Listening to Dr. King's Advice!

I helped Dr. Dorothy Height to her seat and stood around looking for a place to sit and see what was next. It was a special night and through some strange circumstance I was part of it. It was a small dinner get together at the office of Mrs. Nana Konadu Agyman Rawlings, the First Lady of the Republic of Ghana, the guests were Mrs. Coretta Scott King, the wife of the late slain American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Dr. Dorothy Height, a prominent leader of America's civil rights movement, Alexis Herman, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, amongst others. They were all in Ghana, to attend the 1999 African- African-American summit being held in Accra, Ghana. I was at this dinner because the US Ambassador to Ghana at the time, Katherine Dee Robinson, had asked some of us Peace Corps volunteers to help out during this summit. I was one of the chosen few! Ambassador Robinson, was from the American southern State of Tennessee. She possessed the southern hospitality, wonderful southern accent, and the diplomatic touch of connecting with people.

My main responsibility for that day was pushing Dr. Height’s wheelchair!  I took my place and after a few minutes dinner was served, which included some Ghanaian and non-Ghanaian dishes. I remember slices of Kenkey on a plate. Kenkey, a Ghanaian dish, is usually served in a ball form and eaten with your hand, but I guess because of the American guests, it was sliced and was eaten with a fork! I was the only one who ate the Kenkey.

I remember it being a quiet night, and Mrs. Rawlings doing most of the talking as she was trying to engage her guests and be a good host.

The other thing that stayed on my mind was the irony of history, that Mrs. King would be coming to Ghana and interacting with an American Ambassador that is from Tennessee, a state where, her husband, Dr. King, gave his last speech and was killed on the 4^th April, 1968.

I often listen to that speech, usually referred to as, “I have been to the Mountain Top” speech, which was given a day before his assassination. In the speech, Dr. King talks about history, man’s struggle for freedom, a bit about his life and his own eventual end. The reason he was in Tennessee was to support the strike of sanitation workers in the city of Memphis.

We live in a world where everyday we face crisis, whether it is diseases such as ebola or security issues related to terrorism, wars or the migration/refugee crisis. There is a global debate about how much the international community must do. Some say only those who are effected by these crisis must deal with it and there are those who believe that these crisis effect us all and we must work together to address them and final solutions to them. 

I decided to go back and revisit the speech of Dr. King given more than 45 years ago. In one part he talks about the time he and Mrs. King, drove from Jerusalem to Jericho and he was reminded of the story of the Good Samaritan, and ties it to helping the sanitation workers;

“…That's a dangerous road [the road from Jerusalem to Jericho]. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" That's the question before you tonight…The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question”.

And taking the advice from Dr. King, the international community needs to reverse the question from, “If I stop to help the communities in crisis,what will happen to me?" to "If I do not stop to help the victim of war, the ebola patient or the refugees, what will happen to them?"

He further admonished his audience, “Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge…”

Fifteen years after that dinner with all the shakers and movers of their time, here I am sitting  back in Accra, eating a  ball of Kenkey, fried fish with pepper and wondering whether the international community will be the Levite or the Good Samaritan!

Calling for Global Moratorium on Acts of Corruption!

It looked like a perfectly constructed water storage tower, it was funded by the international community and executed by the village Community Development Councils (CDCs) who were entrusted by their people to carry out their development priorities. Jambaran is a village located near the Shindand Airbase, its population is made up of the traditional landowners and sheep and goat herders. Jambaran was also known for being a place where rockets were launched by insurgence towards the airbase. The day I went to visit the village, I met with the village elders and as we sipped on the traditional Afghan green tea, they told me about a certain person who as the head of their CDC, had taken the funds from the National Solidarity Program (NSP) (as the name of the program was called) and split the money with his friends. They added that the CDC had put up a water tower which looked great from far but was nothing but a façade. The purpose of the water tower was to carry water directly to people’s houses. The only problem with Jambaran’s water tower was it did not have a generator to pump the water to the tower or the pipes to send it to the people’s home!!  

Of all the programs in Afghanistan, NSP was probably one of the best, because of its truly grass-roots focus. Based on the population and size of communities, each community would elect its CDC and come up with a project to do for their community. Again based on the size of the population, you either got 30 thousand or 60 thousand dollars. Unfortunately, that selection process became the starting point of corruption, because suddenly villages with population of 100 became 1000 and villages that had 10 houses now had 100 houses in them and they were divided into 2 villages!! You could change the size of the population and the size of your village by having the district government authorities, sign documents to show the implementing partners (those entrusted by the international community to carry out this project!) that your village had 1000 families and that you had 100 homes in them! Things would get interesting from there because after you were approved, the phone calls would start coming in…it was not to congratulate your village for the resources that you had received but rather for you as the member of the CDC to share a percentage of the fund with the person on the other side of the line! It started with local Afghan government official, then after agreeing to give him something (after all he had signed your paper work to increase the fund you received!), then the phone would ring again and it was the local Afghan insurgent who would threaten you in giving him something or else!! after him, it was the criminals and then your own members of the CDC discussing ways to get a piece of the action!!! After that the workers of the implementing partners would come in and question the wisdom of you not utilizing the opportunity to get rich quickly! “come on, really, let’s find the village that has the water tower take a few pictures and show the folks in Kabul, Herat or wherever they are and tell them the project is done, take the money and….hey don’t worry I’ll take care of that!”

Corruption in Afghanistan and throughout the world brings the worst in people, but more importantly wastes resources that can be used to build good roads, bring power, health, education and many other goods for the betterment of society. It allows for rivers to get polluted, building to collapse, and become a recruiting tool to for extremists to pull people towards violence.

I just wish that for one year all governments would call a “Moratorium on Acts of Corruption”. Perhaps led by the Afghan government! The statement to be signed by all the Leaders of the World would say something to this effective, “Because of the suffering caused by corruption, on our population and population around the world, and because corruption destroys communities and the chance for both the present and the future generations to live in peace and dignity, we call upon all our government ministries, officials, leaders and civil servants to refuse to participate directly or indirectly in any activity that includes actions that enhances corruption and waste resources allocated for the betterment of our people, society and the world. This “Moratorium on Acts of Corruption” will last for one year after which officials can go back to the status quo, should they wish to do so!

I don’t know how the leaders of the world think about my idea but I can tell you I would get lots of support from the people of Jambaran!