Where are we heading to?

About a century ago on this same land we occupy, lived a wonderful generation consisting of people who were selfless, people who took societal responsibilities personal and had the perception that a child’s up-bringing was a duty to be fulfilled by all. People who placed societal interest first and all other personal interest last; that is people with a heart and culture. Talking of culture now brings into the minds of people especially the youth, thoughts of an outmoded lifestyle or something of the past. One thing we should know is that culture is neither of the past nor for chiefs and their subjects only but for all. Culture, is the way of life for a particular group of people; in the sense that, how the groups’ ancestors were brought up, how they lived and how they are suppose to train the youth.

A critical analysis of culture reveals that it is a process based on the acceptance of responsibility. However, the negligence of the generation at tasks to pass on its culture to its youth is bound to experience unexpected as well as undesired behavior from their youth. Thus, culture is a matter of reaping what is sown.

Bizarre perception we have about our culture explains why the youth of today are going haywire. And our inability to make the lifestyle of our forefather reflect in that of our youth, has something to do with our over copying of foreign cultures. And this intentional but unintended choice we have made is the underlying reason for acts by our youth, which does not portray their identity and sense of pride a value our forefathers toiled for with their sweat and blood.

The remedy of this situation depends not on blames but to rather learn our lesson from the “Sankofa bird” which teaches us to return to the positive things we use to do. It true that no man is an island on its own and for that matter there is the need to integrate with people of other cultures. And in doing so, there is a tendency of influencing each other but that does not mean we should abandon our culture for others.

In conclusion, imitation is limitation and for that matter learning wrongly other cultures will do us more harm than good, by causing us to live below what is expected of us. We are all at task of the fact that failure to deliver is a huge disappointment not to us but also to our forefathers and the generations yet unborn. Let us all come together to revive our culture, the only medium that development can happen in the country. The gap between Ghana and the developed countries is inclined to attitude which is built around the nature and composition of culture. This makes culture very instrumental in efforts to solve the intractable development challenges of the country.

The author, Dominic Osei Boakye is in the Department of Economics, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi-Ghana. (Email: romeoston@yahoo.com.au)