Are Ghanaians Losing out on Social Direction and Purpose?
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This piece is a prelude to a series of personal views I intend to share on this blog weekly. The focus would be on our attitudes as Ghanaians touching on issues concerning our politics, culture and society, music, language, our thought process among others. The write up below is limited to the family set up and our socialization process. Feel free to share your thoughts. After all this is my personal stance!
The social direction of every society is determined by individual social characteristics which often come with self identification. And this forms a greater part of one’s personality. When one is able to identify himself or herself, then it comes down to the identification with the larger society. The concept of social integration generally affects the behavioural patterns of citizens, and these in turn either affect them adversely or favourably.
The process of identifying with society and where the values and norms of every civic group are handed down to individuals in the society is termed socialisation. Socialisation, in other words, is society in interaction. Generally, individual members of the society learn from those ahead of them either through the family, school, community or influential voices or opinion leaders in the society. If those they are emulating have flawed in social direction and purpose, they are likely to be affected too.
In the case of Ghana, which has closely knit societies, there is a great potential of inculcating a sense of purpose and direction into the citizenry. The first contact of members of the society begins with the birth of a child into a family where it plays a vital role in shaping the individual. As the child grows, it is given its defined role first in the family, and the community, school, and later on in life at the work place. The current trend of socialisation can be attributed to cultural integration. It appears that our old forms of socialisation are less passable in molding the individual. This is because contact with other societies has bred different types of attitudes and behaviours on the part of the citizens. What we have not learned to do as Ghanaians, however is to try to filter what we consume culturally.
The Ghanaian family system, like all other families elsewhere, has undergone changes over time. These changes have taken place as a result of constant interaction of societies and civilizations, with each trying to impose its superiority over others. In the Ghanaian case, it has tended to be narrow and inward looking in some aspect. Whiles the family system has imbibed qualitative changes from other societies, it has also exposed itself to the hazards of foreign cultures. The occurrence of these changes may, however, carry some fundamental relevance to the period the people we find ourselves in that it comes with both positive and negative phases.
In not too recent past when the Ghanaian extended family system was the pride of every member, every person craved to be a part of that monolithic body that united us. The extended family system was an extension of the various nuclear families that came under it. Though the composition of the system stretched to every member in the family tree: grandparents, fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces, brothers, sisters, etc., every single member was known and recognized as a major branch of that tree. In- laws and even neighbours who had close affinity to the family were considered family members.
But the extended family is seen today as having outlived its usefulness. Those days when every Ghanaian could confidently tell you the clan he was associated with (especially the Akans) are far gone. The clan system is dying if not dead! Among the Akans for instance, every member of a family belongs to a clan. And every clan has its unique insignia that clan members pride in. They drew their inspiration from the clan symbol, which often ranged from a particular animal in the forest to the tamed ones. Every clan too had a greeting peculiar to it. In responding to a greeting, one mentions his “accolade”, thus where he is coming from and he is addressed appropriately.
This was a wonderful way of bringing about communism. Today, to trace and be part of the clan system is considered mundane if not fetish. People consider their church members as their family. Occasions like naming ceremonies, funerals, and marriages are taken over by the church. The church is a preferred venue for naming ceremonies these days, since refusal would mean God had no hand in the child’s welfare. I sincerely brace this phenomenon. Instilling the child and marriages the tenets of religiosity goes a long way in putting some fear of committing reprisals against the all-pious! From the economic perspective, naming ceremonies in the churches have cut down on the largesse we attach to such ceremonies. But can the same be said for taking your marriage to the church?
In several areas of Africa, a child’s total life is one long journey for a useful role they are expected to play in society. This role is mainly in relation to becoming a useful member of the society. The child is observed and monitored over a period of time by members of her family and the society at large. In the case of the female, even in marriage, she is expected to conform to certain traditional values of her community. Everyone becomes interested in how she sits, speaks, laughs, generally behaves and reacts to situations. The essence, to instill a sense of purpose and direction in the child.
