On the ‘birth’ of 2019

Contrary to the popular trend, I do not rejoice each time the calendar reads 31st of December. After all, the Gregorian calendar is unknown to Islam. January the 1st does not, strictly speaking, conduce to the Islamic weltanschauung. But given the reality of modernity and the ‘prescription’ of colonial authority, the celebration of the beginning […]

Contrary to the popular trend, I do not rejoice each time the calendar reads 31st of December. After all, the Gregorian calendar is unknown to Islam. January the 1st does not, strictly speaking, conduce to the Islamic weltanschauung. But given the reality of modernity and the ‘prescription’ of colonial authority, the celebration of the beginning and ending of the Gregorian calendar has become notoriously fashionable. Some Muslims usually seize the occasion to display their ignorance of the ideals of Islam by congregating in mosques on the night of the 31st of December in order to pray to the Almighty for better favours in the coming year! Kindly note this subtle reminder – today is the 21st of the fourth month (Rabi’u Thani) of the Islamic calendar. The Muslim world marked the beginning of its lunar calendar (1440 AH) four months ago!

Yes. This is me. This should be you. I do not celebrate the passage of days and months, the passage of my life, except when those days and months are inscribed with acts of worship. I do not indulge in any rambunctious revelry that usually accompany the ‘death’ of one year and the ‘birth’ of another. Rather I usually seek an escape from this utopia into a heterotopia: a place where the real meaning of life and living nests. I usually seize the moment afforded by the transition of one year into another to count the uncounted, to count the uncountable. The uncounted is the number of years that have passed away and passed me by since the day I emerged from my mother’s womb; the uncountable – for unknowable – being the number of times I breathed in and out since the day I was violently separated from my second ‘paradise’ when the umbilical cord which tied me to my mother’s womb was put to the blade.

Since more than a month ago, celebrations of the New Year had become visible all over the country. In fact, it started for many in this city since the last week in November. During the said week, a private recreation outfit launched a musical carnival very close to the campus here. Thus every night, your compatriots and mine, most of whom are youth continued to congregate at the centre and engaged in dance competitions in which young girls paraded their femininity and sexuality for the highest bidder, for the highest prize. Each time I heard the music penetrate the serenity of the night, it felt as if the whole neighbourhood had been transformed into a bazaar of the baboons where insanity, inanity and lewdness had become legal.

But ironically, dear brother, the real ‘year’ had come to an end for some who met their deaths days and weeks before December 31st. Thus I began to wonder how that friend of mine would be marking the end of the year once he remembers that not all those with whom we witnessed the beginning of 2018 were alive to witness what some would refer to as pass-over night into 2019? The other day someone asked me about life, I responded quickly by calling his attention to the food on his table, to the bed on which he lays his body at night, to the tears that cascade his cheeks each time he is extremely happy or sad. Exactly what is life brother? It is the search for stability in a ship which is constantly rocked by waves and storm. Sister, tell me one single pleasure in life which is not preceded by struggle or strife. Is it not true that the sweetest sexual relations is that in which we moan and groan in the experience of pleasure mixed with pain? Is it not true that 2018 would be ‘happy’ when we constantly keep this in mind that the ups and downs that we shall have to experience in 2019 and throughout our life are meant to keep us going in life. A straight line, even in an E.C.G. means the subject is living-dead!

While putting this together, a colleague mentioned his preparation for the pass-over night; that magical moment in which, in your reckoning, 2018 would ‘die’ in order that 2019 could be born. Again, immediately I began to wonder: ‘what about pass-over days?’ I thought the day precedes the night in the scheme of the divine; I thought when night falls, it buries the day together with all its fortune and misfortune, together with its moments of happiness and sadness. No day has ever been prolonged just because of its extra-ordinarily fortuitous contents; no night has ever refused to dawn because of its calamitous portents. Thus we are actually ‘condemned’ to experience constant ‘pass-overs’: pass-over days and nights, pass-over happiness and sadness. But I thought whenever night falls it takes the day on a journey into eternity in order to deposit the account of humankind twelve hours before then with the Almighty. He who knows the last year was the ‘pass-over’ of some would merry with caution and run to His creator in penitence. He who knows he is passing over his youth would prepare assiduously for eternity.  If there is one thing that should happen to us all in 2019, it is to discover exactly who we are. In line with Benjamin Franklin, in the New Year, prepare to fight your vices, to be in peace with your neighbour and to live for your Creator.