OUR NEW REALITY - BY PAUL INYANG

 Paul Inyang, USA

There are things that we hold to be true. For instance, the world is round. We may fall off a mountain but it will not be because the world was... flat. It is so for a reason, and science has found ways to explain it. So it is with many mysterious things. What can destroy a man is not the things that are true but trying to bend the truth. It used to be that when we told a lie or did something wrong—if we were caught—we usually would own up to it. If not, then our conscience would sort of punish us. But that was when there were not different shades of truth. Black is not the color of lies any more. There are many shades, ash, grayish black, etc.

So we have built immunity for what may be wrong. A racist is no more a racist—they have racial tendencies which does not necessarily make them bad people—they simply love to look out for their own. Same for ethnic bigots. Our truths can now be tailored to our own preferred audience and slant. If we cannot explain it well, then our surrogates do so. Hatred is now replaced with dislike—it’s supposed to sound softer and have lesser shock value.  Fascism can now be explained away as arrogance run amuck, for it is now cloaked in opulence—we love a winner and success stories. So we see "bad" and call it "not-so-good". The way we were, has become a metaphor for keeping them down and synonymous with the way things were in the past. Yes, we will make things great again by going back to the old world order or is it the New World order. The implication being, we can hide behind all the new descriptives. It hides us from our deep dark hearts and mind that has lost its bearing. I thought we had overcome with a new realism. Did many of us not sing “we have/shall overcome”.

We collectively, have stopped fighting for what is right because of all the "explainables" and half-truths. Our conscience survives any assault from the truth because it is confused by our greed and contaminated-cesspool of deviant perspectives. Yet we have God-given examples that point us in the right direction. They may not have been perfect but they strove to do the right thing and like John the Baptist—were voices in the wilderness. Hitler, Mussolini, Idi Amin and all despots as well as all genocides were borne of this thinking—when we are stupid enough to believe we are better than our fellow man. In my profession, delusion cannot be defined any better. People like us who thought nothing of it—minimized, ignored and accepted the indefensible. We are all watching it happen and it will be our cross to bear, if we repeatedly let the darkness of history to come true again…! We owe it to ourselves, no matter what part of the world you belong to stop this madness. If you have never voted, find a way to do so. If you need information just ask me!

My father taught me not to be afraid of anything; so his cause continues. Forgive me if I have invented some words here—English is my second language. Stop and help someone to help themselves. Arggggg!

 

INEXPLICABLE FREEDOM: RIDING ON THE SACRIFICIAL SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

I am quite conscious of my thoughts.  That would not be news to some people who know me well.  I think this is probably the reason why I decided from a young age that I would be a teetotaler – because it was important to me that I always maintain cognizance of my thoughts, and consciousness of my environment.  Something is different now, however.  If thoughts are ever categorized in layers, I am now much more conscious of those layers and the categories into which my thoughts fall.  As a cautionary note, this is not to be taken as an introduction to, or an invitation to engage in an exploration or speculations about the workings of my mind.  Believe me, such an effort would be tantamount to a royal waste of time.  Indeed, it would be akin to the proverbial chasing of shadows.

As I have been thinking and writing lately about love, hate and my relationship with God, I have also found myself wondering why I am a free man.  Why, for example, am I not in prison when through much of my life I have lived in violation of behaviors and rules that were considered normative at various points in my lifetime?  Why am I not being persecuted for anything when so many people in the same world in which I live are being persecuted and even killed for their religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and/or political affiliation?  Why am I even alive when so many die even before they get to experience life to its optimal extent?  I am content with the fact that I may never know the answers to these and similar questions.  I am also sufficiently self-aware that the reason why I am not in prison or even under arrest is not because I am perfect or because I am a better man than most who have faced persecution and/or are either in prison or dead.  Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Fela Kuti, Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali had records of arrest in their lifetimes but each of them left imprints of an oversized life that was magnified by the fact that he, like all in that group, rose to take up a cause greater than himself.  Even among the living, we know of men and women like Wole Soyinka of Nigeria, Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (to name a few) - all individuals who experienced arrests as they stood up against powerful forces and fought for social justice. 

