Introduction
There is a Ghanaian proverb which states in Akan that ‘abusua te se kwae. Wowo akyire a, ebo mu. Woben ho a na wohunu se edua biara si dee esi’. To wit 'the clan is like a forest. When you are far away, you think it is crammed together. When you get closer then you will realise that they are individual and separate trees’. People who are not members of the clan and who observe from a distance may jump into conclusion that there is a very degree of unity in the clan. It is only when one gets to know the social dynamics in the group that he would know that the perceived unity observed from a distance is only a mirage.
The human person for a long time has been described as a social being. No one person is an island. For this reason, human beings often bond together. In spite of this, the relationship that exists between the individual and the community is unpredictable. However, one’s existence is always linked with the existence of others (Ikuenobe, 2006, Addai-Mensah, 2009). Similarly, the relationship among social groups, such as clans, communities and ethnic groups in a nation is interdependent but could be capricious.
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| Ghana's Coat of Arms and Flag inserted in the Map |
It is true and an undeniable fact that all human beings are born free and deserve equality in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood (UN, 1948). Ghanaians are also citizens of the world. They are therefore expected to uphold, cherish and treat each other in accordance with the spirit of this United Nations declaration to which she is a signatory. It is necessary to consciously encourage a spirit of brotherhood among Ghanaians. The 1992 Fourth Republic Constitution of Ghana dedicated the whole of Chapter Five to Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms. In those pages are found enshrined the true meaning of Human Dignity. The critical question to ask is: how real in practice attitudes and utterances manifest themselves to give credence and meaning or otherwise to the aspirations of these fine and colourful words engraved in gold?
Ghana has been praised internationally for her tenacity of purpose and attainment of a seeming semblance of unity and peace in a very volatile and turbulent West African sub-region. As a matter of fact, she is described and seen as an oasis of peace in the midst of conflicts of varying nature across countries including her neighbours such as Togo and La Cote D’Ivoire. This is apparently the result of the constant observance of democratic practices especially at the ballot, where different political parties are changed either from power or into power. What makes a lot of people feel confident of the sustainability and absorptive capacity of the Ghanaian democracy is the cliff-hanger election of 2008. After two rounds of presidential elections, the opposition party leader was declared victorious in a winner take-all poll with just zero point four-six percentage margin (0.46%) or a mere forty thousand votes (40,000) with over ten million voters. The incumbent party candidate gracefully conceded defeated.
However, underneath the facade are real worries of polarisation along ethnic/regional lines, religious affiliations, and partisan political discriminations. Experts estimate that there are as many as 74 flash points or hot spots across the country often underpinned by chieftaincy disputes as well as political, ethnic and religious conflicts. Why is there so much intolerance among Ghanaians of different persuasions? In what forms do these differences manifest themselves? Are Ghanaians living and behaving like the proverbial ostrich putting their heads in the sand and believing their whole body is hidden from present and clear danger? Why is there lawlessness all over there place as typified by reports of mob actions and instant ‘injustices’? Is the clear political dichotomy seen in the media reportage and programming a dangerous threat to national unity? Is the proverbial Ghanaian hospitality an outward exhibition towards only foreigners while there is serious internal haemorrhage? Can it be said that Ghana is on the verge of caving in under her own carrying capacity? Is the acclaimed unity and peace in Ghana a distant harmony or a mirage?
Political and religious ideologies are the choices we make as people, especially as adults, which are supposed to be based on intelligent reasoning devoid of emotional attachments or sentiments. Tribal affiliations are purely based on the accidents of our births and there was nothing we could have done to influence it. Out of the two choices, religion is the only one that is connected to eternity. Many who are religiously inclined consider that religion is the only thing that should engross people’s passion on earth as opposed to earthly choices as political ideology and ethnicity.
