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Opinions of Wednesday, 1 April 2020

Columnist: Prosper Setsoafia

The demise of March (Ghana month)

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The month of March was dubbed ‘GHANA MONTH’ to promote our ‘imagined’ Ghanaian cultural heritage, better still to develop it. Institutionalizing the month of March as the only the period that one can celebrate his/her culture illuminate a ‘system’ on the verge of failure. Come to think of it, the outbreak of the novel COVID-19 has disrupted the core ‘rituals’ of the Ghanaian culture.

‘Culture is a process not an event’ if we are to promote our ‘imagined’ Ghanaian culture, it requires regular daily routines, not a ‘myopic’ display of spastic shows. Why not the campaign, for quality sustained activities to promote our cultural heritage, with calm continuity than the one-month spectacle of extravagance?

A culture like a live plant requires constant nurturing, if this was to be the case, we will not have been drawing attention to our cultural values only during the so-called ‘Ghana Month’. This act can be compared to asthmatic breathing, which presents a spectacular-sound show which draws attention to itself because the heart is on the verge of failure.

A healthy working heart calls no attention to itself like our Ghana month of ‘blessed memory’ shows our passion to build and promote our cultural heritage is not a steady lifelong process. That is why we tend to embrace CELEBRATION instead of CEREBRATION.

What will baffle me is to see the USA government organizing events of this kind to proclaim their cultural presence. This is because Hollywood and other agencies are doing that. Even winning wars, they lose on Celluloid.

Every new day is a festival for its thieving publishing houses, television stations, movie industries who work tirelessly to feed its immediate ‘imagined community’ and also for export.

Wearing kente and shouting you are wearing Ghana, is a fine source of entertainment but cannot be a substitute for an institutionalized process which will draw attention to its spectacular asthmatic breathing show called ‘Ghana Month’

In the blessed memory of Ghana month…

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