Features
‘Demonstrations’: A testing ground for any healthy democracy?
Justifiably, many Ghanaians are expressing their frustrations over the unbearable high cost of living currently ‘afflicting’ the country.
Indisputably, prices of goods and services are skyrocketing to the amazement of many concerned Ghanaians.
Consequently, almost on daily basis, many Ghanaians are openly expressing their frustrations in many places, including homes, lorry parks, markets, schools, restaurants and on radio and television stations across the country.
It was, therefore, not surprising that a blended pressure group calling itself ‘Arise Ghana’ , took to the streets of Accra for two days (28th and 29th June, 2022), noisely protesting to Government over the excruciating hardships confronting many Ghanaians.
Reportedly, the ‘Arise Ghana’ group included civil society organisations, ‘okada’ riders, taxi and ‘trotro’ drivers, market women, some unemployed youth and many members and leaders of the Opposition political parties. Indeed, many members and leaders of the National Democratic Congress dominated the two-day Accra street protests.
The protesters, who were in their thousands, held many placards, some of which read: ‘Reduce High Fuel Prices’ , ‘ Inflation Out of Control’ , ‘Cedi Broken Jail?’ , ‘Food Prices Too High’ , ‘Cost of Living Unbearable’ , ‘ Corruption Galore !! ‘, ‘Scrap E-levy’, ‘Pay NABCO & National Service Personnel’ and ‘Ghanaians Are Suffering’.
Sadly, the first day of the ‘Arise Ghana’ protest or demonstration was punctuated by intense violence, rioting and chaos, thus, some protesters and police officers deployed to protect life and property, sustaining grave injuries on various parts of their bodies.
Really, overwhelming pieces of evidence abound that the demonstrators pelted the police with stones, injuring them and destroying their vehicles in the process. The police, in controlling the ensuing violence and rioters, fired rubber bullets and threw tear gas in attempts to calm the situation.
Indeed, police report confirmed that over 30 protesters were arrested while some of the 12 police officers who were hit by ‘missiles’ thrown at them , were hospitalised.
Security experts say, instead of the police controlling “a crowd of demonstrators” , they rather controlled rioters. But some conveners of ‘Arise Ghana’ also claimed that the police deliberately instigated the riots to derail the demonstration.
Readers, protests or demonstrations being ‘springwells’ of democratic culture, are properly embedded in the belly of our 1992 national Constitution.
Incontestably, in a democratic society, citizens have a right to gather peacefully and protest the policies of their government or actions of other groups with demonstrations, marches, petitions, boycotts, strikes etc.
Direct actions are open in a democracy, but traditionally, they have been used by the oppressed, the disadvantaged or minority groups who feel excluded from other means of influencing government policies. Such protests have always been part of democratic societies.
Today, non-violent protests, often designed to attract the attention of the news media , encompass a wide range of issues.
One special form of direct action is the right of labour unions to conduct strikes against employers with whom they have disputes that have not been resolved at the bargaining table.
Indeed, protests and demonstrations are a testing ground for any democracy. The ideals of free expression and citizen participation are easy to defend when everyone remains polite and in agreement on basic issues.
But protesters and their targets do not often agree on basic issues, and as such, disagreements may be passionate and angry.
The challenge then is balance; to defend the right of freedom of speech and assembly, while maintaining public order and countering attempts at intimidation or violence.
To suppress protests in the name of order, is to invite repression and to permit uncontrolled violent protests, is to invite anarchy. There is no magic formula for achieving this balance.
Probably, that might have been the basis for the violence, rioting and chaos that characterised the first day of the ‘Arise Ghana’ demonstration.
However, the second day of the demonstration, recorded peaceful scenes and episodes along the routes , leading to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and Parliament House, where the protesters presented a litany of demands in their petitions for redress.
Democracies make several assumptions about human nature. One is that, given the chance, people are generally capable of governing themselves in a manner that is fair and free.
Another is that, any society comprises a great diversity of interests and individuals who deserve to have their voices heard and their views respected.
As a result, one thing is true of all healthy democracies; they are noisy !!!
So, readers, is it really the case that demonstrations, protests and citizen actions are testing grounds for any healthy democracy?
Contact: email/ WhatsApp of author: asmahfrankg@gmail.com(0505556179)
By Dr. Akofa Segbefia
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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