The Danger of the Written Word

A week ago today, I embarked on what has turned out to be a very dangerous trip.
Not the wandering amid the streets of Jamestown, but the aftermath of my account of that event.

Instead of our usual cherished Saturday adventures deep in the ‘bend down’ boutiques of Makola, T and I headed to a much advertised arts festival.

The truth is that I have indeed become skeptical of the punctuality and grandiosity of events as advertised - and this comes from being disappointed many times over the past 15 years in Ghana.

The Street Art festival indeed disappointed me as I’d suspected it would. I spent two hours there and I did not give the event a ‘chance’ to get going. I later read some amazing accounts on Graham’s blog and others, and saw some great photos on Nana Kofi Acquah’s Photo blog here.

I was not in the mood that day to revel in the brightness of the eyes of children, to see the hope and beauty they possess inherently. I saw instead the reality of choked gutters and endemic poverty. I ignored the hope that the idea of art and expression brought to the area. I was in a melancholic mood.

But in writing about this, I made some mistakes that have taught me some valuable life lessons.

1. We have a responsibility to write without assumptions. We as bloggers are seen in a way as journalists, and the way we represent an event paints a picture. A picture that might be half drawn. That might not be coloured in for the reader.

2. As a blogger, we must accept that we are viewed, judged and convicted on the words of each post. We are therefore only as good as our last post. I may have written many times about the beauty, the vitality and the amazing spirit of Ghana before, but in one post, my jaded slant created a false impression that it’s very difficult to live with.

3. Readers can feed off the energy of comments. Mass mentality can happen on a website, as quick as can happen in a crowded street where someone shouts ‘thief’! Since writing my account of a less than perfect festival that I witnessed a portion of, in my bad mood, I have been labeled a racist, a bigot, an uninvited, unappreciative monger of poverty writing, and far, far worse.

It is disturbing and hurtful to be at the centre of a witch hunt in a country that I have called home for so long. It is sad to me that one blog post has created a venomous and violent response from the fellow bloggers that I share a creative space with, in Ghana’s online community.

I have learned many things. That I must be careful – I must present more well rounded accounts of events and leave my moods at home. That it is far more uplifting to see the beauty around us than the negative, as it is everywhere and it permeates. It is more of a challenge and more rewarding to pluck out the good and raise it up above the bad.

I have learned that hatred lies so shallow below the surface, and I have seen it’s ugly face in the blog posts and comments hurled at me. I have seen how easy it is for people to judge, to condemn without knowledge. To push someone into a box, a label that doesn’t befit them. (Perhaps I also unwittingly labeled and boxed the community of Jamestown with my account…)

I am resilient though, and I will continue to live my little life, and write from my humble perspective, and if Ghana will not embrace me, I will embrace myself.

The people of Jamestown too are resilient, and will brush off my grumpy critique, as it has been pointed out that I was not the intended audience, and if the children enjoyed the day, that is far more important.

I’d like to close with a quote that all of us should take to heart. It will help in my writing and I hope it will help my scathing critics:

“If each man or woman could understand that every other human life is as full of sorrows, or joys, or base temptations, of heartaches and of remorse as his own . . . how much kinder, how much gentler he would be.”

Controversial - Obruni tears down Ghana and builds it up again

I am sure I will take alot of heat for posting this article - but it was truly interesting, thought provoking and it crudely tears open the wounds that neither Africa nor the West want to face...

A Ghanaian colleague of mine found this article on a popular news and editorial website here called Modern Ghana, written by a British man who lives in Ghana (who I have somehow managed not to meet)...

Please read the whole thing, before making sweeping judgments... by the end, the guy has come full circle on his appreciation of Ghana.

Happy reading! For those of you who really know Ghana - what do you make of this?

“What do you want in Ghana? Go back to your country!”

