Features
Et tu, GJA?
• Membership of the Ghana Journalists Association must be clearly defined
If you read Shakespeare’s *Julius Caesar* then the import of my title will not be lost on you.
My bottom line here is that, but for the food and drinks, many journalists or members of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) would have stayed away from the end-of-year dinner graced by the president of the Republic, Nana Akufo-Addo last month.
I make no apology for the above assertion because I have personally been involved in organising media events that saw many journalists falling over for small chops and drinks. And everyone knows this for a fact. But this is not the gravamen of my postulation today.
Some members of the GJA have not been happy with the recent election of the presidency of the Association, with allegations of vote buying, influence peddling and political patronage.
Long before the election, it was rumoured all over the media space that one of the contestants, Albert Kwabena Dwumfour, was a sympathiser of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the other two, Gayheart Edem Mensah and Dave Etse Agbenu, who eventually lost, had NDC sympathies.
It thus seemed that the GJA was split into two political camps, an unhealthy phenomenon creeping into a professional body; a body touted as the Fourth Estate of the Realm with a mandate to keep our political leaders on their toes and accountable to the people.
Indeed, the eventual winner is an employee of the Tobinco Group whose Chairman was seen in a viral video canvassing for votes for his employee with monetary inducement. He was actually heard saying if his employee was elected, it would enhance the fortunes of his business.
Dave Agbenu is the Editor of the State-owned Ghanaian Times and Gayheart Mensah is a staff of the Parliamentary Service in the office of the Rt. Hon Speaker. Nowhere was it rumoured that the Parliamentary Service or the NDC campaigned respectively for Gayheart and Dave.
As a businessman, Mr. Tobin is wont to shift allegiance to whichever way the political pendulum swings. It was, however, an immature act by Mr. Tobin to openly involve himself the way he did. Either he is not business savvy or rather naive in matters of mixing business with electoral processes.
Our political parties would be quick to want to influence the choice of leadership of the GJA. They have the right to want to get the media on their side. I have spoken to a few colleagues who confirmed the support the eventual winner received from operatives of the NPP, but they could not say if the NDC did the same for the other two. Some were quick to add that they knew the winner was pro-NDC but might have turned the coat.
If, indeed, he is a turncoat, the signal this sends is the probability to use his position and a launchpad for a future political career. If he harbours such ambition, it will be in his own interest to abort the thought before it consumes him.
One unfortunate perception the NDC, as a political party, has is that the Ghanaian media is in bed with the NPP and so might not be minded to support any candidate even if he is proven to be one of their own. I confess that Dave and Gayheart are my personal friends, thus it was difficult for me to make a choice between them. They both know that I never temper my principles with friendship.
I cannot say I know where Dave stands politically, but one might think Gayheart leans towards the NDC, simply because he supported his big brother’s bid to be the NDC flagbearer in the past. I do not yet know if this is enough proof that he had the support of the NDC. With hindsight of what the party perceives, the NDC would leave Dave and Gayheart to their own devices If, indeed, they were party men. Better still, if they were, the party would have sent a delegation to ask one to step down for the other.
Methinks if our politicians infiltrate our ranks, it is because we have allowed them to. Mention any known journalist and we are quick to tell you what party he belongs to.
Even some senior journalists are party activists, thus bringing objective professional conduct under suspicion. We cannot blame the politicians if they try to influence our elections. Every politician takes advantage of what inures to their benefit, not so?
I have two worries though. First is the monetization of the GJA electoral process. If we have a duty to write and say how dangerous monetization of our national elections have become, whether at congress or general election, and we turn around to do the same within our own processes, what moral right do we have to take our politicians to task for the same thing?
Second is the direction to which the GJA is drifting. The issue of defining who journalist is will not go away yet. The current president of the GJA is not a journalist, though he worked at a media setting. Ghanaians will recall the hoopla that followed the declaration of the late Komla Dumor as Journalist of the Year a couple of decades ago.
Komla, may he continue to rest in peace, was not formally/professionally trained as one, which was the basis for the objections his elevation elicited. I remember in one radio interview, I stated that until we delineated how the GJA was composed, there was nothing wrong with Komla Dumor winning the award. Today, the BBC has immortalised him with a Komla Dumor breakout journalist award across Africa.
By its name, the GJA must be an association of journalists by the descriptive nuances of who a journalist is. If we want to broaden the scope, then the current appellation is nebulous. It should rather be the Ghana Media Association.
This will naturally encompass all those working in the media space; administration, camera persons, sound engineers, producers, lighting persons etc.
