spio-Garbrah,

The recent crisis in Commonwealth Hall at the University of Ghana which has spilled over into the general media has naturally raised the concern of all former students of the Hall. It would seem that in the heat of the apparent conflict and stand-off between the University authorities and the student body, and notwithstanding some sympathy for the students from some segments of the media and the public at large, the whole concept, philosophy, and practice of Vandalism has often been misrepresented or abased. It is necessary therefore that, while encouraging a more amicable settlement of the current impasse, former students of the Hall should help to shed more accurate light on Vandalism and the contributions of the Hall to University life and to Ghana as a whole. It is in this context, that as a former student of Commonwealth Hall, I wish to contribute to what has become a national debate on the future of the Hall.

Although better qualified former students of the Hall can provide more accurate information about the origins of Vandalism and its early life in the ‘60s, by the time some of us arrived in the “Vandal City” in September 1970, Vandalism--as then practiced-- was well grounded as an integral part of Hall life. Having been built and opened for student residency in 1957, and named to coincide with Ghana’s joining of the Commonwealth after becoming independent in the same year, Commonwealth Hall has always taken pride in its status as a hall whose history is related to Ghana’s independence as well as the country’s association with the Commonwealth of Nations. By the early 1970s, students who came to the Hall considered themselves as being liberated from the highly controlled and suffocating discipline of many of Ghana’s boarding schools. By the late 60s and 70s, as revealed by officials of the University registry, the majority of male students applying to the University of Ghana, chose Commonwealth Hall as their preferred Hall of Residence. Unfortunately, due to limitation of rooms, not everyone who selected Commonwealth Hall could be given admission there. A large number of students who selected Commonwealth Hall were invariably shunted off to the other Halls and many remained resentful during their entire university education and beyond, about their failure to gain admission to the Vandal City. Others developed a natural antipathy to all things Commonwealth, and it is indeed most likely that many of those who today wish to completely dismember the Hall have a latent resentment against the Hall which had its roots from their own student days as non-Vandals.

It is also not well known that although all residents of Commonwealth Hall are eligible to become Vandals, not all students who have been residents of the Hall have chosen to become Vandals. Many students allocated to the Hall were either hard core Christians (“chrife”), teetotalers (who could therefore not conform to the wishes of Father Bacchus), pure “coursemen” (people who were too attached to their books to be distracted by Vandalism), homosexuals (therefore inadmissible to the proper practices of Vandalism), foreign students (Chinese, Americans, etc. who were ineligible), and a few who were conscientious objectors to Vandalism (they were ponded occasionally to try to convert them—often unsuccessfully). For these reasons, some of these category of students lived an uneasy existence with their Vandal cohorts. So, it is important that while the University authorities attempt to identify specific individuals who may have fallen foul of University rules, the majority of students of Commonwealth Hall need not be punished because of the misdeeds of a few.

The University Council and its Executive Committee should appreciate that decisions they take on Commonwealth Hall affect not just the current residents of the Hall but the tens of thousands of distinguished graduates dotted all over the globe who credit their experiences in Commonwealth Hall with many of their subsequent e achievements in life. Over the years, from the Presidency and the Cabinet to the Supreme Court, Parliament, and the highest echelons of the banking, mining, industrial, academia and corporate worlds, Old Vandals have made and continue to make valiant contributions to Ghana. Although Commonwealth Hall and Vandalism have become associated in the public mind with the occasional heckling, profanity, boozing, girl-chasing, demonstrations and anti-establishment acts of Vandals, little do most people know that these are only the more visible aspects of Vandal behavior; they are not the core principles of Vandalism. As was practiced in the 1960s and 1970s, some of the key principles that defined a true Vandal were those of idealism, high self-expectation, unity and solidarity, the search for excellence, creativity, tolerance, openness, a belief in fairness and justice, a willingness “to resist oppressor’s rule”, as required by Ghana’s national anthem and, above all, a passionate desire to defend the truth in adherence to the Hall motto: “Truth Stands.”

