Terrorism has no skin colour!
France, Kenya, America, Nigeria, Sudan, Pakistan, Libya etc . These are a few of the many countries which have constantly been threatened by terrorists.
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Thousands of lives have been lost and many more injured gravely as a result terrorism but it is not their headache alone. It is everybody’s headache… as long as you have life to be reading this!
Paris has been trending this week. As many as 129 lives have been lost. Several others have been injured and are close to death.
The terrorists struck again! Somewhere on Facebook, there is a tug of war as to whether it is ethically right for an African to change their profile picture as an act of solidarity with France.
One school of thought asserts that such terrors happen day in and out in Africa and no one had thought it expedient to suggest we changed profile pictures as a means of solidarity with such countries, as was done by Facebook.
Another school of thought opposed that the world (France especially) has always been in support of countries whose citizens were affected by such acts; even in the recent case of the abducted Chibok girls in Nigeria.
Terrorism is a plague. It is a canker; a threat to humans’ existence. It is not wise to look at such a threat through the lens of a race. Terrorism, draped in the cloth of religion, has no skin colour. It is no respecter of persons. When terrorists blow themselves up, both white and black-skinned people die.
Bombs are neither skin-sensitive nor selective. Everyone dies… painfully.
The earlier we came together as one people to fight such terrorists, the better it would be for us all. The last thing we should argue about now is who supported whom at what point in time.
After the Charlie Hebdo attack, for instance, world leaders (including some Africans) thronged France to march against terrorism.
Meanwhile, earlier, there had been the West Gate Mall attack in Kenya, which no world leader “marched against”; not even the African ones.
I know all lives matter. You make your life matter for others to know that you indeed matter. No one will buy you any more than you sell yourself.
African leaders sat in the comfort of their homes only to send messages of condolence to Kenya. African lives, to the African leaders, were not a priority.
When it happened in France, their leaders proved that every single life lost in that senseless manslaughter mattered. They marched in solidarity against it. We can’t expect others to take us seriously when we don’t even take ourselves seriously.
That’s the uncomfortable truth.
Fighting terrorism is not just about bombing people. It’s not just about killing back. Terrorism is a whole movement; a mindset; an ideology.
The hardest battle against terrorism is not against the terrorists but the mindset of such terrorists. Even after they’ve been killed, another generation with the same mindset will sprout up to take their place.
Terrorists are a bunch of misguided people whose minds have been fed with pain, revenge and anguish with their only consolation in misinterpreted religious teachings. It is extremely hard to fight a people fed with not only arms but such thoughts.
Guns are not enough to fight terrorism. They would only escalate it. It’s always a vendetta. It’s always a cycle of manslaughter. That is why terrorism, unfortunately, is not ending anytime soon.
People feel mistreated in society. They feel cheated. Initially, such people bottle up their grievances. However, eventually, they come in contact with others who want to champion their own evil activities, hence, they are used as vehicles. They go on a killing spree as a payback to society for supposedly depriving them of one thing or another.
Terrorism is a threat to humanity; not a threat to a particular race. We all ought to raise our guards, especially as Ghanaians. Terrorists have no sympathy. All they have is a crap of an ideology… and a mission to kill.
We have our nation to defend. We need to beef our security systems. Instead of arguing whether or not Facebook was right to suggest to us to change our profile pictures, we ought to start educating Ghanaians on suspicious characters.
Ghanaians need to be educated on security alerts and measures else… terrorists would be brewing their ideologies in our homes with the least of our knowledge.
They are closer than we think. The time is now!