Take the Ghana Education Service, for example. It encompasses all manner of employees, but teacher awards are limited only to teachers. There are pupil teachers, graduate teachers in both professional and non-professional categories.
Therefore, there are no qualms about who becomes the winner of the Best Teacher awards.
Therefore, who a journalist is and who qualifies for membership of the professional association must be clearly defined and spelt out. Until this is done, the issue of who is a journalist will come up every once in a while.
Personally, I do not care who heads the Ghana Journalists Association so long as that leader respects and steers the Association away from the path of political patronage. He must ensure that the group is insulated from outside influence and manipulation.
In a number of his books, Tuesday Lopsang Rampa always described journalists as the most evil force on earth. The GJA could fit this description unless it is steered away from licking political boots.
We cannot do our work at the behest of political paymasters. We need to protect our integrity, professionalism and dignity at all times.
Writer’s email address:
akofa45@yahoo.com
By Dr. Akofa K. Segbefia
I have often been saddened by the condition of Sikaman musicians. Of course, some are not musicians. They are jokers who think anybody who can sing a hymn is a musician. And why wouldn’t they think so when people think that every man wearing a rasta hair is a reggae musician?
Well, these days, almost everybody is dreaming of becoming a musician, even some ministers and parliamentarians. And it is never too late for them to begin learning the solfas and composing songs like “If You Do Good You Do For Yourself,” after all, life begins at 60 these days. If you die three years later, that’s your luck.
For the jobless, becoming a musical star is an everyday dream. They think when you are a music maker, you automatically break alliance with poverty. They are often mistaken.
I know people who claim they are musicians but are always fasting not because they are devout moslems or are on a hunger strike, but because even one square meal a day is a perpetual wahala. And the only drink they can afford is the poor man’s holy whisky which has a thousand names including ‘Nyame Bekyere’.
Even most of the popular musicians we see in town claiming they are foreign-based stars are more of hustlers than musicians. When they tell you they are going on tour abroad, it is a careful way of saying they are going overseas to scrub the whiteman’s toilet or pick tomato or apples to save their neck from musical poverty.
When they are back to Sikaman, they appear quite flamboyant with chains hanging all over them. They change the few dollars they have scraped, spread it around and promptly get broke. Then they can organise another ‘tour’. In between tours, they struggle to release an album and that levels them up a bit on the financial balance.
It all points to the fact that the life of the average musician isn’t quite organised. He has no calendar, no programme and no concentration on the job. He has to wash plates, become a waiter, janitor and toilet scrubber while finding time to make music. No musician succeeds in life that way.
One musician I’ll always respect, who thinks deeper than the ordinary Sikaman musicians is Carlos Sakyi. He is not like the Kokoase guitar musicians who see the world just in terms of bitters, a willing girlfriend, constant supply of kokonte and jot.
Carlos, often loved for his percussive overtones in gospel music, and once a gospel-rock star, has studied the life of Sikaman musicians and has evolved a blue-print for a great improvement in their lives work, finances and comfort.
In short, he has simulated a Motown-style environment for musicians and his formula is working with accuracy with the five musicians he has started with. The blue-print is what has brought MEGASTAR into being. It was launched on September 15, 1995 at the National Theatre.
When it got launched, many probably thought Carlos was “too know or was dreaming more than he should and won’t think about himself. Anyhow, the MEGASTAR is now an institution musicians can look up to, a big phenomenon with lots of promise for struggling musicians.
Music business in the developed world is not the way we regard it cheaply here. A musician is never distracted by how his finances go; his contracts are entered, his engagements made, his interviews arranged, his personal security guaranteed.
Music is his business and that is where his mind is and his attention focuses. Other aspects of his life are programmed for him by his managers. They hire who has to light his cigarettes, massage him, drive his car and the one who will say “Good Luck” when he sneezes.
A bodyguard whose face is exactly like that of the devil is hired to scare off muggers, psychopaths and criminals in general. Sometimes his girls are organised for him.
So the only thing the musician does apart from sleeping and snoring is to concentrate on making music, and true to it, no one can succeed in any venture when he is distracted.
This is how the Michael Jacksons, Lionel Richies, Dolly Patons and Whitney Houstons have made it with dollars packed and over-flowing. They aren’t any better than Sikaman musicians. The only difference is that they know how to organise their lives.
I managed to corner Carlos Sakyi and asked him to tell me how MEGASTAR was doing. He is the Managing Director of Megastar Limited, a music company that has a board of directors and a chairman. Carlos Sakyi shares the proprietorship with a partner. Carlos himself was one great musician who played for a band that beat Eddy Grant on the charts.
