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Your silence is more than deafening …speak now or forever hold your peace
I have had many people, both friends and otherwise, ask, “Why do you seem as such a different person now in your older age than you were in your youth?”
Usually, I laugh at these questions or insinuations of all kinds because all my life, I have endeavoured to live a very simple life; I guess that as one gets close to the ‘three scores and ten’ stage, one’s general attitude to everything changes, as one begins to question all things, particularly those that one had taken for granted all those years, beginning with not amassing wealth at any cost, especially from questionable sources but more on how one intends to leave this country in a ‘far better state’ than that which was bequeathed to him or her.
As you age, you begin to question yourself over how fairly you have treated others because you know deep down in your hearts of heart, you are most worried about how you will be received back home in the hereafter and equally important, how those you leave behind will be treated according to the weight and depth of your ‘sins’ here on earth or particularly how your children and their children will be treated for your name sake.
That is when you come to full circle to the weight of how badly you treated others, when by just uttering a word, you could have changed their fortunes for the better, and for which they would have been eternally grateful.
You see, the JUDGEMENT or ‘SELF-INTROSPECTION’ begins here on earth before you leave. Sometimes, they manifest in the way and manner you leave:- long sicknesses, accidents of all kind, isolated lives of no-care as you antagonised all those who could have been there for you in your last years, months, weeks, days, hours and moments.
This world isn’t just about YOU amassing riches in any manner and mode, even when the cost of it is denying use of resources to develop facilities like schools, recreation/health centres and better roads for use by the general public.
Funny but it is at this advanced ages that you realise that you had missed the whole essence of your life here on earth: ‘THE PRINCIPLE OF SOMEBODY’S CHILD – The Myth of Fleming – Churchill’. This myth will always serve as the basis for HELPING OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN’.
You see, any child, in our old traditional or village setting ‘belonged’ to somebody and that’s why a whole
village in those days could contribute towards the education of their brightest pupil, irrespective of who the parents were, except that they are members of the same village who cannot afford to educate the child.
They all contribute, knowing that he or she will always come back to the community to support not only his or her parents but the entire community at large.
Even more importantly, the entire village believed in the principle that you never know who would be around at your worst or most critical need or moment: maybe not your own children but ‘SOMEBODY’S CHILD’.
That is why it is always important to do ‘good’ at all times, not pick and choose, because the person to save you at your worst need, wouldn’t be your own child.
If you just can’t help other people’s children, please refuse to be a conduit for denying them use of national resources through corruption, or their share thereof: denying them access to proper education through equal opportunities.
And if you think you can’t help in any way except concentrate on your own core or extended family, at least you could join the ‘unseen faces’ with voices to SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER, thereby ensuring that national resources are judiciously applied for the benefit of all, than just family and friends.
The OLD MAN ABOVE has a great sense of humour, and that is why He uses simple things of the world to confound the proud, self-conceited, hypocritical, arrogant and selfish people, who when they get to power forget, with no sense of appreciation, those people on whose backs and suffering they rode into office with the power of attorney to manage national or state resources for the general good other than themselves, family and friends.
If you are one of those ‘unseen faces’ with a voice to speak truth to power, but are sitting on the ‘fences of life’, pretending what is going on around the rest of the populace does not concern you, then it is a sad reflection of your own life; and you are better off reading the next passage of ‘FIRST THEY CAME’.
‘FIRST THEY CAME’ by Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.
MARTIN NIEMÖLLER (1892-1984), the writer, was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany, who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler, and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. He is perhaps best remembered for his post-war words, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out…”
The quotation expresses Niemöller’s belief that Germans had been complicit through their silence in the Nazi’s imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people. He felt this to be especially true of the leaders of the Protestant churches.
In 1920, Martin decided to follow the path of his father and began seminary training at the University of Münster. Niemöller enthusiastically welcomed the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler. But a turning point in his political sympathies came with a January 1934 meeting of Adolf Hitler, Niemöller, and two prominent Protestant bishops to discuss state pressures on churches.
