Open Letter to Kathleen Addy

You this Kathleen Addy woman. You asked for it…now come and receive it!

Dear Kathleen Addy:

When I accepted your friend request on Facebook a little over a month ago, I did it with blind faith. We share some similar “friends”, and I thought we could be cool. I can now see that nothing could be further from the truth, and I am writing today to give it to you. I shall not hold back!

You see, Kathleen, I have evolved. I am not that idealistic woman you met online in December of 2014. I have taken off my Polly Anna rose colored glasses and MOVED on. I have outgrown the things that concern you…those things in particular being your thoughts about how Ghana should look/act/operate. You are just going to frustrate yourself, because quite frankly, you are frustrating me. When you grow, you will eventually reach my levels.

There are so many things I want to say, but for the sake of brevity I will attempt to keep this to under 1500 words. Let’s just start with your political stand.

You don’t behave like a Ghanaian where politics is concerned, and this is appalling. You engage in civil debate. Your tone is always measured. Your comments, on any topic, are concise. You refuse to bloviate. You steer clear of hyperbole. You always have examples to back up your claims. And furthermore, you give people the latitude to be a part of and support whatever political party they choose and WILL NOT deride them for it. This is not the way a Ghanaian should behave when it comes to politics, and I wish there was a word in English to express the disgust I feel on that score. Let’s just settle for ‘tweeeaaa’, for now.

Secondly, you want too much too soon. You want transparency. You want honesty and integrity. You want clean air and efficiency. Damnit, Kathleen, WE ARE AFRICANS! We don’t do any of these things, got it? Remember the story you told about your (former) house help’s father coming to gift you plantain…and his 10 year old daughter? Your response was to lecture him on the dangers of child trafficking and to warn him about the types of people who could (and will) sexually abuse his daughter if he does not guard her welfare more closely. I could not believe what I was reading. What kind of a response was this from an African woman? The correct response was to take the child, force her to sleep on the kitchen floor like a dog, compel her to wake at dawn daily to scrub your home and slumber only after YOUR lights and the lights of YOUR children had gone off. You were to treat he like the Black slave that most Ghanaians look at children as. Do you honestly think that the country’s political, religious and social elite are not exploiting the poor and young to their advantage, paying them a pittance if anything at all? Again, you failed in your duty and to that I say tweaaa!

Now let’s get to the matter that inspired this communique: Your recent moaning over Ghana’s plans to use coal to generate power to augment the current energy capacity. We’ve already discussed this, but since this is an open letter and your Facebook page is not, I will reiterate my ire with your kvetching here. As I have already explained, we are talking about GHANA. We have to go backwards to feel like we’re making progress so that when we finally end up back at our starting point, we can pat ourselves on the back for how far we’ve come. It’s called ‘expectation management’, and I wish you’d get yourself a slice. Never mind that this is a temporary solution and that if adopted for the long term, Ghana will find itself importing coal to keep this scheme afloat. The point is not to make it work, or even to find a long term solution: the point is about winning the next election. If the ruling party can provide consistent electricity for just 30 straight days around the Xmas, Ghanaians will be so elated that they will forget the hardship and horror they’ve been living under for the past 3 and vote these geniuses back into power. Why are you trying to mess with the plan? Do Ghanaians ever actually plan, unless that plan is a plan to fail?

These your contrary ideals are contrary to the trajectory that Ghana has been on for the last 40 years, okay? Ghana is great at this ONE thing, and you and your ilk want to rob the country of that. Ghana excels at sucking, okay? When it comes to FUBARing a perfectly good country with a model citizenry, there are nations in the world who can do it with as much efficiency as the good ol’ GH. We went from HIPC status, to debt forgiveness, and are now gleefully hurtling towards HIPC status again with the vim of a mad man intent on pouring his excrement on a passing vehicle in Osu traffic. Speaking of excrement, you are aware that the capital and its environs are mired in it, aren’t you? I heard you and that rebel Akyaa I-clean-beaches-for-fun Nkrumah are hatching schemes to do something about that. Who told you Ghanaians want clean air, water, roads and beaches? Huh?!? Don’t you know we have the most polluted place on the planet in our midst? Agbogbloshie is literally THE NASTIEST place on planet Earth. We are number one! If you take that from us with your radical ideas, forcing people to question and challenge the status quo, real change may actually come. And then what will happen to our precious number one status?

Ghana’s penchant for sucking is so well-known that Hollywood is even considering doing a movie about it. Remember the $3M that our Black Stars were owed that needed air lifting? If our officials weren’t so abysmally inefficient in their duties, would Hollywood come a-knocking to put us on a global cinematic stage? To borrow a phrase from Delay why are you trying to “sit up” on Ghana’s fame?

In this environment of yentie obiaa (we can’t hear you) and fa ma Nyame (leave it to God), rebels like you cannot be tolerated. People like you give Ghana and Ghanaians hope, and hope in these times is very dangerous. We can’t have people thinking that things will or might change. We can’t have women thinking they are a capable as men, and we certainly can’t have women thinking they are worthy of their respect. We can’t have folks thinking they deserve a responsible media corps. We certainly be expecting political leaders (mayors, MPs, deputies, council/assembly men and women) showing up on time for work and focused on carrying out their responsibilities. We should expect doctors and nurses to work for free. We should expect to be harassed by the police. We should expect Ghana to fail at anything that does not involve a sheet of paper. And we better start learning Chinese, as our new masters will expect us all to be proficient in their language. Well, really I should say YOU. Like I said before, I have left Ghana to its own devices.

Just leave Ghana, okay, Kathleen? Ghana doesn’t want deep thinkers or positive change. Ghana wants shysters, swindlers, cowards and failures at the helm. How many of your elders have approached you and advised you to abandon this course you’ve purposely put yourself on? Haven’t you already been warned that you will be punished by some version of Mahama’s Gestapo if you keep speaking out in the manner in which you do? Is that what you want? Are you not afraid? Or do you (and those your friends) really think you can turn things around and force the country to live up to its potential?

Girl please.

Floyd Mayweather stands a better chance reading War and Peace cover to cover.

In conclusion, I am sick of you and people like you…but I am mostly sick of YOU. You need to just give up and stop trying so hard all the daggum time.

With all the revulsion I can muster without puking,

Malaka

NB: For those reading, I beg you oooo. This is all tongue-in-cheek. I don’t actually feel this way about Kathleen!