Are you the kwasia (idiot) who shouted this at me yesterday from your taxi while I was minding my own business and waiting for my tro-tro at Presby junction? What made you come out with such an exclamation? Was it just too much apio (akpeteshi - local moonshine), or do you have a matter you want to discuss with me? Have you been to aborokyire (abroad) yourself and learnt only the bad things from there, like racism and anti-social behaviour? Did you witness my brothers sticking pickaxes in your brothers' heads, simply for having the audacity to possess beautiful black skin, and has this made you want to treat all non-Ghanaians with a similar contempt? Why didn't you come back when I asked you “woye hwan?” and signalled you to “bra!” (come), so that we could continue the conversation? I wanted to know what warranted such an uncalled-for verbal attack, and to ask you why you are so keen for me to go back to my country. As you were too much of a coward to stop the car and allow me to answer, I am forced to write my reply down and publish it on the web for you. Your provocation will not make my readers happy- this article isn't going to be quite as positive as the rest.

SEBE.
I might have retorted by telling you that I can't go back to my country because the UK has been taken over by millions of African immigrants, asylum seekers and illegal workers, leaving no jobs, houses or white girls left for the obroni. I'll go back to my country if you can remove all the Ghanaians from there first. Or, perhaps I should have laid the blame for my continued presence here on the procrastination and incompetence of your empty-promise government, who invited me over here in 2007 for discussions that are still to be had (“The minister has travelled to South America to collect some more cocaine, the secretary will be with you as soon as she finishes playing Solitaire”). Perhaps you were just jealous of the injustice of our respective visa regulations and angry that it takes you ten times more money and a hundred times more documents to get a visa to my country than it does for me to get one to yours. Maybe out of the vexation your aboa (silly) question laid on me, I should have lied and answered that, like most foreigners, I'm here because it's so damn easy to deceive the black man and even easier to sleep with the black woman. Whichever reply I chose to use would have been an angry one: your unprovoked, out-of-the-blue comment from the safety of a speeding taxi really pissed me off. I wasn't in the mood to “fa wo adamfo” (make friends with you), buy you a Star and tell you the real reason why I'm here, which is because there's no waakye and nkati cake in aborokyire (abroad), and because the GHanja is a hundred times cheaper than the ganja. And don't you know that a true prophet is never recognised in his own country? Imagine if Jesus Christ had been told to shut up and go back to Bethlehem every time he went out to preach his Father's word.

Anyway, why do you have a problem with foreigners in your country? Don't you want us to bring in our dollars, pounds and Euros to help prop up your feeble economy? Does “Travel and See” only apply to Ghanaians struggling to get “inside”? Tourism is Ghana's third highest earner of the money you expect to magically appear in your pocket every day. The money's definitely not going to end up in your pocket if you permit the perpetuation of the paradox that the most loved tourist hang-outs, like the bambootastic Tawala Beach Resort in La and Kumasi's Four Villages Inn, are built and owned by foreigners. Your other big earners are begging the IMF/World Bank/International Donors for loans, and all your yahoo contacts and “bogga” friends and family for remittances. Doing something yourself to create wealth doesn't seem to strike you as being possible (and dozing in your kiosks and containers every day selling foreign crap to each other does NOT create wealth). If you do really want all the foreigners out of Ghana, do you want them to take all their foreign inventions and imports with them when they go? Should the Americans and Germans leave with all their cars which you sit in, should the Chinese tear up all their roads you drive on, and should the Japanese take back all their mobile phones you talk on? Do you want the Indians to leave too? How on Earth will you survive without all their razor blades, matches and biscuits? Your people will probably die of thirst if the Thais cancel all their deliveries of Vitamilk. You probably want the South Africans to head back south too, but you love their Accra Mall with its fancy apparel, expensive food and Hollywood movies, don't you? Let's also tell the Norwegians and Canadians to go back to their fjords and Rocky Mountains and take all their mining equipment with them, leaving you to dig up your own oil and gold with a stick. And just make sure that you can produce your own corned beef and rice before you kick out the Argentineans and Vietnamese, OK? Are you sure you are able to function as a 21st century citizen alone? You haven't even caught up with the 18th (toilet in every home), the 19th (electricity in every home), or the 20th (shoes on every child) yet. Should the British take back all their educational legacy, Eurocentric textbooks and Cambridge curriculum, leaving the black man to devise and implement his own more acceptable, appropriate and Afrocentric schooling system? (Well, actually, yes they should.)

