PICTURE OF A YELLOW SHIRT
Courtesy: dresshollywood.com
They were a novelty,
A new beginning
Signs of better things to come
An effort to put idle hands to work.
They wore yellow shirts over black pants
With caps to match,
Give them leather boots and horses,
And they just might get parts
In a western cowboy flick.
They manned busy intersections
Directing traffic.
They brought much needed numbers
To an understaffed police force.
You could call them the policeman’s assistant.
They were helpful,
They looked cheerful,
Work gave ‘em a means to earn a living,
Might not have been a living fit for a king
But it was an honest living.
With time, they became a fixture of our streets,
Playing an integral part in society’s everyday beat,
Doing their bit just so society could tick,
They wore no colours other than yellow and black,
A uniform that bore no allegiance
They identified with no one but the Ghanaian state.
They belonged to no particular individual but
The Ghanaian nation.
Therefore, is it not amusing that
When the king lost his throne,
A new crown in his place,
The yellow shirts have all gone away?
They all seem to have magically disappeared,
Probably, they came with expiry dates.
Then again, who knows?
Guess they were not built to last that long,
Disposable, just like paper napkins and plastic cups.
All they did was stay cheerfully yellow,
Be it in a traffic jam
The pouring rain
Sticky situations
Or the scorching sun.
They are now a part of yesterday’s history lesson
Gone are the days of the men
And women in yellow.
Several hundreds sent home
For no real reason.
Just because they were the brainchild of a predecessor
Several hundreds sent away,
Just so another’s sympathizers can take their place
Wholesale changes, the order of the day
Cleanup crews looking to give foot soldiers a fix.
Out with yellow,
In with the blue,
Herald the dawn of the men and women in blue,
Guess the new king
Came with new people too
Wonder how he went about finding these new ones.
Whatever happened to those without colours?
Are they any less Ghanaian?
When did we lose the right to demand from society our due?
What happens to those who refuse pledge allegiance?
When did having a conscience become a crime?
When did continuity become wrong?
Does party colours make one more Ghanaian than the other?
Where is it written that a king comes to serve a select few?
A select few, affectionately called foot soldiers
Yes men
And all kinds of bootlickers.
Democracy never demanded that we all agree,
Democracy demands we all be given
An equal chance regardless our views.
So much for our growing Democracy.
What hypocrisy
Comical
Welcome to our democratic charades
Welcome to the death of free speech
The death of opinions
And independent thinking,
These are the days of bootlickers,
Hungry weeds and selfish thieves
Welcome to this blue political parade.
Very interesting how uniforms change with a change in government. Let's focus on the real issues, for that's their call to serve.
ReplyDeleteArmah, i pray we do begin focusing on the issues rather than being petty about who brought who along and who likes who. there are political positions and there are those that are not. if political affiliation trumps competence, then i feel we're in for a really bumpy ride as a nation..
ReplyDelete"The eyes that look are many but those that see are rare"
ReplyDeleteThat was a touching piece & must confess that you brought tears to my eyes but not just to display my weakness but for the love I have for my motherland.and how sad I am to see things gone awry.You have proved to me that you only not walk but scan as well; for that was a very smart observation that might skip the eyes of the unlooker.Hope we all draw lessons from it whether its party X or Y who is in power.That attitude of reversing order will take us back to Stone Age if care is not taken.A shinning example is this 3 or 4 years duration for the senoir high school and the question is who stand to bevefit from this tug of war?
oh my word,wat an endorsement of today's piece...wow...really strong words bro...thank you...i pray as a nation we end the pettiness nd bickering. Npp,cpp, ndc or unattached,aren't we all ghanaian? If we keep dividing dis country along part...y nd ethnic lines,our nation's development will still be stagnated centuries after we're long gone.why?because we keep preaching these divisions to children frm the moment they are old enough to reason.cant we jst put the gud of the nation ahead of personal ambition nd personal gain?our tainted democracy is poison. That poison just might destroy us all bro.all of dis,to what end?in de long run,the ghanaian state,those without party colours, those who know no"big men" and the man on de street will always be casualties of such crooked thinking and short-sightedness..gud evening bro...
ReplyDelete