By Ezekiel Nabieu
Sierra Leone is not an Islamic state where alcohol is forbidden. Therefore it can be safely assumed that alcohol has a role to play, otherwise hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions would be engaged in the industry as employees and in its use.
The state cannot continue to wink at alcoholism if it is all that deleterious to its citizens. And by extrapolation this applies to all other secular states in which there are hundreds of thousands of chronic alcoholics.
Before we proceed further let us get our definition of ALCOHOL clear. According to the Oxford English Dictionary alcohol is the intoxicant in wine, beer, etc. During the past holidays of Easter and Independence we have just witnessed an intensification of alcohol consumption and its effects on the public at large. Youths and wine are supposed to be strange bedfellows but in fact they are in secular countries as thick as thieves.
There have been lots of controversy over the abuse of alcohol especially by youths. Caller after caller on the local radio stations has called for the abolition of the alcohol industries and/or its restriction to youths under a certain age. It is not well known to the abolitionists that they are unwittingly putting the government in a catch 22 situation. For one thing government derives a good part of its revenue from the alcohol industry. For another it is well known that alcohol in moderation has its beneficent use.
The latter does not argue that youths should be banned or restricted from its use. Incidentally while I was in the United States I saw notices on various bars prohibiting the sale of alcohol to children under the age of 18 years. The contrast here is that the children under 18 not only buy Tota pack but take them to school or home and use them at will “fiti-fata”. This practice is made worse by the fact that the Tota packs are so cheap that any school kid can deduct Le 500 from his lunch money to have a good time.
Like I said earlier, Muslims are not expected to drink alcohol owing to its inebriating effects. This is why an Egyptian Leader once poured millions of dollars worth of alcohol into the Red Sea and got all the fish in that sea drunk. The fact is that Islamic countries have not quite succeeded in prohibiting alcohol. Don’t you know that it can be produced in the laboratories and drunk secretly.
The Bible speaks of the good and bad effects of alcohol in a balanced way. Habakuk 2:5 states “moreover, wine is treacherous…..” Proverbs 20:1 states “wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler; and whoever is led astray by it is not wise”. Proverbs 1:17 states “He who loves pleasure will be a poor man; he who loves wine and oil will not be rich”. On the beneficent side the Bible says thus: “Thou dost cause the grass to grow for the cattle and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the heart of man…” Psalm 104: 14-15. In Ecclesiastes 10:19 it is written “Bread is made for laughter and wine gladdens life and money answers everything”.
While writing this piece I have just heard that the Sultan of Brunei has declared that those of his subjects found drinking alcohol should be flogged. This is obviously in accordance with but not a command of the Koran that “There is a devil in every berry of the grape.” If true Muslims knew this they would not have been frequenting our bars which become virtually empty during the month of Ramadan. To the Christians however Jesus Christ said in Mathew 15:17-18 “Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and so passes on? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man”.
To conclude I want to advise everyone to be a master of himself/herself. Temperance is needed not only with regard to drinking but also in all things. What I do know is that the alcohol industry is providing a substantial part of government revenue. If on the other hand attempts are made to close down the industry at the behest of religious fanatics the result would be worse than if they ejected petty traders from Sani Abacha and Rawdon Streets. It will be recalled that even the Muslim leaders did not attempt to commit that sort of suicide.
Alcohol certainly has a role in our economy.
(C) Politico 01/05/14
