“People on the right side of God are bound to enjoy in Paradise while those on the left would be condemned to eternal damnation. This is because the right hand is of God while the left hand is the devil’s.”
“People on the right side of God are bound to enjoy in Paradise while those on the left would be condemned to eternal damnation. This is because the right hand is of God while the left hand is the devil’s.”
These were the words of a local grocery store attendant to a left-handed little boy.
In Nigeria, most left-handers have had to endure one of the many stereotypes which is based on premises that defy logic.
Interestingly, a large section of the society hold it true, even the well-educated and illiterates ones alike.
Laced with cultural beliefs and coloured by religious proclivity, the use of left hand to accomplish any task including something as little as handing an item to someone have remained a taboo, and largely unaccepted.
In Nigeria, people who often use their left hand are instinctively tagged bad, rude and disrespectful.
This explains a mother’s struggle to ‘save’ every left-handed child.
Countless left-handed children have been forced to change or compelled to write and eat with their right hands.
Often times, members of a majority group tend to think the minority groups are abnormal, not because they have done anything wrong, but because they defy a subjective definition of normal.
People want certain semblance of human homogeneity. But the question is, can we legislate homogeneity in a world occupied by diverse, multi-faceted species?
Sadly, this converting is contrary to the natural state of the human being. It only overloads the non-dominant and under-loads the other half.
Hitherto, in an interestingly relentless manner, societies continually invoke historical and sociological reasons in order to privilege right-handedeness regardless of an individual’s natural state. But that a large fraction of people in the world are right-handed doesn’t make the few left-handed persons any less human. Neither is there any logic about the virtue or muckiness of a person in anyway based on the hand he or she uses.
*Beloved John writes about art & culture, politics and citizen engagement
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