By Eric Wamanji
Praise the Lord… Praise the Lord … Praise… Amen…Amen…Amen… Sunday- in Kenya, where the Christian cacophonic mantra cascades through broadcasting sphere like a waterfall, you will be excused for thinking you are at the Vatican, nay, the CBD of the New Jerusalem. The ‘gospel’ menu rolling off our airwaves trances the nation – so it seems.
On TV, preachers of diverse extraction shriek as if in contest. Cameras pan and zoom. And the “man of God,” knows just the right foot to put forward, the right intonation, the right hand gesture… radio is not to be outdone either. Here, ‘gospel’ songs flow like the Niagara in a long dizzying stream, interspersed by a husky voice, of mostly a female announcer, who sounds like has received a visitation and is marching to Zion amid trumpets. The public cheers. It sings and claps along. It even wires money. It feels virtuous.
To online, Twitter and Facebook also pulsate: “blessed Sunday,’ ‘I feel blessed,’ ‘if Christ is for us, who can be against us…”’ they hum on and on like the Mississippi. And the digital crews in media houses relish tweeting and retweeting.
Indeed, if Christ were an investor, and landed in Kenya on a Sunday, our broadcast owners and programmers would bag handsome dividends. Our preachers would be promoted, from pastor to bishop to pope …and perhaps another title on earth would be created. And Christ would declare Kenya, a friendly coalition partner against the axis of evil.
Yet, this euphoria is ephemeral. It is like the rush you get after downing caffeine. Its why, the hype fizzles come Monday; then our broadcasters recoil to their secular, evocative, seductive programming- just as Kenyans throng to the twine of routine vicious and devious schemes. Here, they extort cash, swing spouses, corrupt, are corrupted, and even spool in the ecstasy of other’s tribulations, what the Germans call schadenfreude.
Worldly escapades
Let’s see -before Sunday, our TV and radio, surf on the crest of worldly escapades. That is why the ‘Holy Sunday’ scheme by the stations is akin to having dingy brothel, complete with a casino on the side, chocking tobacco smoke, beer, sex orgies – a deluge of vulgarities. Yet, when the clock strikes mid-night Saturday, it is converted into a cathedral.
But no doubt, the broadcaster is a perfect mirror of our society –only on Sunday are we ‘holy.’ We massage our twisted egos by trooping to the millions of churches sprouting on every nook and cranny, in our Sunday best, clutching the Bible. And the media, true to scholar, Marshal McLuhan, are indeed the ultimate masseurs. In fact, society is cognisant of the power of the media whose endorsement is the gospel truth. The broadcasters know that we are hypocrites and helps as to “feel nice” on Sunday. You see, mostly, the media is shy from deconstructing your beliefs and rather maintains a consistent framing of issues that are in sync with your viewpoint.
After all, the religion staple is a delicious bait to catch big audiences through cheap programming; it translates to a fat check. And our inadequacies are simply a treasure trove for the streetwise media. And aha, folks, there goes the catch, its at the alter of commerce, that the societal hypocritical enterprise is let to thrive – just.
That is why, when we chose to commoditise and peddle Christ in the high streets and virtual churches, the media man loved it, grabbed the idea and imitated society for that. This scheme also tells the audience, “Don’t worry, your impish weekly expedition, matter less, as long as on Sunday you create a semblance of holiness.” this covert structural construction and perpetuation of hypocrisy is worrying.
Living a lie
The Sunday gospel frenzy vide broadcast is designed to fumigate our soiled and bloodied hands and hearts; we are by extension massaging the gluttonous monster that will ultimately gobble us. Indeed, the incongruity of our society, and the massage we get on Sundays, polished by TV and radio, has rendered a nation into an infinite cycle of living a lie. We may not get a chance of redemption.
While the broadcaster happily creates a sense of false spirituality and religiosity, he could instead do better for society. Instead he prefers to dispense an after pill every Sunday to flush off the scum of the week.
Is it not the media-man’s duty to expose fraud of ideology at the pulpit and street? Well, someone may frown and shout “Kanyari.” True. Fair enough. But then, does the hypocrisy in our discourse and milieu begin and end with Kanyari? And if anything, the fellow was later laundered in the same platforms that chastised him. You see!
Don’t we all know of thriving racketeering churchprenuer family empires, for instance, which packages and sell a distorted Christ only to the rich? And for the poor? “They can go to hell.” Yet, our so-called media turns a blind eye to such false teachings.
Yet, deeper interrogation is indispensable in the manufacturing and distribution of religion. To what extent does endorsing a culture of hypocrisy comprise a society’s innate obligation of self-evaluation and penance? Can’t we establish a correlation of hypocrisy to good governance? Democracy? Human rights? corporate exploitation? Social order? Who will ride high horses when the broadcaster is cosy with the hypocritical construct of our society today? For now, its still hogwash, when our airwaves puff: Praise the Lord… Praise the Lord… Praise… Amen…Amen…
ewamanji@yahoo.co.uk @manjis