Vandals believed in “Working Hard and Playing Hard”, in all spheres of life, whether in the classroom, the sports field, in their social interactions, part-time business efforts, in their family relations or in dealing with women. Notwithstanding what may seem to be their questionable moral standards, Vandals in reality have over the years been the actual upholders of high morality on the University of Ghana campus. The Editor of the Commonwealth Hall weekly newsletter, The Echo, was in the ‘60s and ‘70s also the dreaded “General Koo Hia”, who was required on a weekly basis to provide the “diggings” that identified specific individuals on campus—whether lecturers, students or workers—who had exhibited behavior worthy of a tongue-lash, and to ridicule them through humorous sarcasm. Having been the editor of The Echo in 1972-73 and Editor-in-Chief in 1975, I can attest to the potent powers of moral persuasion of the revered General. But Vandals excelled not only in trying to uphold certain standards of proper campus behavior, but especially so in the academic realm. At the end of each year, irrespective of whatever boorish behavior some Vandals may have exhibited in the course of the year, a glance through the results of the First University Entrance Examinations, or the list of those invited to study for Honours degrees, or indeed the final degree results from all Faculties-- which were all openly displayed in front of the Balme Library for all to see-- showed that Vandals were amongst the best performers in the classroom. Unknown to residents of other Halls, Vandals were very focused in their studies, the Hall’s own library was almost always full, and loud yells and long grunts that could be heard from the Hall’s “Observatory” at 3.00 am or 4.00 am during the pre-examination period were not those of students experiencing unremitting diarrhea, but rather students feverishly studying “till day break (tdb)” who were simply taking a collective sigh of noisy relief between their cramming.

If academic excellence and triumph on the sports field were amongst the values that defined a true Vandal, another key expression of Vandalism was founded on a defiant attitude to unfair and unjust decisions by the Hall or University authorities, and even of national governments. It was in this vein that Vandal City became the first Hall on the University of Ghana campus to rebel in 1972 against the “academic pomposity” (acapompo) then prevailing on University campuses. A good example of this alien tradition was the requirement whereby all students (Junior Members) had to wear shirts and ties and university gowns and parade for dinner each Wednesday night, while their lecturers and professors (Senior Members) sat on a feudal High Table and imbibed precious and expensive imported wines drawn from a basement cellar full of such wines. Colourfully-clad waiters in waist coats went about serving both senior and junior members, in complete servitude, such 3-course meals as “chicken cassahe” (chicken casserole). In a fit of insubordination one fine evening in 1972, Vandals overthrew this feudal system by breaking into the wine cellar and spiriting away the liquid vestiges of the prevailing class system. The Senior Members were not amused, and a long and icy confrontation took place over the “few amenities” that the Senior Members used to enjoy. There were attempts to rusticate or dismiss some students. As Secretary to the JCR at the time, I was in the midst of the crisis. In that impasse, it took “Old Vandals”, the alumni of the Hall, to intervene with the Hall authorities and help to calm tempers and restore normalcy.

The “few amenities” incident in Commonwealth Hall was so-named thanks to the statement made by Col. Ignatius Kutu Acheampong when in his 13th January 1972 military coup to overthrow the Progress Party (PP) government, he had complained in his dawn radio broadcast that “the few amenities we (military) used to enjoy” had been taken away from them by the PP government. Acheampong, nevertheless, initiated a series of nationalistic programmes that were appealing to young idealistic and patriotic students. They included the “Kafo Didi” (a debtor must eat) policy, Operation Feed Yourself, and other measures that were deemed by the student movement as being in Ghana’s national interest. It was during this period of patriotic fervent that Commonwealth Hall students led the university students to initiate various “Yentua” (we shall not pay) demonstrations around the country to support the government in its tough stance against some international creditors who had conspired with the Progress Party government (just as happened under the NPP) to pile Ghana high full of debts.

