Faith Corner: Weep not countrymen
An essential element of community leaders is to keep hope alive. This is needful for faith leaders as well as civil leaders. Leadership at any level is influence; the positive or negative influence we have on the people we lead.
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The feedback community leaders give to their people could make very significant impact on the essence of their being. It can build them up or terribly hurt them. In the Bible there is a story of Israel where negative and very pessimistic report from a group of community leaders caused the whole of Israel to weep all night (Numbers 13&14).
There was absolutely no sound basis for Israel to weep all night. Moses, the national leader selected 12 community leaders, one from each tribe or region, to scout the land of Canaan they were marching on to possess. Entry into the new land meant a most significant brighter future, great economic status and total well-being.
The 12 community leaders returned from exploring the fertile land of great opportunities. In their report, they acknowledged the positive qualities and opportunities of the land they explored. But they had the most negative perception of their ability to access the land and their future prospects in it. Let’s listen to them:
“We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak!” (Number 13:27 & 28, NLT)
Caleb, one of the leaders who went to explore the land spoke, “let us go up at once and occupy the land; we are well able to conquer it.”
However, “the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!” So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we travelled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!” (Numbers 13:31-33, NLT)
The Bible records the result of this report, “At this the whole Israelite community cried out in dismay and the people wept all night long”!! (Numbers 14:1 REP)
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The regional leaders’ report to the whole community was discouraging. The negative, pessimistic reportage made the people go through unnecessary emotional pain and anguish. They wept all night.
The positive perception of Caleb and Joshua, the only two out of the 12 who went to explore the land did not hold out. The whole community gave in to negative influence and wept all night long. What a sad story. Perhaps mobilising the people to engage in all night prayer for breakthroughs was a better alternative to provoking them to weep all night.
Pessimistic and negative media reportage and wailings of political activists, some religious and community leaders, and leaders of civil societies (like the situation in Israel) may spread negative perceptions, discourage our people and cause unnecessary pain and increase anxiety in the population.
Leaders in various sectors of the society are free to offer objective criticism and well-informed analysis of national issues. But we must all move away from spreading gross pessimistic and negative reportage which will create anxiety and despondency in the whole community and hurt investor confidence in Ghana’s economy.
Meanwhile, when I was growing up along the Volta River bank, we ate food grown in the region – Rice was eaten mostly at Christmas and Easter!
And so we raise the question, should we continue importing large quantities of rice and depreciate the Cedi? Do we need a dietary cultural revolution? And where even bukom people now want to eat Banku and kenkey only one day in a week and eat rice the rest of the time then we need to produce much more rice locally.
We recall that after the “1983 famine,” and the “Rawlings chains,” things turned around quickly when we produced food and ate the food we produced. Col. Bernasko’s “operation feed yourself campaign” comes to mind. Let’s eat what we produce.
In this narrative, who are Ghana’s current team asked to explore our national future economic fortunes? Dr Joe Abbey, Kwame Pianim, Dr Nii Moi Thompson; Dr Ernest Aryeetey, Kofi Asamoah; Dr Stephen Addae; Dr Kwesi Botchwey, Hon Seth Tekper and other economists and stakeholders and co-ordinated by His Excellency Paa Kwesi Amissah- Arthur, have carefully surveyed the economic indices of our country at the Senchi Forum and how they are performing.
Their reports admit we are facing economic challenges now but expressed hope in the medium term. Hon. Seth Tekper, Minister of finance, has asked Ghanaians “to develop confidence in the Ghanaian economy as the outlook in the medium term still looks good despite the challenges.”
Then there is Ghana’s current engagement with the IMF. At the 2014 Methodist Church Ghana conference, Mr Osafo Marfo and Mr E.T. Mensah contributing to a discussion both supported the move by Ghana to approach the IMF.
We are told, “Ghana would not repeat past mistakes with IMF; and that today’s IMF was a totally different institution.” In addition, a report adds, “This is an exciting time for Ghana.
We are in the midst of a transformation, a metamorphosis from a low middle-income country into a fully fledged middle-income nation.”
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Let’s watch the process closely; and we must all aim to contribute to its proper development. It must improve standards of living from rural communities’ level to the urban poor.
We must keep hope alive. Weep not countrymen!