Memory and judgment

Twenty five years ago today, over 250 American marines died in a jihadi bombing in Lebanon. The soldiers were there during the Lebanese civil war to help keep peace.

I was living in Canada at the time and one of the folks I knew was a Nigerian priest named Ihanye. He was a loud and self-important lout, frankly, but his African race gave him status among the other folks I knew, who were so taken with the Third World, etc. He was a charismatic Pentecostal type, pretty popular in those days, and a great proponent of "social justice". A bit of a local star.

He saw the news that night about the event in Lebanon and leapt from his chair and applauded.
I left the room.

I used to see him perform at various services, swooning over "the sweet name of Jesus."

A while later, news reported that Nigeria was expeditiously expelling a hundred thousand Ghanans, driving them back over the border. When I asked him about this, his answer was simple, "Ghanans are thieves."

I recall the deaths of my countrymen in 1983, with sadness I can feel in the tightening in my throat.

I am small enough, however, still to retain a measure of contempt for Fr. Ihanye and all the people like him I have since met, those justice and peace loving progressive lovers of Jesus whose own souls are as partisan, blind, grasping and cold as the images of the enemies that they project. I do not wish them well.