When All We Do Is Sit, We Fall

Dietrich Boenhoeffer was a German pastor who lived from February 4, 1906 until April 9, 1945. As a young boy, he witnessed World War I from 1914 to 1918.  He also saw the beginning of World War II but not its  end.  He had been arrested in 1943 because he stood for something and he was executed by the Nazis on April 9, 1945 - five months before the end of the War.  By standing and fighting against the Hitler’s Nazi regime’s euthanasia program and genocidal acts against the Jews, Boenhoeffer stood for humanity and for the best potential values of mankind.  He actively stood for life, love, freedom, peace and justice..  In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, published in 1937, Dietrich Boenhoeffer foresaw and lamented the cheapening and selling of grace, which is now what we see in today’s world.  He also stood for the idea that Christians and the church ought to see themselves as the moral conscience of a society in which injustice was rampant.  Certainly, the Church has lost its way.  But that is not what this piece is about.  It is about the value of standing.

I have been thinking of Dietrich Boenhoeffer lately.  If I was asked to weigh in with an opinion about this life and the value of his body of work before now, I would most likely have described him simply a visionary who may have lived before his time.  But for that to be the conclusive commentary on his life would not be doing justice to the memory of such a remarkable man.  Boenhoeffer stood for something and was murdered for what he stood for, which was the right of all humans to live without being persecuted and/or killed because of their race, ethnicity or religion.

How far have we really come from the time of Boenhoeffer?  We live in the same world into which he was born and raised; the same world where he was murdered for standing up against the persecution and killings of fellow humans.  Against all odds, he spoke truth to power because he could not bear to be a cheerleader for injustice.  So, how far have we really come from the time of Boenhoeffer? I don’t know because, as I think of the times that we are in, it seems to me that ours is a topsy-turvy world in which the idea of progress is really a mirage.  It appears to me that the more it appears that we have made progress in our ability to achieve and show practical demonstrations of love and compassion in our world, the more it seems that things are actually regressing, or remaining the same at best.     

We have mastered the art of beating down people that we dislike, some for no reason that makes sense.  Yet, no human should have the authority to be judge, jury and executioner over a fellow man.  Religious texts are used to support oppression, stealing from the poor, and casting others as inferior and beneath human.  We condemn others, not because there is a divine instruction to condemn them but because they do not fit into our prescribed rules of conduct.  So we fish out the Holy Book of whatever religion we practice and twist the words to support our hunger for judgement.  When any of us uses the Holy Book of our religion, any religion, as a cudgel to whip others that we disagree with because we have determined that they are sinners, we become present-day persecutors and deny both the humanity of our brothers and sisters and the existence and power of grace.  When we do that, we actually suggest by our deeds that others are unworthy of love, liberty or even life because we are perfect and they are not. 

If I sound pessimistic or concerned, it is only because I choose reality over baseless optimism While I perceive of the former as honest, the latter, to my mind, represents nothing more than the acceptance of crumbs thrown down by oppressors who know and expect that the rest of society would be happy to pick up and perceive those crumbs as brownies.  Now, we have mostly become carnival barkers for people who use their power and authority as guillotines for dehumanizing and destroying others.  Therefore, we allow a few powerful people to pick winners and losers among us and, in that role, determine who should live and who should die; who should have the opportunities for gainful participation in a prosperous social and political economy and who shouldn’t; who should have a right to good medical care, affordable housing and food security, and who shouldn’t; which immigrants from what parts of the world should have a right to keep their children and which immigrants should have their children forcibly taken from them and put in cages where powerful people would not even put their dogs.  The same powers determine what countries should sit at the table when major decisions are made even on matters that affect the entire world, and what countries should be excluded from the opportunity to determine their future. 

But it is not at the macro level where we ought to always focus and either complain or act.  It is also, and in fact mostly, at the micro level of society where individuals oppress their neighbors or even people that they do not know.  The world needs communities of active change agents who understand that we each have a responsibility to be loving and compassionate to one another.  Silence in the face of cruelty is not the best antidote for a world that is increasingly riddled with acts of wickedness that are occurring in the homes that we know, in our neighborhoods, our communities and our nations.  We cannot change our world unless we are ready, willing and able to change ourselves. 

