 |
| Mensah Otabil |
Both
radiate ‘toothpaste’ smiles and boldly proclaim their Church to be the
"LAST BUS STOP - WE SOLVE FINANCIAL, MARRIAGE, TRAVELLING AND OTHER PROBLEMS.”
Beauty,
(not her real name) was enticed by the giant billboard and went to the church
during one of its prayer sessions to consult the Pastor for prayers.
Her
problem was difficulty in getting the wherewithal and documentation to go
abroad.
Beauty came
back and gave a graphic account of what transpired between her and the Prophet,
'Seer', Apostle and Leader of the church.
She said
immediately she arrived, an aide of the Pastor came to meet her and asked her
to remove her footwear.
Beauty
said she obliged after which she was taken into a small cubicle and ushered
into the presence of the "Man of God" about 20 minutes later.
Beauty
said immediately the Man of God saw her, he started chanting, after which he
gave her a message, perhaps a divination.
It goes
thus: “You are being haunted by evil spirits bent on destroying your marriage
and your mother is the leader of those forces."
The
'Seer' had a solution for Beauty -Prayers. Some items were needed to shoot the
message to God. These include sea water, anointing oil, candles, a dove and
salt from the Holy Land (Israel).
All the
items the Man of God said were available in the Church for a fee of 500 Ghana
cedis in addition to a consultation fee of 200 Ghana Cedis.
Venue for
the cleansing and fortification was not given but time was at 12 midnight.
Beauty
was a “roamer,” bent on getting spiritual support for her trip abroad and so
had been to a shrine earlier and had heard about the supposed evil spirits
standing between her and her dreams.
 |
| Owusu Bempah |
Yes
indeed, all the forces were spirits too, a confused Beauty, who was single,
thought.
She was
visibly incensed when she gave the other prerequisites for the war against her
foe. The 'Seer' had divined that God wanted him (Seer) to “sleep” with her.
That way,
all her requests were sure to mature fast and she will be spiritually
transformed to become a Miss World, make her husband (which she did not have)
to be at her beck and call and will“love you well, well."
Stranger
things yet, according to the narration of Beauty. The “Man of God’s” ‘holy
semen’ once in her body will fortify her against death and all attacks,
spiritual and physical.
Indeed
‘holy semen” as fortification against the deadliest attacks which she could
imagine whether physical or spiritual.
Beauty’s
narration drew comments and observations from listeners and her relatives to
the effect that one did not need to go through any rigorous training to become
a Pastor these days, as cassocks and the Pastor’s accoutrements were on the
open market to procure.
The designation
for the Priest is a matter of choice, depending on personality. It could be a
Reverend or Apostle.
This
seems to have provided an open market for the “pastoral business” to blossom as
many people with questionable characters cash in to feed on the genuine
grievances of an increasing gullible public desirous of material successes.
No doubt,
a day never passes without the media telling stories of such so called men of
God engaged in acts that one could not associate with true shepherds of God’s
flock.
Two
gentlemen recently visited a farming community near Ho and introduced
themselves as pastors who came to preach the word of God to them. They ended up
defrauding the people of thousands of Ghana cedis. The cell phone number they
gave to their victims was answered by someone in Tamale who had nothing to do
with those pastors.
A few
months ago, a Pastor was said to have taken a married woman to the sea shore at
midnight to exorcise a demon which was haunting her and ended up raping her and
inserting salt into her womanhood.
These and
other stories reflect how deep such so called men of God have sunken the
reverence attached to Christianity and Christian Priesthood in Ghana.
The
Priesthood which used to be a noble and dignified profession, has lost its dignity
and respect because of the influx of all types of characters who see Priesthood
as a means of making money.
 |
| Duncan Willaims |
Today the
charlatans have turned their churches into platforms where they use filthy and
unprintable words against other churches.
They see
the orthodox churches and their members as only good enough for hell.
There is
this view that general morality in the country was better when there were only
the few orthodox and Pentecostal Churches in the country, compared to present
times of the proliferation of churches.
Today
some so called pastors see nothing wrong in sleeping with women and children,
claiming to be exorcising evil spirits from them or making them ‘holy.’
Prophet
Emmanuel Akpanya, leader of one of the charismatic churches in Ho who was
appalled by the infiltration into the priesthood by such men, said whilst some
people use weapons to rob their fellow men of their possessions, the charlatans
use “the Bible to rob others”,describing their attitude as an abomination and
barbaric.
In his
view, Reverend Lawson Dzanku, Associate Pastor of Evangelical Presbyterian (EP)
Church, Elorm Parish, Ho Bankoe and a lecturer at the E.P. University College
in Ho, said the behaviour of the charlatans had reached a crescendo and it was
high time the Christian Council of Ghana, Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches
Council and all well-meaning Ghanaians stood up in “arms” against them.
Brother
Enoch Immanuel Agbozo of the Ghana Evangelical Society, speaking at the 2012
conference of the church in Accra recently on the topic "The church, the
path and hope of glory", said as a result of a scramble for power and
position, success, fame and glory in the rat race of a wicked and perishing
world, many including some Christians have fallen prey to the historic
deception and seduction of Satan, and advised that, “We must ensure that we do
not bow to the pressures of human and service needs.”
He
lamented that many wanted to be gods unto themselves by designing and working
out their own desires and plans yet still deceive themselves into thinking they
are servants of God.
In his
epistle to the Roman Church, Apostle Paul predicted the emergence of these
“greedy bastards” in Christendom of whom he said their stomachs are their gods,
and warned Christians to be wary of them.
Jesus
Christ also warned that we should watch out, for many will come in his name
claiming to be the messiah and deceive us with signs and wonders.
Apostle
Paul again admonished Christians that if they do not work then they should not
eat, so why should Ghanaians waste precious man hours at the so called prayer
centres expecting instant changes in their fortunes.
Even
during the journey of the Israelites to the Promised Land, the manna God caused
to fall for them did not drop in their mouths they had to go out and pick them.
If
nothing is done to weed out the charlatans from the noble and respected
Christian priesthood, Christianity will be a laughing stock in the eyes of
other religions including traditionalists.
It is
high time we take our destiny into our own hands and stop relying on these
charlatans who profess to have antidotes to our problems.
They are
not different from armed robbers, confidence tricksters and wolves in sheeps'
skins; their sole aim is to fleece people of their wealth.
(A GNA
feature by Emmanuel Nyatsikor)
EDITORIAL
THESE PRIESTS
There are too many people hiding under the cover
of the church to visit all manner of criminal activities on poor and innocent
Ghanaians.
These people wear so many titles from Pastor to Archbishop and their purpose is to steal and defraud.
Sometimes, their focus is just their pursuit of
banal pleasures and at other times they simply foul the political atmosphere
with their backwardness and empty headedness.
In this issue, we have published a Ghana News
Agency (GNA) feature which tells horrid stories of rape and torture at the hand
of so-called men of God.
The Insight insists that these so-called men of
God should be treated like ordinary criminals when the fall fouls of the law.
It is time for the state security apparatus to
take stern action against all the charlatans in cassock who are abusing the
rights of citizens and robbing them of all their dreams.
Thieves are thieves, whether they are in
cassocks or tunics and they must be dealt with according to the law of Ghana.
These kinds of priests make heaven completely
unattractive
GOLD STORY COLLAPSES
By Ekow Mensah.
The attempt to Link the Government of Ghana to
the export of 1.5 tons of gold to Dubai has now completely collapsed.
Evidence available to The Insight shows that
only 50 kilos of the metals exports from Accra was genuine Gold.
This
strongly suggests that the exercise was a 419 scum.
Documents from the Geological Survey Department
and the Customs, Excise and Prevention Service described the metals exported
only as “mineral samples”.
At the centre of the deal is a Ghanaian
registered company known simply as Omanye Gold Mining Limited.
The Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) has
presented its interim report on the matter to Government.
Sources close to the BNI say that the Bank of Ghana and the Ministry of Finance told
investigators that no government agency was involved in the gold export.
BNI sources admit that the aircraft which
carried the gold was operated by a company called ULX and arrived in Ghana from
Tripoli, Libya on December 29, 2012.
