The Christian good book makes it vivid in Jeremiah 6:16 (NKJV), Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.” Every nation or preferably society is characterized by values, norms and attitudes embodied in its culture which are the total way of life of a group of people.
Therefore, anytime a new generation decides to abandon the very norms and values that their ancestors cherished and used as foundational stones to establish their society, the future of such generation will be an undesirable one. The story is no different in Ghana my motherland! The 21st century Ghanaian considers everything practiced by his ancestors as archaic and barbaric and blindly copies everything from the western world hook line and sinker without rationalizing its worth.
In terms of our educational system, fashion, occupation, relationship and marriage, food, and even our thoughts have been infiltrated and diluted with European cultures and practices. With this cultural mess we’re creating, what legacy do we hope to leave behind for the next generation? Undoubtedly, the world is growing at a pace where humanity must adjust himself to meet the dynamic trend. But in doing so, we must not forget the very things that characterize us as Ghanaians.
Gone are the days when children were forced to learn their mother tongues in order to socialize well in his or her immediate environment. What do we see today? Nowadays, people feel shy to communicate in public with their local languages. We live in a country where parents believe that their wards in the kindergarten and the lower primary are intelligent only when they come back home speaking in English language. Meaning, from the infancy, the child is trained to shun away one of the most important aspect of his culture. You’ll go to the various schools in our country with a bold inscription on the walls; “SPEAK ENGLISH”! Meanwhile, the people we see as angels or demigods come down here and learn to speak the very languages we don’t appreciate.
The various tertiary academic institutions particularly University of Cape Coast and University of Ghana take delight in projecting Chinese and Swahili languages respectively by mounting them as liberal courses while excluding their own languages! I want to know when will UCC, UG, UEW, KNUST, UPSA, UMaT, and the other authorities from the various citadels take it upon themselves to make any of the Ghanaian Languages to be part of the academic liberal and compulsory courses as they’re doing to protect the white man’s language like Communicative Skills. I can say it boldly without regrets that when things continue to be like this, our progress as a nation will forever be an illusion.
Let’s go into the history books to ascertain the language use by the developed countries we hope to achieve their status someday. Our African counterparts, Malaysia, immediately resorted to their native language (Malay) right after independence and now, they’re well developed. Also, the most populated country, China is no exception. What actually went on in the conscience of Ghanaians who fought for the “paper independence?” However, research findings consistently show that learners benefit from using their mother tongues in education in early grade years. Do our Ghanaian leaders in the education ministry know about this enigma?
Fashion wise, the least said about it the better! The current Ghanaian generation has wholly taken us back to the primitive era where Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover up their nakedness. The youth today give no reverence or respect to their vital organs whenever they dress-up. Nowadays, ripped or if you like, “crazy outfits” are all over the place of which we can virtually compare such outfits to the man in the gutter! Afterwards, they’ll call it fashion. The worst of all the fashion stuffs usually happen in the various television reality shows like Miss Malaika and Ghana Most Beautiful at GH One and TV3 studios respectively which has “Men of God, Queen mothers and Chiefs, and Members of Parliament” as invited guests. Therefore, no wonder this craziness is still extant, because the very people who’re in authority are even patronizing.
With this hypocritical attitude, how can they speak ill against this phenomenon? Nowadays, you can’t even differentiate between a mentally challenged man and someone who calls himself a “normal” man. Likewise, a whore and a virtuous woman as they prefer to be called! Simply, how each portrays himself or herself is no different. In those days, to have a tiny view of a lady’s breast was like looking forward to see snow falling in Ghana, but now, everything is in exhibition including the nipples. Our ladies do all these in the name of fashion and end up in the various churches hoping to receive blessings from God. Sadly, most men of God are dumb to speak against it because of tithes and offertory they hope to get from these people.
Now, analyzing why there have been so much divorce cases in recent times reveals an element of European lifestyle or character in contemporary couples. A middle income earner man will be pressured from all angles from his wife-to-be to put up flamboyant wedding for the masses appeal because such extravagant lifestyle is constantly portrayed in the various western movies and the telenovelas.
The man will reluctantly do that and after the wedding, the house keeping money even becomes a problem. Gone are the days when our parents only presented “knocking” schnapps and some few items demanded by both families and finally seal the marriage deal.
Such marriages were able to stand the test of time for several years. Nowadays, marriages could even collapse after a month of its contract. With a little exposure to the foreign ideas, our men and women have come to learn a deadly term called “privacy”. I have my privacy so you dare not touch the phone in my absence! Meanwhile, the Bible clearly says it in Genesis 2:24 that, whenever marriage is contracted, “the two becomes one flesh”. This means, there must be nothing like privacy in marriages.
To pen my thoughts down, there’s a saying in Togo which goes like; “rain beats a leopard’s skin, but it does not wash out the spots”. Thus, no matter how much you try, you cannot change who you’re! Likewise, our African culture and lifestyle will continue to be different from the Western world no matter how blindly one copies them. Their environmental surroundings, their thoughts and educational philosophy, their beliefs and practices are entirely different from Africans particularly Ghana. Therefore let’s start to develop and appreciate our own and I believe Ghanaians will very soon become the beacon of hope for the African continent because things have really fallen apart as it stands now.
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