Irresponsible Media

Unfortunately, it seems that the world still does not notice. It might be reasonable to expect that death and tragedy on this scale should be prime time headlines news. Yet, these issues only surface when there are global meetings or concerts (such as the various G8 summits, the Make Poverty History campaign in 2005, etc).

 

Furthermore, year after year, we witness that when those campaigns end and the meetings conclude, so does the mainstream media coverage.

It feels as though even when there is some media attention, the ones who suffer are not the ones that compel the mainstream to report, but instead it is the movement of the celebrities and leaders of the wealthy countries that makes this issue newsworthy.

Even rarer in the mainstream media is any thought that wealthy countries may be part of the problem too. The effects of international policies such as structural adjustments, the current form of globalization,, and the on these processes is rarely looked at.

 

Instead, promises and pledges from the wealthy, powerful countries, and the corruption of the poorer ones — who receive apparently abundant goodwill — make the headlines; the repeated broken promises, the low quality and quantity of aid, and conditions with unfair strings attached do not.

Accountability of the recipient countries is often mentioned when these issues touch the mainstream. Accountability of the roles that international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, and their funders (the wealthy/powerful countries), rarely does. The risk is that citizens of these countries get a false sense of hope creating the misleading impression that appropriate action is taken in their names.

It may be harsh to say the mainstream media is one of the many causes of poverty, as such, but the point here is that their influence is enormous (well, the truth is that the media CAN do more and it will be so so so effective). Silence, as well as noise, can both have an effect.

Viva Equity (not Socialism) and the Media

Around the world, in rich or poor nations, poverty has always been present.

In most nations today, inequality—the gap between the rich and the poor—is quite high and often widening.

The causes are numerous, including a lack of individual responsibility, bad government policy, exploitation by people and businesses with power and influence, or some combination of these and other factors.

Many feel that high levels of inequality will affect social cohesion and lead to problems such as increasing crime and violence.

Inequality is often a measure of relative poverty. Absolute poverty, however, is also a concern. World Bank figures for world poverty reveals a higher number of people live in poverty than previously thought.

For example, the new poverty line is defined as living on the equivalent of $1.25 a day. With that measure based on latest data available (2005), 1.4 billion people live on or below that line.

Furthermore, almost half the world—over three billion people—live on less than $2.50 a day and at least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

Silly, isn’t it?

Its not meant to make you feel guilty, just to make you aware. Interesting thing is that you CAN do something about it. First stop is having the media be more accountable.

While many countries have signed the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 (about freedom of expression, opinion and information) has not been made a reality. A free and impartial media is a key pillar to a functioning democracy to help spread informed views and opinions.

Yet developed and developing countries alike are plagued with various problems in the media in numerous ways.
International news coverage is declining which is an increasing concern at a time when the world is attempting to globalize.
In many countries, journalists face threats of censorship, beatings and even death for reporting issues that may be controversial or not in the interests of power holders. (This can be changed. It is your right to you know? You have the right to know and be told the truth and not have matters concerning the future of your wold be kept away from you).

The mainstream media of the developed and freer, nations pose an often unmentioned or poorly analyzed problem: the lack of objective reporting that is not influenced and, to a growing degree, controlled by elites with concentrated ownership to advance their interests.

The Media IS accountable.

Poverty in Ghana. Part 1

Ghana, the land of gold and now black gold is still buried under a mountain of poverty and this is mind boggling for many a people. I am an African and have always thought of myself as pretty liberated through education, I am not overly superstitious but this one is a thorn in my flesh. Try as I may, I am being convinced beyond all doubt that there is really such a curse called ‘the resource curse’. I also understand with the little superstition in me tells me that curses have remedies or ways of revoking them. Naturally, the question that follows is, “Why are we a superstitious nation as Ghana, not revoking the curses?”

That was a little beyond the point for my main drive is on poverty in Ghana. No Ghanaian denies the existence of poverty in Ghana and no one would argue with you if said poverty is extensive enough in Ghana. It may so come across as a surprise to many why I would like to talk about poverty in Ghana. Well, I have no intentions of flogging a dead horse but I believe there are interesting aspects of the Ghanaian poverty crisis that we are burying our heads in the ground to.

On many occasions, we are forced to talk about the situation of poverty in Ghana without recourse to any statistical figures. Sadly, like most other vital and national issues, the important matter of building and resourcing the Statistical Service of Ghana is being politicized. The way I see it, we are not going to have any credible figures of our own any time soon. We would once again have to rely on foreign organizations and institutions that we also so often turn around to blame for massaging their statistics on Ghana for their parochial interests. ‘Na who cause am?’ permit me ask this critical question by borrowing from our Nigerian brothers. It would be good to produce our own statistics but if we cannot, then let us not play ‘Konogo Kaya’ (a person who does not do something expected of him and will also not permit anyone else to do it).

Regardless of the absence of reliable and current figures on poverty levels in Ghana, I will still proceed on this issue. For those who do not have a fear of statistics –I say so because our educational system has a way of putting the fear of math and science in us- you would know that poverty is usually calculated using people living on less than US$1.00 a day. This figure translates into approximately GH¢1.70 a day. To build a point for further discussions, I will quickly add that some institutions like to measure poverty using people living on less than US$2.00 a day. This would also translate into GH¢3.40 a day.

With this in mind, the Ghana Living Standards Survey of 2007 stated that poverty levels had dropped from 39.5 percent in 1998/1999 to 28.5 percent in 2005/2006. In that same report, it was said that extreme poverty had also reduced from 27 percent to about 18 percent in the same period. It was even reported around that time that Ghana was on its way to achieve the Millennium Development Goal One. The figures like that of our GDP looks good on the surface but are they real? How do they impact on our lives as individual citizens of Ghana? Statistics we know is all about averages and probabilities. Let us move beyond the figures and explore the real living standards behind these statistical figures.

