Has Karl Marx triumphed in Ghana’s opposition?
‘’The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on.’’ - President Barack Obama
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Today, my column is actually an extended reaction to the sort of response one gets these days when one claims to be a supporter of our President, John Mahama, and a sympathiser of his party, the ruling National Democratic Congress. This reaction is two-pronged, but easy to comprehend as the same answer to the recurrent issues in the mail I receive, and in my interaction with others of different opinions and bent from mine.
It is surprising that not one of my interlocutors has ever deemed it fit to ask fundamental why questions about my column, but rather arrogantly, and without any pause for reflection, assume so much and so wrongly. Any careful reader of this column will not fail to realise that I am no Nkrumaist, because I believe in the fundamental human rights and freedoms which were made illegal in spirit and practice with the passage of the Preventive Detention Act of 1958.
I do not support the incarceration to death of Dr Danquah for a number of reasons. As a serious student and observer of our politics, my initial take on the detention and death of Dr Danquah is that he never could have come close to defeating President Nkrumah in this country, so restricting him by jailing him for no offence committed till he died, and became transformed from an ineffective quixotic opponent to a martyr in this country was wrong.
Having said that, I was astounded to read the text of the press conference by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) lambasting President Mahama over the decision to accept into this country the two Guantanamo Bay detainees some time ago. It is revealing that some NPP Members of Parliament tabled questions for our Foreign Minister to answer in Parliament yesterday, but rather than wait for the explanations to be proffered and responding appropriately, the NPP jumped the gun by levelling charges and threats of impeachment against President Mahama earlier in the week.
Just like President Nkrumah who never charged Dr Danquah with a single offence, the NPP went off tangent with wild charges of suspicions against these two detainees, and slammed the government for endangering the lives of Ghanaians by importing terrorists to stay here for two years, never mind that we have been officially told that they would be confined to military installations, and could therefore not pose any threat to ordinary citizens.
Is it not amazing and astonishing that a party which is otherwise known as the party of the Danquah-Busia tradition, would so easily abandon its sacred beliefs in human rights for the sake of power? Was President Nkrumah right after all? Was the death of Danquah then a good thing? Because just like Dr Danquah, these detainees have not been charged, tried, convicted or jailed or otherwise sentenced, but here we are, the champions of human rights screaming from the rooftops, that President Mahama has committed an evil of unthinkable proportions. A cursory reading of President Mahama’s book would have explained some of these things but reading to understand and appreciate for usable lessons is a difficult chore for some of us.
And I am very sorry to observe that among the shrill opponents of the detainees’ stay in Ghana are known lawyers who will scream if even a single strand of their coiffed hair is tampered with. The whole episode is so surreal that one needs some strength from the Almighty to take it all in.
The other matter I have observed in reaction to my column is the ridiculous assertion thrown at any one who defends our President and his government must be benefiting in one way or the other from the government. In other words, such people accept the Marxian claim that we as creatures are the result of our material circumstances. This is very strange coming from people who otherwise believe passionately in having a property-owning democracy as the best state of affairs for all of us.
Of course, it is logical politically and commonsensical, to support what one gains something from and quite foolish to argue the obvious. Except this assertion cannot be true. Yes, it is true the majority of voters voted massively for the victor, but it is farfetched to say that all the millions of supporters are gaining something from the party and the government it formed and that in itself explains the support which sealed the victory.
What explains the phenomenon of world banks in our politics? What explains swing voting for those already enjoying? Can an opposition to a government satisfying its supporters ever hope to capture power at the polls if everybody one disagrees with is a stomach-direction citizen? There appears, however, deeper reasons for this erroneous posture. Is the opposition to President Mahama condemning what they would have done in power seeing that they still believe in a property-owning democracy?
What is puzzling is the absolute refusal to consider the question of values when one is voting for a President or a party. For quite a sizable number of voters, some value identification with the candidate preferred is crucial and in many instances, the most persuasive of arguments. Sometimes those values cohere with economic conditions, and at other times, they are quite unrelated. The question of values professed by a candidate is universal. Deliberately declining to take them into consideration is what has hobbled so many of our otherwise clever compatriots.
aburaepistle@hotmail.com