“We Dey Beg”: Visual Satirical Media Discourses on Contemporary Ghana-Sino Relations

Abstract

In 2017, then Ambassador to Ghana, Sun Baohong, attended a Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology end-of-year exhibition, titled Cornfields in Accra (Asiedu 2017). During her exhibition tour, she visited the allotted space of Bright Ackwerh, a young and well-respected Ghanaian visual satirist. Within this space, Ambassador Baohong specifically had her picture taken standing next to Ackwerh’s latest satirical piece titled Them Threaten (2017) – Figure 1. What is intriguing about Madam Baohong’s photo-taking opportunity is that the work visually satirized one of her own prior actions. This act relates to Baohong’s subtly domineering posturing through an open letter to the Government of Ghana. In that communication, she complained about “a number of distorted or biased reports and stories on Chinese people, especially some reports and cartoons that are defaming Chinese leaders and senior officials” (Nyabor 2017). The note came soon after Ackwerh’s work titledWe Dey Beg (2017) (Figure 2), a critically acclaimed piece about the Chinese government that went viral in Ghana and beyond. The missive ended with what can be considered a veiled warning, in view of China’s global super-power status compared to Ghana: