The METHA Has Lost His Civilizational Coordinates.

The METHA Has Lost His Grounding.

FROM NTOABOMA, I visited one of my favorite towns right outside Accra, Ghana. They have no courthouses there. Not anymore! Just 60 years ago in the same town, the traditional people who lived here, had six courthouses—each one headed by each of the five divisional chiefs, plus a main one, the supreme court, which seldom required the meeting of the six chiefs on special matters.

Now, in a so-called modern Ghana, these courthouses have disappeared. The More-Educated Than His Ancestors, the METHA, despises tradition and by default he hates any system that derives from African Tradition. The Metha, from all the corners of Ghana, have descended on this town, bought lands, built homes, established small businesses, and such and yet, as their populations have tripled, and tripled, and tripled, the traditional courthouses have vanished, with nothing and absolutely nothing—not even the modern pre-occupations of their colonial missionary education—replacing them.

The Metha calls this sorry state of affairs, “progress.” By progress, what the Metha means, now that I have become amply aware of the Metha’s thinking, is that he no longer has a footing in any tradition—not in Africa or in a European colonial tradition. The Metha is simply groundless. His belonging is a frivolous existence, which stands in stark contrast to the upbringing of his own ancestors.

However, the Metha takes this lack of grounding in a civilization as a sign of modernity. He mistakes his lack of civilizational coordination as freedom from the restrictions of African culture. He relies fully on the colonial missionary systems of courthouses in Accra, specifically, which is where European terrorists engaged in the brutal terrorism of the countryside. The Metha finds full content in this state of his sorry existence.

Quickly, one has no other choice but to appreciate that the groundless Metha is a man of several stupidities and that he is also a student of numerous intellectual failings—he insults the memory of his ancestors, he turns his back on tradition, he cannot read and write an African language and prefers to ape colonial European accents, he gives up his own children to a colonial missionary education, and he waits in vain for the picture of an Italian man on his wall, which he calls “Jesus,” to industrialize the countryside for him, all the while importing diapers from Europe and America for his own babies.

(Note: The Metha has lost his own human instinct as he now relies on colonial missionary imports like milk, to take care of his own offspring!)

When I left my favorite town right outside Accra for my hometown, Ntoaboma, I could not help but weep for all the work, the industry, the intellect, the bravery and the sheer fortitude of will it took the indigenous people here some centuries ago to establish an African civilization here. All that work has been lost to the Metha’s appetite for colonial missionary European amusement. Modernity, my foot. The intellectual failings of the Metha are steeped in his lack of proper grounding in an African civilization. The Metha knows nothing. He understands even far less!