A Rejoinder To: “Like The Hawk, I Will Swoop Down On The Hen WRITTEN BY AKWASI AFRIFA”
LET US SCRUTISE OUR TRADITIONS AND CULTURES AND CARRY OUT MODIFICATIONS THAT WILL MAKE THEM ACCEPTABLE TO THE “GHANAIAN OF TODAY”, INSTEAD BEING ANGRY WITH THOSE WHO ARE REBELLING AGAINST THEM.
By: OTCHERE DARKO
Introduction:
I have decided to rewrite, in a proper format, a response which I made to Mr Akwasi Afrifa’s impressive article that appeared at Ghanaweb on Sunday, 8th August, 2012 and to submit it as a rejoinder to allow more Ghanaians to read my views and, hopefully through that, to trigger a more intensive debate on the need for the modification of some of our old traditional practices and sets of culture that are today becoming very unpopular among an ever-growing number of Ghanaian youth, including, even, a sizeable portion of the Ghanaian intelligentsia. Mr Afrifa, from his article, is defending our rich Ghanaian traditions and culture and feels [seemingly] very angry and frustrated that some urbanised Ghanaians are attacking them. There is only one quote I have made from his nationalistically impressive [though seemingly over-toned] article and this quotation follows immediately after this introduction. Readers who did not read Mr Afrifa’s full article are advised to do so, if they want to fully appreciate my response.
“Like the Hawk, I will swoop down on the Hen…”
[A quote of a “Symbolic Garb” {line 1} of Mr Afrifa’s highly tasty piece]
*And the following line was my own coinage of a fitting adage to what Mr Akwasi Afrifa calls a “Symbolic garb” quoted above.
"And like 'Mother Hen', I'll meet the 'Hawk' in the air with my readily shot out claws"......An “Accra Ghanaian” would mute into the ears of Mr Afrifa.
[My symbolic reply to Mr Afrifa’s above symbolism]
LET US NOT "swoop" upon the hens below us....in case there are mother hens among them that are ready to defend themselves and their children. I fully appreciate Mr Afrifa’s linguistically crafted piece and understand his concern that a section of Ghanaians are “rubbishing” our traditions and sets of culture that distinguish us, as a people, from the White men and others elsewhere. We have a rich culture in Ghana, passed on to us by our forefathers. I can, therefore, understand Mr Afrifa’s feeling of anger and frustration that could not hide itself in his, otherwise, nationalistic and patriotic piece of writing that seeks to defend and protect our National cultural heritage. His defensive spirit is highly commendable. I do believe that if our traditional communities that existed at the time of the “Scramble for Africa” had men of Mr Afrifa’s calibre, Europeans could not haven taken us for a ride and “stolen our lands and resources” from us like they did. Our Chiefs would not have signed the “Bond of 1844” to put us “under bondage” for hundred years, which was even made to exceed its legal limit by another 13 additional years. *But we did not have men like Mr Akwasi Afrifa and so the White men took us “FREE” ......... usually, after our nineteenth century chiefs had been bribed by the White man with their superior European gin, tobacco, and other commodities, just as today our politicians are allowing Europeans and Asians to take Ghana’s resources away after they have been bribed with monetary considerations that range from as low as $50 to $2000, after which these our contemporary politicians sign “1844 Bond”-like deals like the one the NPP signed with the UK Vodafone Company, or the most recent one signed by NDC with South Korea’s STX. The White man has inflicted the damage on us already. The people Mr Afrifa refers to as “Accra Ghanaians” are “remnants” of colonialism left by the White man who fooled us through the connivance of our “unsuspecting” and “over-anxious” traditional leaders of yesterday and continued, alike, to this day by our academically “trained-to-thieve” political leaders of our time. The White man has brought their culture here and is seeking to replace our culture with theirs. This has brought this “clash of cultures” that is forcing the youth to “rubbish our traditions and culture” just us our ancient chiefs “rubbished our “local gin” for the “White man’s gin” or just of Mr Badbin and his NDC compatriots took bribes of $2000 each to buy South Korean goods to show how Ghanaian goods look inferior comparatively.
