There isn’t a straightforward answer to the question; is there a return of the culture of silence. Note “the” and “return”.

Culture of silence is not a new term. It refers to a stage in our history. An opinion piece published on myjoyonline.com in May 2016 attributed to Prof. H Kwasi Prempeh of the CDD defines what it refers to. Prof. Prempeh first reminds the reader of Historian Prof Adu Boahen’s 1988 lecture where he made a strong case that a key role of citizens is to speak up when things were going wrong.

Prof explains the term as follows; “that uneasy and nervous quiet, that self-preserving citizen disengagement from the public square, that passivity that had descended upon the nation, including, especially, upon its middle classes and intellectuals, in reaction to the terror, the repression, the targeted persecution, and the general state of insecurity and despondency of the PNDC years.”

From this we see the elements clearly; Citizen disengagement, Terror, Repression, Targeted persecution and Despondency.

Prof Prempeh recounts how Prof. Boahen broke through these elements in series of lectures, damning the consequences.

Veteran journalist Kabral Blay Amihere in his book “Fighting for Freedom and Justice-Autobiography of an African Journalist” tells the tale of his experience over the era.

The year was 1985, Ghana and the United States of America got involved in a diplomatic row over allegations of espionage on both sides. A cousin of Chairman Rawlings, Mike Sousudis, was arrested and detained in the United States for allegedly indulging in espionage activities.

At the heart of the crisis was an African-American lady working with the US Embassy in Accra who was a lover of Sousudis. The tension over the CIA crisis heightened when the Rawlings government arrested eight Ghanaians who they claimed worked for the CIA.

In a bizarre twist and unprecedented move, the Ghana government as part of its negotiations with the US to ease the tension, decided to strip the eight fully-blooded Ghanaians of their citizenship and exchanged them for Mike Soussidis who had been arrested in the US. This act induced protest from a number of Ghanaians and The Catholic Standard and The Free Press, as Kabral recalls, wrote a number of editorials against the decision of the government.

The government is said to have withdrawn the license of the Catholic Standard. The government then caused the arrest of the publisher of the Free Press.

Kabral writes

“In the prevailing atmosphere of what has come to be termed a culture of silence and fear, it fell on our shoulders to wage the campaign for the release of Mr. Thompson and the rest”

The Free Press however faced a major challenge; finding a printer for the paper. A lot of printing houses of the time are said to have relied on printing for government. It was thus bad business for them to do business with the Free Press. He recounts one of such days; “There was this day when in our search we called on the Managing Director of Liberty Press which had in previous times printed The Legon Observer, a weekly published by the Legon Society of National Affairs. The Legon Observer whilst it lasted on the newsstands in the late 60s and early 70s, served as a forum for critical analysis of developments in the country.

 The Managing Director was very happy to see us when we were ushered in and introduced by his manager – Donkor – as coming from The Free Press. “The Free Press”, he was proud to let us know “was the only paper I read.”

“That was good news for Kweku and me and the smile on our faces was enough evidence that we were relieved to meet a friendly reader of our paper. But we were in the rude shock when we told the man our mission – to have the only paper he reads printed at his press. The man’s countenance and friendliness changed when I unfolded before him our plates ready for printing.”

 “My sons, you know what… I will normally be willing to print the paper for you but you must understand that it is not safe for my press to do business with The Free Press”

From these narration, we see clearly all elements present. Citizen disengagement, terror, repression, targeted persecution and despondency.

Recent discussions on the culture of silence did not start with Sam Jonah’s speech. It has been there since a journalist with JoyNews, Latif Idrissu, was beaten by police men, when Ahmed Hussein Suale was shot dead not too long after the #12 documentary had been aired, when a journalist with modernghana.com was arrested by National Security, when stations that have made it their task to put government on its toes arising from their connections with opposition parties were shut down with regulatory breaches stated as reason amidst allegations that despite others being allowed to operate in spite of similar breaches, when Manasseh fled this country and returned to receive protection from the state among others.

There are those we call to speak on matters as journalists who simply say they fear being targeted so won’t comment on one issue or the other.

The challenge with public debate in our parts is sometimes sheer laziness to undertake rigorous nuancing. The debate commenced without understanding what Uncle Sam was referring to or we simply didn’t care to understand. We relied on the term and started running around with it without caring to understand what he meant.

Yet, what Uncle Sam meant is very well explained in his speech, and anyone serious about analyzing some of the recent issues relating to journalism I have touched on above will realize that the elements that Prof. Prempeh lists are very much present today. Uncle Sam simply says people are quiet despite speaking up on same issues that are happening today in times past.  They have disengaged. He makes reference to assassination of journalist to drum home the point that there is terror, repression, targeted persecution and despondency.

Guess a response he receives. “Sir Sam says he is urging all of us to speak up, for the good of our country. I suggest the problem we have is that there is too much noise”, Elizabeth Ohene said.

Ms Ohene lived and practised journalism during the era of the culture of silence. When the Limann Government attempted to utilise a non-existent power to confirm her appointment as editor of The Daily Graphic, she challenged it. And so when someone like her speaks it carries a lot of weight. Yet in this instance she simply did not bother to undertake nuancing or contextualize the conversation.

She explains her noise by saying, “Every time I turn on the radio, there is one professor or another, one lecturer or another, going on and on about one thing or another”. This is in reference to the point about academics being silent.

How exactly many people talking defeats the argument that another person cannot talk or does not want to talk for various reasons is mind boggling. It’s simply simplistic. Calling for evidence of same and referencing citizens criticizing the President as too much noise leaves one to wonder what democracy truly means. A key tenet of democracy is people having the freedom to express divergent views. I really don’t understand how this becomes noise.

In contextualizing the conversation, it’s worth reproducing who Kabral blames for the culture of silence.

He writes, “It was Rawlings who created what has come to be called a Culture of Silence in our history. He did not only stop there but throughout his regime, particularly in the eleven years, detained and arrested journalists without trial. Even as a constitutionally-elected leader, he continued to arrest and detain right to his last year.

His government invoked the old criminal libel law against the press. So contemptuous was this man of the local press that he never organised a press conference throughout his almost twenty years in power and where the press, through the GJA, sought audience with him, he never extended any of the normal courtesies to them. Under him, the private press was banned from covering the presidency”.

Ms. Ohene may be thinking about this when she opts to say those who have damned the elements of the culture above to speak are making noise. There are times when I write on various issues but simply refuse to publish because of the reactions that sometimes detracts from the substance of the message.

Take a cursory look at the wall of Manasseh Azure Awuni and see the evidence for yourself. I always say to him, I wonder how you survive such heated verbal abuse. Such abuse may not fall within the brutalities, deaths and closure of stations I have highlighted above.

They nonetheless have the potential to cause citizen disengagement, terror, repression, targeted persecution and despondency.

Silence can only be found in the midst of thriving democracy coupled with fears of actions that impede freedom with a careful contextualization that looks at the past, identifies the elements and sees its presence today. Hopefully, this wouldn’t be classified as noise.