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Selling the President: Stand-Up Comedy and the Politricks of Indirection in Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2013

David A. Donkor
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Extract

On 15 May 1995, the Alliance for Change (AFC), a coalition of opposition leaders in Ghana, organized a demonstration that came to be known by the name Kume Preko (which translates as “Kill me once and for all”) to protest the government's new value-added tax (VAT) policy. During the demonstration, armed supporters of Jerry Rawlings, Ghana's president, set upon the marchers, killing four people, including a fourteen-year-old boy. The AFC charged that members of the ruling party were implicated in the killings. It also dismissed a police report on the incident as a “cheap and fraudulent cover-up” that was “contradicted by the abundant evidence.” An article in the leading opposition newspaper, the Ghanaian Chronicle, criticized Rawlings's government for flouting the constitutional right to public dissent and called the violence against the demonstrators “Hitlerism in Ghana.” The Kume Preko violence dealt Rawlings a political blow: it dented his image as a man of the people and the credibility of his commitment to a new liberal democratic political regime in Ghana.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 255 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 2013

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References

Endnotes

1. Alliance for Change, “The Killers of May 11 Are Still at Large,” Ghanaian Chronicle, 7–10 September 1995, 6.

2. Kwesi Intsuah, “Hitlerism in Ghana,” Ghanaian Chronicle, 18–21 May 1995, 5.

3. By “millennial decade,” I mean the period 1990–2000, the decade leading to the millennium transition. In Ghana, this decade combined the most radical economic liberalization in the country's history with the most sustained liberal-democratic electoral politics since independence in 1957. However, it is rarely represented in studies of Ghanaian popular theatre. With perhaps one exception (Shipley, Jesse Weaver, “The Best Tradition Goes On: Audience Consumption and the Transformation of Popular Theatre in Neoliberal Ghana,” in Producing African Futures: Ritual and Reproduction in a Neoliberal Age, ed. Weiss, Brad [Boston: Brill], 106–40Google Scholar), the historical scope of much of what has been published about Ghanaian popular theatre is no more recent than the 1980s. For examples, see Cole, Catherine M., Ghana Concert Party Theatre (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Bame, Kwabena N., Come to Laugh: African Traditional Theatre in Ghana (New York: Lillian Barber Press, 1985)Google Scholar; and Collins, John, “The Jaguar Jokers and Orphan Do Not Glance,” in Barber, Karin, Collins, John, and Ricard, Alain, West African Popular Theatre (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 56–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. Stewart, Miranda and Jogarajan, Sunita, “The International Monetary Fund and Tax Reform,” British Tax Review 2 (2004): 146–75Google Scholar. For discussions of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and IMF in Africa see Campbell, Bonnie and Loxley, John, ed. Strutural Adjustment in Africa (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clarke, Kamari, Fictions of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) 78–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gibbon, Peter, Bangura, Yusuf and Ofstad, Arve, ed. Authoritarianism, Democracy and Adjustment (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1992)Google Scholar; and Mkandawire, Thandika and Soludo, Charles, Our Continent Our Future: African Perspectives on Structural Adjustment (Trenton: Africa World Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

5. Kwame Danso, “VAT Has Failed Hopelessly,” Ghanaian Chronicle, 11–14 May 1995, 2; “Hear the Workers Cry, Mr. President,” Ghanaian Chronicle, 24–6 April 1995, 5; Douglas Akwasi Owusu, “Workers Disrupt May Day,” Ghanaian Times, 2 May 1995, 1; Nathan Samwini, “VAT: The Mother of All Killer Policies,” Ghanaian Chronicle, 24–6 April 1995, 4; “VAT Takes Off Today,” Ghanaian Times, 1 March 1995, 1.

