Blunt! In the face of being 'couped'

The current Ghanaian government seems to be on tenterhooks. Alert to curb any hint of trouble, to douse the flammable tongue of any rabblerouser. On the surface, the government may seem right. In fact, we cannot compromise or gamble with our security. There is too much at stake. We have been rebuilding since our so-called independence and can’t afford to shake a building that has no roof, not to talk of a well-grounded foundation.

Moreover, I do not know, yet, of anybody who will want to live in a chaotic society. I don’t.

However, I know of a large mass of people who will sacrifice their tongues, lives, justice, their happiness and that of others for a pseudo tranquility.

Regardless of how important it is for us to maintain this so-called peaceful existence, we cannot act as if the few people whom this regime perceive as anarchist might be saying something that must be said, before this house is razed down. We forget peace is an illusion, conjured for our safety, when oppression reigns. We may not be happy about the words they choose, but are we not tired of euphemisms? Are we not tired of lies?

I wish we can all see our situation for what it is; that we are being oppressed by a group of people who cares not about what most of the population will eat today, or tomorrow. Is there any other way for us to see past our propagandized minds without us clearing the hair, hide, meat and getting to the bone of our issues?

I mean the number of young people literally sleeping and living under what was touted as “Circle Dubai” is increasing. Those who are blessed enough to have a roof over their heads are growing incessantly frustrated by what seems like a blockade in their path to progress, a blockade on their ability to reach hope. Some who have jobs are being paid to survive - nothing more. In all this, prices of goods in my corner store have doubled in 4 years. Our meager earnings are been dwarfed, subsumed by the everlasting conundrum of taxes. Our educational system, if we will want to see it for what it is, is in ruins; with no plan or purpose to create humans who can compete in a world that is speeding past electronic trains.

Yet, it seems that most of us will rather continue to make the eternal words of William Shakespeare ever truer when he said, “Out of this nettle called danger; we pluck this flower safety.”

On the tip of our toes, we are stretching for this safe cave whereas those who are to ensure that our lives are not laced with hunger, fear and anxiety hedge their fate against inflation. They increase their salaries by almost a double. They want to pay people we didn’t employ with our taxes. All the while living like kings and queens on the land and in the air. Telling us, unequivocally, in their deeds, that we can burn in the myth of Christendom’s hell.

The fact is that wherever and whenever oppression dwarfs the mountain of tolerance, of fear, and the people feel and realize they have nothing to lose but their bodies, rebellion roars. Such a battle is not fought by the Lord but between the oppressed and the oppressor.

This is what confronts us now; either we will run into the cave of our illusions and wait to be engulfed by the flames of despair or we will take up the challenge of addressing the ills in our society.

However lopsided this society seems to favour those who are willing to employ every arsenal in the tool of deception, we, the people, are the ones allowing that to happen. We are collaborators in our own oppression.

We must know that any empire the world has seen took vengeance into its hands. And anyone who thinks a person or group of people, who will want to subvert a status-quo will announce it with threats is deluded or scared to the bone. The world is scary and funny simultaneously, but our current leaders are too scared, terrified, a very subtle and insidious symptom of greed.

Aren't they grabbing onto everything in their reach? Aren’t they trampling upon lives and seemingly deaf to justice and accountability? Aren’t they oblivious to the fact that the human life, no matter where it originates, is valuable?

If we won’t try anything; it’s because we think we can’t. If we won’t, at least, use our tongue, fearlessly and meaningfully, to salvage our lives from the teeth of this oppressive regime, then this society will be eaten up by the wrath and ever glowing embers of the hopeless and neglected youth.

By then, not even the Lord can help us win that battle.

The author, Kofi Boateng, is a writer and journalist.

Follow him on Twitter via @KofiBoateng_J

Email: Kofiboatengj243@gmail.com

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