It Is Better To Die Making Peace than Live Causing Trouble
- Category: Gender
- Date 23-10-2005
- 288 views
Saving a woman from her husband can sometimes be necessary and proper. The question on the other hand becomes: what do you do with a woman after rescuing her from her lover? It is with such a question in mind that many men would hesitate to engage a fellow man, urging him not to be a nuisance to his wife, lest they be suspected of ulterior stimulus towards another man’s wife i.e. loving her more than the husband does. Yet again, can a person honestly love a lady more than the man she is married to?
It is common belief that marriage relationships are founded on infinite love; therefore perceived family squabbles are not potentially dangerous, but a normal phenomenon. Many people regard family scuffles as internal affairs where outsiders have no reason whatsoever to poke their noses. Incidentally some family conflicts would climax into pure anguish, if no one makes a timely intercession. Thus, it could be regarded as very wise and important at times to save a woman from a dangerous husband, much as a husband too may be put away from a troublesome wife, if need be.
Debate will forever rage on the merits and demerits of volunteering to broker a peace settlement between warring married couples. This is especially if the lovebirds have not specifically invited you to mediate in a conflict between them. Once you assign such a responsibility to yourself and end up hurt, then it would be regarded as a self-inflicted injury and you would get the most minimum of sympathy.
A recent incident received a different response though. Great compliments have been poured on a village elder who lost his life as he tried to stop a man from killing an own wife. His fateful intervention was made at a local brew bar, which a knife-wielding husband stormed on a mission to slaughter his wife. However, he found an obstacle in a peacemaker, Wilbard Nyamwihula (63), a ten-cell leader of Nyamwaga Nkongore Village in Tarime.
As the throat itched with dryness, it persuaded Nyamwihula to walk into a beer club to make a wharf of his throat. Suddenly as the drinking progressed, a fiery man turned up, writhing murderously, hunting for his better half – his own wife. He held a knife at ready to chop down anyone that appeared like her; she who had abandoned him in a home some days earlier. The lonely house had apparently become so cold and irksome that he was determined send his presumed tormentor to the next world and lose her genuinely, forever.
The husband in question is none other than Mniko. He assumed that his wife was enjoying life elsewhere, particularly at Biafra Club, where she was whispered selling a local brew, known as Komoni. In a violent stupor, Mniko invaded the bar, brandishing his machete intently at the one he had initially loved most. In the past, he would have done anything to protect her as expected of any husband – ideally, it is a duty of a husband to, among many others, provide security for his family, starting with the wife. But Mniko would kill his!
As he bayed for the woman’s blood, heaving feverishly to sever her head or slit her throat, Wilbard Nyamwihula a thin-skinned humanist flung from the crowd, moved with pity, and sought to set the couple at peace. Alas! He was caught in the crossfire! In a feat of anger, the cold-blooded Mniko brought down his blade heavily on Nyamwihula, with a blow that would never have spared the life of his own woman.
Nyamwihula had sensed the danger facing the woman and intervened to prevent the murder. Unfortunately, as the woman slid away to safety, Mniko, already gripped with a craving for bloodshed, turned to the heroic calmer, stabbed him deeply and fled the scene. Nyamwihula died shortly from excessive bleeding! (See: “Irate husband kills moderator, wife fleas”, The Citizen Tuesday 11th October 2005).
What does a person gain from endangering one’s own life, even risking losing it altogether, to save another’s? Moreover, how much comfort would one derive from sitting idly and staring indifferently when in fact a neighbour is in danger of death? It is a measure of human worth to purposely place oneself in danger, to defend people who are vulnerably weak, defenceless, and ultimately facing evident menace. Wilbard Nyamwihula paid the price of responsibility and died making peace. Analysts say it is Mniko (and his wife?) that deserved to die for causing trouble. May Nyamwihula’s soul rest in peace.
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: Peering Eye, Sunday Citizen