Zak Malang
JF-Expert Member
- Dec 30, 2008
- 5,404
- 242
Wadau:
Jenerali tena -- afunga mwaka kwa makala hii murua. Ni rahisi kutambua ni akina nani anaowananga hapa, mtoto wangu wa miaka 10 aweza kujua!
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We ate and drank to celebrate the birth of the Nazarene, and learnt nothing
By Jenerali Ulimwengu
The week of extraordinary merrymaking is coming to its end, leaving behind battered bodies and soggy minds from too much self-indulgence.
As happens every year, individuals, groups and families have been paying excessive tribute to Bacchus - Greek god of wine and fertility - by irrigating their long necks and stuffing their bellies with unwanted ballast.
At the end of the bacchanalian revelry, those who, to corrupt Shakespeare, will drink as long as there is wine in Africa and a passage in their throats, must now wake up to the grim realities that have not been impressed by all the brouhaha about a Happy New Year, as what is revealed to them is just another brand-new second-hand year.
It's not my intention to dampen anyone's spirits, but my job is not to peddle pipedreams and Panglossian notions that seek to find blood in cacti and money that sprouts from tree branches because all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
No, I seek to tell like it is, and how it is as we face another January I do not like. We have been feting each other to mark the birth of the great Nazarene teacher, but few of us seem to have internalised his teachings.
For instance, when he said something to the effect that those who already have will have more added unto them while those who have nothing will have even that taken from them, he was not prescribing, only describing what he was seeing.
The way we treat our fellow human beings suggests that we believe he said, "Do unto others and run" and "It will be harder for a VW beetle to drive on a four-lane highway than for a poor man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
It comes as little wonder to me, therefore, that the most religious individuals I know are also the most corrupt, venal and debauched.
I say this in earnest because all around I see thieving scoundrels, commercial and political Shylocks, men and women with inordinate appetites and sharp elbows, go before their god and sing themselves hoarse while throwing at him a few crumbs from their weekly booty, looking to cheat even He.
That they can hope to blindside someone they themselves have dubbed omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent really beats comprehension.
They have thus spawned cloaked entrepreneurs, men and women of the cloth you would not dare trust with your poodle, who preach the gospel of wealth on earth and who demonstrate the truth of their word by parading around in big, posh cars they bought with the money their congregations gave them. Fiction is hardly stranger than that.
On the other hand, we are called upon to deal with the threat of confessional intolerance such as we have seen in our East African countries and elsewhere on the continent, a phenomenon that is beginning to dog Tanzania even as our rulers continue to talk so glibly about "peace and tranquillity."
Recently a joint communiqué issued by a college of Christian churches raised their concerns over threats made against them by purported Muslims, in addition to acts of violence, vandalism and arson meted out to churches and churchmen, one of whom was shot in Zanzibar this last week even as we celebrated the season of goodwill.
These would have been grave in any situation in any country, but they announce themselves gravest in a setting where a lackadaisical style of government has taken hold and where urgent matters can wait.
It's not as if we did not have real issues to grapple with. Poverty is deepening and widening; the gulf between the haves and have-nots is widening dangerously; unemployment is rising and the youth are restless; the moribund education system is breathing its last and a sense of drift pervades all sectors.
This is a pile of tinder under which a match has been struck; religious bigotry will supply the fuel.
So, am I depressing you? Try to have a Happy New Year.
Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: ulimwengu@jenerali.com
Source: The East African
Jenerali tena -- afunga mwaka kwa makala hii murua. Ni rahisi kutambua ni akina nani anaowananga hapa, mtoto wangu wa miaka 10 aweza kujua!
________________________________
We ate and drank to celebrate the birth of the Nazarene, and learnt nothing
By Jenerali Ulimwengu
The week of extraordinary merrymaking is coming to its end, leaving behind battered bodies and soggy minds from too much self-indulgence.
As happens every year, individuals, groups and families have been paying excessive tribute to Bacchus - Greek god of wine and fertility - by irrigating their long necks and stuffing their bellies with unwanted ballast.
At the end of the bacchanalian revelry, those who, to corrupt Shakespeare, will drink as long as there is wine in Africa and a passage in their throats, must now wake up to the grim realities that have not been impressed by all the brouhaha about a Happy New Year, as what is revealed to them is just another brand-new second-hand year.
It's not my intention to dampen anyone's spirits, but my job is not to peddle pipedreams and Panglossian notions that seek to find blood in cacti and money that sprouts from tree branches because all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
No, I seek to tell like it is, and how it is as we face another January I do not like. We have been feting each other to mark the birth of the great Nazarene teacher, but few of us seem to have internalised his teachings.
For instance, when he said something to the effect that those who already have will have more added unto them while those who have nothing will have even that taken from them, he was not prescribing, only describing what he was seeing.
The way we treat our fellow human beings suggests that we believe he said, "Do unto others and run" and "It will be harder for a VW beetle to drive on a four-lane highway than for a poor man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
It comes as little wonder to me, therefore, that the most religious individuals I know are also the most corrupt, venal and debauched.
I say this in earnest because all around I see thieving scoundrels, commercial and political Shylocks, men and women with inordinate appetites and sharp elbows, go before their god and sing themselves hoarse while throwing at him a few crumbs from their weekly booty, looking to cheat even He.
That they can hope to blindside someone they themselves have dubbed omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent really beats comprehension.
They have thus spawned cloaked entrepreneurs, men and women of the cloth you would not dare trust with your poodle, who preach the gospel of wealth on earth and who demonstrate the truth of their word by parading around in big, posh cars they bought with the money their congregations gave them. Fiction is hardly stranger than that.
On the other hand, we are called upon to deal with the threat of confessional intolerance such as we have seen in our East African countries and elsewhere on the continent, a phenomenon that is beginning to dog Tanzania even as our rulers continue to talk so glibly about "peace and tranquillity."
Recently a joint communiqué issued by a college of Christian churches raised their concerns over threats made against them by purported Muslims, in addition to acts of violence, vandalism and arson meted out to churches and churchmen, one of whom was shot in Zanzibar this last week even as we celebrated the season of goodwill.
These would have been grave in any situation in any country, but they announce themselves gravest in a setting where a lackadaisical style of government has taken hold and where urgent matters can wait.
It's not as if we did not have real issues to grapple with. Poverty is deepening and widening; the gulf between the haves and have-nots is widening dangerously; unemployment is rising and the youth are restless; the moribund education system is breathing its last and a sense of drift pervades all sectors.
This is a pile of tinder under which a match has been struck; religious bigotry will supply the fuel.
So, am I depressing you? Try to have a Happy New Year.
Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: ulimwengu@jenerali.com
Source: The East African
