Saturday, January 14, 2012

If I Don’t Speak Up Because It Didn’t Happen to Me

Any State that treats the fourth estate with the third degree because it sees them as the fifth column is crude. It’s that simple. In truly democratic countries, the ‘security’ job is carried out like infra-red light. Not in Ghana! We run it like fireworks on New Year’s Eve.

Because of our hairy history of railroading our impotent institutions of democracy, any bloke in boots, a beret, a big belt and a badge – never mind whether they’re even private security – demands deity-deference because they can slap-slap you to Paga, Pluto and then Purgatory.

Paradoxically, the most disciplined and brightest security outfit by far in our democratic sparks has always been the military.

So when Ghana’s national security enforcers advertise their brawn like a neon billboard right outside a court of law, you’d expect their civilian masters to pull the leash and put them in the doghouse.

Why should our shadowy moles unleash their cloak-and-dagger 'yawa' on the streets and sow insecurity in the deepest hearts of the lamb they’re sworn (?) to protect. This week, they pummelled a girl journo and rent her clothes to dishonour her. If she was taking shots of an unfolding public scene which they resented, why not simply arrest the offending camera. And even that...

12 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Yup, Ghana! So much in love with the 'dark ages'.

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  2. Kwame Mensa-Bonsu14 January, 2012

    Neanderthals! In need of extreme cleansing, those thugs. We are in 2012 not 1981...1979!

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    1. I agree that we're not in the dark ages. But haven't our national security enforcers been rather backward in their professionalism in at all times?

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    2. Kwame Mensa-Bonsu24 January, 2012

      They've been always backward, yes...but the world is going forward! So should they, whether they like it or not. Sadly, the elite of the country don't see the urgency.

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  3. when I heard this I was like what? Most of the times a few nuts who think they are doing the masters a hell lot of good implement what to them is the best way to serve the master. In the end they create more problems for themselves and those bosses. The hell of it is that they are hardly, if ever, punished. So that if this guy gets demoted, or even some months in prison, by the same outfit, and perhaps the same boss he thought he was pleasing, they'd think thrice when the chance to slap-slap arise again.

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    1. Controversial, maybe. But the abuse of the police power of the State is as dangerous as the word can be. I advocate the immediate suspension of errant security officers pending investigations.

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  4. I don't know whose account to accept on this tale. Some say it was state security that beat up the journo. The State security, the BNI to be precise, says it wasn't them but some brutes that belong to the side of the prime character in the scene the journo was interested in photographing!
    However, another sad event!

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    Replies
    1. Yes, no condemnation without evidence. Somehow, I find it difficult to believe it is anybody but those people. Radio comments I have heard from the security establishment - and non-contrite ones too - appear to validate our collective suspicions already.

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  5. Regardless of the exact details of the incident, I agree with your sentiments especially "Any State that treats the fourth estate with the third degree because it sees them as the fifth column is crude. It’s that simple". One thing I appreciate about living in present-day Ghana has been democracy that allows freedom of expression and the strength of the fourth estate. We cannot revert back to the dark days when things were different. We have come too far.

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    Replies
    1. And yet, sometimes, I fear that the current breath of fresh air is not permanent.

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    2. Kwame Mensa-Bonsu24 January, 2012

      Democracy can't be entrenched when the neanderthals are left to run around with impunity.

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