Private Legal practitioner Dr Justice Srem-Sai has added his voice to the ongoing social media debate on whether a passport is better than a Doctor of Philosophy degree.
This comes after a social media video in which a Ghanaian man who obtained Dutch citizenship argued that his Netherlands passport is more valuable than a PhD from the University of Ghana.
In joining the debate not to pick sides but to explain the difference between the two and their importance, Dr Justice Sai said the two should not be compared in the first place. He said due to the opportunities each presents to poor people from poor third-world countries, people think they do the same thing but that is far from the reality.
“A passport, primarily, is a travelling document. It facilitates a person’s movement from one country to another. Indeed, it is a request by a sovereign to another sovereign to extend some rights, privileges and protection to an individual – the passport holder,” he explained.
“A PhD (Philosopher’s Degree) is, primarily, a certification by a university that a person has been so desirous of finding or contributing to finding a solution to a social problem within academic context that she has spent much time and effort to investigate the problem”.
He noted that to look at both without considering the underpinning facts of their relevance and the context of the comparison is like comparing apples and oranges.
“So in their original, proper, true, and dignified contexts, a passport and a PhD are like apples and oranges – they have nothing in common to make for any truly sensible comparison. That’s the first point. However, to leave the matter here, at this point, is to fail, entirely, to appreciate a very interesting context”.
Dr Justice Sai added that for “poor people and in third world countries, everything is immediately economic – bread, butter and butt. This economic need is, often, reduced to the need for immediate (rather than long term) personal money. In other words, poor people see everything in terms of immediate personal money”.
For someone from “such worlds, a passport of a Western country is not just a travelling document. In fact, it is not a travelling document at all. A passport, particularly of a country in Western Europe or North America, is solely an access to economic wellbeing – a decisive breakaway from poverty”.
He added that “to a poor person from a poor third world country, a PhD has, in many cases, ceased to be evidence of a person’s desire to find a solution to a social problem within an academic context. For many, a PhD, too, gives access to economic wellbeing – a means of falling out with poverty”.
Justice Sai concluded that “debate, fundamentally, is a debate for or among poor deprived people in poor third world countries. Now, stripped of all the faulty decorations, while remaining within the ‘poverty’ context, the real question is this – between (a) the passport to a Western European or North American country, and (b) a Ghana PhD – which one gives a better access to immediate personal socioeconomic wellbeing?“