The latter matter goes to show that, even though I thought you put your point across in a rather rude and very un-Ghanaian manner (you didn't even greet me first!), you are arguably correct. The white man has done nothing but rape, pillage and underdevelop bibiman (the black man) since he “discovered” it hundreds of years ago.



He tries to hide the fact that by that time it had already for thousands of years been the home of mighty empires, luxurious palaces, golden warrior kings, rich internal trade routes, and the world's first great universities, religions, civilisations and bushdoctors- a time when Europe was wallowing in Dark Age squalor and dying from bubonic plague. It's all gone downhill for Africa and uphill for Europe from then on: the white man should have been told to go home as soon as he arrived, just as strongly as you told me yesterday. Perhaps your forefathers should have had your same strong convictions back in 1471 and told the Portuguese to “Vai tomar no cu!” when all this kwasiasem began. Instead, they deferentially allowed them to build their dirty slave castle on Elmina's sacred ground in exchange for a few bags of shells and bottles of cheap whisky. Ayikoo (good going!). Why didn't your great-grandfather tell my great-grandfather to stick the Bond of 1844 up his sorry white ass, instead of sycophantically signing it, thereby forcing his own free black people to become subservient to some faraway white queen? In 1957 the “colonial master”, after making himself fat and rich through 300 years of slave dealing and 113 years of natural resource stealing, “granted” you independence of your own land. How noble and gracious of him. At the time, did your fathers follow your proud and outspoken example and cry foul over this “Mickey Mouse Independence”? Obviously they didn't, because Lucky Dube was still singing about such empty emancipations more than fifty years later.

That's one of the messages Kwame Nkrumah was trying to tell your predecessors before the CIA had him killed off. As well as Osagyefo, you have many more historical figures you can be proud of, who did stand up to the Imperialist immigrants, but can you tell me about some of them? Probably not- you didn't look very educated. Most schoolchildren should know the name of the Ejisu Queenmother who bravely defended the Golden Stool in 1901, but how many can name the Akwamu chief who whipped some Danish ass in 1693 to become the Governor of Christianborg Castle- the only African to ever gain such a status on the Gold Coast? Name the Asantehene (1720-50) who demanded that the Europeans set up factories and distilleries in Africa, instead of forcing his people to buy imported goods. When your son gets back from school tonight, ask him why MacCarthy Hill is called MacCarthy Hill, and what happened to MacCarthy before he became a hill. I'll pay his school fees for a year if he knows. The Ashantis should be proud of chopping off that white invader's head in 1824. But are your children learning about and celebrating these great people and moments in black history, so they will be inspired to become great themselves? Or are they just traipsing 5 miles to their dull little concrete schools every day so they can memorise some Babylonian nonsense in order to regurgitate for the BECE then forget it? More worrying still, where are today's freedom fighters and role models who will be the future inspiration for your children's children? Osofo Kantanka can't do it all by himself. Who is going to stand out from the crowd and make sure that Ghana 2050 is not just a photocopy of Ghana 2010 (only with more layers of plastic waste)? Your leaders will never achieve anything for you and your people by dressing in suits, flying in planes and attending conferences, Bretton Woods negotiations and HIPC summits. Don't tell me to go home to aborokyire, tell them to come back from there.

Perhaps you shouted at me to go back to my country because you also realise that no state which uses a foreign tongue as its official language has ever progressed, and no economy that relies on foreign aid, Structural Adjustment Programmes and 98% foreign trade has ever grown. Do you also agree that Africa can never develop until it breaks its dependence on the white man? Are you also aware that the West is deliberately keeping Africa poor so that they can remain rich? I can empathise with your point of view; you want the obroni to stop meddling in Mother Africa and allow her to go through her own agricultural and industrial revolutions, without which no developed country has ever been created. Next time you drive past your Vice-President, will you have the balls to shout at him that begging for Brazilian tractors is not the answer?

