Children love the name Father Christmas because he embodies the myth of giving.
He gives and gives, and his lavish generosity endears him to everyone.
In real life there is no such thing as Father Christmas.
If there’s anything like a real ‘Father Christmas’, he lives and thrives in Africa, where everything is woven in myth.
I have long noticed that we love the dark, unexplored themes of things around us. We cherish the inexplicable!
African leaders play the Father Christmas to sustain our childish fantasies as Africans. A head of state of a country could wake up one morning and dip both hands in the state coffers and dole out Millions and Billions, as kind gestures to his friends and people in his common circles.
He lives on the goodwill and power of his spending spree. He gets so many accolades from those that follow hard after his thoughtless generosity.
Onlookers soon begin to plug into the wild myth of the ‘Father Christmas’, the free-flowing expectations that life is free, and anyone can get lucky with the Father Christmas. And we must find him someday, somehow.
The colonial British imported into our land the myth of the Father Christmas and after they left, the ghost of Father Christmas lives with us.
Africans lack constructive imagination to tackle and solve their own problems. We rig our own elections and expect the United Nations, Britain, or America to step in and solve the mess we made ourselves.
We wait on the largesse of loan provisions and aids from world bank and IMF…we hope someday, kind western powers will fix our nations for us.
Like children, we have been waiting, peeping through the window, and lifting the curtains of our doors, hoping on Father Christmas to see if he is around the corner to dole out his goodies.
Myth! All myth!! Forever a myth!!!
Father Christmas does not exist. It flew out of the mythic narratives of the British culture to foster the imagination of children on the value of kindness.
The ‘Father Christmas’ in the photo was my colleague at the workplace and I took this photo of him.
So, I know what I’m talking about. Father Christmas remains the myth.
Waiting for someone to fix your problems or hanging on the promise of a good life by someone’ generosity is a myth.
If only we could unmask the myth of the Father Christmas in his own season.
Live by yourself and for yourself. Father Christmas is one day show. He does not exist!
