I have realized that in the land of the insane, sanity is a crime. Two things happened during this week that made me realize that your environment plays a great part in shaping your character. The River state house of assembly mayhem and the sight of a mosquito perching on the wall of my room. You are wondering what I am ranting about or the connection between these two events… well, for you to understand what I am talking about, I give two very brief stories … I was born in a not particularly tranquil town, Benin city, believe me the streets of Benin city are tough! We don’t fight with fist in Benin, we fight with broken bottles. I went to a very rugged primary school near the biggest motor park in Benin city then, (some of my best friends are now bus drivers and motor park touts) My secondary school was no different, the school was known more for its football prowess than it academic performance. It was situated near the biggest market in Benin city and it was almost a breeding ground for hooligans. My university was also in the same town and was itself also not an oasis of peace. Growing up and living in this town made me used to scenes of violence. Thus I was often not fazed by scenes of violence and I actually used to relish the sight of people pummeling each other. Secondly, when I was kid, I used to be a terror to animals! Animals of all kinds: I never believed in the idea of pets (I still don’t anyway) so I terrorized all the pets. There was nothing I didn’t do to make life miserable for pets. I loved terrorizing pets and enjoyed killing the ones that needed to be killed. Fast forward to the present day, where I am holed up someone in Europe and watching the river state fracas, there was this trepidation about the whole thing in me so much so I couldn’t really bring myself to watch it, I kept flinching away in horror at the level of violence. I simply could not endure watching the violence. The scenes were just too violent for me to watch. Then just yesterday evening, there was this big blood filled mosquito (which was obviously overfed from drinking my blood and could not fly) All I had to do was simply clap my palms and kill it. But funny enough, I could not do it. Why? One part of me was like Ike, don’t kill this innocent mosquito na!!!!! Leave it, after all, it’s not giving you malaria like the African specie. So just leave it, then I heard my own voice saying “mosquitoes have a right to live, they are life forms like you don’t kill them” It was then I knew something has gone horribly wrong with me!! Horribly wrong! Since then I have been wondering what has gone wrong with me, have did I become a sissy overnight, how did I become so soft? How did I become so sensitive to violence and animal rights?? What happened to me that made me find it difficult to kill a mere mosquito and watch someone hit another person with a mace? How did I suddenly realize that even mosquitoes have the right to live? Suddenly it dawned on me…. I changed because of my environment, I now live in a country where there is little violence, in all my years in this part of the world I have never seen anyone fight, I have never seen any act of violence. People have rights; there are ways of settling disputes. Everyone’s dignity is respected. Even animals have rights. I guess living in Germany have softened me to an unimaginable extent …. I am now so soft that I now think about and respect the right of mosquitoes to live…. This is not normal!!!!! But what can I do?????????? It is who I have become, maybe when I go back to 9ja, I might come back to my normal rugged lifestyle. I still don’t understand myself.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 19:58:11 +0000
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