Ghana Life: The Lure of Greener Pastures

Any expatriate living in Ghana for a number of years will be told by many people, both men and women, that they believe that they were born in the wrong place; ‘I’m really English or American,’ they insist. This feeling translates into a strong desire to leave Ghana at the first opportunity and find a way to travel to the Utopia they called aborokyiri. At the same time they exhibit strong ties to their family, clan and tribe that manifest a resolve to help their kinsfolk trapped behind in Ghana in any way they can. The resolution of this apparent paradox is a theme suited to exploration in fiction.

For several decades, European countries have been concerned about immigration from their former colonies and from other less affluent corners of the developing world. It must be hard for many people born in the West to understand the compulsion of Africans and Asians to leave their homes and families for a lonely life in a strange land. As time passes, of course, the loneliness and strangeness lessens as large minority populations are assembled, but this only increases many of the concerns of the indigenous majority. Some of those with long ancestral roots suspect the newcomers of importing a new crime wave. While most immigrants try to keep a low profile by living within the law, some more intent on rapid economic progress are tempted to take a short cut to a personal fortune by joining an ethnic group that has found a quick way to make money.

Every immigrant community brings its own criminal element; the Italians have long exported their Mafia and the Chinese their Triads. West Africa has not yet produced anything nearly as sinister but Ghana, along with Nigeria and a few other neighbours, has become a transit point for South American cocaine and Asian heroin destined for markets in the UK and other European countries. Kumasi, boasts the largest market in West Africa, and it is not surprising that some of its traders have been drawn into the new export trade.

Most Ghanaian immigrants to Europe do not engage in criminal activity, neither do they make a great fortune by legitimate means. Many do, however, succeed in acquiring enough wealth to return to a comfortable life back home in Ghana and/or to build houses or start businesses for relatives who stayed behind. In this way they fulfill their obligations to their extended families and assist the economic development of their homeland.

Many of the concerns about mass immigration centre on the importation of exotic religions with strong social constraints. People from Asia, particularly, are inclined vigorously to preserve their customary beliefs and practices and resist integration with the majority population. Ghanaians in Britain are blameless in this respect. Most come from an essentially Christian background and are eager to integrate with the culture of their former colonial masters. Back in Ghana the ethos of the clan or tribe is often at variance with the interests of the nation state, but in exile these tensions are subsumed in a common identity.