WAS IT DEATH OR KILLING?

WAS IT DEATH OR KILLING?

Recently, the Republic of Uganda lost a hero. In his car were two other heroes – one who was a driver and the other who was a bodyguard.  The Bodyguard took over 30 bullets in defense of his boss. But we Christians say: Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand and guard in vain. (Psalm 127:1 NIV). He tried and did whatever he was supposed to do but still, his boss did not survive. His boss was not perfect but he was a good man. You see, the world has a few good men and unfortunately, they die early. For some reason, the death of this man, shocked and attracted too much attention of the citizens.

The Republic of Uganda has suffered deaths of many dignitaries but no death has been as alarming, in the past five years, as the death of Andrew Felix Kaweesi. I don’t know the reasons but his death impacted this nation. Perhaps his death became significant because of the speculations and conspiracy theories that developed upon his death. Categorically, I managed to establish two of them:

The first had something to do with the recent Kasese (Rwenzururu) saga. People speculated that since Afande Kaweesi was instrumental in defending the State on the issues of Kasese region, then his fate might have been determined by the scattered rebels. In a sense, this theory argues that he was killed for the very reasons that major Kiggundu was killed.

Another theory argues that Afande Kaweesi was killed by terrorists who intended to instill fear in the hearts of the citizens of Uganda. Killing the Assistant Inspector General of Police is a huge statement and it can mean quite a number of things. This was a strike to the major achievement that this government has always boasted in – Security. But if it was terrorists, then they would have confirmed through their usual hallmarks in explaining why, which has not happened yet. Perhaps these were bandits or thugs hired by haters. We don’t know. All we have to do is to wait for the police to investigate the matter.

Whoever killed this Assistant Inspector General communicated well to the government and the people of Uganda. My question, however, is: Did we understand what this atrocity meant? What sense did we make out of all this? Some time back I wrote an article on the incidences that happened in Kasese and I somehow tried to tell this world what it really meant from a Christian perspective.

As far as am concerned, the death of this man attracted attention because of one thing: he was KILLED before he DIED. And I will tell you the difference we always neglect. What bothers me so much is not that Afande Kaweesi died, the problem is that he was killed. I want you to understand that; death is inevitable and we will all die eventually. Sinners as we are, we all deserve death, but none of us should be killed. Death and Killing both refer to the fact that the individual has stopped living. However, it’s the manner in which this event happened that practically differentiates the meaning of the two words.

‘Killed’ suggests that the death was not due to supernatural inevitable causes or accidental causes. For example, I was getting out of my gate when my daughter who knew I loved Afande Kaweesi called me and told me that he had been shot. I immediately asked her: Is he dead? She told me she had not confirmed yet. I started panicking as I checked with the news, and the headlines read: ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE SHOT DEAD. So his death was caused by the shooting.

When you say, `The minister was killed in his sleep’, it suggests the person was murdered while he was asleep. Someone did something that resulted in the minister’s death–maybe the person stabbed/shot/smothered the minister while he was sleeping. It is not the same as saying, he died in sleep or in a car accident. ‘Kill’ suggests that the death was caused by some external agency—it was not natural and neither was it accidental but intentional. According to me then, Afande Felix Kaweesi did not merely die but he was killed.

Ladies and gentlemen the Bible says: Thou shalt not kill. It does not say Thou shalt not die. In fact, the Bible says: thou shalt surely die. However, it warns us not to kill anyone. The Justification and explanation of death in the Bible is SIN. However, there is no justification for killing in Christian Theology. In the primitive religion of the Old Testament Jews always implicated God in their tribal wars and killings and since then Israel and Ismael have never recovered from the ideology of killing in the name of God.

Israelites and Ishmaelites command the killing of those who are of a different tribe and a different belief system and from such we have our modern terrorism. To these primitive belief systems, killing has always been the only solution to problems. I really do not know what kind of problem whoever killed Afande Kaweesi was solving but one thing I know is that killing has never been a solution to any problem.

Killing is creating two other problems over an existing one. This is what terrorism does, it solves problems by killing. Listen, my friend, you do not have to kill your neighbor to take his land, property or even wife. The murderers of these police officers might have been paid, I don’t know how much, but look at what their kill them solution caused to the nation. Killing is not a solution but a problem creation.

In September 2001, Terrorists, for some reasons, attacked the Twin Towers in the United States, and in response the United States also dismantled all the Islamic states and discreetly killed prominent extreme Islamic leaders in various countries. As I speak today, the current president of the United States is struggling with immigrants from regions dominated by Muslims.

I come from Rwanda and at a certain point in the history of our nation, a certain tribe attributed its problems to another and they started killing them. As I speak today, the Hutus are wandering all over the world. They thought killing the Tutsi would solve a problem but it created more and bigger problems for them. Woe unto the Tutsis in power if they assume that the only way to solve the Hutu problem is to kill them like it is in Burundi.

Two tribes in Sudan decided they wanted independence and they divided the nation with the support of Western scavengers. Just in the infancy of their new nation known as The Republic of South Sudan, they started fighting and killing each other. As I speak today, their country is a mockery. Ladies and Gentlemen, killing has never been a solution.