There are many reasons why I could be arrested, imprisoned or dead - but I am not.  In a world in which being black in a racially heterogeneous society can be the impetus for an arrest or even death, I am guilty of the “offence” of being black.  Yet, I am a free man.  At the same time, it is impossible to wipe off my memory the images of people like me being chased by dogs and beaten by the police; or of Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders getting arrested, humiliated and in many cases killed just so that people like me could be where I am today.  In a world in which many people still regard interracial marriages as the wrong thing to do, and where many churches still refuse to marry interracial couples or do so grudgingly, I cannot forget the persecution and struggle of Mr. and Mrs. Loving whose plight was taken up by Robert F. Kennedy, leading the United States Supreme Court to legalize interracial marriages in 1967.  That was not a very long time ago.  Thanks to that important piece of history, interracial couples in the United States no longer live under the threat of legal arrest and/or prosecution.  Any honest Christian knows that many portions of the Bible support slavery but there is widespread agreement that abolishing slavery in our society was the right thing to do.  Yet, I am concerned that so many of us use the same Bible now to condemn others who do not do exactly what we do – just in the same way that the Bible was used to justify slavery and opposition to interracial marriages.  Perhaps I should wonder how many people of my faith ever ask themselves how we came about this Bible that we read and believe in.  How many know that many people were killed between the 12^th and 16^th Centuries just for trying to translate the Bible before the first translation of the Bible was authorized?  Now, there are myriad translations of the Bible and I am free to read any of my choice without fear of persecution, arrest or imprisonment.  Yet, in this same world, people are being persecuted daily for their religion, and even members of the same family or community persecute one another because they are members of different denominations of the same religion.  

When any of us uses the Holy Book of our religion as a cudgel to whip others who we disagree with because we have determined that they are sinners, we become present-day persecutors and deny both the humanity of our brothers and sisters and the existence and power of grace.  When we do that, we actually suggest by our deeds that others are unworthy of love, liberty or even life because we are perfect and they are not like us.  No human has the authority to assume the mantle of authority and judgment, which belongs in the exclusive domain of the Almighty.  No man has the authority to be judge, jury and executioner over a fellow man.  Everyone of us who now lives in freedom owes his/her life and freedom to many giants who fought, suffered and/or died to make us free.  Our job is to use their gift to make others free and the best way to do that is not through conflict and hatred but by turning our societies into communities of love and peace.  We are not truly free until we stand against the implicit and explicit suppression of those who may not look like us, love like us or worship like us.  I am conscious of the fact that my freedom is a product of the work of others who fought and died that I might have freedom.  They did so without even knowing me, my religion or my race.  I am therefore propelled by a desire keep running the race that I run in the hope that one day when my time in this body is fully spent, it will be said of me that I also fought the good fight.  To all who currently face persecution for any reason, I say this: If history is anything to go by, please remain strong and hopeful.  It will get better.

THE ABSENCE OF JUSTICE - BY PAUL INYANG

 Paul Inyang, MD. USA

Years ago on a cold winter afternoon, in the great city of Washington DC, I was stopped by a police officer who happened to be white. He ordered me out of my “hoopty” (a ragged old car). I stepped out of the car but it was so cold and I felt like warming my hands—so I attempted to put them in my coat pockets. It was almost a fatal mistake—by the grace of God my life was spared because I responded quickly to the click of the gun. I certainly would have been a statistic. In one... instant life would have changed for me. What upset me most was that my offence was simply backing into the road, which in itself is dangerous but nowhere near being shot. I and many people of color have encountered these scenarios many times. There are colloquial phrases for this, such as “driving while black” (if I am right). Watch out if you are in a decent car—black folks are not supposed to drive those things.

