By Dr Vimbai Gukwe Chivaura

THE Christian idea of Christmas and New Year is not unique or exclusive to Christians.
It is an ancient pastoral idea of the birth, death and rebirth of the seasons.
The death of the old season heralds the birth of the new season.
All peoples know this and celebrate it in their own ways.
The association of Christmas and New Year with Jesus is a version based on the African story of Osirus without revealing the source of their version to the world.
Here is what happened.
The myth of Osiris or Ausar is the earliest recorded story of a god-man who was symbolically crucified, resurrected from death and reigns eternally in heaven.
Africans of the Nile Valley believed that if they lived righteously in harmony with the teachings of Ausar, they would inherit eternal life.
Ausar became a powerful symbol of the death and spiritual rebirth of man.
Later, Ausar became associated with the essential elements of nature, which represented the physical death and rebirth of vegetation.
This concept of ‘resurrection’ or ‘rebirth’ was the prototype for the numerous religious beliefs which later surfaced throughout the world.
The ancient Egyptian cross is the earliest and most ancient religious symbol representing the concept of ‘death and resurrection’ in the world.
Egyptologists called it the ANKH, meaning LIFE.
The original African word is NKWA which means LIFE.
The language from which it comes is Akan.
The NKWA was excavated from the tomb of the Akan king Tutu Ankoma whose name Europeans corrupted to Tutankamun.
He ruled from 1336-1327 BCE.
The early Christian Church adopted the NKWA as the symbol of their Church and called it the Crux Ansanta or Crucifix.
From here it was taken to Rome, and there it became a Christian symbol with slight variations in design.
The NKWA represents the unification of the feminine and masculine in the universe and the creation of new life.
The oval represents the womb.
The vertical shaft represents the male organ, also called the phallus.
The horizontal bar represents the coming into existence of a new life resulting from the union of the male and the female.
The KNWA was adopted by the Jews who took the oval as their symbol and dropped the vertical shaft and horizontal bar.
They converted the oval into a triangle representing the pubic area as a symbol of fertility and procreation.
The three sides of the triangle represent the trinity of father, mother and child.
Two overlapping triangles represent the union between the male and the female to bring forth new life as in the Star of David.
The three sides represent the trinity of father, mother and child.
The state of Israel has adopted the cabalistic symbol of two overlapping triangles as its national emblem.
The cabala is regarded as a Hebrew underground religion or philosophy.
The two overlapping triangles are inscribed in a circle.
They represent the poles, the tropics, and the ecliptic and the added meaning of the male and female coming together to generate new life.
The Founding Fathers of the United States adopted the triangle in the form of the Egyptian pyramid as the Seal of the United States.
They wanted to convey the notion that a perfect society has been organised.
In order to do so they had to adopt a symbol which, through the tradition transmitted by Masonic societies, goes back to the Egyptian idea of harmony, order, peace, justice, balance and righteousness which the ancient Africans of Egypt called Maat.
The Great Seal of the United States appears on the United States Dollar Bill as a Pyramid inscribed in a circle.
Once the Christian Church had sufficiently modified the ANKH and transformed the trinity of Ausar, Aset, and Heru (Osiris, Isis, and Horus) and replaced it with that of The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost, they concealed their sources and declared them banned.
For example, in 325ACE, the Christian bishops met at the Council of Nicea and introduced a new religious theology which contained the concepts of a virgin birth, resurrection, and salvation without revealing the sources.
The African elements were viewed as competitive and outlawed by the Byzantine emperors. Some of the modifications done to the original story are illustrated in the following list of comparisons between the Lives of Heru and Jesus the Christ:
Heru (ca. 3200BCE): Horus had two mothers: Isis the Virgin, who conceived him, and Nephthys, who nursed him.
He was brought forth singly as one of five brothers.
Jesus (ca. 1ACE): Jesus had two mothers, Mary the Virgin, who conceived him, and Mary the wife of Cleophas, who brought him forth as one of her five children.
Heru: Horus was with his mother, the Virgin, until twelve years old, when he was transformed into the beloved son of God as the only begotten of the Father in Heaven.
Jesus: Jesus remained with his mother, the Virgin, up to the age of twelve years, when he left her ‘to be about his Father’s business’.
Heru: From 12 to 30 years of age there is no record in the life of Horus.
Jesus: From 12 to 30 years of age there is no record in the life of Jesus.
Horus: Horus, at 30 years of age, became adult in his baptism by Anup.
Jesus: Jesus, at 30 years of age was made a man in his baptism by John the Baptist.
Horus: Horus in his baptism made his transformation into the beloved son and only begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit, represented by a bird.
Jesus: Jesus in his baptism is hailed from heaven as the beloved son and the only begotten of the Father, God, the Holy Spirit, represented by a dove.
The Christian version of life, death and the resurrection was adopted and popularised throughout the world and a relentless war was declared against Africa as the original source.
Sometime during the reign of Emperor Justinian (527-565 ACE), the last of the Egyptian priests were driven out of the Temple of Philae in Upper Egypt and the structure converted into a Christian Church.
The Egypt of today is not the African country of yesterday.
The Egyptians of today are not the Africans of yesterday.
Yes, the land is still the same.
The monuments evoke memories of ages long gone.
But the people and their spirit are profoundly different.
An Egyptian of today is a by-product of countless peoples who have occupied, invaded and traded in North Africa for thousands of years.
The Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, French, British, Germans and countless other nations have intermingled with the native African population to produce a new people who have inherited, by right of war and possession of the land, the legacy of African peoples.
The Egypt of today is used by America and the West as a model or prototype of what is being popularised as the Rainbow Nation in South Africa, a society in which Africans as indigenous owners of the land are absent from the rainbow.
Africa!
Beware!
Say bye, bye to the old year!
Welcome to the New Year!