Today, if we are to look at poverty in Ghana using the widely used marker of US$1.00 per day, the figures may be better or worse but that is beyond the point. What matters is the fact that these figures are hiding the real picture of poverty in Ghana and we as a nation led by our governments and politics are wallowing in a false sense of pride or achievement. Can you proudly as a Ghanaian knowing that we have next to nothing by way of social support structures say that someone earning even the new minimum wage of GH¢4.48 per day is not poor?

With this amount, granted that you are not married and have no social commitments, a situation that is highly unlikely in our highly communal and gregarious society, the minimum wage earner under this ideal circumstance would still be poor and should be captured in our poverty statistics if we really want to tackle the issue of poverty in Ghana. If you know a little about the cost of living in Ghana, you can without any stretch of imagination see that the minimum wage cannot give one three square meals, good clothing, clean water, good sanitation, and a decent accommodation; the barest minimum of human needs. If we factor into the equation the fact that most of these Ghanaians have to live in peri-urban settlements and commute long distances to and from work because of the lack of affordable accommodation then we are driving them into extreme poverty knowing the high cost of transportation in Ghana.

With a conscious effort, I am not trying to be negative or pessimistic but those are the facts. If we try to look at poverty in Ghana from the lenses of other statistics that measure poverty via conditions of living, the picture becomes clear right away. If poverty in Ghana is decreasing low, why should we continue to have at the same time unacceptably high figures of se maternal mortality ratio of 350 per 100,000 live births, illiteracy, yaws, cholera, and preventable deaths from treatable diseases such as malaria?

Ones definition of a problem is what determines the solutions they come up with. I do not for the life of me want to think that we will continue to blame distant occurrences such as colonialism for this situation. At 55 years, as a commentator at our last Independence Day celebrations noted, “If Ghana were a human being, we would have only five years to retirement so what plans have we made for our retirement?”.

But most importantly, we have to be more holistic in our view of poverty in Ghana. International standards are good but should be guides and not taken as gold standards cast in stone. In countries with welfare systems, maybe US$1.00 a day can go a long way but in Ghana where welfare for also those labeled vulnerable like orphans are not forthcoming, US$1.00 cannot be our operating figure or definition. The statistical level of poverty that we are reporting is just the tip of the true poverty iceberg in Ghana. The larger base is being hidden below the surface of statistical waters. This is just food for thought, think about it.

The ‘North’ of Ghana as a separate administration

I believe the 3 northern regions in Ghana need a separate administration. They are very different from the rest of the country, in values, norms, perspectives on life and are in a different sphere of society. Ghana has a centralized system, and this works, it should not be changed. However, not government but an office situated in one of the 3 northern regions to ‘govern’ and help to administer the local system (this is a very important word as they run a different life system there), where this office will deal with issue relevant to the local area there and communicate this to the Central admin here in Accra. They need it. The 3 northern regions are in need of such. It will greatly benefit them.

Equality is a virtue which is very elusive to us in our times. Many talk and preach about the need for equality in diverse areas including gender, economic wellbeing, development, education, etc. Following the end of the cold war especially, the need and struggle for equality has taken centre stage in many spheres of our lives. But is equality really a virtue that we need to pursue or is a creation of our imaginations; that is, a utopian concept that is not achievable? Some may say equality is quite extreme but even if we lower the standards to that of equity, there still will be a lot of inequities in the world.

On the global scale, the most prominent and ascending fight for equality is arguably that for the collapse of the capitalist market economy that is pushing more and more capital into a few rich hands and creating billions of poor people by the day. In the words of the fighters, the inequality or inequity being created by the capital and market economy system is just unacceptable. Thus in pursuit of ‘justice’ or equality, we have seen the ‘Occupy ….’ struggles flex their few and atrophied muscles against the macho global economic system. What would come out of these struggles no one can tell? After all, we have sort of entered into an era of demonstrations where people powers through demonstrations are achieving the unthinkable. # Egypt #Tunisia #Libya #Nigeria #Syria #Russia.

Back home in our beloved country, we have our fair share of equality issues. Key among these are gender issues, education, and what I like to talk about, the poverty and development gap between the north and south of Ghana. Definitely we cannot talk about this issue without laying some blame first at the door of the colonial masters. Their long period of rule during which time the north was basically treated as a source of manpower led to years of deprivation in terms of development. The colonial masters then left the north out of the sharing of the national cake and they basically had to contend with the crumbs.

Moving on, I lift my hat off for the great Osaagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah who truly did institutionalise strategies to balance the inequalities of the north-south divide. But just as communism was not allowed or failed to survive, so was the rein of the first president shortened. It is very sad to say the subsequent governments in my humble opinion have not done enough to address this issue. Sorry guys. We, have like others, on the global scale been largely paying lip service to this inequality.

That said and done too, it is all about history. The wisdom of our forefathers admonishes us not to live in the past but just to be guided by it. Just like the global economic inequality, we would be doing ourselves a lot of disservice if we dwell on putting blame on our colonial masters as we have had decades to correct it, however like them have done next to nothing. Now the only option we have is to dispassionately look at the way forward.

In the spirit of objectivity, the several years of centralised governance with executive power vested in a central government has not resolved this divide. If equality is difficult to justify, so will be equity. For if the centralised government have been operating on principles of equity, then I believe the forest belts of Ghana that provide us with cocoa, timber, agricultural produce, and mineral resources such as gold would have been the most prosperous areas and not the capital Accra. The recent protestations of the people of the Western Region in the wake of commercial production of oil in Ghana is a clear and indisputable justify of the fact that development has not been shared equitably in Ghana.

Do not get my drift wrong yet, I am still developing my point please. I am by no means undermining central government or saying central government is not necessary. Even federal nations like Nigeria have central governments. The problem is that the central government system of governance has proven to be inadequate in addressing this pressing problem at hand. Ghana has done very well staying together as a nation despite the multiplicity of differences such as ethnic and religious. This though is inadequate as the weakest link which indicates our true strength is really weak.

