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The creation of an African ‘bloodstream’: Malaria control during the Hitler War, 1942–1945 (Part 6)
KORLE AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR
But the major reason that the antimalarial campaign of the Second World War was forgettable is because it was never completed. By 1945, just as Lt. Ribbands and Major Macdonald declared victory over the mosquito, the Allies had opened up the Mediterranean, and transshipment across the Sahara was no longer necessary. The number of troops stationed in Accra dwindled, and the Americans hastily terminated their involvement in the antimalaria campaign. From 1942–45, the Gold Coast government had been responsible for funding only eight per cent of the work done by the Malaria Control Group, while the rest had been covered through the Lend Lease programme (65 per cent) and by the British armed forces (25 per cent). In 1945, the Allied forces left the Gold Coast Public Works Department with the entire cost of maintaining the massive drainage works built on the Korle watershed as well as the responsibility of spraying DDT around the city. A year later, it was evident that the Gold Coast government would never muster enough funding to keep a perpetual campaign against malaria going—the Public Works Department did not even have a budget to screen the windows of bungalows in the city, let alone reinforce miles of concrete embankments along the Odaw River. Major Macdonald’s attempt to squeeze infrastructure funding out of the Americans had worked temporarily, but the war was simply too short to complete the project.
In 1946, crew working for the Gold Coast Public Works Department were further disheartened when aerial photos revealed dozens of quarries, salt pans, and borrow pits around Accra, too numerous to monitor and too expansive to spray regularly. The effects of human habitation had created a niche for mosquitoes to flourish, and any dream of eradication was untenable. The British returned to a policy of malaria management—by relying on quinine prophylaxis and the occasional spraying of waterways to prevent mosquito infestations. In the short term, the effects of DDT made the city notably healthier, and use of the chemical became commonplace. For the price of only four pence a tin, DDT even found its way into homes, where people used it to control lice and bedbugs. Kingsway, the largest department store in Accra, dispensed the drug at their chemist department and advertised it as a product created for the “eternal benefit of mankind.” Unfortunately, the mosquitos in the area quickly developed a resistance to the chemical, as they did in many other parts of the world. By the 1950s, the Korle Lagoon and its tributaries became mired in silt, and malaria was once again endemic in Accra.
When the soldiers were demobilised and the spraying crew departed, the identity of the lagoon as a goddess among the Ga was easily revitalised. In 1946, after several years of bitter disputes over the stool, Nummo Ayiteh Cobblah II was installed as the priest of Korle. Cobblah became a prominent religious leader in Accra, as a moderate during anticolonial riots in 1948 and as a friend to Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah. When Cobblah was enstooled, he resuscitated the rituals of the annual harvest festival of Homowo, establishing his rights to communicate with the spiritual forces that inhabit the lagoon. As she had for centuries, Naa Korle asserted herself as a moral force within Ga culture, a goddess with the ability to define states of collective well-being in the city.
INTERLUDE: HEALING THE SICKNESS OF COLONIALISM
In the early 1950s, when the colony of the Gold Coast was on the verge of independence, a unique type of healing culture developed among a group of Zarma-speaking migrants from western Niger, known in Accra as the Zabarima. At the time, the Zabarima were the fastest-growing segment of the Muslim population in Accra, reaching 4,000 by 1954. Working in the most menial of jobs, such as carrying loads around the market, recycling used flour bags, or scavenging for used tins and bottles, the Zabarima survived on the margins, and their religious and healing practices reflected their social station. The Zabarima had immigrated from a part of Africa that had been Islamised for hundreds of years, but many of them were also worshippers of a pantheon of deities known as the Hauka (a Hausa word meaning “crazy”). Jean Rouch, a French filmmaker who followed the activities of migrants around West Africa, claimed that at the peak of the Hauka movement, there were approximately 100 Hauka gods in West Africa and that approximately 30 per cent of Zabarima migrants to the Gold Coast were possessed. Unlike Ga priests and spirit mediums, who worshipped and practised in public, the followers of the Hauka operated in secret. Indeed, their ceremonies would have remained largely unknown if not captured on film by Rouch, who was invited to one of their gatherings in a village suburb of Accra.
Jean Rouch’s footage of a Hauka spirit possession ceremony is striking. It includes several men and one woman gathered around a Hauka shrine in a courtyard decorated with fluttering Union Jacks. Rouch, the narrator, tells the viewer that those gathered are suffering from illnesses caused by sorcery and witchcraft and that they have come to seek the help of the Hauka deities. On the cue of a single note from a violin, the participants are slowly filled with spirits representing different colonial characters, perambulating chaotically before the camera, making grotesque faces, and foaming at the mouth. The most powerful god was Gomno, the “governor,” a deity represented by a colourful mound with a pith helmet—an image that Rouch paralleled by interposing a scene of the Gold Coast governor Arden-Clarke wearing full regalia at an official ceremony in Accra. Other prominent characters represented the network of colonial officials, including the train engineer (who marches relentlessly back and forth), the sergeant at arms (who berates the participants), and a doctor’s wife (who mediates disputes). The film climaxes with a series of heated arguments among the spirits, and a frenzied meal of dog-meat soup. After they eat, the spirits slowly leave the bodies of the possessed, and the exhausted migrant workers load themselves onto a truck, bound for their regular lives in Accra.