Of course, one cannot compare this to recent incidents especially the one we have just witnessed that ended with the loss of the life of a young man, who was simply driving. His major offence and possibly the only one that ended his life--was being black. The pundits will over-analyze the situation, with a multiplicity of explanations. The defense will be the same—that the officer felt his life was threatened, despite evidence to the contrary—thank God for the courageous act of video-taping by his lady. Not much has changed—has it? People of color and young black males are being killed in the greatest nation this world has ever known—unjustly. There will be great hoopla and the beat will go on.

One of the greatest signs of youthfulness, is healthy defiance. It happens in every community but is handled differently in the black communities. The outcomes are surely different, as demonstrated in many available videos. Although, we must teach our youth how to respond and act appropriately in these instances but why the selective prosecution of our children? If a crime was committed, is there no wait time for the courts to reach some conclusion with due process? Their lives are simply snuffed out like animals. Why are incidents like these, which as we have all seen did not involve any defiant act, treated so differently in our communities? Why have they become so rampant? What has changed? As a people of conscience, how can we accept this outcome as the norm? Notice the nonchalance of the officers who are simply standing around watching this ugly incident transpire. Where were the paramedics? There was no urgency in responding to the wounding and eventual death of this young man.

We cannot allow this to go on anymore. The lives of our children are at stake. This is totally unacceptable—we must all join the quest for justice not only for this family but for our own very children. Please help—get involved!

ICONIC ELIE WIESEL: A LIFE OF CHARACTER AND GRACE COMES TO AN END

Elie Wiesel, 1928-2016

Once in a while, I am reminded of some words that I wrote in my private journal in February 1984.  "I am not given to finding heroes in men", I had written, "because no sooner had you made a hero of a man than he disappoint you with his negative ways of which it is hardly possible be proud".  That was consistent with the principle by which I had lived for much of my conscious life until that point, and definitely since then.  I have never had a strong longing to meet a famous person because I am less interested in associating with any man's fame than I am in the stories of their humanity and charity. Mr. Elie Wiesel had fame but it was his humanity that made him famous.  I could have wished to meet him and I would most definitely have loved to sit and hear him tell some of the stories of his life.  But I knew some things about his life because he gave so much of himself.                                             

Sometime in the early nineties, I came across the following words written and spoken by Elie Wiesel: “No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them”. Inspired, I cut the quote out of the New York Times, laminated and kept it in a permanent place in my home while I kept a copy in my office.  To this day, the cut-out quote remains in my home and office to remind me constantly of   the spirit and grace of a man who endured pain and still loved, and of my responsibility to always remember and remind others of the forces of love and hate that reside in the human mind, as well as the potentially destructive power of arrogance that lies within the human spirit.  For many years to come, I would refer to Mr. Wiesel's words in various lectures that I would give within and outside the United States.  

A Holocaust survivor, Mr. Wiesel chose love over hate, humility over arrogance, peace over war, forgiveness over grudge, and embrace over rejection.  He was a Nobel Peace Prize winner who understood the value of that honor but never rested on his laurels.  So he woke up everyday showing us by his words and deeds that he had a continuing responsibility to make this a better world, and to help us all to be more loving in our dealings with others.  He stood against all forms of discrimination and worked hard to ensure that people were defined as human rather than by their race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.  

While introducing President Obama in a ceremony at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Buchenwald, Germany on June 5, 2009, Mr. Wiesel said: "Mr. President, I have high hopes for you.  Be able, be compelled to change the world into a better place where people will stop waging war. Every war is absurd and meaningless.  We need a world where people will stop hating one another, where people hate the otherness of the other rather than respect it..."  At the age of 87, Mr. Wiesel died today without seeing that world, but he left the rest of us who continue to live after him to work with as much zest as we can muster to stamp out hate in our world.  Now I wish I had met him before he died.  I wish I had the opportunity to assure him that I am doing my part in the fight against hate and injustice.  I wish I could have told him that I would fight that fight until I breathe my last breath.  I loved him without knowing him personally and now I thank him posthumously for sharing his life's story in his quest to make this a better world in which humanity can be saved from itself.  I thank God for blessing this world with Elie Wiesel, knowing as I do that he was a rare gift to an ungrateful amnesic world that has so far learned very little, if anything, from the consequences of wickedness.

