IT is another joyous season and everybody is saving for the next big party. There will be so many choices of places to go and like a never-ending Merry go Round, it’s first the Christmas parties, then the new year’s celebration, followed by independence celebrations, heading into Easter, then jazz — and carnival.
In the twelve months that make up the year, with no less than one hundred functions and parties to attend, we will find the necessary cash, as well as clothing, to enhance our social profile is good enough to be counted.
Sadly enough, though, there’s no time in that agenda to focus on social issues or the crumbling health system, far less the state of crime, or economic decline.
There is no forum, or debates, nor agitation to deal with those issues, but we expect to see meaningful change and have prosperity. We simply take it for granted that the government or state will deliver, or make our wrongs right.
We have hope and faith and honestly believe that our problems will be solved and there will be hundreds of rich foreign investors to guide us to an imagined new future. We are bombarded with images of the future, plans with success written all over them and we wait, in anticipation, for deliverance.
As some would say, we have a dream, so we close our eyes to our existing realities and focus on the future or what is sometimes referred to the new frontier.
In the meantime we party, and dance the night away and forget all our troubles. We stay divided along party lines, hold on fast to our political colors and condemn and critique, and pass judgment — and stay away from the fight for reform.
I wonder who is fooling who, who puts the people first, or who is on a quest for self-enrichment.
The big question is: when will we put the partying on pause and think country before self, focus on real issues and stop our governments taking us for a ride?
Reform is in urgent need, prosperity can only be achieved through positive change and at present I don’t see that change on the horizon.
If we don’t change the way we do things and don’t hold anybody responsible for our failures or shortcomings or mismanagement of state funds, the time will come when the future we seek will crumble before our very eyes.
In the meantime, let’s see if we can have a good holiday season without behaving bad – or too badly!