The decentralisation of governance is on paper a very good step that might help us address part of this challenge. To date, we cannot objectively access the level to which this system will be beneficial in addressing this challenge. The process of decentralisation which was intended to bring governance to the door steps of the people is froth with all forms of bureaucratic bottle necks. The assembly system which is supposed to be non-partisan and to enable the grassroots people take part in decisions concerning   governance and where they want to go is not working. Our parliamentary representation system is also questionable to me. I stand corrected but it appears our parliamentarians are representing their political parties more than their constituencies.

Theoretically, the decentralisation system may not fully take into account the socio-cultural demographics of the north. That may be because there is still a strong central government representation in these systems. Seeing that over the yeas governments have tried to keep their grip over central control, sit may suffice to say that decentralisation without some adjustments may not address this challenge.

Nonetheless, decentralisation is good and we must go all out to press for its full implementation. It may be liable to changes as we are trying to do with our national constitution for it to better address our challenges and meet our goals and aspirations. The world trend is putting power more and more in the hands of the grassroots people. Our current democratic system with decentralisation could very well help if institutions are strengthened and allowed to perform their functions. Even if it fails, a proper implementation would give us valuable information to guide other processes or strategies in our quest to find a solution to the north-south gap.

Another system that we may try would sound radical considering the difficulty even the decentralisation process is facing. But, we may need to create a federal or true regional form of administration for the north or all of Ghana. These may be vested with powers of raising funds and determining the socio-economic direction of development. We would nonetheless maintain our central government but we must be prepared to take away some of the enormous and vast powers we have vested in our central executive presidency.  Powers of sovereignty, supervision, coordination, and national security among other such vital matters shall still rest in the bosom of the central government.

Such a system would for instance permit a region like the north that is quite socio-culturally different to fine tunes its laws and policies to take conversance of their unique cultural identity. The ownership of the system can also inspire them to go the extra mile to raise capital for their development. The north can then have the power to develop agriculture and other resources they have instead of relying and blaming a central government that may in turn be relying on oil. This system can very well be the panacea to the potential Dutch Disease in Ghana.

Change may not be pleasant for people but the only constant today is change. There is no one right way of doing things and we need to look critically within and generate indigenous home-bred solutions to our problems. This is just food for thought.

I believe the 3 northern regions in Ghana need a separate administration. They are very different from the rest of the country, in values, norms, perspectives on life and are in a different sphere of society. Ghana has a centralized system, and this works, it should not be changed. However, not government but an office situated in one of the 3 northern regions to ‘govern’ and help to administer the local system (this is a very important word as they run a different life system there), where this office will deal with issue relevant to the local area there and communicate this to the Central admin here in Accra. They need it. The 3 northern regions are in need of such. It will greatly benefit them.

The Ghanaian Complacency

The Ghanaian I am afraid is simply complacent. We like to kid and deceive ourselves with minor gains. We make mountains of simple developments and call them achievements. Then subsequently, having clothed ourselves with these ‘achievements’, we make belief to ourselves that we have arrived. In short, we as Ghanaians have developed an interesting mediocrity complex that makes us complacent and feel that we have arrived instead of striving to do more to match the great blessings that has been bestowed upon us.  We should not lose sight of the fact that the good book says, “To whom much is given, much shall be expected.”

 

Confidence and a positive self-esteem are virtues that are now extolled greatly by motivational speakers of our times. These virtues are portrayed as sine qua nons for true and real development and advancement in line with what we may refer to us self-actualisation. As good as that may be, where do we draw the fine line to divide confidence and complacency? This is the difficult part for this is a critical question and crossroad that faces Ghana.

My opinion, Ghana and Ghanaians are not self-confident or do not have a high self esteem. The Ghanaian does not believe much in ourselves and what we produce and we still have significant remnants of the colonial inferiority complex; a shackle around our ankles and an unbearable boulder on our backs. Once again, as the motivational speakers put it, if you want to see the true nature of a people, just take a look at how they treat what they cherish.

In the case of Ghana, football easily and readily passes as a cherished game for almost every single Ghanaian, almost. Football is about the only thing that has been able to bring the nation to a standstill and to unite Ghanaian to see him/herself first and foremost as a Ghanaian before the other divisive characteristics. Just as with Nigeria that is home to over 250 tribes. Irrespective of this, Ghana after the first president has been able for all these years to train and have Ghanaian coaches to handle our senior national team, the Black Stars. We are always at the mercy and beck and call of foreign coaches in this all important game of the nation. The construction of football stadia and most other important things to do with sports are similar. This to me is not a nation that is self-confident, this is inferiority complex. I dare not start writing about how it may also be our sheer incompetence that eliminates us from the competition of capable people.

Stepping out of the sports arena, Ghana especially from the turn of this century have been blowing our horns and busking in some pride about being number one in sub-Saharan Africa in this and that. The most recent addition to this litany of ‘accomplishments’ is the world’s fastest growing economy tag placed on the nation. Though these claims are truly statements of facts, the realities on the ground are scenarios that are not worth writing home about. The extent of poverty, deprivation, hunger, lack of social resources, poor and falling standards of education, et cetera do not occasion our blowing our horns about being the fastest growing economy or having maintained a single digit inflation for several years.

The Ghanaian has been saying and rightly so that we do not ‘eat’ statistics or economic indicators. What matters and a fact that the whole world has rightly observed is the standard of living of the people. Economic indicators are not an end but the means to that end. Thus until we strive to truly improve the living conditions of every Ghanaian,

The Ghanaian I am afraid is simply complacent. We like to kid and deceive ourselves with minor gains. We make mountains of simple developments and call them achievements. Then subsequently, having clothed ourselves with these ‘achievements’, we make belief to ourselves that we have arrived. In short, we as Ghanaians have developed an interesting mediocrity complex that makes us complacent and feel that we have arrived instead of striving to do more to match the great blessings that has been bestowed upon us.  We should not lose sight of the fact that the good book says, “To whom much is given, much shall be expected.”

