Mobile phones and our cultural values: Professor Kwesi Yankah

[Obadele Kambon]

CULTURAL NEWS Friday, February 9, 2007 & Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Mobile phones and our cultural values National Commission On Culture By: Professor Kwesi Yankah The notion that civilization must come from abroad pervaded Africa at the dawn of independence, as was made clear in the expositions of clergy men of the Gold Coast, like Attoh Ahuma, who though proud of African culture, saw in westernization the way out of the darkest Africa. “The impenetrable jungle around us,” he said “is not darker than the primeval forest of the human mind uncultured.” Thus Africa had to emerge from the savage backwoods and come into the open where nations were made. One area that underwent modernization was communication: an attempt was made to supplant or pluralise the legacy of indigenous language and face-to face communication, highly cherished in Africa. Modern norms would seek to move Africa from an oral to a chirographic society, and to a world of print and mass media. The issue becomes compounded by highly advanced systems of information technology that relocate the physical world into cyberspace, and transmutes the vast boundaries of the world into an electronic village. The move has been towards the globalization of culture, through the penetration of sovereign boundaries with an avalanche of uncensored Euro-western values, all in the name of global sense of free speech, and rights of access to information. As the process of cultural and ideological incorporation deepens, and modern communication technologies virtually sweep the universe, we need to step back and examine the interplay between the central and peripheral institutions and investigate mutually conflicting norms, as well as coping mechanisms and strategies of accommodation deployed by host institutions to ensure a peaceful co-existence. We need to investigate differences between technologies of communications and their respective integration into social systems of meaning in which they are anchored. Automobile The fascination of modern technology dawned on us, perhaps when the automobile was introduced at the beginning of 20th century. The reaction of indigenes clearly demonstrated their puzzlement with an invention that enabled you to combine mobility with a sedentary posture. The Akan term tseaseanam, literally, “that which allows you to be seated and in motion simultaneously”, was to indicate a fascination with the automobile. You would be seated, yet paradoxically in motion: a combination of two otherwise irreconciliable postures. But the automobile technology came to be accepted and incorporated within our ways of life. In those days, towns like Swedru became notionally associated with this fascination with the automobile, wearing the big eyes of the white man, and tooting its horns in a rather strange fashion. Indeed, tales were told of indigenous traders who would sit in the passenger vehicle, and at the same time carry their luggage on their heads, not knowing the new facility enable you to unburden yourself of the luggage, once you were on board. There were also tales of passengers, who expressed preference to sit at the front, near the driver, in hopes that they would arrive well ahead of those seated behind. These tales may appear amusing but they denote in an initial struggle to cope with new technologies on the part of any host institution that cherishes its culture, its new life, and considers other culture as strange, unusual. In the area of communication, ours is an oral culture that subsists almost entirely on face-to-face encounters, and puts a high premium on communication in small groups. Besides oral communication, we have a wide scope of multi-channeled, multi-media communication, where we talk with the cloth we wear, the way we dance, and even the drum we play. We live, in a world, where many of us here would flout custom, and ways of communicating, if we should attempt to greet in the village, or introduce our guests to elders. Many a time, we don’t even hear or respond to calls or invitation by the drum, and neither are we sensitive to the various dances of insinuation, salutations, and pleas we experience at funerals. We get puzzled because our culture values have in a way been subverted by western norms. The mobile phone is currently a near universal phenomenon, and is bound to change our way of life as normally lived. The sight of people talking to themselves, would normally be a sign of schizophrenia, but no longer. People laugh in the company of none other than themselves, while walking or driving, these are now perfectly normal, and tend to blur the margin between normalcy and abnormality. In a way the entire world has turned schizophrenic, responding to stimuli felt only by the talker or user. Similarly common are individuals walking, but swinging just one arm, the other hand held closely to the ear, and apparently talking to themselves. It is even more unusual, the sight of people driving, talking, and heartily laughing without the observer seeing the phone. Today, expressions like Bo me nkommo, twa me keke, kasapa, ‘good talk great value,’ have been accepted as part of the local lexicon and stock of expressions. A clear attempt to adapt global telecommunication systems to local values, as a way of ensuring acceptability, and indigenous appropriation. The phrase ‘out of coverage area’ has now been appropriated in other domains. I attended a marriage ceremony, where the M.C. was telling the friends of the bride that henceforth ‘she is out of coverage’, in other words not available, engaged. During the 2004 elections one party took delight in referring to its key opponent as being out of coverage area, when the election results appeared not to be favourable to them. But the mobile has come a long way. NON-PORTABLE MOBILES Genesis of the Mobile As Dean of students, when the entire new technology was introduced and given to key officers of the University of Ghana, it was in the form of a unit close to the size of a briefcase, with a handle. Key officers of the university wielded this at a time very few knew its real value as a communication unit. Any time I traveled outside and needed to speak to my wife, the Acting Dean of Students would go and leave it with my wife, who would receive the call from me and send it back to the Acting Dean, the following day. But that was still lots of improvement on an earlier practice, when phones were really hard to come by. That was in the 1980s, when very few Ghanaians had the land line. Any time I traveled, and needed to talk to my wife, the procedure was as follows: A friend working with a multi national company, was lucky enough to have a phone in his house at Dansoman. About two hours before the call, he would pick up my wife at Legon, some 25 kilometers away, and bring her home to wait for my call. After I had talked to her in Dansoman, he would then kindly convey her back to Legon. Thus altogether, one needed to travel over a distance of 50 kilometers altogether, in order to have access to a private phone. But all in all, western technologies were gradually inching their way into traditional modes of communication. The issue was to test their acceptability, or the extent to which the new modes of communication would be accommodated within the known indigenous norms. Suspicion Generally, however, Africans as a rule, have been basically suspicious of advanced communication technologies. The general mistrust for Euro-mediated communication is evinced by its perception and depiction by tradition in rather derogatory terms. Let’s take a look at indigenous references to the modern media. The Akan referred to the telephone, on its introduction, as ahomatrofo, meaning “liar, the tale bearing wire, or string or wire that conveys lies, unverified information,” not to be trusted, unreliable, dealing in falsehoods. This implies that fast traveling news whose veracity cannot be checked, is not trustworthy. Similarly, newspaper, was called koowaa krataa, literally meaning, loosed tongued paper tabloid, gossip. Koowaa, is derived from ka no waa as in ‘Mekaa no waa.’ I spoke in jest, don’t take me seriously. The general suspicion of or dispreference for non-indigenous modes or channels of communication may also be seen in the general word for “foreign language”: apotofoo kasa, implying a language hurriedly improvised for ad hoc use; lacking permanence or authenticity. To speak a foreign European language itself is poto: mix, craft or improvise. Thus on occasion when one is compelled to speak English in the presence of elders, he may apologise by saying, Meresree mapoto kakra. “May crave your indulgence to adulterate my speech, with a foreign language,” or “may I apologise in advance of speaking an impure language, which I know would displease you.” Thus Euro-mediated language and communication cannot be substituted for pure and pristine indigenous language, devolving on the spoken word and face-to-face communication, which rely on multi-sensory experience, for the decoding and encoding of meaning. Elsewhere in Africa, radio was an object of suspicion, such as is reported in Tanzania. Similarly, among the Yoruba, many refer to the radio as, “the machine that speaks but accepts no reply.” In Wole Soyinka’s Play Kongi’s Harvest, there is a scene where the king and his retinue break into a national anthem, which laments the emergence of a new technology of communication, that tyrannises the people, talking to them, talking to the people but accepting no feedback. In Ghana here, the radio was simply depicted as a ‘talking bird,’ akasanoma, and was noted as sheer technological frivolity. Whereas traditional society was hospitable, it did not conceal its aversion for pristine foreign fashion and values. Foreigner, omanfrani in Akan, literally means, ‘one who undermines the purity of nationhood. Pre-colonial Asante, for example, has a system which was closed to the access of unmediated external knowledge. Thus foreign fashion and knowledge were not blindly adopted, but integrated within existing norms. Traditional bases Of significance, however, are the various strategies by which traditional systems have mediated the onslaught of forces of modernity: the strategies of incorporation, accommodation and domestication. In Africa’s depiction of the modern media and related institutions, the cultural base in which they are integrated has always been implied. The status of man beating the double bell, dower, in front of Ghana’s premier broadcasting station, GBC, demonstrates this. The Akan did not need to borrow the word, broadcast. Whereas bo dawuro literally means, to beat the double bell, or gong, it also means “to announce,” or “to broadcast.” It depicts the typical African mode of public news communication in the rural setting, which is introduce with a gong beat and closed with a gong beat. The relevant communication functionary here is, dawurubofo, the gong beater. The gong or double bell itself is a surrogate mode of communication, and may convey messages in its own right. It is thus not surprising that one of the mobile telephone companies in Ghana today kasapa, has exploited this traditional mode communication, to symbolize its products. In that product, the double bell, or gong gong, is not only the symbol. The double bell has also been utilized to talk, or imitate the human speech: kasapa – ‘good talk, great value.’ Here a talking instrument, whose use is similar to the talking drum, has been utilized to link the traditional and modern means of communication: the gong, representing verbal, or text based communication, implying that phone communication has cultural foundation in talking instruments. And why not? Like talking instruments used in traditional society, the phone may be used over long distances. In historical times, the talking drums of Africa served as a strategic mode of mass communication. Besides communicating secret messages about the impending arrival of missionaries at neighbouring villages in the 19th century, the talking drum during the era of the slave trade, was one major strategic instrument of communication in plantations miles apart, and was used to organize riots and rebellions among the slaves in the New World. Here the slaves exploited the ambiguous function of the drums of the drum, for music and for communication, to advantage, relying on the tonality of the African language, as prevailed in continental Africa. When the linguistic function of the drum was detected by the slave master, this led to the banning of the New World and African types of hollow-log drums. It is important, to emphasise that in both drum and telephone communication, you are relying on aurality, the fact that the communication impinges on the ear, or rather goes with the wind. You are talking here of the transient nature of communication: the fact that, unlike writing, it is not fixed. Secondly, the fact that the communication here is mediated and open-minded, implies that it is potentially accessible to large masses of people. Here the normal face-to-face communication where speakers and listeners are linked in both time and space, undergoes mediation (whether electronic or instrumental), enabling the speaker in a long distance to be linked with the listener in time, even if they are set apart in space. NEW REALITY The concept of the mobile phone, however, establishes a new form of reality. Talking on the phone without the encumbrances to wire, really frees the individual speaker, and affords unusual flexibility of movement. It is not surprising that the mobile phone attracted an indigenous label, or nomenclature that portrayed the mysteries of modern technology. The term for Mobile phone, megyina abonten-literally, ‘I speak to you in open space. This implies the mystery of communication that is uninhibited by time and space. The fascination here was the far distance over which the communication was taking place, as well as mobility it allowed the user, all this happening without the encumbrance of wires. Significantly, the private uses to which mobile phones are expected to be put, have been partly subverted by cultural values. Contrary to the privacy expected, the use of mobile phones in some contexts appears to register higher decibel levels among users in Ghana, than in the use of the land line. This in way, portrays some amount of mistrust for the new technology, whose capacity to travel over long distances can only be assured, if you speak louder. It is as if we don’t trust the technology to effectively link speaker and hearer; raising the voice level, then helps to compensate for the mistrust of wireless communication. It is as if to say, ‘it is only by raising my voice that you could possible hear me, in this mode of wireless communication. The major advantage in this mode of communication is that it preserves the human essence in communication, which in a basically oral society such as ours, is important. The vehicle for this is the human voice, which preserves the warmth and immediacy of communication, even though the message conveyed here is mediated by technology. Here the mediation does not interfere with the human aspect of communication. WEBSITE LITERACY It is significant to note here one aspect of the modern communication technology that, unlike the mobile phone, would naturally struggle to penetrate the indigenous communities. This is the internet; for any technology that relies on literacy or the ability to read and to write has natural limitations in a predominantly oral environment such as ours. And this is in spite of a striking notional resemblance between website technology and aspects of indigenous folklore. The website, with all its echoes of the web or home of the folk hero and trickster Kwaku Ananse, cannot easily reach the folk realm. Indeed, certain African languages use the equivalent of the Spider’s Web, in the absence of a local equivalent, to stand for ‘website.’ The folk hero Ananse, could as well be the progenitor of the modern day website, for the spider’s web architecture easily illustrates complex network of communication in cyberspace, including its plusses and minuses. And it is not for nothing that insects or flies that have been trapped in Ananse’s web have been speedily victimized, pounced upon and consumed. Unlike the literacy skills required in the use of the internet, the mobile phone user needs no literacy or numeracy to communicate. Indeed, for the several illiterate users of the mobile phone, be they taxi drivers, mechanics, artisans, market women, the green and red icons or symbols on the phones, signaling receipt and exit of messages, have been crucial. Indeed several users of the mobile hardly know how to recharge their units, and will buy a phone card from you, only if you can help them load