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Relocating – Living abroad 2
Some persons at the airport
In an earlier article, ‘Relocating’ has been made to seem all-positive and hunky-dory. Several years had gone into strategic and careful planning resulting in the acquisition of a good expatriate package before the journey to be in another’s land from home had begun.
Reasons for relocating may vary, and primarily be spread across the ‘seeking- a-better- life’ spectrum; a better life in a less stressful economic climate, a better life from political and environmental turmoil as in fleeing from wars, famine and diseases; a better life from political, religious and social persecution.
A common denominator in all these is the need to move from where one would usually call home, with set aims and objectives to be achieved in the place of relocation. These reasons are valid in their own rights, in my opinion the people who undertake a relocation are entitled to go wherever in their estimation, their ‘better-life’ will be found.
An observation of ‘Relocators’ brings to the fore two types – those who secure a fair certainty of their lives away from the homeland in terms of acquiring job contracts to those who leave on promises of securing jobs. Outside this bracket are those who leave without any certainty of a contractual source of livelihood; not even a promise. Those who flee war and unsavoury environments, be it for life, health, religion or social reasons are placed on the furthest end of this ‘seeking-a-better-life’ spectrum as no choice is given them really.
The kind of preparation for the first-two types mentioned above are as interesting as they may be varied. For both, years of preparations go into waiting for the most opportune time to take off.
Some preparations apart from the acquisition of knowledge and skills that will be needed for jobs in the new destination, entail a meticulous contact of a network of ‘Agents’ and several individuals, each in competitive businesses ensuring that ‘Relocators’ are assisted in landing in their notion of the ‘Promised Land.’
Sums of money involved in these transactions are eye-watering; not to mention other preparations such as being spiritually, often traditionally as well fortified for such take-offs.
The means of travel is equally diverse. To most citizenry of the ‘Relocators’ home-land, the obvious means of getting to ‘Abrokyire’- the land of the beyond is by air.
However, for various reasons known to the ‘Agents’ of some ‘Relocators’ any means of travel, such as sea, land and rail may conclude the ‘Relocating package’ for their clients.
Is it not indeed whispered that travel on camels’ backs, treks in desserts, bushlands; other such may be resorted to should the need so arise during the course of the ‘Relocator’s journey (?)
As if these unusual means of getting away to far-away lands is not disconcerting enough to the average citizenry, some may well arrive in the ‘Promised Land’ such as the UK, U.S.A. or Germany; parts of the Middle East, the Down Under without having had personal involvements at all with visa proto cols demanded of them from these countries. All such arrangements having been paid for and left in the able hands of ‘Agents.’
So it was that with the above thoughts forming the background of my research in preparation for completing Re-Locating 2, the topic of a Public Lecture at Gresham College, London caught my attention:
The Human Cost of Immigration Detention.
As I sat listening to Dr. Greg Constantine who had taken it upon himself to delve into the lives of people who had had the blunt side of seeking the better life most people relocating sought, the direction of Relocating 2 changed. I realised it would serve a better purpose to open a window through this Part 2 into some of Dr. Greg Constantine’s findings.
For some, the months and years of preparation does not yield the desired results of a good change in economic and other environmental conditions. They land in Immigration Detention Centres-a far cry from the vision of the better lives for which they had prepared themselves, and often times their families.
These Detention Camps were shown in pictures of grey walls spread in desserts, near airports; indeed everywhere-some close enough and within vision of the people in the Promised Land, yet hidden in the view of their busy, bustling lives! In these camps, begin an agonising several months, years, decades; ‘processing’ of their documents-legal or illegal, within which time, the clock ticks unbearably slow. Some lucky ones do enter the Promised Land but get immediately abandoned by their ‘Agents’ leaving them to a blind navigation to their vision of a better life.
My mind wandered to the in famous ‘Boat People’ who get to Europe on dinghies on open seas to France and Britain mainly, some of whom do not ever set foot on solid ground and become mere statistics archived for purposes such as had led me to sit in a lecture hall that Tuesday evening in March 2024.
Indeed, by March 27, 2024 4644 ‘Boat People’ had crossed the English Channel into the UK. This report on Sky News did not give a figure of how many ‘Boat people’ had not made it to dry land.
I wondered also, what could make groups of people with the same objective of seeking a better life find themselves aligned so dif ferently on the ‘Relocating Goals/ Success Spectrum.’
The difficulty with my thoughts lay in my inability to arrive at reasons for their predicament with out having any sense of personal guilt…they like me have the right to seek a better life; they like me have also researched their destinations; their routes on camel backs; dinghies inclusive.
Indeed, most of them in addition to our common modes of preparation had coughed out colossal sums of money I can only dream of to ‘Agents’ as an additional inclusion to their ‘Relocation’ package.
My pondering continues and though I am not concluded yet, all indications point to a failure of a system both in the homelands of relocators and the Promised Land to which their aspirations lay. What kind of system begets citizens desperate enough to want to undertake the crossing of high seas on dinghies, children and babies in tow? Worst still, what kind of system locks such seekers of a Promised Land up in ‘Detention Camps’ of sorts after survival of such traumatic journeys? Where, oh where is humanity?
Alas! My pondering continues…….
By Dzigbordi B-A
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
