Development/Ghana
Globalizing Cultural Festivals for Progress
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Cultural festivals have become a development issue in Ghana. From the private to the public sector, there are increasing debates and attempts to appropriate cultural festivals for progress. The talks are Ghana-wide and indicate the importance of strategizing these aspects of the Ghanaian culture for progress. From the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Cultural Affairs to the Ministry of Tourism and Diaspora Affairs, Accra has been attempting to appropriate cultural festivals for progress.
Not to be outdone, some businesses have been developing out of the need to tap the huge untapped Ghanaian culture festivals for profit. The developmental strategy, as public and private sectors activities demonstrate, is how to turn as broadly as possible and as many as possible the large number of Ghanaian values into economic festivals for prosperity in a competitive manner locally and globally.
The attempt is to move beyond the conventional and exploit cultural values for progress is task that must be done as part of poverty alleviation. This should reflect not only an expanded developmental thoughts but also part of the broader trend globally, where, in some cities, villages, towns, regions, and countries, cultural festivals bring in large amount of revenue. In a 2005 report from Canada’s sleepy, small-sized City of Ottawa cultural festivals generated well over $40 million (Canadian dollars) for both public and private sectors. This is a tip on the ice-berg compared to other Canadian places. The City of Ottawa and other Canadian places exploit any conceivable multicultural value for economic-driven festivals: In Ottawa festivals year round. Samples: Photographic, Beer, Art and Craft, International Jazz, Caribbean, Animation, Chamber Music, Franco-Ontarien, Wine, Folk, Fringe, Tulip/Flowers, among lists of cultural festivals. All these are drawn from Canadian multiculturalism, and they are constantly being expanded by the growing Canadian multicultural society.
Drawing similar inference from the Ghanaian culture, apart from the already known high-level cultural festivals such as Homowo, Yam, Akwasidae, Dodoleglime, Aboakyer, and Fao, Ghanaian cultural elites could work with the various private and public sectors to expand the already known cultural festivals by including new festivals. The economic contention is not how “Ghanaian festivals are colourful and vibrant” and that “each year festivals and durbars are held in various parts of the country, to celebrate the heritage of the people,” as a blurb at www.ghanaweb.com touts, the real issue is how to strategize so that the cultural festivals expand, in the climate of the on-going African Renaissance process, as an economic driven issue, and project Ghanaian heritage as a prosperity venture.
New cultural festivals? Yes! From where? From Ghanaian cultural values and traditions nation-wide: from villages to towns to regional capitals to the national capital. Samples: Annual Pan-Ghana Foods Festival; Traditional Medicine Festival; Shea Butter Festival; Soups Festival; Kelewele Festival; Fufu Festival; Kenkey Festivals; Banku Festival; Fugu Festival; Pan-Ghana Indigenous Cloths Festival; Kente Festival; Pan-Ghana Unity Ethnic Groups Festival; Farmers Festival; Cocoa Festival; Gold Festival; Tro Tro Festival; Palm Wine Festival, Pito Festival; Akpeteshie Festival; Indigenous Ghanaian Religion Festival; Pan-Ghana History Festival; Pan-Ghana Geography Festival; Pan-Ghana Indigenous Science and Technology Festival; Women Festival; Pan-Ghana Youth Festival; Indigenous Music Festival; Pan-Ghana Churches Festival; Ghanaian Languages Festival; and Ghanaian Heroes and Heroines Festival, among others.
Most of these could be staged from the village to the town to the regional capital to the national capital to global capitals, where diasporan Ghanaians numbers are reasonable, to sell Ghanaian cultural values. This can be done by Accra linking with the over 2 million transnational Ghanaian population and their associations and helping them strategize both locally and globally. The idea is to unearth Ghanaian values and traditions for progress both locally and globally. The sense is to think through Ghanaian norms and traditions, with the help of the global development processes, for progress; mixing the local with the global, where possible. It is here that the increasing Ghanaian diasporan community, the Tourism and Diaspora Affairs Ministry and the Foreign Affairs Ministry could come in, helping to strategize and project such festivals both locally and globally.