The unifying factor of the extended family was the family gatherings and reunions. These unions were attended by all family members, far and near. The essence was to bring the family together. In these sessions, family disputes were settled; members who passed on in the year and previous years were remembered. Interaction was core to the family. The family was not the individual; the individual was the family. Such is the ideal Ghanaian family set up.
Today, all these are changing and the factors that account for these changes, though numerous are not farfetched. Prominent, however, are urbanization and economic factors, the influence of modern culture and religion. These factors have a greater toll on the other channels of socialisation.
The close niche of the family has been exposed to the craze to make the urban areas an economic haven. There is a rise in the number of people, particularly the youth who desert the rural, or in some cases the urban as well, to bigger towns to make a living. In so doing, they face the family pressure to succeed in their endeavors and bring something substantial to their respective bases. This kind of pressure, in a way, alienates them from their families since they cannot go “home” empty handed. Such people are cut off from important family gatherings and the effect of this is obvious.
The same problem pertains to nuclear families as well. Economic factors prevent parents from going back to their root to establish physical contact with other family members. The concentration, these days, is on one’s immediate family. Children are brought up in a way that associates them with their immediate siblings only, and in extreme cases if they do have acquaintances with other members of the family, they are those who happen to live within the defined urban or geographic proximity. Otherwise, the children are isolated from the extended family members. The repercussion of this is the slow demise of the extended family system. The children grow and make their friends their family. Thus, it is common these days to find a person going to ask for a lady’s hand in marriage in the company of a friend, which is a complete departure from the norm.
The reason for the alienation of the extended family is not far fetched. Most immediate families want their independence from relations. Prevailing economic factors do not make it possible to relate to other family members cordially. This emanates from the fact that in the African setting, one of the cardinal reasons for belonging to a family is the aspect of sharing- fortunes and problems. Problems are shared these days rather than fortune. A family would rather be comfortable to employ a non family member to live and help with the chores, and even pay the fellow, than bring in a relation to help. The reason? Independence
The influence from the west and globalization for that matter has always been pointed as a negative persuade on us. Globalization has really impacted negatively on the African culture. Culture is dynamic and the changes that are associated with them must be gradual. Someone’s culture and values must not be imported wholesale to submerge the already existing one. The Ghanaian for reasons that cannot be fathomed sees everything from the west as superior. Thus, the Ghanaian prides himself in western food, western way of dressing, their style of living, their system of marriage, and even their way of speaking. I love the west and their simplicity of lifestyle and forthrightness. What we fail to do is to see what we have as superior. This complete adaptation has tended to affect the Ghanaian perception of the family and the nodes that go with making the Ghanaian culture rich.
The external environment like the school, workplace and the channels of mass communication, to a greater extent, also help in determining who an individual becomes. Education has helped in defining the general character of people. The issue of collective consciousness that had played useful role in the placement of the citizenry in terms of direction and purpose is fast eroding if not dead. If it does exist at all, then it is negligible. In its place is individualistic life-style that sees esteem in the faint glasses of self-rectitude. These days, no one finds it necessary to correct a neigbour’s child, or worst of, punishing someone’s child. Inasmuch as the family as an agent of socialisation has the ultimate responsibility of inculcating into the individual the spirit of purpose and direction, the school or education for that matter is a good appendage in this regard. At school, are teachers not attacked for righting the wrongs of recalcitrant pupils? Is this not a society that has not identified what it really wants to achieve?
Since man is said to be a social animal, it also means that the supposed “animal” is capable of putting up, accepting, and practising the codes of the community. This might be either a consciously planned activity or perhaps an unconscious learning habit that brings into focus the zeal to comply, identify and finally internalize norms. It is this animalistic tendency that makes it possible to make individual members of the community to behave in a particular way.
If Ghana
The question that lingers is who are we as Ghanaians? Is Ghana
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