In this opinion piece, writer Mvume Ndimba reflects on the recent death of controversial US commentator Charlie Kirk. He considers the public reaction, the broader issues of free speech and political polarisation, and why the event sparked such complex emotions.
⚠️ Editor’s note: This opinion piece contains strong views and references to violence and death. Reader discretion is advised.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of 041Online.
041Culture | By Mvume Ndimba
Okay… so by now we’ve all seen the news about conservative “right wing” commentator Charlie Kirk.
For those of us who actually go outside and touch grass, Charlie was a 31-year-old white man who was shot in broad daylight at a rally, where his last word was ironically “gang violence”.
Charlie had a lot of, let me say, “bold” takes on gender, racial unity, sexuality and Christianity. He was the type of guy who would say something outrageous just to get a reaction, always with a list of skewed statistics at hand that sounded convincing enough to fool the average person not fully clued up on the topic. Charlie was a classic edge-lord.
Charlie was a racist, a bigot and, quite frankly, his face was too small for his head. Under any other circumstance, I’d spend the rest of this column going off about why he “deserved” to die by gun violence, given his pro–Second Amendment stance (in non-American terms, this means he believed that fewer gun-control laws made for a safer society).
But under these exact circumstances, I have no desire to do that. Beyond the persona he portrayed to “get the bag”, he was a father, a husband, a son and literally the same age as me. Watching that man take his last breath at work left me with complicated feelings as a commentator and observer.
Nobody deserves to die like that, so violently and ironically. Beyond the “right” (read white) side painting him as a saint with cringe AI tributes, and the left dancing on his grave, the sickest thing we’ve done as a planet is to make this man’s death a political turning point.
The real sickness is that we watched someone practise their right to free speech, then celebrated his death for having opinions, or villainised the assumed perpetrator before any legal process. The tragedy is that an otherwise innocent hustler’s death was turned into a call to war against the “woke mob”, “radical left” or “fascist right”.
As a man with… interesting opinions myself, I see a bit of me in Charlie. Had I made different choices, I could have found myself on stage, mic in hand, next to my wife and kids, and been shot for an unpopular opinion. Any of us could find ourselves on the wrong side of a bullet, simply because our views don’t align with what’s considered “moral” or “correct”.
This is not a rest-in-peace piece, because screw him, honestly. But it is grave concern for the fact that society lost a voice that, while annoying, was valuable to people who felt ignored. That voice mattered, even if only to give expression to a certain group.
The conspiracies that followed made me as nauseous as the footage of the shooting. Some claimed it was staged with blood packs. Others said the shooter was next to him. Others insisted it was a sniper radicalised by a “transgender terror cell”. For me, that’s all noise. What matters is that this man will never see his kids again, and that keeps me up at night.
On either side of our political and personal beliefs are human beings, with families and loved ones who want them to come home. That’s what truly matters at the end of the day.
And if I do put on my conspiracy hat for a second… the timing was convenient. It distracted the world from other issues—like the fact that the people of Nepal just overthrew their corrupt government. Funny how that kind of story disappears when the world’s outrage is directed elsewhere.
Anyway. Stay safe. Drink water. I’ll see you soon 🙂
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