It is common throughout the year in Canadian newspapers to read various diplomatic missions writing advertorial pieces about their respective countries’ local cultural festivals and heritages for the growing Canadian tourists to visit their countries to enjoy these festivals. Accra could copy this as part of the broader development process of Ghana. There is more to tap into the cultural values and traditions for progress than meet the eyes and ears.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
News Analysis/Family/Ghana:Roko Frimpong, the Family and the Culture
News Analysis/Family/Ghana
Roko Frimpong, the Family and the Culture
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Leading American international development guru, Dr. Francis Fukuyama’s “Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity” reminds me of the shocking killing of Mr. Roko Frimpong, the late deputy managing director of the Ghana Commercial Bank, last week, allegedly by gunmen hired by some members of his family, over family property issues. As an Asante myself, sometimes the issue of property inheritance can be deadly, from either the maternal or paternal side, more so with social consequence of poverty increasing. Though Fukuyama’s work deals more with macro issues of “trust,” as a social capital, in terms of Roko’s death, the issue of “trust” as a micro matter and a glue that bonds families, clans, societies and nation-states together to act voluntarily, driven by its norms, values and traditions, for progress without any intrinsic feeling of fear from certain negative cultural practices.
Roko’s death brings to mind the thinking about the Ghanaian extended family and progress, more so as the fear of the Contract Killing phenomenon grips Ghana. Globally, a large amount of the progresses in the world are driven hugely by the family, as the foundation of society and prosperity. Pretty much of the global businesses are family owned, where strengths are drawn from family heritage and value systems, with extremely low level negativity. But where these family values are inhibited by strongly negative cultural practices, then the healthy values needed to drive prosperity become weak. Current international development and sociological literature reveals that globally, from Southeast Asia to Canada, over 70 percent of businesses, both locally and internationally, are family owned.
This brings to mind my encounter with some Ghanaians I meet some time ago at Carleton University in Ottawa who had come from Ghana for a World Bank sponsored international development conference. Our discussions revealed that the African extended family systems have not been appropriated properly for progress. Southeast Asia and Latin America, even some Europeans such as the Greeks and the Italians, have extended family in relation to the more nuclear ones. “Family firms make up anywhere from 80% to 90% of business enterprises in North America, according to a 2003 research article in the journal Family Business Review, although other studies put the number much lower, closer to 50%. A 2000 study of East Asian firms, however, found that more than two-thirds were controlled by families or individuals,” according to the prestigious University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School., which specializes in family businesses globally.
Our sense was that there may be some thing wrong with the African extended family system that has been stifling the broader use of the extended family for advancement. The extended family could do better for Africa’s progress if some of the inhibitions stifling it are refined. Actually all these talks of negative cultural values weakening Ghana’s development stem from the extended family, as foundation of society. Without being pedantic, our conclusion was that this has to be discussed openly as part of the broader development of Africa and as a stimulant for the emerging African Renaissance process. Stifling negative cultural values may range from shaky “trust” to all kinds of suspicions like witchcraft, voodoo, juju, marabout, Malams, native medicine, spiritualists of all sorts, who mix traditional Ghanaian juju-marabout rituals with Christian ones, and the Pull Him Down syndrome, among a long lists of negative syndromes, a practice where Ghanaians destroy each other as they try to progress, that have created in its wake excessive secrecy in dealing with one another and which has impacted negatively on progress.
Sociologist will tell you that the most dangerous place on earth is the family. The reason is that from your birth to your adulthood, members of your family know everything about you, and can use it either to aid your progress or stifle you. While the family is everything, driven by the culture of communalism, it can also be a source of danger, as Roko’s death and others before him indicate. That’s why the office of Prof. John Evans Atta Millis, leader of the main opposition National Democratic Party, voiced its concern about such family-directed hired killings. The Roko death reveals the changing face of the Ghanaian extended family, challenged by economic hardships, some spiritual weaknesses, pressures of globalization, and moral and disciplinary flaws.
