ROGUERY AS CHRISTIANITY: NOTHING COMES OUT OF NOTHING

By Harold Ofori

"These are rogues that pretend to be of religion now! Well, all I say is, honest atheism for my money."

- Thomas Otway, English classical poet (1652-1685).

They have always been the agents of their own destruction, a group that has demonstrated time and again that they have the unerring capacity to make the wrong turn at every crossroad in life.

Perhaps, then, it was all too fitting that the latest proof that OWASS boys cannot escape the shadow of their past came just as people were beginning to think that they would turn a new leaf because of the appointment of Prempeh-OWASS hybrid as head of the school.

The OWASS Protestants Society invited Prempeh College's SU President, V.Y. Gyabaah - the Senior Prefect - as a Guest Speaker in a program held at the Santasi School on Saturday, June 19. Since this is a Christian group, who had invited a fellow Christian brother to share ideas with them, it was normal to expect the audience to be more courteous. Besides, Gyabaah was not imposed upon them by the school authorities and neither did he come there to be a nuisance - the SU Society of OWASS invited the Prempeh student leader to lecture them. He only went there with a bible in his hand - not a sword - to share the word of God with his brothers in Christ. However, the crowd that was supposed to be religious, started booing and mocking the debonair Prempeh representative as soon as he mounted the stage. From the very moment he was introduced as "the Prempeh S.P. and SU President," the crowd went into frenzy and screamed at him to "get off the stage." The shameful actions continued all through out his speech. Uprightness or integrity is so pivotal to religious credibility and its betrayal threatens to pull away the vital pillars holding spirituality together. That has been well recognised since the Reformation days of Martin Luther!

In fact, such purity is so vital to religious credibility that Christians who cannot consistently coform with these principles, transgress only in private! But not Opoku Ware christians. The religious Owareans did not even show the brotherly civility and integrity that is so critical to such religious fraternity - in fact, so vile were they, that they failed to applaud the speaker after his lecture. The President of the OWASS Society of Protestants, sensitive to Gyabaah's sorrow but fearful of impish Owarean disdain, secretly met a stunned Gyabaah after the show and fittingly apologized for that humiliating experience.

That is the Owarean definition of Christianity, which makes them every atheist's favorite Christians. An atheist in Kumasi would say, "my favourite Christian? - give me an Opoku Ware boy!"

How can people with bibles in their hands act so ruthlessly maniacal in a Church? Are they worshipping a different God or do they still pine for the days when The Church (particularly in Europe) regaled in subjecting humanity to so many cruel atrocities? Unless the OWASS church knows of some well acceptable doctrine in the bible beyond our ken which permits Christians to become unrestrained in discharging such hostile impulses against their own kind inside the church, what was their reason for that cruel treatment?

When a people habitually and predictively display a particular trait or quality over time and in a multiplicity of situations, the most plausible conclusion is that it reflects their enduring personality style; in the case of a school or fraternity, it reflects their cultural attitude. And personality or cultural attitude by definition denotes a coherent pattern of deeply ingrained characteristics and inclinations that are deeply etched, cannot be easily eradicated, and pervade every facet of life experience.

Take for example what happened in the 1976 Ashanti Hockey Finals between Prempeh and OWASS. Both schools had a strong squad, and whenever Prempeh scored and OWASS equalized, the Santasi boys will rain the field with stones as a way of celebration. Yes, throwing stones all over the field and injuring people is their cultural way of expressing happiness! That final match had to be played three times - the third time at a neutral ground (KNUST - where we beat them convincingly) - because of this stone-throwing Bacchanalia, which is practiced on Santasi campus during inter-school matches. Sadly, no school seems to bear the brunt of their wickedness more than Prempeh (it is an open secret in Ashanti that OWASS can never face KTI, KUHIS or AMASS on any grounds - home or neutral - with stones).

And history repeated itself in 1986 when the finals in the same event - between the same two historical hockey powerhouses - resulted in the same incident. Their celebrations in the 1986 Hockey final, which was played on their campus, was even more shocking as stones and rocks landed everywhere. Even though the match ended in a 1-1 draw and a replay was scheduled to take place days later, it was not played at all because of fear of parents finding their green-shirted sons in mortuaries. That is how despicable the Owarean way of life is.

And that is probably why they snubbed the Sports Council officials in 1966 when they failed to turn up for that year's Hockey final at Sofoline. Why should they come and play at our school where they will have no stones to propel them to victory?

When we faced them in a friendly Quiz duel at their school on February 7, 2004, the Santasi audience distracted us in such a way that we could not even hear the Quizmaster. And one would think that the authorities at that school would have the foresight to forbid this dishonorable practice. Rather it seemed like an institutional policy! The Quiz team said in their interview with the website that, "There was so much noise that we could hardly hear the quiz master. Their team had the peace of mind to compute and answer, but the crowd didn't offer us any chance to hear."

