By Mataeliga Pio Sioa
Where do we start with the village abomination we all watched on social media in that viral video clip?
Based on public reactions, the initial wave of emotions went storming from shock to disgust and heatedly into rage.
The sight of a wooden pole forced between the helpless victim’s tied hands and feet, to be carted around like a hunted animal, was frightening.
The lingering image is haunting enough to cause nightmares for many after the horror they saw and the fear of the same inhuman treatment by a village on a loved one like a grandfather, father, brother, son or grandson.
Unfortunately, while it is being soundly condemned as a criminal act, the fact remains it has become a part of our history whether dark or ancient.
Granted it rarely happens in this day and Age of Enlightenment for Samoa but the brutal reality, as seen last week, is that it still does.
The popular slang of today’s modern age aptly sums up the vile and despicable nature of this human debacle; “Sh_t happens.”
The big painful question everyone seems to be wrestling with is why?
How is it possible for such an ungodly act to happen here?
‘Samoa is founded on God’.
How God-fearing can people be in a country founded on a motto like that?
Christianity grinded Samoa through a whole new culture of peace and harmony, when they accepted the promise of God’s blessings by the strength and trust in their new found faith.
Parting words from a ‘palagi’ visiting Samoa for the first time sums it all up.
“You have a lot of churches”.
True that! Take a ride along the airport road and the ‘palagi’ was not making up stories of the village scenery.
Right there is where the puzzle of the ‘Shaming of Samoa’ has left us all in a daze.
How can this act of savagery from the dark ages still prevail in this land that has promised itself to God?
For God’s sake where has the divine light of Christian civilization vanished?
The attack on this unfortunate 73-year-old man was not by one or two people but a whole village.
What is most puzzling behind the violence was the failure of any pleading influence by the village ‘faifeau’
None was reported. How can that be! Hopefully the reports were wrong and misleading.
The absence, if it was, of God’s physical presence via the ‘faifeau’ when and where it was needed most is unforgivable. Blasphemous really.
Hopefully also there is no truth in reports that an argument between the victim and a ‘faifeau’ sparked the violence.
Lord please let it not be so.
The authority of the chiefs and orators is the rule of law in the village.
How often is the wise counsel of the ‘tofa ma le utaga loloto’, glorified in the wisdom of our traditional leaders?
Where did all the touted blessings of God’s inspired leadership go, when a blind eye was turned to the most basic act of humanity in the Lord’s teaching of love and forgiveness?
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” Jesus personally taught that. (Luke 6:31 and Matthew 7:12.)
The emphasis put on this divine teaching is held in sacred regard as, ‘The Golden Rule’.
With all this overflow of God’s love, justice and inspiration, embedded deeply in the religious psyche of our Samoan society, why did it all come crashing in Savaii last week?
Simple answer! We don’t know.
God knows.
Let’s leave it there.
We are better off praying for the Lord’s forgiveness than puzzle over how we have shamed His Holy Name.
No more boastful claims, for now please, of Samoa as the Land of God and Culture.
We have made a mockery of Samoa and who we are as Samoans.
Maybe the best option for us as we wallow in our collective shame is to suck it up.