The problem isn’t always that we vocalize support for cruel acts perpetrated by our neighbors but that we stay silent when we should speak up; defend oppressors when we should be advocating for the oppressed and, in some cases, rationalize wicked acts by the powerful either because we are afraid to defend what is right or because we truly believe that those wicked acts are necessary to maintain the illusions that we hold about our own relevance.  Sometimes, we remain silent because we believe that our own status and security are best guaranteed when we do not protest the injustice that happens to others.  Of course, times also abound when we stay quiet because we consider the oppressed as the “other”.  Well, I happen to believe that Thomas Paine was right when he said that “He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself”. History is replete with accounts of oppressors against whom the tides turned even in their own lifetimes.  That isn’t ancient history; I know because I have seen that repeated several times even in my own lifetime. 

Certainly, our world would greatly benefit from individuals and communities that carry with them lights of compassion and courage. While we can sit with bowels full of thoughts and compassion, it takes more than thoughts and compassion to stand from our seats of comfort to accomplish the kinds of changes that positively impacted our world in the past - and still do in small doses.  It also takes standing up; standing for something.  Society stands still at best, or regresses at the worst when all we do is sit.  Nobody’s freedom or national independence has ever been attained because people sat.  We must all decide to do more than sit because the conveyance of hope demands that we take a stand, and then stand up.  Robert Kennedy was right when he said that “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance”.  We fall, and our world falls, when all we do is sit.

In Defence of Brilliance

From one end of the world to another, nations, communities and organizations are now ruled by individuals who know very little about the world or even about the people who occupy the spaces that they lord over.  No continent is spared the ignominy of this disheartening development. This has become a world of brilliant people ruled by dunces. This is now the story of our world, and it is bad.

 

In much of the world, brute force and the ability to deceive, rather than intellectual skills and decency, have taken over as the characteristics that define (or should define) who emerge as leaders and how societies should be structured and run.  Therefore, people are embraced as leaders, not because they have any leadership skills but because they are either masters of deceit who have learned how to lie their way into people’s hearts, or they have the brute power to attain submission to themselves.

Time was when brilliance was celebrated and rewarded.  That was when, because of his brilliance, Albert Einstein was accepted, heard, and is still celebrated with incredible references to his accomplishments in academic and healthcare institutions - some named after him in the United States and other countries.  Mahatma Gandhi used his brilliance to lead India to independence and to generate movements for civil rights around the world; Dr. Martin Luther King and many other leaders before and after him used their brilliance to advance the course of history, their occupations and/or professions notwithstanding. Most of us can identify at least one such person in the distant and recent history of our countries of origin and/or the ones in which we live, or in the communities that we call home - individuals who responded to the silent call of responsibility and used their brilliance to positively impact the course of human events.

Although many, like me, would argue that we no longer embrace and celebrate brilliance as much as we used to, it is true that every now and again, we experience sparks of brilliance that remind us of what our engaged brains are capable of.  We still have brilliant people making incredible discoveries in their daily lives - such as Dr. Bennett Omalu, the Nigerian-born US-based neuropathologist, who discovered what is now widely known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in the brains of dead American football players.  That discovery has forever changed the perception and administration of American football

Despite the sparks of brilliance about which I speak, however, it is my contention that our world has regressed intellectually because, in most aspects of life, it now appears that we are engaged in a shameless race to the bottom.  It has become very difficult to recall that time when children were not embarrassed to be called nerds because they were brilliant; or that time when teenagers were desperate to be friends with their very brilliant peers; or the time when parents wanted their children to date and marry only brilliant boys - and girls. Now, schools are filled with children who do not wish to be identified as brilliant for fear that they would not be accepted into the hip social groups, and society is replete with parents who want their children to only marry wealthy people, notwithstanding how the wealth was acquired and/or the credibility of the suitor.