The OWASS boys have now realized that facing Prempeh College at a neutral ground or a refined venue - such as the one we provided to them when they came to Prempeh for the Ashanti Maths Quiz competition - is an entirely new proposition. When they were deprived of their traditional cheating audience at the Maths Quiz in Sofoline, they were consigned to a dismal fourth position!! Osei Tutu Secondary placed a respectable third while the OWAREANS were confounded by the brilliance of the Prempeh team (duo) that placed 1st - 2nd in the competition.

When we competed against them again in the quarterfinal of the quiz that counts - the National Maths & Science Quiz - at the nation's capital, they were dominated and disgraced by Prempeh in a quiz that was broadcast online for people all over the globe. What did they expect, when they had no audience in the crowd to cheat for them? How did they expect to defeat us without their stone-throwing student body present to throw stones for them?

It was amazing how humble the Prempeh boys were. OWASS had been boasting all week about how they were going to "collapse Prempeh." Their battle song was "Prempehfuo suro, Prempeh eho epopo" (Prempeh is scared, Prempeh folks are panicking), while the well-groomed Prempeh boys remained calm, and behaved like gentleman. They simply let their brains did the talking. The boys stepped out of their room on that fateful day en route to the premises of the quiz. It was coincidental that OWASS and Prempeh were in the same building at the same time. When they came out, the Quiz master of OWASS told our boys in their typical aggressive manner that, "you boys have been lucky you had a good draw and met only weak schools; or else you would have been eliminated by now." Out of courtesy, our diplomatic boys didn't utter a word. They showed the man the respect he did not deserve and walked off. However, this negative remark by the OWASS master appalled our boys to an extent that it became the principal incentive for them to punish the Santasi people. And what a punisher Louis Oteng Gyimah of Guggisberg House turned out to be! He ensured that the Owareans who did not know the difference between messenger RNA (mRNA) and transfer RNA (tRNA) paid the appropriate prize in the final stages of the competition. Which is why it was not surprising to see the same OWASS teacher - Mr. Jomah - feign illness and leave the quiz hall after the 4th round. How he wished he could cheat his way to the end!

This behaviour of the OWASS master (who makes derogatory remarks against people far smaller than his size), proves one thing: his aggressive personality and OWASS' aggressive stance on issues evoke[s] counterhostility, not only as an incidental consequence of their behaviours and attitudes but because they intentionally provoke others into conflict. The Santasi people simply carry a chip on their shoulders, and often seem to be spoiling for a fight, and appear to enjoy tangling with others to prove their strength and test their competencies and powers. By spoiling for a fight and by precipitous and irrational and unqualified arrogance, they create not only distant reserve on the part of others but intense and well-justified animosity. This is the same aggressive personality that portends the lives of their old boys and stimulated the Draco among them in particular to set up that Kangaroo court which he used to subdue and terrorize poor victims in the 1980s, including confiscating and robbing them of their hard-earned property. Check out the archives of the National Reconciliation Commission proceedings, but make sure you first have a handkerchief on hand, which will be needed to wipe off your tears!

"Character is destiny," said Heraclitus in antiquity, but for Opoku Ware School, the inner sanctum of good character will perpetually elude them, for any inlet offered them into the Deeps of Reason, is vehemently rejected. This is a school whose Senior Prefect (i.e., the current) has been demoted for emulating their murderous cadet corps in beating his fellow student almost to the point of death. His inarticulate deputy is now the main Senior Prefect of OWASS. This comes as no surprise because no one expects such a group to elect an angel for a leader. Who are we kidding? In the only decade that the School was not banned from inter-school sports, OWASS cadets were banned from the Sports Stadium for a period of 5 years for subjecting an unoffending bystander to intolerable pain before killing him. That suspension was lifted in February 2004, when they were allowed to participate in the Stadium's activities at the Inter-Schools & College athletics festival. If they can murder as 16-year olds, is it at all surprising when they inflict the most terrible of all tortures as adults?

The shocking behaviour of the OWASS people over the years should remind us of William Shakespeare's chilling admonition in "King Lear," in which Lear tells Cordelia that "nothing can come out of nothing": "The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it." Any attempt to change them - which will be a gargantuan task - will yield "nothing" because violence is the only method they know of. When they recently had a disagreement with one of this website's prolific columnists, their first instinct was to issue a death threat: "We will kill you and eliminate you from this world, so that you'll never live to do what you do." These violent delights have always been with them; it ensures that they maintain the nothingness status and it's the only way they can express themselves.

This nothingness, this embrace of rogue and cipher status, extends also to violent invasions of others' territories. Their recent invasion of Prempeh campus is a classic example.

The recent OWAREAN invasion.

Carrying placards with silly remarks written all over them, they came to Prempeh in dirty clothes to show us that they too have won a national championship by defeating Accra's PRESEC in what they claimed to be a national basketball final. Luckily for us all, no one was injured and nothing was stolen, unlike what happened in the 1987/88 academic year when they invaded Serwah House from the East end and injured people with their dirt-bombs and their favourite items - stones!

