When journalism met luck in USA -Too many coincidences can be dangerous
By the time you read this column, the outcome of the FBI investigation ordered by President Trump into allegations of sexual misconduct against US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh may have been made known.
Kavanaugh has been accused by Christine Blasey Ford, an American professor of psychology, of sexually assaulting her in 1982.
Kavanaugh, tearful and angry, has vehemently denied the allegation.
In some cultures, such matters could be solved in the manner prescribed by former President Rawlings i.e. resort to the shrines of Antoa Nyama.
That is not my prescription, though my refusal to resort to the shrine has nothing to do with the reality of “African electronics”.
As a Christian the bible itself informs me in Ephesians 6:12 of the “powers of the dark world” and “spiritual wickedness” in the heavenlies.
But there is something called nemesis.
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Sometimes God warns us ahead of the approach of nemesis, using coincidences.
Consider these incidents.
A few hours before the Senate Judicial Committee was set to vote, after its widely televised hearings, one of the Senators, Jeff Flake was confronted at the US Capitol (a week ago today) by a crowd of women who wanted to know why he had decided to vote for the Judge.
Among them were two women who claimed to have once been victims of sexual assault.
As the Senator entered the lift to go to the debating chambers to cast his vote, these two women stopped him in the elevator.
As he darted into the elevator, one of the two women caught up with him, put her foot in the door, and stopped it from closing.
The two women wanted to know why he was going to vote yes.
A CNN crew happened to be there and filmed the confrontation.
That confrontation changed the course of events.
So heart-wrenching were the women’s emotionally high pitched delivery that the senator had a change of heart.
Inside the chamber, he voted for Kavanaugh alright, but on condition that the senate delayed the floor vote by one week so the FBI could investigate the claim.
That is what delayed the vote by one week.
The very next day, another woman emerged from nowhere alleging that the judge had exposed himself to her at a party years ago.
The purpose of this column today is to point out some inevitables of life.
The two women were meeting for the first time that morning.
The CNN crew had no prior knowledge of the women’s intentions.
They just happened to be in the office of the senator that morning, waiting to get an interview as to why he had decided to vote for the embattled Supreme Court nominee.
Call it ‘luck’ for CNN; another word is serendipity.
As a believer in fate, I am intrigued by how coincidences and fate are playing out.
I became a believer in these phenomena after reading Thomas Hardy’s novel, ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’, William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and the Christian bible’s Book of Esther.
Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, to a sailor; he shoots into prominence as Mayor of Casterbridge; his wife and daughter return into his life after 16 years; his wife dies leaving Henchard a note not properly sealed; Henchard convinces Elizabeth-Jane that he is her father, but that is just before he reads the note and discovers that the girl is not his daughter, after all.
She later marries his worst enemy, followed by a series of coincidences leading to his tragic death.
In the play, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, Capulet wants to marry off his daughter, Juliet, to someone else; but she has just been married secretly by a Friar to Romeo.
To prevent her father from insisting on his choice of husband for her, the Friar advises Juliet to feign death by swallowing a powerful potion that would put her to a death-like sleep till Romeo returns.
A letter is written to Romeo informing him that Juliet is actually not dead and that he should proceed back home.
The letter does not get to Romeo who arrives home to find Juliet “dead”.
He commits suicide.
Not long after that, Juliet wakes up, only to discover Romeo dead. Upon that discovery, she also takes her life.
Dear reader, I will urge you to pick the bible and read the Book of Esther.
In it is the power and role of fate or coincidence.
Haman, the king’s chief advisor, is determined to end the life of Mordecai.
Haman builds a guillotine with the intention of recommending to the king to impale his enemies, including Mordecai, on it.
It so happens that the queen has turned the heart of the king against Haman.
The king, incensed, leaves the company of the queen awhile to catch some fresh air and cool his temper.
Haman learns of the king’s anger and decides to ask the queen to intercede for him.
The king returns just at a time when Haman is holding the queen imploring her to beg on his behalf.
The king does not hear his words and concludes that Haman is “molesting” his queen; whereupon he sentenced him to death, on the very guillotine.
Coincidences can be dangerous, and I think that there have been one too many in the life of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.