Twelve years ago, when I visited England for the first time, one of the tourist attractions I visited was Madame Tussaud’s wax museum.
I’d heard about the place way back in my school days because our neighbours and friends, the Shehu family, had the privilege of going to London for a holiday.
But at the time, I thought Madame Tussaud’s was a departmental store, much like St. Michaels, Marks & Spencer or Woolworths.
It was not until 1983, when the phenomenal success of Michael Jackson’s Thriller earned him a space at Madame Tussauds, that I got to know what the place was all about. There he was, looking so lifelike, his Jerry curls in place and bejewelled white gloves glowing, as he was unveiled as the new wax figure at the museum.
I was not surprised when, almost two decades later, the place was listed among the great choices for tourists.
At Madame Tussauds, you’ll “meet” all kinds of famous people. There is the British royalty, then politicians with global acclaim like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, musical icons like Beyoncé and Michael Jackson, film actors like Mylie Cyrus and the like, Bollywood stars like Amitabh Bachchan, and sports legends like Muhammad Ali and Pele. In fact, celebrities from almost all fields of human endeavour are represented at the wax museum.
But not all the wax figures are famous for the right reasons. Some of them were infamous or downright notorious due to the dastardly deeds they committed in their lifetimes.
And these ‘people’ are treated with a difference. For instance, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was once Britain’s arch-enemy, couldn’t be found among the hero statesmen. In fact, his statue is the one you meet on the way to pay for your ticket to enter the main museum. This means that Napoleon was so unworthy that he’s ‘free of charge’.
My teenage son still found Napoleon worthy enough to pose with, revelling in the joy that he was taller than one of the world’s well-known historical figures.
But the biggest thumbs down was reserved for Adolf Hitler. Though you actually ‘pay’ to see him, because he’s in the main hall of the museum, which you can access only after paying the ticket, he’s nevertheless regarded as a villain and is never allowed to forget so.
For some reason, while we walked around in the museum, posing with Mandela here, Princess Diana there, Muhammad Ali across, Queen Elizabeth, her husband the Duke, their grandson William and his newly-wedded wife Catherine in a group picture, my 10-year-old daughter Bilkisu caught sight of someone to ‘pose’ with.
She went straight ahead to where Hilter’s figure was and decided to pose with it. I walked over and saw her standing opposite Adolf Hitler, her hand outstretched, with the index finger pointing menacingly at the statue.
Apparently, there is an “etiquette” to observe for anyone wishing to take a photo with Hitler. Whoever decides to pose with ‘him’ must be ready to look like he’s fighting the Führer, the leader of Germany’s Third Reich. Bilkisu learnt about that when she made her way to Hilter’s wax figure and was told by a lady there that she had to observe that posture when posing with ‘him’.
Smiling broadly at what looked like a game to her, my daughter raised a hand and pointed a finger at the Nazi leader, while I snapped the strange pose with a camera.
We all know why this treatment is reserved for Adolf Hitler’s statue.
He has to be treated like that since he’s believed to be a war criminal, the butcher of Jews and the architect of the Holocaust.
But compared to the deeds of mass murderer and genocidal maniac Benjamin Netanyahu, are Hilter’s crimes not child’s play?
Today, and we are all living witnesses to it, more than 25,000 people have been killed through Israeli attacks in Gaza. More than half of this figure is made up of women and children. Those injured through Israel’s brazen barbarism are triple the number of the dead.
The buildings razed to the ground in day and night bombings cannot be counted.
Among these are almost all of Gaza’s hospitals and all of its higher institutions. The primary and secondary schools were the first to go. Just as the lives of little children and babies are daily being sacrificed at the altar of Israel’s desperate land-grab and Netanyahu’s bloodthirst.
As the world bodies watch on, deliberately acting helpless, a worse carnage than any in the history of mankind is being committed.
Through the numerous rallies and protest marches by concerned groups around the world, opposition to what Netanyahu and his murderous gang are doing was displayed, but he will not be deterred. Nor will his American and European backers be rattled.
It’s amazing that it took the Houthis’ intervention on the high seas to give these genocidal maniacs a nightmare. Well done, Houthis; for now, you are truly our heroes.
As for the impotent Arab leaders in the Gulf, the fear of Israel is the beginning of wisdom. They would rather look on, put pressure on Hamas to let go, and send a few truckloads of aid to the displaced and wounded than do what is right.
But facing Israel squarely, demanding an eye for an eye, stopping oil sales, and deploying the numerous weapons at their disposal in the aid of their Arab brothers is surely beyond them all. What a shame!!
Yet the Netanyahu that they fear so much will not win this war. Like other Zionist zealots before him, he will hit Palestinians hard and still lose. And then he will die. Either violently, like he deserves, or like a wilted, rotten vegetable, Ariel Sharon-style.
The Palestinians he desires to ethnically cleanse will still be there.
And how will the world remember him, especially at a place like Madam Tussaud’s? Netanyahu’s statue will be treated worse than Hilter’s.
His will be the one statue that patrons will be required to stone when passing by it.
Next to his wax image, anywhere in the world, will be a box of pebbles. Whoever poses by it will be required to pick the pebbles and throw them at it. His legacy will surely be that odious and repulsive. He will be remembered as the butcher of babies and their mothers, the man with a worse crime than Hilter’s holocaust.
•Written By Aisha Umar Yusuf