But for all the extended family’s troubles, it is the only one Africa has got and should be modernized to not only avoid the Roko occurrences but also lubricate progress. For extreme shift towards a nuclear family, as a result of breakdown of the extended family, that is too individualistic, is unhealthy, as the Western world will tell you, as its elites work to re-shift its entrenched nuclear family towards the extended family system, as read in the works of Canadian thinker, Dr. Charles Taylor, 75, current winner of the $1.8 million (Canadian dollars) Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities.
Roko Frimpong, the Family and the Culture
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Leading American international development guru, Dr. Francis Fukuyama’s “Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity” reminds me of the shocking killing of Mr. Roko Frimpong, the late deputy managing director of the Ghana Commercial Bank, last week, allegedly by gunmen hired by some members of his family, over family property issues. As an Asante myself, sometimes the issue of property inheritance can be deadly, from either the maternal or paternal side, more so with social consequence of poverty increasing. Though Fukuyama’s work deals more with macro issues of “trust,” as a social capital, in terms of Roko’s death, the issue of “trust” as a micro matter and a glue that bonds families, clans, societies and nation-states together to act voluntarily, driven by its norms, values and traditions, for progress without any intrinsic feeling of fear from certain negative cultural practices.
Roko’s death brings to mind the thinking about the Ghanaian extended family and progress, more so as the fear of the Contract Killing phenomenon grips Ghana. Globally, a large amount of the progresses in the world are driven hugely by the family, as the foundation of society and prosperity. Pretty much of the global businesses are family owned, where strengths are drawn from family heritage and value systems, with extremely low level negativity. But where these family values are inhibited by strongly negative cultural practices, then the healthy values needed to drive prosperity become weak. Current international development and sociological literature reveals that globally, from Southeast Asia to Canada, over 70 percent of businesses, both locally and internationally, are family owned.
This brings to mind my encounter with some Ghanaians I meet some time ago at Carleton University in Ottawa who had come from Ghana for a World Bank sponsored international development conference. Our discussions revealed that the African extended family systems have not been appropriated properly for progress. Southeast Asia and Latin America, even some Europeans such as the Greeks and the Italians, have extended family in relation to the more nuclear ones. “Family firms make up anywhere from 80% to 90% of business enterprises in North America, according to a 2003 research article in the journal Family Business Review, although other studies put the number much lower, closer to 50%. A 2000 study of East Asian firms, however, found that more than two-thirds were controlled by families or individuals,” according to the prestigious University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School., which specializes in family businesses globally.
Our sense was that there may be some thing wrong with the African extended family system that has been stifling the broader use of the extended family for advancement. The extended family could do better for Africa’s progress if some of the inhibitions stifling it are refined. Actually all these talks of negative cultural values weakening Ghana’s development stem from the extended family, as foundation of society. Without being pedantic, our conclusion was that this has to be discussed openly as part of the broader development of Africa and as a stimulant for the emerging African Renaissance process. Stifling negative cultural values may range from shaky “trust” to all kinds of suspicions like witchcraft, voodoo, juju, marabout, Malams, native medicine, spiritualists of all sorts, who mix traditional Ghanaian juju-marabout rituals with Christian ones, and the Pull Him Down syndrome, among a long lists of negative syndromes, a practice where Ghanaians destroy each other as they try to progress, that have created in its wake excessive secrecy in dealing with one another and which has impacted negatively on progress.
Sociologist will tell you that the most dangerous place on earth is the family. The reason is that from your birth to your adulthood, members of your family know everything about you, and can use it either to aid your progress or stifle you. While the family is everything, driven by the culture of communalism, it can also be a source of danger, as Roko’s death and others before him indicate. That’s why the office of Prof. John Evans Atta Millis, leader of the main opposition National Democratic Party, voiced its concern about such family-directed hired killings. The Roko death reveals the changing face of the Ghanaian extended family, challenged by economic hardships, some spiritual weaknesses, pressures of globalization, and moral and disciplinary flaws.
