... and the PhD, BhD and KhD Syndromes

Reading a handful of negative comments on my article "Questions On President Kuffuor's Narrow Escape" has given me a chilling sense of deja vu, i.e it has given me a sense of something completely or excessively familiar. Perhaps it is even a misnomer to call them 'comments'. It would not be out of place to describe them as veiled insults, inexplicable knee-jerk reaction and strange political interpretation that would make even people with scant knowledge of politics, people with a slim grasp of politics, bow their heads in shame. There is not a scintilla of doubt that these vituperative attacks have been fueled by the all familiar PhD(Pull Him Down), BhD(Bring Him Down) and KhD(Knock Him Down) syndromes.

Why has the swipe at me given me such a chilling sense of d? vu? It is not uncommon for some Ghanaian critics to describe articles written by fellow Ghanaians as ?rubbish?,?useless?, and the writers as ?pedantic?,?too known,??book long???confused professor?etc. One such critic who calls himself Nii Yesu describes my article as ?rubbish?.He sounds like someone endowed with all the knowledge in the world and I do not have any doubt that he knows what ?rubbish? means. In case he has forgotten, I will gladly take him down memory lane.?Rubbish?, also known as ?trash? or ?garbage? in the USA, means, inter alia,?a worthless thing? or ?waste material?. Can Nii Yesu really put his hand on his heart and let Ghanaians from Kulungugu to Bukom,from Axim to Denu, from Gambaga to Accra, from Aburi to Nsawam, from Wiase to Keta, from Kitasi to Abiriw,from Adukrom to Obosomasi, from Dodowa to Larte from Koforidua to Odumasi Krobo, from Nsuobri to Kade, from Sekondi to Fenyi, know what is ?rubbish? about the article? To say in a couple of lines that an article is nothing but ?rubbish? without showing what constitutes the ?rubbishness? can only be described as intellectual bankruptcy.

According to Nii Yesu, peace be upon his wonderful, celestial name,?all over the world people rush to the aid of accident victims without for any fraction of a second thinking about their ethnicity, political leanings, or religious beliefs, it is universal.? This is one of the most sweeping statements I have ever read since sliced bread. I would like Nii Yesu to take note of this; some years ago I had the good fortune to live and work in a certain African country and I made frequent visits to a neighbouring country with the same ethnic composition. The hatred the two main ethnic groups in the two countries had for each other was such that if our President had been there on the day of the accident , he would have been left to rot in his car unless the rescuers had had cast-iron guarantee that he belonged to their ethnic group. Even at funerals people stopped weeping whenever they saw members of a rival ethnic group around so as not to give them anything to cheer about. That deeply held and deeply felt hatred culminated in the most horrendous genocide Mother Africa has ever witnessed. I have seen what ethnic hatred can do; it can make human beings behave like famished jackals fighting over a rotten carcass. I have seen such horrendous ethnic scenario repeated in a number of African countries. I have seen fellow Africans left to bleed to death after an accident because they belonged to another ethnic group; I have seen churches in which people were having a quiet communion with God being set ablaze while onlookers and passersby jumped with joy and showered insults on the people who were being incinerated.

At this juncture, I would like to touch on a few home truths as far as ethnic problems in our dear Motherland are concerned. In my article I wrote about the good naturedness of Ghanaians, an assertion that a lot of people around the world do not seem to disagree with. We are, however, deluding ourselves if we think that everything is hunky dory on the ethnic front. Ghanaians, I repeat, are, by and large, good natured people, but there are some Ghanaians who make our ethnic problems look like a time bomb, a powder keg, capable of causing full blown national conflagration that the most experienced firefighters would extinguish with great difficulty. It would, indeed, be utterly preposterous to skirt around the truth as if it were not there.

