By Stephen Chonji
At a time when worthy concepts and musings focus on the millennium 'globalisation' and 'professionalisation' and our village's vision to crawl feebly towards the 21st century intellectualism, and eschew the lunacy of our asylum, this article might appear as antiquated as some 'headmen'.
But in our village where 'headmen' have assumed such diminutive personalities to the point of becoming natural aberrations; a village where graft, corruption and falsehood glitter and out-dazzle the most polished gold; then should the seeming antiquity of this paper be excused.
Many a gagged social observer, not to call them critics, have whispered and murmured against or about the social malaise, bad governance and tribalism and so on. Without pretending not to be of thespian inclinations, we ascribe to the 'violence' of Imanu Amiri Baraka (Leroy Jones). Said he: "The revolutionary theater must accuse and attack anything that can be accused and attacked. It must accuse and attack because it is a theatre of victims."
The power to make international calls with your mobile phone at discounted prices -The symbolism of dialectical conflicts of drama, of the unity of opposites, of revolutionary change, of matter and man in motion, is the very quintessence of Marxist propaganda in theatre (Maynard). On stage then, we should be looking at our village from a global perspective. Dr. Hilarius Ambe: "Professor Zemzi's Last Rehearsal" or Bate Besong's "Once Upon Great Leapers"
The human mind is made up of complexities of tenets, sometimes flashing forward (anticipatory) and backwards (reflective) in search of harmony (call it whatever); a point of reconciliation - leprosy blood for the dying General. The conscience of mind is a rare commodity in these trying times.
Conscience can be semantically, differently interpreted by people. In fact, it is conjectural. Whereas some will see it as the awareness one has in having to make a choice between right and wrong, the lack of conscience makes others see it as a right and prerogative to encroach on other's rights to be more comfortable even at the detriment of one's livelihood on hard-earned and well deserved remuneration.
But in these trying times, conscience should rather be a revolutionary manière, transcending the realm of mere consciousness of moral ethos and becoming a strong and impelling force that propels men towards the execution of correctness (let our heads not disgrace their heads).
To the Christian, conscience is "an essential ingredient in the Christian system of ethics". It is the motive power and the last arbiter for the moral rectitude of man. Conscience also occupies the exalted position of legal lords (indeed) and the entire judiciary's shameful gaping face, whereof the highest standards of man's action in his relation to God and the gods as well as to his society (most importantly), are measured.
The Arab word "al-zajir", which closely translates: "the restrainer", who is "God's preacher in the heart of the believer, the high cast", therein which summons him (the Muslim) to the truth; is evident in a Muslim man when he exhibits marked uneasiness over acts carried out shortly after the deed was done.
The question is: are our criticisms loud enough to make the consciousness of awareness felt in our docile servitude unrestrained? And for it all, to what extent have our heads made change imminent by dint of the pen or other literary forms? It is quite disheartening that in our village today, the sagacity embodied in some statements and pronouncements have been brutally lacerated by the spear thrusts of our heads… hierarchy, terminal, passers-by and so on.
Considering the wanton propensity with which graft, theft, lies-telling and our disgraced intellects had been and are still perpetrated in our village, it will not be reprobative believing that if there were anything like a conscience gland in the human body, most, if not all heads, ministers and administrators the village over, would have had theirs removed.
In this theatre of the absurd, we become flies to wanton boys. Let them kill us for their sports. (Shakespeare). Eyes hear while ears see. No turn is left 'unstonned'. The irony of it all is that whenever the eye is allowed to play its natural role as the organ of sight or vision, it becomes jaundiced.
And the ear that wants to derelict seeing for hearing, selects what to hear. This selective hearing, to my mind, is either a case of self-induced hallucination or that of self-inflicted auditory imperfection. Because we are in a lunatic asylum; our village, where we are all mad men and no specialists, our heads have distorted and twisted history to the point that fact has become fiction and fiction fact.
Falsehood is now truth and truth, falsehood depending on who is saying what for whose end and for what fee.As a sequel to this inclination to violence, let us not wait to be vitiated by this obstinate penchant for mischief exhibited by our heads in pseudo-intellectual scandalization before they are called to order.
Caustic, acerbic and vitriolic diatribes and the propagation of quack mire intellectualism must be checked in these trying times. Much sooner than later, we shall be disgraced in the face of our village and even beyond.
We should advocate the enhancement of our 'moral intellectualism', shunning 'sexotribal' pityfulness.' In these trying times, it is obvious that much energy and courageous ingenuity is required to say it in the face of those perpetrators; to be able to rid our village of the death-in-life that hangs on our intellectual garb like an albatross.
Our social lash commentators should put more heads than hearts together, especially on 'educational' and intellectual issues to help our village arrest the "Robbers in Paradise" because when the "Lake God's" sledgehammer shall bang, we shall 'ban empty barns.'
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