#13 Some animals cannot be domesticated

We domesticated livestock, dogs and in some ways cats. We decided which animals were too wild and drew a line. But we never stopped to wonder; what if perhaps, we are one such animal?

Some times, I get hit by how primitive Human beings truly are. It's rare enough for me to be taking aback, but often enough to be reinforced in my cynicism of Humankind

The key aspect of this glaring primitive behaviour, I find, is prejudice. 

I sat in a taxi on my way up the Hill at Berekuso. Almost at the top, the driver saw three students; two guys and a fair, attractive girl (Note her complexion) walking at the side of the road. One guy walked hand in hand with the girl. 

The driver's immediate comment, in Twi, and more to himself than to me was "You wont study anything, you are there playing lovebirds". 

My responses was immediate and loud enough for the group to turn and look into the taxi as we drove by.

"How the hell do you know they aren't studying just fine at the same time, and why the hell is it any of your business?"

He turned and smiled foolishly. He never had any logical reason for his comment, so he had no reasonable reply to my response. Because to have one would be to examine his prejudices and insecurities. 

I was seeing comments on Facebook about that radio personality who it now appears faked her getting kidnapped and raped; the video of the latter going viral as is to be expected of such videos. Many comments from men dismissed it as having been staged well before it was known, and many others rose to remind others of their humanity, only to be made fools of when the facts came out that it was indeed staged.

But how do we do that; Men? arbitrarily belittle a grave and harrowing an ordeal as rape; and what does that say of our own view of the other sex of our species? How do we so callously turn the victim into the criminal, and shrug off the male perpetrators as just being... what? A force of nature? Boys being boys? 

Remember what happened to MzBel on stage some years back and how even more of the conversation was centered on the length of her skirt than on her being sexually molested right there on stage.

This prejudice makes the Takoradi case particularly tragic, as it simply goes to reinforce a terrible prejudice female victims continue to face, and why many have no clue about how many women really get raped in our society. 

In the past, I'd look at all these things and express my disgust at how backward conservative Ghanaians can be, but it's not just Ghanaians, conservatives, men or Africans is it? 

We don't suspect minorities are more dangerous than they are or condone summary execution by police here in Ghana, do we? We do however lynch homosexuals. 

So I have to conclude, despite the thin veneer of a modern world, technology and our universal celebration of historic civil right victories, that the human being, and not society, is the problem.

We still remain a very primitive mind tagging violently against the leash of a lofty Social contract that holds doggedly to the ridiculous notion that we will adjust to ever improving laws and rights, instead of accepting the hard fact that, human beings have never really been and may never truly be civilized.