The aircraft left Accra on December 31, 2012
through Turkey to Dubai and was seized by the Turkish authorities.
The seizure of the aircraft and the export of
gold to Dubai also had no links to the visit of the Iranian Foreign Minister to
Ghana in January.
Diplomatic sources that the Iranian Foreign
Minister only represented his government at the in inauguration of President
John Dramani Mahama
Which
way forward for union growth?
By David Sole
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Jan. 23 that the number
of U.S. workers in unions fell by 400,000 during 2012. This large drop brought
the rate of unionization nationwide to only 11.3 percent of the workforce,
which reportedly grew by 2.4 million jobs.
One bright spot was California, where workers successfully
bucked the trend. Union membership grew in that state by 100,000 to 18 percent
of the workforce, after organizing drives led largely by Latinos/as and nurses
showed that militant struggle is the way forward.
For the country as a whole, however, the private sector saw
union membership drop from 6.9 percent to just 6.6 percent.
This is a
continuation of decades of decline, from a high point of about 35 percent in
the 1950s. Public sector workers in unions dropped from 37 percent in 2011 to
35.9 percent last year, a total of 234,000 jobs lost.
Public sector layoffs, anti-union laws
Much of this drop is due to the widespread elimination of public
workers in municipal, state and federal jobs affected by the continuing
economic crisis. In addition, a significant number of public workers are
estimated to have dropped out of public unions in Wisconsin and Indiana, two
states that adopted laws stripping unions of much of their rights.
A number of factors have contributed to the steady erosion of
workers in unions over the years. U.S. industry has been outsourcing
manufacturing jobs overseas for a long time. The computer revolution has
reduced the number of workers needed and allowed some jobs to be done abroad.
The loss of relatively high paid union jobs has led to a situation where a
large percentage of workers change jobs many times in their lifetimes.
Of course, major factors keeping workers from joining unions are
vicious anti-union campaigns and terror tactics practiced by many employers. They
are aided by labor laws in the U.S. that make unionizing a long and difficult
process.
Many unions have been grappling with declining membership for
years. More funds have been directed into organizing drives and pro-union
advertising campaigns. But these have failed to stem the tide.
While big business media constantly attack unions as
increasingly irrelevant, the Labor Bureau reported that union workers had
average weekly pay of $943 compared to nonunion workers, who averaged $742.
That amounts to a 27 percent pay advantage for organized workers, even without
counting issues of health and safety, benefits and dignity on the job.
Within the labor movement itself, many are critical of the
weaknesses of the unions. For a long time, unions were seen as concerned only
with protecting their own membership’s standard of living. This was not the
case in the decade of the founding of the big mass unions, the 1930s. At that
time unions were identified with broad social goals like fighting for jobs
programs, social security, welfare and unemployment benefits.
But even during the massive Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s
and 1960s, it was a rarity for unions to be deeply involved. Many unions then
and later continued policies of racism and exclusion toward minorities and
women.
Most of the modern unions came of age in the post-World War II
era, which saw the expansion of the U.S. around the world as chief imperialist
power. The period 1950 to 1970 saw a significant rise in the average standard
of living in the U.S. as the capitalist class grudgingly conceded wage and
benefit increases as crumbs off their bountiful table as they sought to buy
labor peace during the anti-communist cold war.
A long string of capitalist crises, recessions and depressions,
starting in the late 1970s, challenged the unions as the capitalists demanded
more and more concessions. Union leaders who had developed in the more
prosperous period lacked the social vision and the political understanding to stand
up to these demands or craft strategies to protect jobs and wages in this new
period of capitalist decline. By and large the unions have caved in with the
mantra that workers must help the capitalists stay profitable.
Chasing after Democratic Party
In the political arena, the union leadership has bet everything
on electing Democratic Party politicians to office, although the union
officials often complain about the lack of support from those they helped
elect. After all, Democrats have controlled the presidency and both houses of
Congress many times since 1947, yet the “friends of labor” have made no serious
attempt to overturn the hated Taft-Hartley Act, which hamstrings unions in many
ways.
