It was a black Wednesday. 22/05/2013 will forever remain in the subconscious of every decent person in Britain as the day of darkest hubris. It was the day we all experienced, for the first time, how tantrums morphed into turbulence and how turbulence morphed into tragedy. It was the day we all took a trip to hell and back. Without warning and in high noon, the skyline of Woolwich in London, United Kingdom was overcast with blood. The blood of an innocent soldier. The blood of drummer Lee Rigby. The blood of Riggers, as Lee is popularly known by friends.
Two friends, who were plagued by complex fundamentalist psychosis, shamed the Islamic faith. Tall, dark and fearsome looking double Michaels, consumed by plethora of inner demons, hacked a human being to a kind of death you do not even visit on animals. Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Oluwatobi Adebowale, 22, both took infamy to a barbaric height. Hate, rage, loathing and hostility all fused together to become a blunt instrument and reason for gruesome murder. Welcome to the dark world of Islamic extremism.
In the shameful annals of fundamentalist killings, the Woolwich black Wednesday has shot up ahead by miles. To Kill Rigby, the two demonic agents had to be armed and dangerous. To kill Riggers, the two brutish thugs had to use cleaver, knives, daggers and guns. If the butchery was gruesome, the effrontery and dare after the killing was far more psychiatrically sickening than what a contrite heart could bear. My children had to watch, without parental guardian warning, the murderous boast of a bloodied beast as he mocked his crime and at the same time justified it on jihadist sentiment. I was also given a full view of two black brutish butchers as they went on a soulless killing mission for a bloodlust Islamic Allah. What God could sanction this kind of bowel-churning butchery? What God? What Allah?
I have read condemnatory threads and rantings as they zap through the social media. Nigerians in the Diaspora have played their own part of the Devil’s advocates. We have disowned these guys and called them thugs, scums, misfits, useless, thugs, fanatics and beasts. But to the mature mothers and fathers who are grappling with the challenges of bringing up kids in the Western hemisphere, they can only sigh and thank God that their children have not hugged the headlines for beastly reason. Thousands of young, black, British men and women of Nigerian parentage are still in the dark closet and living alternative lifestyles as homosexuals, lesbians, perverts, paedophiles, (remember Opemipo Jaji), jihadists, robbers, drug dealers, enforcers, pimps, prostitutes, burglars and gigolos. My heart goes to the mothers and fathers of these fringe dwellers, who see their birthright of being born British as a licence to embrace the baser lifestyles of the West. Anybody living with a 20-something-year-old British born son or daughter would be familiar with the constant heady and adversarial atmosphere in the home.
How then do we unpack this beastly action? How do we unravel the ravenous demons that possessed these killers? What do we blame? Who do we blame? Parents, schools, institutions, Islamic religion, Islamopbobia, Western freedom, British Imperial polices in Islamic nations or plain self will? Racists have been calling us unprintable names. Even liberals are jittery and wondering what could have possessed those black boys. In enlightened circles, audacious languages are now being deployed that deride the black man as …..yes, you can guess them!!!
Both Michaels had value-driven family background. I confer that on them because they are both children of Nigerians. Anthony Adebolajo must have instilled a kind of stentorian and authentic Nigerian cherished values into the life of young Michael. The same could be said of Adebowale Senior. The typical sentiment of average African immigrants is the inner desire to train their kids to be a source of family pride. They hunger after success for their children.
Just like the Chinese and Asians of the sub-continent. We put trust, hope and faith in our children. Now, except one is living in a capsule of illusion, Europe has proven to be a society totally incompatible with the illiberal structure of our moral existence as Africans. From the start, our truest best intention for our children may be seen as aberration by the larger, stronger and dominant Eurocentric culture of the Western world. Even educated Africans are becoming far more Europhiles than the Europeans. There is an ongoing blanket condemnation of African brand of home training or discipline as abuse, barbaric and uncivilised. Then to conform to this media-fuelled desecration of our culture, we all raise the flag of conformity and ugly acquiescence. There is a saying that if the hedge is broken, the serpent would strike.
Therefore, once we accept Western culture as superior, liberal and modern, we are on a slippery slope to self destruction. The serpent will crawl into our homes and deposit venom in our kids as we found in the lives of the Woolwich killers. Pa Anthony Adebolajo and Pa Adebowale may be legendary disciplinarians. If tracked down, they could recount civic sermons and warring words during the adolescent years of their Michaels. They must have had Christian values and ethos instilled in their lives. Before their induction into the life of jihad, hate and killing, the Michaels were regarded as good kids.
By age 18, I could bet my last penny, that the two Michaels began to wave the flags of their independence from all forms of parental controls. They could now experiment with all kinds of Western moral filths. Unchallenged! Unrepentant! As every parent is aware, once the safety net of parental control is broken, then the serpent will come and strike and strike so badly as happened on the street of Woolwich some days ago.
Then they got consumed by the greatest temptation of all. The seduction of religious fanaticism. When the Christian faith would not shine its redemptive light on the soul of these men, they embraced deep darkness. Unsatisfied with the sermons of obsessive prosperity common with African Pentecostal pastors, they looked elsewhere for bearded mullahs who would send them on apocalyptic missions of madness, mayhem and mutilation.
Pa Anthony Adebolajo and Pa Adebowale may have made spirited efforts to rescue their kids from the trap of al-Qaeda-fuelled Islamic orientation, but the fence is broken. The western world and its rotten moral guardians will not permit an interference in the life of British children. They gnash their teeth, curse the West. Then, they acquiesced. Then, they compromised. Both Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale began to drift until Satan gave them a refuge. Until Satan gave them an assignment.
We may go on and propound deeper theories behind the butchery of drummer Lee Rigby. Misguided militant Islamic teaching is one. Eurocentric obsession with liberty and freedom is another. Confused identity (he regards Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan) as his land. Subversion of African values and discipline in the West is another. Anti-Christ spirit at the centre of the Western heart is another. Erosion of institutional safety net is also there. As I write, both have been moved to Belmarsh prison. Ironically, the society that fought wars to give both Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale liberty and freedom is the one that is taking its freedom back by incarcerating and caging these black brutish butchers. May the soul of 26-year-old drummer Lee Rigby rest in peace.
Trending
- Eve’s Desire: Challenges of a loveless marriage, by Tiwa Says
- CBN unveils new capital base for banks, sets deadline to meet it
- President Tinubu appoints new Chairman for CCB
- The cow’s tail (1), by Bassey Ubong
- Discrimination against Gbenga Daniel’s son: KFC reacts
- Dr. Cairo Ojougboh: Family announces burial plans
- Easter: Lagos discounted food market to open on Good Friday
- OSUN: NANS seeks intervention from Governor Adeleke, threatens protest over fee hike, palliative