THE AFRICAN WATCHDOG: WHERE DID THE RAINS ACTUALLY START BEATING US?

THE AFRICAN WATCHDOG: WHERE DID THE RAINS ACTUALLY START BEATING US?

We are all guilty! We all have failed and come short of grace, I included. What is wrong with our society? My question exactly is what happened to the morals we once cherished?

The media, whether electronic or print, is there to inform, educate and entertain. However, we the users continue to be shaped by its content, and in these, and many other factors, that help to mould and shape our behaviors, define our interactions and inform our consumption habits.

Do you remember the old days of watching the Foresters on their famous TV- show, “The Bold and the Beautiful?” I never really had a chance to watch it due to my strict parents. They always knew the time when it was schedule and they made sure everything was done before that time, some few minutes before it started they tucked us in.

I will never forget the whack my brother got trying to peep and catch a glimpse of the romantic action. Unlike today, where soap operas are family galore. But those who follow these programs get angry by the day, as they cannot stand the fact that a father can actually date a daughter-in-law. That’s absurd in the African culture.

“A fan is the unseen disciple of a team”, so goes a saying among football enthusiast. However, that’s the depiction of how low as a society we have sunk. We uncomprehendingly watch boring cheap TV- programs, rejects of Europe and America, imported to fill our African vacuity.

What make a movie- an Oscar or a great movie, I should ask? Is it only when it has a spice of romance, passion, deceit, sex and nudity? But then again, isn’t this what is shaping our ideas, thoughts, actions and behaviors. The whole idea about such a program is to say to you- lower your status quo. Affairs are part of life.

Somebody once told me that, “if you compromise any situation, you compromise the devil.” And once the devil is compromised, he invites his legion. When our young girls started dressing skimpily and indecently, we compromised and never said a word. Now, we are reaping what we sowed- unplanned pregnancies, broken marriages, under-age gang rapes and all those societal ills.

I stop, pause and ponder again, where did the rains actually start beating us? As a society and a continent corporately, we ought to sit down and reflect hard on this. About the good old teachings of our fore fathers and mothers. Of our spiritual vocation. Because if we don’t, history will judge us harshly but what will hurt us the most will be that the coming generation will not forgive us!