Pal,
From homosexuality to insults: The media in Ghana seem to be getting everyone on a lazy-escape ride (while our problems remain) and no less a person than the president himself has gotten on board.
President Mister says 'politics of insults' must stop after a political opponent of his suggested he, together with a colleague, is gay!!! it was a mere suggestion pal. but the president took it seriously against my gay feeling and decided to call on osofos in the country to speak against insults.
So I say come and insult me pal. come, now! else, let's bid time; you'd make me president and after rain the insults on me as I sit to represent you! call me gay! call me bisexual! call me asexual. or call me handsome. anything. be it nasty or beautiful don't matter. just call me what you want and i'd not even 'put flatulence into it' (a number of Ghanaian languages have this phrase, meaning 'to mind'. I love it).
It's simple. I have my bias for unfettered 'free speech'!!! my manifesto which I presented in 2008 states so in article 11. and I don't give a damn about any opanyin (Akan) or onukpa (Ga) or ametsitsi (Ewe) or elder (English). I mean if an onukpa acts foolishly I should state so exactly.
so what is an insult? I've heard some refer to descriptions of body parts of fellow humans as insult. So if I say you have a big head (whether it's true or not) I should be said to be insulting you. Others stretch it to descriptions of material possessions by fellow humans. So if I say your car is rickety it could mean insult.
Insult really is an imprecise term in language. So when I see a chief I feel insulted. if you plant a tree in-front of my door to make my way narrow I'd feel insulted even though a tree should be a good thing. If you bring the most beautiful woman in the world to lie by me in bed without my consent I would feel insulted even though you'd think I should just 'take her' (say that in twi) as a man. and I feel insulted by my president claiming that insults should stop because I know they shouldn't.
Many blacks feel insulted when they are faced with racist chants (chants which would make me dance instead) and yet they don't expect whites to feel insulted when they refer to them with terms like vampires (who suck our resources like blood).
Obama and his Sarkozy-allies have insulted me with their operations in Libya and Ivory Coast. Bush rained some of the worst insults on me in recent history with his WMD lies. Bush meant that a person like me is a fool (he needn't say it in naked words before I know, you see?).
So if you don't need to call me a fool before I see that you are calling me a fool then how can insults ever stop? as for me I won't bother much about such a fruitless thing to say. Insult is part of communication; our language and actions and it has always been. You'd find it deeply rooted in many cultures even as 'organized insults' like the Ga 'kpa shi mo' which is about setting a day aside to insult leadership (to call them to order). There are many folk songs and tales that are nothing but insults, relating to all manner of situations in society and they are meant to be instruments of correction.
So insult is not always bad. Insults may be deserving or not deserving. and really there can be no line to draw a separation between what is insulting and what is not. There's no such line.
So pal, is our God an insulting God?
2 comments:
I think there are insults and there are libels. If I call a public figure a child molester it is different from me calling them a monkey. In Ghana, some think the word gay is on the level of child molester. We need to diffuse some of the language but recognise that some words can destroy a person’s life. As to your question about god I have no idea what you mean by that word!
Hi Graham,
insults really can be further separated into various classifications. So libels can't lose their insulting attributes. calling a public figure a child molester is like saying the person is a thief. In that case, we raise questions about integrity, etc., and it's certainly different from calling that person a monkey which is merely about fantasy or imagination or a feeling of dislike towards the person. and in all of these insult retains it's place and is subject to interpretation.
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