20/10/20: The Parable of Captain Erwin Smith (part 1)
The Lekki Toll Gate massacre and the conversations surrounding its anniversary have cemented a point for me.
A few days ago, I saw someone on Twitter share a conversation in which he asked his Kenyan friend why protests had succeeded in Kenya but not in Nigeria. The friend’s response was simple: they killed some people, and we you people stopped protesting. In Kenya, they killed people and the protests intensified.
That response stayed with me.
I had also seen a TikTok video yeterday, on the anniversary of the Lekki Toll Gate Massacre, in which someone said, “So we are in agreement that if the election is rigged, like it was in 2023, we are going to turn this country into France.”
The comments fell into different groups. Some people supported the idea of responding as the French would. Others appeared to be talking about looting and breaking into places; another group argued that we should focus on government structures if we wanted to loot anywhere.
But what bothers me most is the argument that, because people died at Lekki, we should not protest again, or that stopping protests after the massacre was justified.
I believe the opposite: if you thought that the protests were justified then they should never have stopped.
To explain my point, i will tell you the parable of Captain Erwin Smith and the Beast Titan:
Erwin Smith was the commander of what he, and his country men, believed to be humanity’s last surviving settlement.
They were locked away behind 3 circles of walls around their civilization. Beyond their walls were Titans, giants that ate people.
The titans had attacked and breached the first 2 walls. Erwin and his soldiers ventured outside to fight them and reclaim lost territory.
During one such expedition, Erwin and his soldiers found themselves facing an enemy they couldn’t defeat. They were surrounded with no where to go and Erwin needed them to take a suicide charge against the enemy for a small chance of survival.
Erwin gathers his men and tells them they need to charge, but some are reluctant.
They ask Erwin if they are going to die if they charge and he answers in the affirmative. They ask him why they should charge if they are going to die anyway, and that’s when Erwin says,
“Everything that you thought had meaning… every hope, dream, or moment of happiness you had… none of it matters as you lie bleeding out on the bttle field.
None of it changes what a speeding rock does to a human body.
Get Pacifier’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
WE ALL DIE!
Does that mean that our lives were meaningless?
Does that mean there was no point in our being born?
Would you say that of our slain comrades?
What about their lives?
Were they meaningless?
THEY WERE NOT!
Their memory serves as an example to us all!
The Courageous fallen!
The anguished fallen!
THEIR LIVES HAVE MEANING BECAUSE WE THE LIVING REFUSE TO FORGET THEM!
And as we ride to certain death, we trust our successors to do the same for us!
Because my soldier do not buckle or yield when faced with the cruelty of this world
My soldier push forward!
My soldiers scream out!
My soldiers rage!”
And then it cuts to rocks riping them to shreds😂😂.
If you haven’t seen Attack On Titan, i advice that you go on youtube and watch this scene. It’s really powerful stuff and it always moves me.
I hope my point is obvious, but if it isn’t then i explain my parable tomorow.
