Crawling out of the dungeons of slavery

By Kofi Akordor
One of the most fascinating things about last week’s media encounter with the Minister for Tourism was the revelation by the Minister, Ms Akua Sena Dansua that the Cabinet had given APPROVAL (caps mine) for local dishes to be served at official functions. This, according to the minister, is to give local and international recognition to Ghanaian dishes. What a pity! I do not know whether to clap or weep at this announcement, coming 54 years after we raised our national flag at the Old Polo Grounds and lowered the Union Jack to signify our statehood and sang our own “Lift high the flag of Ghana” in nationalistic tones as we celebrated independence. Why should it take us so long to see the need to patronise what is our own and not only that but also making others savour our dishes just as we have relished those of others? That brings us to what our independence is really about not only for us as a country but as a people seeing how we crazily adore foreign things, including the food we eat. We have wondered why even under extreme hot temperatures, the standard for the educated and enlightened remains the three-piece suit and the tie virtually strangling us to death? We kept blaming our woes on slavery and colonialism for the evil they had done to our psyche and social cohesion, yet we do not make any conscious effort to overcome that colonial mentality which does not make us see anything good about ourselves. Everything is good about things that come from outside. Recently our men in cassock and clerical collars joined others to voice their abhorrence for homosexuality and lesbianism which appear being forced on us by superior human beings from the West. Most of the critics declared with one voice that these twin evils were not only unreligious but are against our cultural norms and moral values as a people. The question again is, since when have we realised that as a people made in a special image of God, we have certain cultural and values that must be protected in their sanctity and acceptance and practice? These values did not germinate overnight. They were part and parcel of our existence as a people. Many years ago, we relinquished our authority over ourselves and accepted these values that we are making much noise about today as satanic, barbaric and primitive and abandoned them for something more saintly and elevating from the colonialists from the West. Today, the same people who some time ago brought the Bible and told us everything about us was heathen are the same people who are not only trying to convince us, but are actually cajoling us to accept homosexuality and lesbianism as normal and so should be tolerated. They are telling us that as God’s creatures, we have the freedom to do anything, including co-habiting with the same sex or entering into intimate relations with same sex. There are even veiled threats that there is a harsh penalty to pay if we continue to resist homosexuals and lesbians. Knowing our propensity for begging, our political leaders are severely constrained to raise their voices against the growing phenomenon which threatens the social fabric of our country. The clergy who have mustered some courage to attack the menace are quoting copious verses from the Bible support their argument against the growing menace. What is our moral ground to quote from the same Bible brought to us many centuries ago by a people who have virtually embraced homosexuality and lesbianism regardless of what the Bible says? Now it is not only ordinary Christians who are gays but pastors and bishops of accredited churches. Are we quoting from the Bible they brought to us or another one created by us? If it is the same Bible, then we cannot pretend to know it better than those who wrote it and brought it to us and used it to make us unhinged us about our very existence and created a whole new identification for us. Maybe the homosexual doctrine is telling us something we lost several centuries ago — that after all, God made us in His image as blacks with our distinct moral, cultural and religious values and embraced something that separated us from our spiritual roots. If today, those who brought us the Bible can warn us (remember the British Under-Secretary’s warning two weeks ago), then it stands to reason that with time other things condemned in the Bible will become virtues while other vices may become virtues as well. In recent times, we have seen in this country what so-called men of God are capable of doing, things our cultural norms and religious values, which are embedded in the law of Kama or retribution will not tolerate. If in the past, some of these criminal activities and practices were being suppressed and kept away from us the ordinary people, today they are being brought into light and we should be wiser by these revelations and begin to look within. If we think by abandoning everything about us we are making a better impression about ourselves, we are making a terrible mistake. Serving local dishes at official functions should not have been by Cabinet approval. It should have come as natural as others have accepted theirs and made people like us to accept them as the best. This applies to other things including our dressing, which is a gift from God to suit our climatic conditions. If we as a nation can rise up and condemn homosexuality and lesbianism as an affront to our cultural and moral values, then with the same voice we should rise against all forms of foreign domination that have made us second-rate citizens in our own land. We can maintain the sanctity of our cultural and religious values if we can tell the rest of the world that we are a distinct people and cannot remain in the shadows of others just us the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and the Arabs have done.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com