Where we are as a country with the abundant resources we have should cause us to bow down our heads in humility and not to be boasting and celebrating issues like commissioning of the George Walker Bush highway. Some of our contemporaries at independence such as Malaysia are not miles ahead of us and we now even have to go cup in arms in search of aid from Malaysia. Malaysia is several times cleaner than Ghana and they do not have ritual or annual cholera outbreaks besides having several roads of the class of the highway we are celebrating. Is Malaysia celebrating? The answer is NO. They are working hard to move on like taking our palm oil to the next stage by producing biofuel for cars.

That is a nation that is self-confident and Ghana is a nation that is complacent. The mentality of the entire nation needs overhauling. We need to reset what is classified as normal and what are grandeurs and an exceptional performance. We need to reset or set a national vision and agenda and also to set realistic standards for comparison. The last point is one that needs very urgent attention as it has a lot to do with our mediocrity complex.

Sometimes, comparing yourself to another nation may not be very wise but if that is what would cure our complacency, then we should do it. Most importantly, we should set a good standard and not use the current double standard system of comparison. When it suits us, Ghana prefer to compare ourselves to our poorly performing African neighbours so we can claim we are the best or the first. When on the other hand it does not seem good, then we compare ourselves to a Western nation and then make excuses using se poverty as an excuse.

Alternatively, Ghana can adopt for itself international standards and goals such as the Millennium Development Goals. If we can strive to achieve these goals fully, then we can celebrate. Under no circumstances should we accept any watered down goals for Ghana or Africa. International goals are international goals and ‘what the white man can do, the black man can also do’. Worse still, we are to avoid becoming complacent because we are being praised for having made giant steps.

Last but not least, we can also set standards using Ghana’s own potential. We can compare Ghana as it is now to where we can be or are suppose to be. This comparison can only be possible though if we can as a nation come up with one compelling and unified national vision. For now, we have too many fragmented visions.

Whichever way, Ghana and Ghanaians should be having sleepless nights brainstorming on how to better our lot and not to spare a moment busking in vain glory. Yes in 2008 we had a ground breaking election and handing over never witnessed on the continent but the electoral process and its ancillary processes such as the transition process are far from perfect. We should be striving to improve these and not grow complacent and rest on our historical achievements which are in themselves nothing exceptional or extraordinary.

Meaning

Looking for a meaning in what we do

Life has it that we as humans build our causes and actions on our beliefs. And in our daily strives cannot be challenged in what we believe, for if we are challenged and we can not defend what we stand for; we are wrong and our entire cause in life and daily actions have been and are false. Who now wants to be challenged?

 

We must self justify and not be corrected, or ask for forgiveness.

In the meantime, my approach to the topic would be to consider whether we do actually look for a meaning in what we do. Or whether we try to find meaning, or even justify, what we do after we have acted for whatever reason we decided to act.

The latter is the norm.

In other words, do we act first, and then try to justify our actions to place them in a context. For example, a context of justified survival – I had to steal the loaf of bread because my children were starving.

 

Or do we act after considering the issue and justification for acting in one way and not another?

But in this context we imply that “looking for meaning” we are looking for a moral justification for our actions. By having to explain an action before we do it we imply, at least in our society, that we have also considered the ethical consequences of what we do.

 And we have to consider the ethical issues before hand (and by ethical I also mean socially accepted attitudes) or at least pretend to consider the ethical issues, because not to do so means that we are nothing more than automata in motion and not rational free agents. Automata do not enjoy a sense of self achievement or self fulfilment, nor approval from peers and other members of society. There is no psychological or mental satisfaction if we said that, my three million euro bonus was just a result of automatic unconscious acts which cannot be explained nor accredited to any intention or ability on my part.

It makes more sense if we ascribed the three million euro bonus to rigorous analysis of the market and sacrificing the family for working late into the night at the office. The element of sacrifice and intellectual prowess gives us the bragging rights to feel good about the three million and our enemies no ground for criticism.

We try to find meaning in what we do, because we also try to feel good about what we do. And feeling good is the one thing we thrive to achieve in our lives, because nothing feels more good than feeling good about ourselves (even if we don’t admit it).

 

The search for the meaning of life

I consider this a most noble quest, and one that is not very frequent to come by too. You either find people that have never done this search or –mostly found in dogmatic organizations– persons that already know the secret without any search at all.

Motivation varies, from the one related to avoid the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune to the one spurred by curiosity and intellectual satisfaction. Maybe in all cases it is plenitude and amazement what we are after. As a dabbler in these matters, it is at least my case.

 

Let us start as we often do with an apparently useful definition:

Meaning (Merriam-Webster, 1.a): the thing one intends to convey especially by language.

For the purpose of this article, it is relevant to notice that the words used to define (the so called defines) have themselves the attribute being defined (the definiendum):

Meaning of Meaning = meaning of The + meaning of thing + meaning of one + …

Circularity is blatant when we realize that the dictionary is going to great lengths here to conceal what it is really doing, i.e.: trying to hopelessly give the meaning of the word “meaning”.

In our everyday use of language, this auto-reference shows up from time to time under the form of paradoxes, puns and jokes. We are amused and sometimes baffled by them, but for mathematicians for example, circularity in definitions is just plain abomination:  “Thou shalt not include the definiendum (or any of its derivatives) among the defines”.

All these ideas point to the existence of certain limits to the use of language and the concept of meaning. But it so happens that limits apply too to what words ultimately represent: concepts. “I love you.” IT IS A CONCEPT, there is no definition to what it means when someone says that to you.

