One will wonder why I have chosen this headline for this feature. Let me take you to Ayi Kwei Armah the author of the novel "The beautiful ones are not yet born". As a teenager each time my old folks gave me a piece of advice about the opposite sex what they said was that iI should have patience because the beautiful ones are not yet born. It was until I got to the Senior High School that I realised it was one of the literature books that they have read. Even that I thought the novel was about beautiful girls who had not yet been born. Until I had the opportunity to read the novel and come to that literary realisation that the author was only talking about self discipline of a public servant who refused to take bribes amidst insults from his mother-in-law and friends.
It was reported in the Daily Graphic that a group of students of the University of Ghana and the University of Cape Coast respectively clashed over a trivial matter. My problem is how can students of such higher learning demean themselves to savages. After all the learning of how to manage conflicts and the use dialogue, they stoop so low by destroying government property.
According to the Daily Graphic’s account, those involved attacked the Mensah Sarbah Hall where their friend was kidnapped with javelins, machetes, clubs and other harmful objects. How on earth could intellectuals forget the famous saying of Winston Churchill, a one time Prime Minister of Great Britain and I quote: "It is better to jaw jaw than to war war." How could they believe in violence when they could have resorted to a very intelligible way of handling the issue?
The action taken by the students of the University of Cape Coast (Casely Hayford Hall) and the University of Ghana (Commonwealth Hall) and (Mensah Sarbah Hall) to be specific was nothing to write home about.
These same students who destroyed school property today will one day say that the past generation had failed us and that we should trust in the youth to move this country of ours forward. They might even become our presidents or ministers or speakers of parliament. How would they manage the nation? These same students will say that Ghana does not deserve to be served and will go any length to call for the accountability of politicians and also accused the government of not making available the resources for effective learning.
If future leaders are behaving like this, why should the older generation trust us to live up to expectation?
This again brings me to Ayi Kwei Armah's novel which says that the beautiful ones are not yet born. And I also ask if these beautiful ones are not yet born when will they be born? Right from the word go, we have been our own devils. We tend to believe in negative radicalism which does not take us anywhere. A lot of senior high schools today have properties broken by students some years back just because one dining hall food was not prepared well, whilst others stole items from school libraries and science laboratories during demonstrations.
There was one national song I learnt back in primary school but never knew the words until I got to the junior high school and it goes like this:
"Arise Ghana Youth for your country the nation demands your devotion let us all unite to uphold her and make her great and strong we are all involved we are all involved in building in our motherland".
How do we build our mother land when we have no conscious youth who can settle their differences through dialogue? When will that group of beautiful ones be born to change the destiny of our beloved motherland? Can we build a motherland through violence? Let us prove to the world that we can change our destiny.
