Today is another day of apoplectic speech by cretins abandoned by the lexicon of reason.

This is a shameful day for the so-called religion of the bombers, for their morality, and for their claim to a common humanity. Today some men – women even – will sit down to a meal with their families, having denied other innocents of their kin. They will cradle their own children, having murdered the children of others. They will even kneel down to prayers, having damnified their souls many times over. As proximate countrymen queue up in Abuja’s hospitals to donate blood, those of us far away stand near in spirit, guarding our common humanity against the mongrel dogs of war that salver in our midst.

Condolences, one and all.

8 Replies to “On hearing Screams from Abuja”

  1. Ovo says:

    You can’t help but wonder at the psychology of a suicide bomber, at his motivations, at the innocent lives which must be extinguished for his expression to be made.

    Reply
  2. Chuma says:

    Indeed Ovo,
    interesting how comfortably the late Al Quaeda chief lived in the lap of wives and children, while daily disdaining the paradise to which he dispatched his armies.

    Reply
  3. Henaku Nancy says:

    It just amazing what some humans can do to their fellow humans. God save our souls

    Reply
  4. Ovo says:

    Of which he was later dispatched to. Reminds one of a certain Asif…

    Reply
  5. Carlton G says:

    I can only sit very quietly on my stool and look the other way.. because after answering the question…what did I do or am doing to prevent such unspeakable and terrifying ordeals faced by humanity …”Screams from Abuja” I am afraid like Cordelia in Shakespeare’s King Lear..I can only speak by saying ‘Nothing’.
    The point is well made from the above..So many of us break bread in our comfort zone saying ‘nothing’ about the consequences to humankind of the loss of the spiritual self as well as the individual self. As the song suggested ‘wake up everybody no more sleeping in bed’.. peace and love my bro

    Reply
  6. Chuma Nwokolo says:

    Carlton, it is interesting you talk of ‘breaking bread in our comfort zone’… reminds me of Requiem for Rage which I presented at a special BBC programme on Democracy a couple of years ago with these lines, among others:

    Six days the thinker thought, six ways
    she weighed her cross: what to do
    with things she can not change?

    3. as armaments leave her island of ease
    will her tears do to slake their thirst?
    can the fire from a rage removed
    stanch the bleeding by a bomb discharged?
    4. Thursday’s tears will not animate the teddy
    in the twisted rubble. what is spilled is lost,
    what is bent, broken. innocence is seared,
    holiness smirched, remorse futile…

    someday for sure, the child of night’s cry shall cease.
    but not tonight.

    Come Sunday, the thinker bled her rage
    into a larger gift for charity.
    She made her peace with impotence,
    prepared her child and cot, which still
    lay at ease, for the roll of fortune’s wheel,
    and for night.
    she polished her salaried lie until it shone
    and weaved it into a shawl and wore it:
    she could do nothing about what
    she could do nothing about.

    As you said, it is time for everyone everywhere to wake up. There are no more Islands of Ease.

    Reply

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