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Defiling the temple of God
The body is the temple of God – THE HOLY BIBLE
WHEN it comes to this time of year, there is often great sexual excitement and people appear to be on heat. They start dreaming about female thighs, hot pairs of buttocks, slim sexy waists and voluptuous sensual bodies. When they sleep, they have wet dreams, and in the mornings they thank the gods of Larteh that when it comes to matters of the waist, they can also be counted.
The excitement is not for nothing. It is engendered by the wild expectation of another round of beauty contests from the regional level to the national level in order to separate the vultures from the crows. By the time it is all over rapists are super-charged because they have a low sexual boiling point; born-agains backslide and general male libido heightens.
Kofi Kokotako was just telling me that if a sexual temperature test is conducted at the next grand finale of the Miss Ghana contest for all males in the audience including the judges, it would be seen with much effort that 95 per cent or more of them would fail the test and be found with real stiffness between their thighs. It would all go to confirm the fact that the contest is not a decent one.
Kokotako who is now a man of God, once confessed to me that he got excited when the show was getting to fever-pitch with the girls showing their fleshly wares in bikini and swimsuits. Today, he is a Reverend and if he is fasting, you’ll think he is rather on hunger strike.
“The body is the temple of the Lord,” Kokotako preached to me last weekend. “People have since the beginning of time desecrated this temple of the Lord. Today moral degeneration is at an all-time low comparable to the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. People are indeed defiling the temple of the Lord. Women use their private parts to smuggle cocaine and weed; women expose their thighs and buttocks in the full glare of lustful males in the name of beauty contests or material gain, and some women actually hawk their bodies for cash. The Lord is aggrieved.”
I have never seen Kofi so emotional. When he told me he was going to be a Reverend, I laughed aloud. I thought it must be for the financial gain. But the man has really transformed, breaking his friendship with mahogany bitters, gin-and-lime, and preaching the word with vim and power.
Yet, if 30 per cent of Sikaman natives could change completely and become like Reverend Kofi Kokotako, Sikaman will turn to be the abode of angels.
And if all young girls could engage in a measure of reflection and contemplate issues concerning womanhood and refuse to be exploited, used, paraded semi-naked and virtually made fools just because of material gain, the world would be blessed and free from calamities. We are sinning too much with our bodies!
Some see beauty contests and people see it as entertainment. In another sense, it is a subtle form of societal officially endorsing and confirming that women are nothing more than sex objects and have been created just for the fun and pleasure of men. To prove this, they must be conned and paraded almost naked and in the process applauded or booed.
Those adjudged beautiful get weighty prizes and the ‘money no fine’ get pittance and told better luck next time. And they grin like baboons unknowing that they have been exploited, debased, cheapened and laughed at.
At the Beijing Conference, a group of hot-headed Japanese women demonstrated and organised press conferences to protest the exploitation of women under the guise of beauty contests during which they are portrayed as sex objects with no value apart from being ideal to be lusted after. Those who attended the conference came back with a different view about beauty pageants.
They should rise up against this idea of yearly beauty pageants which have debased womanhood to the extent that the beauty of a woman is no longer seen as sacred but a thing of no value.
And if this has been the case, why wouldn’t rapists also seek to claim their fair share since the whole human female is being cheaply advertised, under-invoiced and can literally be had at a discount?
I don’t really know, but I have the feeling that this beauty contest idea is fast losing popularity anyway. At the last Greater Accra regional contest, it was difficult getting contestants to participate. There was only one willing contestant and girls in the audience had to be cajoled, begged and virtually forced to participate when they didn’t want to.
Although the eventual beauty queen came from Greater Accra, I guess it was wrong for the organisers to have compelled people in the audience to participate. They must realise by the disinterest being shown that their annual programme is becoming unpopular and must be scraped, leaving the dance competition.
It is tragic that although it is becoming unpopular at the national level, it is catching on fast at the local level, though. Beauty contests are organized at end-of-year parties, funerals, graduation ceremonies, outdooring, KVIP commissioning ceremonies and birthday parties.
Some of these are organised decently with no buttocks palaver. If the organisers cannot organise the national contests in a similar way then, they better stop wasting the time of the girls, and desecrating their beauty and parading them as only good for sex and nothing else.
Are we tired of categorising God’s wonderful creation into sheep and goats, vultures and crows, the beautiful and the ugly?
Females should not allow themselves to be used in such indecent ways. They must have pride in womanhood and think first and foremost of their bodies as the holy temple of God which should not be defiled as in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.
This article was first published on Saturday April 20, 1996
THE typical itinerant salesman in Sikaman is a herbalist. He is normally a slim macho with the capacity to perambulate the expanse of area covering the triangle of Accra-Tema-Ashiaman. In short, he can walk a total of 60 miles a day, marketing a product that cures every disease, including poverty.
The door-to-door herbal pharmacist advertises his product by word of mouth. He has nothing to do with the Food and Drugs Board (FDB). After all, his concoctions do not feature on FM stations.
