By Okoro Ukata
Silence is a menace. Why? Because silence itself has plunged this world into untold despair and wreckage. Silence has caused a lot of anguish to millions of people in this world.
Oppressors prey on their victims and dominate them as a result of the silence of those who were supposed to speak up.
It is because of such silence that made Bruce Mayrock, a 20-year-old Jewish man to immolate himself in the front of UN Building. On 30th of May 1969, Bruce went in the front of UN Building, on the outside lawn and set himself on fire to protest the world's silence, while the Islamic northern government of Nigeria was committing a genocide and the extermination of millions of the Biafran people.
America and Britain had aided the Nigerian government to impose a blockade which had cut off necessary food and supplies vital for the survival of the people as such over 4 million innocent Biafran women and children were wiped off by hunger and starvation. This infuriated Bruce Mayrock.
Photo credit: Oblong mediaBruce Mayrock had studied briefly at Hofstra University and enrolled briefly, as well in September 1967, at a Jewish Theological Seminary. At the time of his death, Mayrock was a student in the School of General Studies, Columbia Universiy, New York, and was working as a sports photographer for the publication, Columbia Daily Spectator.
Shortly before 3 p.m on Thursday, Bruce Mayrock doused himself with a flammable liquid according to Columbia Daily Spectator and went to the lawn outside the U.N. Building to set himself on fire. He was chased by two UN guards with fire extinguishers to put out the flames, which was happening in the front of hundreds of horrified delegates and onlookers.
Mayrock, ran and escaped the guards fully ignited and went and fell down beneath the statue at the UN Building, bearing the Biblical inscription about beating the swords into plowshares and learning war no more, which was found in the book of Isaiah. There at the spot, the guards caught up with him and put out the flames; and he was rushed to Bellevue Hospital, New York, in a critical condition. Sadly, he died after midnight on Friday.
In the front of the lawn was found Bruce Mayrock's cardboard sign inscription he had been protesting with which had read,
"You must stop the genocide - please save 9 million Biafrans."
The publication he worked for at the University, also reported that Bruce Mayrock had protested actively writing letters to leading government figures and to the president of the United States of America, to stop the war.
And a rabbi close to Bruce's family quoted the young Mayrock as, "an idealistic young man deeply upset by the events in Biafra...People were being killed and he felt no one was doing anything. That was why he did what he did," according to the University publication's report.
But it was not a mere coincidence of nature that Bruce Mayrock had chosen to die for a people he had not even seen or a people who were inhabiting in a faraway place he had never visited before.
Today's Biafrans had always recognized the genetic and bloodily relationship they share with Bruce Mayrock.
Biafrans not only do they regard themselves as Jews, but had strong cultural and historical evidence to prove their Jewish lineage.
Right at the heart of Igbo land, among the people of Biafra, stands today, an ancient palace, temple, and altar built in honor of Gad, one of the twelve sons of Jacobs whose name was mentioned in Numbers 32:33 of the Old Testament of the Bible or the Jewish Torah.
This house of Gad is called "ObuGad". And it still stands till date in Aguleri. There at present day Aguleri, the direct descendants of Eri, one of the sons of Gad, can still be traced in Anambra State.
It is remarkable that this House of Gad had been built even before the white men coming in contact with Africans. As such, it had always been as ancient as the settling of the Igbo Jews on Biafra land.
Inside of the ancient "House of Gad" or "Obu-Gad" built by the descendants of Eri in honor of their father Gad. Photo credit: www.hebrewigbo.comThis is why the Biafrans believed that Bruce Mayrock sacrificed his life for his own brothers and sisters; and as such, he would never be forgotten forever and ever by the people of Biafra whom he had paid the ultimate price, to help secure their freedom.
This is the OBU-GAD, or The House of Gad in Aguleri. An ancient house built in honor of Gad at the heart of Igbo land, Aguleri in Anambra State. Photo credit: Igbo Gad Archeology, YouTube
Photo credit: edonationsatelite.blogspot.com
Opening image credit: African Free Press
