MILLIONS PAY FOR ONE MAN’S LUST

UTTER DISASTER TOOK OVER UTTER PLEASURE AFTER HIS HOUSE WAS BOMBED BY SOLDIERS, WHO WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT HIM

He goes to bed each night hoping for a better tomorrow, but lost domestic bliss is like lost life. It doesn’t revisit. He had a house where joy lived in the shape of a wife and some lovely children and where friends mixed like petals in a flower and where feasts were relished like the first drop of rain on a barren farm.

But one afternoon everything went up in flames. Utter disaster took over utter pleasure after his house was bombed by soldiers, who were supposed to protect him. The bombers were apparently gunning for anti-government rebels and his building happened to be in the line of fire. Left with no option he migrated to Europe.

But his friend, however, stayed on in the town. But things were fast reaching irreparable levels.

One morning he too decided to leave his motherland because he didn’t know when his house would have turned into an unbearable heap of crumbled concrete; when his manicured courtyard would have stank of animal remains and when the pathway running along his dwelling would have seen foreign boots rummage through dirt smelling of gunpowder.

He was devastated because he was being forced to leave the land where he was born, educated and where lay buried his parents, grandparents and great grandparents.

Everything for him and his friend were hunky-dory till 2011 when demonstrations — demanding the ouster of the country’s leader — tore through cities, towns and villages. The rallies lit the fuse for a huge war that would rewrite the regional order and spell an end to domestic calm forever.

They now live in a city where everyday they wake up, like other migrants, to hear that they are not wanted, they are a threat to the nation’s peace, they are a burden on the country’s economy and if they decide to sport a beard they could be mercilessly interrogated even for terror attacks taking place hundreds of miles away. They could be targeted for bloody attacks in other countries, ridiculous. They could be targeted just for sharing such attackers’ faiths, ridiculous again.

They are not alone. The number of their countrymen, seeking asylum in 44 industrialised countries, has been racing upwards.

They left the warmth of the homes and, of course, the flags fluttering on them, whose hues fashioned their identities, because of one man’s ego. They are being treated like second-rate human beings for a fault they didn’t commit.

That man’s ego has cost the country 400,000 lives and seen millions of dollars in the shape of property go up in flames. Most horrible, the man’s insatiable appetite for totalitarian authority has remained unaffected even as the rest of the world shed tears over babies’ bodies washing up on seashores. The upheaval has left 5.5 million children orphaned, homeless and starving.

The leader has to realise why should anybody hear every morning that he is a liability when he had everything going for him at home, which the leader’s soldiers and their allies wrecked, and why should the migrants be made to pay for something as simple as growing a beard.

The leader has to realise that he will not be able to go far if the legs of his throne are made up of body bags of those who allowed him the comfort of his palace for decades. A leader without the love of his people is like a ship without a compass. He will be challenging that belief at his own peril. Because his people add up to his leadership.

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