So, look at the world in which we now live.  Dunces are celebrated, even as their ascendancy to power and their display of authority either dumb down the intellectual abilities of others around them or make it difficult and/or dangerous for those others to speak truth to power.  In some cases, otherwise brilliant people succumb to the lure of material because the exercise of brilliance has been relegated to the glow and acknowledgment of prestige based on wealth. No wonder our world is in so much trouble. It takes more than power and authority to create and maintain a just society.  It also takes the ability to understand both the consequences of injustice and the advantages of having a socially just society. In other words, it takes brilliance as well. It takes brilliance to recognize, support and promote the values of a just society. It takes more than determination to develop an original idea in a world saturated by information that can be used effectively for good or bad.  It takes brilliance to conceive of, and act on an idea that benefits others beyond the confines of one’s nepotistic system.

In political and religious circles in our world today, people are ridiculed for their brilliance.  In the United States, it is now the norm for members of a certain political party to refer to their opponents as “elitists”, implying that the brilliance of their opponents makes them “different” - that is, different from the people that they aspire to lead.  But ...really...shouldn’t the electorate aspire and be proud to be led by brilliant people? One would expect so, except that the politicians who pride themselves in being dunces actually do win a lot of votes and, in many cases, the election. In too many of today’s churches, pastors condemn the brilliant as “worldly humanists” that their followers must shun, as if there is something wrong with the very essence of humanism - which advocates human action and critical thinking over dogma and superstition. But why?

 

Why should any people adopt a line that casts them as having more in common with a dullard? Why don’t communities of thinking human beings rise against people who want to dumb them down?  To what extent can (or should) people expect a dunce to lead them to glory? One does not even need to go far back in history to see what can happen when a person is placed in position who is not brilliant and does not seek knowledge to gain intellectual strength.  We know even from contemporary experience that intellectually weak people can only bring down the nations, communities, organizations or departments that they lead. In the absence of high intellectual skills and an unwillingness to learn, they resort to tactics intended to legitimize and empower them as bosses rather than as leaders.  Lying, bullying and arrogance at the top of any organization or nation can only hold the respect of the led for so long before the incompetence of the leadership is exposed, along with cracks in the system that they were supposed to be guarding.

Brilliance is a good thing.  The alternative is dangerous for any society.  Brilliance should neither be punished nor discouraged.  Nor should it be contained or ignored. We should all strive to be brilliant and we must recognize that ideas that come out of a brilliant mind do not sink ships but build edifices that stand the test of time.  On the contrary, the loose talk and uncultured actions of an unintelligent person, especially one in a position of authority, may do even more than sink ships. Our world needs nerds to stand up and be counted because the proven ability of brilliance to shine strong, bright, guiding lights in all corners of a fading, sleepy world is needed now more than ever.  It is time once again to embrace and celebrate brilliance if we intend for our current societies and we to make a strong march into history.

 

 

The Tangled Webs That We Weave

I have made many mistakes in my life and, I think some could have been potentially life-altering. In spite of my current station in life, I remember some of the mistakes that I have made but not even on the best days would I ever claim that I remember all.  It is possible (no, it is definitely the case) that I made some mistakes that I may never even know I made. Of the ones that I know, the mistakes do not define me, and that is only by God’s grace and not a consequence of my human ingenuity.

But how is it possible that I would make mistakes that I did not know of? Well, there are many ways that that could have happened but much of it comes down to the Machiavellian complex that is inherent in all human beings; the feeling that the end justifies the means.  Therefore, we do not always focus on our mistakes when our actions yield what others and we perceive as success. Instead, we tend to embrace and dwell on our successes and much less on the mistakes that we made along the way. Soon, those mistakes become very dim or inexistent in our memories, unless they were damaging to us in some way.