When Rouch screened the film in Paris in 1954, it created a scandal. Some critics thought the film, entitled Les Maitres Fous (The mad masters), was a fake made with paid actors. Others thought it was a racist portrayal of colonial subjects as ethnographic specimens. Anthropologist Marcel Griaule called the film a “travesty” because it stereotyped Africans as savages; he urged Rouch to destroy it. More recently, Les Maitres Fous has been celebrated because it depicts a form of mimicry that expresses the colonial mentalities of African subjects. As Rouch had always argued, the Hauka cult made a bold statement about the psychological effects of colonialism, representing a kind of social healing that allowed immigrants to cope with their subordinate status under White colonial rule. The “mad masters,” he maintained, were not Africans but the colonial ruling classes, who, within the context of the cult, represented the authoritarian structure of colonialism. The antithesis of benevolent colonialism, these spirits revealed a menacing crowd of military and technocratic elites fumbling about, fighting, arguing, and screaming. Even the character of the doctor’s wife, who plays the role of the mediator among the gods, becomes complicit in Hauka imaginings of colonialism, adding strength to the argument that the colonial subjects of the Gold Coast always regarded medical workers as agents of colonial power.
[This piece is culled from a book authored by Jonathan Roberts, titled: Sharing the burden of sickness: A history of healing and medicine in Accra]
Features
The Prophet part 4
Antobam woke up with a terrible headache. He checked the time on his mobile phone, 2:30 am. “What! Where is the money?” He asked aloud. “Where are those girls? Why did I drink so much of that whisky? What were those two girls up to?” He sat up on the bed and noticed a bulge close to the pillow.
He lifted the mattress and picked up the newspaper wrappers with the neatly arranged notes. He saw the neatly written record of the value of the notes. No, those girls are not thieves.
“It was my mistake. If I hadn’t drank myself to sleep they would be here in bed with me, giving me the time of my life. Pretty girls, those two. And so loyal and honest. Tomorrow will be different.”
“I will not drink any whisky, and I will show them that I am a real man. Just then he heard the whispers. Very soon it will be time, they seemed to be saying. This is an important day.”
The gold dealer will bring lots of money. Give him some of the liquid to drink, and we will prepare him. He will do very big business, and he will give you anything you ask for. There will be more miracles and testimonies today.
Antobam smiled to himself. “I am going to be a very rich man in only a few days man. Money, power, and women. Wow! Antobam got to the grounds at 5, but there were quite a number of people waiting.
Mr Kwame Dofu was among them. He greeted them all, and they came around to shake his hand. “My brothers and sisters, I assure you that whatever your problem is, you will not go home without a solution.” Shouts of “Amen” “thank” you Osofo and “you are a true man of God” responded.
“Please take your seats, and start talking to the great one about whatever bothers you. Before the service is over, there will be a solution.” He waved Mr Dofu over, and went with him to the wooden structure that serves as a temporary office.
“My brother, I have done quite a lot of work on the issue you came to see me about. I have prepared a special, powerful package for you. Take this, drink it, and go back to your business. I want to see you in two weeks.”
Beaming with smiles, Mr Dofu drank the foul smelling liquid in two gulps, said a big thank you to Antobam and took his leave. “I believe you, Papa Osofo. And I assure you that I will reward you, big time.”
Just when Osofo Antubam finished with Mr Dofu, Mary and Suzzie went over to him. “Good Morning ladies. I am very sorry about yesterday. I drank too much of the stuff you gave me. Today will be different, I assure you.”
“Don’t worry, Osofo. Since you are now setting things up, our main concern now is to help you to put things in place, and to make you comfortable. We are always there to serve you. This morning, Osofo, we want to go and clean up your place, and prepare something nice for you when you close.
And before coming to church, we will pass by the bank and collect the forms. After you have signed them, the account will be open. You can check the payments anytime and, of course, issue cheques whenever you need money.”
“Suzzie and Mary, I am happy I picked the two of you from the very start. Listen, I will take good care of you, okay? Here is some money. Buy whatever you need for the errands you have mentioned.
And here is the key. Please come back as early as you can. You know I need you here.” The service was very lively. The lively singing of praise songs was followed by one and a half hours of testimonies.
