-Chris O. Maduka
TRIBUTES:
Very profound and inspiring indeed to read about the positive comments, eulogies and deserving encomiums being showered on the Late John Lewis from all over the world.
John Lewis was a great human being. He dedicated his life to the pursuit of what’s good and noble – freedom for all people to live and let others live as signified in the late Dr. Martin Luther King nonviolent movement which he was part of the original six members.
The question that needs to be asked all as we ponder on the transition of this great human being is how do we reflect on the way he lived. His legacy should guide us as we are living in a the very period of danger and great uncertainty as it was when circumstances threw up John Lewis to step up to lead and champion a worthy cause.
This question or legacy should guide our thoughts and actions as a people almost similarly situated when young John Lewis and the other civil right activists emerged to lead their people to freedom.
Recall that it was not risk free. As a matter of fact, it was so risky that so many lost their lives including Dr . King.
They were infact, even opposed and castigated by some of their own who actually believed that they were rocking the boat and getting them in trouble as if they were trouble free then.
These people opposed to their own kind of agitation from within were prepared to live with the convenient lies and injustices rather than go through a disorientation that will lead to a new orientation.
Little wonder the abolitionist and freedom fighter Harriet Tubman once lamented that she could’ve freed far more slaves through the underground railroad only if those people realized that they were slaves.
Need we say that this notion and sad reality has not really changed among our people today and it is a huge problem and part of the challenges that must be overcome for freedom to be whole.
Thank God that people like John Lewis among others that can now best be characterized as near transcendentalist, because they refused to live their lives for the sake of mere living. They lived it for a purpose beyond self.
These are those who realized that courage is not absent of fear, but the making of action inspite of fear.
Thank God that they did not capitulate to the distracting noise that was raised against them to drown their inner voices or change their convictions.
Thank God they were not discouraged or chose to maintain cold ambivalence and complicity of silence in the face of monumental injustice and man inhumanity to man.
Thank God they did not make permanent decisions under the temporary inconvenience or convenience of that moment.
They did more with life they were given by their creator realizing that doing for others is the rent we all pay for living in this world.
It was late Black Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall who was once asked how he wish to be remembered. He pondered on the question for a moment and said: “I wish to be remembered as someone who did all he could with what he got”.And so it is.
It was a great Author, a French American scientist Lecomte du Noüy who said in his book: Human Destiny, that no man or woman ever disappears completely if he or she chooses to do good outside personal gains, outside anything else other than having helped to better human condition and move humanity forward.
This brilliant remarks is also collaborated and underscored by the Igbo proverb made popular by the late traditional music icon Pericoma Okoye when he said that: “ugboro na’abor ka ekwe na’akpor Dike; okpor’ya na’ndu, okpor’ya na’onwu”.
Twice the Oke ekwe or the great gong calls the great; in life and in transition to the greater beyond.
But itbl is what was accomplished in the living years in the land of the living that will cause humanity to do you that honour of saluting you in death and the world is now honoring John Lewis. In Igboland, that’s the greatest honour to be so remembered.
Infact, in so many ways, that’s what it really means to live forever after.
John Lewis will never disappear completely. How about you?
May his great soul rest in peace.