"IF YOU PRICK US, DO BE NOT BLEED?"

October 3, 2012

There you have it: barely a whisper. I am referring to yesterday's post about the massacre at the Federal Polytechnic in Mubi, Nigeria. The story has been hardly covered by the selection of websites and papers I have looked at. Shylock springs to mind:

"Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same
food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"

These poor students were either shot or "killed like goats"(meaning they had their throats cut), according to a police commissioner. Several people have already been arrested, some of them student, leading to speculation that the attack was a related to an internal affair, such as the recent student elections. Before the full details are known, the story would have already vanished into oblivion, so we may never get to hear them. Hence Globecatcher's desire to have local correspondents from every nation.

Having eyes and hands is not always enough.