“The Silence Culture”; a major setback to development

I strongly believe that one of the major problems affecting Ghana’s development is something I call “The Silence Culture”.  We have for long  been trained not to ask questions - sometimes even when we have to. Since your childhood days, you’ve been made to be a receiver; if daddy says something, you dare not question because if you do, you might as well build your own house and move in or be prepared to sleep in tears with red buttocks that day. Some call this ‘respect’, but I beg to differ because I believe respect is mutual and not imposed; thus respect is ‘gained’ not ‘forced’. So if daddy speaks and allows you to ask your questions; no matter how silly or unnecessary or even stupid it may seem and he answers you by explaining, first of all you feel accepted and respected and you in turn respect him as well. We have been trained to jump into conclusions without finding out the main motif behind a statement because we are denied questioning.

No wonder the developed countries give us loans and turn round to tell us or decide what we should use the money for. Because we perceive it’s best for us whiles in some cases, it really is not. Foreign countries decide policies for us and we uphold it in good faith. Some of our farmers work so hard to produce something and when their products are being exported to these developed countries, they even go to the extent of telling us how much they will pay for it whiles it’s not same on the reverse. You think these developed countries don’t know that we’re ‘receiver’s’…? Well, they are very much aware of this fact because, ‘producers’ ask questions. Producers ask why, how and even what they can do to impact society and make society a better place to live in. Be it policies or inventions, questions are needed to make it work. I wouldn’t blame our leaders fully for not taking concrete action against such practices by the foreigners. Because they have also been brought up in the same culture and they are just manifesting the ‘silence culture’ (which in this case, the developed country is daddy) at the governmental level.

 

My point is, if you’re ‘shut-up’ right from your developing age, how do you impact your society when you’re matured; because you mature with silence and silence solves nothing. With a ‘silence culture’, how do we generate ideas; how would you produce or do something worthwhile if you don’t ask to know what will really be profitable to people but assume for them? As students, student journalists or future journalists - whichever one you deem describes you best, I urge you to help BREAK that culture to help our nation develop.

By: Julius Ofori Boadu (JOB)
(juliusboadu@gmail.com)
Twitter: @CwesiOfori