6. Adwoa Safo, “Kume Preko March Is On Today,” Ghanaian Chronicle, 11–14 May 1995, 12.

7. Zaya Yeebo captures the leftists’ feeling of betrayal extensively in Ghana: The Struggle for Popular Power (London: New Beacon Books, 1992)Google Scholar. For a discussion of the political coalition that opposed Rawlings, see Haynes, Jeff, “Ghana: From Personalist to Democratic Rule,” in Democracy and Political Change in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. Wiseman, John A. (New York: Routledge, 1995), 92–115, at 96–97Google Scholar; Jonah, Kwesi, “Political Parties and the Transition to Multi-Party Politics in Ghana,” in Ghana: Transition to Democracy, ed. Ninsin, Kwame A. (Dakar: CODESRIA, 1998), 83–108, at 91–98Google Scholar; and Oquaye, Mike, Politics in Ghana, 1982–1992: Rawlings, Revolution, and Populist Democracy (Accra: Tornado, and New Delhi: Thomson Press India, 2004), 297–357Google Scholar. For an explanation of the extraordinary way that Rawlings's regime pushed the VAT bill through the Ghanaian Parliament, see Osei, Philip D., “Political Liberalisation and the Implementation of Value Added Tax in Ghana,” Journal of Modern African Studies 38.2 (2000): 255–78, at 263–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Abdulai, Napoleon, Ghana: The Kume Preko Demonstrations—Poverty, Corruption & the Rawlings Dictatorship (London: Africa Research & Information Bureau, 1995), 11Google Scholar.

9. de la Torre, Carlos, Populist Seduction in Latin America, 2d ed. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010), 88Google Scholar. The link between political legitimation and performance can be found in the manipulation of public symbols. Leaders manipulate, appropriate, and refashion symbols—or create completely new ones—to urge subjects to act in desired ways. See Cohen, Abner, The Politics of Elite Culture: Explorations in the Dramaturgy of Power in a Modern African Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kurtz, Donald V., Political Anthropology: Paradigms and Power (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), 35–6Google Scholar; and Merelman, Richard M., “The Dramaturgy of Politics,” Sociological Quarterly 10.2 (1969): 216–41, at 216CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Constructing, using, and/or revising political symbols is creative work—a “dramaturgy of politics,” as Merelman calls it. This suggests that the study of politics can benefit from insights from performance and aesthetic theory. See Edelman, Murray, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana–Champaign: University of Illinois Press, [1964] 1985), 11Google Scholar; and Miles, William F. S., “The Rally as Ritual: Dramaturgical Politics in Nigerian Hausaland,” Comparative Politics 21.3 (1989): 323–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. Starobin, Paul, “Politics as Theater,” National Journal 28.40 (5 October 1996), 2102–7, at 2103Google Scholar.

11. Joe Okyere, “President Cuts Sod for C100b Sunyani Regional Hospital,” Daily Graphic, 7 September 1996, 1.

12. Rawlings's manifesto is available online: National Democratic Congress, “Manifesto: Always for People, Always for Development,” 1996, www.ghanareview.com/NDC_Manifesto.html (accessed 3 January 2013).

13. J. J. Rawlings, “Let's Go Forward Together,” Daily Graphic, 12 September 1996, 6.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. Torre, 21.

17. Schechner, Richard, Performance Studies: An Introduction, 2d ed. (New York: Routledge, 2002), 22Google Scholar.

18. “President Grateful to Supporters, Well Wishers,” Daily Graphic, 11 September 1996, 1.

19. Earlier, Rawlings had declared in his acceptance speech that the NDC “belongs to the people and no doors [of the party] must shut to any citizen of goodwill” (Rawlings, “Let's Go Forward Together”). The rally offered him and his party the chance to demonstrate that point because of the size of the crowd and the diversity of the participants. The importance of the rally's spectacle of mass participation to Rawlings and the NDC is evident in the statement by the party's press secretary, who said that the opposition was in a state of shock over the mammoth crowd at the rally and so had begun a “vile propaganda” campaign to “explain away the presence of so many people” by accusing the NDC of “renting” participants (“President Grateful to Supporters,” 9).