However, please don't make the assumption that all foreigners are wicked (only most of us). There are a handful of abrofo afrophiles with no hidden agenda who are here for positive reasons, and anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm one of them. I challenge you to charge me with any offence against Ghana (apart from the herbs, which I only use in my own home with a police officer present). I have never taken money, natural resources, state secrets, smuggled cocoa or trafficked children out of your country (but I do always return home with a suitcase full of Golden Tree chocolate and Mapouka Cream Liqueur: why are these delicious Ghanaian products never available overseas, but I can always buy overpriced European Mars Bars and Baileys here?) I am not one of these “foreign investors” who your government seems to love so much, despite the fact that even if these vampires invest a million dollars, they're going to suck out more than a billion in the future. I have no interest in profiteering from your people by owning a telecommunications company, Lebanese supermarket or Irish bar. I am not here to impose my English expertise on the primitive African. In fact, the opposite is true: I have learned more here about respect, personal relationships, spiritualism and good living than I gained from decades in Europe. I am not a paedophile or a batty boy. If you don't believe me, ask my wife. If you don't believe her, ask my girlfriend. I'm different to most Englishman in that I learn other people's languages, instead of expecting the whole world to speak mine. I've already written at length about the myriad reasons why I've chosen to leave my unfriendly country of birth and live in asomdweman, none of which I believe are detrimental to Africa. Quite to the contrary, I only want to lead a conscious life here and do as much as I can to help my beloved adopted country. That's why I'm writing this column- nobody's paying me for it, but I hear on the grapevine that a lot of people are “feeling” it. That's the only form of payment I desire. I'm also doing my utmost to bring more tourists to Ghana- if you and your friends would stop shitting on the beach, then I'm sure it would help to attract a lot more.

Of course, I agree with you that there are plenty of wicked, Godless, money-grabbing foreigners in Ghana who do deserve to be on the receiving end of your scathing attack, and I forgive you for getting me mixed up with one of them. They're the ones who are doing their best to keep Africa down, whether it be by stealing your oil, imposing the price of your cocoa, braindraining your best graduates, transplanting their “foreign expertise”, or forcing you to be generation after generation of hewers of wood and drawers of water. We refer to these neo-colonialists who are feeding off the dying remains of your continent as “white men vultures”. I'm sure you have heard the local appellation of “Obroni p3t3!” (white vulture) - I half expected you to add that one when you were shouting at me. Even though these people share my colour, they certainly don't share my principles, and I want to get them out of Ghana as much as you do. These people definitely do not deserve your country's Akwaaba (welcome). I can't wait for the day when Kofi Wayo becomes president- he promises to arrest all the Chinese vultures who are buying up your factories and farmlands and galamseying in your rivers, and send them all to the firing squad. With Blakk Rasta as his vice-president, there would be a similar fate in store for all the depraved sexual deviants who are coming here to rape your sons and daughters, and for all the crazy junkies who are flooding the country with their evil Colombia powder.

I might even go so far as to say that any foreigner in Ghana who is not a tourist, volunteer, charity worker, philanthropist, prophet, or anyone like Joseph Hill with a desire to help “bring back the money with the sign of the Lion on it and take back the money with the sign of the dragon on it” can be referred to as obroni p3t3. The businessmen, miners, foreign lenders, hoteliers, vehicle dealers and makers of porn movies are all here to enrich themselves at your expense, so I don't blame you for being angry when you see a white man in your country. Nor was I surprised when a Rasta man who didn't know I was one of his brethren shouted “Slave master!” at me as we passed recently. Rather, I'm surprised that I'm not at the receiving end of these anti-white sentiments more often, considering the brutal and exploitative way in which my forefathers have treated yours over the past 500 years.



I'm sick of hearing, when I reveal that I'm British; “Oh! Our colonial masters! We love you! You taught us everything we know!” If Ghana had colonised Britain and sold my ancestors into slavery, I don't think I would be so friendly to Ghanaians. So your outburst was actually a breath of fresh air. Maybe more Ghanaians should be like you and strive to kick the bad foreigners out- they're only going to continue downpressing you if you don't. But get out the car and talk to them first: there's a small chance that you might actually like them. Strangers are only friends who have never met.