Most of them related to money – big sales, new jobs and overdue debts paid. But there were also testimonies about healing. Barren women had taken seed, and, of course, several men who had lost their bedroom authority had regained them, to the delight of their partners.
As he had promised, Antobam preached for only 30 minutes, exhorting the congregation to attend church regularly, pay their tithes and offerings, and strictly follow his ‘directions’ for securing solutions to their problems.
After another round of praises during which the congregation danced to the floor to drop their offering, he closed the service, grabbed the big bowl which was full to the brim with money, and moved to his desk. A long queue was quickly formed at the desk.
Meanwhile, Mary and Suzzie had gone to give Antobam’s place quite a decent look. A new bedsheet and pillows, a secondhand carpet and four plastic chairs placed in the verandah had done the trick.
They also prepared two fish and chicken stews. After all these, they rushed to the National Savings Bank and collected application forms for opening current and savings accounts.
They joined the service a few minutes before the main session closed. Antobam looked round and saw, to his relief, Mary and Suzzie moving towards him. “Hello ladies. What have you been up to?” “Quite a bit, Osofo. We’ve just collected your drink. Here you are. We’ve made a few changes at your place. I think you will like it. You will also have something nice to eat. Now, here are the forms for the savings and current accounts.
If you will sign them, the bank will open the account. From today, we can pay all monies direct into the account.” ‘How can I thank you, ladies?” “You don’t need to thank us,” Suzzie said. “It is our duty to help a man of God succeed.” “Okay, my ladies, please take the offerings and count them as you did yesterday.
You can add the payments made after the consultations. Will it be possible to pay them into the account today?” “Yes,” Mary said. “The bank closes at four. If we leave here at three, we would be there just in time.”
The two friends started counting, as Osofo Antobam gave his clients his directions for solving their problems. On quite a few occasions he closed his eyes as if he was receiving direction from above on what to do.
But as the fetish priest at the Nana Kofi Broni shrine and the dwarfs had assured him, the solutions would certainly be provided. Having heard the huge testimonies earlier in the day, the clients parted with substantial sums of money in expectation.
By Ekow de Heer
Features
The issue of spiritual father in our churches
A student was supposed to go to school as the natural cause of events should be when universities or schools in general opens but this was not the case in a certain young man’s life.
He decided to postpone his trip because apparently he could not get to meet his pastor, his spiritual father. The question is, should this spiritual father die, will the young man’s life come to an end?
Does it mean in such an instance, he is going to curtail his education? This is a worrying trend in a lot of churches where the pastors use this notion of spiritual father to manipulate members especially the youth.
Some unscrupulous pastors utilise this spiritual father concept to have affairs with gullible young ladies in their churches.
Now with homosexuality gradually making inroads into some of the churches, young men are becoming vulnerable to pastors who have hidden homosexual inclinations.
This spiritual father concept is a Biblical concept that runs through both the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. We see it in 2 Kings 4:12 where Gehazi is serving Elisha and also in the New Testament we see Paul relating to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:2 as a Spiritual Father.
In fact, the concept of spiritual father is a good thing if executed according to the word of God since it helps in guiding the younger ones. However, it becomes problematic when it is being executed by unscrupulous wolves in sheepskins as described by Jesus in Mathew 7:15.
I see it as a way that these unscrupulous so-called men of God maintain their hold on the congregants so they do not question their unchristian actions.
One of the things I have observed since I got born again many years ago is that, any pastor who often insists that members recognise that he is their spiritual father is a warning sign that he is doing some wrong things or is about to indulge in some wrong things.
A parent complained about how his daughter was being influenced by a pastor of the church she attends and how worried he was. I am sure there are many parents out there with stories to tell about how their wards are being made to see their pastors almost like their Jesus.
These pastors have managed to make their congregants so loyal to them and to believe in them so much that it is terrifying, as a parent.
The way things are going, an immediate intervention is required otherwise I am not a prophet of doom but I forsee unfortunate instances where parents burst into church auditoriums and star shooting some Pastors out of frustration and anger.
We cannot look on unconcerned as a society and allow unscrupulous fraudsters using the name of God to create problems for families. My recommendation is for a certain amount of regulation in order to bring some sanity in religious practices.
I agree that ordinarily regulating religious practices makes it a bit restrictive in terms of freedom of worship as enshrined in our constitution but given the way things are going, a bit of regulation will not be out of place.
Disgusting stuff are being attributed to some men of God. There are cases of manipulation of young ladies and sometimes married women by so called men of God and it is bringing Christianity and therefore the name of the Lord into disrepute.
Christianity is gradually losing its attractiveness as a result of the negative reportage resulting from disgusting stuff happening in Christian circles. The way some pastors have been manipulating congregants to take money from them leaves much to be desired to the point where they are convincing some of the youth to give out their phones. May God help us.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
