Christine Amanpour’s Sex And Love Around The World?; Women, Sex And Religion In Ghana

Until about a day ago, I had not had the opportunity to watch the full episode six of Christiane Amanpour’s Sex and Love around the World. This particular episode focused on Ghana, or rather zeroed in on the national capital Accra. Moments after a trailer came out, the social media space in Ghana was awash with some Ghanaians both resident here and abroad expressing rather distasteful sentiments against what the socialite Moesha Buodong said about women and the economy in Ghana.

For most Ghanaians, the first few seconds they watched was enough to put them off; thereby their refusal to watch the whole clip. I had not watched it because honestly, it had not occurred to me to watch; I had seen enough of it already too, well not until I saw one gentleman on Facebook do a full breakdown of the video, trying to understand and take word-for-word the intricacies of the video. [you can see the video here, www.facebook.com/magraheb].

After watching his concerns, I felt the need to watch the whole video myself. Of course I had to sit through the pain of watching Moesha talk about how she walks up and down ‘with her big bum’ in a bid to attract potential ‘investors.’ For me I would rather not continue the ‘Epistles of the Woman with the Big Butt,’ but focus on other areas that I found rather amusing; to say the least.

To begin with, most atheists or non-believers see others who believe in a supreme being as fanatics. As said by Lord Varys [Game of Thrones] “religious people are fanatics who blame everything on the will of God; if something goes well, it is the will of God, if something does not go well it is the will of God.”

Truth is; if you are a believer, yes everything is the will of God and not just by accident. There is a part of the Jehovah’s Witness’ ‘Awake’ I enjoy reading so much. They pick things from nature and ask ‘was it by design or accident?’

Back to the video, Miss Amanpour interviewed a Ghanaian singer; Azizaa and for me she had some interesting things to share on why women are treated as second class citizens in Ghana.

She said “new age Christianity. That’s our biggest problem right now. When the slave traders came, they came with the Bible in one hand and the gun in the other hand. I think it became a thing for people to convert to Christianity just to save their lives. It’s the one thing that saved them, but it’s the one thing that’s killing us.”

As if that was not enough, she continued to say, “Christianity, yeah I blame it all on Christianity.”

Believe me I get it, even the Bible talks about false prophets, it says “by their fruits ye shall know them [Matt 7:16]” Azizaa talks about how some ‘men of God’ manhandle women and so she believes that “our future is in the past” as she intimates that “our ancestors left something for us in the past.” She goes on to talk about ‘Sankofa’ which means we must return to our roots.

It is all well and good to talk about the dilution and pollution of the Christian religion right up until the point when you say women had a better system in terms of love and sex, and a place in society under our old traditional systems. Right then, you start to loose coherence and then nothing else you say makes sense or justifiable.

Note that Azizaa was not the only one who talks about Christianity. At the tail end of Sex and Love around the World, two women who I presume are the producers of ‘An African City’ [a movie/series] talk about the same thing.

One of them said “I feel like Christianity, what it’s done is a disservice to us. It’s sort of forced us to not be critical thinkers and not aware of where we are from. In our traditional culture, women are powerful and sexual.’

Then another says “I think there was a point in our history in which we were told sex is for us, sensuality and sexuality is for us.”

What I can get from this is it’s either I read the wrong history books, or these ladies with all the respect I can give them are deluding themselves.

Really? Women were in our traditional culture powerful and sexual? Was it before or after women were forced to shave their heads and sleep in a room for sometimes up to a week with their dead husband’s corpse? Or maybe it was after women were forced to marry the brother or brothers of her deceased husband all in the name of traditions and culture?

Were women powerful when they are forced to go almost naked and dance in front of men and whole communities in the name of ‘Dipo?’

How powerful were women when their husbands decided to marry any number or women he decided to because custom allowed it?

Let us talk about sexuality; were the sensuality and sexuality of women considered when their clitorises were chopped off? In those times how powerful enough were women to stop others from inserting their fingers into their private parts all in the name of making sure they were virgins before marriage? These are the traditions and customs societies abandoned because of religion.

For me double standards and hypocrisy is when twenty years ago, Christiane Amanpour did a story on the Trokosi system 20 years and now comes back to Ghana and believes that religion is what affects the sexuality and empowerment of women in Ghana.

Let us juxtapose this to Christianity? If these women could explain how Christianity has done us as Ghanaians a disservice when the Bible says “he who finds a wife finds a good thing [Proverbs 18:22]

How are women second class citizens in the Christian religion when the Apostle Paul talks about treating man and woman equal in Galatian 3:26-29?

Yes the Bible says the man is the head of the family but it nowhere stipulates that men should maltreat their wives; instead Paul talks about how men must care for their wives in Ephesians 5:21-30.

The list is indeed endless; 1 Peter 3:7, Colossians 3:19, Proverbs 5:18-19

These scriptures talk about how men are expected to treat women. Does the Bible encourage cheating on the part of men? Hell no!! Proverbs 5:20 and Hebrews 13:4 both explain how cheating in marriage is a no-no in eyes of the Lord.

So again, my question is how then is the Bible a disservice to Ghanaians so much so that some believe that we must return to the old ways?

The Bible talks about ‘wolf in sheep clothing’ if others are doing things that are not in line with the word of God it is as simple as they are not Christians.

You might not believe in the Christian Religion and what it stands for but to misrepresent facts to make your point; not cool. And so for me, it is a shame that such women who claim to be learned would have such myopic views on life and Christianity.

The future cannot be behind us, it is always ahead.

Credit: Mark Smith
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