Today and always, Mr. Wiesel, rest in perfect peace.  Your work is done.  May your rest be eternally beautiful.

WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT

Like so many other Americans, I woke up early on Sunday, June 12th to a news alert about mass killings in Orlando, Florida.  I mourn with the families of the victims, although I did not know either the victims or any of the families.  In an underlying spiritual way, I can think of them as family and friends because I am conscious of the unfolding and unspoken experiences in the journey of my own human experience; a journey which only my Maker fully understands.  Therefore, as I approach the twilight of my human existence, I am increasingly reminded of my connectedness to others, even those that I might have felt the urge to abhor at certain points in my life. 

To say that I am frustrated by the frequent spate of murderous violence by gun-wielding haters in the United States would be an understatement.  Of course I am frustrated by the level of violence around the world and I have written about that reality in many countries, including the land of my birth, but that is not what this article is about.  Nor is it about the degree of my frustration, or even about me.  It is instead about the United States and our unwillingness to stem the tide of the spiral of violence in this country.

 

In a country where we emphasize our collective identity and our strongly held belief in choice, as well as its associated consequences, it is increasingly baffling to understand why incidents like this should not be considered within the context of our collective choice and consequences.  Incident after incident, President Obama addresses the country and begs our nation to support him in restricting access to assault weapons.  Each time, we reject his pleas and choose to allow deafening megaphones to be turned up against him from our homes, streets, churches and legislatures across our country - including our U.S. Congress.  We do that despite knowing that the next mass shooting is around the corner and the death toll might be higher than the one that just occurred.  The consequences of our collective choice are always the same: another incident of mass killings by assault weapons, then media lights that shine on the new city and the mourners for a week or so; and then we move on and forget.

As I have followed the news reports, it has been difficult to maintain a steady state of emotions without asking questions that I know I will ask again and again until we give up on our collective amnesia. How is it that an American can go into an American club and carry out such an assault on innocent people who did not know him and were not at war with him? Why is it that he would send them to their graves so prematurely just because he could?  How is it that in so short a time after the incident, supposedly religious people of faiths including mine were applauding the killings and trying to justify such a dastardly act through religious lenses that are warped at best?  How is it that we can go to bed and wake up every morning knowing that this too shall pass and also knowing that nothing will be done legislatively to stop the next mass gun killings? How is it that we can even think that emphasizing that the location of the mass murders was (is) a gay club makes it alright for one of us to go there and kill our brothers and sisters who God made in His own image - just like every one of us?  I am inclined to state the fact that Pulse wasn't just a gay club and that many of the victims were not even gay but what does that even matter?  How is it that we can avoid grieving as a nation when so much of the rest of the world recognizes the hurt and grieves over what has happened here? How is it that so many of us act as if the power of life and death is in our hands?  How is it that we can act and speak as if we have been granted the right to determine who belongs or does not belong in heaven?  How did our world get to this place where man now seems to believe that God was wrong when He said: "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy"?  Or that Paul was wrong when he said that if righteousness was based on the law, then Christ’s death was in vain.

In all of this, I have become convinced that our world's biggest and toughest blight is our hatred for others who do not fit the mold that we prescribe.  We argue over assault weapons despite knowing that their only purpose is to kill.  Yet, we must have them because we are so full of hatred toward others and we want to be able to kill them when we decide to.  We hate when we should love and we become arrogant when we should be humble and compassionate.  We judge when we shouldn't, then we hate even more.  In our judgment, arrogance and hatred, we diminish the value of others and fail to realize that God made them as they are.  So we refuse to accept that it is God’s choice (not ours) to have a place for His children in His mansion and that God will do that regardless of what we feel are their moral failings because morality is not righteousness and righteousness is not morality.