 

 

I looked into the skies last night, as I do most nights when I am heavily burdened by life and its challenges and my anger grows once more as it always does till it climaxes and plunges down again into deep sadness and desperation, of how this is not life “I cannot truly exist with all these emotions, of pain, want, anger, ambition, and have flesh and blood… and my soul; and look at the world and say that this is what it is meant to be, this is the meaning of my existence. No way. It is far too difficult to believe. I have too much passion and I am far too limited by the loads of…” I just keep it calm, and keep it real.
This system that we live in, all I can see is… Never mind, thoughts and feelings like this do not lead anywhere productive or fulfilling. The world is balanced the way it is “it is what it is meant to be”.

I made a conscious decision to choose to not fight a hopeless battle a long time ago, however to rather be true to myself in admitting that all of this is done to satisfy my own selfish need of what I would term as my sense of purpose.

Is it not that that it is with all that have a quest to improve people’s lives and pursue having a constructive impact on socioeconomic development? Tell me, what justifies those actions and belief systems? Why is ‘caring’ the right thing to do?

Anyway… 

What if life is so mysterious, deep and boundless that makes this one an impossible task? And what if life has no meaning in the usual sense?

Maybe the meaning of “meaning”, let alone the meaning of life, can not be found with a combination of words or concepts, even when they are poetically arranged. They are too endogamic to be of any help when in front of abysses and skies. All philosophical quests –or any other linguistic quest for that matter– may be doomed to end up in a maze of cement, not in amazement…

What is left then? For someone who was once caught in the trap of reason, it came as a fresh waft the intuition that plenitude was to be found not among words, but among sensations.

Be honest. No, you don’t know everything. We all have different views. ISLAM TODAY.

In the West the words Islamic fundamentalism conjure up images of bearded men with turbans and women covered in black shrouds. And some Islamist movements do indeed contain reactionary and violent elements. But we should not let stereotypes blind us to the fact that there are also powerful modernising forces at work within these movements. Political Islam is about change. In this sense, modern. Islamist movements may be the main vehicle for bringing about change in the Muslim world and the break-up of the old “dinosaur” regimes. What will come in their place is less clear, BUT it WILL come.

For an Islamist, religion cannot be limited strictly to the realm of personal faith and private life: Islam has things to say about society and what it sees as the just political order that have strong implications for contemporary politics. Unlike Christianity, Islam was concerned with politics and governance from the start: the Muslim rule that developed in the lifetime of the Prophet required attention to principles of community life, justice, administration, relations with non-Muslims, defence and foreign policy. A vision of what constitutes good governance, law and a just society were among the principal new ideas. The Prophet came not to protect the status quo, but to reform and change. Women, for instance, were given legal status (where they had none before) and concrete legal protection within society.

Islamists look at the status quo in the Muslim world today and do not like it. I don’t!

In place of good governance, they/I see authoritarianism, repression, corruption, incompetence, social and economic hardship – an unacceptable situation that calls out for change. But change based on what? The norms of Western government derive from the British Magna Carta, the French Revolution, or the principles of the American Declaration of Independence; but in Islam they are derived from ideas in the Koran (I know this is spelt in many different ways, but you know what I mean) and the sayings and the doings of the Prophet (hadith). It is therefore quite normal for Islamists to speak in non-Western terms. They look to the past as a philosophical model, not as a mode of daily life to be emulated today. And they differ about what to do, other than honour the basic principles of Islam.

How to understand what those principles mean in contemporary life? One can debate, for example, the relationship between democracy and Islam. But the real question is: what is the relationship between Muslims and democracy, what do Muslims want? Ideas of democracy are gaining ever greater prominence among large numbers of Islamist thinkers. But they do not advocate uncritical acceptance of Western systems. Instead, they seek to derive democratic principles from Muslim concepts of shura (consultation) – the idea that government must reflect the wishes of the people, to whom God has given the gift of reason.

Most Islamists are active in promoting opposition to today’s failed, incompetent or repressive regimes. They demand the right to criticise governments and a voice in the governing process. As a result, they are often the chief targets of the security services of repressive and failing regimes. In those cases where Islamist extremists advocate and even practice violence against the state, as in Egypt or Algeria, they have often been denied access to the political system and subjected to state violence, well, until last year.
Interesting thing is that I think that the very thing that got them this ‘freedom’ -that of corse will come with its consequences- is that violent streak they have always had that is deeply embedded in us. 

Islamists are currently among the most active forces in the Muslim world in calling for democracy and human rights – things they are habitually denied. But if Islamists come to power, will they practice these ideals? It is unclear. In any society where traditions of democracy have shallow roots or are non-existent, its practice will be precarious. The political culture of each country has direct impact on future conduct. Islamists do not really differ from other political players.

Islamists are also modern is their heavy emphasis on grass roots organisation. Their parties are in close touch with the neighbourhood and are closely attuned to local interests. Many Islamist parties run local social welfare programmes independently of governments, and provide social services such as clinics, especially for women, housing for students who have come from the village to the big city, recreational facilities for youth, legal advice, educational help, and other forms of social assistance. These activities – often far more responsive than the state to social needs in the neighbourhood – are generally funded from religious donations or from large Islamist-run banks and businesses. As a result, Islamists are closer to the needs of poorer neighbourhoods than their political rivals.

Islam is solidly rooted in traditions of mercantilism and private enterprise. The Prophet was a merchant, as was his first wife. Islam does not glorify the role of the state in the economy, or in general. If the state plays an important role in Iran, it is mainly a legacy from the days of the Shah. In principle, however, Islam is quite compatible with modern ideas of a limited state role in the economy. It has regularly opposed the introduction of socialist measures in the Muslim world and expresses its preference for market principles, as long as they are consistent with “social justice”. The Islamists’ attack on “capitalism” is usually a reference to “consumerism” or intense materialism that they see as a negative characteristic of the West. Islamists want less borders among Muslim states and see the European Union as a potential model.

