Disclaimer: This essay is a work of fiction, inspired by real events, but altered and embellished for literary purposes. Any resemblance to actual individuals, living or dead, or specific events, is purely coincidental and unintentional. The characters, events, and settings depicted in this essay are entirely fictional and not meant to be taken as factual. The author does not intend to harm or defame any individual or group, and any interpretation or inference to the contrary is unintentional.
REGARDLESS of faith or lack thereof, one may not but occasionally recall some of the scintillating stories of practical or scientific improbability in religious literature. The timeless collections serve endless melodrama and miracle. Yet as credible or fabulous as they may seem to faithful Abrahams or doubting Thomases, the accounts serve multifarious purposes: they lull tired but restless bodies to sleep, stimulate curiosity, infuse fear, fuel superstition, entertain minds, titillate imaginations, teach morals, nurture spirits, inculcate piety, rationalise evil over good or vice versa. They also lead children, women and men to piety and offer the believer a choice between redemption or damnation.
Scriptural stories can inspire souls to noble aspiration and action, or gallantry and glory. A favourite is the Goliath story, told of an epic fight between the Philistine giant and the Israelite David. It is the stuff of legends and has been retold and woven around other stories over the ages to highlight contests of mismatched odds. They teach invaluable lessons on the potential for courage to emerge from unlikely quarters or victory to be had over seemingly invincible behemoths by underdogs on just causes.
The Philistines, warlike settlers of the coastal plains of the Levant in today’s West Asia, who had come to war against Saul, first king of Israel, were portrayed as proud and iniquitous; whilst the Israelites were depicted as righteous underdogs. They competed for turf and resources, leading to that epical battle.
In commentary regarding the saga involving SANpion, an octogenarian legal juggernaut, who bestrides the law like a colossus, and ActivistEsq, lawyer, orator and author, following the latter’s publication of a book in A’Katunga land and on Amazon that allegedly libelled the former; reference was made to the bible story. This essay contemplates potential parallels of the David vs Goliath combat and the extant tussle as a literary exercise.
Goliath had taunted the Israelites and mocked their God twice daily for 40 days. He challenged them to put forward their champion to fight him in single combat. None dared, until David arrived the Israelites’ camp to deliver supplies to his brothers on his father’s errand.
The clash of the giant in armour who bore shield, javelin, sword and daggers, and the Israelite lad with stick and stones is, to say the least, improbable. Goliath was until the mortal combat the Philistine champion while David was a shepherd boy who showed no fear and engaged on his own terms.
He had a rudimentary but powerful weapon to which the giant was unaccustomed. Goliath must have felt diminished by the ludicrous confrontation. He demanded, “What is that stick for? Am I a dog that you come to chase away?”, and dared, “Come to me, and I will feed your body to birds and wild animals.”
Consider the controversial book vis a vis David’s stand against Goliath and invariably, the Philistines. It shook and threatens to overturn or break the table of the judiciary and legal profession. The lawyer wrote that the country’s law enforcement and criminal justice system is corrupt. He contended that the system itself is criminal and so incapable of delivering justice.
And that only concerted patriotic action and systemic regeneration can save it from its putrefaction and citizens from its vice grip since, he argued, the institution is incapable of self-regulation.
He didn’t stop there like others had before him. He did that which if it be not death wish, is an extreme act of courage. He alleged that the undisputed champion-at-law corrupted a panel of Supreme Forum justices to procure in 2014 a fraudulent review of the apex court’s 2013 ruling in the service of his client. A mere mortal, he dared gods to walk where angels tremble: he named very senior lawyers and judges that he said were allegedly malfeasant.
It is apt to state here that this writer is in full accord with the right of a purported defamed party to guard and defend name and reputation, and to require an alleged defamer to prove allegations, failing which he should redress or be penalised.
SANpion and proxies rose and charged at author and book; and detonated, perhaps inadvertently, what was until then only potentially a subsonic cruise missile. Consequently, the launch jet engines were boosted in the initial ascent phase to deploy as rocket motors. Propeller and payload mutated mid-trajectory into supersonic ICBM to explode as Amazion #1 bestseller.
The effort that followed, to censor the book, calls to mind the Ayatollah-Rushdie affair. Ayatollah Khomeini’s February 14, 1989 fatwah over his fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses” did not cut short Salman Rushdie’s life or career or fame, or the book’s spread beyond perhaps in Iran.
The Ayatollah passed away under 4 months later on June 3, 1989; but Rushdie lives, surviving attacks, including a stabbing in 2022; and has since written many more novels, essays, and non-fiction to solidify his reputation as a literary figure. His fifteenth novel, “Victory City” was published in February 2023, and more recently his autobiographical “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder” in April 2024.
To be continued tomorrow.
Suleiman, essayist, commentator and analyst, wrote from
Lagos.