Ian Utley is the author of
“Culture Smart! Ghana, the Essential Guide to Customs and Culture”

If I Were a Boy... the Caster Semenya Controversy From All Angles

There has been quite a debate raging at my office and in the house, and I’m sure it reflects discussions going on globally this week. It’s about Caster Semenya, the gripping controversy surrounding her 800m gold medal win in Germany, and the subsequent doubts as to her qualification as a ‘true’ female.

It’s actually quite amazing that this story has become such a globally followed issue, but for me, as for many others, it is so interesting because it involves both the human side and the not-so-simple science of sex and gender.

I’m sure there was a day not so long ago when gender was viewed as a cut and dry issue by the majority of us – if a person had the external sexual organs associated with either sex, it was accepted that the person was that gender. Since then science has delved further and discovered a variety of cases where this simple identification is just not as straightforward as we’d thought. There is a very interesting 'Intersex' association in North America that answers many of the questions here.

In terms of sexuality, more and more people are identifying themselves as transgender – and are convinced that they are ‘in the wrong body’. There are a myriad of combinations of sexual orientation, along with gender identifications. One of my favourite stand up comedians, Eddie Izzard, commonly wears traditionally ‘female’ clothing and identifies himself as a ‘male lesbian’ or a ‘straight transvestite’. Are these people right or wrong? Who are we to judge?

But when it comes to the case of Caster Semenya, if we look for a minute beyond the personal side – beyond the fact that the media coverage her case has attracted is no doubt humiliating and demoralizing – there are the complicated yet unavoidable scientific and ethical issues.

There are pictures all over the Internet of Caster now, with everyone trying to scrutinize every aspect of her appearance. The fact is that she has the complete outward appearance of a male.

Her speech and mannerisms confirm that view.

So when then is a girl not a girl? If Caster identifies as a female, who are we say she is not?

If Caster is subjected to all possible tests, there will be one of many possible outcomes; anything from true hermaphroditism (where a person possesses both male and female sexual organs, internally and/or externally, to variations like male pseudohermaphroditism or a type of gonadal dysgenesis. The bottom line is that it goes far beyond a simple physical inspection of someone's 'private parts'!



There have been numerous cases in the western world, where these conditions are diagnosed at birth, are closely monitored through childhood, and the child is gender assigned, based on their tendencies. I believe if Caster Semenya had been born in different circumstances – i.e. not in a rural village with no access to expensive modern medicine, she would have been one of these people.

Accounts of Caster’s life only reinforce this. She is said to have identified always with boys – and competed on par with her male peers in school throughout her childhood. However, due to the fact that she had no visible penis (and this is really the only reason), she was assumed to be a girl.

The biggest question is an ethical, moral and philosophical one. It has been my opinion that if a person is found to have a Y chromosome, to possess more than 3 times the testosterone as the typical female (as in the case of Caster), then they have an unfair biological advantage over other females (in terms of muscle development etc.), and hence it would be unfair to compete against 'entirely female' women, especially at this level.

Another perspective (that of JW) is that if the person has been classified at birth as a female, with no outward evidence that this is not the case, then she should be able to compete regardless. Her biological advantage is something she is lucky to have, in the same way that people with higher IQs have a biological advantage to others when it comes to academics – yet we all compete on the same level, regardless of the advantages of the smarter people.

It is a very intriguing debate!

However, this is not a theoretical issue. There are victims. The very sad side of this story is Caster herself. As far as she is concerned, she is a woman. Despite any questions she or others she knows have had about her appearance, she is simply a tomboy… however, the IAAF has strict guidelines that may just determine that she is not in fact female. This would mean they would have to strip her of her medal. Imagine the devastation! Not to mention that the whole world (including me) is currently debating her gender. It is a controversy that she has found herself trapped in, through no fault of her own.

