A lot of matters have been going wrong lately. Such matters that previously were unheard of at least while I was growing up back in the good old days. Why are the old days always better? Do we as humans just focus on perfecting on the mess our predecessors made in the past?
I am yet to understand why a lot of us have allowed ourselves become overwhelmed by issues around us, we lose focus and rather than facing the core issues and fixing our social gaps we turn to our individual religious beliefs and begin acting like hypocrites or just plain stupid! Sometimes it seems we put our brains on “PAUSE”, turn our backs on the issues and run behind our chosen faith. Why else do world leaders decide to commission wars that threaten thousands of lives and assume a few Hail Mary’s would make them able to participate in Communion on Sunday and sing Hosanna and later write a book? Or some others decide to strap a delivery truck with enough C4 to blast Aso Rock into tiny pieces then calmly proceed to a market and needlessly terminate the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians and consider that the ablution that they took few minutes ago would make them see God with a couple of nubile virgins in tow?
Some hide bombs in their pants while others carry Holy Bible and behind it carefully conceal a deceitful and eternally twisted heart. This phenomenon is no longer restricted to age, sex, religion or race. God forbid that I should point fingers but many including you and I have been guilty of such subjective reasoning. Those times when you tend to pick sides and decide that in order to remain correct, every other person must be wrong. Or insist that Sundays are holier than Fridays; or that burning Tibetan martyrs are of less significance or less newsworthy than burning crosses or the Quran.
Granted, all men are by custom allowed to be emotional in their judgment on certain issues; matters such as football clubs, politics views or religion beliefs. Where I’m from at least it is the norm- but a man can argue politics and football but never religion. However on a general basis religion is a major issue with a majority of the world’s population laying claim to some form of religious belief or the other. Even the free thinkers, humanists and moderates have some skewed perspective and unspoken opinions when it comes to religion. In recent times a lot of the news has been masked with words such as terrorism, national security, supremacy, democracy, global peace and nuclear warheads but underneath it all are nations jostling for the right to prove that they have the correct answers on whether or not Democracy is better than Communism or whether Judaism is greater than Islam and Scientology a better alternative to Catholicism.
The West did lose focus on the core issues on peace and the natural law of live and let live, when it became apparent that they were profiling and attacking bearded men from the East. The bearded men in turn retaliated by blowing up themselves in the name of God and killing innocent civilians senselessly. Then an unknown pastor from half-way across the world that has never read a Quran to expand his myopic knowledge on the topic decides that burning books are the answer to the world’s problems and the news hungry media proudly broadcasts the “breaking news” to the world to inflame the issues again. Somewhere halfway across the globe another bomb explodes. Granted, bad news travels at light speed twice around the world before good news has the time to put on its pants.
Okay so what’s my point here? A lot of leaders of late are guilty of not being sincere with our hearts and knowing that regardless of what heavenly places we are yet to behold the Earth is our only home and we owe our children a favour by keeping it in good condition. I don’t want to raise my children in a world where they would judge another by his religious belief and profile him to be a certain way. I can see it happening already because I’ve heard innocent remarks from little kids and realize that they are being misguided even in the cartoons and video games they play. But more importantly just the other day I caught myself midway in a sentence making an off-colour remark that I can’t reprint out of shame- and immediately I knew the media has begun influencing my thought process! Repeat just about anything over and over again and very soon the people would begin to believe it- it’s a core foundation of social marketing or advertising- FACT.
But I don’t want to travel on a business trip or holiday to a foreign land and appear to be an infidel just because I have a Rosary hanging round my neck; because I’m pretty sure some sort of similar brainwashing or one-sided story different from the one I’m used to is going on in another country. The United Nations should organize an International Peace Summit and have all the nations in attendance where all bad debts and wars should cancelled and forgiven not discussed or negotiated but blotted out- a random suggestion given by me because the current leadership seems to have just run out of fresh ideas. So come on, rather than just curse at a flat tire, blow some air into it with your breath. Different approach; probably the same outcome-but at least I tried. Anyone else have a better suggestion?
But one thing is certain; a good percentage of the world seems to be heavenly conscious and earthly useless as pointed out by an acquaintance Faith Nwokedi. So where did all the good people go? We all keep the Sabbath day holy and commit to keeping a strict prayer routine, yet every day the stuff we hear on the news further validates my view. Nevertheless I look forward or should I say backward to a time where the only bad news I see on T.V is the obituary of very aged people- with gratitude to God for a life well spent.
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Ebuka Anichebe is the Managing Director of Jean-Paul and Associates Consultancy. He has an uncommon approach to marketing media consulting, business development and customer experience evaluation.
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