[ 2011-12-09 ]

Most Reverend Gabriel Charles Palmer-Buckle

I’m Ready To Die For Ghana – Palmer-Buckle

The metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, Most
Reverend Gabriel Charles Palmer-Buckle says he
will do all it takes to maintain the peace and
tranquility that exit on Ghana.

“I love Ghana so I am ready to die for Ghana,”
he said during the election 2012 series of the
‘Ghana Speaks’ lecture in Accra Tuesday under
the theme ‘The Ghanaian media, national peace
and cohesion.’

The ‘Ghana Speaks’ lecture series was
instituted by the Institute for Democratic
Governance (IDEG) to search for solutions to
unresolved national challenges. It is designed to
provide a platform for informed deliberation on
development challenges.

Though Reverend Palmer-Buckle admits the Ghanaian
media is not doing badly, he noted “we can do
better because I believe in the media myself.”

Under the current circumstances, Ravened
Palmer-Buckle said the country was polarized.
Unfortunately, he said the media was dancing to
the polarization tune instead of helping to shape
society.
In spite of this, he believes that polarization
also represents “the cross fertilization of
ideas.” “It is nice to have differences of
opinion; it brings about the wealth of culture but
that is where it should get to as the true essence
of democracy,” he said.

Rev. Palmer-Buckle who was the Chairman for the
event consequently asked the media to be “a bit
more circumspect with what they put out in the
public domain…let’s listen to both sides, let
us work on it and let us come out with that which
brings about national peace and cohesion.” This
according to him was because, “it is not
everything that should be put in the public domain
without considering what the consequences might be
to the nation as a whole and the value of national
cohesion and peace as well as the image of the
personalities involved.” “I believe everybody
has a conscience and should be answerable before
God; that means a certain personal responsibility
for what you put out in the open because I believe
that every journalist must be answerable to what
he or she puts out into the public domain,” he
emphasized.

On his part, Professor Kwame Karikari who was the
main speaker said the media’s capacity to be
effective in promoting the principles of national
cohesion would be questionable if it lacked
adequate professional and technical knowledge and
skills.

He therefore called for a communications policy to
guide the country’s development agenda whilst
stressing the need for the publication of
newspapers in local Ghanaian languages. “The
denigration of the development of our languages is
the worst indictment on our governments towards
cultural development,” he added.

Source - Peacefmonline

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