CHRISTMAS TOKENISM

Once again, this is the time of the year when parties and celebrations are held across the globe by both Christians and non-Christians alike as people compete to gorge themselves in food, drinks and whatever else in frenzied orgies in the name of celebrating the Christmas season. You could, however, ask whether there is anything in the matter, particularly, when people have planned well and saved their hard earned cash so that they can enjoy themselves in this holiday season. My only beef with this, is only in instances where some corporations and individuals use the opportunity to drag poor souls into their orgies, in form of giving out trifles and crumbs for the sake of cheap publicity in the name of Christmas period. I find this tokenism of giving out, particularly, a rich meal on  a single day, say to a children's home or poor community, callous and insensitive, because you provoke their taste buds knowing very well that you will not be available to satisfy their hunger pangs 24 hours thereafter.
Let's for instance,  look at corporations presently running media appeals requesting for donations from the public so that they can support some worthy causes, such as the homeless Kenyans living in those squalid camps erected after the post election violence. Seriously speaking, some of these corporations make billions of money in profits extracted from the poorest of Kenyans living in the remotest of villages and if they were magnanimous enough, they can afford to dine and wine all the Kenyans in any chosen camp throughout the year without substantially hurting their bottom line. Likewise, smaller organizations and wealthy individual Kenyans who seem, to develop a soft spot for giving to the needy only in this festive season, could pick out one of the children's homes to cloth and feed throughout the year, without as much as thinking of how to cook their books, so as to cheat the KRA. This week, we expect company executives and other wealthy people to take flights to South Africa, Mauritius or wherever, where they will end up spending millions of shillings, which if they so wished, could be saved by cutting down on their days away or rich meals and donate that to the needy which could stretch for many days in form of meals. But selling this to greedy and egocentric individuals is a tall order.
Some while ago, on these pages, I cautioned that due to the La Nina effect as predicted by the Met department and other experts, Tiania was likely to experience erratic rainfall with the possibility of famine in the subsequent months. The rains have failed in Rwanda area and people are facing imminent famine unless help is mobilized, possibly, even during this festive season some could starve to death. It would be very insensitive and insincere for our leaders and able individuals from Tiania to engage in the revelry of the season without thinking about the suffering families in Rwanda area. However, as is the practice in this very unequal society of ours, where the poor are left at the mercy of the gods, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some of the leaders from Tiania will be at the forefront writing out cheques, ostensibly, to help out in legal fees for some of the people in the Ocampo six, who have no need for such help at all. Talk of draining more water into the Indian Ocean to help it not to dry - as we say in my language!
Anyway, why in Gods name,  should we so deliriously and absentmindedly spend so much, that has taken us so long to save, in such a short period of time in the name of Christmas revelry? Aren't we becoming slaves of the the capitalist juggernaut machine that has been designed to drain the very last drop from our systems today such that we line up the following day for transfusion in order to continue with the ritual of serving the master? Interestingly, the capitalist system is designed in such a manner that you become mean and vain so that you don't spread goodwill to the needy masses. This way, you selfishly accumulate as much as possible by draining the masses which you pass to the grandmaster for safe keeping. We may think that we are smart through our tidy accumulations here and there but the recent world financial crisis should be enough wake up call that somebody else higher in the food chain controls our wallets and keeps the key to our till. In that case, wouldn't be better to share a little more than mere trifles with the needy instead of leaving it all in the banks or in form of securities? I think that if Christmas has any bit of spiritualism other than symbolism, it would be more blessed to give to those in real need at this time of the year other than passing it all to those who already have amassed a lot in form of hotels and the like. Happy Christmas!