By Isaac Ato Mensah
Accra \u2013 7 November, 2019<\/p>\n
While reflecting on 2 November, – All Souls Day a little girl asked me, \u201cWhy did God allow us to be born only for us to die later?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing like death; it is part of life,\u201d I replied, sharing with her my mentor’s perspective.<\/p>\n
Such it was as the Christian world and beyond meditated on death and the afterlife during All Souls Day, Halloween and the Day of the Dead.<\/p>\n
The powerful sermon “The Beauty of Death”, delivered by Rev. Akua Ofori-Boateng at the All Souls Chapel, Lashibi \u2013 Ghana, the leading funeral home is a must listen.<\/p>\n
As should be, she gives Christianity a lofty and sublime interpretation.<\/p>\n
But let us now reflect on how in A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, Jacob Marley\u2019s Ghost appears at night. Yes, the terrors of the night.<\/p>\n
Is this the same as the “valley of the shadow of death” or “the dark night of the soul?”<\/p>\n
The ghost, Ebenezer Scrooge’s deceased business partner, negotiates with Scrooge, but does not compromise on revealing the truth about Scrooge’s past to him.<\/p>\n
The most terrifying part of the story is not the appearance of the ghost- no, it is the hard truth that Scrooge fears is known by the ghost and is about to be revealed, albeit only to Scrooge alone, all in a night\u2019s dream.<\/p>\n
In such moments of guilt, the judgement of course is not made by the ghost but by ourselves; we all become Scrooge, over and over again.<\/p>\n
There are several incidents in the life of our country that should make us all pause and reflect and feel guilty – perhaps for our implicit complicity on account of our silence.<\/p>\n
They include, the continued detention of Gregory Afoko; the non-commencement of trials in the banking scandal; the absence of arrest and trials for MPs who took double salaries; the non-commencement of investigations in the “sex for grades” by law enforcement; the lack of an arrest and trial of the murderers of Ahmed Hussein-Suale; the summoning of journalists before the General Legal Council (GLC); the dodgy fines and cronyism exhibited by Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana (ICAG); the unbridled public bigotry towards minority sexuality, just to name a few.<\/p>\n
How can we forget law enforcement officers -crass bullies, who have detained people they never intend to prosecute?<\/p>\n
Scrooge, the main character in A Christmas Carol, was a miser and mean spirited.<\/p>\n
There are incidents in other contemporary spheres where Marley\u2019s Ghost would certainly not have been silent.<\/p>\n
These include stealing company funds to “splurge\u201d on friends who then become grovelling minions and sycophants, and then back dating documents to hide the theft.<\/p>\n
Remember, today a simple photocopy can be made with a date change.<\/p>\n
Thus “document hacking” has become prominent among IT students and the IT community.<\/p>\n
Then there are the employers and HR managers who lay off workers without due process nor compensation.<\/p>\n
Hiding behind a group decision will not save you – Marley’s Ghost will visit you tonight, whether you are dead or alive!<\/p>\n
What about the accusations and counter accusations of \u201cdoctored tapes\u201d which are strangely enough never resolved by the police?<\/p>\n
And when a doctor who the Ghana Medical and Dental Council says is not licenced is cleared by the courts; the Council and its shifty Registrar are still at post and with what moral authority?<\/p>\n
All these are some of the demons that we live with in ghana and from which we must set ourselves free.<\/p>\n
A practising Hindu colleague shared the Hindu perspective: \u201cWhen we are going through suffering we should be happy because it means our errors in our past or present life are being cleansed.\u201d<\/p>\n
She argued that it is better to get almost immediate punishment for our errors rather than reincarnate and come back to pay for them with another whole lifetime of suffering.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.\u201d<\/p>\n
May we beat our spears and AK 47s into ploughshares, and always seek and speak the truth while we remain in this mortal frame – a tabernacle of clay.<\/p>\n
May the Supreme Ruler of the Universe have Mercy on us all.<\/p>\n\n\n
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