As I have thought about some mistaken or ill-advised actions in my life, I have wondered with humility and gratitude about the harmless outcomes because the story of my life could very well have been different. What if, for example, something bad happened to me as I walked home from wherever I had gone on numerous late nights in a small Nigerian town ... at times too late for me to have been out alone on dark backstreets....walking home… alone… and vowing never to do that again, but repeating the same action the next day…and vowing again that I would never do that…all the while weaving for myself a web in which I had so quickly become tangled?

What, really, was the wisdom in me riding motorcycles at high speed as a teenager, without a helmet, even if at the time there was no law requiring the use of a helmet while riding a motorcycle?  In neither of these instances did I violate any law. Yet, in each instance, I knew what was right but chose a course of action that, on the face of it, was fun-packed but, in reality, could have been potentially deadly.  

Does the fact that these were deliberate actions change the reference to them as mistakes? No, because a mistake is by its very nature and definition a misguided or wrong action or judgment.  Does the fact that I suffered no physical harm in any of those cases negate the fact that I unnecessarily placed myself in dangerous situations? I suppose not.

I think that, except for anyone who wishes to claim perfection, most of us have had times in our lives when we did things that, with the benefit of hindsight, we are not proud that we did.  But what is the difference between those who escape mistaken acts unharmed and those who do not? How is it that some of us can get in and out of potentially dangerous situations while others remain in such situations in perpetuity; stuck in repetitive cycles of misery from which they look at a world that stays dark to them?  Why do we make decisions and take actions that imprison us in our own minds? Why do we choose to make friends that are bad for us while we reject people that could potentially add value to our lives? Of what value is a friendship in which there is no exchange of happiness and contentment? Really...of what use is a romantic relationship whose only reward is pain?  I do not expect to find much disagreement in stating that such relationships are worthless, that they are webs in which we get entangled and from which it can be immensely hard to break away unless one sets his/her mind to that goal. We know this; yet, we are constantly creating webs that we get trapped in.

This is true for individuals, for groups, families and nations. As individuals or as nations, we often get ourselves into financially tight corners because we choose to spend more than our means, forgetting the age-old belief of our elders that rainy days aren’t always so far removed from sunny days.  We forget, after all, that it is the same bright blue sky that also holds the clouds that are the precursors of thunderstorms and sometimes cause severe damage. Therefore, countries become debtor-nations, unable to care for the needs of their citizens; and individuals become unable to afford even their most basic needs because hard times can be overwhelming in their tendency to be merciless.  Debtor-nations continue to weave webs that take the form of more international borrowing, more corruption in the ranks of the political so-called elites and people close to them. It is always just a matter of time before the entire nation, including the innocent citizens, get caught up in the tangled webs woven by their leaders. Also, some individuals already traveling down the path of financial ruin, who are unable to pay their bills, continue to buy expensive items or find enough money to give to their pastors who sell unproven and tainted messages of hope rather than pay their bills with the money.  In some cases, individuals already in financial trouble still find ways to finance expensive clothing to attend the next big party. By so doing, a web is woven and the cycles of the web continue to multiply. Then, in due course, their family members, including innocent children, get encumbered and swallowed up in the web that was woven.

We spend valuable money, energy and time on unproductive endeavors without seeming to have any plans to assess our performance, redirect our focus if necessary, or engage in activities that would place our lives on a clearer, more result-oriented and positive trajectory.

Often, those of us who attain measures of success become trapped by, and in our consciousness of our accomplishments and forget how fleeting life really is. So, the web gets woven, not by anyone else but by us; not because we don’t love ourselves but sometimes because we love ourselves so much that our pride gets in our way of seeing the most important things of life. Therefore, we weave webs made up of material and other things that satisfy our bodies but diminish the value of our souls, not thinking that there could be an unpleasant price to pay when the satisfaction wears out. Even when we realize where we are and know that we need to step out of the webs that we have woven, our pride stops us because we wonder what others might think or say about us.  So we remain entangled. Sometimes we weave and remain entangled in our webs because we do not think hard enough. Instead, we suspend our thinking abilities or hand them over to other people who have convinced us that they know better than we know or have the power to save us from our imperfections because they are connected to a supernatural source.