Such was the levels of patriotism in the Vandal City in those days that students from the Hall again led university student demonstrations in FAVOUR of a National Service scheme, a self-sacrificial project, which was duly in implemented by Acheampong’s SMC government in 1973. Some of us were amongst the first batch of students to take up the one-year national service obligation, which also today has become an integral part of youth development in Ghana--just another example of how Commonwealth Hall has made lasting contributions to national development. And during the heady days of the PNDC under Chairman Rawlings, when again students sacrificed their studies to lift cocoa from the hinterlands to assure Ghana’s economic survival, I understand that Commonwealth Hall students played a yeoman’s role.

With regards to the “bachanallian orgies” by which most people identify Vandals, it is important to provide a context for that behavior. In view of the current JSS/SSS educational system in Ghana, and also the relative freedoms enabled by many FM and TV stations, mobile phones, and the geographic expansion of Accra to encircle the University of Ghana, it is difficult for many people to understand that in the 1960s the borders of Accra ended before the railway line at Dzorwulu and the Airport residential area. Except for some very small villages—Bawaleshie, Opkonglo, Anumle, Madina, etc--there were nearly zero human settlements beyond the Airport Residential area, Achimota Village, or the Accra-Tema motorway. The University of Ghana was therefore geographically very distant from society, and the academic dons of the time also enjoyed keeping it as an “Ivory Tower” divorced from real life.

It was in such a geographic context that male students, who had endured seven years of the then very restrictive secondary boarding educational system, were released into the abundant freedoms of a cushioned university life. In the boarding schools of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, where expatriate teaching staff were often in leadership positions, students were made to lead relatively puritanical and Spartan lifestyles. Hard wooden bunk beds and squatter toilets were the order of the day. There was punishment for almost any trivial offence was rife. There was a lot of bullying from senior students. Hardly any boys or men dared to smoke or drink on secondary school campuses, to scream and shout indiscriminately, utter any profanities, or even be seen in the wrong place with girls without being punished either by parents or school authorities. By gaining admission to a University at that time, one suddenly found oneself with an incredible abundance of freedoms: free accommodation, free food served by waiters, your rooms and toilets cleaned by workers, and even an entitlement to collect “millions”, a government-provided annual cash incentive (not a loan) to students to enable them attend universities. These freedoms could be used for many productive intellectual pursuits—as most Vandals actually did.

But the freedoms could also be abused. Many university students, now in their sexually active late teens and early twenties, found these freedoms as an opportunity to pursue epicurean pleasures, and to eat from the “Tree of Life” in the centre of the academic garden which their often ecclesiastical expatriate secondary school headmasters had prevented them from enjoying. For many university students of those days, there was a sense of liberation of the mind and body. This led to some acts of partial nudity by some; the expansion of one’s previously tight secondary school diction to include some words of profanity; and an occasional swim amongst the fish of Volta Hall, to enjoy the company of the opposite sex without punishment. For Commonwealth Hall students many of these celebrations of freedom were concentrated on Vandals’ Day, when the consumption of alcohol, singing of profanities, ponding of each other, and other “bacchanalian orgies” (not sexual acts) were encouraged. Libation was poured at the Shrine of Father Bacchus, the Greek God of wine. And sitting as the only residential Hall atop Legon hill, Vandals, congregating at their “Observatory”, felt physically lifted as masters of all they surveyed—especially of the other halls below. But such wild celebrations as took place on Vandals Day pale into insignificance when compared to the debauchery that occurs in Florida amongst millions of U.S. university students during the annual Spring Break, or when compared with similar student springfests in the U.K.’s, Brighton and Southampton beaches, the beer festivals in Germany, or the public marijuana smokeblasts in Amsterdam. All over the world, university students seem to have various ways of relieving the pressure of high-tension studies, and Ghana has been no different.

