Trayvon Martin: Beyond the Outcry

Everyone that pays attention to the media, especially international media from the west, must have at this point in time heard about Trayvon Martin. If by chance you happen to have crawled under a rock in Mars for the last one month and thus missed the whole commotion, Trayvon Martin is the 17-year-old boy shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch volunteer.

If you don’t know about the details of the case, as many still don’t, you might not think much of a headline that says “boy killed by guard”. But why should you think different, News headlines are replete with such news stories anyway. 


However, the Trayvon Martin case is unique in more ways than one. Not only is the late Trayvon Martin a minor, he was unarmed and not partaking in anything illegal at the time he was fatally shot by Zimmerman. Sad, you might say, another young boy at the wrong place at the wrong time. 


Yes, Trayvon Martin was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Wrong time and place for a black youth to be in 21^st century America. Wrong place to be, but right sort of place to get a bullet in the chest. A bullet fired by a white adult male who clearly outweighs him.

For those who have had the time in this dreary economic climate to follow the ruckus that emanated after the news sipped out that Mr. George Zimmerman, the killer of that innocent boy, was allowed to walk free after the fact, two truths ring clear: Zimmerman pulled the trigger of the gun that took the young boys life, the victim was armed with skittles and a cup of ice tea at the time of the shooting and was not doing anything untoward—except we follow George Zimmerman’s contention that the boy was walking aimlessly around the neighbourhood and agree with him that that constitutes a crime.

I feel profound sympathy for the family of the late Trayvon Martin and can only hope they find the strength to bear the loss, but the issue at hand is deeper than the death of a boy that made his parents proud.

I also feel sympathy for black Americans, who have had to contend with similar killings by high-handed and often times racially motivated white gunmen. I watch the news story and share the rage and confusion of those who ask that the boy’s killer face justice, not because I am of the same race with a majority of those I see carrying placards calling for justice, but because I never ever believed in extra-judicial killing by anyone.

As a Nigerian who has not personally experienced the blind racism that many allude to in the west, that one reads about, sees in movies and TV debates, I cannot claim to fully understand what it feels like to be discriminated against because of one’s colour. I know many say tribalism is similar, but I think it is only superficially so as one’s tribe cannot easily be decoded at first glance--one’s race is usually as clear as day.

However, as justified as my anger and that of millions around the world itching for justice is, I also know that getting justice for Trayvon Martin should not be the end of it. It is easy to march on the street and call for the arrest of one man, but forgetting that the arrest and possible imprisonment of one man does not change the situation on the ground that made his alleged crime possible. There is now greater need for people the world over to look at how we relate to ourselves. Should we continue hating because we don’t understand, or seek knowledge to make us better understand?

Across the world, people continue to hate more than they love, to kill more than they save and the destroy more than they build. Life, particularly human life is considered most sacred by religions world over. Yet, in this earth, man continues to see killing as a means of settling real and perceived disputes.

Trayvon Martin is just another notch on the pole that marks the billion untimely taken as a result of man’s resolve to take rather than give life to his kind and George Zimmerman, whether he pleads self-defence or not, broke the law of nature, he killed Trayvon Martin.

Gaddafi, seen through the eyes of an African

I recall the first time I encountered Muammar Gaddafi. I cannot recall exactly when in the late 80s it was, but I know for sure that I was a pre-teen, still much in awe of the world outside and on the lookout for heroes. That first encounter was in print, in a copy of Reader’s Digest. I also cannot recall if he was on the cover or not, but I remember the title of the article about him vividly as if I am looking at it now, with the bold print that states “Gaddafi, son of a tailor!” looking up at me from the compact print size that is Reader’s Digest’s renown.  Though subsequent encounters were also via the media, new and old, I feel I know the man the west is wont to call “mad”

That particular copy of Readers Digest was old even then; a memento from my dad’s magazine collection days in the 70s, saved with several others in a large box that he made everyone understand is precious.

That article, unlike the present bile spewing ones that you will find in most western magazines, was written in a voice whose worship-like tone I still hear, more than twenty years on, and talked at length about the famed leader’s freedom fighter attributes – Guevara-like freedom fighting ideals and how much he was loved by his people.

With this first impression and later insights about what Gaddafi was doing in Libya, I grew up to admire the Brother Leader greatly. His eccentric streak aside, and judging by the fact on ground, no matter how devilish the western world paints Gaddafi, even they, grudgingly, admits that the man was first a patriot and improved the life of his people greatly.

I say this with all sense of decency and forthrightness, for Libyans, even the rebels -- when they stop to think about it -- will greatly admit that their erstwhile envious place in Africa and the world, was on account of the doggedness of the man Gaddafi. That he was a dictator is not a thing that anyone would argue about, but that he was the best of the lot in a region that until this year knew only that form of governance, should also not be in doubt.

It is with this sense of benevolence that much of Africa remembers Gaddafi. True, our opinion does not count for much in the world at present, but within our hearts and our words would the other side of Gaddafi’s story be saved – that story of a great man that looked out for his people and made them the envy of all of Africa.

A lot have been said about Gaddafi not having a choice in the face of enormous oil wealth but to give something, even if just a living wage to his subjects, but a clear truth should not be overshadowed by prevailing fact. Libya is not the only oil or resource rich country in Africa, but Libya is the only one where the citizens led a relative good life. It is common knowledge in Africa that Libyans were so well taken care of that economic migrants, from Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Europe and elsewhere, did much of their manual labour and household chores.

A lot is also being said about Gaddafi’s subjugation of the Libyan people's freedom. People make a lot of noise about freedom, but forget that freedom is relative. Westerners, with their welfare systems and whatnot are prone to grandstand and expect the rest of the world to toe their democratic principles, but forget that their brand of democracy is not a one-size-fit-all and that their leaders have and are still supporting some of the world’s most repressive states. Do Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain and lately Egypt and Tunisia ring a bell?

Some others call him a sponsor of terrorism, but when we consider that Gaddafi backed the IRA, ANC, Liberian rebels who fought against Samuel Doe, and factions in the Sierra Lone conflict, all revolutionaries who like him fought against an establishment that was oppressing them one wy or the other. In this guise, Gaddafi is essentially the freedom fighter that old Reader’s Digest article made him out to be.

Gaddafi was killed on October 20 2011 in his hometown Sirte in the final hours of an 8 month, NATO inspired civil war. While many are questioning the sort of death a man that lived for his country died, I feel that that was the only exit option available to the Brother Leader who had a life or death bounty on his head.

While we may hear reverse statements from the western leaders, who were quick to celebrate the death of a man whose hand they clasped happily in the past, as more people frown at the manner of his death, their complicity in his death and the destruction of his country should not be forgotten.

As an emancipated African, I pride myself with the fact that much of Africa mourned the death of the great man and many wished a leader of his ilk would happen to their nation in their lifetime. While the western press and governments take pride in their ability to get away with murder and nation wrecking, Africans are wising-up to their antics and hopefully would not allow them the freehand to run shod around the continent for long.

Sleep well Lion of Tripoli, you did not live in vain, and Libyans, when the fog clears from their eyes will recall this and rue your death.