Nana Akwasi Twumasi

In the installation of my penultimate article entitled, “Ewes and Ashantis: Building a Bridge over Troubled Waters,” I added what I believed to be an evenhanded voice to the open forum to discuss the knotty issue of interethnic polarity between the Ewes and the Ashantis, of the consequential interethnic strain negatively impacting the totality of national development, and of the need to engineer apropos circumventive strategies to deal effectively with these problems. To the best of my knowledge, however, I also believed to have offered a tentative diagnosis of our myriad national ills with their careful prognosis; but, unfortunately, the instructional scalpel I employed in my operational analysis would inadvertently prick and expose the raw nerves of my dear Ewe siblings. This was unintended. Sorry. We Ashantis should begin to extend olive branch to our Ewe siblings, and I would entreat Ewes to do likewise.

Also, I should like to admit to readers my inestimable elation over the blizzard of responses this article has generated across this brief time span however the many fierce and negative replies that surprisingly commingled with their positive counterparts. Again, to make a stronger case, I carried out a synthetic manipulation of a collatably juxtaposed set of the feedbacks, and it clearly, though unsurprisingly, revealed a pronounced interethnic aperture revolving around the Ewes and the Ashantis. How so? The Ewes were singularly overtly fiery in their critiques, the Ashantis’ and the others’ even less so.

The Ewes in particular took great offense at the way I exposed the political foibles of Rawlings, who, is himself, part Ewe part Scot, and the catholic official malfeasance associated with his government. Moreover, Rawlings’ two-decades-long executive jurisdictional powers precisely coincided with the geopolitical territoriality of Ghana?within which were and are found the variegated ethnic enclaves, many of whom had representation in his government. Yet, in so far as this is concerned, it never crosses my Ewe readers’ minds that Rawlings was as much my president as he was theirs, as was any Ghanaian’s, in fact. He is a public figure, a citizen also, an ex-president, and, therefore, not above the equitable bar of justice and of criticism. Doesn’t he Rawlings criticize President John Atta Mills, a Fanti, all the time? Where’re the Ewes when Rawlings disrespectfully sits astride Mills’ flimsy neck?

Why the double standard? The major problem with many an Ewe, I sure will volunteer, is when they blindly misconstrue a constructive criticism of the canonized Rawlings and his erstwhile government to be a collective attack on them. Inadmissible. Wrong. I can, however, only hope, sure enough, that my clarion call for national socio-political fraternization didn’t fall on clogged ears, nor do I want to believe the Aesopian linguistic complexion of the essay to have belied the true soul and letter of my interethnic conciliatory dissertation. Please!

Why did God situate man’s eyes sterically before him? So man could properly project his future in a manner that consistently guarantees successful actualization of his futuristic goals. This, I also believe, explains why humans lack dorsal vision. We were made to be forward-looking, not backward-looking, “victorious consciousness,” Dr. Molefi Kete Asante calls the former. Further, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s exhortatory apothegm, “Forward ever, Backward never,” presents a summary anatomic restatement of the steric orientation of the human eye and its purposeful visionary functionalism. Yet, sad to admit, the Ghanaian leadership, for the past 50 years, has been moving about in visional circularity, like a hopelessly deranged dog’s head chases its own frivolous tail, in situ, in sharp oppositional collision with Nkrumah’s positive enunciation of visional linearity. Equally, weren’t it the revolutionary reggae superstar Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger, who, together in a superbly emotive collaboration signalized by “You Gotta Walk and Don’t Look Back,” beautifully pronounced the following saccharine lines: “If you put your hands in mine/We gonna leave all our troubles behind/We gonna walk and don’t look back/ don’t look back/?” What more? What again?

Again, wasn’t it Nkrumah who preached the noble idea that Ghana’s independence held no political utility unless it was united with the manumission of the entire continent? But, after 50 years of Ghana’s independence, one asks, have the Ewes and the Ashantis been able to overcome the interethnic torsional strain polarizing them? Why the widespread interethnic susurrus then? Could readers refer to Molefi Kete Asante’s The Afrocentric Idea, and to Wole Soyinka’s The Open Sore of a Continent; The Burden of Memory, The Muse of Forgiveness; and You Must Set Forth at Dawn?

“Well, a louse can only get as big, though not as big as an elephantine dinosaur,” says the peripatetic lunatic. Can’t I even liberally speculate on interethnic harmony on Ghanaweb.com any longer? Is the site the hot new holy Mecca whose commentators cum editorial saints stringently demand intellectual impeccability from its contributors? Will the holy saints on Ghanaweb.com who often trumpet their sterile religiosity on moral issues -- vis-à-vis tribalism-- do all they can to drive sinners like myself away from Ghanaweb.com? I have pointedly said enough for digestion, predictably left enough food for thought, and graciously bequeathed enough legacies to posterity for contemplation.

My precocious 12-year old nephew, a keen diviner of the elderly mind, tells his 67-year friend, “The ear that stubbornly refuses to take a word of good advice grows false teeth.” He also predicts, “Uncle, when the canoe sinks, finally, the whole crew goes down with it.” Thus the Wind relates the story about the Fingers told several times over by the Palm and the Backhand:

Thumb: “The Pinky Finger is lazy, doesn’t like to work. Ask Index Finger. My presence makes it possible to okay your buddies, tell them it’s o.k. Right?”

Pinkie Finger: “That’s not true. Ask Ring Finger. Don’t let my pinky size deceive you.”

Ring Finger: “That’s true. Pinkie Finger isn’t lazy at all. Don’t let his Lilliputian stature sway you, Thumb. His marginal position is of immense strategic utility to our collective survival. Therefore, like the peripheral Thumb, he quickly spots the immediacy of an impending menace and purveys it to us with eye-popping alacrity. In the end, failure in this venture patently spells our doom. It’s no wonder our continuing survival synonymizes with the gnome finger. Hey, without me no one marries. ”

Index Finger: “I don’t accept the manual and mental inertia of Pinkie Finger. Thumb, he labors just as hard. He’s even exposed to more dangers than you’ve ever experienced. Besides, your sandwich locus between the arm and the inside of the torso offers the best protective covering you could ever dream of. How do you pick your nose without assistance?”

Middle Finger: “You all shut up! God forbid, but do you know what will happen to us should the carpal joint be severed? Have you brooded this question? The possibilities? We all die together from starvation indelibly attached to the Hand. Our ultimate survival, our sustenance, therefore, relies heavily on the creativity and generosity of the carpal joint, the Wrist. Be grateful. If you don’t believe me; ask the Palm and the Backhand.”

The Hand looks on nonchalantly as the Middle Finger gives them the nude phallic finger, then carefully yet briskly walking away, chuckling foolishly, even as it screams, “This’s why we must stick together. Simple”

Ashantis and Ewes are striving to do better. They can still do better for each other and for our country. My last word. My last article. No hard feelings. Love you all.

The author can be reached via nanakwasitwumasi@gmail.com