In Wisconsin, a mass uprising took place in February 2011 as a Republican
governor and state Legislature stripped public unions of their rights. The
occupation of the state Capitol became an international symbol of the fighting
spirit of the workers and their unions. Mass protests repeatedly drew hundreds
of thousands. Some Wisconsin unions were floating the idea for a general
strike.
A real classwide battle was shaping up when top Wisconsin and
national union leaders diverted the struggle into the electoral arena of a
recall against the governor. It was no surprise that the capitalist elections,
with hundreds of millions of dollars of Wall Street money flowing in, ended in
a defeat for the workers. Meanwhile, the militant momentum of mass struggle was
lost, at least temporarily.
Indiana followed suit in early 2012 and in December 2012 a
right-wing governor and Legislature made Michigan the 24th “right to work”
state in the nation. With 17,000 angry workers surrounding the Capitol in
Lansing as the vote was taken, top union officials from the UAW, the teachers
and the state AFL-CIO could only project their “plan” of voting out the
right-wingers in 2014.
A group of rank-and-file workers raised an alternative — that
every union local immediately begin voting to authorize a general strike to use
Labor’s strength on the shop floor to overturn this unprecedented attack right
in the birthplace of the UAW and many other unions. While no labor “leader”
would call for this, the Rev. Jesse Jackson took the podium and added his
support by calling for a one-day general strike.
Class struggle is inevitable
The decline of the U.S. union movement is only an episode in the
centuries-long struggle between capital and labor. The exploitation of labor by
capital inevitably leads to class struggle. The revival of the unions in the
U.S. cannot and will not be carried out separately from the evolving struggle
of the broad masses of nonunion workers, tens of millions of unemployed,
oppressed nationalities, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer
communities, women and all others who are victims of the capitalist system,
which puts profits before people.
Union leaders must use the strength of 14.4 million workers who
are still in unions, plus the union treasuries, union staffs, offices and news
media to provide a center of opposition to the growing poverty, increasing
militarism, racism and repression.
A good start was made with organized labor’s support for the
Occupy Wall Street movement last year. What is most irrelevant to the vast
majority of people in the U.S. is Wall Street’s vision of profits above all
else. Unions allied with community organizations can form the bedrock from
which to challenge the bankers and corporate bosses in order to take hold of
the vast wealth and resources of this country for the benefit of humanity.
Venezuela
President Chávez’s message to CELAC Summit
The Community of Latin American and
Caribbean States (CELAC) met in Santiago de Chile toward the end of January.
From his hospital bed in Havana, Cuba, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela sent
the following message on Jan. 27.
Sisters and brothers:
It is impossible not to feel Simon Bolivar pulsing among us in
this summit of unity. Impossible not to evoke Pablo Neruda, Pablo of Chile and
America, in this land and in this present moment of the Great Nation we are
made of:
Liberator, a world of peace was born in your arms. /
Peace, bread, wheat are born from your blood, /
from our young blood which comes from your blood /
will come peace, bread and wheat for the world we are to make.
Bolivar, Bolivar always. In this 2013 we are celebrating the
bicentennial of the admirable campaign: 200 years of that prodigious Bolivarian
epic. On May 14, 1813, an army of New Granada and Venezuela departed from
Cucuta commanded by then Brigadier Simon Bolivar, advancing with prodigious
speed, and fought and won in Niquitao, Los Horcones and Taguanes to liberate
central and western Venezuela, entering triumphantly on August 6 of that year
of glory in Caracas. The military victory of the patriots had a transcendent
political consequence: the birth of the Second Republic of Venezuela.
And hence with a vivid memory, I want to share with you a
certainty: thanks to the CELAC we are beginning to look like everything we once
were and what we wanted to be but was taken from us, we’re looking like the
Pachamama, the cosmic belt of the South, the queen of nations and the mother of
republics.
The spirit of unity has returned with full strength, it is the
spirit of our liberators reincarnated in the peoples of Latin America and the
Caribbean; it is the spirit in which many voices come together to speak with
one voice. It was the endearing spirit of the Summit of Latin America and the
Caribbean that gave birth to CELAC in Caracas; it is the enduring spirit of
this Summit in Santiago de Chile.
