He bounced down the steps off the plane into Nasser’s arms, declaring ‘We must talk about Vietnam.’ Nasser replied soberly ‘We must talk about Ghana’. Too late. While the Osagyefo (Saviour of his country) was still wining and dining with his fans in Beijing, there was a military coup in Ghana.
The rumpus at the opening of parliament shows our Osagyefo showed himself just as out of touch in what we heard of his speech before he was told, rather less politely, what Nasser, who was after all a member of the same club, tried to tell Nkrumah.
They dared to speak out. Our man’s lifelong demand for respect had fallen on deaf ears, but then that was because he never knew what respect is. He never really wanted us to respect him, only to fear him and we don’t fear him any more. He has done his worst and we’re still alive and kicking.
That raises hopes that, before you read this, someone (we hope not the
military) will have repeated the Ghanaian example. We hope that whoever that is, he will know more about respect.
A Tswana proverb says, as well as I remember it, ‘Dibeela ngwana, o tla go dibeela’, meaning ‘respect (can also mean ‘care for’) a child and he will respect you’. We want a president who doesn’t beat and torture us or destroy our houses, tuckshops and roadside stalls and, above all one who does listen to us.
We don’t want the Fat People’s Party to tell us what is good for us, and teargas us if we disagree.
But let’s not imagine that the FPP is just a code name for any party we know.
It has members who carry membership cards of every political party we have seen in this country and most other countries. Fat people looking after their own interests made the 1979 deal with Ian Smith, fat people looking after their own interests preferred seats in the senate to the solidarity of the MDC. Readers can no doubt find other examples over the years between those two events.
As I write, we have hope because a leader has, since the farcical ‘elections’
this year, listened to us and spoken for us, as Muzorewa did in 1972. But let that example be a warning. Any politician can grow fat if we don’t watch and warn him very carefully.
March-June 2008 may have been a replay of March 1979, but April 1980 could come very soon. We will need to remember the lessons we learned after that event.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Post published in: Opinions