I believe that the South African ASA could have dealt with the issue discretely in advance, completing the tests before the Berlin race, so as to eliminate all the aftermath, but their conduct has been uneducated, boorish and infantile. They have accused the IAAF and international media of being racist, despite the fact that these tests have been carried out on female athletes globally, regardless of race or origin, for decades. In interviews, Leonard Chuene, President of the ASA repeatedly ignores the complex issues at hand.

In 2006 Santhi Soundarajan from India, was robbed of her silver medal after the same type of controversy about her gender. Raised as a woman, this blow devasted her and soon after she attempted suicide.

Gender may not be as simple and straightforward as we’d once believed, but it remains a delicate and taboo subject, and when questioned, can have devastating effects...

Obamarama - the mania is over but the message persists.

With Obama’s visit come and gone – been there, bought the t-shirt (two actually) – Accra has returned to normal.

Definitely the Obama family had a profound effect on the country. Firstly, the cities of Accra and Cape Coast were literally brought to a halt on Saturday, and the circling helicopters made us feel their presence.

Apart from that, there was a buzz in the air, and all radio and TV stations were focused on the historic visit, following Obama on his few planned and strictly controlled visits. The streets were lined with supporters - with flags, scarves, t-shirts...

Everyone wanted some little part of Obama – of the fame, the hope, the power that has now come to signify his name. This was a visit that topped any of the other foriegn dignitaries or prior American presidents. Ghana and Africa felt a deeper sense of connection, they claimed to welcome Obama HOME. There was a wild pride in the air...

But Obama did more than shake hands and smile and feed the politicians of Ghana and Africa what they wanted to hear. He was firm in his speeches, asking the African leadership to take responsibility for the future of Africa. He focused on the US supporting Africa’s independent development and made some giant steps away from the typical western leader’s promise of never-ending aid. At his farewell address at the airport he pointed out the Peace Corps volunteers and asked that if these youngsters had come so far to work in the communities, there was no reason that the youth in Ghana and in Africa could not do the same. And he was right.

In a way, I believe that only Obama could have gotten this message across without any repercussions of being labelled racist. After all, he is considered ‘one of us’ among Africans.

This is a point that has annoyed me during the presidential campaign last year and the ramp up to his recent visit.

How is it that a man who had an absentee father (who happened to hail from Kenya), but was raised completely by his white mother and grandparents and Indonesian step-father, far from Africa, can be called an African man?



Surely we cannot forget the woman that raised him single-handedly, with the support of her own family, while his father lived out his life continents away with other wives, other children. Where is the acknowledgement for those that played the key role in his biological and cultural upbringing, when Africans proudly exclaim Obama’s blackness and African heritage?

It all seems a bit hypocritical, if not deceptive.To put it in perspective for Ghanaians - it would be like Scottish people taking credit for the accomplishments of J.J. Rawlings. It would be like other Europeans welcoming Jerry 'home' back in his heyday, for being the first 'European' leader in Africa. But we all know that despite Jerry having a Scottish father, he is culturally a Ghanaian and there is not much of a connection between him and Scotland. This is because his father did not play much of a role in his life, and he was raised in Africa as an African. The same is true in reverse for Obama...

I agree that Barack Obama has the X Factor, that he is extremely intelligent and an excellent motivational speaker. He is one of the only politicians that I honestly believe has positive motives for genuine change.

Whether Africa or Africans or black America can take the credit for a man with his history and upbringing is quite another story altogether.

I think it’s fair that we ALL take pride in such a leader, globally, and stop harping on a simple biological fact that did not entirely shape Obama’s character.

He is a global citizen, an American, and a figure for positive change. He is not technically a BLACK man nor culturally an African – and it doesn’t matter in the least!

The Frightening new South Africa

South Africa of 2008 is crime ridden, the electricity doesn't work and corruption permeates all levels of public service and government. The promises of hope and glory in 1994 have evolved into mayhem and despair. The poor have gotten poorer and more desperate and yet another black government in Africa is letting it's people down.

Watch this disturbing video, produced by a reputable 60 minutes type program called Carte Blanche in South Africa - describing the current state of affairs.

There is mass exodus of whites and this video explains sadly why...