Mali killings and visitation of evil
8 March 2015 By Abi Giwa
Bar in Mali where five were killed (Courtesy:www.bbc.com)
People go to the bar to drink and listen to good music. Bar enthusiasts would hardly expect machine gun and grenade attacks but enjoyment derived from the love of getting high. But in Mali the event this weekend turned into horror, when five people were slain with machine gun and grenade attacks at La Terrace bar in Bamako by a masked infidel.
According to a BBC report, a gun man exclaimed "Allahu Akbar". The report said further that the group the shooters belong is unknown, a sign of uncoordinated attack and fighters in disarray, on the heal of Boko-Haram's Shekau reported declaration of allegiance to the ISIS, in search of support at the onset of superior fire power of the Nigerian military.
Back to the death in the bar and what the Bamako incidence reminds in literature about people in merriment and the visitation of evil. It is in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"; a Christmas time at King Arthur's court, Knights and ladies in celebration, appearance of a stranger with an axe and the stranger asked the King to chop his the (stranger's) head. The King hesitated but got help from Sir Gawain who chopped off the axe man's head.
But the axe man replaced his own head as soon as it was severed and asked Gawain for an appointment in his own bunker on a New Year day. Sir Gawain fulfilled the appointment. The story of Sir Gawain's journey to the Green Knights' fortress is a classical example in bravery. He knew not what awaited him. Everyone, including all the Knights and ladies, feared for his life.
It was still a deal of axe blows to the neck. Luckily Gawain who first presented his neck and the Green Knight dealt two blows and both first two and the third blow drew no blood and that settled the matter, followed by Gawain's protest that he had fulfilled the bargain in their deal. This was followed by a moral test and which Gawain almost surmounted, but for the human nature in him in his handling of Green Knight's presentation of his own wife to Gawain to woo and unknown to Gawain that a trap had been set for him.
Wasn't the encounter of Knights in Arthur's court with the Green Knight a visitation of evil just like the experience of men and women in a bar in Mali visited by gun men? Isn't it evil for people to be killed wantonly the way those guys in the Mali bar were killed by gun men, the same way Boko-Haram and ISIS have been killing people without justification?
Isn't the only difference between these two episodes is that no life is lost in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and that it teaches a great moral lesson about courtesy, consistency, the need to wary of affection in strange places and placing one's security on material. Of course, as a story that teaches loyalty to God, it reveals that men and women who maim and kill innocent people and taking away people's joy in the name of God doing their own and will and not that of God.
In their ignorance, terrorists have continued their killing spree in Mali, despite foreign intervention to help the country stave off terror attacks. Just as this piece is being concluded, another report by the BBC says a rocket attack hits Kidal's United Nation's base in northern Mali, killing a peacekeeper and two civilians. And in Nigeria, suicide bombers are let loose on Maiduguri as Nigerian soldiers are busy flushing out the Boko-Haram from their stronghold.
According to a BBC report, a gun man exclaimed "Allahu Akbar". The report said further that the group the shooters belong is unknown, a sign of uncoordinated attack and fighters in disarray, on the heal of Boko-Haram's Shekau reported declaration of allegiance to the ISIS, in search of support at the onset of superior fire power of the Nigerian military.
Back to the death in the bar and what the Bamako incidence reminds in literature about people in merriment and the visitation of evil. It is in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"; a Christmas time at King Arthur's court, Knights and ladies in celebration, appearance of a stranger with an axe and the stranger asked the King to chop his the (stranger's) head. The King hesitated but got help from Sir Gawain who chopped off the axe man's head.
But the axe man replaced his own head as soon as it was severed and asked Gawain for an appointment in his own bunker on a New Year day. Sir Gawain fulfilled the appointment. The story of Sir Gawain's journey to the Green Knights' fortress is a classical example in bravery. He knew not what awaited him. Everyone, including all the Knights and ladies, feared for his life.
It was still a deal of axe blows to the neck. Luckily Gawain who first presented his neck and the Green Knight dealt two blows and both first two and the third blow drew no blood and that settled the matter, followed by Gawain's protest that he had fulfilled the bargain in their deal. This was followed by a moral test and which Gawain almost surmounted, but for the human nature in him in his handling of Green Knight's presentation of his own wife to Gawain to woo and unknown to Gawain that a trap had been set for him.
Wasn't the encounter of Knights in Arthur's court with the Green Knight a visitation of evil just like the experience of men and women in a bar in Mali visited by gun men? Isn't it evil for people to be killed wantonly the way those guys in the Mali bar were killed by gun men, the same way Boko-Haram and ISIS have been killing people without justification?
Isn't the only difference between these two episodes is that no life is lost in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and that it teaches a great moral lesson about courtesy, consistency, the need to wary of affection in strange places and placing one's security on material. Of course, as a story that teaches loyalty to God, it reveals that men and women who maim and kill innocent people and taking away people's joy in the name of God doing their own and will and not that of God.
In their ignorance, terrorists have continued their killing spree in Mali, despite foreign intervention to help the country stave off terror attacks. Just as this piece is being concluded, another report by the BBC says a rocket attack hits Kidal's United Nation's base in northern Mali, killing a peacekeeper and two civilians. And in Nigeria, suicide bombers are let loose on Maiduguri as Nigerian soldiers are busy flushing out the Boko-Haram from their stronghold.
