The Crash Is On Its Way

Wisdom Nuggets: "There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man." - Alan Paton

Alan Paton (Photo from: todayinliterature.com)

 A woman who worked in a small office, so that her boss could see what she did all day, had to use the toilet a lot because she was pregnant. The boss made a note of how long she was gone each time and took the minutes out of her lunch hour. Another employee, a salesman had leukemia and was very sickly. His boss insulted him every day and doubled his sales quota while he was still undergoing chemotherapy. He quit and recovered. One American film producer had 109 assistants in five years, not counting those who stayed less than two weeks. He fired one for buying him the wrong breakfast muffin. A man's hand was cut off by a giant cutting machine in the factory where he worked. After 6 months of being admitted in the hospital due to the loss of limb, he was laid off the job. He was considered a waste of company resources. Yet another staff was involved in a fatal motor accident while on official duty as sales rep. He was still battling with the trauma of the accident in his hospital bed 3 months later when he was informed that he has just lost his  job. The company figured out it will be too expensive to pay his medical bills. Till today in my country, a lot of house helps are not treated better than the 12th century slaves in Brazil : physically, sexually and mentally abused just to remind them that they are different from the cute kids of the house owner. They eat sparingly, sleep seldom and work for long hours.

Believe it or not, the way you treat your staff, domestic or corporate, will either attract a blessing or bring down a curse on your organization, your family and your life. When Job's entire world crashed, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong, this is one of the questions he asked.
 “Have I ever been unfair to my employees when they brought a complaint to me?What, then, will I do when i am confronted?When my books are examined, what will I say? Didn’t the same God who made me, make them?Aren’t we all made of the same stuff, equals before God?

The truth is you may be the world's richest man and your organisation may be responsible for the livelihood of a million families who would suffer if you did not employ them, but Job says before our Creator you are no different from your staff. You are equals. The only difference is that you have been privileged to have these great cooperations in your care. You have been entrusted with the opportunity to extend His blessings to others.

Life never blesses us for ourselves but we are blessed so that we can be blessings to others. Some CEO's adopt a Eugenistic attitude, which gives the feeling that they came from a superior breed from their staff and therefore, embark on a program of deliberate and systematic dehumanisation, humiliation and degradation. Most employers suffer psychological abused, emotionally traumatized and physically drained. Fact is today you can be the boss and tomorrow a staff too.

First ,if you treat your staff as a worthless bunch of people you are just doing a favour, it will reflect everyday in their poor performance, affect their self esteem and deplete the company's market share.

Secondly, employers who treat employees shabbily and pay them poorly must hear these words: "you are not pilling up wealth but judgement." You'll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon your  organisation.

"...And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some You’ll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you lessons in lamentation. You’ll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you’ve piled up is judgment. All the workers you’ve exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger. You’ve looted the earth and lived it up. But all you’ll have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse. In fact, what you’ve done is condemn and murder perfectly good persons, who stand there and take it..."

Speaking of crashes: the whole world has recent been dealing with a global economic meltdown. Maybe we are just discovering some of the reasons behind the crash sweeping the world's big businesses.

Robert Burns said "Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn!"
To which Alan Paton replied "There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man."
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The Curse of Injustice 4

Wisdom Nugget: "Don’t steal from the poor, because they are poor; and don’t use your position to crush the weak  The Lord will take up their case and press the life out of those who oppress them."

Oppression

Have you ever wondered lately why more rich people are getting struck with cancer, tumors and very deadly heart diseases ?

I still remember like yesterday, my days in Law School. One of our lecturers walked very slowly into class, apparently not feeling well. We - the students - empathized with him and expressed our sincere wishes for his speedy recovery. Then one of the students dared to ask him the nature of his ailment, whereupon he said something that we all laughed about then, but now I know not to be a joke, He said to us "Oh don't worry, you all can't relate with it. It's rich people's sickness!"