Professor Chinua Achebe in his "Things Fall Apart" vividly captures the breakdown of tradition and culture in a Native Community in Eastern Nigeria, as a result of the advent of Western culture and civilisation. The feeling of frustration and anger that drives the principal character of Professor Achebe’s novel is strikingly akin to that of Mr Akwasi Afrifa. The crime and subsequent suicide committed by Okonkwo epitomise the grief and anger he feels inside him, as a traditionalist who is unable to accept what has happened to his Community. Mr Afrifa’s own grief and anger, as demonstrated in his catchy “Like the Hawk, I will swoop down on the Hen…. A Message Wrapped in Symbolic Garb", are like those that force Okonkwo to commit the crime that later forces him to take his own life.
I am myself a traditionalist, being the grandson of the traditional Ruler of my Community and do feel attached to chieftaincy, just as a child feels attached to its mother and thus, sometimes, I wonder whether there will ever come a day when all Ghanaians will feel duty-bound to sell and glorify our traditions and our different brands of culture, just as our Diaspora Ghanaian brothers and sisters resident in Chicago did last week amid pomp and pageantry during a Ghanaian Cultural Festival to which thousands of White and Black Americans were invited to observe or address, including the Illinois Governor.
*But Mr Akwasi Afrifa and I, together with all Ghanaian traditionalists, must not forget that tradition and culture, like every human feature, have to be “remoulded” and “readjusted” from time to time to suit changing conditions. As an illustration, as you grow older, your changing feet ceases to match your existing sandals, and this means you have to change your sandals or your feet get hurt from a “clash” with your incompatible sandals. If you do not want to get hurt, then you need to change the sandals to fit your new grown feet. Chieftaincy and other forms of inherited traditions and all brands of culture in Ghana [and elsewhere in the world] go through the same “hurting clashes” as a result of their incompatibility with time-changing values and situations. Since "Kwasi Broni Daadaafuo", [with his long nose], came and ruled us, things have changed. Our traditions and culture are falling apart because of “clash of two incompatible sets of civilisations”, just as Professor Chinua Achebe describes in his classic political novel, "Things Fall Apart".
Do we have to behave like Okonkwo and nurture anger and frustration, two behavioural symptoms that are capable of destroying both their possessor and his target? Or do we accept the “bent-but-not-broken” situation and, like Nelson Mandela of “world acclaim” did after apartheid, build the future through a “give-and-take” transformational arrangement that leads to the kind of damage reparation that allows two “formally incompatible elements” to cohabit with mutual satisfaction?
*CHIEFTAINCY AND SOME OF OUR OTHER RELATED TRADITIONAL LAWS AND PRACTICES NEED TO UNDERGO SOME "MODIFICATION", [A TERM THAT TRADITIONALISTS ARE LIKELY TO EMBRACEE MORE THAN THE TERM "MODERNISATION"], SO THAT THIS ONE THOUSAND-YEAR OLD HERITAGE HANDED DOWN BY OUR FOREFATHERS, AND WITHOUT WHICH WE LOSE OUR “NATIONAL IDENTITY”, WILL BE TRANSFORMED TO A STANDARD THAT IS COMPATIBLE WITH OUR NEW NATION-STATE AND WILL BECOME A “TREASURED ASSET” THAT THOSE WHO ARE REBELLING AGAINST IT TODAY WILL TOMORROW FEEL VERY PROUD ABOUT IT AND WILLING TO SELL IT TO THE REST OF THE WORLD WITH NATIONAL PRIDE AND CHERISHED PATRIOTISM.
IF WE FAIL TO DO THIS “MODIFICATION”, THEN IT WILL NOT BE “THE ACCRA GHANAIANS” WHO WILL “RUBBISH” OUR TREASURED “TRADITIONS AND CULTURE” BUT TIME, ITSELF, WILL GRADUALLY KILL THESE TRADTIONS AND SETS OF CULTURE THAT MR AKWASI AFRIFA, OUT GENUINE NATIONAL AND PATRIOTIC SENTIMENT, IS DEFENDING WITH ANGER AND FRUSTRATION.
*UNLESS CHIEFS AND “ALL GHANAIAN TRADIONALISTS” DO SOMETHING SOONER THAN LATER, WE MAY ALL BE SITTING ON A TIME-BOMB THAT IS TICKING LIKE THE PROVERBIAL “MY GRANDFATHER’S CLOCK”.
SOURCE: OTCHERE DARKO.
[This columnist has written a total of three articles on the issue of the need to modernise the Institution Chieftaincy in Ghana, quite apart from the numerous comments he makes here and there on the same issue every time the Institution of Chieftaincy surfaces as a national topic of discussion on this forum].