It is even more noteworthy that when they invaded a meeting of the Union of Prempeh College Old Boys & Yaa Asantewaa Old Girls Associations (Amanadehyee) at Legon campus on February 13, 2004, and disrupted the program out of jealousy, none of our ladies was hurt. After all, this is a school that has earned an unenviable reputation in the Kumasi Sports Stadium for attacking both males and females with equal ferocity.

It was because of this reputation that in 2002, when an OWASS delegation visited Wesley Girls in Cape Coast, the Headmistress of Wesley Girls appropriately kicked them out of her premises.

Over the years in Kumasi (since 1952), a serious conflict has been waged between a few men of thought on one side, and a great ignorant mass on the other. This is the conflict between Prempeh men and Opoku Ware folks, or the battle between Sofoline and Santasi. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to integrity, to freedom, to democracy, to stately Kufuor, and to happiness here in Ghana. The many have appealed to fear, to dishonor, to despicability, to torture, to coup d'etats, to Torquemada-playing Boakye-Djan and to misery all over. The few have said, "Mercy!" The many have said "Destruction!" Prempeh says "Integrity!" OWASS says "Ignominy!"

The school that represents an impoverishment of humanity, whose students do not have any compunction about beating a fellow human to death, is the same school whose products are inextricably identified with treachery, barbarity, despicability, notoriety and ignominy. And this identification with despicability is probably the reason why one hundred percent of the Ghanaian media declined an invitation to attend their 50th Anniversary Golden Jubilee ceremony in 2002. Citing the rain as an excuse, the newspapers and TV stations refused to honor the invitation to cover that school's program, though they had the wherewithal to do so, as they did in the case of Prempeh's Golden Jubilee three years earlier. Which is also why one can not find a single news article in any Ghanaian news internet archive pertaining to Opoku Ware School Golden Jubilee, in contrast to Prempeh's ceremony, for which there are dozens of articles scattered all over the web.

Recall that this same acceptance of nothingness was the motivating factor behind their banishment [in the same year - 2002] from the premises of the famous Girls School in Cape Coast, when they drove all the way from Kumasi to Central Region, without first informing the authorities of the school of their visit? A long-distance invasion? Probably.

The demoralizing nature of that cold-shoulder - especially the eye-opener that their Special Guest of Honour turned down their invitation and instead came to Prempeh to adorn a program organized by Prempeh's Reading Club - is enough to educe change in the most hardened criminal. But just like Sisyphus, destined by the gods to spend eternity pushing a huge stone to the summit of a massive hill in Hades, only to let slip his grasp at the very last, so OWASS can never quite conquer their inner demons.

For OWASS, again, this cipher status is so prized an identity, that they will fight tooth and nail to hinder any imaginative and kindly fellow - even if a renegade Owarean - from steering the rudder of that school. That explains the vigorous combat they staged last October to prevent their own Owarean brother, the Prempeh-groomed gentleman from becoming Headmaster of their School.

This - our respective approaches to matters relating to the seasoned character Heraclitus so brilliantly spoke of - is at the heart of our people's differences with the Owarean aggressive philosophy and the place where the greatest arroyo lies. However, Prempeh, for whom Character is destiny, is NOT disturbed by the Santasi school's tendency to turn men into "nothing" and by the willingness of that academy's adherents to "allow themselves to become nothing." That is, after all, their business! We are only concerned by their obsession with everything Prempeh, and their refusal to leave us alone over the years. They've designated our College as their rival school when we have never considered them likewise. Ours is a Kings College which is similar only in tradition to Eton - The Kings College of England.

Opoku Ware Secondary School even modified its name to Opoku Ware School, perhaps in emulation of the Saul that became Paul, just to sound a little (Prempeh) College-like. But unlike the Saul that became Paul, however, OWASS' change of name did not come with a change in attitude, for they became even more vicious thereafter. Why do they have to celebrate their purported championship on our grounds? And why should they disrupt our meetings? Where is the letter of apology from the OWASS Headmaster for this appalling behaviour? Why can they never leave us alone? Why? Why? Why? Why can they not channel that oomph into enhancing their image and bringing them the status of a first class school, so that their name could be recognised by people outside of Kumasi, instead of hearing an inquisition of the "Opoku who?" variety whenever their name is mentioned outside of Kumasi?

That the fact that we forgive them, when they conntinually show the violent propensities against Prempeh in sporting events, that though with their continual bellicose stance on innocuous social issues in the academic setting we continue to forgive them, that though they are inextricably associated with the nation's only de-naturalization scandal, kangaroo court and the bloodiest coup we still smile good-naturedly, that because like good fathers hoping with the proverbial patience of Job that this archenemy will become less nasty in dealing with us...or at least stop sending us death threats or polluting our website messageboard with profanity...that this school will finally come of age or at least see reason, SHALL NEVER COME TO PASS!!!!!

To be Continued..

Return to Interesting Readings