Let us cast our minds back to the recent past and we shall have some examples; the kidnappings and the subsequent bludgeoning to death of certain prominent members of our society; the beheadings and other unspeakable brutalities which can be described, charitably, as a nasty throwback to the palaelithic era and which are lush exemplars of the height to which hatred can take us. Some Ghanaians may ask, ?but what have the killings and beheadings of prominent members of our society got to do with ethnicity?? To such people I say, ?remember your Secondary School Mathematics, and do a little ?ethnic mathematics? and you will come to a Q.E.D, i.e Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

Let us expunge from our hearts that ugly hatred for fellow countrymen because they come from the Kusasi Region, Mepe, Winneba, Manfe, Nandom, Wrawra, Ho, Sunyani etc. We should eschew the habit of looking down on each other?s culture, bearing in mind that we are branches of the same tree, fruit of the same tree with the same roots. All the mangoes of a tree may not have the same sweetness, but they belong to the same tree.

A couple of years ago, I made a trip to the Motherland. One fine morning I took a Makola-bound ?trotro? from North Kaneshie. ?Yes, yes, montua ,montua sika no,?said the Aplanke, as he munched on a nicely roasted ?brode kokoo?and ?nkate?, around the five-minute mark of our journey. ?Ofane enyie,? I asked him in Ga. Anger suddenly etched on his face and he said, ?Me de saa rough kasa no menti; ka Ghana kasa papa.?? ?Den kasa na eye Ghana kasa papa?? I asked him in Twi. ?Ghana kasa papa ne kasa a woaka no,? he said without an iota of shame in his voice. Although my roots are firmly in the Akwapim Mountains, I shook my head in utter disbelief and I paid my North Kaneshie to Makola fare with trembling hands. I can say, without any fear of contradiction, that a person of his ilk does not qualify to be counted among sane Ghanaians.

A Ghanaian critic who calls himself or herself Acosta and who decries what he or she deems to be ?the esoteric syntax? of my article writes, ?I am not a whiteman and I do not speak the Queen?s language. Even those who speak or have the English as their first language do not write like this.? He or she ends with ?Come again, Cobblah, Tete,? an expression which, in our dear Motherland, is another way of saying ?I have made him small,? or ?maaye no pasaa,? ?maabooto no,? ?maatsere no nyansa? in Twi or ?mifeele small,????mi tsoole dwemo, ke eesumole eba ekonn , mafeele noko ni ebaana ake noko yedzen.? in Ga or ?me sie nyuwe,?in Ewe.I must say that I felt my soul weeping bitterly within me as I was reading the above quotation. In fact I felt as if a hot lance was being pushed through my heart. Why are we so adept at belittling ourselves and each other? Why do we have this inordinate inferiority complex? Is being white a prerequisite for speaking the so-called Queen?s language? Haven?t Ayikwei Armah,Atukwei Okai,Wole Soyinka,Chinua Achebe,Kofi Awoonor,Ama Ata Aidoo,Kweku Antwi Bosoako,Freeman Tetteh, to mention a few, mastered the art and chemistry of the Queen?s language as well as those who speak it as ?their first language?? Don?t we have Ghanaians, born, bred and educated in Ghana, teaching Journalism, English etc in London and other English cities? You do not have to be a whiteman before you speak the Queen?s language, or master it for that matter. Let us make it a point to stop manifesting our feeling of inferiority with such sickening enthusiasm.

Another critic who calls himself or herself Yirenn writes,?This NDC professor castigates the NPP for causing hardships among the ?so-called ordinary Ghanaians,? who the people(Yirenn?s own word.The word ?people? is nowhere to be found in this portion of my article )in authority(NPP Ministers,he means-this is Yirenn?s own twisted interpretation)treat as they would a toilet paper. It is sad when someone writes so well, yet it is palpably partisan and anti-NPP.? I wish the person who calls himself or herself Yirenn had quoted me well and not put words into my mouth. How he or she came to the conclusion that I was anti-NPP is something only he or she can explain. Is it a tawdry attempt to ingratiate himself or herself with certain people? These were my exact words.?These were ordinary Ghanaians who were possibly eking out a living, ordinary Ghanaians who probably did not know where the next meal would come from, ordinary Ghanaians who were, perhaps, hanging out, thinking of how to drag themselves from the seemingly bottomless pit of poverty. Perhaps they were walking majestically in their tired ?tsalewote? or chewing roasted maize, popularly known as ?mouth organ.? It is against this background that those in positions of authority should not treat the so-called ordinary Ghanaians as they would a used toilet paper. You never know when you will need the help of the so-called ordinary Ghanaian.?