At the meeting it became clear that Niemöller’s phone had been tapped by the Gestapo (German Secret State Police). It was also clear that the Pastors Emergency League (PEL), which Niemöller had helped found, was under state surveillance. Following the meeting, Niemöller would come to see the Nazi state as a dictatorship, one which he would oppose till his death years later.
You see, if you become like MARTIN NIEMÖLLER and pretend to not see what has been going on for the past 29 years of the Fourth Republican dispensation of ‘WINNER-TAKES-ALL’ mentality, where once your party goes into opposition, you are denied any fair share of the national cake or opportunities, treated like you do not belong to this country: to the extent others with impunity will dare say to all that “We Are Taking Back Our Nation”, as if to intimate that the rest of us are foreigners.
People’s children have finished university, sometimes with great grades yet cannot be employed because they do not belong or they have been contracted to offer services to this
nation under one regime but the next regime has to pay the bill but refuses to on the premises that, you do not belong to them – is that the kind of an all-inclusive people we want to be governed by? That state resources are only available to ‘them’ not us because we do not belong?
Is that how far back we have retrogressed as a nation and as a people; and worse, those with voices to speak truth to power have faded back into their individual cozy circumstances sponsored by state, under all kind of disguises?
These same voices who were so vociferous during the reign of other governments in the past, the Church, becomes as mute as a popstar who loses his voice – Remember MARTIN NIEMÖLLER’s last stanza of ‘FIRST THEY CAME’ piece: Then they came for me, And there was no one left, To speak out for me.
Need I say more, when we have been more than quiet over the years since 1993 on CORRUPTION, UNFAIR ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES AND SERVICES TO COMMUNITIES, ABANDONED PROJECTS (as if developed by someone’s private resources not state), NEGLECT OF PLACES (because that’s not where we get our most votes from during elections or come from), DENIAL OF OPPORTUNITIES (because our government is out of office).
What about those of us, who do not belong to the two dominant political blocks, WHERE DO WE BELONG IN THE SCHEME OF THINGS?
This is my sequel to Martin Niemöller’s piece: ‘SECOND THEY CAME’
Second they came for the NPP Appointees
And I did not speak out
Because I was not NPP Appointee
Then they came for the NDC Appointees
And I did not speak out
Because I was not NDC Appointee
Then they came for the TUC Executives
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a TUC Executive
Then they came for the UTAG Executives
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a UTAG Executive
Then they came for some GJA Members
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a GJA Member
Then they came for some Radio Presenters
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Radio Presenter
Then they shot innocent bystanders during General Election
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a bystander
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak for me.
Need I say any more?
By Magnus Naabe Rex Danquah is a land economist & appraiser, events architect & planner, sport business consultant, social commentator and an author
THE journalist is a hunter. He goes after human rats and grasscutters personified, matters about whom he can salt and spice and present as news. The fatter and juicier the catch, the better, because sensation is essentially our cup of tea.
Our job is to sell news and sell it in grand style.
Because the journalist is a hunter and is created with a special kind of nose for sniffing out news, he is usually not welcome in many places. He is seen as someone who has been born to make people uncomfortable.
The problem is that some people don’t want things written about them even if it is promotional and favourable. When it entails publishing their pictures alongside the story, they are doubly scared.
“Please, don’t use my picture. People will think I’ve got money and come for loan,” someone told me.
Anyhow, journalists are seen as intruders, undesirables, born with plenty of okro in the mouth; maybe some also in the nose. Some of my friends are no longer too close because they fear I’d give them full coverage in the Sikaman Palava column. Ha ha ha! What a funny world!
Well, people like my Uncle, Sir Kofi Jogolo, my former classmate and born-mathematician, Kwame Korkorti, and ex-football star cum human-salamander Kofi Kokotako don’t mind featuring in the hilarious inches of this column. Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty is one personality who has to be mentioned in this palaver.
