Rest In Peace, Yahya Sinwar

Femi Akomolafe

Oct 20, 2024

First, this beautiful piece of poetry: If We Must Die by Claude McKay

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursèd lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!”

My Yoruba people have plenty of proverbs glorifying heroism. Although, like most Africans, the Yorubas have a passion for life and are noted for their extravagant “Owanbe” parties, one of the traits most admired in Yoruba folklore is gallant heroism.

I don't know of a single Yoruba tale which glorify cowardice. Cowards are simply mocked.

“Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear,

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.” - William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 2,

Let me illustrate this with the story of Lt Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi.

When the elements of the Northern Troops of the Nigerian Army struck on July 29, 1966, in their revenge coup against the coup organized by the Igbo elements of the army, the Head of State, General Aguiyi-Ironsi, was visiting Ibadan, the capital of the Western Region where Colonel Fajuyi was the state governor.

Since the July coup was essentially a fight between the Hausas and the Igbos, the Hausas believed the Yorubas had no horse in the race. They ordered Fajuyi to surrender his host, and his refusal to obey the order led to his being bundled with General Ironsi to be killed.

Colonel Fajuyi was from my Mother's hometown of Ado-Ekiti. A nice Cenotaph has been erected at a prominent space in his hometown, now the capital of Ekiti State.

I was young then, but I recalled that the Ekitis mourned their assassinated son as a Hero.

While other people might have condemned him for foolishness, Fajuyi was considered an Akikanju (maybe Google can help you, because I cannot think of any English or Dutch word that can best capture the meaning).

The pictures and videos of the slain Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, fighting the enemies of his people to the bitter end are truly epic.

Whatever we might say about him, he was heroic to the bitter end. The video of a wounded and battered man bravely tossing grenades at his pursuers and throwing a stick at the attack drone sent to kill him is genuinely ICONIC. It is the stuff that epic blockbusters are made of.

In contrast to the ruthless and heartless psychopathic blood-lusting head of the Zionist Settlers that Europe planted in West Asia, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was alleged to have been bundled underground during the Iranian attack, Yahya Sinwar was in the open, defiantly leading his troops.

This, to me, is what leadership is about. It was not about the cowardly effete compromises like Yasser Arafat, the corrupt bunch he surrounded himself with who have no interest in emancipating the Palestinians from the yoke of their zealotry oppressors.

Netanyahu buried himself in a bunker, with his children firmly esconded in safety but kept on sending other people’s children to go and massacre women and children from Gaza to Lebanon to Iraq to Syria.

At the same time, his curators in the West cheered him on and continued to arm him with the tools to accomplish his perfidy!

It is difficult to understand why those who claim to be the most intelligent human beings on earth fail to realize that cowardly political assassinations cannot kill or even douse the fire of an ideal. It is equally baffling that these self-proclaimed experts on everything fail to understand that any serious military organization is never a one-person show. Perhaps this failure to grasp reality is a cultural thing that Westerners will never be able to comprehend.

Just take a look at this picture:

RIP, Yahya Sinwar. You are a Hero.

You are my type of Hero

You nobly exemplify my Yoruba people’s proverb: Ikú yà jú ẹ̀sin lọ̀ / Death is preferable to ignominy!

Continue to rest in peace. You have paid your Due.

No history of the Palestinian Resistance will be complete without your heroic contribution. Any history of Resistance Movements that fails to mention your name will be jejune indeed!

October 19, 2024

(Farmer, Writer, Published Author, and Social Commentator.)

My latest book, From Stamp to Click (it’s still a hello), is published and is available online at:

https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/from-stamp-to-click-its-still-hello

How to order it: https://www.africanbookscollective.com/how-to-order

My book, “Africa: A Continent on Bended Knees,” is available on:

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My other books on Amazon:

• Africa: it shall be well (Get a FREE Chapter Here)

• Africa: Destroyed by the gods (Get a FREE Chapter Here)

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