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Tuesday 13 December 2011

ACTION, A PRICELESS RECIPE FOR BALUE DEVELOPMENT; A paper presented by Blessed Efilo Wa Ngoe on the occasion of the Lower Balue Students' Association (LO.BA.S.A) cultural week holden at Bafaka Balue from August 4 to August 7, 2011 under the theme Morality as key to success.


Yesterday was a day, today is a day and tomorrow will a day be. But days are made to what we ought to appreciate through duty and faith. While we believe that tomorrow will surely come, we still have the duty to make tomorrow a day worth living.

In our quest to develop our personal lives, we engage in a collective action of our bodies, minds and spirits, and whatever becomes the result of our action is what makes us at that time. In our individual lives, we can only be fulfilled when our egos match with our self and environment. Life in a peace-less or war torn environment is no better than death in the fires of eternity. But war or physical mishaps are not the only vices that keep life in the dungeons of shame and dissatisfaction.

An environment plagued by both psychological and physical noises resulting from the refusal by individuals to act when action is needed, to speak when words are to be uttered, to cry when tears need to be shed or to laugh when joy is an order, is the very shackle that binds the forces of self realization and satisfaction to shame.

In a house where there is corn,fire, salt and water, the inhabitants may not be expected to cry for meat because certainly, they would not go starving. But if in that same house people die in starvation perhaps because of a neighbor's strong hand, action then may have been put to question. For as Benjamin Disraeli once said,"action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action", man is bound to preserve his desires with not only the thought of his mind, but also and most importantly, with the touch of his hand.

"We shape our buildings, thereafter, they shape us", said Winston Churchill. Today, I am telling us the same thing and in addition that we can only shape our buildings according to our fitness and choices. What we have today could be said to sufficing and hence worthy of our gratitude by those who "give" us. Yet right within us there is a silent cry of dissatisfaction, a feeling of having been neglected, a strangeness in the very land of our fathers. The cause lies right on these words; we have seen and heard, but have not said or done anything to better things for us. The fate of the Oroko man, the Ndian child and that of the Balue person in particular does not lie on our lips alone, it lies entirely on our action, on work and on commitment. "We can only ascend to the heights of contemplation" according to Pope Gregory I and I comply, "by the steps of the active life", by the act of our hands, feet, mouth, mind and all.

Let us not over burden ourselves with selfish politics and villager-egocentricity,but let us stand together as sons and daughters of common origin to fight the adversities of life; to make for positive ends and to shun shameful vicissitudes. The Balue Student should aim high without forgetting the roots of his start, for there is no head without a tail- though tails are less worth than heads in lay thinking.We should not forget the words of our fathers; "itongi bassussu isa ritaka",in our daily endeavors. Behind our very minds should be the doctrine of collective action through brotherhood and fraternity to gain collective joy- an aspect most greater than individual bliss. For as William Blake puts it, "no bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings",so too should we rely on our collective wills for the betterment of our nation; Balue.

We therefore supplicate the viewership and counseling not leaving out the action of our parents and patrons to run our affairs for a better Balue clan.

To exalt our verve, I give us this from Shakespeare who says,"be great in act as you have been in thought, suit the action to the word, and the word to the action", for as Guru Nanak once said, "there can be no worship without good action".