HOW ON EARTH DID WE GET HERE? (PART 3)

MY LAND:THE UNSUNG HEROES Life is becoming increasingly tougher, but if the perception of the ‘fruit of our labour’ remains at the level of food and money, our virtue has not thence gone deeper than that of the scribes and Pharisees. Without a passionate cultural education from two passionate parents, children would be half formed and posterity will suffer. The Boko harams’ influence is as a result of the degradation of the home. The pressure of fending for the family has lured a great many into unholy means, and they find out too late that the path of life and happiness lies not in the acquisition of money , much less in doing so unjustly. The love of money, mammon, is the root and core of all evils in my land. Our drives for more, pressures from families, the exaltation of wealth in public places and places of worship and the anathemisation of any want whatsoever has fostered such a gargantuan drive for wealth, such that we are left unsathiated and are always looking ahead to the other person who has more than we do, leading us more into envy and anger, thus making evil prevail. The drive for wealth has created such a hypo in our business world, and solely dictates our decision to be educated. Pure desire for truth is as scarce as finding a pin in the ocean. We are enthusiasts in employing whatever means to acquire academic certificates not minding the mediocrity that reigns in our minds, and we have placed an alas on he who has not had any acquisition of formal education. The culture of handicraft and informal vocation has collapsed under the might and the rapidity of knowledge in our age. Poverty, prevalence of strife and scarcity of resources for livelihood have done our women no good. Racketed by an unsathiated, get married quick culture, every young woman’s dream is marriage to a man who 'has arrived’. In order to maintain her loyalty to the family, this young woman is often disarrayed emotionally between a militating culture and her reason to the contrary. For the man , during the years of schooling, and that of begging to apply for job, and bribing to be absorbed, and in the midst of such corruptibility, and as a result of his inability to catch up with a balanced spirituality which is often lacking to confront the aggressiveness of modernity, and his inability to control his libido, ladies often waiting to be married fall his prey and immorality persists, abortion abounds, deeply cherished family values are destroyed and the land is thrown into endless cycles of poverty and sufferings. The root cause of such ills is money, yet the drive for money is the basest of all motivations which reveals the primitivity of our society in relation to growth. This is the dialysis of my unsung heroine: a living matyr, a scape goat, the culprit. She starts as a young pure teenage girl, she meets this guy and falls in love, he has every potential of being a good husband but he isn’t ready to settle down. Mama and pastor say no sex but boy wants sex, girl is confused but holds on to the doctrine of her mentors. Even though boy cherishes chastity, but he simply could not withhold himself, he leaves for the ‘Animashahuns’ while he still holds her in high esteem. He is saving her for marriage so he says, but when he eventually becomes man, rather than opt to settle for her (for she is still waiting, praying and hoping)he prefers the simplicity and beauty of the sweet 16 which feeds his ego. So the poor girl, now a young woman is left shattered and she has to start all over. Virtuous women, rising from experiences as such, are torn between succumbing to worldly pressures of marriage at any cost and that of facing a prejudiced culture of name calling and suspicion. These are the forgotten ones, the real living martyrs of our age, that is, if they persist, but such a great trial this is, only a few could hold through, a great lot succumb and fall by the wayside. The quest for personal gains defines everything in my land, from the service of God, through the choice of marriage to the way business is conducted. The pressure to belong has driven parents out of the home and has exposed the children to the diabolical effect of our unrepentant culture. Our religions, in the quest for money has been reduced to nothing short of propaganda and raw proselytism. Don’t claim the holier, to a greater and lesser extent, we have all succumbed to the rude force of secularism. What to master more in this age is the science of truth and the acknowledgement of our ills, both individually and institutionally. Mammon and its quest has destroyed home, blinded truth and deluded careers. Our laggard culture fails to come to terms with the reality of our times. The protagonists of our culture are three: Our politicians, our pastors or Imams and the media, including musicians, actors and those in show business. Directly or indirectly, these are the people who shape what we do, how we act and what we cherish. But our politicians have been deluded by power, our media corrupted by sex and our places of worship consumed by money. Where is that faithful morally upright woman, or that clergy completely incorrupt and uninfluenced by money, or that unassuming politician who has as his sole drive the care of the society? These are the unsung heroes, the living martyrs who are daily working at the liberation of our land. Not the noise makers, be they in politics, media or religion. Those who strive after the hidden truth, even in the midst of an erroneous culture which cries the opposite, these are the true champions, and we should sing them out, they exist, though very few, they don’t make noise, and except by hindsight it is difficult to know them. But we should seek them out and sing them loud, otherwise, evil shall conquer the land, for if we don’t sing them, the more we shall keep having the noisemakers as role models, and the more we shall keep living a lie, and the more morally bankrupt our land shall be, in politics, in churches, in mosques, in business , in the media; and more often than not, in our families!