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Insults, the new norm

By Samuel Nyigmabo
Article Insults, the new norm
JAN 31, 2023 LISTEN

I have been thinking lately about how my speech has changed. The kind of words I use which a year or two ago I totally abhorred. I am self-reflecting and the only thing that comes to mind is perhaps, I have lost sense of myself. Maybe, it’s the influence of the new revolution in town.

I am not that old but in my early teen's age, before a child will speak, he had to make sure no offensive word proceeded from his mouth. Children and adults alike were very careful of how they speak to each other. That culture is fading out gradually, if not completely.

Adults have lost regard for the kind of words they use on the young. The young generation has in turn lost respect for the aged. The seeming disregard for age and seniority in the new society is terrifying.

The Trotro Experience
On one faithful Friday afternoon, I had finished my class and headed to cover an event for a website I was writing for. I boarded a public transit popularly called “trotro” to my destination. The fifteen-seated overly used car had just about six passengers including the driver and the mate.

I joined them to make the fifth passenger in the car. The car took off but will stop at every bus- stop on the way for about 2 to 3 minutes to see if they will get passengers to occupy the empty seats. We made about four of those stops along the way in a distance of about 3km.

There were two Ga women and two middle-aged men in the car who were infuriated by the driver and mate's waste of time on the way. As a new passenger who just joined them, I sat quietly and watched. Although I couldn’t understand the Ga language, the two women by their tone and level of infuriation, I knew were insulting the mate.

One of the women began to insult the mate’s family and the young mate, in his twenties, was angered at how the woman suddenly began to rain insults at his family members who had nothing to with the situation. He also started to insult the woman and her children. The two displayed their tantrums until I got down from the car.

As I got down from the car, some thought kept ringing in my mind. Couldn't the woman find a better way to raise her grievances? Couldn’t have the mate kept mute and not reply the woman or found a way to cool her temper? Obviously, I will have managed the situation better if I was in their shoes.

That incident was not the first I witnessed nor was it the last. Insults have found a way into our society. Most people now feel the best way to express their emotions when they are hurt is to insult the other person inflicting the hurt.

In our political environment, on the airwaves, and on social media, insults have become a culture. Politicians insult their colleague politicians, politicians insult their opposition supporters, opposition supporters insult politicians, social media influencers insult their followers, and the followers insult those they follow at the slightest provocation. In fact, we all one way or another have insulted someone.

Some so-called activists or social media influencers have gained popularity for being scathing. In fact, the industry of using insults and other abusive words to gain popularity is booming and many young people are aggressively pursuing it. We now reward insults instead of castigating it.

Even in our schools, this new norm has infected there too. Students no longer give recognizance to their seniors, teachers, and authorities in the school. At the very least, schools should be the last place to have this obscene behavior. But it seems worse over there.

Chiana SHS Students
When the video of some young students of Chiana SHS students who were insulting the President went viral, I was sad but not shocked. It didn't hit me as a surprise because I have witnessed children insulting people old enough to be their grandparents. The little surprise however is how they were confident enough to record such an unsavory act and circulate it on social media.

The young teen girls who can be grandchildren to the President had the barefaced audacity to record their insulting section and post it online with the hope that the President sees it and gets boarded. If this is not an example of how shameful our society has become then, I don't know what is.

Not too long ago, some students of Sekondi College and Bright Senior School were also seen in viral videos after one of their final exams papers using unprintable words on the President for what they believe was a hard examination.

This situation should have prompted better mechanisms to check such insipid behaviors in schools and even within our communities but here we are talking about an even worse situation.

The culture of using insults to express disappointment and dudgeon in someone’s else opinion or action is fast becoming a norm. Adults and children have grown sour lips and at the least provocation will rain insults.

Society has sadly given confidence to people to do and say what they want how they want it. There is no regard for decency and morality. People do the wrong things and hide under Individual freedom and free speech. Well, It’s no longer a thing but insults have come to be part of our society.

Samuel Nyigmabo, a level 300 student at the Ghana Institute of Journalism

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