Those herbalists who cannot walk to propagate the herbal gospel, liaise with drivers of mass transportation and their mates. They are, therefore, given the chance to sell their products on Benz buses that ply the routes.
Normally, the herbalist starts his sales message with a prayer and Bible study. He asks the passengers to bow down their heads in supplication to God the father, the son, the Holy Spirit.
When a herbalist asks the passengers to close their eyes and bow their heads, Moslems on board naturally feel offended. They feel that the herbalist has no right to assume that every passenger is a Christian. They think such an assumption is an affront to Islam.
So a Moslem on board will raise the hand for a point of order. He’ll remind the herbalist that it would be in his own interest to mind his language.
“Be careful the way you address people in a public place. Not every person here is a Christian,” he’d state assertively.
Of course, the herbalist will promptly ignore him, but would all the same “watch” his tongue. Who knows whether or not the Moslem brother is inspired by Quoranic zeal to defend the tenets of Islam to the hilt?
When he starts saying, “Wallahi!” and “Inshallah!” it could be the beginning of proclaiming Islam as supreme, a point which must be driven home with talibanic precision.
So the herbalist must tread carefully lest he steps on fire.
The herbalist could even add a measure of mirth to it all, by announcing that Christians on board today have very interesting company on the journey, but that should not detract from the business of the day.
The Moslem brother will weigh the words carefully and offer a wry smile.
He must be careful the occasion does not degenerate into the use of semantics and proverbial oration to deride his conviction that public utterances must be mindful of religious sensibilities. He has made his point very clear and expects that it is taken in good faith in the interest of a peaceful journey.
The herbalist will now open the New Testament and preach salvation, stating clearly that salvation can come only through Jesus Christ and NOBODY else.
The Moslem brother will now start twitching his moustache. The visible and almost revolutionary reflexes of his upper lip can be an indication that sentiments have begun superseding reason, and the outcome could well be tragic now shift uneasily in his seat.
The time has come for him to also express his right to the religion of his fore-bears. He’ll put his hand into his pocket and rise to his feet. The time has indeed come!
This article was first published on Saturday, September 9, 2006
When the cause of a particular problem like sickness, disease, sudden illness, a social issue etc. are not known, it stands to reason that resolving it becomes a huge challenge.
Citizens would understand the government when public announcements are made to the effect that government is trying to find a solution to the issue, even though it is taking a while for it to be resolved because citizens are rational beings.
On the other hand, if the solution to a particular issue is known to everybody but the government for whatever reason, is dragging its feet in resolving it, citizens become frustrated and begin to lose trust in their leaders.
One such issue is the heavy traffic along a section of the Kasoa – Odokor road. A short stretch of bad road between the traffic light at the Weija Government Hospital and the entrance to the entrance of the overhead that leads to the N1, is the cause of the problem but nothing is being done about it, day after day, week after week, month after month. Thus is clearly unacceptable.
Another issue that requires urgent attention is the lack of pavements along a lot of streets in parts of the various Municipal Assemblies. Exercise is a prerequisite for long life and healthy living and for those of us who it has become a way of life, this issue of people putting up structures right to the edge of the drains beside the roads, are making life difficult for us.
We are compelled to walk along the roads, putting our lives at serious risk. Pedestrians should never be compelled to compete with vehicles on our streets and roads. Roads and streets are made for vehicles and pavements are made for pedestrians. That is the norm. Any attempt to normalise a situation where pedestrians are mingling with vehicles is insanity.
It is the road regulations that makes it so and therefore district or municipal assemblies are to take responsibility and ensure that spaces for pavements are not encroached upon. Citizens have rights that must be protected by their leaders and making pavements available to pedestrians, is one of them.
When we hear of teachers having sex with students, it appears it is something recent. It is not a new phenomenon. It has been there since Adam. Perhaps this issue is getting much attention due to the proliferation of social media. It was an open secret in times past when Teachers were in relationships with female students and some married them immediately after completion of school.
Some teachers were also known to be having unholy interactions with female pupils but due to the times that these acts occurred, human rights issues and the awareness around it, allowed such unscrupulous teachers to get away with their crimes.
Now we are in a different era and so a Headmaster is now in hot waters. He is alleged to have raped about 19 female students and as usual, some officials tried to cover it up and are also in hot waters and their actions or inactions in the matter are under investigation.
Why the man has been allowed to roam freely without being arrested is simply mind boggling. It appears that the law applies differently, depending on who you are. This issue came to public attention sometime in August this year, yet the police had not arrested or invited this man for question regarding the rape allegation.
It has come out that he is a Constituency Secretary of the ruling party and the question in the public domain is that, is it because he is a political figure that is why he is still walking around without questioning? I believe in the rule of law so let us hold our breadth and let the proper thing be done.
The police must however be seen to be active in this matter. God bless.
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