Written By: Esi Woarabae Cleland
I can’t think of how to perfectly launch a discussion about tribalism in Ghana so I’ll just jump in. I’m not going to define tribalism or point fingers at other people or give solutions and suggestions about what the government, schools and churches can do. Instead, what can we do? What can I do?
When I was in my mid teens, I dated an Ewe man who sang me traditional Ashanti lullabies which I loved! My favorite was one which told of the powers of K?mfo An?kye, praising him as one who could even fetch water with a basket.
An?kye e
W’ay? bi o
An?kye e
W’aye bi o
?de k?nt?n na ?ko nsuo
?de k?nt?n na ?ko nsuo
An?kye e
W’ay? bi o
Despite how cool the guy was, I found it necessary to let it be known that he was the kind of Ewe boy who spoke no Ewe. That he was the kind of Ewe boy who spoke Twi better than any of the other guys I knew at the time. Why I needed to justify my choice of an Ewe man in this manner, I do not know. Why did I need to say that my Ewe boy was more Ashanti than the Ashanti boys? Perhaps I did it because even that early, I had internalised that I should not date an Ewe man though no one had told me not to. Later, someone did. Let’s call him Mr. Nkonyaa. He was my father’s friend who sometimes gave me a ride to that village school in Cape Coast because his daughter attended the same school. On this day, he picked me up first, and on the way to pick up his daughter from his house, the following conversation ensued:
Mr. Nkonyaa: Do you have a boyfriend
Me: I have many boyfriends
Mr. Nkonyaa: You know what I’m talking about
Me: Yes, I have a boyfriend
Mr. Nkonyaa: What is his name?
Me: William Kofi
Mr. Nkonyaa: Did he go to University Primary?
Me: No
Mr. Nkonyaa: Does he attend one of the Cape Coast Schools?
Me: No, he goes to Achimota School
Mr. Nkonyaa: So how did you meet?
Me: At PRESEC. Vacation classes (haha)
Mr. Nkonyaa: Where is he from?
Me: He’s an Ewe
Mr. Nkonyaa: Break up with him
Me: Why?
Mr. Nkonyaa: They’re not good people
Me: This one was born and raised in Accra, he doesn’t even speak the language.
Mr. Nkonyaa: It doesn’t matter. Break up with him
Me: I don’t think it’s fair for me to break up with him just because he’s an Ewe
Mr. Nkonyaa: God knows why he put us on different soil. We must stick to our own kind and let them stick to their own. Will you break up with him?
Me: Yes
While we were having this conversation, I was feeling quite rebellious, and I had every intention of continuing with William Kofi but ask me what happened?
I broke up with the boy.
I wrote him a letter saying that I no longer wanted to be in a relationship, that is, until I saw him again the next vacation and all thoughts of breaking up flew out of my head and we got right back together!
A year or so later, I got the same warning from a respected member of my family. Now that was surprising to me because unlike Mr. Nkonyaa, he fraternized more with Ewes than with Akans. I’d eaten some cat meat a few times, in the barima nkwan and mfantse d?k?n dishes which he and his Ewe friends had prepared. So how could he now turn around to caution me against marrying an Ewe man? I didn’t get satisfactory answers from him so I asked another person who explained that she knew of several examples in his family where women had married Ewe men and been mistreated by the man’s family either while the man was alive or after he was dead. She added that the Ewe families they’d known always ended up bring an Ewe bride from the village even after the man had married someone non-Ewe. Now I could appreciate their concern and it started to make sense to me that I'd received 'do not marry an Ewe' advice from this cat-eating, one-man-thousand-buying, ayigbe-kente-wearing man. Recently I asked a Fanti man in his twenties whether he too had been warned not to marry an Ewe partner. He said that he had. And that he thinks his parents will definitely prefer he found a Fanti bride. In this 21st century!
It is easy to say that the younger generations do not necessarily think like their living and dead ancestors. But we seek their approval. Our choice of life partners certainly is one of those things that we ideally would want our families to approve of. I’ve asked other young people whose parents have PhDs, are well travelled, wield considerable public influence, and sadly many of them are feeding their children the same "stick to our people" line. For example, Mr. Nkonyaa is a Chartered Accountant. To borrow the words of my good friend and Ghanaian rapper M.anifest, ibi colonialistic mental. Advanced education does not make a person less prejudiced.
I visited an incredibly knowledgeable architect. While soaking up all that he was saying, it became clear to me that you cannot fully appreciate African architecture without knowing African history. Especially about the way we were before the coming of the Europeans. Invariably, this leads to learning about all of Africa, its ancient empires, trade routes, the various cultures. The architect showed me his books with great design ideas from all over Africa. Exciting stuff! So much so that Ghanaian ideas alone seemed too limiting. How else would I know about Niger crosses for example? So here was I expecting that the well educated will encourage that we should intermarry more, cross some boundaries, date and marry people from Mali, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Kenya, everywhere, and make some beautiful mixed babies. But then I returned from my dream only to realise that even in this beautifully tolerant country Ghana, our elders are advising us not to marry outside approved groups. Wey kind life dat? How can we move forward when these are the conversations we’re having in our homes, in spite of the many academic public discussions on Ghana can do to mitigate tribalism
Fanti women, the saying goes, give their husbands hell (literally, w?hy? h?n kunnom gya) especially in their old age. One guy I recently met told me how the Fanti wife of his friend is living up to this saying so much so that his friend is miserable in the marriage. Even my mother believes this about Fanti women. Yet no Fantis are stopping their sons from marrying Fanti women. If you ask me, I'll say there are good people and bad people.
We all need to let go of hypocritical stereotypes in order to move forward.
To join this conversation on the web, visit http://times.fienipa.com/node/2
http://www.maameous.com/2008/12/your-poppy-talk-you-say-you-for-no.html
Esi Woarabae Cleland is a copywriter at Publicis Ghana and regularly blogs at www.maameous.com. She can be reached at ewcleland@gmail.com
