Tribalism - Why We should Embraced and Celebrate

The use of such terms as “tribe, tribal and tribalism” in global media, serves only to pour scorn on the continent of Africa and all Africans, no matter where they live.

Tribes, tribalism, and savageness – these are but a few of the Western stereotypical images of Africans and Africa. Such images appear to a large extent in the Western world's production of film and print media. In times gone by, through films and books, evidence of narrow-mindedness toward Africans was in existence long before slaves were transported to the “New World”. The impression is that of the “Great White Father” whose intelligence the African could not match, that gave birth to colonialism and intrusion of the white man in our geo-politics.

Naturally with parents, they are familiar with the best approach that, to keep a child active is to continue to give out things to play with. This could be a toy, could sit the child in baby tub, a ball or even a car key.

The child will be playful. One does not need to be a specialist in parenting or a professional parent, to keep the attention of the child preoccupied regardless of the intelligence of the child.

This is the type situation as people we usually find ourselves. The shrewd politicians are very much acquainted with this kind of trends, that the best way to be in command of the citizens' consciousness is to continuously generate or create debates, and situations that necessitate debates.

Sooner than the debate on water is over; there is a building collapse; and before that is over, there is a judgment debt; and before that is over, there is burning of market centers; and before that is over, there is homosexual issues; before that is over, there is debate on high interest rates and before that is over, there is debate on MPs boycott.

One does need to be a professional politician, if ever there was such a term, to distract the masses, no matter the number of graduates amongst them. The average person will do average things to control average people. So it is with the tribalism disorder.

Is there anything wrong with tribalism? Not anything of course! Just as there is nothing wrong with being a man or woman; a Muslim, or Christian; or being black, white or colored. On the contrary when everything is the same, and when we wish to cause conflict between people, we have got to find differences in similar things, and so, we go for difference, which we can't change.

We go for tribe. Then we downgrade and equate nepotism to tribe.

This is downright lack of common sense. We are not nepotistic because we are Asante, Akyem, Ewe, Dagomba, Ga, or Dagarti. The truth of the matter is all of us are potentially nepotistic.

What makes us nepotistic is not tribe, but greed, lack of ethics, and lack of controls. We are nepotistic for the reason that we can be, and not for the reason that we are of a certain tribe or belongs to a certain ethnicity.

To attempt to justify behavior normally considered irrational or unacceptable by offering an apparently reasonable explanation on corruption as tribalism is in the same way not worth mentioning and useless.

Are we corrupt because we speak on the same wavelength in our language? Do we practice tender-preneurship for the reason that we were born amongst cattle herders?

Do we practice smuggling and hoarding of goods, theft of public funds, and sale of rotten maize because we were born among a certain tribe? Of course not! We do it because we choose to.

We are corrupt because we choose to, and we get away with it because someone lets us. Tribalism has nothing to do with corruption. Neither does tribalism it makes people spiteful.

We are quick to fault civil tensions and wars on tribe. How basic are our argument. Do people go to slash each other because the others are not, for example, Kusaasis? If that is the case, why not slash all Akans (Fantis, Akyems, Brongs, etc), Ewe, Mamprusis, Dagombas, Frafras, Dagartis, Gonjas, Nzemas, and Gas? After all, they are also not Kusaasi.

If they slash them because they are Kusaasi, why do they also slash fellow Kusaasi who associate with the other people? Any answer!

People do not create civil tension or go to civil war because we are of this ethnic group. We create civil tension or go to civil war because we feel if we do not, we will never have better roads, better schools, a share of our the natural resources and government employment, or feel neglected among others.

All these are decisions taken by men, men of any, and all tribes. Tribes have nothing to do with arming youth, denying the people justice and resources.

We charge underdevelopment on tribe. How backward or corrupt our thinking have become. Tribes do not build roads, no! The processes on how to allocate resources are responsible.

Tribes do not build universities. Definitely the answer is no. Money does that, and money is controlled by people.

Tribes do not build hospitals, or generate and distribute electricity, or grow and process food crops. People do, and the resources needed are controlled by people. People decide not to release the resources, then instead of arguing for resources, we argue for tribe.

It is disgraceful, and easy, to blame tribe. Tribe is so evident for such attacks that, once you make reference to its name, you need not make further arguments.

There is no tribe that is inherently violent. What we must understand is that all tribes are arrogant and gentle.

Humans by nature are both stupid, and intelligent, in equal measure. We can choose to act foolish, or wise, as fits our circumstances and objectives. But since it is hard to sustain an intellectual argument on why things are the way they are, we go on and on why tribes are right, and wrong.

We can as well argue that males are bad, and females are good. After all, like sex, tribes are not chosen by us, we are born into it and we will never change. It is beautiful to be tribal. We should have the knack to uphold our tribal point of reference.

There is the need to institute awareness toward our individual heritage. We should all celebrate a national tribal day, and we should call it just that, tribal, ethnic, day, not such fancy word as cultural days.

As a Nation we must cherish our individual heritage. We must call things by their right names; it is the first mark of wisdom. Today, I will celebrate my tribe. I ask you to celebrate your tribe.

Feel free to tell a friend from another tribe, I will wear a t-shirt bearing the words: I am an Ashanti, Adangbe, Ga, Anlo, Dagomba, Gonja, Nzema, Brong, Fanti, Denkyira or whichever tribe you belong to.

Greet fellow tribesman in your language. I will greet fellow Ashanti in Twi language. I will dance to Asante tunes, and I will sing Asante songs.

I am an Asante, body and soul. And I will encourage you, a Dagomba, a Ga and an Anlo to dance to your own tune too.

Let us be original and special, genuine and above all natural. Let us be who we are, so that we can respect each other as equals.

We are all tribal. We are tribes. We are humans. Humans are tribes. Humans are tribal. Let stop this ego-centric attitude and celebrate.

It is the Politician who is to be blamed and not Tribalism. Tribalism is “no monster”; rather a hate word used by the Whiteman to denigrate Africa and Africans because the Whiteman has no tribe to associate with.

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