On a scale of comparison for complexity and complication, this outgoing year will go down as one of the most intriguing and perplexing since the dawn of civilization. Despite his reputation for higher intelligence, the human species has not demonstrated much intelligence when and where it comes to organizing and ordering his own affairs.
Despite specks of brilliant developments which may eliminate famine and hunger in the most developed parts of the world, there is also growing evidence of a universal collapse of charity and the human capacity to understand and tolerate each other as seen in person to person, nation to nation, religion to religion and race to race relationship. It is this fundamental character defect of unemotional intelligence which holds the key to further human capacity building and not startling ll advancement.
We can understand the plight of Africa and the capacity to shock the rest of the world with pristine savagery. Sudan has not had a functioning state for over a year, but it is in excellent company. All over the continent, statehood is a fluid and volatile business which often exchanges batons with anarchy or organized official banditry.
But how does the civilized world explain the horrific and apocalyptic carnage of Gaza Strip as Israel pounds the Hamas overlords into submission? How does the slow-motion destruction of Ukraine which has been going on for almost two years now while the civilized world watches in powerless perdition make sense? With the stricken people of Gaza reverting to sign language and primitive modes of transportation, a dawn of de-civilization appears to be underway in the area.
Some analysts have contended that the appalling human mess such as we are witnessing the world over is nature’s way of asserting its suzerainty over human affairs and of curbing our illusion that we are on our way to becoming undisputed masters of the universe. The human species murdered and pillaged its way into universal dominion over other contending hominids. The logic and manner of ascendancy and domination is unlikely to end with our species.
What we are witnessing may well be a replay of that struggle for the survival of the fittest at another level. At the end of it all, the human species may become so enervated and exhausted that it may pave the way for the emergence of another master species already lurking in the shadow; or out of sheer apathy and weariness humankind may suddenly be surprised into submission by its own creation on a clear beautiful day.
The Middle East gave human civilization its two most powerful and successful religions to date. They do not derive their power and achievement from the beauty of their message or the transcendental scope of their vision of humanity, but from their capacity for organized violence and relentless militarization of conversion.
When the capacity of one to enforce its universal writ petered out outside the gates of Vienna after slogging it all the way from conquered Constantinople, the other took over. The world would never be the same again.
From there, it was a straightforward route over the Dark Age to the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. The interplay of fortuitous forces and geographical placement as well as the fact that historically Western Europe was on the periphery of classical feudalism pushed the continent ahead of other continents in the sweepstakes of modernization and its booty. The discovery of the two continents of America followed and the creeping colonization of Africa commenced.
Almost two thousand years after being expelled from their ancestral homestead, the Israelites are back in the same place but this time as a conquering colonial power themselves. There is no other way Israel can sustain its brutal writ and iron grip over the Gaza Strip without assuming the formal trappings of a colonizing imperium. The Israelis groaned and wailed under the savage yoke of their Roman conquerors. Now it is the turn of their Arab cousins.
The same goes for Russia and its cruel exertions in its former colony, Ukraine. For centuries until the Soviet Union imploded, the Ukrainians felt the icy grip of their powerful Slavic cousins. It is an understatement to aver that Russia covets Ukrainian riches and stupendous human resources and is willing to ignore ineffectual international condemnation to achieve its objective.
It is on record that Vladimir Putin considers the collapse of the Soviet Empire as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe to have befallen his country in the modern era. This enthusiasm is not shared by most Ukrainians who regard themselves as more politically advanced and culturally sophisticated than their Russian relations. The average Russian balks at this, claiming that the veneer and gloss of modern civilization paraded by Ukraine is a result of Russian generosity and labour.
The situation is thus set for a duel onto death and a collision of altars which can only end in conquest and submission rather than negotiation and conciliation. Russia does not seem to mind Ukraine disintegrating after seizing a huge chunk of the nation. But to maintain its vice grip and give its dominion a semblance of statehood, Russia would have to take on the role of a colonizing emporium for the second time.
The rest of the world is compelled to look askance, given the growing impotence of the UN and its utter powerlessness when it comes to dealing with the superpowers. Hobbled by its manifest frailties, the African Union lacks the voice and the gravitas to intervene in any matter. Haven gone through a disastrous run of incompetent leadership caused by cronyism and chumminism, Great Britain is understandably quiet and supine.
France is chafing and chomping having been expelled from its overseas holding which it has milked without any milk of human kindness for centuries. Emmanuel Macron appears to have lost a bit of his bounce and swerve after his brinkmanship failed so disastrously in Niger Republic. The French extreme right is not taking all this lying low.
A leading light has suggested the equivalent of the guillotine treatment for Emmanuel Macron for losing the plot in Africa and for letting the much despised Black people unto the secret of their misery and historic privation. This coming from the country of liberte, egalite, and fraternite is a new low in a history of arrogant duplicity and deviousness.
