Out of many, we must become one

How easy it has become these days to throw the charge of tribalism at the drop of the hat in order to marr and discredit an opponent. For many years now, significant persons in the Ghanaian society have turned tribalism and the wanton exploitation of tribal sentiments into a cottage industry and profited therefrom. They have set the hand of brother against the throat of his sister and fanned the flames of limbic emotions while the sad winds of mother Ghana moans in the distance.

Multipartisan review

The New Patriotic Party, following the multipartisan review of our national electoral processes, investigated matters pertaining to the credibility of the voters register used in the 2012 elections. Through an investigative process, they have exposed a huge list of Togolese, not Ghanaian, nationals whose names and visages appear in both the Ghana as well as the Togo voters register.

Pursuant to Article 42 of the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, 1992, they have responsibly lodged a petition on this matter, among other equally relevant ones, to the Electoral Commission to have the 2012 voters register set aside and a new one compiled.

Then out of the whirlwind, weeping louder than the bereaved, emerges a discordant disagreement led by Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketsia, conjuring the bogey of tribalism. How does the matter of foreigners from Togo who illegally find their way onto the national register meant only for Ghanaian citizens become a tribal matter?

But certain it is, that no one must be allowed to concoct or decoct a tortured meaning from the lawful desire, nay the lawful responsibility of ensuring that only Ghanaian nationals of age 18 and above and of a sound mind are admitted to the nations voters register.

We as a nation now stand on this perilous edge of the present between the past and the future to be. If we are to succeed and overcome the difficulties presently bedeviling us, we must build a unity that is more attuned to the larger purpose and responsibilities.

In Ghana, and on the continent of Africa, the human spirit has been crushed for far too long by the combination of bad governance and a difficult environment. Lives too often have been lived at the grinding edge of poverty. As a result, we have become jaded and our spirit off-colour.

For far too long, we have allowed differences on the surface- such as differences in tribe and ethnicity – to tear apart the common bonds we share; and our human spirit has suffered as a result. This spirit which must inspire and propel us into positive action and a new realm of achievement must once again be rekindled.

New Ghana

Imagine a new Ghana in which we see beyond the faint lines that divide us, and celebrate our differences, instead of fighting over them. Imagine a new Ghana in which we finally recognise that fundamentally, we are all the same. And imagine if we allow that new understanding to build relations between us in this new Ghana.

Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, the Spanish statesman, teaches us that the state is not the spontaneous coming together of men and women united by ties of blood. The state begins when groups naturally divided find themselves obliged to live together.

This obligation is not of brute force, but implies an impelling purpose; a common task which is set before the dispersed group. The state is, therefore, a plan of action and a programme of collaboration.

The men and women are called upon so that they may do something together. The state is neither consanguinity, nor a linguistic unity, nor a territorial unity, nor the proximity of habitation. It is nothing material, inert or fixed or limited. It is pure dynamism – the will to do something in common.

There is, therefore, much ingenuity in the well-known political emblem of Saavedra Fajardo’s state: an arrow beneath which is written, “It either rises or falls.” The state is not a thing, but a movement. It is at every moment something which comes from and goes to. Like every movement or thing in motion, it has its TERMINUS A QUO and its TERMINUS AD QUEM. If at any point in time the life of a state were to be carefully examined, we would first find a common life upon which it would seem to be based: some material attributes such as blood, language or natural frontier.

Such a static interpretation would soon mislead us to think that it is these material of physical attributes that define a state. Upon a deeper examination, we would soon observe that the human group is doing something in common – be it conquering other peoples, founding provinces or attempting to solve problems that commonly afflict them; that is, at every moment, the state is going beyond what seems to be the material principle of its unity. This is the TERMINUS AD QUEM - the true state whose unity consists precisely in superseding any given unity. When there is a stoppage of this impulse towards something further on, the state automatically succumbs, and the unity which previously existed, and seemed to be its physical foundation – tribe, language, blood ties, natural frontiers – becomes useless as a binding factor. The state loses its purpose and sense of being. It breaks up and is dispersed.

Impelling purpose

The impelling purpose that was set before us in the 1940s, based upon our abiding love for freedom, was what propelled us to struggle for and attain our independence and statehood. In our dark days of stultifying oppression and tyranny. It was again our undying love for our freedom and faith in our ability to shake off the yoke of tyranny that sustained us.

Our present state of flux and the agitation of our national spirit would seem to suggest that there is a stoppage of that impulse towards something further on than we are now: that we are now in a state of inertia which is stressing our cohesion: that in the absence of such an impelling purpose the physical foundations (tribe, language, blood ties, physical demarcations of boundary) upon which we are wont to rely for our identity of statehood are proving inadequate at holding us together as one nation with a common destiny. There seems to be a lack of an impelling purpose that serves as a TERMINUS AD QUEM.

We must quickly come to the stark realisation that we are all in this boat together. We either sink together or swim together. Our goal must be to recognise that our differences are our greatest strength and that we must not continue to allow our historic rifts, whatever they may be, to poison the well of opportunity before us.

In our present age, let us set before us as an impelling purpose - our national development in freedom with shared benefits. In pursuit of this quest we must make extraordinary efforts to become a tightly knit, rugged and adaptable people. We must strive at forging a united and prosperous nation at peace and living together first as Ghanaians before all else.

To quote Dr Henry Kissinger, “Our past has set a framework which we must transcend. It is our fate that from such a past we have inherited some intractable problems and commitments that have a momentum of their own. We must not act simply in accordance with the prevailing political consensus, even though the latter often runs counter to the necessities of history.

We must not confine our actions to the amelioration of present circumstances because in riding with the trend we make ourselves irrelevant. We must be bold and be prepared to grapple with our circumstances, to wrench politics and our circumstances from the tight fist of the past, in order to reshape our reality.”

If we are to succeed in achieving the impelling purpose of the present age – our national development in freedom with shared benefits, we must emerge out of the many as one.