On Monday the
8th of October 2012, I was unfortunate to have come across a video of such
grotesque and barbaric nature. Four boys were literally being beaten to death
amidst the chanting of an angry mob. Despite having being told what would
eventually happen at the end of the video, I still watched it with some sort of
hope, some sort of expectation. I hoped that at the last moment, the boys would
gain some incredible strength, stand up and flea. Or that the police would come
in and take the boys into custody and safety. Or maybe even a friend, an
ordinary person would swoop in and command the lynching to be stopped
immediately. But my hope was painfully in vain; there was no flight, no
interruptions, no fairy tale movie ending. There was only more beating, more
begging for mercy, more stone heartedness, and more jungle justice. At the end,
I watched in genuine horror as these boys were being set ablaze.
Martin Luther
King's words rang out in my mind after watching this video: "At the end,
we wouldn't remember the words of our enemies but the silence of our
friends". So I wondered to myself, at the very end, was that really all
what the boys heard, silence? Were they completely deaf to the angered chants
and words of the mob? Well, no I don't think so. I think it would be pretty
difficult not to hear the voice of your own murderers as they continue to plank
you to death. But I think, louder would be the deafening silence of faces that
simply stared down at them. Painful and heartbreaking would be the active inaction
of people only recording the scene as the boys are publicly executed without a trial
or a chance of even being heard.
Some may blame
their silence on fear; some may use the angry mob to rationalize their
muteness. Of course these are logical reasons to back and shy away from any the
wrath of the angry mob. But when would we finally prevent "logics"
stopping us from doing the right thing. It was logical to keep silent, when
people were continuously killed in bomb blasts, or when students were called out
by names and gunned down in broad daylight. It is "logical" for those
in the position of influence to watch muted, as atrocities are committed
constantly in the name of one irrational course or another, all because they
fear for their safety. By now, our society should have or be moving past the
logics of fear and hesitation. It is obvious that our rulers (not leaders) are
not willing to move beyond this. However we as citizens and individuals can
move beyond the fear and hesitation, we can become LEADERS. We can start by
acting, by voicing out when we see the rampant evils occurring everywhere,
already at an alarming rate.
Lupe Fiasco summed it all up; "if you
don't become an actor, you would never be a factor". Let us start acting
so that the atrocities such as the one committed on the 5th of October 2012
would never repeat itself. May the souls of the Aluu victims find the solace of
heaven greater than the pain and silence of the hell they went through.
Amen.
