The Day Evil Dies

Book: The Day Evil Dies
Author: Clifford Goldstein
Publisher: Review & Herald
Reviewer: Joshua Masinde
Evil deeds, just like the good ones are inseparable from human existence. Some of such evil acts, like the holocaust, engineered by the Nazis, are already confined to History. Many more are imbedded in the human heart. Just like Goethe, the German poet, acknowledges, “Two souls, alas, are lodged within my breast, and struggle there for undivided reign.”
Goldstein writes that one does not need to be chained in a Marxist dungeon to know the struggle, controversy between good and evil, right and wrong, faith and unbelief, which rage around and in us. Indeed, the fiercest and most consequential struggles unfold, not in dramatic spectacles that could be glamorised in a Hollywood script but in the quivering folds of the human heart.
Of Malcolm Muggeridge, he says he described the “human drama” as unfolding an “obvious dichotomy” between two forces: “One is the Devil and the other God.”
He elaborates his central idea of the battle between evil and good in the human heart by quoting American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, “We are all soldiers in a great campaign, the details of which are veiled from us”.
The struggles in life he elicits in the book present tough moral choices in which the human conscience is “twiddled, prodded or tweaked”. The options lie in two extremes, good and evil, truth and error, right and wrong. There’s no middle ground as with life and death.
For evil to die between the two options, one has to choose the good-life. He writes that someone asked Billy Graham if he were an optimist or a pessimist: “I am an optimist,” he answered, “I have read the last page of the Bible.”
The death of evil is also a biblical promise in the book of Revelation. John says, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away...”
Clifford Goldstein’s The Day Evil Dies is a prophecy to past biblical and historical allusions, the present day occurrences and a foreshadow of the future. He explores some forgotten milestones of the past to help us understand the future, in a world where we are all foot soldiers in an invisible war. How will it end?
Behind-the-scenes, he writes, glimpses of the hand of God in history show that centuries of heresy, fanaticism, persecution, apostasy, and faith will soon culminate in an astonishing international crisis....religious politics will shape the future of America and curtail our freedoms leading to a terrible climax of evil before the final, glorious triumph of love.
“Now, you can understand your true role before it’s too late.”
By Joshua Masinde

Benefiting from illegal electricity connections

Jimmy is the caretaker of a residence in Mukwenda Zone, Kawempe Division. For about ten years, even before he became a caretaker, the residence he is in charge of had been glorying on the blessing of illegally connected electricity. For all that period, they paid little or no bills to UMEME, since their electricity metre couldn’t indicate the watts of power used. In any case, he said that at various points, it was UMEME which owed them some money instead.
However, their day of reckoning came of age when UMEME officials came calling after someone had tipped them of the illegal connection at the residence.
“UMEME told us someone reported us, and we suspect it is the former caretaker, whom we had asked to repay the money he had swindled from us,” said a forlorn Jimmy. The money amounted to about 2.5 million but he is said to have repaid only Ush300,000.
UMEME officials estimated the illegal connection to have been in existence for at least two years. They backdated the bills to two years and it amounted to Ushs12 million, which they warned that it either be paid forthwith or a legal option would be considered. But, after protracted negotiations, at which they falsely confessed the illegal connection was just a few months old, they settled at Ushs2.5 million fine, after which a reconnection was made.
Many culprits are yet to be caught Jimmy admitted. Within the same area, there are so many residences, homes and even posho mills, which connect power illegally and have never paid a single cent to UMEME. This has and continues to cost UMEME highly as they have to grapple with operational and maintenance costs which are quite high.
Some posho mills with not only illegal connections but also operate without licenses, are situated in banana plantains, hidden within dwellings. They often operate at night like one in Mukwenda Zone in Kawempe Division, in which they mercilessly utilise the stolen electricity.
The operators of such posho mill in Mukwenda zone could at times be seen climbing the electric poles, attached to a transformer, in order to connect power directly albeit illegally. There is case when the transformer was so overloaded that it blast and many residents in the area lost most of the TV sets, computers, loudspeakers, radios, to the power surge during the illegal connection.
Though, such illegal electricity connections are costing UMEME highly, those who are in the habit claim they can’t afford the high charges on electricity. This has nevertheless, often times driven UMEME to increase power costs to exorbitant rates. At times, they are even forced to overcharge most of their loyal customers, as Abiaz attests.
“They just look at your building and set the price for you,” said Abiaz, whose family was once a victim of such exaggerated power costs, despite meeting their past bills religiously.
“Nobody was staying at home during that month but we received a bill of about Ushs1.6million.”
However, he added that when they brought up the case with UMEME officials and when the metre was cross checked, the bill promptly dropped to about Ush70,000 only!
But, Abiaz says, the owner of former residence where he had rented a room, was also surviving on illegal power connection from UMEME. But, the owner could not allow the tenants to use electric coils while cooking or boiling water, to douse any suspicion from UMEME.

By Joshua Masinde