The role of women is one of the features most frequently criticised in the West, sometimes with good reason. For instance, the Taliban view on women in Afghanistan is particularly primitive and is rejected as non-Islamic by many Muslims, who are currently engaged in a great debate about the role of women in society. They have a conservative vision that places emphasis on the special place of women as guardians of the home, rearing the children and transmitting moral values. There is a fear of the perceived corruption of Western societies in which women turn into “sexual objects” or are commercially exploited, leading to a breakdown of social and family values. It is only in Afghanistan, however, that women are not permitted to work. In fact millions of Muslim women are today being brought into politics through the women’s branches of Islamist parties.

Part of the dilemma of women’s positions in Muslim society stems not so much from the principles of Islam itself, but from extremely conservative interpretations of Islam or from the practice of traditional customs considered to be “Islamic”. A new breed of Islamist femininist is emerging in many countries, including Iran, that demands “real” Islam, not tradition. Women are studying the Koran and Islamic law in order to challenge conservative, male-dominated interpretations, reject tradition and demand application of true Islamic norms.

Where does it say in the Koran that women cannot drive cars, as in Saudi Arabia? Or that women’s faces must be covered? Or they may not work? Muslim women are boldly challenging these traditions in many parts of the Muslim world, provoking a split between Islamic modernists and traditionalists on their place in society.

In fact, a struggle has developed between conservative clerics, who defend the establishment, and radical Islamists, who believe that Islam’s present mission is to change a Middle East that lags behind most of the rest of the world. Traditional clerics have generally supported monarchs, sultans, generals and emperors throughout history, bowing to the reality of power. They argued that Muslims should not rebel against the unjust ruler, that injustice is better than chaos or anarchy. Partly under the influence of Western political philosophy, many Islamists have now turned this concept on its head, stating that when governance is not just, there is a positive obligation for Muslims to condemn it and replace it. This thinking leads to confrontation with most contemporary regimes in the Middle East.

In one sense, fundamentalism can mean getting back to the root meaning of Islam. Islamist modernists say that what matters is not the text but the context: many laws from the time of the Prophet were appropriate for those times, and to understand Islamic law, one must look at the context in which they were formed. Today, they say, one must reinterpret those laws and rulings in light of contemporary circumstances.

Interestingly, one of the key centres of Islamic modernism is in the West itself where Muslims now have complete freedom for the first time to research and discuss a whole variety of ideas about Islam and propagate them via books, television, conferences and Internet – all impossible or forbidden at home. Today’s Islamist leaders are not usually clerics; often they are Western-educated engineers and doctors whose vision of an Islam-oriented future includes modernism and technology.

A reformation of Islam is underway and there is much lively debate. There is no agreement about what an Islamic state really means or what it should look like. But Islamists are determined to derive meaning for contemporary society from Islamic texts and law. Islamists often have good critiques of their own societies, and even of the West. So far they are better at criticism than at developing new models. They are sensitive about what they see as Western domination of the new global order in which Muslims have little voice or power. They are nationalist in their desire to protect their own culture and strengthen the Muslim world vis-a-vis the West. They will make many mistakes along the way, but they are learning. They will sometimes be difficult to deal with, but their basic goal is not to be anti-Western but to reform their own societies.

Islamic reformation will be a long-term process, but in today’s accelerated world it will not take as long as the West’s own Reformation. Islamist thinking today is not about preserving the status quo, but about change. The debate is about what kind of change, and how to bring it about. Visions of what Islam means in contemporary life often differ sharply. Different Islamists seek different goals via different means. No one has a monopoly on Islam and what it means. But the chances are that the Islamic framework of the debate will be with us for a long time to come and few Muslim states will remain outside that debate.

 Viva Peace! Viva Freedom (whatever that means)! Viva Life!!!

What's death got to do with it?

Reblogged from :

There is a newsroom truism in the USA that “one dead fireman in Brooklyn is worth five English bobbies, who are worth 50 Arabs, who are worth 500 Africans”. Sounds pretty bad. But the reality is much much worse. For a start, from the perspective of the news media in the West, 500 Africans have nowhere near that kind of value.

Read more… 672 more words

When

Economic Castration

 

So for decades, we as Africans and the world at large have had a raging debate about the aptness or otherwise of foreign aid to developing countries. Various people from various backgrounds have examined this single subject from virtually all angles and perspectives and yet the debate is not closed; there is no one single accepted and overwhelming conclusion.

Some Africans have advanced a case for aid while others have counteracted claims like that. On the opposite side of the divide, we also have people from the donor end who have made a case for aid as well as others that debunk any such claims. Amidst all this back and forth, African nations continue to clamour and scramble for aid whiles at the same time the competition among donors to give aid to developing nations seem to have been given a short in the arm by the emergence of China onto the scene. Viva China!

In the words of Osaagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the West turned to neo-colonialist tactics immediately after the revolt against colonialism so they could keep their strangling grip over the resources of their former colonies that are now primarily developing nations. Foreign aid is but just one of the guises of neo-colonialist interventions to strangle Africa. The advice of Africa’s great leader and son was that, in order to halt foreign interference in the affairs of developing countries it is necessary to study, understand, expose and actively combat neo-colonialism in whatever guise it may appear. For the methods of neo-colonialists are subtle and varied.

Decades down the road, it seems obvious that Africa has not heeded the wake call of Dr Nkrumah. A wolf in sheep’s skin is more dangerous than an enemy in plain sight. In the name of helping us through aid, the donor nations who we erroneously call donor partners are indeed incapacitating and castrating economic development in Africa. There are tons of commonsensical logic and scientific research to buttress the fact that aid is stagnating and castrating economic development in Africa.

Starting from the commonsensical logic, we Africans have several proverbs that mean that “the hand that receives shall always be below the hand that gives.” With our fingers and hands in the mouth of the West rummaging for scraps, how can we give them a knock on the head when they are wrong? Doing so will only amount to cutting off our fingers! In so long as we remain dependant on foreign aid or scraps in other words, we shall always remain inferior to the donors. It should thus follow logically then why the West, especially the United States of America and Canada, are so wrong on their stance on cutting greenhouse gas emissions yet Africa can only cry foul to ourselves.

