BY
KWAME GYASI
Email: [email protected]
KWAME GYASI
“When you are given an American Ford Expedition car bribe, say it is a Japanese Toyota V8 car gift”
— Anon.
One thing I also learnt in communication management literature is the need for effective communication and the choice and use of words. It is hard to imagine one becoming a truly successful manager without having a good grasp of communication skills. Communication is central to virtually all managerial roles and serves a variety of necessary functions. In the choice and use of words, culture plays very critical part. Nigerians used the words “globe” and “trailer” while Ghanaians used the words “bulb” and articulator” respectively for the same substance. A Ghanaian may use the word “rubber” for condom where an American may use the word “eraser” for “rubber”. So a Ghanaian shopper at an American supermarket may point to a condom and announce to the salesgirl that he wants to buy rubber to the utter surprise of the sales girl.
When an American uses the word “fix” it can connote many things. One management textbook, FOUNDATIONS OF SUPERVISION, in a topic tiled: “Interpretation of the Word Fix” has this to say:
“An Englishman visits America and is completely wowed by many ways we use the word fix. For example: His host asks him how he’d like his drink fixed. He means \ His hostess calls to everyone to finish their drinks because dinner is all fixed. She means As he prepares to leave, he discovers that he has a flat tire and calls a repairman who says he’ll fix it immediately. He means On the way home, he is given a ticket for speeding. He calls his host, who says, “Don’t worry, I’ll fix it”. He means At the office the next day, he comments on the cost of living in America, and one of his colleagues says, “It’s hard to make ends meet on a fixed income. He means steady or unchanging. Later, he remarks that he doesn’t know what to do with his college diploma. A colleague says, I’ll fix it on the wall for you. He means He has an argument with a co-worker. The latter says, “I’ll fix you”. He means seek revenge. Another co-worker remarks that he is in “a fix”. He means condition or situation. He meets a friend at his apartment who offers to “fix hum up” with a girl. You know what he means.
So next time when you hear somebody promising to “fix” the energy setup, it could mean he is going to nullify or completely destroy the energy setup and make dumsor a permanent feature of the Ghanaian culture. So don’t be surprised when the dumsor which everybody thought was in a coma resurrects with the full vengeance of Count Dracula as we are witnessing today after a promise to fix it has been made in front of exalted Men of God.
Once, an American lady tourist was walking the streets of Accra when she sighted a completely naked mad man exposing all his genitals. The lady was somehow attracted by the mad man’s penis and she muttered under her breath: “what a waste”. Obviously, the lady must have been saying in her mind: “I like it, I love it”. So next time when somebody utters those words, we must put on our imagination cap in its full glory to be able to decipher the exact meaning of the word statement and not just take it for granted.
This country also seems to come up with new terms any time the Supreme Court meets on cases of interest to the political class. It used to be “Amicus Curia”. Now there is a new term doing the rounds: The new word on the block is: “contemnors”. From the term contemnors we have the Muntie 3. Destiny dictated that it should have been the Muntie 3 plus 1. However that would have drawn them too close to the illustrious figures in Alexandre Dumas’s historical book The Three Musketeers. On the contrary, some years back, one of our television networks used to telecast a Japanese film entitled: Journey to the West”. The more I look at the pictures of Muntie 3 plus 1, the more I get the feeling that their countenances resemble the characters of those in the Japanese film especially as they faced the Supreme Court judges. .
The Three Musketeers on a serious note is a historical novel by Alexandre Dumas. Set in 1625–1628, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d’Artagnan (based on Charles de Batz-Castelmore d’Artagnan ) after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the Musketeers of the Guard . Although D’Artagnan is not able to join this elite corps immediately, he befriends the three most formidable musketeers of the age: Athos , Porthos and Aramis and gets involved in affairs of the state and court eventually.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), the criminal ethnocentric looting machine encapsulated as a political party was purposely created by the Godfather of the NDC to enable some disgruntled and criminally minded characters with the ambition of the capitalist class hiding their poverty, failure and disgruntlement of society under their socialist pretences to adopt glutinous obscene devious, despicable lifestyles which only the affluent rich sports personalities and filmstars of the western world could afford. When the Godfather created that evil Frankenstein monster little did he realise that one day, he would fall foul of his own creation and that the monster would turn round to devour him. Today the Godfather not only grieves and complains bitterly and openly about the turn of events within the NDC and the way and manner corruption and greed and pure looting has taken over the leadership of the party in complete contrast to the original ideals of probity and accountability and integrity of the era of the AFRC/PNDC to such an extent that his own wife finds the NDC too repugnant to associate herself with.
Worst still the Godfather has coined some of the most despicable and derpgatory terms to describe the leadership and constituents and apparatchiks of the party’s rank and file. Today, under John Dramani Mahama NDC administration, the greatest critic of that regime is the Godfather and Founder of that evil empire himself and the person who made J. D. Mahama what he is today. For the first time in the annals of this country terms like : “Greedy Bastards, “Leeches”, Thieves”, “Old Evil Dwarfs”, “Babies with Sharp Teeth”, “Bribe Takers” , “Criminals”, “Fraudsters” are being branded around to describe the occupants and cohorts of the nation’s State House in the media and public functions by all cross section of the citizens led by the Godfather and Founder of the looting machine.
Today the Old Evil Dwarfs who created the Babies with Sharp Teeth have fallen on their own swords. They described the Godfather as “a barking dog who has been caged” and worse still, “an arch tribalist who gave positions to only people from his Ewe ethnic tribe while banishing the people from the Savana Region to the fringes of the nation’s public life”. They have so soon forgotten all the juicy positions his administration dished out to the people from the Savanna Region. It was the unkindest cut of all. Today majority of the top public service appointments announced by John Dramani Mahama NDC administration go to the people from the Savanna Region. There is not a single board or council of a public organization which is constituted without at least a single representative from the Savanna Region. The government nominees of about seven names recently announced governing as the governing council of the University of Ghana has not less than three nominees from the Savanna Region.. How many Gas found themselves on the council? How did the nation stoop so low under John Dramani Mahama?