Thinking Aloud
A Touch Of Nokoko
By Kofi Akumanyi
You may not believe this, but the plain truth is that I had forgotten that Christmas would be observed this year. Was it the dream that I had about the Cuban postponement of Christmas till after all the sugar cane harvest had been completed that lured me into a false hope of no Christmas?
Anyway, how could I ever have thought that unholy thought in this Christian country with empty churches on Sundays while shop owners, backed by a section of Parliament, are raring to do "business as usual"? I mean, weeks before the "official" beginning of the Christmas commercial advertising blitz, a Father Christmas was reported to have been sighted in a shop distributing lollies to children in an effort to rake in a few more pounds before the others began.
Call it a false start if you may, or whatever you like, but Miss Joan Collins, the Dynasty superbitch who the tabloids always claim to be attempting to outstage (what else? it's her profession, after all) Princess Diana, whenever they meet, did manage to switch on the Regent Street Christmas light maze last week. This, to Londoners, signifies the real countdown to December 25.
Before this dazzling event, the countdown, or showdown, had begun weeks before in my flat. A vigorous campaign and sometimes picketing have had a combined effect of inducing sleeplessness on me. You cannot dampen children's spirit at this time of the year when, thanks to the television which systematically bombards us with advertisements of toys, and the shopping list threatens to outstrip the bank balance.
But I tell myself, what the hell; let the kids enjoy themselves, give them what they want even if it takes me into the red. The bank manager would understand, that is if he has children. Come a cold windy Saturday last week, I said to the children that I would take them all out for pre- Christmas window shopping... Hurray, they said, and when we finally managed to get to the Wood Green shopping centre, all hell broke loose. All three wanted nearly everything in the toy shop. After a careful explanation of the economics of Christmas shopping had failed I came to the conclusion that it is better to play Father Christmas in the true sense of the role and never put myself in that position of having to argue with three vociferous children in the middle of a crowded shopping mall on a cold winter afternoon.
There is another situation I would, if possible, avoid finding myself in - an Egypt Air Boeing 737, or for that matter any other plane hijacked by fanatic Arab extremists bent on drawing attention to themselves and their cause at the cost of their lives and those of other innocent passengers. For goodness sake, when someone boards a plane he or she expects to get to the destination safely bar accident from "natural causes". The horrible death of 59 passengers, including eight children, when Egyptian commandos stormed the plane will for a long time remain a scar on the conscience of international terrorist organisations, and the commandos. The recent string of air disasters, including the Air India jumbo- jet that simply dropped out of the sky into the Atlantic Ocean, quite clearly palls beside this incident.
Amid this gloomy outlook the small whiff of euphoria that emanated from the Reagan-Gorbachov fire-side chat at the Geneva summit appears to be subsiding. In the music industry, however, nothing appears to ruffle its feathers, having done its duty to the Ethiopian famine victims and more recently the Prince of Wales Children's Trust, on which top British artists donated their best numbers for a long-playing record - a positive step indeed, which reveals that the industry is alive to its responsibilities.
I love music and given the chance all over again, I would probably opt to be a musician. If I remember correctly, there is a vacancy for an amateur musician in West Africa, to play with Heads of State whose hobby is music, I wonder if Captain Thomas Sankara's offer is still open.
Do you remember Bob Geldof's visit to the famine stricken areas of Africa recently? When Sankara, who reputedly But we weep for ourselves plays a mean guitar, invited Bob Geldof to play in his band with Ghana's Head of State on drums, he declined with the excuse that he was too busy, but suggested that if he got in touch with the King of Thailand, who also plays a mean saxophone, he would probably agree to join the band.
Well, I am open to the offer to play with the band. After all, as some wit has observed: "The door to the hall of fame is there for all who want to enter. However, some enter through the door marked PUSH and others through the door marked PULL".
I am ready to enter through either of those doors as session musician with no prompting. Our first hit reggae song may probably go like this:
"We are the Heads,
We are the people.
We are the pillar on which the nation stands.
If the world listens to us.
It will be a better place for you and me..."