But for all the extended family’s troubles, it is the only one Africa has got and should be modernized to not only avoid the Roko occurrences but also lubricate progress. For extreme shift towards a nuclear family, as a result of breakdown of the extended family, that is too individualistic, is unhealthy, as the Western world will tell you, as its elites work to re-shift its entrenched nuclear family towards the extended family system, as read in the works of Canadian thinker, Dr. Charles Taylor, 75, current winner of the $1.8 million (Canadian dollars) Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities.
Ghana: Mary Chinery-Hesse and the Intellectuals
Feature/Ghana
Mary Chinery-Hesse and the Intellectuals
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Mrs. Mary Chinery-Hesse is Chief Advisor to Ghanaian President John Kufour. That means we read President Kufour through her, in terms of the thoughts, nuances and the level of reasoning within the presidency. In spite of her statement on July 25, 2007 (Ghanadot.com/Ghana News Agency) that Ghanaian “intellectuals urged not to shy away from discourse of national import,” she had earlier challenged policy-makers and consultants, more generally, Ghanaian elites, to use languages, more appropriately, the English language, which Ghanaians will understand. Her experiences dealing with policy-makers and the booming Accra-based consultants have taught her that sometimes even the language they use the presidency and the larger bureaucratic circles do not understand. Factor in the mass of Ghanaians who do not read and speak the English language and calculate the implications for Ghana’s progress.
But despite the relevance of her observations drawn from her mingling with Ghanaian and non-Ghanaian policy-makers, bureaucrats and consultants over the years, Chinery-Hesse has missed one crucial thing, a crucial thing, as the Botswanans will tell her, that has affected Ghana’s progress for the good part of her 50-year corporate existence – the exclusion of Ghanaian norms, values and traditions in not only policy-makings, bureaucratizing, and consultancies but also intellectualizing, thinking and philosophizing about Ghana’s progress. In “The Political Foundations of Development: The Case of Botswana,” Scott A. Beaulier (of Mercer University, USA) and J. Robert Subrick (George Mason University, USA), make the case that unlike other sub-Saharan African states, Botswana has prospered, for the past 25 years running, by its skillful ability to successfully appropriate its norms, values and traditional institutions in policy-making, bureaucratizing, consultancies, thinking and philosophizing about the country’s progress. And this has come about, in a mixture of raw wisdom, wonderful understanding of their environment and pragmatism, by its elites, most educated abroad, and its traditional leaders pursuing policies that legitimized their democracy, political and traditional institutions, and progress. “The interaction of these factors explains Botswana’s success.”
Unlike Botswana, Ghanaian norms, values, and traditions, 50 years after freedom from British colonial rule, are yet to be reflected decisively in policy-making, bureaucratizing and consultancies. More seriously, Ghanaian elites, as directors of progress, are yet to participate as fully as other African elites, such as South Africa, Kenya and Botswana, in national discourse in Ghana’s progress. In any country, you gauge how well its elites participate in its national discourse in its progress in the mass media. Chinery-Hesse thinks, once again from her interaction with the intellectuals, that they “consider the sharing of information through the media as demeaning of high academic achievement.” Pretty heartbreaking but she is right and the reasons may be as varied as anybody can imagine or have experienced.
In a response to my article, “Awakening Suppressed Traditional Institutions” (ghanaweb, 2007-07-15), a respondent wrote, “Publishing in obscure outlets and that makes you a 'thinker.' What credible publication do you have to your credit?” How anti-progress and gross stupidity and how the intellectual ceiling! The sense here is that Ghanaian elites should not publish in the country’s mass medium because they are mediocre and do not count in the country’s progress. This affects national discourse and the development process in terms of critically diagnosing the inadequacies within the development process. Perhaps unaware of this climate, Chinery-Hesse says “it was necessary for the intellectuals and professionals to continue to educate the public on issues they had expertise on” so as to brighten the path of progress. The ghanaweb.com respondent, suggestive of pretty much of the mass of the respondents, wants Ghanaian elites rather concerned themselves with academic mediums. It is not only the developed world but in African states like Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Botswana, the intellectuals get involved in national discourse heavily through the mass media as a way of illuminating the development path, more so in societies with disturbing ignorance that sometimes threaten to collapse the state as we saw in Liberia, the northern part of Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone.
