AROUND the world, there is a disturbing development: people are killing a dead man again. They haven’t had enough of their grotesque attention-seeking.
George Floyd was mercilessly murdered by American law enforcement. Last week some thug(s) decided that they had had enough of the Floyd mural in West Belfast then invoked their cowardice and soiled the dead man’s face with pitiless white paint.
In America, the phenomenon is as old as the civil rights movement when ultra-right-wing reactionaries in the 1950s and 1960s used to spray-paint anything they found that depicted black liberation campaigns. In that same America, dozens maybe hundreds now, of Floyd murals and symbols have been disfigured since the time of his death less than six months ago. In Minneapolis, where he died, they haven’t stopped killing him; a mural is defaced, it is repainted, again and again. Vandals are busy across the water, in Dundee, Scotland, where a Floyd memorial painting had a neo-Nazi symbol put on his face. In Manchester, England, a similar stunt was displayed: graffiti over Floyd with a racial slur not worth printing here. It was gross.
That beautiful, broad nose, black skin, African face, being stained by fascist imagery. To think that someone can start tinkering with black liberation campaigns is idleness, they should grab their Speaker’s Corner moment and tell us why they think this mural should go. Some of us will be the first to go there just to have a chance to listen to the anti-George Floyd outburst!
Some time back when I was working as a researcher on the subject of migration for a local university, I invited to a migration conference a far-right anti-migrant campaigner. He was a no-show. He was undoubtedly one tiny sandwich short of a picnic.
Some time back when I was working as a researcher on the subject of migration for a local university, I invited to a migration conference a far-right anti-migrant campaigner. He was a no-show. He was undoubtedly one tiny sandwich short of a picnic.
If you are in the school of absolute objectivity, you would agree that it was only a matter of time before some reactionary bigot defaced George Floyd. This is because the society is supposed to respect the right of any person to hold a protest. Is there an excuse for such behaviour because of the rights school? Not at all. This mural was going to be and is part of liberation history of the 2020s. This mural will be part of Belfast for the long haul.
There is sufficient evidence on the ground to believe that an attempt is being nurtured around residents here to disrupt racial harmony. This will not succeed. Northern Ireland has had a very long painful history and the paint bombing or defacing of black memorials is a way of causing fear, the perpetrators know all too well that they are just embarrassing themselves. The death of Mr Floyd shocked the world. He represented many such fatal incidents.
The more this mural is attacked, the more it will be repainted, come back to life, and this is the hidden hand of fate, that those who are thinking of doing this again will eventually be tired of the same. In our African tradition of posthumous rituals, we say the spirits will haunt the abusers of George Floyd till their very last day. Primeval or uncivilised ritual you may say? Wait until you see Floyd having the last laugh.
Authorities should investigate this matter expeditiously.
• Elly Omondi Odhiambo is a Kenyan writer based in Belfast. He can be contacted by email.