In Genesis 4, Cain killed his brother Abel just because Abel had done the right thing. Killing someone who is in a better office than you does not mean you will take on his position or in fact you will ever be him.  Instead of Cain correcting his mistake and learning from Abel to do the right thing, he instead killed the only person who was doing the right thing in his family. We are not to kill people, leave them alone, they will die anyway. So why kill what is not here permanently?

In South Africa, Nelson Mandela fought the Apartheid regime, not by killing the killers of the blacks but by talking to them. However, when he was arrested, his wife resorted to other means and she started killing the whites in hopes of solving the killing of blacks. This is what her and her husband disagreed on.

Martin Luther King warned his fellow blacks not to exercise the same violence as that of their white masters. He admonished them not to kill or abuse the whites as the whites had done. He advocated for a peaceful resistance. In Kenya, opportunistic politicians capitalized on tribalistic and sectarian sentiments in the hearts of Kenyans and out of nowhere, people started killing each other over tribe and party affiliations.

Friends, in my small history, I have gathered that the act of killing has taken more people than death has. People kill others in various ways and fashions. Hitler incinerated over fifty thousand Jews in the Holocaust. Internationally, cults have murdered thousands and thousands of people. The so-called Christian crusades killed more people than terrorists have killed today. The Islamic wars engineered by Mohammed and the latter Muslim extremists have taken more lives than natural death can claim. The scientists in laboratories have intentionally engineered viruses and diseases both curable and incurable.

I was talking to a historian friend of mine who told me of how syphilis was made to destroy Africans in Uganda. Many people in businesses poison each other, married people kill each other over wealth. Others strangle their own spouses over various issues. Parents have sacrificed their children on the altar of materialistic gain. Am afraid if we do not stop looking at killing as a solution, death will no longer be our enemy.

Personally, I do not think death took Afande Felix Kaweesi, it was the evil people living among us today who offered him as a sacrifice to this monster known as death. Friends, death is with us. It is like we are in a cage and death, like a roaring lion, looms around the cage. The more it roars some of us panic, hate each other and deliberately start throwing our fellow human beings out of the cage to the devouring lion known as death. The bible does not forbid us from dying, it only forbids us against killing.

But to understand this Biblical prohibition we need to refer to Jesus Christ in Mathew 5:21-22 “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, `You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, `You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire.

In Matthew 5:21-26, Jesus amplifies the meaning of the sixth commandment “thou shall not kill.” He brings out that to commit murder means more than just the death of the victim. Killing is a practice of an existing attitude. Jesus argued that we are attitude killers before we are practical killers. In fact, given how we think about some people, they would not be walking anymore if we had access to the right tools. I took time to think of what really goes on in the mind of a killer, and I started imagining how you shoot at someone 30 times and still have the audacity to come and confirm whether he is dead and again shoot the corpse.

Apart from the religious view that you are possessed by some spirits, the sociological and psychological explanation of this is none other than the attitude you have developed over time. Somehow somewhere we all find ourselves uttering these words to our friends, neighbors’ relatives, and strangers. We say and sometimes shout: “I hate you!” “I wish you were dead!” “You’re stupid!” “You’re worthless!”  “I wish we never had you!” “I wish you weren’t my parents!” If we’re honest, at one moment or another we have all spoken hurtful and hateful words.

To some these have been just mere emotions but to others, these have turned into doctrines that have shaped their attitude towards fellow people. It is these very long-lasting attitudes that are exhibited into killings and murder. And then the world is quick to justify killing by calling it death.

The Bibles says to the killers: You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44 NIV)

Friends, we must distinguish death from killing. We know in the deepest of our hearts, the things that have died and the things that we have killed. We know of the people who just died, and the very people we killed ourselves. The Bible says: “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” (1John 3:15, NKJV).

To hate someone is the same as murdering them. Murder, like all sin, begins in the human mind (Matthew 15:18-19; Mark 7:20-23). It starts as a thought, in this case, hatred, which leads to the action of murder (James 1:13-15; 4:1-3). The opposite of hating someone is loving them. We should even love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48), seeking not revenge, but looking for ways to help them (Romans 12:17-21).

I think because the world has failed on the principal ethics of Jesus of: think right about people and Love your enemies, forgive one another, etc. we have resorted to killing as a solution. We should not look at the event that took the lives of Afande Kaweesi and other officers in the car and many more others in history of the kind as DEATH. This was no ordinary death, it was a KILLING exercised by the living among us. I do believe in fate but I do not believe that any of us is assigned to kill the other in order to fulfill their fate.

These murderers were intentional and harbored attitudes to kill. Our choices to maintain life and living have much to contribute to our civilization. If you and I oppose killing in our mindset as a solution, and in our communities, the world will be left with only one problem which is death.

And to that too, there is the good news: the Good news is that over 2000yrs ago an incarnate God said: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10 RSV). Jesus is pro-life, we all, ought to be.

God Bless you; I invoke Truth, Wisdom and Faith

Am Pr. I.T.WHITE

The Gospel Hawker