DENIAL IS THE NAME OF THE GAME According to Jim Butcher of turn coat fame “The human mind isnt a terribly logical or consistent place. Most people, given the choice to face a hideous or terrifying truth or to conveniently avoid it, choose the convenience and peace of normality. That doesnt make them strong or weak people, or good or bad people. It just makes them people.” The phrase ‘‘being in denial’’ is said to be a psychological defence mechanism postulated by Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence. This phrase seems to often encompass the Ghanaian attitude and way of life. From political leaders to Joe Blogs on the street it is more convenient to play ignorant sometimes to the point of looking foolish than to own up and change. That the Ghanaian Economy is in serious crisis has been obvious to the unaided eye for a while now, that whatever measures government is trying are not working can’t be disputed, it should not take any Bretten Woods institution or rating agency to let even the stark illiterate in the darkest hinterland of Ghana know this fact, yet the Finance minister in a statement to parliament asserted that the economy is on a sound footing. What an advert for denial. The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), in my view one of the biggest social interventions ever undertaken in Ghana is limping itself into collapse mainly due to the huge medicines bill component of its running cost, the current bill is 52% (over two times higher than the permissible limit worldwide for the survival of any health insurance scheme) yet the stake holders are doing little about the situation and blaming each other for the problems within the scheme. That the cost of generic medicines in Ghana is amongst the highest worldwide is even denied. The largest opposition party in the country goes to congress in a very acrimonious fashion with the stakes very high; the rifts in the party are too obvious to be discounted but the diehard party faithful claim all is well in the elephant’s camp and that the situation is normal. While at it fake delegate accreditation cards are supposedly printed by some members of the party, the assertion is initially denied, confirmed latter, but the confirmation is with a caveat of no names being mentioned. Really! Being in denial often leads to desperate measures in an attempt not to confront reality, the obvious suddenly becomes the enemy and all attempts are made to discredit it. What happened in the NPP pre-congress; the mudslinging, accusations and counter accusations is a tacit acceptance of this sad fact. It looked too obvious that the incumbent chairman and many of his executives had lost the trust of the party but reality being so hard to confront, their acolytes seemed to have resorted to all forms of dirty tricks. Peoples marriages and relationships are entangled in perpetual spin of lies and deceit but they find it appropriate to paint the perfect picture and advice others, they paint this picture of perfection, give advice they hardly experience and break homes in situations where their own living conditions are worse off. Even in death we are in denial. A chief or clan elder dies in hospital and the information gets into the public domain, the royal household comes out to flatly deny the story. Few weeks later they turn round and formally announce the passing, confirming the initial rumour and expect society to trust them. In our attempt to justify this funny state the term white lie is coined. The above are just a few examples of how much denial there is in our society. The very fact that we are in denial interestingly is often also denied. I have as a result come to wonder if as a people we realise how much harm such bloody mindedness does. I have also questioned whether this state of not owning up to mistakes and poor judgement is not a major reason there is so much corruption and under development in our society? That all our leaders at one point or the other have played the politics of denial by using deception is fact, as a result we have become a people of political equalisation rather than national development. Anything wrong with the society is explained by the government using the mistakes of the previous one. The call by the Vice president as leader of the economic management team for a forum to brainstorm on the feature direction of the country to me is one of the few times I have seen a leader or Ghanaian for that matter attempt to break away from the web of denial. I find it heart-warming because in spite of the mudslinging and name calling that initially greeted the lecture delivered by Dr Bawumia on the ills of the cedi; for once common sense seems to be prevailing and a root and branch analysis of the structures that sustain a currency may soon be undertaken. I am even gratified with the president’s call that this exercise should be undertaken devoid of political undertones. Truth is as a country we should have long had a national development policy blue print, one that will be towed irrespective of whatever political grouping that is in power. Something akin to the development plan Kwame Nkrumah had after independence. Are we going to be in denial this time round and cloud this forum in politics? Are the two major political parties and interest groups going to be truly nationalistic for ones or are we going to emerge from this process blaming each other for the ills of the economy? Are we going to continue to engage in the continual politics of denial by using deception whilst the nation slides into oblivion? I have always maintained that poverty is no respecter of political party loyalty or affiliation. This sad fact has been so obvious in all governments for fifty seven years, yet like anything else in Ghana; it’s glossed over and denied. Of all the ten regions in Ghana none can be said to be poverty free, yet our presidents and heads of states have hailed from all over and both major political parties claim to have strong holds. Does this not tell the unaided eye that denial of our situation is only an affront for failure? Don’t get me wrong there is a lot to be proud of for being Ghanaian but to become even prouder we need to get a grip and wean ourselves of this perpetual web of denial. Being in denial like it’s said is planning to fail and as its stands it seems as a people we enjoy just that.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Apr 2014 08:34:28 +0000
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