It was in 1957. I was enrolled in a school. It was a Presbyterian School, Kwabeng Presby. I had no idea what I was sent there to do, but I was in school.
However, this is not a story about me or my school attendance.
Two classes ahead, my brother Tawiah, or Harry, was in Class 3. In that class was Yaw Benayeh whose fame was that he was left-handed. In boxing terms, he would have been classified as a southpaw.
Every day in those early formative years, it was the norm to hear commotion from Class 3 about how unacceptable it was to be seen writing with the left hand. It was more like calling God names for creating the left-handed Yaw Benayeh as an aberration from the natural order. As a Class 1 pupil, the import of all that did not register with me.
For the Presbyterian School, it was an abomination to have one child behave out of the natural order and contaminate God’s perfection.
Yaw Benayeh was also a good sportsman and showcased his skill on the left wing of the school’s football team. That was acceptable when he used his left foot to caress the ball on the football pitch to the advantage of the school. But not his left hand. That was an abomination and un-Presbyterian!
Up to now, I have never understood why schools in Ghana went to the extent they did to reverse the natural order through the systemic onslaught on left-handed children like they did to Yaw Benayeh. The whipping he received for being born left-handed cannot be wished away. He endured it through his formative years until he conformed to the norm by forcibly writing with the right hand. That was school in the 1950s.
But has our mentality transformed into positively embracing what constitutes a meddling in the natural order of things?
Is it any different from forcibly altering the gender of a child because an institution wants the child to be more oriented to the norm that the institution believes is normal?
I have been moved to express my frustration in this way for a personal reason. Seventy years after independence, my grandson in kindergarten is being subjected to similar treatment as happened to Yaw Benayeh in the 1950s for the simple reason that he was born left-handed!
What is the advantage of forcing every single child in our schools to write with the right hand?
Is it offensive to write with the left hand, bearing in mind the customary perception against left-handedness for certain roles?
Are we aware that many people we encounter around the world are left-handed and write with the left hand and bring no calamity upon mankind?
Let our educational authorities come in to explain why school children with particular natural abilities must be forced to transform into something else.
Personally, I find no merit in the persistent harassment of naturally left-handed children to become right-handed by force.
What is your view?
By Amb. Kwame Tenkorang, Teshie/Nungua
