What I didn’t say about justice

 

There are a few things I haven’t said about justice.

For one thing, justice is often elusive. It is the farthest thing in some trials, like the proverbial fountain we all long for but can never reach.

And then comes the hopelessness, the loss of faith in a system that should uphold truth and ensure fairness.

Over the past few weeks, we have heard a lot about justice.

It has been the buzz-word of the many protesters strewn across cities and nations around the world. With cardboard signs held above their heads, loud and vivid inscriptions of their displeasure and urgent demands.

A little peep into the bowels of history will show this is not our first rodeo and will likely not be the last.

Some say, it will be different this time, and we truly hope and pray so. But I believe it is up to each one of us to make this possible.

It’s up to us not to get caught up in the drama, the media hype and the attention garnering words but to remember the substance, the people who are victims of these inequalities and violence. To remember that at the end of the day, not one of us can be deemed less human, nor subjugated as a basis of their race, their gender, their tribe or their beliefs.

The unfortunate reality is that we humans are capable of the most atrocious acts the world has ever seen. We have a well within us that can fuel devious schemes and inflict untold pain on others.

I write this a few short weeks after a 22-year-old girl was brutally raped and beaten by a group of men, in Edo State Nigeria. They used a fire extinguisher as their weapon of choice, which left a trail of blood and flesh on the grey floors of the scene, a church.

It was horrific, unimaginable yet another picture of the times we live in and what we humans can do to others.

In the midst of unprecedented racial violence in the United States are also stories of untold violence on women, children, the old and also the disabled. There are countless reports of unconscionable acts meted on others. From 8year old boys who were tortured consistently by caregivers to widows who are thrown out of their homes and left to fend for themselves.

 

Evil lives in this world.

 

Evil is expressed in us.

 

Evil is birthed through us.

 

We are the carriers through our acts, our silence and our indifference.

 

I know these are heavy words and may seem like an unfair accusation, but I hope you don’t focus on that but on what this means for the world as a collective

The 21^st century is inundated with “modernity”, innovations which worlds before us would never have imagined, yet the thirst to invoke pain and hurt others remains at it’s basest level.

 

In many ways, the world has not changed.

 

People still get raped. There are reports that about two million Nigerians get raped each year. People are abused in the most barbaric ways, they are still maimed and killed with no recourse to justice and accountability.

 

But this is not just about that. It’s not so much about what is happening but about what part we play in it?

 

Have we unconsciously aligned with the perpetrators of these dastardly acts? Have we become accomplices of a broken system, believing there’s no hope but to accept the status quo and take care of ourselves?

 

Has this become a fight to just safeguard our own bodies?

 

I’m not African American, I’ve never been raped but I have been a victim of abuse in all its ramifications. Abuse targeted at me because of my gender, my age, my skin, my tribe, my ways and even my beliefs.

 

Perhaps, this gives me room to speak, but it also highlights my complicity. I too gave up many times. The issues and problems often seemed insurmountable.

 

How do you change a system you were born into?

How do you erase a belief that has led to the privileges and gains of one people against another – be it patriarchy, white privilege, age-related bias and tribalism?

 

Many of these issues have plagued me through different seasons of life. I noted these as a young girl in braids swinging behind her back, and I still see them, the same things some even worse, as an older woman with creeping greys.

 

We say we want justice.

 

But justice has never been an abstract thing.

It has never been something that falls on one’s laps. It has always required some level of action, not just any type of action but a certain type, a type which the victim often has no access to nor will to pursue.

 

That’s the crux of the hopelessness, the realization that what you seek has never been within your reach, that you will always be a step or more behind, stretching out the hands that never seem to touch the vestiges of truth, of fairness, of right and justice.

 

And this weariness runs deep.

 

It runs in the mother who tells her defiled child not to tell anyone. No, it’s not just about the shame and stigma but the knowledge that speaking out will lead to nothing but more shame and stigma. It will lead to the notoriety that will follow that child for the rest of their life. It will lead to complete strangers determining the wrongs of that child and her mother and of course, the perpetrator roaming free.

 

But that wouldn’t be the full story.

 

We often hear that no one is all good or all bad. Each one of us is dynamic, with potentialities and possibilities flowing through our veins. The potentiality to harm and to love, and sometimes, those two are not exclusive.

 

What would cause a man to force his way through the innermost parts of a girl, to tie her down, to rip her apart with his potent strength and still beat her to death? What would ever make this okay?

 

What would ever make this conscionable, expected or accepted?

 

Rape is often one of the most pervasive weapons used on civilians in war-torn countries. It is a way to inflict and perpetuate long term hardship through enemy lines. It has often been justified by warring parties as an effective way of oppression and victory. Like the slave masters of old, you start with harming the body, taking away the dignity and the beauty of the body.

 

I have been told that ‘broken people break people’. Which must mean one must be broken to break others and one must be suffering to inflict the same poison on others. Perhaps, this is often the case but it provides no justification, just a different perspective to the story.

A different angle to the binary view of pain for one and pleasure for the other.

 

We are no ordinary people and we are doing no ordinary things. We are a conflux of emotions, of jagged pieces that make an uneven whole.

 

We are a broken race, past the skin, the bones and right into the heart of our humanity.

And the justice we seek, the true and real, and messy and loving justice must stem from that place of the fallen. From the recognition that no one is the standard. This is not a cop-out(pun intended)for the criminal, the racist or rapist but a reminder that sustainable action is possible when the truth is the standard.

Not our emotions, our sentiments, our expectations of right and wrong but in the truth of our humanity, of our divine connection to each other and our willingness to break the divide.

“Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.”

Romans 12:21 (NLT)