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What Ghana needs now is good men and women
• We as a nation know much of religion but apply little
If it’s true that wisdom consists of the proper application of knowledge, then it’s equally true that knowledge without application is a form of ignorance.
History itself provides ample proof of this assertion, for much of the carnage and destruction which characterises the human species have been committed by those professing religious knowledge and secular knowledge. And what’s even more tragic, the Gospel of Love has been used by governments and dictators alike as an instrument of intimidation, corruption and gain. And in the name of the gentle Galilean Himself, wars have been waged and entire nations eradicated.
We as a nation know much of religion but apply little. We will argue for religion, fight for it, and even die for it, but few of us will live for it. We long for the immortality of another world yet find it difficult to live together in this one.
A knowledge of gospel principles, then, is no guarantee that religion will become a motivating force in the lives of men.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not as much a philosophy of thought as it is a philosophy of life. It was not simply words and logic which characterised the life of Christ, but action and behaviour. His words were few; His deeds were many.
And what few words we do have of His provide only an outline for the application of love and charity. “The Sermon on the Mount” is nothing more than a call to brotherly love.
And, the application of that short sermon to the events of our modern world would solve forever the most destructive ills of mankind.
What Ghana needs now is not new ideas, but the application of the old truth, the adoption by mankind of the simple virtues contained in “The Sermon on the Mount.”
Such application would let mercy patrol the skies above the land we walk on; it would permit pureness of heart to administer the affairs of world leaders, and charity to preside in the great assembly halls of governments; it would suffer the peacemakers to walk the streets of troubled towns and reconstruct the rubble of devastated lands; it would allow those who mourn to comfort the sick and homeless of the slums and ghettos, and those who are poor in spirit to bring solace and shelter to the aged and unemployed. Such application would establish an unwritten law in every city and in every town of this nation the dear brotherhood of man.
Then and only then will brothers not lift up sword against brothers, neither shall we learn war any longer.
William Penn is credited with the statement that “If men be good, government cannot be bad.”‘ On first hearing, one may be inclined to challenge the idea altogether. Certainly, there would seem to be many exceptions.
History records innumerable instances where the will and wishes of peoples have been swept aside. But despite the seeming exceptions, the persistence of any condition suggests that it is made possible either by the positive promotion or the passive permission of a significant number of people. No tyrant or misguided leader stands alone.
No false way persists without followers. And the fact that there is a sufficient following is in itself evidence of a compromising condition on the part of the people. The very existence of tyranny, of corruption, of abuse, of evil and excess, anywhere, anytime, is in itself an indication that somewhere along the line an alarming number has relaxed standards and vigilance.
Such things don’t permanently and flagrantly persist against the active and earnest opposition of a preponderant part of the people. And William Penn’s statement is both disturbing and challenging because it places the responsibility right back where it belongs and takes some pleasure from the prevalent and age-old practice of blaming everyone else while sitting back and doing nothing about the practices that are complained of.
It challenges us to ask ourselves: What obligations and interests have we neglected? What vital things have we been too busy to bother with? What compromises of principle have we permitted? What basic departures have we consented to for the promotion of our own particular purposes? What situations have we complacently assumed someone else would correct? At what abuses have we shrugged our shoulders?
Admitting all the exceptions, admitting all situations in which people are unwillingly imposed upon, still essentially, and in perspective, governments, cities, societies are largely a reflection of people. And if there are abuses, if there are arrant evils, if there are flagrant departures from principle, we had better begin with an honest scrutiny of ourselves, and soberly look again at this sentence from William Penn: “If men be good, government cannot be bad.”
By Samuel Enos Eghan
Email: samueleghan@gmail.com
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