20. Alhaji B. A. Fuseini and Joe Okyere, “Mother of All Rallies,” Daily Graphic, 9 September 1996, 1, 12–13.

21. The concert party is a genre of variety popular theatre in Ghana (comprising music, stand-up comedy, and drama) that burgeoned at the turn of the nineteenth century as colonial education generated new social formations. In the 1930s it moved beyond the colonial school and became itinerant, acquiring a broader audience. Concert party theatre appropriates the characters and style of local folklore, using local vernacular language and dramatizing the frustrations and aspirations of its audiences. Concert party activity declined in Ghana during the politically and economically tumultuous 1980s. However, in 1994, Ghana's National Theatre revived it as a fortnightly show in the capital city, Accra. A year later, the National Theatre teamed up with the multinational company Unilever to sponsor the show under the name Key Soap Concert Party. For details of concert party history, see Cole.

22. National Theater of Ghana, “General Report on the Concert Party Show Sponsored by Key Soap: July–Sept.” (1995), obtained from the office of the National Theatre of Ghana.

23. Baba Abdulai, “Bob Okalla [sic] in Concert,” Weekly Spectator, 27 April 1996, 6.

24. Efo Kojo Mawugbe on behalf of the Chairman of the National Commission on Culture to Bob Okala, 8 July 1996 (“Invitation to Perform as a Selected Individual of Excellence at NAFAC '96”), obtained from the office of the National Theatre of Ghana.

25. Baba Abdulai, “Comedy at National Theatre,” Weekly Spectator, 23 December 1996, 6; and Merari Alomele, “AAA and Okalla [sic] Meet,” Weekly Spectator, 14 September 1996, 6. For similar accolades, see Merari Alomele, “Bob Okalla at Concert Party,” Weekly Spectator, 3 August 1996, 6; and Michael Crabbe, “Bob Okalla [sic] on Stage,” The Mirror, 20 April 1996, 11.

26. Kwesi Yankah, “Leave Okalla [sic] Alone,” The Mirror, 5 October 1996, 5.

27. “Thugs Threaten O.D. and Okalla [sic],” Daily Graphic, 23 September 1996, 1. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) was the leading opposition party. Kumasi is Ghana's second-largest city.

28. Ghana News Agency, “Bob Okalla [sic]: I'm Not in Politics,” The Mirror, 26 September 1996, 3.

29. Ibid.

30. Nanabanyin Dadson, “Is Okalla [sic] Finished?” The Mirror, 28 October 1996, 11.

31. Ibid.

32. In one sense, this proverb describes the immanence of divinity in the ubiquitous wind—that is, in the material world. In another sense, the wind is merely the intermediary between humanity and a transcendent Supreme Being, a conduit for communicating with a distant divinity. But there is a third sense of the proverb that is less metaphysical and more political. It is that third sense I employ in my discussion.

33. Yankah, Kwesi, “Nana Kwame Ampadu and the Sung Tale as Metaphor for Protest Discourse,” in FonTomFrom: Contemporary Ghanaian Literature, Theater and Film, ed. Anyidodo, Kofi and Gibbs, James (Atlanta: Rodopi, 2000), 135–53, at 137Google Scholar.

34. Yankah, Kwesi, Speaking for the Chief: Ȯkyeame and the Politics of Akan Royal Oratory (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 51Google Scholar.

35. Yankah, “Nana Kwame Ampadu,” 141. Subsequent citations are given parenthetically in the text.

36. Bame, 10; Collins, E. J. [John], “Comic Opera in Ghana,” African Arts 9.2 (1976): 50–7, at 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37. Cole, 79.

38. For North Americans, the blackface minstrel practice from which Johnson borrowed “is a highly charged signifier, intimately tied to an unresolved history of racial exploitation, segregation and derisive stereotyping of people of African descent.” It was “dramaturgically structured to create a dichotomy between . . . black and white”; Cole, 23–4. The available evidence indicates that neither Johnson nor subsequent “Bob” performers were aware of that particular kind of racial representation. Catherine Cole argues that reading race into contemporary concert party facial makeup would be a case of “wonders taken for signs” (17).

39. Collins, “Comic Opera in Ghana,” 50.

40. Cole, 121; Karin Barber, John Collins, and Alain Ricard, “Three West African Popular Theatre Forms: A Social History,” in West African Popular Theatre, eds. Barber, Collins, and Ricard, 1–55, at 15.

