Wars Without End

Onwuchekwa Jemie

The phone rang.

“Hello!”

“Good morning, Mr. O. J.”

“I should know that voice . . .”

“Do you ever forget a voice?”

“Faces and names but not voices, usually . . .

This must be the lady captain of industry . . .”

“That’s me!”

“Nigeria’s exemplary Robber Baron.”

“If you say so.”

“The one who got her degree not by bottom power, not by sorting—but by academic diligence.”

“That’s me!”

“But who then turned around and joined the flock of vultures on the public square . . .”

“Well . . .”

“But is now trying to make amends . . .”

“I’m trying.”

“So how did you remember me today?”

“I thought maybe you want a share of the loot after all.”

“I don’t want a share of the loot!”

“Just joking. Who is offering you a share of anything anyway!”

“I say give back to the community the share you took in their name.”

“You know that’s what I’ve been trying to do in the past three years.”

“How is it going?”

“Very slow. It’s tough trying to improve life even in a tiny corner of this country.”

“Is the politics any help?”

“Not at all. The politicians get worse and worse. The violence gets worse and worse.”

“Worse than the Middle East?”

“Nothing can be worse than the Middle East.”

“Kata-kata unlimited!”

“Wars without end!”

“You once wanted to be appointed Ambassador to Israel, didn’t you?”

“Yes. But I was told it would be like going on a suicide mission. In any case, no country would be foolish enough to send a woman  ambassador to an Arab country.”

“Israel is not an Arab country.”

“Isn’t it? Ninety percent of world news every day is about Israel and its conflicts with the Arab countries surrounding it. Gaza. Palestine. Jordan. Lebanon. Syria. Iraq. The Arab-Israeli war looks like it will never end.”

“I hear you. But whatever has a beginning will also have an end.”

“That will be in another two thousand years, maybe. . . . But tell me, Mr. O. J., in this Arab-Israeli affair, who is right and who is wrong?”

“Neither.” 

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a matter of power, not right or wrong.”

“A Darwinian jungle where the strongest prevails and ‘might is right’? ”

“Exactly. It’s the Law of Migration of Peoples. You see, virtually every patch of habitable earth is owned or claimed by some human group. When a new group arrives seeking expansion or fleeing some terror, they gain territory by negotiation but usually by war. The migrant ancient Israelis waged relentless war with their neighbors. Centuries later, they lost a colonial rebellion against the dominating Roman Empire and scattered as refugees throughout Europe, Asia and North Africa. After nearly two thousand years, and with the help of the Europeans who had severely persecuted them, they returned to their former homeland, shoving aside the current Arab occupants. To every Arab effort to regain some of their land, Israel responds with overwhelming brutal force.” 

“Is it right?”

“It’s the global ‘best’ and ‘worst’ practice. Israel is as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ as Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Mexico, the nations of Central and South America. Each of these nations was founded by migrating Europeans who wiped out the natives. Annihilated them. Brutally mass-murdered their men, women and children.”

“Come to think of it, the Arabs did the same in North Africa, creating Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and modern Egypt.” 

“Exactly!”

“The kata-kata inside the Arab countries themselves is endless! Today Iraq. Tomorrow Iran. Then Syria. Egypt. Libya. Yemen. Afghanistan. Pakistan. . . .”

“Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan are not Arab.”

“But they’re Moslem, are they not? Same so-called Middle East. The two leading Moslem factions, Shia and Sunni, mass-murder each other every Feast Day, twice a year.”

“Mayhem, chaos!”

“It’s like a horror movie, with beheadings, choppings-off of hands, girls executed by firing squad consisting of their father, brothers and uncles . . . .”

“And their supposed crime? Some man kidnapped or raped them—against their will, beyond their ability to resist.”

“The kidnapper or rapist goes free!”

 “It’s an upside-down society.”

“But this is the sort of society some people are trying to impose on Nigeria; trying to create enough chaos to enable them seize power and turn Nigeria into an Islamic state.”

“By the way, have the 240 kidnapped Borno schoolgirls come home?”

“No! Four months! They have been raped, forcibly converted to Islam, sold as sex slaves, or murdered! Weren’t you served your breakfast of self-serving excuses this morning?”

“Is such a thing possible in this 21st century?”

“Back to the Stone Age! That’s where we’re headed.”

“If care is not taken, within 50 years Nigeria will be part of the Middle East where every such atrocity is permitted. All the backward values of the world are concentrated in the Middle East . . . .”

“Surprisingly, virtually all is quiet on the eastern Asian front.”

“Yes. There are some oases of sanity left in this desert of a world. There are still some countries led by stable and selfless leaders who are not standing still, running on one spot or sliding down the evolutionary slope back into beasthood—but who are making steady forward progress into an enlightened and humane future . . . .”

Onwuchekwa Jemie