Yirenn?s interpretation of the above quotation is questionable at best, and at worst spurious. I wish he or she had put on his or her thinking cap and analysed my article well, instead of resorting to a tunnel vision interpretation. I hope and pray that he or she will take his or her time to read my article and eat a humble pie. I would like to express my most profound gratitude to him or her, however, for making me aware of something hitherto unbeknown to me, viz that I am an NDC Professor, and anti-NPP. Thank you so much, Yirenn, Medawoase,Oyiwaladonn,Akpenawo,Naagode. Is it not a feather in my cap to be branded anti-NPP and yet be so concerned about the President?s wellbeing? Is it not interesting that someone described as anti-NPP is so solicitous of the President?s safety?

It is worth noting here that with the Democratic Dispensation in our dear Motherland, which is a far cry from the gladiatorial violence and brutality of the recent past, Ghanaians from all walks of life, from Tsito to Salaga, from Amedzofe to Ningo, from Agbogbloshie to Ablekuma, from Abossey Okai to Mataheko, from Abetifi to Takoradi, have the divine right to belong to any party of their choice. It is nobody?s business whether a Ghanaian belongs to Koklovi Party ,Kokloga Party,Kwekuahie Party,Kweodonkpohie Party,Wekokwekokwe Party, Atiglinyi Party or Etameleo Party. To ridicule someone because they belong, or are suspected to belong, to this or that political party is far from being the mark of a person who knows what peaceful co-existence is.

On a lighter note I would like to say that some Ghanaians have a habit of putting fellow Ghanaians into boxes and labelling them ?NDC Professor,? ?NPP Professor,??Anti-NPP Professor,? etc. I stand to be corrected, but I have seen quite a lot of references made to ?that NDC Professor? ?this NPP Professor? in a number of articles. Does it mean that Professors in our dear Motherland, a country with an area of 238,540 kilometres square and a population of about 20 million belong to only these two political parties? How interesting!

It seems that in our dear country anyone who does not belong to your party is regarded as an enemy and becomes the object of ridicule and derision and is called all kinds of names. One question I would like to ask is, where else in the world would you hear someone being called ?British Labour Party Professor? ?British Conservative Party Professor? or ?Spanish Popular Party Professor?? There must be something pathologically wrong with us and I have no doubt that sometimes our behaviour towards each other makes even the devil bow his head in sorrow.

Another critic who calls himself Joe Policeman writes, ?If someone who purports to be a professor can waste time and post this and all it contains is a porous thought, then I say nawaooooo.? Here is someone who does not even let Ghanaians know his real name. Instead, he hurls his gratuitous insults from behind a smokescreen, oblivious to the fact that his words speak volumes about who he is. In fact his words reveal him in all his nakedness. It is difficult for anyone to hide behind a finger.

Finally, I would like to inform critic Yirenn that the Party I belong to is an invisible party which is in the heart of every African who has the welfare of Africa at heart. It is called the Panafricanist Party; it is a party which works indefatigably, day and night, in its own small way, to help lessen the suffering of Africans on this long-suffering continent of ours; it is a party that does not regard members of other political parties as enemies; it is a party whose core belief is that regimes that trample on human beings like drunken elephants and lack the basic rudiments of justice should not be given a breathing space and should be given a nasty kick in the groin through universal adult suffrage and not through gladiatorial violence and brutality; it is a party that is fighting tooth and nail to find a permanent cure for the PhD (Pull Him Down), BhD (Bring Him Down) and KhD(Knock Him Down )Syndromes; it is a party that strongly believes that regimes that do not put self aside in favour of the common good should not be touched, not even with a barge pole; it is a party that lauds regimes that seek the welfare of the citizenry and condemns with all its heart those that rate citizens less important than an ewer of excreta; it is a party that has no room for sycophants; it is a party that gives the devil his due. Finally, it is a party that keeps on reminding those who have artfully converted their positions into comfortable five-star hotels and have converted citizens into doormats that Justice has no expiry date.

By Tete Cobblah
ctetecobblah@yahoo.com.br