Christmas 2023 Is Gone

 

Felix cannot dance (3×) nanso wo ye den a, ne nsa dee obeto… Felix w’ahye kye… Felix w’abo tie… nansowoye den a, ne nsa dee obeto.

 

Felix Cannot Dance, Kwan Pa

 

For someone interested in literature (or put differently, a literary-minded person, or litterateur, or bibliophile, the mention of ‘Christmas’ will invoke a thought on the novella, ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens.

You will recall Scrooge – the squeezing, grasping, wrenching, clutching… old sinner. Scrooge was visited by the spirits of the Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Yet to Come and later, became a “born-again”.

The scientists will tell you the world in 2023 passed as the hottest on record; but it might not bother you to find whether the cause was El Nino or La Nina or the burning of fossil fuel. You will ask: Why would Bing Crosby sing “I am dreaming on a White Christmas… and may all your Christmas be White”.

What colour will Palestinians see, white or red? And for the Palestinians, will it be ‘joy to the world’? What about the mayhem of October 7? As many as 1,400 Israelis killed (and some abducted) by Hamas? So, one Israeli is equal to 20 Palestinians? Hope nobody takes me to task for the equation – not equalisation. And why was Christmas 2023 not celebrated in the traditional Bethlehem?

Listening to Kwan Pa’s Felix Cannot dance (original: Feliz navidard… Prospero Anoy Felicidad), we think of the glorious days of the past, and we were singing “There was a _________” with the label ‘Not to be sung outside Commonwealth Hall’, and yet some of the new converts sing these songs at funerals. We thought funerals are solemn occasions, and should be observed as such.

We thought we could also be musicians or guitarists like Koo Nimo. Why not? We have the voice; we have vocabs; we have charisma; we have… but we are afraid of the need to keep long finger-nails to get the twangy sound of the guitars.

Forget about the fact that ‘twang’ is onomatopoeia for the high frequency sound. How can we cut our fufu with the long nails? You may ask Opanin Koo Nimo, who will tell you why he prefers his nails to the plectrum for plucking or strumming the stringed instrument.

And Afua Asantewaa Aduonum sings for 105 hours in the sing-a-thon Guinness Book of Records attempt which started on December 24, 2023 and ended on December 29, 2023. All the groups in the country threw in their support until she turned to: ‘Emaabeku mo… Kufuor pe… Akufo-Addo pe…’ What message did she wish to send? Well, we are waiting for Guinness to confirm whether Afua has broken the 2012 record by Sunil Waghmare.

Now, it is ‘-a-thon all the way’ From Afua sing -a-thon to Faila ‘cook-a-thon’, it will flow to ‘read-a-thon’, ‘speech-a-thon’, ‘funeral-a-thon’.

The ‘thon’ may derive from ‘marathon’ the legend of Philippides, the Greek massager who ran from the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) to Athenas, to announce to the Assembly that Greece had won the battle against Persia. Philippides lost much weight as a result of the run; and he collapsed and died, after delivering the joyful news.

When there was a drought in Ethiopia famine struck the country in 1984, Band Aid came in handy with: ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ led by Bob Geldof. This was followed by ‘We are the World’ by USA for Africa, written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson. It was a disaster of immense proportions that occurred mostly in Tigray, Wollo and Eritrea and Mengistu Haile Mariam-led military dictatorship (Derg) restricted food supply as a strategy against the counter-insurgency of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s guerrilla soldiers and for ‘social transformation’ in non-insurgent areas. Over 1.2 million people died as a result of the crop failure.

We Catholics listened to Pope Francis’s ‘urbi et orbi (to the city and the world)’ from the central loggia of Saint Peter’s Basilica. We get more confused when he responds to a question by journalists on “gay priests”: “If they (gay priests) accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn’t be marginalised. The tendency (same sex attraction) is not the problem… they are our brothers”.

Pope Francis sent a Papal edict to all churches in which was the directive which backed “the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex… this blessing should never be imparted in concurrence with the ceremonies of a civil union, and not even in connection with them”.

The bishop of Koforidua, Joseph Kwaku Afrifah-Agyekum was on Newsfile (December 23, 2023) trying to explain the new directive by the Pope on LGBTQ1 .  There are a few questions for the Catholic Church, including “celibacy” of priests, but shelved-for fear of ex-communication. Do you know Sonja Semyonova who lives in Vancouver Island, British Columbia, admits she is in a relationship with a tree. It is eco-sexual or erotic experience with a tree.

Johnny Nash sang ‘there are more questions than answers’ in 1972 (on the album: ‘I can see clearly…’)

Then we entered 2024, and hit by the BBC Investigative journalist on TB Joshua. It was ‘evidence’ of widespread abuse and torture by the founder of one of the world’s biggest Christian evangelical churches, the Synagogue Church of all Nations. The Ghana Catholic Bishop Conference (GCBC) sent a Christmas (2023) message to all Catholics.

It states, among others, “As we prepare to enter the New Year 2024, and being an Election Year, we observe with growing concern attempts to introduce and inflame religious passion to political discourse and activities. As a secular nation that recognises the right of all citizens to any political party of their choice we urge all Ghanaians to respect our Constitution and avoid any attempt to engage in a ‘Politics of religion’. Let us put Ghana first in all our political campaigns so as to preserve the peace and unity of our motherland.”

What advice will you give the Electoral Commission? What is the point of introducing anything that will lead to suspicion – who is complaining of the indelible ink as a mark of voting? Ho!

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By Africanus Owusu Ansah

 

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