SIKANKU: In Ghana, ethnic violence taints Obama’s “model democracy”

Etse Sikanku

When a crisis breaks out in Ghana on the scale of what we’re witnessing in Bawku now, there are four things that happen: (a) accept the problem wholeheartedly and seek practical solutions; (b) deny that this is even a problem at all; (c) recognize that it is a problem but be sure to note it could be worse and lastly; (d) “play politics” with it.

There can be no denial that the Bawku crisis has become a major embarrassment to Ghana’s international reputation. This is yet another incident that should offer us an opportunity to re-think the current status of rule of law and human rights in Ghana before going to broadcast to the rest of the world that we’re Africa’s “beacon of democracy”.

We can argue that the violence in Bawku is ‘isolated’ as Vice president Mahama asserted or that “stripping of some suspects naked publicly in Bawku is more acceptable than killing innocent citizens” as Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Mark Wayongo ridiculously argued. But to the extent that Bawku is still part of the Ghana—and it’s larger subscription to democratic standards— government must take more seriously the fight against ethnic violence since these events could only be a harbinger of things to come.

If only.

The underlying problem with politics in Ghana is that the de facto strategy for addressing a crisis of any kind is to approach it in a politically cynical or expedient manner. By this we mean everything that happens including our success at soccer games and the glaring violation of human rights must be sieved through the political prism. There are those who will ask, like someone did on an internet discussion board “I didn't see you asking the same question when Ya-Na and Mobilla were gruesomely murdered under NPP's so-called rule of law, so why make so much noise now?” In effect the substantive issue is ignored, while we dabble in a game of political horse trading. It’s a common strategy people adopt from the political playbook in Ghana: meet a question with a question.

While all this might pass for interesting debates in a political science seminar there is an even bigger worry. In many ways, the current attitude in Ghana is beginning to resemble a rampant ideological strain that was at the heart of Bush’s turbulent years at the White House: American exceptionalism. It’s one that holds that the “US is a more highly evolved democracy than anywhere else on earth”. Contextually, Ghanaian exceptionalism believes that our democracy is so far ahead of others in Africa, that none of the protracted civil wars in other parts of the continent is capable of rearing its head in our country.

It will be great if this was the case, but even the most optimistic Ghanaian knows such an assumption is nothing but preposterous. At some point we need to acknowledge that the crisis in Bawku is not just sectional or regional but national in scope. These are serious, even deadly issues, pertaining to human life and human rights; underestimating the problem will not make it better.