As someone with a background in Sociology, I believe the background of people cannot be totally detached from their behaviours.
As much as my biology informs who I am, the place I find myself in plays a part in my behaviour. But I also believe that humans make thoughtful choices which may go against the social setting they find themselves in.
In fact, we are not just social puppets tossed about and around by dictates of the communities we belong to. If that were the case, nobody would be at fault for their actions.
In Ghana, we have quite a complex society owing to different economic groupings, religious orientations and notably the numerous ethnic/tribal groups that united into one nation at independence.
In the past when traveling, education, communication and knowledge were very limited, people could only imagine what people of other communities and ethnic groups were like. We relied on imaginary legends and hearsay to carve our ideas of who the other person is and what they do. And we all know the falsehoods that characterise much of these “stories about others”.
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Sadly, even though we have made many strides forward as a nation and have had the opportunity to have more factual evidence about groups other than our own, we have refused to learn. We hold on to the untested stereotypes about ethnic groups other than our own and knowingly and unknowingly play tribal discrimination games based on these.
If the roads we have travelled, the schools we have attended, the ‘sacred meetings’ we attend and the people we have met from other ethnic groups do not help us to defeat our false tribal stereotypes and discriminating tendencies, then it seems we are still savages with need for some real enlightenment.
It breaks my heart to see supposed learned people joining the tribal stereotypes and discrimination wagons at will and even unconsciously.
If we’d be a nation that would be one, we must learn to have some mutual respect for each other’s ethnic background and stop mindlessly latching on to and acting only based on the tribal stereotypes and discrimination meals our forebears have fed us with.
If for nothing, remember that single friend from the other tribe who did not match the description your parents told you about their tribe and begin to see others in a new light.
The Writer, Charles Selorm Deku, is a Freelance Social Researcher who loves to write about Religion, Rural life, Social Inclusion and issues of Tribal Tolerance in Ghana. He holds an Mphil in Sociology.