Since that December of 2011 when we founded CELAC in Caracas,
world events have ratified the extraordinary importance of the great step
forward we took. There is the crisis hitting the U.S. and Europe and throwing
thousands of people into misery. Thousands of men, women and children have lost
their homes, their jobs, their social security, their most elemental rights.
While the U.S. and Europe, paraphrasing the eminent philosopher Ernesto Laclau,
are committing collective suicide, we are weathering the storm, and we will
definitely ride it out.
Today, we are an example of unity in diversity, of justice,
welfare and happiness to the world.
At one year and almost two months since its founding in Caracas,
CELAC has managed to stand with a character and a well-defined personality,
above any judgment or ambition outside its principles and tenets. Today more
than ever we can say that when we affirm that we have really and truly resumed
the path of our Liberators, a slogan that identifies this Community, we were
not making an empty or hollow statement. And now, such a transcendent slogan
requires that we fill it each day with more and more historical, political,
economic and social content.
That is why today we ratify the denunciation and condemnation of
the shameful imperial blockade against revolutionary Cuba, the continuous
colonization and now the progressive militarization of the Malvinas Islands,
both of which are violations of all UN resolutions issued to safeguard the
rights of the Cuban and Argentine people, but with no will on the part of this
supranational organization to fulfill them. Justice is unquestionably on the
side of Cuba and Argentina. If we are a nation of republics, our sovereignty is
that of the entire Great Nation, and we must enforce it.
When the mournful sound of the drums of war is heard around the
world, how valuable it is that the states of Latin America and the Caribbean
are creating a zone of peace that jealously protects international law and
defends political and negotiated solutions to conflicts. We have a duty to face
the logic of war with a culture of peace, based on justice and equality.
CELAC is the most important project of political, economic,
social and cultural unity in our contemporary history. We all have the right to
feel proud: the nation of republics, as the liberator Simon Bolivar called it,
has begun to emerge as a beautiful and happy reality. How not to recall, once
again, the voice of Neruda when he tells us in his memorable poem “The Heights
of Machu Picchu”:
The sacred purposes, the fraternal relations and the common
interests that unite the republics of Latin America and the Caribbean, have in
CELAC a fundamental instrument not only to guarantee the stability of the
governments that our peoples have given themselves, but also their sovereignty
and, let us say with Jorge Luis Borges, the perpetuity of each of our nations.
Our common path has been long and difficult since we faced the
Spanish Empire in the 19th century. The fight for independence, the fight that
continues today, was linked, indissolubly linked, to the thoughts and actions
of our liberators, to the fight for unity, for the construction of a Great
Nation based on the most solid foundation. Let us remember what Bolivar said:
There should be one single nation for the Americas, given that we have had
perfect unity in everything.
But the oligarchy closed the door to a historical project of
unity, and we are still
paying the price. Argentinean writer Norberto Galasso was right:
What could have been the victory of the Great Nation became twenty defeats of
small nations. This history should not repeat itself. I still have faith in
those words I said in Caracas on the historic 2nd of December, 2011, when CELAC
was founded: We are either one nation or we are not a nation! We either make a
single Great Nation, or no one on these lands will have a nation!
How could we not see ourselves in the words of liberator
Bernardo O’Higgins, the great disciple of the immense Francisco de Miranda, who
wrote to Bolivar in 1818: The cause that Chile defends is the same one
committed to by Buenos Aires, New Granada, Mexico and Venezuela, or better yet,
it is the cause of the entire continent of Colombia.
Everything we do for unity will not only be justified by
history, it will also become the most enlightened legacy we can leave to future
generations. We will also be actively honoring the memory of our liberators. In
CELAC, as Bolivar wanted, we have become one nation.
I want to invoke a few words from the wise Andres Bello, who was
as deeply Chilean as he was Venezuelan, who was not only the pioneer of
international law in our Americas, but also the first lawyer in the world to
shape the doctrines of multilateral organizations of integration and unity.