“Megastar is in fact a concept born out of the idea that the future security of the Ghanaian musician which has always been in jeopardy can now be guaranteed. Artistes spend too much of their time doing things on their own, chasing money and not concentrating on music. So their full potential is never realised. Some are in fact producing at quarter-rate. That is why they aren’t making much headway,” he told me.
“Megastar is now giving them the chance of the lives. We handle the interviews of Megastar artiste, their press releases, costume, engagements and everything they hitherto used to do themselves. We get them exposed on M-Net and we have contacted BB to get on their programmes. We handle their finances pay them salaries and bonuses, so they only have to concentrate on music
“Most importantly,” he continued, “we do not make all the decisions. Management always meet with the musicians to take the decisions that affect them.”
But who are the Megastar musicians? One is the great Amakye Dede, a star from birth delivered onto the earth with music on his lips; he is the man who feeds hungry ears with musical salad and harmonic sausages. He is the recipient of many national awards.
Next is Naana Frimpong, a latter-day Carlos-groomed songbird with the voice of an angel. She sings to kill. Her beauty has charmed her audience and they stare and stare at her.
The sensational and fantalising Tagoe Sisters are the next. The twin music machine is one that has produced the cream, arguably the very best, of gospel music all these years. I hear they are inseparable; not even their better-halves can keep them apart. Are they Siamese? They dance, and when on stage, they move the crowd.
Then comes Reverend Yawson who is a known songwriter. He is imbued with the Holy Spirit, speaks in tongues and of course sings in tongues. He is God’s representative on the group.
What about my good friend and super-heavyweight, Jewel Ackah? He is a star figure. His appearance is awe-inspiring, his voice golden. A great delight to be-hold when at his best in stage-craftsmanship, he has beaten his contemporaries to it both on land and on sea.
They are the pioneers of the Motown idea. They are all releasing new albums this year. Let’s see how it all goes.
In recent years, the term “female rage” has gained significant traction, symbolising a collective shift in how women’s emotions are perceived and addressed.
This phenomenon is not merely a fleeting trend but a profound movement rooted in centuries of systemic injustices, personal betrayals, and societal expectations.
As women increasingly reclaim their anger, it is imperative to understand the multifaceted nature of female rage, its causes, and its implications for individuals and society at large.
The historical context of female anger
Historically, women’s emotions have been subject to dismissal, ridicule, and pathologisation. The term “hysteria,” originating from the Greek word for uterus, was used to describe women’s emotional states as irrational and uncontrollable.
This legacy of silencing and shaming has contributed to a culture where women’s anger is often suppressed or stigmatised.
However, with the rise of feminist movements, women are challenging these narratives, asserting their right to express anger and demand change.
The anatomy of female rage
Female rage is not a monolith; it is a complex and multifaceted emotion driven by various factors, including:
1. Societal expectations: The pressure to conform to traditional roles of passivity, politeness, and emotional labour.
2. Gender inequality and pay gaps: Frustration stemming from systemic discrimination in the workplace and beyond.
3. Sexual harassment and abuse: Trauma and anger resulting from pervasive violence and objectification.
4. Emotional labour and burnout: The unsustainable burden of managing emotions and responsibilities in personal and professional spheres.
5. Hormonal fluctuations: The impact of hormonal changes on emotional states, often overlooked or dismissed.
The power of anger: Reclaiming female rage
Far from being a destructive force, female rage can be a catalyst for change. When acknowledged and channelled constructively, anger can drive advocacy, policy reform, and resistance against inequality.
The #MeToo movement, women’s marches, and increased representation in politics are testaments to the power of collective female anger.
Addressing the Stigma: Towards a more inclusive dialogue
To fully harness the potential of female rage, society must address the stigma surrounding women’s anger. This involves:
1. Validation and recognition: Acknowledging women’s emotions as legitimate and worthy of attention.
2. Creating safe spaces: Providing platforms for women to express anger without fear of backlash.
3. Education and awareness: Challenging stereotypes and promoting understanding of women’s experiences.
4. Support systems: Offering resources and support for women dealing with trauma and systemic injustices.
Conclusion
The age of female rage is a moment of profound transformation, where women’s anger is no longer silenced but celebrated as a force for justice.
By understanding the roots of female rage and addressing the societal structures that fuel it, we can move towards a more equitable and compassionate world.
The journey is complex, but the destination-a society where women’s emotions are respected and their voices are heard is worth the struggle.
References:
[1] Chemudupati, P. (2022). _The Rage of Women: A Historical Perspective_.
[2] Traister, R. (2018). _Good and Mad:
By Robert Ekow Grimond-Thompson