Africa have kowtowed to the West, being at their beck and call; literally waiting on them as slaves. Dr Nkrumah was not far from wrong when he postulated aid and other neo-colonialist mechanisms as means of perpetuating colonialism. Donors of so-called foreign aid should thus under no circumstances be referred to as ‘partners’. That is a serious misnomer and one which when continued would leave us in a state of deception and perpetual slavery.

Logically speaking, the issue of aid is also a great hindrance to the quest of Africa to seek Foreign Direct Investment. As an individual or a business person, if you would be true to yourself, you would definitely not be interested in investing in a beggar. The foreign investors Africa is looking for are also human and beings of logic; they would not invest in a beggar. Begging directly or indirectly for aid has a way of reducing our reputation and any potential that we may have. It portrays Africa as a breadbasket case, a people fit only for scraps.

The other side of this issue is the type of stories and pictures that are bundled about to whip up sentiments to raise aid money or to facilitate official approvals for these aid. If you paint a picture of mass poverty, hunger, starvation et cetera, you are in other words saying the people are lazy, lack creativity, innovation, et cetera. Who would be keen to invest in such a people? Simon Anholt, the developer of nation brand and place brand concepts is very right in his voracious attacks on aid to Africa.

Aid inflows into Africa has been substantial and if aid were to promote economic growth, Africa should be a developed continent or at worse a high middle income continent by now. Aid in a way is a double-edged sword that gives and takes simultaneously, or it builds and destroys simultaneously. Whiles the aid may bring money to construct an essential highway to move cocoa from the hinterlands, it would insist on opening up the African market for the donor so that they can flood our markets and kill our industries. In Akan, we would say aid is Ɔdomfo kumfo. Continuous reliance on aid is thus bound to leave Africa marking time, well actually, regressing in relative terms as the rest of the world is matching forward.

The reduction of dependence on aid would certainly leave a gap and cause some temporary discomforts. Nonetheless, necessity they say is the mother of invention. The knowledge, skills, and capabilities demonstrated by the African means that we are more than capable of filling this gap if we wean ourselves off aid. Countries like Japan with little natural resources and others that have had embargoes slapped on them like Cuba (for one reason or the other) are developing economically. The China we now look up to so much did not develop on the back of reliance on aid. They did so on reliance on themselves; the yes we can kind of attitude.

In the world of academia and scientific or statistical research, many researchers have found the give-and-take nature of aid to be very true. Aid is not at all a sine qua non for economic development of developing countries as we have been made to believe. In their paper The Effect of Foreign Aid on Economic Growth in Developing Countries, EM Ekanayake and D Chatrna found that aid to Africa has over the decades both contributed to as well as inhibited economic growth of Africa.

Knack (2000), in a cross-country analysis, indicates that higher aid levels erode the quality of governance indexes, that is, bureaucracy, corruption and the rule of law. That is to say, aid inflows appear as cheap money and are thus often squandered unscrupulously by people in the helm of affairs right down to the last person in the chain of custody. He argued that “aid dependence can potentially undermine institutional quality, encouraging rent seeking and corruption, fomenting conflict over control of aid funds, siphoning off scarce talent from bureaucracy, and alleviating pressures to reform inefficient policies and institutions”.

The solution off the West or the donors to these negative tendencies engendered by aid is what we see in the Washington Consensus, Conditionality-attached loans. In the name of these conditioanlities, the donors claim they are helping us check corruption and better manage our economy to bolster economic growth. That notwithstanding, Svensson’s research (1998) found out that there is no evidence that donors take corruption into account seriously while providing aid.

Additionally, some of these conditionalities have seen governments in Africa remove subsidies or support for agriculture, the main stay employer of Africans, education, healthcare, and other social services. You and I have more than on enough occasions been called to question the logic or economic principles underlying some of these policy interventions and how they can promote economic growth in Africa.

Aid is by no means the answer to the developmental challenges of Africa. Africa would be better served by channelling our energies into pushing for fair trade terms and policies so we generate enough revenue to do things for ourselves. If the natural resources of Africa cannot be explored, processed, and the export prices determined by Africa alone or as an equal partner, then they should be made to remain as they are. That is what we need for development and not aid.

HIV/AIDS in Ghana

What a provocative topic? I am not on this beat or topic for the sake of trying to be sensational or draw attention to myself, Ghana has enough of that- and I get more attention that I need daily. With all the racket about HIV/AIDS and the tons of Civil Society Organisations into the fight against HIV/AIDS, one cannot take for granted around with the rough figures these organisations can marshal against anyone or organisation that they think are making their cause difficult. There is room for justification of the fact that HIV/AIDS figures are massaged not only in Ghana but on an international scale in many countries. As usual, the usual suspects are other developing countries such as are found in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

I am not declaring by any stretch of imagination that HIV/AIDS is not real or does not exist. I more than agree with the fact that HIV/AIDS is real and it exists. My warning and beef is with the fact that THE FIGURES PUT OUT ABOUT THE NUMBER OF NEWLY INFECTED PERSONS (INCIDENT RATES) AND THE NUMBER OF PERSONS LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS (PREVALENCE RATES) ARE MASSAGED.

Before you disagree with the assertion or rubbish, what I would have to say, just take a few minutes to read further and judge for yourself whether HIV/AIDS figures are massaged or not. First and foremost, the origins of HIV and AIDS is a very controversial and contentious subject shrouded in controversy, secrecy, and conspiracy theories. Was the virus birthed in laboratories ostensibly for ‘biological warfare’ against blacks and homosexuals? Was the birthing in a laboratory an accident or was it intentional? Did the virus really originate from apes in Africa? Why is it that its behaviour so different or advanced compared to other viruses? There are more questions than there are answers and so everything is possible with HIV/AIDS.

