Africa’s Renaissance (2)
[This is the concluding part of the article published on February 15, 2023 issue of the paper]
I have been there. The manufacturer sponsored a business trip. I couldn’t read a thing in German but I could tell the entire country is a motte-and-bailey. That’s why the Swiss are wealthy even though their country is small.”
“Do you think Ghana should be more like Switzerland, then?” Anastasia prodded.
“Switzerland has it’s virtues. Defending Ghana may not be as easy as defending Switzerland, but they have the Calvinist virtues. They know that God will reward honest work and they don’t use the word “Christian” to hide their deeds, their actions and work speaks for itself. Sometimes, doing honest work means you have to disobey someone. Maybe mother wasn’t right about everything. Maybe the president is wrong. That’s disruptive, I know, but disruption means opportunity, and opportunity means prosperity.
The discussion on Switzerland and British Motte and Bailey seemed quite random to have with a market woman, Anastasia wondered if she was in a dream or some sort of parallel universe. However, there is so much interesting ideas people pick up on television and want to share.
Afua and Anastasia shook hands as Anastasia departed back to her dorm but not before assessing other women selling wholesale products in the market. They were women, mostly with little formal education and we’re amassing a fortune doing business. They mostly didn’t grow up or go to university to study market fluctuation or stock exchange but knew the basics succinctly and the rest had experience with the primary method being trial and error. A breath of fresh air struck Anastasia as she walked through the market with the stark realization that Africa was indeed changing, Africa was indeed in the process of rebirth, rejuvenation led by many illiterate women while the politicians, some foreigners, the landowning classes and status quo elites stood in their way. Even more shocking was the realisation that she herself belonged to the same extortionist group Afua talked about. Ghana and Africa were on the road to revolution and if the politicians paid heed to calls for reformation, this process would speed up but Anastasia saw no signs of that ever happening again because the elites lived in walled fortresses bereft of any cognition of the real world issues facing millions of Africans.
To her recognition, the law college and the market were a perfect metaphor for African societies separated by a road of misjudgment, misapprehensions, and alienation. The illiterate women stood for the renaissance while the law college represented the old school colonial thought. The market was the future while modernity would bite the dust. The market was the fox and the law school the snail. Anastasia recognized not only her own miseducation but also her privilege and that she was able to do what she was doing only because she belonged to a landowning elite capital-intensive family and the first step in transformation was the recognition that she was herself at fault but this recognition would lead to rectification and hopefully reconciliation.
Anastasia Allotey walked through the market, back to the Ghana School of Law. All over the market mall was the sound of Revolution radio 10.10 FM booming the news of Jamie Nkrumah having been released by Ghana’s Secret Intelligence Agency BNI after his speech attempting to incite a coup, the speech was replayed of Jamie describing the government regime …“Simply put, it will take years for Ghana to recover from the incompetence, arrogance and inaptness we are all witnessing disguised as the humility and wis
dom of the elders”. The irony was that no one would have known much about Jamie’s speech had the secret service not picked him up, now he had been released due to international pressure, everyone was listening to his words and there was more chance of there actually being a coup d’etat .
Anastasia walked pass the open chicken coop again, with the live chickens in a make shift coop who would surely fly out if they only knew how. But this time, as Anastasia watched them, she noticed a chicken flap its wings and saw the feathers were clipped. All of them were. These birds were never skillful flyers to begin with, but still their wings were clipped to keep them grounded and the chickens could not escape the coop because one out of two chicken feet has been cut off so that the chickens can hop slightly in the chicken coop but not escape the coop. They were left to roam in the open air inside the box as if they were free. Anastasia wondered that the chicken’s existence seemed particularly cruel – first, one chicken foot has been cut off then the chicken is restricted to hop in the coop while waiting to be slaughtered by the chicken owner. Maybe the sun was getting to Anastasia as she walked back to the law school, the practicality of seeing the market women’s profit, in comparison to the politicians excuses for their unprofitable decisions mingled with paying close attention to how the chickens behaved in the coop made Anastasia realize the cruelty faced by the chickens could be a reflection of a society under the mercy of self-serving rulers…if only the chickens knew the possibilities of flying outside the chicken box designed to keep them disadvantaged until they died.
About the author of Africa’s Renaissance
Bianca Akweley Clinton is the CEO & Founder of the international publishing company Raindrops on Petals Ltd as well as being a lawyer qualified in Ghana, England and Wales. She was the first ever female Vice President of the Ghana School of Law Student Representative Council (SRC) in Makola, Ghana. She has consulted as a Technical Consultant for the World Bank Group (Washington, D.C) and as a Legal Manager in Switzerland for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Bianca also has a certificate in Microeconomics from Oxford University, England. Her company Raindrops on Petals Ltd will be hosting its first ever Africa innovation and entrepreneurship conference on December 7 2023 in Accra, Ghana. More information can be found on
www.Africa-innovation. com for the conference and www.Africas-renaissance. com for the story