Today, tomorrow and every day for the foreseeable future, media lights will continue to shine on Orlando - until most of the murdered victims are buried, or until the next mass gun killings.  At this moment, I am concerned about what happens when the lights go out.  I am concerned because I know that this incident will again fade from our collective consciousness because that is what always happens.  When lights go out is when the true character of a person or society comes through.  On this fact, we have not been at our possible best as a society.  May I never forget Orlando, even when the lights go out.  

WHEN GOD HOLDS MY HAND......

I have just recently become older than I was exactly a year ago and, since I began to write this, I have even become older than I was when I awoke this morning. At my current age, I no longer accept the usual comment that "age is just a number".  Now I do not think of such a comment as fact but as consolation. If age was nothing more than a number, why do I now wake up sometimes to unexplained physical aches that I did not experience in the first five decades of my life? Why do people tell me that I don't look my age when they didn't say that to me 40 or even 30 years ago?  If age is just a number, why is it that I can no longer run as fast or jump as high as I did when I was a teenager?  Why then has proximity to the grave become much more real and closer to me than it ever did?  Why do I feel that I have so much to accomplish with so little time to do so?  Why is it now a stamp in my consciousness that at any time now the bell will toll for me? If age is just a number, why have I become more conscious of the fact that this is now legacy time for me when that was never in my thoughts previously?  Why is God teaching me things that He probably didn't think I needed to learn until now?  Please stop telling me that age is just a number because, to me, it isn't.

I know that my day of reckoning is closer now than it ever was and, although I know that I will not be the one to set the agenda for our conversation when I meet God face-to-face, I am thinking of the questions what I would like to discuss with Him when He holds my hand and welcomes me to heaven.  The more I think of my dream meeting with God, the more questions I have and the fewer the answers I have to situations that I had  long thought I was knowledgeable about.  Clearly, as I get older, I am not only thinking of my mortality but I am also looking at things differently and realizing how much I really desire to know about life and the world in which I have lived for as many decades as I now have.

If God grants me the opportunity, I would thank and then ask Him why he chose me for the blessings that he bestowed on me when I lived in this world. The truth is that if God had ever given me a pen and paper and asked me to script the life that I wanted to live when I was born, there is absolutely no way that I could have scripted it the way it came out.  I could never have even dreamed of the quantity and nature of blessings and miracles that God chose to pour into my life.  Certainly, this is not the life that I envisaged as a young man and it is only by favor greater than my human intellect and hard work that I am who and what I am.

I would ask God why He took my mother when I was only nine (and my youngest sister was only three years old) and why He took my father just shy of twenty years later - just as my youngest sister was writing her final examination as an undergraduate.  Then I would ask Him why He chose not to let my siblings and me drift as nomads and why He paved the way for us to become successful individuals. I would ask Him if He did that to fulfill His word that the children of the righteous would never beg for bread.

I would ask God why He felt that I deserved to be alive to see the first non-white person assume the high office of the President of the United States. Then I would thank Him for making it such that I was not only alive for that but was also here to see my children grow up and vote for a US President that looked like them.  Perhaps by the time I am having this conversation, I would also be able to thank Him for the opportunity to see a woman as President of the United States.

I would ask God why He made some people white and others black; why He made some gay and others straight; and why He allowed some to be rich and others poor.  I would ask Him if that was to test the ability of man to love others as much as God loves mankind.  I would report to Him that so many in the world that I just left have been hated and harmed by others just for being how God made them, and I would ask God if the hate in this world should ever be expected to end. I would beg God to raise people that would lead efforts to promote love in their communities because too many people who claim to be religious in the world are pushers of hate and violence against those who don't share their race/ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, gender, class, religious affiliation and/or political identity.  I would ask God why human beings believe that they must judge others over who and what they are when He who is the maker of us all has not judged His children but has instead said: "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy".