That there would be periodic excesses in student behavior anywhere in the world is to be expected. However, when such excesses occur, authorities have to be clear whether their policy is to identify the few students who may be responsible, for them to be counseled, cautioned or sanctioned, or whether a whole Hall and its long and rich traditions of idealism, high expectations, search for excellence, creativity, spirit of tolerance, openness in diversity, a belief in fairness and justice, and defense of the truth, should be sacrificed. That seems to be amongst the questions facing the University of Ghana. Above all, the University authorities should remember that Vandalism and Commonwealth Hall are not geographic definitions or simply the brick and mortar that make the Hall’s buildings. Vandalism is a mindset, a set of values, a spirit that yearns for self-discovery, for excellence, achievement, and is highly resilient. Now, with the dispersal of Old Vandals all over the world, Vandalism is also a fount of knowledge, experience, finance and contacts for possible renewal of the Hall, the University and the nation. Indeed, iss it by a sheer accident that a Vandal from “Commonwealth” Hall now heads a “Commonwealth” institution? Far from killing the spirit of Vandalism by merely changing the seniority and gender of students that may reside in the Hall, it must be stated that the ethos of Vandalism is “unkillable” and “undieable”.

For example, as Minister of Education, soon after I took office in January 1999, a wild demonstration broke out in Casely Hayford (Casford) hall on the campus of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) over a directive by a Hall tutor that all students should keep their electrical appliances—fridges, pressing irons, etc.-- in one box room, and not in their own rooms. As simple as the disagreement was, it quickly spilled onto the rest of UCC campus, soon well beyond Cape Coast, and before long the matter was on my desk in Accra. With my “training” as a Vandal, I called the student leaders and told them that I was willing to meet them at the University Auditorium. I rushed immediately to Cape Coast, got onto the campus and was immediately confronted by some 2,000+ red-arm-band wearing, tree-branch-waving students in full militancy, chanting war songs and profanities. With an unarmed body guard, any weaker soul could have panicked and fled the scene. However, as I boldly walked towards the students, some of them decided voluntarily to create a security cordon around me to enable me wade through the thick threatening crowd and eventually onto the Auditorium stage. A loud shout from me of “Tsooooooboi” and an offer to mediate their problems and find a quick solution, was enough to calm their nerves and eventually normalcy was restored. Had I been trained in another Hall in the University of Ghana, I am absolutely sure that I would have handled the matter with more uncertainty, and probably less successfully. That was a contribution of Vandalism to peace and tranquility on a university campus.

Also, whilst still Minister of Education, after attending a similar Congregation as the one that has led to the current crisis, I chose to pay a visit to Commonwealth Hall, to see the condition of the Hall. Within minutes of my arrival at the Hall entrance, I was surrounded by 5, 25, 55 and soon more than 200 students. They ushered me into the Hall, begun to utter profanities, and to sing various Vandal songs, concluding with: “Ye be bo wo nsuoo ayeee, Spio-Garbrah, ye be bo wo nsuooo ayeeeee!!!” (meaning, “we shall pond you, Spio-Garbrah!!”). My bodyguard was armed and alarmed was ready to reach for his gun and fire some warning shots, but I shook my head to dissuade him. I was carried aloft by the students, who moved towards one of the ponds. I did not resist. Soon enough, the Chief Vandal appeared and arguments erupted amongst them as to whether I should be ponded or not. Eventually, they agreed that as I was a Vandal, and had recognised and understood the honour code implied by the offer to be ponded and had not resisted the ponding, I had therefore in effect been “symbolically ponded”, and I could be let go. A non-Vandal minister would almost certainly have misunderstood the situation, reacted differently and caused mayhem.

I suspect that had someone in the University administration properly counseled Mr Kofi Annan and his wife about what they might expect on that Congregation Day before they arrived, and also how to disarm the apparently marauding Vandals, the outcome of that incident could have been different. The Busumuru, as UN chief, has been in more dangerous locations around the world before. But, before all such visits, he would get a good security brief, and will know how to conduct himself. Who knows whether a mere wave of his hand or a “tsoooboi” from him could easily have gotten the students disarmed and on his side?

