Nancy Abu-Bonsrah: A Lesson To Learn

Two weeks ago, Nancy Abu-Bonsrah made Ghana and Africa proud by becoming the first female neurosurgeon resident at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her unprecedented achievement has multiple layers of implications for Ghanaians and Africans.

First, her feat challenges Euro-American racism that assigns mental inferiority to the Blackman/woman. The underachievement of contemporary Africa has sustained the racially laced debate that Africans are less intelligent and incapable to produce anything scientific. Paving the way for colonialism in the so-called Third World, colonial anthropologists developed all forms of jaundice analysis to conclude that Africans were mentally incapable. It was even said that Africans did not have the mental capacity to conceive the notion of God, because it was assumed that the notion of God is so philosophical that the untrained African mind could not conceive. As late as October 2007, Nobel Prize winner, James Watson, stirred controversy across the world when he repeated the old-age prejudice that Africans are intrinsically less intelligent.

Over the centuries, such lopsided and narrow-mindedness has been appropriated to justify the various heinous crimes that were committed against Africans. Unfortunately, the Holy Bible was used to provide religious endorsement to the maltreatment of Africans. False hermeneutics was also used to rationalise very damaging practices such as apartheid in settler colonies like South Africa. In the contemporary world, the same Bible is wrongly used to indoctrinate Africans to kill themselves, as Euro-Americans spread their denominational tensions to Africa.

Islam cannot also be left off the hook. Throughout history, the Muslim-Arabs also developed very demeaning outlook about Africans. The Islamic slave trade, which preceded and survived the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, was predicated on the theological assumption that it was right to enslave and inhumanly treat Africans, who were largely considered infidels. The use of the Qur’an as the basis of bifurcating the world into the Abode of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the Abode of War (Dar al-Harb) deeply sustained an entrenched racial discrimination against Africans. It is sad that, while the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade was abolished in the 19^th Century, the Islamic Slave trade, which preempted Europeans in Africa, has never ended. In the 21^st Century world, most of the Arab countries continue to treat Africans as sub-human beings. Sadly, the deeply racists Arabs, who vent all forms of inhuman treatments on Africans do not receive the rigorous academic attention. The few scholars who have brazened it to write about the ill-treatment of Africans by Arabs are simply called said to be funning the flame of Islamophobia. What a world!

Long before the Europeans and Arabs thought of bringing their so-called civilisation to Africans, Africans had developed a complex civilisation that provided the basis for the civilisations of other parts of the world. A close analysis of the debates between Martin Bernal and Mary Levkowitz help us to appreciate the extent Africans provided the foundation for Western civilisation. The works of Chiekh Anta Diop, Molefi Kete Asante, and John Henrik Clarke have helped cast a new focus on the contributions of Africans to the world. In the contemporary world, there are a significant numbers of Africans who are providing the pace for scientific advancement in the world. Abu-Bonsrah gives us hope that, indeed, Africans are capable.

Second, Abu-Bonsrah’s achievement also contributes to challenging male chauvinism and androcentrism in our world. Since Eve was accused of having set sin in motion, women have never had their freedom. Most cultures in the world have had very skewed perception about women. In the same way, most of the religions of the world, including African Traditional Religions, have assigned every negative attribute to women. Some religions even claim that there would be more women in hell than men. Following this shallowness about women, the world has been very hostile to women. Honour killing, widow inheritance, bad widowhood practices, Trokosi, Female Gentile Mutilation, witchcraft accusation, wife battery etc have blighted the prospects of women globally. What is worse is that throughout the ages, women have been relegated to the background because they were said to possess very little mental capacity. In ancient Greece, the so-called harbingers of Western civilisation, women were excluded from politics, because of their perceived mental inferiority. Even in some societies in Africa that were believed to have friendly attitude toward women, women were, for the most part not part of mainstream politics. In Europe, women were considered part of the man’s property at marriage. This partly explains why for a very long time, women in Europe were excluded from politics until the 1900s. Abu-Bonsrah’s achievement thus comes at the right time, as it challenges the deeply patriarchal nature of our world.

Finally, Abu-Bonsrah’s achievement also challenges Ghanaians and Africans to develop their medical schools. There is always a deficit in the supply of medical practitioners. This has had a terrible impact on us whenever doctors embark on industrial action. The study of science in Ghana and Africa is still encased in mysticism. There is some form of primitive mystique formed around the study of medicine. It is believed that to study medicine, one must be super-intelligent, in addition to coming from aristocratic family. Abu-Bonsrah’s success challenges us to deconstruct the myth about the study of medicine. I am deeply convinced that Ghana is capable of producing excess doctors. Ghana also has the capacity to export doctors to the rest of the world, like Cuba is doing. What needs to be done is to restructure the study of science and other regimental courses in our schools. If we provide a good foundation and develop a new methodological approach to the study of science, I think that we would in no time produce a number of doctors to take care of the sick in society.

The political elites should also invest in the study of medicine and other science related courses. Children with precocious ability in the sciences, regardless of their social backgrounds, should be financially and materially supported to pursue the study of science. This development would break the tide that keeps medicine as aristocratic profession. It would also frustrate the elitist political economy of medicine.

Nancy Abu-Bonsrah has made us proud, and we, as Africans, need to provide the morale support for all to develop their talents. Africa has what it takes to take off. What we need is commitment and the right Christocentric worldview.

Satyagraha
Charles Prempeh ( [email protected] ), African University College of Communications, Accra