By John Ambrose Dan-Dzide
Ever thought of being left alone or wished to get away from everyone else? We all sometimes, harbour such thoughts in our heads and hope that some calamity will sweep away everyone in the world except us. Then we think to ourselves; “finally I will be able to get that parking space right in the middle of the Makola market”. There will be no traffic during rush hours on the famous Madina – Legon – Shiashie road. At last, you will be able to watch “Kumkumbagya” without fighting with your family over who gets the remote control or which channel to watch.
We need one another
Imagine if your dreams turned into reality! What if everyone did disappear as you wished? Who will be operating the television station? That remote control would not do you much good if there is nothing to broadcast, no news and no actors.
What good is that parking space in the heart of Makola market if there is no one selling for you to buy? And with nobody operating filling stations or oil refineries, parking will be the least of your worries! Good luck trying to flag down an okada or trotro once you have used up all the fuel in your tank!
Time for dinner? Feel like eating kelewele from your favourite roadside joint? Out of luck- no sellers on the streets. At the malls and supermarkets food is rotting on the shelves. At home, there will be no more dumsor but perpetual darkness and no running water since there is no one running the utility Companies.
The truth is that without other people, your life becomes even worse than that of the most impoverished third world subsistence-level peasant – at least they have one another to depend on. Like Thomas Hobbes rightly puts it, without others the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
The Bible teaches us about the power of interdependence. In both the Books of Genesis and Deuteronomy. In Chapter 49 of Genesis, verses 1 to 28, the elderly Jacob blesses his 12 sons. He could simply have gathered them and said those few words: “I am about to be gathered to my people, I bless you all with everything good. May God take care of you always, and please burry me in the Cave of Machpelah, which my grandfather Abraham prepared. Good-bye” But that was not what happened.
Instead, there are 28 verses to record the distinct and separate blessings that he gave to each son. Similarly, in Deuteronomy 33, before ascending the mountain to be shown the Land of Israel before his death, Moses spent 29 verses blessing the individual tribes. Again, he could easily have issued one comprehensive blessing to the entire children of Israel and promptly taken his leave.
The idea behind both Jacob’s blessing and that of Moses was unity with diversity. Each tribe was to have its own unique niche in the rich tapestry of a durable nation. Each tribe was to have its own specialty and to become dependent upon their brethren for everything else. If one thinks about it, is this not what all parents would like to ensure for their children?
Some way of guaranteeing that they would all have remained united, each as concerned with the welfare of his siblings as with his own? The same is true for our Father in Heaven.
In desiring to unify His children, He created a world, an ecosystem, in which the very existence of one entity is intricately intertwined with the existence of another.
Compare the outlook of the solitary survivalist with that of the business professional. The former views other people as competitors and threats. By contrast, the business professional’s life is intricately linked to many other people. He has to be concerned with providing goods or services at sufficient quality and at an attractive price in order to attract and serve his customers. He has to be concerned with his employees and associates because only if they are happy and fulfilled will his enterprise prosper.
Finally, he needs to be concerned with his vendors who supply him with the input of his production, because without them he is incapable of operating. Now whom ‘do you think God prefers: the lonesome isolationist whose slogan is “I need nobody,” or the business professional active within a complex matrix of connectivity in which he is preoccupied with making life better for so many of God’s other children?
Just as a builder requires specific materials and tools such as cement, sand, shovels and water but to mention a few for his work; a strong and united Ghana can only be built if all Ghanaians with their distinct skill set, abilities, talents and backgrounds come together under the national flag to move the nation forward.
The truth of the matter is that we need one another to survive and prosper. This is a lesson that must never be lost to Ghanaians.
The Writer is a Health Informatician on attachment at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.
