HEATHENS

                  With days filled with activities while growing, I had grown to become a curious persons who always wanted to find answers to every mystery. Why is it acceptable to do wrong under the guise of religion?, Why is there segregation? How does God look like? and so on.
                 Finding answers to these questions is never easy. I was made to believe that either you follow the poular religion or go to hell, which I find amusing. If the African traditional religion is not the popular religion, then forefathers are in hell? If Christianity hadn't come, would we all be in hell? At the end, I realized one thing, we have never been true to ourselves.
                 Beliefs are one of the strongest things in life we should never blackmail others to change. We should respect others for what they stand for and not blackmail through segregation into acceptance without concrete convictions. One of the major problems I have always come across lately is looks of pity or segregation pooling in people's eyes each time, I voice out my beliefs. I remember being in a meeting, where I had stated clearly that, African religion satisfied me with answers I couldn't find anywhere and the looks of every face had me discovering we really don't know what we want.
                 It's true, finding acceptable in the society is what we seek the most and being rejected breaks our inner spirit. But should we find acceptable to an extent of sycophancy? While speech is silver, silence is golden, standing up is diamond. We should come to understand that everyone has different opinions in same beliefs. We should never shun others simply because, we should have the same views on matters. A person once told me to quit writing because I am controversial which I am not ashamed of. It's so funny, that we all run away from our roots when it is where, we find the solution to our problems.
               This article is titled 'heathens' from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's, 'Purple Hibiscus' where an abusive Christian tagged his father as a heathen because he didn't have the same religious belief as he. I realized one thing, he grew up under an abusive environment from the missionaries in guise of discipline. He didn't have enough conviction but was willing to please the people of the new religion. This act of pleasing is eating deep into our bones as it is affecting our social, economical and political lives. Political leaders act in the wrong way and we are afraid to speak out for the fear of being punished or worst the public who are speaking in favour of, are the ones who turn their backs against you. We crease our faces against these vices, yet we rub Vaseline on our creased faces. The question is, who do we really deceive with all these? Why do we act like we love something if we are uncomfortable with it?, Why still be sycophantic if we are nothing but Heathens in our minds? Why do we bother searching for love and answers where they are non-existent? Why do we destroy the reputation of a religion because we do not practice it? That reminds me of something that happened during the just concluded Muslim festive. A particular pastor decided to preach in the bus I boarded and he started by telling the ignorant people of how, the Moslems tie people's destiny with ram meat, it was so hilarious the way persons started praying against it as they looked dressed for visitation to their Muslim friends who would be slaughtering Rams that day. The man was giving hate which was accepted and we talk about religious intolerance? We should learn to accept others instead of segregating them.
                  We all can't have the same beliefs, so why force it? We should stop the hypocrisy which is vivid, state your dislike for something in the presence of whoever gave it rather than at the back whereas, you've acted in 'love' deep in hypocrisy.

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