Many years after, I realized that indeed one of the greatest tragedies of life is how the rich steal from the poor, and use their position to oppress the weak. And how as a result, their Maker "...takes up their case and  presses the life out of those who oppress them."  You will recall I had said before that because of the complexities of human existence, at one time or another we will all be vulnerable, defenseless and very susceptible. There are laws which make it obligatory for the strong to protect the weak; the informed to protect the ignorant; and the powerful to protect the defenseless. To violate these aforementioned laws is to attract a curse. Take away those laws and society will be brutish, savage and barbaric. To undermine those laws is to take us right back into the jungles of the Stone Ages where only the fittest survived.

In 2010 was born the Arab Spring: the wave of revolutionary demonstrations, protests, and civil wars occurring in the Arab world. This revolution which began on 18 December, 2010 fought against oppressive dictators who had stolen from the poor and used their position to crush the rich

Till date, these official thieves (Presidents) are being crushed and disgraced out of power. We have witnessed the fall of the Presidents of Tunisia,[1] Egypt,[2] Libya,[3] and Yemen;[4] civil uprisings have erupted in Bahrain[5] and Syria;[6] major protests have broken out in Algeria,[7] Iraq,[8] Jordan,[9] Kuwait,[10] Morocco,[11] and Sudan;[12] and minor protests have occurred in Lebanon,[13] Mauritania,[14] Oman,[15] Saudi Arabia,[16] Djibouti,[17)and  (18) Western Sahara.

To you who are being oppressed, your case will be taken up. Your oppressors will have the life pressed out of them. But to the rest, let me remind you of the words of Carl T. Rowan, "It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home."

And Jonathan Sacks wrote "If you want a free society, teach your children what oppression tastes like. Tell them how many miracles it takes to get from here to there. Above all, encourage them to ask questions. Teach them to think for themselves."

Solomon summarizes it in these words: "Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, All will be judged: both the righteous and the wicked. For there is a time for every matter and for every work."

Desist from stealing from the poor. Stop using your position to crush the weak. If you don't turn a new leaf, ...it's only a matter of time.

Photo credit: whatsaiththescripture.com

Injustice and Curses

Wisdom Nugget: He has told you, O man, what is good; and what is required of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your Maker?             

Scale of Justice

All through the book you will notice that "The fatherless and widows" come under the same omnibus and are always grouped together. Literally, "the fatherless" means those without fathers and "the widows", those without husbands. But the spirit of the text goes beyond that simplistic application. They both represent people who are defenseless,. helpless, vulnerable and with no one to fight for them.

In most cultures in my country, when a father dies and his children are not of age, relatives take away all of the father's assets from you, everything. As for the widow, she is only a piece of property bought by the husband while he was alive. At his death, all her husband's properties are seized, she is subjected to demonic rituals like drinking the water derived from the washing of the corpse, shaved and must not leave the solitude, confinement and darkness of the room she shared with the husband for several months. When she finishes with the mourning rites, the house would have been swept, her; children, reduced to housemaids and everything her husband labored for would have disappeared. Often, young widows are forcibly remarried to one of the deceased's kinsmen; or contend with being raped as a matter of right. And sometimes, she may have to sleep with those who are to pay her late husband's gratuities.

Once there was a young girl who went to her late father's colleagues for assistance for her school fees. This man whom she called uncle, gave her a condition: she was requird to sleep with him before he would offer her any assistance. What these  traditionalists don't know is that these cultures bring great curses upon our communities . When the bitter tears of these fatherless girls and poor widows flow down their cheeks and fall to the ground, a lamentation against the land is raised. And a curse is invoked upon the people.

As Job put it : "But maybe you sent widows away without giving them anything.And maybe you took advantage of orphans. That is why traps are all around you,and sudden trouble makes you afraid. That is why it is so dark you cannot see,and why a flood of water covers you."

Have you ever wondered why many of our communities are so blessed in natural resources but the people are still poor ? Foreigners come in and prosper but the owners of the land are blind and in darkness and can't see the opportunities and for centuries the flood of poverty covers the indigenous people. Violence against women, rapes, mutilation of the female genitals are only a few of the evils that are responsible for the downward spirals of our economy and the violence and fears that we live with daily.

