TRIBALISM: The Skeleton In Our Closet

I suppose most of us Ghanaians, regardless of where our parents are from or what tribe we call ourselves, have experienced some form of tribalism before, or have observed someone being subjected to it. Better still, we may have done it to another person before. Think about it for a moment, and you might be able to call some of these experiences to mind - the name calling, the taunts, the pejorative comments, the discrimination and the daily stereotypes that we inflict on people who are not from our tribe. It hurts when you are the subject of this unkind treatment. When you are the one dishing it out, though, it might feel as if you are on an ego trip. You do not realize how the object of your unkind treatment feels about your conduct. Let me say at the outset of this article that I am writing about tribalism, a subject which evokes different emotional responses in different people.

I wonder, sometimes, how much Ga, Dagbani, Kwahu, Akwapim, Krobo, Guan, Bono, Ewe, Akim, Sissala, etc., a person has to be to be accepted as thus. I thought that if one of your parents was from an area of Ghana, and you spoke the language well, identified yourself with the people, was around them quite often, etc.,you could call yourself one of them. It seems, though, that to some people, that is not the case. And this is what I mean.

On 30 March, the Catholic Church appointed Bishop George Palmer-Buckle the new Archbishop of the Accra Diocese, to replace Archbishop Dominic Andoh; but Bishop Buckle's journey to that office was fraught with considerable opposition from his own people - the Ga-Dangme! According to the Ga-Dangme Catholic Community, the immediate past Bishop, Dominic Andoh was a Fante and because of that he didn't care much about evangelising the Ga rural communities. By extension, since Bishop Buckle's mother is said to be a Fante, he is likely to follow in Bishop Andoh's footsteps and shun the Ga rural communities. Besides, I have a feeling, reading between the lines, that the Ga-Dangme Catholics are getting "tired" of "Fante Bishops".

But wait a minute, folks! I had thought that because Bishop Palmer-Buckle's father is Ga, that makes him a Ga, irrespective of where his mother is from in this world. That's why I asked the rhetorical question about how much of a Ga one has to be to be accepted as thus. Or is it the case of his Fante extraction detracting from his Ga ancestry, and therefore leaving him less a Ga than others. And so I ask the question again, how much Ga does one have to be to be called a Ga? This "Ga-Dangme Catholic" logic is a little mind-boggling, to say the least.

Bishop Palmer-Buckle is a Ga! I know this because his younger brother, Bekoe, was my class mate, and it was in a school where Bishop Buckle (then Rev. Father Buckle) had been serving as a priest and teacher. I don't see why anyone would question his Ga pedigree. And when I visited his family house at Adabraka in Accra, I met his family who spoke Ga. In fact I didn't know, until this protest over his new position erupted, that the Palmer-Buckles have a Fante mother, which is even beside the point

Perhaps I am wrong, and Bishop Palmer-Buckle, after all, is not a Ga as I thought. And so what? Does Bishop Buckle have to be a Ga to be efficient in his new office? The office of Bishop is a spiritual one, and with many years of Diocesan and administrative work to his credit, it goes without saying that the priest is qualified for the job. No one has raised an issue with his years at Koforidua where he served as Bishop of that Diocese. As far as relevant credentials go, then, the priest has enough of it under his belt to move into his new office as Archbishop of Accra.

When people are blinded by raw tribalism they have no time to stop and reason. If the tribalists who are masquerading as Catholic faithfuls in the Accra Metropolitan Diocese had stopped to reason, they would have acknowledged that if being a Ga was all that the Archbishop's office was about, then the new Bishop, by virtue of being born to a Ga father, satisfies their narrow and parochial criteria.

I have also noted the enormous leap of logic in what the protesters are saying: like Bishop Andoh, Bishop Buckle will also neglect the rural population in their need for spiritual support and succour. There is no evidence to this effect. In fact, the only evidence that has been adduced so far by these people seems to be merely speculative - i.e. he is a Fante. Bishop Buckle is not Bishop Andoh, and so even if the allegations about Bishop Andoh are true, it doesn't necessarily support the hasty contention that he too would neglect the Ga rural communities. Not even if he too is a Fante, the whole point of the protest.

This is not the first time in recent months that the "Ga-Dangme" community is making "tribal" noises. It is on record that the "Ga-Dangme" Council protested to the government for naming the Accra Sports Stadium after Mr. Ohene-Djan, arguably, one of the most distinguished sports personalities in the history of Ghana. According to the Council, the stadium should have been named after a Richard Akwei who, they claim, served as a chairman of the GFA some time before independence. I wonder how many people in Ghana know about this obscure Richard Akwei, whose memory the protesters have suddenly invoked to back their demands for naming the Accra stadium after a Ga. Do the people calling themselves, the Ga-Dangme Council understand that when the government builds a landmark, something as unique to a Third World country as a sports stadium (because there aren't many like it in Ghana), it is for the whole nation and not for the people who dwell in and around the geographical area where that structure stands? And do they understand that the government doesn't need to consult with local people about the appropriateness of naming any landmark after anyone, as long as the choice of a personality reflects the national consensus of a national hero? Before long, the so-called Ga-Dangme Council is going to petition the government to remove J.B. Danquah's name from the Circle at Osu named after him, and call it something else. Next they might call for the renaming of the Kwame Nkrumah Avenue, Kwame Nkrumah Circle, the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, and who knows where else they would turn their attention after that. This is what the Ministerial Committee set up to recognize sports personalities in the country told the Ga-Dangbe Council: "..the naming of sports facilities after heroes and heroines is the prerogative of government and is devoid of any ethnic inclinations.....any illustrious son or daughter of Ghana can aspire to have a state facility in any corner of the country named after him or her"

The protests of the Ga-Dangbe Council against the appointment of Bishop Buckle stem from sheer tribal bigotry, which is all too common in Ghana and which could appear in many faces. Sometimes tribalsim causes people to launch unprovoked attacks on their neighbours, and many years ago I witnessed a form of it, and in a place where people are least expected to exhibit such backward behaviour.

