Mhii Samuel Selumun
4 October 2001
The excruciating deaths at the World Trade Centre (WTC) and Pentagon et al, is all I dread to the marrow. The result of what we see in our homes as domestic small and pardonable misdemeanour.
Now you see, WTC bleeding - with debris as no sand, cement and iron stands on another. But most of all with charred bodies reduced from solid-water-gas, evidenced by its continual smoking.
Verily it is all about the storm, going through twists and turns, harrowing experiences all against our personal wish and desires. This world of pain and sorrows and the one thing I know of man is that, if he is everything, he is not exactly what God meant him to be. But, Lord! You promised to be with us through tribulation.
It wouldn't have been what it is, if kingdoms did not divide themselves by way of faith segmentation which makes one say, I am not just a Christian, I am a Catholic, Pentecostal and all that. The journey to paradise as run by man, could be likened to a construction work using equipment of blackmail, greed, hypocrisy and heated animosity.
Our Creator knows man's inner mind which is why he pulled down the 'Tower of Babel' project. This does not translate into God's withdrawer of a knack for 'Towers' hence the WTC - simply man's show for the beauty of God's plan.
The domestic brawl where ecolac boxes are broken and thatched houses set aflame is the same that gives birth to that which governors meet for boundary adjustment. The same problem degenerating to nation's negotiating peace talks.
This is also a stage where man outrightly throws to the wind his religion and leans on the might of his nuclear prowess - which is infinistesimal to God like to a strand of hair on our head.
Miss the point! Yes, you will if you go thinking Liberia and Charles, Iraq and Saddam. Why not stamp out Kaduna, rule out Taraba and remove from your sight the planned bloodbath of Jos?
Often times, we have been cautioned against running when we cannot run away from ourselves, which means, we should stop pressing buttons that will eventually make us uncomfortable and begin to run to no where in particular.
President Bush, has now applied for $20 billion and the US Senate unanimously approved $40 billion for emergency spending. Part of which is to go to war. A war he said would be "direct, forceful and comprehensive."
Think about the nuclear advancement of the super power and wind back to the then atomic bomb that removed souls in their millions from the earth surface and the devastation it did to lives yet unborn. Only during such times like sudden blast of the grenade nearby, we remember flashing a sign of the cross or to chant blood-of-Jesus.
United States of America has actually lost to a war that never was - a different kind by some warring enemy. Losses that wouldn't have been in a normal war situation of well over a year. It shows then that, no evil will survive the fury that is Bush.
Interestingly, however, is the America's illegible inscription on the dollar which reads: IN GOD WE TRUST.
This suggest to a great deal, the magnanimous policy and nature of the super-power not to wake up and set the world ablaze, but to trust more in the Lord and continue to give the world a more human and humane face even as she is facing an ambient and distortingly terrorizing hurricane.
No one knows what was and that which would be and at much the same time for such a thought, you still wonder the dimension of the war because it is definitely not a conventional war, but an attack by a different kind of warring enemy; who is he? Who are his cohorts?
The curiosity beefed with fright of the unknown which has made nations gone philosophical with verses either volunteering help - I wish I could help (Togo). Never forget volunteers (Netherlands). Regretting there was a slack by way of surveillance - American intelligence failed tracing terrorists (Nigeria). Pacifying President Bush, against prompt reaction in the heat of passion - US should think about the result of war (Saudi Arabia, others spurring Bush, into sterner sanctions of whatever magnitude) - Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God (Nigeria). Since terrorism is an enemy of civilized society as evidenced by overwhelming global reaction to the attacks, I share the same feelings with His Holiness Pope John Paul II, who is 'healthbroken' over the tragedy. And like him, I urge US to avoid hatred and violence, though left chocking in a cloud of dust.
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