Here is what I think: we often cannot get out of the webs that we create, largely because we were not supposed to create them in the first place.  I also think that, for as long as we are human, for so long will the tendency and opportunities exist to weave new webs. Getting entangled in those webs is the challenge to avoid.

Nigeria: Bent, Broken, And Still Home

I have just recently returned from a trip to Nigeria, the country of my birth….my homeland. Certainly, the famous Nigerian poet, John Pepper Clark, might well have been writing about the entire country when, in his poem about Africa’s third largest city, he described Ibadan as a “running splash of rust and gold flung and scattered among seven hills like broken China in the sun”. 

You see, I took a trip with my son to Nigeria a few years ago and we spent a few days in Ghana on our way to Nigeria where I was scheduled to present an academic paper at a conference occurring at the University of Port Harcourt.  The year prior, my daughter had visited Nigeria and Ghana and had returned home with incredible experiences from her time both in Nigeria where she spent 2 weeks staying and volunteering in an orphanage and in an elementary school in Ghana where she also volunteered as a teacher for 2 weeks. She again joined her mother and me for a few days on this recent trip to Nigeria.  My children have a love for Nigeria…indeed for Africa.

That was my son’s first trip to Africa as an adult and there are not sufficient words to describe the time that we had, nor are there enough words to describe the time that my wife, my daughter and I had during my most recent trip to Nigeria.

Back to my trip with my son a few years ago: He requested that we travel by road in Nigeria because, although it was a business trip for me, it was a heritage trip for him.  Therefore, for 2 days, starting from Lagos, we travelled just over 17 hours down the southeastern coast of Nigeria, stopping in multiple towns along the way.  In the process, we acquired experiences that I would not trade for a substitute. 

I did not bargain for what the trip would do for me, nor will I ever forget what it did.  Finding myself in a position to see Nigeria through the very objective eyes of my son, I realized for the first time in my life that my views about the country had always been based on a subjective premise...  But why not? After all, I was born and raised there.  That trip, however, put me in a position to see the blessings and contrasts of the country in full view. Just watching the women dart across the hectic, traffic-laden streets of Lagos carrying heavy items on their heads and children in tow that they would walk to school before going to sell their wares, seeing women selling food items on the roadside as we traveled -begging us to buy what they were selling to enable them feed their families... seeing school age children begging for alms in the streets of oil-rich Port Harcourt on a school day; seeing lazy police officers asking for and collecting bribes from travelers; and…from seeing the dark streets and homes across the country to seeing the bright lights of skyscrapers whenever there was electricity; from seeing the muddy rugged streets and highways unbefitting a giant nation like Nigeria to seeing the beautiful corn fields and greenery of the countryside landscapes....the beauty and ruggedness of Nigeria was on display. Flying back to Lagos from Port Harcourt, it was impossible not to behold in amazement the beautiful, clear skies that God placed over the parts of Nigeria that the plane flew over. 

That trip provided me a once in a lifetime opportunity not just to be alone with my adult son for an extended period, by which I actually mean a week, (a rarity in this “modern” world where we are both high-flying professionals), but also because it allowed me to see Nigeria through objective lens.  Of course, the signs of corruption and government inefficiency were everywhere, but there was much to admire in the spirits of the Nigerian people and the country’s blessings in the form of natural resources - all unfortunately taken for granted. The green leaves and grassland reminded me of the existence of life even in the face of trials and hardships such as now face millions of Nigerians.  The smiles and polite attitudes of so many were a good reminder of the goodness inherent in a Nigerian people who may well be described as a people as warm as the weather to which they are accustomed.  Although, by any sincere standards, the quality of some of the conference presentations was a stunning revelation of how far south the educational system had traveled from the high quality standards that I remembered…..well...that is another story for another time. 