Finally, I would request God to keep His wall of protection around the family that I left behind on earth when He brought me to join Him in heaven.  I would ask Him to keep my children very close to Him every moment of their lives, to continue to reveal Himself to them according to His will and to maintain permanence in their hearts and lives because I desire to see them in heaven when they have lived their full lives here on earth.

THE INEVITABILITY OF CHANGE - BY PAUL INYANG

 

‎Paul Inyang‎, USA

 Some days I wake up and I see the “glass half-full”. It is not so easy for an “old” curmudgeon like me. We are like dinosaurs and ten...d to stay the course without much variance. We are almost always suspect of change—all its elements and underpinnings. Things are never what they say it is and we have seen it all before—at least that is what we think. But life is constantly moving despite all our misgivings and dragging us all along. It is the old story of a battered people who have lost their zest and have become cynical about every life circumstance. That is not my story today—for life is funny in its twist and turns. One can find themselves in what may seem like a quagmire but the way out may well be that we have to learn to smile about our life and remember that if we have lived long—we have seen it all probably. In every difficulty there is a lesson—one that we can readily see and those that we have to figure out with time. We just have to wait long enough and learn to laugh at ourselves.

It all reminds me of the recent budget situation in my homeland. The budget has been lost and found so many times that it has become hilariously delicious to read about. The characters that are emerging are just as funny as the story itself. The “budget mafia” and the bumbling advisors who in the eyes of many Nigerians do not seem to have a clue. There are the many explanations, “surprise” submissions, inserted items and lack of fundamentals in putting together a budget. Going from an “incremental budget” to a “zero budget” and the constriction of agencies in an attempt to make government “mean and leaner” as they say. Legislators who pretend not to know the problems and a presidency that appears to be finding its feet. The antic of the Nigerian civil servants who the president had all the confidence in, only to be sidelined by last minute items that his folks did not appear to spot prior to submission. In my new world that would merit an immediate firing to all involved. If we can overcome the embarrassment—the story gets juicy. It reminds me of the old saying that the “devil in the details”.

President Buhari has fired the first salvo—24 heads of agencies and parastatals have deservedly been fired. For me, this is a significant indication that we are in for a protracted effort to rid ourselves of corrupt practices. Yes, recovering money from wayward politicians and their cronies is important and must be done. This action signals a more in-depth recognition that the real war is in reforming the system and institutions. There has been speculation that the civil service is next in line. Reportedly, permanent secretaries and directors are in his line of vision. I would dare to say a broader systemic gut is required. For those who understand the process, nothing happens in civil service without the blessings of the permanent secretaries and directors. No money changes hands without their involvement. They are the ones who resist change the most—yes, change will not come until this bloated bureaucratic system is totally reformed. A good start would be the purging of the entire structure and its leadership. The caveat though are their replacements.

Is the president susceptible to same impunity??? Yes he is if not careful. We hope the President's integrity and moral steadfastness guides his decisions. We hope he will also follow due process no matter how arduous the process. The country needs this example. As Segun Ayobolu of The Nation newspaper states—“impunity is the common factor that binds the thieving public official, the Boko Haram terrorist, the armed robber and elected office holder….in the sinister brotherhood of evil”—the defective elements of our society.

I have to admit that all of these happenings can be very confusing. This is the case because Nigerians have never seen anything like it. So some have turned it into jokes—the “change we need”. That informed my earlier assertion that—sometimes some of us have to be dragged into change. Change was never meant to be orderly. It is also the challenge of democracy. Out of this chaos I believe is something special awaiting Nigerians. These are phases that we must go through as a country. We should have a sense of humor while participating and watching this evolving process. Here we go—let see what happens next. It ain’t so bad watching change after all.