A biosystematic crisis and a global response to resolve it

Abstract

Very late on a dark Saturday night in 1953, in the town of Kumasi in what was then the Gold Coast (Ghana), a semi-literate Tribal Policeman accosted a totally illiterate and inebriated employee of mine called Awuni Farafara, with the words ‘Who be You’. Awuni's reply of ‘I be Me’, caused the policeman to retort ‘You Lie!’ and the luckless Awuni was incarcerated for ‘failing to identify himself and thereby hindering the police in the performance of their duty’.My plea, on his behalf, that Awuni's reply to the policeman was perfectly correct was rejected on the grounds that, ‘Me was not his given name; Me was not the name by which he was known; and Me was not the name by which the police could check their records to see what was known about him’. It further transpired that even if Awuni had given his correct name he would still have been arrested, ‘because it could have been a false name leading the police to false information in their records’. Awuni it seemed was destined to remain in jail until ‘he had been properly identified by someone with the authority to do so’. I had such authority; I did properly identify him; and he was released.