of recharge their units. The manipulation of the phone, including storing and retrieving other people’s members, is left to other helpers; or sometimes these functions are not all activated. Indeed a good number of users only receive messages, which requires little or no literary, to accomplish. But the issue sometimes has nothing to do with reading and writing. I am yet to see an ingenuous mobile phone company, that will defy imaginary odds, and add Ghanaian languages to audio messages on the phone, and give instructions on the loading of phone cards in key Ghanaian languages. Thus simple switch or option will help several thousands of non-English speaking users of mobile phone, for whom messages like the mobile equipment is either switched off or out of coverage area mean nothing. The mobile phone can indeed be said to have reinforced and even enhanced cultural norms, in so far as our cultural routines have quickly adapted to the new technology, and so long as it is gradually becoming a status symbol, not just among the upwardly mobile, business executives, middle class, including teachers, but also among ordinary people including artisans, taxi drivers, traders, mechanics, etc. These have acquired mobile phones, regardless of the availability of signals in their area of operation. In the village where I come from, and where signals from all the mobile companies are weak, almost all the teachers in elementary schools have mobile phones. But that is also because, signals can be received at one particular location in the village, which is slightly elevated. Within weeks of the discovery that signals were available, mobile to mobile operators quickly pitched camp, and set up tables on the fringes of signal zone, doing brisk business. CUSTODIANS OF CULTURE Among the domains where the mobile phone culture has penetrated, I would like to highlight a few significant ones, to signal the extent to which the very core of indigenous tradition appears to have been permeated. I am referring to the following categories of people: 1) Those for whom privacy of communication, and general inaccessibility, is crucial for the effective exercise of their traditional responsibilities. 2) Custodians of our traditions, those responsible for preserving cultural values. 3) Those who conduct important rituals requiring intensity of silence. The mobile phone by its very nature intrudes upon privacy, and would ideally be avoided by functionaries, whose duties are most effectively performed with minimum accessibility. I refer for example to traditional rulers, access to whom is normally restricted by a series of traditional protocol and rigid formal procedure. As a rule, the chief is not directly accessible to the public. Communication with him is routed through an intermediary, who receives and manipulates the message, before relaying the information to its final destination. Partly owing to the crucial need to preserve the dignity of chieftaincy as an institution, and avoid its vulgarization through direct exposure to mundane affairs, the Constitution has debarred chiefs from actively participating in politics, lest he compromises his neutrality and generally limited exposure to the hazards of worldly affairs. Secondly, from time immemorial chiefs have been the custodians of tradition, and are often the last bastion to be overcome by disruptive influences on tradition. Today, the mobile phone culture has virtually pervaded the chieftaincy institution. In places almost all chiefs and sub chiefs have mobile phones, and use them regularly, sometimes receiving and transmitting messages while at serious meetings. And this is sometimes gleefully done without apologies, and would often demonstrate the wide network of contacts an individual has in the world of business. Sometimes, as soon as a phone rung, a chief would quickly exit and receive it, other times he would remain seated and take the phone call. One chief in Ga told me the phone culture has caught with his fetish priests who all have mobile phones tugged in their pockets, even while conducting important rituals at the palace. But due to the disruptive propensities of the phones, he often announces that all phones be turned off, before any meeting commences. Even though the instruction would normally create inconvenience, they would all comply in the interest of the meeting. It may therefore be said that the culture of mobile phones is gradually percolating our way of life as Ghanaians, permeating areas of our traditional life and culture, that have long been insulated against encroachment. In the domain of chieftaincy, one can easily say that the normal unavailability of chiefs for casual interaction, has been defied by the culture of mobile phones. If you are lucky to have your chief’s phone number, you may be lucky to catch him on phone at a meeting of the traditional council, or house of chiefs, far away from your own location. The normal protocol of royal communication is temporarily suspended, and you may have a brief chat with your traditional ruler in the middle of a meeting, without the normal protocols. Whereas the transformation of chieftaincy into an accessible institution through modern technology, makes for closer interaction between the chief and his people, it stands the danger of undermining the dignity and sanctity of the institution, since familiarity naturally breeds contempt. Naturally the mobile phone culture has transformed lives and cultural values. The intensity of silence normally expected at funeral services, weddings, marriage ceremonies, and indeed traditional rituals can no longer be guaranteed. All