Au Revoir but Not Goodbye

Uh oh. I’m going to have start writing actual blog entries, because my final column for the Ghanaian Observer was published here, and is posted (phew!) below:

I am writing this, my last GO column, from a hotel room in Tamale. Though I am leaving these pages this week, I am not leaving Ghana for another three months. My location today is a reflection of my new role, which will have me travelling throughout Ghana working with journalists in different regional capitals, without time to regularly contribute to this paper.

Many of the column inches I have filled these last seven months have focused on problems I have with the way power is exercised in Ghana. In particular, I’ve taken issue with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (many times), the Ghana 2008 Local Organising Committee (a few times), and even President John A. Kufuor himself (at least once). I can tell you now that when I do leave Ghana, I won’t be missing any of them.

There is a lot that I will miss, though, and I plan to work hard at appreciating all of those things during my last months on Ghanaian soil.

Development in Uniform?

Can you bear it? My second-to-last column was published here, and can also be savoured below:

I didn’t think the AMA could surprise me, but a few weeks ago they did. After months of criticizing the policies and practices of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, I thought I was beyond the stage where they could shock me. I was wrong. I wish I could say the surprise was a pleasant one, but it wasn’t. Just when I thought the city’s administration couldn’t get more absurd, they announced that taxi drivers would be arrested for failing to wear sky-blue shirts and blue-black trousers.

After the Football Fever Breaks

This week’s column was published here, and is posted below:

Two weeks ago I was so enchanted with the excitement surrounding the football tournament taking place in Ghana right now, that I refrained from expressing concerns I had about the way the Cup of Nations was being run. As the competition nears its close, though, I feel the need to rant a little about some of the issues that have frustrated me.

The most obvious problem, of course, is ticket distribution. I’m not even going to try to propose solutions to the empty stadiums at all the non-Ghana games (though I think they’re appalling), and I’m not going to touch on the issues of hoarding and scalping, because I’m not an expert in these things, and I really don’t know how they can be solved. (I’m pretty sure someone knows, though, and I wish the Local Organising Committee would ask them.) What I do want to do is share one ticket-buying experience and a suggestion that occurred to me out of it.

Has Brutality Become Banal?

This week’s column was published here, and is also conveniently posted right here:

Last week’s news was dominated by an odd duet of stories, with coverage on air and in print alternating almost exclusively between the Cup of Nations football tournament and the botched bust of the child prostitution operations at Accra’s Soldier Bar. Time and again call-in shows focusing on the previous night’s game found themselves fielding calls about escaping child prostitutes (and vice versa), in an awkward but telling demonstration of the divide in Ghana’s collective consciousness.

As the week began, I was in full football fever mode, but by Tuesday I’d begun tuning out the never-ending analysis, and tuning in as more details about the bust and subsequent disappearance of the apprehended minors from government custody emerged. As the week wore on, and focus shifted almost exclusively to who was responsible for the girls’ “escape,” I was disappointed to find little attention paid to the issue that had attracted my attention in the first place. I share in people’s disbelief and anger about the girls’ release from the social welfare centre, but I wonder why they’re not angrier about another troubling aspect of the story.

I’m referring in particular to the assault on the three journalists who were present at the bust:

Football Fever

After a long hiatus (to be explained in a later post), I wrote a new column, which was published here, and appears below:

As I write this column, commentators on my radio (and I’m sure every other Ghanaian FM station) are dissecting the Black Stars’ opening match win over Guinea in the African Cup of Nations. I had intended to dedicate my return to GO’s pages (did you miss me?) to one of my trademark rants against a problematic Accra Metropolitan Assembly policy. But, like the rest of the country, I’ve caught a case of Black Star fever, so the rant will have to wait until the fever has broken.

When I first learned that I would be spending seven months in Ghana, one of the first things I went to research was football. As a citizen of one (Canada) and former resident of another (the U.S.) of the few countries in the world where football is not the most popular sport (they even call it soccer!), I am always happy when my travels bring me to countries that share my love of the beautiful game. I’e been lucky to find myself living in both England and France during major football tournaments, where I could find other enthusiasts gathering around every available TV set to watch match after match after match.

You can imagine my joy at discovering that not only would there be a major African football tournament while I was on the continent, but in the very country and city where I would be living.

Football Fans: Friends or Foes?

This week’s column was published here, and appears below:

Like most people in Ghana, I’m looking forward to the upcoming Ghana 2008 football championship. At least, I think I’m like most people in Ghana. Certainly the endless streams of promotional materials, advertisements, and merchandise are creating a feeling of anticipation, and I’ve talked to lots of Ghanaians who seem excited about the upcoming tournament.

