Silence

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.