The Revolt of Akua Donkor

Akua Donkor has propelled herself beyond her modest background by starring in a presidential delegation to Italy, a feat that has earned her a rainfall of taunts, mockery and outright insults. She has been dehumanized to the level of a beast at a banquet of royalty by the language of intolerance and disdain being poured her. But if that is set aside, Akua Donkor, despite her own faults, has accomplished something fundamental and long overdue, she has opened a door that many ‘new’ Ghanaians want permanently closed.

The entire controversy has been reduced to what she has or doesn’t have(mainly education), instead of who or what she represents. In that sense, Akua Donkor is symbolic of an uneducated, unlettered underclass that has been confined to the political and social wilderness by the arrogance of an elite brainwashed into believing in its own anglicization and westernization. But unlike that silenced underclass from whence she springs, Akua Donkor has bolted from the stables and has refused to hide in the shadows and let the Ghana Anglos run the show. She has escaped the margins and backyards earmarked for her and her unlettered like and she is making her loud, ‘embarrassing’ voice heard. This, it must be noted, is the true significance of the episode, not the name calling and political theatrics.

Some of the more legitimate sounding criticism refer to her perceived lack of capacity to add anything to the presidential delegation due to her non-literate status, but they forget that Akua Donkor is symbolic of that segment of the population that essentially feeds, clothes and transports the country- that downtrodden and marginalized group that produces food through subsistence agriculture, transports food to the cities for the lettered classes, drives urban minibuses and taxis and provide various road side services like food vending. Beyond the obsession of a society with attaching wisdom to fancy suits and speakers of big English, the heart of the informal economy is controlled by people like Akua Donkor or near her level of diction, including fitters or mechanics, carpenters, the masons who build our houses, and the vulcanizers who fix the tires of our cars. Some of the pastors and spiritualists consulted by the chattering classes are indistinguishable from Akua Donkor in terms of education. By denying the place of Akua Donkor on the presidential trip, we are denying a part of ourselves we have enslaved and kept under veil. We keep them in the shadows because we are so intoxicated with our new lettered status to see them as equal humans. In their inability to express themselves in the colonial language we falsely see as our own, they are an embarrassing reminder of what we perceive as the backwardness in our immediate history. Akua Donkor, and people who did not benefit from anglicization, are considered unwelcome in ‘respectable quarters’. They are an accident of history that must be hidden away. This says a lot about how the so called educated elite see themselves and their path to greatness. Ironically, lurking somewhere in the not too distant history of many a family is woman whose toil and sacrifice paid for all her children to go to school, helping to place the current generation in the high class they find themselves. Now that grandmother, in the form of Akua Donkor, has returned to catch up on the social life and enjoyment she produced through her sacrifice.

True, it is not wrong to examine the cost of her place on the trip to the tax payer, in comparison with what she is bringing in. These questions, however, appear to materialize at this time because an ‘illiterate’ has dared accompany the president. Some members of the lynch mob hinge their entire attack on her inability to speak English. Apart from the fact that Italy is not an English speaking country, it is being suggested that the mere ability to speak English is a sole license for joining a presidential delegation. They completely take a lazy approach by ignoring the large Ghanaian population in Italy, just like any other destination. A president may well select his travelling party with the characteristics of Ghanaians in these destinations in mind. People like Akua Donkor may have better use connecting with some of these people than a PhD in a tailcoat. In any case, a presidential trip is not a purely profit and loss, quantitative oriented kind of activity with immediate profits or rewards the sole motivation. It is more qualitative, with the diplomacy oriented objective of building long lasting partnerships and galvanizing Ghanaian diasporas over the long term. Her detractors make it seem that the presence of Akua Donkor has indebted the treasury by the stroke of a magic wand, because her uselessness on the trip is guaranteed. There are numerous state-to-state trips throughout the year for conferences, workshops, seminars and meetings that are reserved for the real technical people and are more susceptible to short term value for money analysis.

Even if the discussion is taken to a purely political propaganda arena, and we accommodate the possibility that Akua Donkor may be benefiting from propaganda services rendered to the NDC government, and that her trip is purely to reinforce this propaganda effort, and we go on to concede that Akua Donkor has been politically opportunistic and she is now enjoying the fruits of her labours, that still doesn’t make the attack on her participation fair or legitimate. The list of politically opportunistic people who have enjoyed presidential trips precedes Akua Donkor and looking at the political environment that is not going to end soon. People with destructive tendencies, such as violence inciting serial callers, political entrepreneurs and unscrupulous media people have gained from their opportunism in this way but have been spared this kind of ridicule. A direct interpretation of this bias cannot avoid the conclusion that only the literate or formally educated reserve the right to be politically opportunistic. Akua Donkor, on the contrary, cannot dare harbour and exercise such ambitions or join the party. This attitude of exclusion and discrimination, of course, should not be entertained.

The abuse of Akua Donkor in the mainstream and social media is remarkable because only the benevolence of a president can elevate someone of her background in this poisonous atmosphere. But just as this elevation by presidential action to a presidential delegation has exposed her to abuse, it has also served as a reminder that we cannot wish away the Akua Donkors of our contemporary Ghanaian society. At last they are here to take their seat at the high table.

Johnson Ayoka
CIS
Accra
Email –jayonka@hotmail.com

   Comments9