There is a very justified reason to be concerned about the sanity of our world. For instance, the extent at which our media is littered with homosexuality and anti-life contents, either directly or subtly is a source of concern. Any enthusiast of the latest Hollywood blockbuster would share my sentiment. There seem to pervade within the western media a current culture passionate about enthroning gays as champions of love and civilisation. I wonder what future we are founding for our children.
A Yoruba proverb says ‘Bi omode ba subu a wo iwaju, bi agbalagba ba subu a wo eyin wo’. Simply put: ‘When a young person falls he looks ahead to the future, but when an elderly person falls he looks backward into history’. Before we descend into any adjudged superficial sentimentalism, I invite us into the position of adulthood and eldership and beckon us to look at history and the primordial causality of this momentous gay-ish experience that is descended upon us today and thus reposition our actions and attitudes as responsible adults, if at all we are passionate about bequeathing a sane posterity.
I take us back to the 2nd World War. It is very easy for us to remember the holocaust as a systemic murder of the Jews but very few remember or have learnt about the brutality meted on the gays by Hitler. And this was not the beginning; when you delve into history, you will find it littered with the inhumane atrocities meted out down the ages on these people by all the 3 Abrahamic religions, from which the present sentiments against homosexuality are derived. I don’t know if this was same before Abraham.
I argue that the present day gay prevalence is borne out of the past callous and nonchalant punishment meted on them in the past. Hate, even of one’s enemies changes nothing; it simply turns things round, returning one often back to square one. It is easy for the ‘sane’ majority to turn blinded sensibility on the often justly meted out punishment on the ‘insane’ few. He who kills by the sword dies by the sword. Even when we feel a natural satisfaction over a just sentence pronounced on whoever we perceive as wrong , the extent at which the punishment is callous and devoid of mercy and love is that which it serves as manure feeding both the justly and the unjustly punished. For instance those who argue for the murdering of homosexuals are simply turning back the tides of time. What if their children become one tomorrow?
History is littered with examples to buttress my point. I’ll start from home. Both the Oyo and Benin empires settle waverers, criminals and slaves by the coasts of the Atlantic. These people are often useful when human sacrifices are necessary for the oceanic gods or goddesses, whence comes the name ‘ije-ibu’, that is, food for the ocean. Lagos’ history is filled with stories of criminals dimmed unfit for the society, thus either sold as slaves or rendered as food for the ocean. Fast forward to our age, it seems the destiny of Nigeria as a whole is dependent on how Lagos performs, an area once considered fit for waverers; and Ijebus remain national champions of the economy, even today. Call no man unfortunate. This reminiscences how the British once treated the Australians; today, many Britons beg to resettle in that land.
I am indeed not arguing for the morality of the case considered as criminal. What I am pointing out lies deep in the heart of those who hold power and of the desire of the populace to either support callous punishment or to be nonchalant about them. When you refuse to punish in love, you risk a boomerang -sooner or later-from the hand of the offender.
Let’s move a bit abroad. For more than 300 years after Christ, the Christian sect was deemed unfit for the contemporary society and were either curtailed or slaughtered, but the whole western civilisation is today built on Christian principles. The protestant sect was a cult of heretics, deemed either to be thrown into prison until recantation or burnt at stake, but today Protestantism is booming massively. The Jews, right from after Christ were being ostracised and battered from right, left and centre, by Romans, Christians and Moslems alike, the culmination of which was the murdering of over 6 million Jews at the holocaust. Now Jews hold universal supremacy in science and economy.
That is why I don’t give up on my skin. For over 400 years there has been series of injustice and slavery meted out on the Black race and I know it’s only a question of time before Blacks find the right pedestal for universal supremacy. Majiyagbe. Esan ko gbo’oogun.
I hope my argument can be deciphered. History is on the side of the punished, even when they are wrong. Heartless and callous punishment has no synonymity with truth; it only serves to fertilize the strength and power of the punished who are helpless at defending themselves. The harm of the past is done, and while I am not against punishment, we must, individually and collectively introduce love and mercy more into our punishment or we run the risk of it boomeranging against us. ‘Oko t’aa so m’ope l’ope n so mo ni’. Judge not and you shall not be judged. That is some of the rationale behind some nations’ rejection of capital punishment.
In part 2 of this write up I shall deal with the capacity to circumscribe this esan and karma, to do something and get away with it by either liaising with a Man of great love or hiding under the canopy of people with great Faith. Forget what you think you are, God decides this capacity . God bless.
No comments:
Post a Comment