Search:

A society whose values have been eaten by moths

[ Posted On: 2006-03-18 ]

Published: Saturday March 18, 2006

When your 2002 dreams have been so violently aborted by devious dinosaurs and other assorted political sets of offspring, you want to seek interim leave of the politicians and disputers of this world. You seek composure and solace in higher company. And so I am dreaming, today, with the great Ben Okri, Africa’s wordsmith of The Famished Road fame.

You get fed up of the converse of erratic political fellows, who crave wicked counsel and who delight in the company of mockers. And so I become Azaro, a spirit child. I have given up the idyllic world, for a place in the world of the living. We are walking with Ben on the famished road. Suddenly, he says: "Do you know that there are many reasons why babies cry when they are born? Do you know that one of those reasons is that they are unhappy about their sudden separation from the world of pure dreams, where all things are made of enchantment, and where there is no suffering?"

I wonder where this is leading, as we live in confounding times. You do not even know whom to trust in unending mercenary dramas. So you don’t mind this mumbo jumbo from Ben — far, far away from the madding crowds. You are a free spirit — mingling with the unborn and, as Ben would say, "floating on the aquamarine air of love, playing with the fauns, the fairies and with the beautiful beings".

When you are Azaro, you occasionally run away from man’s space and float in an idyllic world. And so I have gone back in time and space. But, alas, I am not allowed to go beyond that time when I let out my first loud yell. Still, I am happy to be in those times when we have yet to know the vileness of human beings and the darkness of man’s heart. I have not had my first encounter with treachery and I have yet to witness man’s inhumanity to man — to say nothing of his endless capacity for dissembling.

It is a beautiful world, although — granted — not as blissful as the land of beginnings, where "spirits of the unborn bathe in the serene radiance of their diverse rainbows." The best thing about this world is Mama’s protective presence. There is the gentle touch of her palm upon my cheek. She is feeling for my temperature, because I am febrile. In my childish innocence, I presume the touch to be medicinal. And I actually feel better, already. There is nobody like Mama of the therapeutic touch.

But if you thought you could last in this dreamers’ paradise for ever, you are rudely awoken to the present. The tragic and piercing scream of a child — an innocent three year old — stuns you. He’s been run under a school bus that should have taken him home. Your country has just killed a fledgling, who should be reposing in Mama’s protective arms. Apart from a fleeting mention in one newspaper or other, your country thinks nothing of this matter – after all this country kills one child after the other every day. We are in the business of killing children. This is business as usual, another statistic.

Amidst this, the country’s media stays tightly trained upon political parasites and saprophytes. It trains them the way flies train a child who has messed up his backside. You are saddened that a whole nation has lost its soul to third rate power hungry and get-rich-quickly political amoebae. If a school bus should run over a toddler in the United Kingdom, it becomes a matter of national concern. For, it becomes time for the nation to take stock of its collective conscience and moral rectitude.

What, for example, are three year olds doing in school, when they should be fooling around at home; being children, imagining that life is all about floating in aquamarine air around Mama? Shouldn’t the national media be looking for the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education telling him some home-truths and asking him a few plain questions on the management of early childhood development in the country? Shouldn’t the nation be asking the Minister for Education to say something for himself? Shouldn’t the entire educational and social rubric be under the microscope?

On Wednesday, the dreamer of dreams that I am, I expected to see every TV screen taken up with live evaluation of a labour system that has failed to give the mothers of this country their right to nurse their toddlers to the point of being allowed to leave home. I expected to see child welfare officials dissecting the spectacle of two year olds being dragged to school, kicking and screaming. I thought I would see Kenyans on TV, talking about two year old lonely baby girls that are abandoned with watchmen deep into the night, waiting for pub loving parents to pick them up from school.

Something is awfully wrong with a society that rapes and kills its babies and moves on as if it is business as usual. The only thing that seems to matter in my country is the melodrama around power hungry political scroungers and assorted fungi. Nobody cares — not even the media — that Kenyans are paying twice for essential maize meal today as they did only three years ago. Nobody cares about the scandalous rot that is the Ministry of Education and its mismanagement of education, from preschool to university. And we’ve forgotten about the famine in the country and about Anglo Leasing.

Political flotsam and jetsam plays with us like marionettes. We have the memory of an elephant. Our attention is diverted from crucial issues at will. Perhaps the political microbes that lord it over us — and who only play to the script, anyway — are not the problem? Perhaps our real problem is a dysfunctional, rudderless and puppet media that can never set national agenda and follow it through? As I float in the aquamarine air, I can’t help lamenting, "Yes, we are truly a society whose values a moth has eaten."

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author:

Barrack Muluka, the author of this article may be contacted at okwaromuluka@yahoo.com | Article was originally published in the East African Standard Newspaper.

| View Profile & All Articles By: Staff Writer |

		Post Comment
		Blog This Article!
		Discuss Article in Forum(s)
		Publication \| Reprint Terms

Please Rate this Article

Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Opinion Articles Via RSS!

| Category Feeds | All-in-one Feed | Other Feed & Syndication Options |

Additional Articles From - Home | Society & Culture | Opinion

	Print This Article
	Post Comment
	Add To Favorites
	Email To Friends
	Ezine Ready \| Syndication
	Make PDF Article
	Post To del.icio.us
	Post To Furl
	Add To Google Bookmarks
	Submit To Netscape
	Add To Yahoo! My Web
	Add Main Feed To Outlook
	Post to BookMarks @ AfroArticles.com

	Post To BookMarkAfrica.com

Site Home

Article Categories

More Search Options

Site Map

Submit Articles

Top Authors

Most Recent Articles