Chinery-Hesse, as tracker of national discourse in her advisabilities to President Kufour, is aware of this missing link in Ghana’s progress and advises “intellectuals and professionals with requisite knowledge on issues of national importance being discussed in the public domain not to shy away from the discourse.” And what will be the implications in progress? The intellectuals should not relent in participating despite the demeaning climate, as we read on ghanaweb.com. On her part, Chinery-Hesse adds that, “by shying away to join the silent majority of docile listeners, they left the scene for those who might not be knowledgeable to fill the vacuum. They should not feel shy to participate in this manner, and they should not consider the sharing of information through the [mass] media as demeaning of high academic achievement.”
Apart from fear of politicking by the increasingly divisive political atmosphere and some politically charged media houses, some Ghanaian intellectuals retire away from participating in national discourse via the mass media because of fear of some moral and disciplinary flaws in the society. “The insults are too…I have not seen this anywhere…You want to write comments on some issues disturbing Ghana but the responses are normally insults, for nothing,” a professor at a Canadian university told me. Dr. George Amponsem, a Ghanaian-Canadian economist and a Toronto-based business consultant for International Business Machines (IBM), told me recently that for some time during the earlier days of Ghana’s most popular web site, www.ghanaweb.com, a good number of Ghanaian intellectuals such as Dr. George Ayittey and Dr. Kofi Ellison, used to write for the web site on pressing national issues. But then, in the course of time, they fizzled out! Why? “The insults were too much and shocking…It was as if these intellectuals have wronged anyone by simply discussing national issues critically…So they stopped…And the result is what you see today on ghanaweb…Terrible…As if the ordinary Ghanaian cannot think, are so weak that the only way to engage in serious national issues is insult, insult, and insulting self-respecting people who have not offended them in any way but are just participating in national discourse to lighten up the development path.”
So come to think of Ghanaian elites not participating in national discourse for progress, Chinery-Hesse, her policy-making and consultants circles, short of their input of Ghanaian norms, values and traditions in their functions, should consider how the sharing of information through the mass media by the intellectual is stifled by an atmosphere that is demeaning.
Mary Chinery-Hesse and the Intellectuals
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Mrs. Mary Chinery-Hesse is Chief Advisor to Ghanaian President John Kufour. That means we read President Kufour through her, in terms of the thoughts, nuances and the level of reasoning within the presidency. In spite of her statement on July 25, 2007 (Ghanadot.com/Ghana News Agency) that Ghanaian “intellectuals urged not to shy away from discourse of national import,” she had earlier challenged policy-makers and consultants, more generally, Ghanaian elites, to use languages, more appropriately, the English language, which Ghanaians will understand. Her experiences dealing with policy-makers and the booming Accra-based consultants have taught her that sometimes even the language they use the presidency and the larger bureaucratic circles do not understand. Factor in the mass of Ghanaians who do not read and speak the English language and calculate the implications for Ghana’s progress.
But despite the relevance of her observations drawn from her mingling with Ghanaian and non-Ghanaian policy-makers, bureaucrats and consultants over the years, Chinery-Hesse has missed one crucial thing, a crucial thing, as the Botswanans will tell her, that has affected Ghana’s progress for the good part of her 50-year corporate existence – the exclusion of Ghanaian norms, values and traditions in not only policy-makings, bureaucratizing, and consultancies but also intellectualizing, thinking and philosophizing about Ghana’s progress. In “The Political Foundations of Development: The Case of Botswana,” Scott A. Beaulier (of Mercer University, USA) and J. Robert Subrick (George Mason University, USA), make the case that unlike other sub-Saharan African states, Botswana has prospered, for the past 25 years running, by its skillful ability to successfully appropriate its norms, values and traditional institutions in policy-making, bureaucratizing, consultancies, thinking and philosophizing about the country’s progress. And this has come about, in a mixture of raw wisdom, wonderful understanding of their environment and pragmatism, by its elites, most educated abroad, and its traditional leaders pursuing policies that legitimized their democracy, political and traditional institutions, and progress. “The interaction of these factors explains Botswana’s success.”