"...maker of the fatherless, and judge of the widows...will bless a people who respect the right of orphans and widows and vice versa."

 “If you listen to what I say, you will get the good things from this land. But if you refuse to listen and rebel against me, your enemies will destroy you.'... She was a faithful city. What made her become like a prostitute? In the past, the city... was filled with justice, and goodness... Instead, there are murderers. Once you were like pure silver, but now you are like the impurities that people throw away when the silver is purified. You are like good wine that has been weakened with water. Your rulers are rebels and friends of thieves. They demand bribes and accept money for doing wrong. They take money to cheat people, and they don’t speak up for widows and orphans. They will not even listen to their cries for help."

Another sage says, “You must never do anything bad to women whose husbands are dead or to orphans. If you do anything wrong to these widows or orphans, Their Maker will know it; will hear about their suffering; and will be very angry...

Conclude with Imelda Marcos words: "Continuous persecution of widows and orphans is a crime. Even the Bible says there is a specific place in hell for those who oppress widows."

Picture credit: fabiusmaximus.com

The Curse Of Injustice II

Wisdom Nugget: To trick a blind man into going the wrong way is to attract a curse.

A curse is an invocation of a supernatural power  to afflict or injure grievously; to harass or torment, to inflict serious harm or punishment on someone or to cause misfortune, evil, doom or unhappiness etc to  befall a person, group.

In the noun, to be blind means "People who are unable to see."

But in the verb it means "to Cause (someone) to be unable to see, permanently or temporarily: eg "eyes blinded with tears".

Life always brings us in contact with people who are temporarily blind , due to a situation they have found themselves in. The young girl who is in a relationship crisis; the fresh graduate who badly needs the job but must sleep with someone; the student (as a lecturer) who is struggling to pass your course and can't figure out why she keeps failing it; the young man in mid life crisis who comes to you for answers to 101 Questions of life; the young student who is confused about which career path to follow or who cannot figure out where the next school fee will come from; your congregant (as a pastor or religious leader) who looks up to you as God's representative; your subordinate in the office who regards you as their father or elder brother, depending absolutely on your (in)sight to make it to the top some day; and finally, your patient whose nakedness is only known to you and her husband. These people are blind, confused, defenseless and vulnerable before you.

Oftentimes, you hold in your hands the power to either make or destroy them, either help them or abuse them, either love them or lust after them, either tell them the truth or mislead them, either cover their nakedness or take advantage of their vulnerability, either be their stepping stone or stumbling block, either be their father or their sugar daddy and to either be their mentor or tormentor. The choice is yours to either be their hero or their villain but whatever is your choice they will remember you either for fame or for shame, either for the problems you solved for them or the ones you created for them. And we have enough history to show that those blind people you tricked into going the wrong way, sometime in the past, always have a bad habit of showing up somewhere at the crossroad of your future/destiny, just when you are about to be crowned, and spoiling your party. If you doubt, ask Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Barney Frank, Larry Craig, Kwame Kilpatrick, Senator David Vitter, John Ensign,Mark Sanford.

US President Thomas Jefferson (1802): was accused of fathering the children of his slave, US President Grover Cleveland (1884): had sexual relationships with a number of men; US President Warren Harding (1921-1923): had extramarital affairs with two women; US President John F. Kennedy (1963) was linked to a number of extramarital affairs;
US President Bill Clinton (1998): Monica Lewinsky had oral sex with Clinton in the Oval Office; Jacob Zuma (2005-2006): was charged with rape before becoming President of South Africa
Ramzan Kadyrov, Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic (2006): appears in a sauna sex party video; Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s Prime Minister (2011): paid for sex with a minor on a bunga bunga party and has just been sentenced to imprisonment for other of fences. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California (2011): had fathered his housekeeper’s son, now aged 15 and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Head of the IMF (2011): charged with the sexual assault and attempted rape of a housekeeper was disqualified from participating in the French Presidential elections.

To trick a blind man into going the wrong way is to attract a curse. To you who feel the pain of injustice, this is my advice : "The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." -Richard Bach

Photo credit: disputeabout.eu