Since the 19th century, this great forger of our intellectual independence has
continued marking our path: The tendency of the century we live in is to
multiply the points of contact between peoples, to unite them, to bind them in
friendship, to make the entire human species one single family. To resist this
tendency is to descend from the heights of civilization. My belief is that in
the 21st century, this tendency ought to be the same as the one so brilliantly
stated by Bello.
Transcendent politics has room to flourish in CELAC. It has been
eloquently stated in the manifesto that our Latin Caribbean America is capable
of presenting itself and thinking of itself both within the region and before
the world with full autonomy, and is capable of acting jointly.
Transcendent politics presupposes that learning is ongoing: it
is learning how to live with our differences, to accept and process them,
always finding the best way of complementing each other. Transcendent politics
impedes schemes from dividing us. Let us not forget that painful warning from
Bolivar: A schemer does more in one day than one hundred good men do in one
month.
But I am convinced that in this amazing hour of our history,
those who intend to divert us will fail. That what will prevail, and I say this
with Bolivar’s words, is the inestimable good of unity, that the Monroe
Doctrine will definitively disappear as an instrument of oppression, domination
and disunity in this side of the world.
The enlightening words, following a clear Bolivarian theme, of
the great Argentinean thinker Jorge Abelardo Ramos in his History of the Latin
American Nation (1968), should cause us to reflect: Underdevelopment, as social
scientists and technicians now call it, is not purely economic or productive in
nature. It is intensely historic in meaning. It is the result of Latin American
fragmentation. What happens, in short, is that there is a national question
that remains unanswered.
Latin America is not divided because it is
“underdeveloped;” it is “underdeveloped” because it is divided.
Underdevelopment is the child of division, and that is exactly why it is
imperative to resolve the question of a national Americas in the coming years.
Today we meet all the objective and subjective conditions to do so.
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
I am going to briefly touch on a few topics of the CELAC agenda.
I have left some out so as not to make this letter too long.
I think it is crucial to rigorously comply with two great social
commitments included in the Caracas Action Plan in order for CELAC to have
value for our peoples: I speak of the development of the Latin American and
Caribbean Literacy Program and the Latin American and Caribbean Program for
Eradicating Hunger.
Moreover, we must reach accords that will allow us to create and
promote a common energy agenda. We have the strength, at the outset, to face
the extreme panorama of a world where energy sources have their days numbered.
The region’s resources are huge: we only need to create appropriate policies
that do justice to the gifts nature has provided. We have the experience of a
successful PetroCaribe to show that is it possible to create an energy alliance
based on reciprocity.
I want to paraphrase Bolivar: what we have done is but a prelude
to the great task that remains to consolidate our CELAC. Never before have we
had such an appropriate setting. Let us multiply the good effects and the
well-managed efforts, and I say this with Bolivar, to make CELAC the center of
a new system of unity of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Dear Heads of State and Government:
We have committed ourselves to giving Cuba all our support, as
it will hold the pro tempore presidency of our Community following this
Santiago Summit. This is an act of justice following 50 years of resistance to
the criminal imperial embargo. Latin America and the Caribbean are speaking
with one voice, telling the United States that all of its attempts to isolate
Cuba have failed and will fail.
As fate would have it, and it will go down in history, today,
precisely as Cuba assumes the pro tempore Presidency of the Community of Latin
American and Caribbean States, is the 160th anniversary of the birth of the
apostle of Cuban independence, one of the greatest Bolivarians of all time:
Jose Marti.
His prophetic words still resonate today: “we intentionally say
people and not peoples so as to not think there is more than one from the Rio
Grande to Patagonia. It should be one because it is one. The Americas, even
when it does not want to, and when brothers fight, will be together in the end
of a colossal spiritual nation, they will love each other then.”
The time has come for Marti’s love, Bolivar’s love, the love of
our Americas.
That is why, from my Bolivarian heart, I hope for the resounding
success of this CELAC Summit. Here in Havana I will be watching its
development. With all the light of the Great Nation that burns more brightly
today in Santiago de Chile, I send an endless and brotherly hug to each and
every one of you.
Hugo Chávez Frías
President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Always towards victory!
Long live the union of our peoples!
Long live CELAC!
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