Emerson and the rest

It takes only a song to split Sierra Leone and get sane headed individuals  to overnight manifest parochial political alliances over nation interest. This is what has happened with the release of Emmerson Bockarie’s latest album.

It is rather sickening to realise that because of political differences, the song of a young man has now split a whole country apart, and resulted in a spate of fights, use of abusive language and other calumnies in an otherwise civilised community.

The present scenario concerning the impact of Emmerson Bockarie’s recent album has shown that Sierra Leoneans are sitting on a powder keg which is liable to explode at any time and engulf  the country once more into  another orgy of senseless killings and recriminations.

It is hard to believe that notwithstanding  the human resources, the time and the financial resources involved in bringing peace into Sierra Leone, political differences still seem to be the shroud that has blinded a lot of people into still seeing issues from their own perspective or not at all.

This is the scenario of hate being rekindled, the same behaviour that led to the orgy of the burning alive of political opponents in petrol fires on the streets of  Freetown and other parts of the country.

The return of political hate as practiced under the government of Tejan-Kabbah is again taking the front seat, and while some might see it as the game of politics, a more sinister underground movement might essentially spell a return to the past.

Emmerson Bockarie, a crafty and business oriented musician has an uncanny habit of testing the public’s acceptance of a government before launching his albums. That was how he played on the public’s dissatisfaction with the government of the past, and this is what he is again doing under the present government.

But in such a scenario, the danger lies in the fact that ill motivated politicians, finding themselves out of the limelight might use it to incite the gullible and largely illiterate populace into undertaking antisocial actions in opposing the government by any means.

The journey from war to peace has been long, tortures and flouted with tears, blood and weeping and wailings. Democracy might look slow, but it is a steady process that entails changes in a nation. We should never forget this factor in our search for a national cohesion and solution for our great nation called Sierra Leone.

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