Unlike Botswana, Ghanaian norms, values, and traditions, 50 years after freedom from British colonial rule, are yet to be reflected decisively in policy-making, bureaucratizing and consultancies. More seriously, Ghanaian elites, as directors of progress, are yet to participate as fully as other African elites, such as South Africa, Kenya and Botswana, in national discourse in Ghana’s progress. In any country, you gauge how well its elites participate in its national discourse in its progress in the mass media. Chinery-Hesse thinks, once again from her interaction with the intellectuals, that they “consider the sharing of information through the media as demeaning of high academic achievement.” Pretty heartbreaking but she is right and the reasons may be as varied as anybody can imagine or have experienced.
In a response to my article, “Awakening Suppressed Traditional Institutions” (ghanaweb, 2007-07-15), a respondent wrote, “Publishing in obscure outlets and that makes you a 'thinker.' What credible publication do you have to your credit?” How anti-progress and gross stupidity and how the intellectual ceiling! The sense here is that Ghanaian elites should not publish in the country’s mass medium because they are mediocre and do not count in the country’s progress. This affects national discourse and the development process in terms of critically diagnosing the inadequacies within the development process. Perhaps unaware of this climate, Chinery-Hesse says “it was necessary for the intellectuals and professionals to continue to educate the public on issues they had expertise on” so as to brighten the path of progress. The ghanaweb.com respondent, suggestive of pretty much of the mass of the respondents, wants Ghanaian elites rather concerned themselves with academic mediums. It is not only the developed world but in African states like Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Botswana, the intellectuals get involved in national discourse heavily through the mass media as a way of illuminating the development path, more so in societies with disturbing ignorance that sometimes threaten to collapse the state as we saw in Liberia, the northern part of Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone.
Chinery-Hesse, as tracker of national discourse in her advisabilities to President Kufour, is aware of this missing link in Ghana’s progress and advises “intellectuals and professionals with requisite knowledge on issues of national importance being discussed in the public domain not to shy away from the discourse.” And what will be the implications in progress? The intellectuals should not relent in participating despite the demeaning climate, as we read on ghanaweb.com. On her part, Chinery-Hesse adds that, “by shying away to join the silent majority of docile listeners, they left the scene for those who might not be knowledgeable to fill the vacuum. They should not feel shy to participate in this manner, and they should not consider the sharing of information through the [mass] media as demeaning of high academic achievement.”
Apart from fear of politicking by the increasingly divisive political atmosphere and some politically charged media houses, some Ghanaian intellectuals retire away from participating in national discourse via the mass media because of fear of some moral and disciplinary flaws in the society. “The insults are too…I have not seen this anywhere…You want to write comments on some issues disturbing Ghana but the responses are normally insults, for nothing,” a professor at a Canadian university told me. Dr. George Amponsem, a Ghanaian-Canadian economist and a Toronto-based business consultant for International Business Machines (IBM), told me recently that for some time during the earlier days of Ghana’s most popular web site, www.ghanaweb.com, a good number of Ghanaian intellectuals such as Dr. George Ayittey and Dr. Kofi Ellison, used to write for the web site on pressing national issues. But then, in the course of time, they fizzled out! Why? “The insults were too much and shocking…It was as if these intellectuals have wronged anyone by simply discussing national issues critically…So they stopped…And the result is what you see today on ghanaweb…Terrible…As if the ordinary Ghanaian cannot think, are so weak that the only way to engage in serious national issues is insult, insult, and insulting self-respecting people who have not offended them in any way but are just participating in national discourse to lighten up the development path.”
So come to think of Ghanaian elites not participating in national discourse for progress, Chinery-Hesse, her policy-making and consultants circles, short of their input of Ghanaian norms, values and traditions in their functions, should consider how the sharing of information through the mass media by the intellectual is stifled by an atmosphere that is demeaning.
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