Is There Really No Love?

I just finished two episodes of Christiane Amanpour’s “Love and Sex Around the World” on CNN and all I can say is “Wow!”
It only further reinforces my argument that we Africans need to tell our own stories and should never let any Westerner do that for us. They hardly ever get it right. For some unknown reason, they can never reach the true essence of our story and the great Amanpour was no different.
Having the chance to see the episode she shot in Shanghai, China before watching the one she filmed in Ghana allowed me to compare and contrast how she told the stories of two very different cultures regarding love and sex.
In the Shanghai episode, she started off by explaining how the conservative and rather emotionless nature of the Chinese society greatly affects love and sex. She then went on to weave her story around that central theme and a very humanistic way. She succeeded even in making the perpetuators of these rigid cultural practices look good and acceptable.
The episode from Accra followed the Shanghai one. Ms. Amanpour opened by describing Ghana as “one of the most religious countries in the world”. While that could be true, it is not the true basis of why love and sex are seen and practiced the way they are in Ghana.
However, it is from this background that she went ahead and painted Ghanaian men as hypocrites who hide behind the religion to practice infidelity and oppress their women.

A much more fitting background would have been what a friend suggested:
“A society struggling with two opposing cultures – the monogamous dictates of Christianity and our long-lived culture of polygamy”.
Based on such a background, the words of the older businesswoman she interviewed later in the show makes sense:
“Love is love. As love means in your country, love means the same thing in our country. As the man wants to be with one wife, the love has to be shared”.
Those words are almost an ode to polygamy and the old way of life.
Without that background, then Moesha’s statement at the end of her segment carries the hour and the narrative: “I don’t think true love works in Ghana”.
It is however on this latter statement by Ms. Boudong that the whole documentary comes to rest. And thus she goes on to depict Ghanaian men as selfish, hypocritical, sex-obsessed male chauvinist neanderthals!
Truth be told, some Ghanaian men may fit that bill but there are also a lot of men trying to do right by their wives.
She even throws in the Trokosi culture to further sink us into that pit of depravity.

Ghana, like most other places, has its faults as well as strengths. The way of life of the people, like most places in Africa, is subject to a culture that often is a blend of a traditional and the colonial. These cultures are frequently not complimentary and are at loggerheads with each other. Thus the dictates of a traditional polygamous culture clash with the demands of Christianity.
In telling the Ghanaian or African story, it is always important to tease out these nuances in order to give a close-to-true representation of the reality. Failure to appreciate these nuances often leads to the rather negative depiction of the African and in Ms. Amanpour’s case, the Ghanaian.

Human behavior is a very difficult thing to change. Thus the southern states in the US still struggle with the history of slavery and the Arab nations struggle to afford women equal rights. Is it any surprise that Ghanaian men struggle to get over a long history of polygamy?

Do not get me wrong. I am in no way condoning infidelity or polygamy. All I am saying is if one wants to explore sex and love in a nation with a long culture of polygamy; a country now trying to adapt to a one of monogamy, an explanation of the background helps to tell the true story. That will also allow the story to be told of the men who have successfully made the transition and respect a monogamous liaison. That will help tell the story of women who are in such marriages and relationships and how they see love and sex. After all, they are Ghanaians too.

In that, Ms. Amanpour failed. In that, like most Western journalists, she failed to appreciate the nuances of our land and ended up doing what the western media does best – portraying us in a negative light.
In Shanghai, China, she was able to do that. Why could she not do that in Accra, Ghana? Is it because she did not take the time to understand our culture and is it because she could not appreciate our humanity?
Whatever the reason, the fact remains – we need to tell our own stories!
It is time!