By
Obododimma
Oha
A people madly in love with tragedy or its
enactment, in fact, urgently needs a therapy. I am sure that being in love with
the enactment of tragedy reminds you about the Roman Empire. That empire
considered itself great, so great, that it could put a person in an enclosure
and release lions that had not been fed for days on the person. Does it stop
there? People would sit and watch with gladness the hungry animals tear the person up limb by
limb and fight to have the choicest meat. Some people would sit and be sipping
their wine while this gory experience was going on. They saw it as wonderful
relaxation. “Great” Roman Empire called this kind of terrible event “gladiatorial
show”! What is GLAD about it? You may ask. Nothing. It is barbaric and
shocking! No wonder that the curses on the lips of the dying fellows added or
contributed to the quick demise of the Evil Empire.
In our days,
we are returning to the terrible glee of that Evil Empire in subtle ways. From
Wrestlemania to the slaughter of local populations and sacking of their
communities, modern GLADiatorial shows manifest. What more, humans with mouths
that eat salt and pepper would have the courage to get on to social media
platforms and justify the shocking actions. They are inevitably declaring
publicly that they also have shares in the terrible curses issuing from the
lips of those torn apart by modern lions. They inevitably claim part of
whatever payment reserved in this life and hereafter for the crimes: they take
the payment back home and store it in the treasuries of their personal
destinies and what more, for their communities. That is one reason we have to
be very careful, for we could by our very actions, bring something terrible on
our communities as a whole. Communities that think they are winning or
flourishing on the pains of others, also have a payment. If care is not taken,
they would perish or vanish as the thin air. If they are lucky, they would
remain and know tremendous backwardness.
But surely,
payment would come. It is not superstition. It would come in forms not expected
and when not expected.
Further,
ignorant societies may think that they winning, that their person, their
champion, is devouring others for them, not knowing that they are the very ones
being devoured. They are the very ones being eaten up by the hungry lion.
That
requires, as our ancestors would advise in a proverb, Onye hụrụ ka ọkụkọ na-abọ nsị, ya chụpụ ya, maka na ọ maghi ma ọ
ga-emechaa bụrụ ya ga-ata ọkpa ya (Whoever sees a domestic fowl scattering
faeces with its legs, let the person drive the bird away, because the person
does not know whether they would eventually be the one to eat those legs (when
the chicken is killed and cooked)). No problems. Allow the bird to keep
scattering the faeces; enjoy the show. But it is doing this shocking thing for
you and its aftermath in the main should be for you!
I know that
some cannot tell the difference between tragedy or what is tragic and what is
not. Is that not an irony and a symptom of what I am saying? That their reality
is distorted and they need help? They may even hide behind the mask of the
academic excellence and ask me to consider the purgation of emotion, as Aristotle
reflected, too. Yes, this purgation of emotion or its intensification is part
of the symptom that psychologists and psychiatrists should urgently come to
help all those having a gleeful enjoyment of GLADiatorial shows.
Yes; an
urgent therapy! Maybe a community therapy. Is it not possible that, as things
fall apart around you, you have unhinged a bit, and your mind is no longer
exactly your own? Worse still, you do not know or even care. Chaos has become
your life, your culture. Chaos. You are praying for Heaven but enacting Hell or expecting the enactment of Hell. Terrible if this condition has become
common to many in the society. Psychiatrists and psychologists should, please, intervene with the kind of therapy that some people who are in love with tragedy need.
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