Political Intolerance Getting Dangerous

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Friday September 16, 2011.
Participants at an Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) forum marking this year’s World Democracy Day have all admitted that the politics of insults, character assassination and the use of intemperate language is fast destroying the country’s fledgling democracy and must be stemmed without delay.

Speaker upon speaker complain bitterly about the way and manner the country’s political discourse has degenerated so fast citing politicians and the media as the worst culprit in the up-scale of politics of insults.

The IEA forum attracted top-notch politicians, ministers of state, academia and gurus in the civil society organizations and religious groups with Kabral Blay Amihere National Media Commission Chairman and Dr. Vladimir Antwi-Danso, Senior Fellow of LECIA as the lead discussants.

Nana Ato Dadzie, former Chief of Staff during the JJ Rawlings regime who chaired the forum set the tone when he said “we ought not to permit a few vocal political operatives to rock our collective democratic experiment and inflame this country.”

“Many are agreed that we as a people must prepare to confront and uproot completely this canker of insults, intolerance and intimidation from our body politic. Many agree we can achieve this through bi-partisan approach involving the politically partisan, as well as civil society and the involvement of millions of non-career politicians.”

The former Chief of Staff said if all the political leaders voluntarily signed undertaking in December 2008 to work towards eschewing political violence then they should first accept responsibility for the current situation and not blame the youth groups for the up-scale of politics of insults.

Most Reverend Charles Gabriel Palmer Buckle, Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra who delivered the keynote address said Ghana is larger than any one politician’s ambition and should not be allowed or encouraged inadvertently or otherwise by anyone to destroy the country’s hard-earned reputation as Africa’s beacon of good governance and democratic development.

He said “good governance blossoms naturally only from cross-fertilization of rich ideas and different opinions. Our politicians should therefore not be the ones to lead the country down the path of national self-destruction through the use of intemperate language and insults.”

The Catholic Bishop said he is in full support for political parties to have codes of behaviour, censure by civil society groups, and self-censorship by the media as well as mass public education.

Speaking on the topic “The power and responsibilities of the media in the consolidation of democracy”, NMC Chairman Kabral Blay-Amihere said the example of media irresponsibility leading to conflict in many parts of the world “should remind Ghanaian journalists and all who use the media the day of judgement will surely come for all of us.”

He said the recent Wikileaks disclosures showed how polarized and politicized the Ghanaian media had become judging from the way and manner journalists selected for publication from the leaked cables to score political consideration.

“The NMC which has the constitutional mandate to promote the highest journalistic standards after 18 years in existence must begin to examine what measure must be taken in the wake of new realities and challenges our democracy faces.”

However, the NCM Chairman bemoaned the lack of budgetary support for the commission to be able to fulfill its constitutional mandate saying “I understand only GH¢ 40,000 is allocated to us annually for our work.”

Dr. Vladimir Antwi-Danso who touched on “Political intolerance: A threat in the consolidation of democracy in Ghana”, traced the history of political intolerance in the country saying “if you want to call a spade a spade, then let us call it so…it was the PNDC more than any other government that brought the modern kind of political intolerance, where indiscipline, non-decorous language, intimidation, propaganda, exclusivism are the ingredients into our body politic.”

He said the politicians appear to realize the gullibility of the public and are exploiting it to the detriment of peace stability and consolidation of democracy.