It is noteworthy that after the French were ejected, Niger became the fastest growing economy in the world. One can imagine what a vast difference this new found wealth will make to the fortunes of the average Nigeriene if it does not disappear into private pockets. So much for colonial exploitation and brigandage.
As the memorable year swings to a close, the question on everybody’s lips is who will redeem western inspired civilization as we know it from its self-inflicted wounds? Certainly not America which prides itself on its own Exceptionalism and messianic destiny. America is in danger of imploding from its own contradictions, particularly from the unresolved National Question about whether a nation laying claim to universal freedom of humanity can also play host to such dehumanizing inequities and survive.
The land of the founding fathers, of Washington, Jefferson, Jay, Hamilton and all those heroic figures who cobbled together a new type of nation is in critical danger of a swift descent into an authoritarian distemper the like of which these sages and avatars could not have contemplated. In Donald Trump, the descendant of an immigrant from Germany who was expelled for draft-dodging, America seems to have found its nemesis.
If Trump prevails in next year’s poll, the enlightened wager is that America may dissolve into anarchy with the possibility of the entire nation being consumed in a secessionist conflagration. A toxic and polarizing conman, Trump had already caused enough division in the land to last a whole generation, and that is if it survives him.
America is a victim of its own success. By forcibly homogenizing several disparate entities under the rubric of a new type of human society with democratic ideals and under the capitalist ethos of life more abundant for everybody, Uncle Sam was tempting fate too hard.
In such circumstances, something must give as harsh realities confront visionary daydreaming, rendering the whole project nugatory. Yet as the American project has taught the world no nation can move forward without some visionary daydreaming and Utopian yearning encapsulated in the thoughts and vision of its founding fathers.
In local parlance, the masquerade that arrives early to the village dancing square to exhibit his skills will soon join them in the spectators’ stand. Several novel types of human societies are visible in the horizon threatening to put paid to the dominance of America and other western nation-types. First, is the Israeli-type messianic warrior-nation based on permanent mobilization of the people for war and unending strife and buoyed by the Masada complex of fighting to the last man.
Second is the Chinese model of mobilizing the entire society for progress and enhanced prosperity which is powered by Confucius-inspired State Capitalism disguised as Communism. Within seventy years of its existence, China has lifted almost ninety percent of its people out of poverty. Politically, the society is more cohesive and economically less polarized.
The tradeoff is a harshly authoritarian climate which brooks no dissent or political rascality. The bet is that as the society becomes more prosperous and economically independent, questions will be asked. But it should not be forgotten that this is a malleable, docile and acquiescent society which sees the state as a benevolent and caring father-figure. The modern rulers of China seem to have plugged all the loopholes of mainstream dissent. Tiananmen Square is almost thirty five remote years in memory. The youthful veterans of that remarkable uprising have become potbellied elders in exile.
Fourth is the Arab miracle of the Emirates where remarkable discipline and focus anchored on a skilled devolution of economic, political and military power among the emirates has managed to clear away within a generation centuries of feudalistic accretions and their cobwebs leading to startling modernization and an investment capitalism which has turned Dubai into a global powerhouse of financial wheeling and dealing. Six decades ago, the entire country was a fetid feudal back wood bristling with sand and dunes. Today, the glitzy emporium and glittering skyline of the postmodern city of Dubai rival any Western capital.
Finally, there is the frankly authoritarian but prudent, Spartan and economically disciplined state of Singapore which has managed to transit to the First World from the Third World in a single generation. When it was summarily expelled from Malaysia, Singapore was a festering colonial backwater swarming with slums and shanties. With pride and fierce determination, Lee Kuan Yew seized it by the scruff of the neck dragging it to modernity by force.
Today, Singapore feels better than most Western nations and its infrastructure vastly superior. There are also stand-between societies such as the Japanese and South Korean whose elite are culturally driven by a sense of what is right and proper and will do the needful if they are adjudged to have contravened societal norms.
Unfortunately, while the world is stirring and creating itself anew amidst many conflagrations, Africa has been missing on this radar, this stellar congregation of transformational leadership. To suggest that Africa has not produced its own fair share of transformational leadership would amount to a genetic scandal. Where will one put the Nkrumahs, the Awolowos, the Cabral, the Nyereres and the Samoras?
In retrospect, it would appear that the cultural and tribal obstacles that some of these avatars rightly identified as barriers to genuine nationhood returned to haunt their aspirations because the solutions they offered could not withstand the difficulties on ground. What is playing out in many African nations attests to the fact that in multi-ethnic nations with religious and cultural fissures, it is often very difficult to produce a leader with a transcendental vision of his society who also transformational.
But to produce a nation or a society worthy of global admiration and emulation, a pacesetter for jaded humanity, postcolonial Africa must come up with this stellar combination: a leadership with a cosmopolitan vision that transcends narrow ethnic and cultural divides and the intellectual strength and energy to transform his nation.