I have also, however, been part of a number of discussions now in which Ghanaians took quite a negative view, if not of the tournament itself, then of what it will mean for the country. While the Cup of Nations’ corporate and government sponsors are touting the money that will pour into the country along with foreign visitors, many Ghanaians I have spoken to are convinced that the major imports during the Cup will be drugs, diseases, crime, and immorality.

You have the Right

This week’s column was published here, and appears below:

Since my very first column some months ago, I have actively avoided mentioning what brought me to Ghana in the first place. It’s not that I’m ashamed of my work here, I’m proud of it, but I didn’t feel it had a place in this space. This column is a forum for my own personal views and observations, and I didn’t want to give the impression that I was writing as the representative of the organisation I work for, rather than as myself alone.

You see, I work with the staff at The Ghanaian Observer, but I don’t work for The Ghanaian Observer. I am employed by an organisation called Journalists for Human Rights, and my purpose in Ghana is to build the capacity of the reporters I work with at GO and beyond to write the best human rights stories they can. You may have noticed some of the results of my work already in these pages; I hope you will continue to long after I have left the country.

I’m sure you’re now wondering why, after five months of failing to mention my reason for being here, I’ve suddenly decided to bring it up. There’s no big story here, no sudden need to “come clean” with my readers. The entirely mundane reason is Human Rights Day.

Wading through the AIDS Quagmire

Can you believe it? My 20th column was published here, and is reprinted below:

Last week I spent a day and a half at the HIV/AIDS conference that was held here in Accra. At the end of both days, I left the conference centre with a head bursting with (mostly depressing) statistics. Two-thirds of the world’s HIV-positive population live in sub-Saharan Africa. A further 59% of those cases are women. A shocking 91% of children living with HIV/AIDS are also in sub-Saharan Africa. Only 23% of Africans needing anti-retroviral treatments receive them, compared with 75% in other developing areas like the Caribbean and Latin America.

There’s more. In some African countries, HIV affects as many as a third of the population (Swaziland—33%, Botswana—24%, South Africa—19%). Life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa has dropped by five years since 1990, when estimates say it would have risen by a whopping 26 years in South Africa if there were no AIDS, and 10 years here in Ghana. Across the continent, the pandemic has resulted in significant decreases in economic productivity, agricultural production, school enrolment, and expenditures on basic necessities.

And that’s still only a drop in the bucket.

Hillary, Ellen, and Who?

Column time! It was published here first, and below second:

When I started working at GO in July, it was hard to move in our office without tripping over a young woman reporter. I think of the period between July and October as “attachment season,” during which our paper hosted seven enthusiastic young women journalists gaining their first practical experience in the field. Except for one who stayed to do her National Service with GO, these formidable females have all left our office, returning to finish their studies or heading to other media houses to complete their own year of service.

Even without our knot of newly minted newsies, the ratio of women to men on GO’s staff is pretty impressive; we’re as close to a 50-50 split as you can get with a staff of 13. For now, all the management positions are held by men, but I’m confident some of my female colleagues will see their names followed by “Editor” some day if they so desire.

I’ve been pleased to see that journalism isn’t the only profession where Ghana’s women are finding opportunities to rise in the ranks and make a difference, not only in their own lives, but that of their country; I’ve been treated by women doctors and stopped by women police officers at checkpoints. I’ve sought advice from women lawyers, enjoyed the hospitality of women restaurateurs and hoteliers, and encountered countless women holding important positions in NGOs doing important work.

With so much impressive womanpower in the economy, I’m shocked by the lack of women interested in holding one particular position: President of Ghana.

Health Care that Cares

Annoyingly, my column from November 14 appears never to have made it onto the GO website (presumably because we have had to resort to dialup since our broadband went kaput) so I’m going to leave a chronological gap and fill it in once it’s up. In the meantime, the next column was published here, and can be read below:

Regular readers (if I have any) will have noticed that I often fill my column inches with criticism of Ghanaian governance. I hope it is clear (for it is certainly true) that this criticism stems from my affection for Ghana and her people. It’s precisely because I care about Ghanaians that the failures of their leaders make me irate.

I don’t, however, feel irate today. No, today I thought I’d share one of the experiences that has made me so fond of Ghana. As I mentioned last week (assuming again that you were reading), my mother visited me here last month. She had a wonderful time, though things didn’t go at all as planned. Her fifth evening here, we were walking along a street near my home on our way to dinner, when I stepped over a gap in the pavements covering the gutter. I called out “Careful!” so my mother would do the same. Carefully watching her feet as she followed me, my mother looked up at my warning, and in the process failed to see the gap. She fell in the gutter, and cut her left leg quite badly.