it takes to undermine ritual intensity is a single phone intrusion. This is particularly significant since silence in certain settings, normally created ideal space for communication with the supernatural world. What is perhaps most significant here are attempts to incorporate the phone culture into our way of life. I refer to a successful attempt to incorporate the new technology into our popular culture. Currently available are textile designs with phone motifs particularly in black and white clothes worn for marriage ceremonies and memorial and thanksgiving services. It has also often been incorporated in hip hop music. But perhaps the most ingenuous adaptation of the new technology is the gradual transformation of the various all tunes into Ghanaian music. Currently available are call tunes of contemporary hip hop music, and particularly gospel music, which have been recorded and made available as options for the client. This ingenuous grafting of local music onto a new communication technology, helps to domesticate the foreign technology and signals the readiness of our culture to accommodate new values. In talking to mobile phone and our cultural values, one cannot ignore the mobile phone to be precise, as part of the electronic media scene. The radio itself being a modern invention successfully incorporated into our way of life, the mobile phone has enable thousands of people to take part in radio discussions on pertinent issues affecting their lives. Thus members of the parliament, Ministers on field trips have often been called upon at short notice, to respond to issue of crucial concern to themselves and their respective constituencies, thereby helping to enhance democracy, accountability and good governance. TEXT MESSAGES Significantly, contribution to the decision making process has of late not been limited to phone communication from various distance. Text messages now have a semi-permanent on radio and television programmes, where times have been allocated for the reading of text messages on air. It is important to put on record here that a trend has started whereby text messages on radio are gradually being Ghanaianised. Not only are text messages occasionally interspersed with colloquial Ghanaian expressions and interjections and interjections. Several radio stations have told of text messages they have told of text messages they have received and read in Ghanaian languages. This is indeed a major development that denotes our readiness to adopt current global technologies in the service of our culture. In this case, the global communication technology has been used to add value to local languages. It is as if to say, even though current communication revolution is undermining cultural values, it can be very carefully cultivated in the services of cultural institution. Currently available re of course various Ghanaian language fonts on the computer, which afford the user the facility of writing messages in the original Ghanaian orthography, without using the Eurocentric approximations. Indeed, this has helped textbooks to be written in Ghanaian languages. Indeed the Linguistic Department is in the process of finishing an Akan-Encyclopeadic dictionary, in which all diacritics including tone marks, have been indicated, all using and modern software. In a way the mobile phone technology, without the requirements of literacy, has easier to adopt and adapt. It has transformed communication habits, and enable access to individuals and places previously declare incommunicado; but it has also transformed cultural values; privacy is on the verge of being lost, and noise pollution in certain ritual and traditional settings requiring absolute silence and tranquility have been compromised. The youth, by courtesy of mobile have often inadvertently sometimes offended the dignity of elders with mobile phone interruptions during serious deliberations. They have rudely walked out during meetings, and have privatized talk in forums that require open general deliberations. They have whispered and cupped and cupped their hands over phones, hoping their voices are out of earshot; but private conversation has now entered the public domain. The world indeed is changing, for the phenomenon has permeated the most conservative institutions in our culture. But all these take place at the onset of new century, a new millennium, where the indigenous cultural institutions themselves, are changing, and evolving. The chieftaincy institution is on the verge of losing its arcane disposition; chiefs are abolishing outmoded customs. Our chiefs indeed are now part of global partners working towards local and national development. The now dialogue phone as wrought is therefore in keeping with changes taking place the world over, where all cultures are yearning to be part of the global village. It is up to us to adapt modern technologies in ways that move us forward in development, without undermining the foundations of our cultural values. The mobile phone culture is welcome, but must be carefully nurtured to fully agree with local cultural values. The writer: PRO VICE CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, is a PROF. OF LINGUISTICS at the University and a Specialist in Ethnography of Communication. The paper was originally presented as a keynote speech at a seminar on Mobile Phone Telephony, organized by Ghana Telecom. *Source The Ghanaian Times - Friday, February 9, 2007 Pages 26 & 27 & Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Page 27

[Akua Ma'at]

this is quite interesting. meda wo ase for sharing Okyeame Kwame

[Obadele Kambon]

aseda nni mu, Akua