So, in this matter concerning Commonwealth Hall, there is enough responsibility to share. We, the Old Vandals, may have failed to inculcate in the minds of more recent students all the true values of Vandalism. Many alumni have not re-visited the Hall since they graduated and have no idea of the appalling conditions there. So we have a responsibility there. The current students of Commonwealth Hall may also have allowed the extreme elements of the Hall’s Vandals to become too dominant and to take control of matters, as happens in many societies where leaders may not always represent the views of the silent majority.

Commonwealth Hall has a brilliant tradition and has made enormous contributions to University education in Ghana and to Ghana as a whole. Vandalism has many very positive attributes, but yes it also has the more freedom-seeking and defiant aspects that it has become more publicly associated with. As the Chairman of the Supreme Council of Vandals and Guys in Commonwealth Hall of 1974-76, I should know. The Supreme Council, as “apostles and custodians of Vandalism”, have had a sacred tradition and a leadership obligation to act as a moderating influence in the Hall anytime the extreme elements seem to get out of hand. It is not clear in the current situation whether this shadowy Council has been active in recent years, or whether it even exists at all. As with all cultural matters, the beliefs, behavior and practices of adherents change with time. That is why any Christian brought up in a protestant church in the 1950s could have difficulty in participating in the loud service of a Charismatic church of today, whereas the youth—with no prior constraints-- more easily embrace such services.

Vandalism is a set of values, a belief system and a spirit which will not die whether the physical building called Commonwealth Hall becomes a graduate-only hall, a mixed hall or even a female-only hall. If the University of Ghana wishes to create a Graduate Hall, the criteria it should use to decide which of the existing Halls to convert into a graduate Hall should not be based on which Hall demonstrates most, or which has recently embarrassed an eminent Ghanaian citizen, or which Hall many officials on the University’s Committees or Councils have long held resentments against. More honourable and transparent criteria should be used. The University authorities, the leadership of Commonwealth Hall, Old Vandals, and previous members of the Supreme Councils over the years, should all take one step back from the brink, hang heads, and take any high-level governmental advice into account, in order to take decisions regarding the Hall that would be sustainable and non-confrontational. If some students need to be sanctioned for wrong behavior, a whole Hall and its 50+ years of traditions should not be sacrificed by throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In any case, there is no assurance to the University authorities that even if Commonwealth Hall became a female-only Hall, the spirit of Father Bacchus, in rage for revenge, and “with Ate by his side” shall not cry “havoc”, and cause these Commonwealth females to strip and run naked around campus.

If Commonwealth Hall needs to be closed for some months, the emphasis should be on rehabilitation and refurbishment of especially bathrooms and toilets, to remove the stench caused by the overcrowding. All the older Halls on most Ghanaian university campuses have this problem. The GETFund—created through the leadership of a Vandal—could be requested to provide some emergency money for such rehabilitation. Recently, the sewage system of Achimota broke down, causing a national crisis. The infrastructure of the University of Ghana, like many Ghanaians institutions, does not get adequate maintenance, and that must be a priority of the authorities.

To the current students of Commonwealth Hall, we must provide some public advice, as their petition has been made publicly: Your Petition to the Government has raised many important issues, some good facts and arguments, and is pursuing a noble cause. Unfortunately, however, it was very poorly written, so some of the message gets lost. May we advise that if Commonwealth Hall students need to write any future Petitions to the University authorities or to the Government, they should remember that their statements can be read worldwide over the Internet. They also need to be enjoined to remember that they represent Ghana’s premier University and, as Vandals, they must try harder next time to demonstrate the traditions of excellence with which Commonwealth Hall has been associated over the years. They should be aware that a well-argued, well-written Petition aimed at changing the minds of lecturers and professors (many of whom teach Linguistics, Law, Philosophy, English, Psychology, etc.) stands a better chance of a compassionate review than what has been published as a Petition signed by the President of the JCR.

That is the Truth. And “Truth Stands” always!

Ekwow Spio-Garbrah was the Chairman of the Supreme Council of Vandals and Guys in Commonwealth Hall of 1974-76; Secretary JCR, 1973, editor of “The Echo” in 1972-73 and Editor-in-Chief in 1975)