It is indeed a complex matter comprising all the three elements. Our place of birth although to a large extent is a matter of chance influences or imposes on us the religious faith or otherwise that we ascribe and exercise or practise. Likewise, many Ghanaians today generally align themselves to political thinking and are manipulated by political groups mainly along ethnic lines as if some rocket science is at work in them. Thus for majority of Ghanaians, political ideologies, religious affinities and ethnic allegiances are symmetrical and symbiotically twined. I dare say that the ethnico-politico religious opium of the masses is at work in Ghana. This phenomenon is more of emotional manipulation by the middle class than rational analysis.
This paper examines the often sensitive, no-go-area and intricate symbiotic relationship existing along political ideology, ethnicity and faith/religion among Ghanaians. Party affiliation, tribal heritage and religious association have a common passion to drive people to the edge beyond rationality and the article seeks to find out which of these affinities most defines who one chooses to befriend or otherwise. Do Ghanaians really choose friends or disengage from friendship based on any of these three parameters or they are intertwined? Lately it is common to observe a lot of verbal exchanges and naked insults on a number of social network sites and on radio phone-in programmes among Ghanaians purely based on political and inter/intra religious differences and along tribal lines. Are Ghanaians getting more parochial and petty on trivial and non-essential issues of life?
Ideally, rationally, and scientifically, people should be judged based on the contents of their minds and hearts and not merely based on which tribe they belong or which political colouration they flirt with. Regrettably however, political affiliation, tribal allegiance and religious inclination are somehow intricately meshed together in this part of the world in the twenty-first century to the extent that once you identify with one of the trigonometric lines, you are unmistakeably and inexorably linked to the others. There are reports of some employers taking on new hands based on all or some of these elements other than competence. When it comes to relationships which must solely be based on love and understanding, sadly all these elements intertwine and only a few people make choices based on what is right and not what the norm is today.
In recent times too, the trend has extended to even sports, especially football or soccer which aim to foster peace, understanding and togetherness among all humanity irrespective of gender, sex, religion, ideology, creed, race, ethnicity and such other considerations. The dimension of sport has been added to the linkages as it is not difficult to tell whether one supports Accra Hearts of Oak or Kumasi Asante Kotoko.
If you pick any average Ewe or Ga-Adangbe person today, you can safely extrapolate and find the person being an National Democratic Congress political party (NDC) and most likely an Accra Hearts of Oak supporter or sympathiser with a margin of error plus or minus two (2). Likewise, any typical Asante or Akan person you voix pop on a Ghanaian street today is a sympathiser of New Patriotic Party (NPP) and most probably a Kumasi Asante Kotoko supporter with a margin of error of plus or minus two (2). Why is this so in our society today? Has it always been like that?
One would have assumed that, with the ease with which people move away or travel outside their place of birth, negative ethnocentrism would have been relegated to the minimum. There is this popular saying in Ghana: “travel and see”. It simply means that one’s horizon is broadened by travelling. Many people today have been born outside their ancestral homes and are expected to accept others, but even some these succumb to these irrational parameters of judgement. Indeed, ethnocentric feeling is a pre-industrial phenomenon where the security of the individual is limited to his immediate family members. Where people find themselves in urban anonymity away from their place of birth and upbringing, they seek to cluster around people who speak the same language where they come from. People coming from the same area clustering around themselves in itself is not wrong, but the non-acceptance of other people because of their place of origin is not acceptable. For this reason, every responsible Ghanaian must condemn and shun ‘all-die-be-die’ and ‘the great Ashanti project is terrifying’ mantras.
References
Addai-Mensah, P. (2009). Mission, communion and relationship: a Roman Catholic response to the crisis of Male youths in Africa. 2009 Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York p. 109.
Ikuenobe, P. (2006). Philosophical Perspectives on Communalism and Morality in African Traditions (New York: Lexington Books, 2006), 51 - 91.
UN (1948). The United Nations (UN) Charter on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Article 1. The United Nations General Assembly, New York. http://www.un.org/en/rights/ (accessed on April 1, 2011).