These are people who are going to live long, primarily because they see the world as one big ball of fun. When Kwame Korkorti was told that his dear mother was dead at home, he smiled and asked the bearer of the message whether his mother had cooked the afternoon meal before claiming she was dead. Until her death, Korkorti ate his lunch at his mother’s end.
When my Uncle Kofi Jogolo was picked and lost 1,500 dollars and a good amount of Sikaman currency, he didn’t lament the loss. Instead he was amused. In fact, he was almost glad about it, because he grinned from ear to ear, stroked his delicate moustache and congratulated the thief, adding that “He is smarter than I am.” Yeah, Jogolo is the man who employs a Swedish barber to trim his moustache.
And when Kofi Kokotako was unemployed and was nearly hit by an articulated truck, he called the driver a fool. “The idiot should have killed me,” he said to me. “Didn’t he know I was unemployed and suffering?”
Today, Kokotako is employed as a Reverend and is not doing badly at all. Thanks to the regular silver collection.
And what about Kofi Owuo, the celebrated poor man. His wife left him not because he was poor, but because he swore in front of her that he would never prosper.
The following dawn the wife packed bag and baggage and went back to her parents and told them all about her husband’s alliance with poverty. Her parents were bewildered and called the alliance unholy. They had no option than to send back Owuo’s drinks to end the marriage.
Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty did not contest the issue. He was more engrossed thinking about how to become poorer than to contest what he called a frivolous matter. The wife could go to hell, he said. These are people longevity smiles upon. Nothing worries them.
Getting back to talking about journalists. I’d say that anywhere there is journalism, the issue of press freedom is not too far away. Is the press free? That’s one question foreigners want answer to when they are on visit.
Well, journalists celebrate a yearly WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY to drum home the idea of press freedom as a very important thing in the practice of journalism.
This year’s was celebrated almost a fortnight ago but people didn’t see much of us because we are normally not good celebrants. We should have mounted a float to roam the entire capital, dancing asaboni to brass band music just like PTC did recently.
Although journalists are known to be very good dancers because they walk very much, on that day, they were all busy writing. It was the Minister of Information, Mr Kofi Totobi Quakyi who saved the day by addressing a forum organised to mark the day.
He is a man I’ve always admired since his radical university days. He spoke much on press freedom, cautioning the press not to abuse the freedom granted by the Fourth Republican constitution, but to use it for the progress of society.
Well, press freedom has been defined by many journalists as the freedom to ‘write nonsense’. This definition is not quite accurate. I asked one staff reporter to define press freedom. It took him fifteen minutes to put up something.
“Press freedom is the freedom that is enjoyed by the press that enables journalists to publish or broadcast any kind of material so long as it is absolutely true, is not libelous and slanderous, and is not against the national interest.”
I gave him eight out of 10, a straight A. I guess every journalist is old enough to know that certain things he or she writes is for or against the national interest. We certainly must guard against writing against the national interest; that is very important.
There is also the question of criticising government. The government can be criticized, so long as the criticisms are genuine and the President and his ministers are not insulted and called names. Let us criticize, but let us do it decently so that the journalistic profession can be revered, and its nobility acknowledged. We are not war mongers, are we?
One area in which journalists are not spoken well of is the complaint that they misquote people. Journalists sometimes misquote people, but in four out of five complaints it turns out that nobody is misquoted after all.
When we interview people they say things unreservedly and we publish unreservedly. When the publication is out and their friends or superiors read it and accuse them of having said too much to the press, then they start claiming they were misquoted.
We have encountered these ‘misquotation palaver’ every now and then and reporters are usually accused of this transgression. However, when they bring out their note-books or recorders, it is realised that they wrote nothing out of the way. “Book no lie”.
My advice to people who deal with the press is that if they do not want anything written, they shouldn’t say it. What they want to say is OFF-RECORD, then of course, there is no reason to say it. When you say it, you’re taking a risk. In that instance, you can’t also claim to have been misquoted or words put into your mouth.