In my undergraduate days at the University of Ghana I had a class mate who came from a "supremo" tribe in Ghana. He had a negative word to say about every one who was not from his tribe, including me. I soon grew tired of his demeaning remarks about me and others which often caused us to have arguments. Once he visited me in my room and found me with five of my other friends from a particular region of Ghana, the region he detested. He had to leave immediately because, as he told me later, he couldn't stand "those people"; he also teased me about my penchant to attract friends and room mates from "awkward corners" of the country. Not long after that, he did something that crossed the line of no return. While visiting me, he passed unflattering comments about a male student from another part of Ghana who was taking a stroll down the street with his girl friend, who also happened to be from the same area as the gentleman. When someone remarked that the guy had good looks and that his girl friend was very pretty, he shot back, "but those people are from........". I asked him what his point was about the couple being from that part of Ghana, when all they were doing was having a good time and not minding anybody's business. He responded that, well, we can't say such nice things about people from that part of Ghana because of...........repeating more disparaging things about our fellow students and their tribe.

The remarks made me angry, and I decided to call my friend to order because he had obviously missed it. And I didn't care if doing so was going to affect our friendship, because honestly, I had had it with his superior tribal attitude. I realized he had hit the couple in question well below the belt, so to speak, and it might need some harder hitting further below HIS belt to get him to appreciate how it feels like to rub a person on the wrong side. "Do you realize that the guy you are trying to ridicule is more handsome than you are?", I hit back. "Not only that but I think, too, that his girl friend is prettier than your wife (he was a much older student). And I am so sure about this because I met your wife on her recent visit." (In fact, the female student was one of the prettiest girls on Legon campus at the time). I continued, "remember too that this guy is going to take a degree in a field which, if all things being equal, would put him ahead of you in life and that you might never be able to catch up with him. Plus, I am told he is from a wealthy family. So tell me, friend, what makes you think you are better than this guy? Is it just because he is from that part of Ghana and you are from a 'supremo' tribe?" Of course, this was too much for my friend. Needless to say, we had a heated argument because he thought I had said too many personal things to him. He walked away in a huff and never returned to visit me. I felt relieved because I had been able to "crush" one tribal supremacist.

In fact the way the Ga-Dangbe group is treating Archbishop Buckle scares me when I think about the possibility of my mother's people taking a cue from them to treat me the same way some day. If I decided to return home in the year 2007 to take part in the NPP primaries for Akwapim North constituency, I could almost imagine opposition mounting against me because of claims that I am not "Akwapim enough". Some people may protest that my Kwahu extraction detracts from my Akwapim lineage, and might hold me back from bringing development to the Akwapim North constituency. I may shout above the din of their protests, and plead that I speak Akwapim better than many of them. My mother's people may ask me to go back to my father's people because my name "Diawuoh" doesn't even sound "Akwapim enough". But I might not be able to go back to my father's people because they hardly know me. In fact, I can't speak their dialect well enough to earn myself a chance at the primaries. And if they put me to the test and ask me to address a rally at Mpraeso or Nkawkaw they might be "horrified" to hear me conducting my address in Akwapim- instead of Kwahu Twi.

Folks, the above is only a hypothetical case. But Ghanaians can be quite tribalistic and there is no knowing what any one could do when it comes to one of their own vying for positions of authority, prestige and influence. Of course, I am not interested in attending the NPP primaries anytime in future, and all of that may be just an imagined scenario. But who says it can't happen some where in Ghana considering how much tribalism can motivate some of us and cause us to lose our minds.

It's the year 2005 - five clear years into the 21st century, and 48 years after Ghana broke free of British Colonial rule to begin the joyful challenge of managing her own affairs As a people engaged in building a nation-state, we have made considerable progress. Unfortunately, TRIBALISM is still alive and kicking! We don't often want to talk about it because, it makes most of us uncomfortable, and some of us ashamed of our behaviour. We would rather sweep it under the carpet and wish it away; but doing so doesn't rid our country of this evil. We have to confront it squarely; and one way of doing so is for us to bring the subject up for public discussion and debate. I hope my comments will stir up enough interest in you, my compatriots, to debate this subject from other angles, because as you know, tribalism is one big monster that can be attacked from several directions and still not miss your target. But as usual, I will leave my E-Mail address at the bottom for your comments. I know too that I have stirred up the hornets' nest and am going to get stung, but that's all right because I asked for it. Someone has got to say it, and it might as well be me. B.K. Obeng-Diawuoh Bardstown, Kentucky USA