41. Cole, 125.

42. Bame, 32.

43. Crabbe, 11.

44. “Comedians’ Gala,” Key Soap Concert Party Show, National Theatre of Ghana, Accra, 14 January 2001. This is my translation of the Akan-language live performance.

45. Bame, 32.

46. “Comedians’ Gala.”

47. Burke, Timothy, Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women: Commodification, Consumption & Cleanliness in Zimbabwe (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996), 8Google Scholar. Indeed, the absolute status of a commodity's utility is questionable. As Burke observes (8), “the fundamental utility of the object itself is subject to change, invention or eradication.” However, “goods have concrete material qualities which limit and prescribe their uses” and are not “blank slates upon which history and power can write freely.” An essential or absolute utility for goods therefore does exist, even if it may be “discerned only in specific historical or cultural situations” (italics his).

48. Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, “Soap Wars: Unilever vs. Local Soapmakers,” Ghanaian Chronicle, 11 July 1993, 1.

49. “Comedians’ Gala.”

50. Scott, James C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 138–9Google Scholar.

51. Yankah, “Leave Okalla [sic] Alone,” 5 (my italics).

52. Paa Lewis Ankrah, “Politics of Thuggery and Money Arrives in Cape Coast,” Ghanaian Chronicle, 16–19 May 1996, 7; Abdallah Kassim, “NDC Thugs Attack NPP Chairman,” Ghanaian Chronicle, 20–2 May 1996, 6; Osbert Lartey, “Bloody Clash after the NPP Rally,” Ghanaian Chronicle, 18–21 April 1996, 1.

53. Alhaji Fuseini, “NPP Denies Harassing OD and Okala,” Daily Graphic, 24 September 1996, 1.

54. Joe Lartey, “NPP Exposes Bob Okalla [sic],” The Statesman, 26 September 1996, 1.

55. Ibid.

56. Zingaro, “Watch These Things,” The Statesman, 26 September 1996, 1.

57. “Comedians’ Gala.”

58. Akyeampong, Emmanuel, Drink, Power and Cultural Change: A Social History of Alcohol in Ghana, c. 1800 to Recent Times (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1996), 167Google Scholar.

59. “Comedians’ Gala.” Okala sang this song in English. Star is the brand name of a lager beer produced by the Kumasi Brewery Ltd. in Ghana. Malt is the syrupy nonalcoholic product of the Guinness and Amstel companies. Guinness is the brand-name lager beer of the Guinness Company. The “Glass and Bottle Church” is a standard part of Okala's routine; it is one of his signature songs and is frequently sung as he exits the stage at the conclusion of his performances.

60. Akyeampong, 19.

61. Ibid.

62. Nana Ewusi, “Stop ‘Bishop’ Okalla [sic] TV Show,” Ghanaian Chronicle, 25–8 January 1996, 2.

63. “Onyame ahu wo” is also the chorus of a highlife song by musician K. K. Kabobo, who was quite popular at the time.

64. Clarence Coleman, “This Is Not Funny, Okalla [sic],” The Mirror, 16 March 1996, 2.

65. Crabbe, 11.

66. Ibid.

67. Rose, Margaret A., Parody: Ancient, Modern and Post-modern (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 51Google Scholar.

68. Ghana News Agency, 3.

69. Gates, Henry Louis Jr., The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Criticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 57, and see 56nGoogle Scholar.

70. Jonas, Joyce, Anancy in the Great House: Ways of Reading West Indian Fiction (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1990), 2Google Scholar.

71. Pelton, Robert D., The Trickster in West Africa: A Study of Mythic Irony and Sacred Delight (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72. Schechner, Richard, Between Theatre and Anthropology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the specific discussion about multiple selves coexisting in an unresolved dialectical tension, see 6.

73. Ibid. 6

74. Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduction, 35.

75. States, Bert O., Great Reckonings in Little Rooms: On the Phenomenology of Theater (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76. Schechner, Between Theatre and Anthropology, 115.

77. Ibid., 112.