And it isn’t every journalist who would be circumspect in matters that are supposed to be off-record, because journalists often want to be as sensational as possible to make their stories saleable. So say just what you want to see published and you won’t later regret it and claim you were misquoted.
Well, I’m not holding brief for journalists, because a few of us are notorious for colouring our reports sometimes sand-papering the words so much that they look very bright in front of readers.
As I once said, when the police tells one such notorious pressman that the thief stole a brown goat, the pressman would want to know whether the goat was bearded. Of course, the police would say ‘Yes’.
However, in the press report, it appears, “A gang of notorious goat-thieves were apprehended in the early hours of yesterday. In the car in which they were riding was a brownish-red goat having a long beard. Upon further examination, it was realised that the goat also had a greyish moustache.”
When the story appears, the police are naturally disturbed. A single thief turns out to be a gang of thieves. The goat also becomes a chameleon and changes colour to brownish-red. And a moustacheless goat overnight wears a greyish moustache whether you like it or not. Luckily the journalist does not add that the moustache was trimmed by a Swedish barber.
Yes, we have a few of such mischief-creating, chronically notorious journalists. But they are one in a hundred. In any case, we make the world. And we shall always do our best to make it a happy place to live in.
This article was first publish on Saturday, May, 20, 1995
When I hear of people who are of the opinion that they cannot make it in life unless they travel abroad, l become sad.
Whenever I see on TV, news of people, that is migrants who have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, while attempting to cross to Europe, l become filled with sadness and then anger.
The underlying factor is desperation born out of loss of hope, in life. When an individual tends to believe that his only hope of making it in life is to travel abroad, the risk of dying at sea, does not deter him or her.
The role of some pastors on shaping the mindset of people, especially the youth, leaves much to be desired. You hear them declaring on various media platforms how they can pray for you to get a visa to travel abroad, instead of encouraging them to find something to do to improve their lives as the Bible teaches that God will bless the work of their hands.
The GREATER WORKS CONFERENCE is geared towards renewing the minds of people with a specific focus on people of African descent to rid themselves of the negative perception of lack of capacity to excel in life.
Pastor Mensa Otabil believes that every human being, no matter the skin colour, was created in the exact image of God and therefore has the capacity to do exploits.
The whiteman was not created in the image of God while the Blackman was created in the image of something other than God. The Black person therefore can achieve whatever the whiteman can achieve.
The development in terms of industrialisation that is lacking which has generated unemployment for the youth, is due to lack of effective leadership. The lack of moral integrity in society, is what is causing the lack of job opportunities, which is as a result of corrupt acts which drive away private investment.
A culture of inferiority complex exists which needs to be dealt with, so the African can develop the self worth necessary for personal development which can then result in capacity deployment to avhieve personal goals.
Success in life begins with the individual’s recognition that he or she is capable of achieving the dreams he or she has conceived in his or her mind. The Bible teaches that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding according to Proverbs 9:10.
Christianity was the driving force behind the development of Europe because no society can sustain development without high moral values. GREATER WORKS therefore is a deliberate project to shape the minds of people, especially the youth, who will become the leaders of our future, to prioritise morality in their daily lives.
This is the only way to see a massive transformation in every aspect of our lives as Ghanaians and Africans in Ghana and the rest of the continent.
Since the inception of the GREATOR WORKS CONFERENCE, it has made a lot of impact in the lives of many people from the youth up to the senior citizens level. I recall the testimony of a church member who was motivated and pursued higher education and became one of the youngest Chartered Accountants in this country. Year after year, the impact of the conference has been enormous and lives in Ghana and across the continent, are being transformed.
Black people have started regaining their self confidence and the youth have started getting into areas that previously were considered out of bounds. At a personal level, certain ideas that some years ago, l would have not dreamt about suddenly has become realistic dreams.
The Christian lifestyle has impacted on my children and those close to me. Mindset change starts with one individual, then another and then gradually it spreads like a viral infection until a critical mass is attained and them a massive impact. There is hope for the future.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
