A Sin of Necessity

When faith demands mercy but survival demands blood, which path do you take?

I jumped from my chapel
To expel the Tutsi before he brings death unto me
I hadn't done it on purpose
It was for self defense and offense
The Tutsi had killed my mother
and her spirit cries for vengeance
He will kill me too if I didn’t kill him
So I let reason take control of my faith

It is said that if a man does not work let him not eat
And a man without food cannot live
If all men were to go without food but the word or God
Then we would all be dead before the end of the world
For man cannot resurrect as God
We need bread to keep our organs at work.


© Godwin Isiwu

Author's Note

A Catholic Hudu, according to the poem, is trying to evade guilt for what he considers sin against his God or government. Being Catholic means he isn’t supposed to kill, and being of the Hudu tribe meant that if he didn’t kill, he could be killed. So to save himself from death, he embraces his reason rather than faith and was able to kill rather than be killed. In this the poet attempts to explain that oftentimes, one need reason to be able to survive in life, for dependence upon faith alone cannot save the world: one needs to utilize their sense of reason to know what’s right and wrong, especially in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-lingual world as ours, utter dependence upon religion can lead to endless wars, sentiments and extermination of one people by the other. Thinking with the Hudu, in absence of common sense, there could be grave consequences should one come across such situations.