By
Obododimma Oha
One of my inlaws named his son "Aghadị" (There is a war going on). It is possible that the child was born in wartime, and so the name is a reminder. It is history worn as a label. It reminds us and reminds the bearer about the when of coming. But it also says other things about life. Life could be seen as a battle and this is what Aghadị should know in coming.
Agha dị and that is why this world is now upside-down. Strange forms and strange behaviors. Strange times. Strange this, strange that. Strangeness. Agha dị. That requires that we all operate with some cleverness, not naivety. Wartime is not for being simple-minded and casual. It is a time for being fully awake, what Nigerians call "Shine your eyes."
Agha dị and everyone has to fight and survive. Agha dị and the fittest may not survive at the end. Maybe we assume too much as humans and deserve to be replaced. Survive and transmit our strangeness?
There is war and unusual things happen in wartime. Some people kill others. That seems normal in war. But some can go to the extent of eating the carcass of others that they have killed. There is war and anything, just anything, could become food. So, everything and anything has to fight for survival or become food for the other.
In every race, there is war. In every continent and country, there is war. In every ethnic group, there is war. Even in the family, there is war: children and mothers may gang up against fathers, et cetera. What of the extended family? Ah, bigger war! It may even be physical, with children from the same mother at each other's throat. Agha dị! Family war and societal and global war!
Quite disturbing is this bitter war among those who sucked the same breast once upon a time. If they are not fighting over a piece of property bequeathed, they are arguing over who should decide. So, the war is that infantile, even silly sometimes.
There is also this bitter war between the young and the old. It's been on for ages, and has got a point one wants to see the other totally eliminated! In my Igbo culture, it is narrated that the aged represents the young as "tick" restless and difficult to control. And the young represents the aged as the spotted sky, white here black there. So, the war appears timeless, a "forever" war.
What of parents and their children? Some children may think that the "control" is too much, that they do not need any controller. And when they do not have anyone watching their backs, they lament their vulnerability. Their parents have become thorns but they have limited lives and would eventually go their way, leaving the protected to be exposed.
In some countries, some citizens could be shot and killed. They have millions in their population and so such subtractions are only an insignificant scratch. More worthless people are even being born on daily basis, crying for food. They should die twice! There is war!
Why shouldn't there be war, if we think now that right is wrong and wrong is right? When we cannot differentiate between white and black, is war not already there beckoning on us?
One won't be surprised to hear that a person named "Aghadị" is just acting "crazy". Imagine it being said that "War has come" or "War has arrived" when he walks in. Or one makes a point and there is an applause, punctuated by the comment, "There is war!" But that there is war is not a mere joke or exuberance. Agha dị.
When he arrives at the venue of the meeting and you proclaim, "War has arrived," are you not asking for a bomb? Don't wake up the sleeping tiger! Just don't rouse the animal.
There is war! But there is the war in there and there is the one out there. There are, indeed, "wars" and one is sane when one has won all. One has to coordinate this war and that war. One has to keep on fighting, too.
One is supposed to be a field marshal to exist here. It is not a mere playground for anyone to throw sand at me. It's a warfront. It's a place where friends could be enemies.
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