It is that time of the year again in the month of February, when there is so much talk and excitement about romance and love, all in preparation for that special day dedicated to love, romance and dalliance, this very day, Valentine’s Day. The romantic propaganda can be really oppressive.In the past few days for example, GSM service providers have insisted that the only ring tone that fits this season is the one that forces you to think of romance, just in case you may have forgotten. I didn’t solicit for the ringtone, but I got it all the same and I have had to listen to it, on other people’s lines, and I guess it doesn’t come free.
The
GSM companies are making money selling Valentine messages. And that is
the point: the frenzy over Valentine’s Day is commercial, capitalistic,
and it is of course, global. In the United States, even the White House
is not left out, with the First Lady composing a poem for President
Barack Obama on this special occasion. It is all mushy, lovey-dovey
stuff. The eventual beneficiaries are the business outfits that produce
printing cards, shirts, chocolates, cakes, the restaurants that will
probably remain open till Feb. 15, not to talk of the companies that will benefit from the many phone calls, e-mails and text messages.
Sometimes, I find Valentine’s Day a bit suffocating, feminist, and discriminatory. This year’s celebration falls on a Sunday,
otherwise it would also have been observed in schools including nursery
and kindergarten schools. On a school day, all the pupils would have
been instructed to dress up in red colour and to bring gifts for their
friends. The children are innocent but their teachers, especially in
the private schools, initiate them into this annual ritual. Last year,
there was so much red colour blinding the eyes on the streets. I also
saw old men and women, even widows, joining the celebration, refusing to
be left out of their share of the love in the air. And later in the
day of course, the restaurants usually take over and the ultimate show
of chivalry is for a man to be seen taking his Valentine for candle-lit
dinner, or to go on his knees and pop the question, or to exchange
wedding vows on this special day.
It
is as if this is the only day meant for love, and the flow of affection
is generally understood around here to be from man to woman. The
emphasis is not even on pure, unadulterated love; but physical romance.
In everything there is a suggestion among the younger generation that a
Valentine’s Day expression of love is the truest form of affection,
which it is not. The overwhelming focus on purchasing power as a
measure of love and affection makes it worse. This has resulted in some
commentators lamenting that given the economic austerity in the land,
Valentine’s Day this year may not be as exciting, because as the common
saying goes, “there can be no romance without finance!”. In the past, a
poem or a letter or a bouquet of flowers would do, but I hear, not
anymore. Our new age Nigerian ladies no longer read love letters, nor
are they interested in poetry- those forced rhymes and sweet nothings
meant to make the heart flutter don’t seem to work anymore.
These days, I have heard such comments as: “we have not received salary, how man go take do Valentine?”
and I have seen a cartoon in which a husband tells his wife that they
will be better off spending the whole day in church! It is perhaps more
advisable to celebrate Agape, church love than to dig a hole in the
pocket and tell stories that touch the heart later.
I
am not against anyone celebrating love, but the desperation, the
heartache and the sheer anxiety that now attends Valentine’s Day is a
bit over the top. People should not have to borrow or rob a bank to
prove that they love a woman. And this whole thing about romantic love
is curious. In any relationship at all, physical love is not enough. It
takes a lot more to build relationships.
It
should be possible to spend Valentine’s Day with family members,
friends, and other members of the community. And you shouldn’t have to
wear red as if you are going to a Sango shrine, or appear like a
masquerade, before anyone knows that you want to celebrate love. How
about a visit to the motherless babies’ home, or the prisons, hospitals,
or a visit to the cemetery to remember your departed loved ones. Or
quality time spent at home with the children or phone calls to old time
friends to wish them well. Love should not be measured in loud decibels
of a one-day excitement; it should be a value, extended in all kinds of
relationships.
This
is one lesson the excitable young crowd, that is going to troop out to
the clubs and restaurants today, must learn, and which they will learn.
They should ask the older generation. I doubt if there are many married
men and women out there who are still having butterflies in their
stomachs as they did many years ago, over a certain unknown St.
Valentine. Real life teaches hard lessons. The older generation would
have learnt that love grows, and it fades, and it is better as a
life-long experience, while romantic love is just one of many other
kinds of love, including self-love, and this thing called love is not
necessarily in real life, exactly as the Holy Book says it should be.
It is only in the Bible that love exists in such fantasy form as described in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8: “Love
is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is
not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is
not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight
in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are
prophecies, they will cease, where there are tongues, they will be
stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” In real
life, love is proud, boastful, easily angered, expensive, self-seeking,
vengeful…imagine the kind of atrocities that have been committed in the
name of love!
As
we mark this year’s Valentine’s Day, I think of the quality of love in
our community, and it is sad that there is a damning scarcity of it.
Those who will observe the Valentine ritual, and may forget the subject
of love by tomorrow
morning, are in the majority: they claim to be good men and women, but
they are not their brother’s keepers. They include young girls who will
never be allowed to marry young men from other ethnic groups because of
the deep-seated suspicions that have divided Nigerian communities into
primordial camps of hate. We have parents, teachers, leaders and
priests, who promote division rather than unity. We are a community of
broken dreams and shattered hopes. Hypocrisy has become a virtue. Some
of the young people change their partners every Valentine season,
collecting Valentine gifts like they are striving to build a museum of
romantic encounters. Many of those who will profess love today do not
even know what it means.
And
yet we are a religious society and all the religions teach love as an
important virtue and value. But I doubt if anyone listens. Even the
religious leaders are guilty. One so-called 50-year old Pastor Amakiri
has just been accused of raping a 12-year old child. He saw a vision
that he needed a “holy massage” to be administered by a young girl
between the ages of 12-15, on his “badly aching waist.” He has children
at home between the ages of 6 and 14, and he could have sought medical
help. Only God knows how many other lives this particular Pastor has
damaged with false visions and cruel opportunism. Our schools should
teach love, but was it not in a Nigerian school that a student once
slaughtered a teacher in broad daylight?
And was it not from a school
that innocent young girls were carted away and abducted? Parents should
help teach love too, but many parents are too busy monitoring that bank
alert that will make them breathe easier. Marriage should nurture love,
but was it not in Ibadan the other day that a young, married lady,
drove a knife into her husband’s neck wounding him mortally because he
had a child outside wedlock. And elsewhere in this same country, another
married woman reportedly butchered her husband’s manhood, into two,
because he was caught with another woman.
Yes, it is Valentine’s Day
but it is the Devil that rules the heart of many. Pastor Amakiri has
been quoted saying “Don’t blame the Devil, I did it.” Of course, you
did it, and are we supposed to clap for you? The Devil has never been
convicted in any court of law for committing a crime. Think also of the
usual stories about the shenanigans of governance and the oddities of
public life. The list is endless, providing a sobering backdrop to all
the ebb and flow of Valentine spirit. People are taught the idea of
love by the ritual of Valentine’s Day, but that is never enough for
building relationships and a strong community of citizens. We need a
society built on much deeper friendships and values.
This is perhaps partly why
there have been anti-Valentine’s Day protests in India and Pakistan,
where its celebration is said to be “against religious and cultural
norms.” I don’t think a day will ever come when the Nigerian authorities
will ban anyone from having a day of fun, even licentious fun, for
those who are so predisposed. But if you must indulge in ribaldry,
remember it is nonetheless a day for loving not dying, and that
promoting love, friendship, good citizenship, and unity as shared
communal values is important. And if you are pro-Valentine and nobody
remembers to send you a cake, a message, or a card, since there is this
general expectation that everyone should celebrate Valentine, don’t
despair, it is better to be loved everyday, than once. As for me, I’ll
spend the day with family and friends.
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