Secondly, if you think my first point is conspiratorial or just gossip then you may find it interesting that other scientists who think otherwise about HIV/AIDS are hardly given an avenue to voice out their different opinion. I bet you did not know that the Nobel-Prize winner Walter Gilbert ones had contrary opinions about HIV/AIDS because it was killed quickly instead of being financed to prove or disprove himself. The documentary film by Dr Gary Null for instance is hardly known of because it is a collection of opinions contrary to accepted norms about HIV/AIDS.

I thought the scientific community is about distilling facts from fiction through rigorous application of research and the scientific method. Why then are these divergent views not being allowed to come out and prove their case or be disproved? If these opposing views are flimsy, they should be easily ravished and thrown aside by scientific tests but they should not just be brushed aside unless there is something to hide….

Still lurking around the periphery and building my case, kindly bear with me as I get just a little technical. HIV results in a disease called AIDS. Now it is widely accepted that getting infected with the HIV is not equal to having AIDS; hence the use of the term persons living with HIV. AIDS being a syndrome, it is made up of collection of many wild symptoms. Some of these symptoms can be cause or aggravated by conditions such as hunger and malnutrition, lack of access to potable water, unhealthy lifestyles, and poverty. Definitely these are conditions that abound in developing countries and so is not rather the case that AIDS may appear to be more common in these countries?

The fact that HIV/AIDS is diagnosed by some form of laboratory test does not make the results full proof. Unfortunately for us, the screening test can come up positive for persons infected or living with other viruses as well. If these people are looking like they are having ‘slims disease’, it is not scientific and conclusive fact they have AIDS. With poverty, malnutrition, and the others rife in Ghana and developing countries, a positive HIV screening test coupled with a myriad of syndromic symptoms does not equate one to having AIDS. The international community and other interested parties must make funds and resources available for more definitive but expensive Enzyme-Linked Immuno-Sorbent Assay (ELISA) testing in Ghana and developing countries.

It can be very factual that there are many people living with HIV but may never get AIDS and would rather pass away by virtue of something else. Why has the emphasis of fighting HIV/AIDS then not been on providing good nutrition, eliminating poverty, poor sanitation, providing potable water, and the like? The good things that would keep peoples immunity high and keep them going are being neglected for the use of drugs with very awful side effects.

This brings us to the yet another potentially conspiratorial matter of HIV/AIDS being fanned and kept alive as a means of enriching some sections of the world. Was the programming of Ghanaians, Africans, and other developing nation citizens to equate HIV infection to AIDS a deliberate thing to coerce many HIV positive persons to quickly spiral down into AIDS and become dependent on anti-retroviral medications? Even with the Global Fund subsidy on antiretroviral drugs, it still costs the nation and PLWHA quite some money. Now that the Global Fund support is going to be lifted, financial implications for Ghana and the pharmaceutical companies are obvious.

Once again, for those that like hard scientific evidence- and you must understand how difficult it is for me to be technical; it is not in my nature- let us delve into some statistics and technicalities to see if HIV/AIDS figures are massaged or not. The best means of determining the true prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Ghana would have been to subject respondents of the recent national census- where I and several of my friends and workers were not counted-definitive HIV/AIDS tests; I mean the expensive definitive tests and not screening tests. This of course would have posed enormous resource challenges hence the understanding and acceptance of surveys for calculations or mathematical models instead of whole population tests.

Until recently, these surveys and figures had been almost an exclusive preserve of UNAids and a couple of other international bodies. That is not my problem; my problem has been the reliance on mainly sentinel surveys instead of more appropriate random surveys based on accepted statistical sampling methods. Of course these random surveys would still cost more and offer a little more challenge than using sentinel surveillance but for a disease that is almost equivalent to a death sentence in Ghana and Africa, it s a small price to pay.

It might be worth knowing that pregnant women attending antenatal clinics at selected sites are used for the sentinel surveillance. The sample is biased because it is looking at only women who have had unprotected sex and are attending antenatal clinic. The sample is far from representative of the national population. It is not easy to make assumptions for men, women having protected sex, and those who are not sexually active. It is thus not surprising that even the statistical and mathematical computer models used to make corrections to remove the bias and make the figures representative still churn out very high HIV/AIDS prevalence and incidence rates.

The use of sentinel surveillance for making projections about the incidence and prevalence rates of HIV/AIDS in Ghana is a way of massaging our HIV/AIDS figures to the higher side. Countries that are interested in knowing the real HIV/AIDS prevalence and incident rates have either self-sponsored appropriate surveys or put their feet down for a routine determination via more appropriate means and not sentinel surveillance. Why does Ghana still permit the use of methods that massage the HIV values in Ghana? The benefits in it for the country I do not want to speculate but those who have eyes and ears let them see and hear.

In 2004, researchers in Kenya tried a different sort of survey in Kenya, selecting a representative sample of the population for HIV-testing. At the time, the UNAids system had suggested that 15% of Kenyan adults were HIV-infected. The new method, universally held to be more credible, suggested that Kenya’s real HIV rate was closer to 6.7%. More than half of Kenya’s hypothetical HIV cases disappeared overnight.

Since then, about ten Kenyan-style population studies have been carried out elsewhere in African countries that are proactive and progressive, invariably with similar results. In Sierra Leone, estimated HIV prevalence tumbled by 87%, 78% in Ethiopia, 72% in Burkina Faso, 35% in Burundi, and 27% in Zambia. In South Africa a 2005 population study pointed to radical overestimation of the HIV rate among racial minorities.

Why has Ghana not followed suit and we are in bed with a method that over inflates our HIV/AIDS figures? To mean, this simply is a direct or indirect means by which we are massaging our figures up for one reason or the other. That said and done, you be the ultimate judge.