Back to my recent trip. I am unable to recall any time when Lagos was as beautiful as I found it to be during this visit.  Driving through parts of Lagos at night felt sometimes as though one was driving through the streets of a Western country.  To be sure, I am not one who believes that Western countries are the gold standard for all things good.  However, I am also aware and sincere enough to acknowledge that, except for a few exceptions, African countries and cities are generally not good examples of organized systems – and that is putting it mildly…..and generously.  So, if the discussion is about aesthetics, structure and system efficiency, it would be delusional to suggest that African countries generally measure up.  They do not.

Having said that, I am aware that the beauty of Lagos should not be considered by me or anyone else as a reflection of the entire country.  I know of homes, schools, healthcare facilities, roads and other structures that exist in overwhelming states of disrepair across the country.  The consequences of such states of existence are often unquantifiable because suffering has no representation on any scale of measurement. 

So, I am not one who believes that the physical beauty of inanimate structures is an accurate measure of the quality of life of animate beings.  To that extent, the beauty of Lagos is by no means representative of the quality of life of most of the over 100 million people who live in Nigeria.  Lagos is very wealthy, beautiful and full of people – an educated class – blessed with the ability, courage and presence of mind to consistently elect dedicated leaders, each with a knack for service and commitment to the people and state that they govern.  While Lagos is developing impressively and shining as Nigeria’s “golden state”, much (though, perhaps those who know better than I would say all) of the rest of Nigeria wallow in rust created and maintained by their political leadership; leadership that is created, emboldened and sustained by weak, dishonest and short-sighted voters who only care about their own stomachs at the outset but then complain ceaselessly after getting ditched by the governments that they installed with their votes.

Nigeria may not be impeccable, but no country is.  Nigerians have a tendency to emphasize the country’s rust while ignoring the potential gold that also lies within the country.  Nigeria may be comparable to a wreck but in that wreck live many people with beautiful souls, children too innocent to deserve to be victims of the cruel machinations of the adult leaders who caused the wreckage in which those children must live and grow up.  

We need a better Nigeria.  Africa needs that; the world needs that.  However, for Nigeria to move to a better place among the world’s best nations to live in, Nigerians must do the work of transforming rust into mostly gold.  That process would have to start with the transformation of Nigerian hearts and minds. For that to occur, more Nigerians than not must accept that most of Nigeria’s problems were created by Nigerians and must be solved by Nigerians who are willing and able to look inward for potential solutions.  Also, Nigerians must shun the tribalistic urge that often sends them into defensive postures on behalf of the thieves that suck their country dry.  Nigerians must be willing to report the thieves among them for prosecution by legal authorities.  Unfortunately, legal authorities in Nigeria, as in much or all of Africa, require extensive sanitization due to their role in fostering corruption and other crimes.  Yet, those authorities are needed to do the work that is expected of them if Nigeria is to be truly transformed. Nigeria’s problems can only be solved by Nigerians. The fields are green, the tools are all around us ready to be picked up and it is time for all Nigerians to begin to perceive of themselves as the laborers who must pick up those tools and embrace the call to refine themselves and transform their country.  The power to change our native land is in our hands, and so is the responsibility to use that power.  To the extent that that responsibility is ours, it is we who must change.  Nigeria cannot change without her sons and daughters.  We are the ones who must change ourselves and recognize that a country does not exist without its people.  To that extent, a country cannot change itself, let alone one with systems as damaged as Nigeria has; one with so many unwilling, unpatriotic and negatively enabling citizens.  For Nigeria to change, its citizens must change. This is how I see it.

Today, I Live ...And I Am Grateful

I have just marked a birthday!  At no time in my adulthood have I considered my birthday as party time. For many years in my adulthood, it was just a time of gratitude and reflection.  Now, it is more than that.  It is also now a time of recommitment to the responsibilities that the incredible circumstances of my life confer on me. It is a time of rededication to my spiritual journey, realizing that not everything will be palatable to me but everything is uniquely placed to make my life’s journey exactly as it was predestined. 

I am currently in a place that I always thought would be scary and somewhat unnerving to be at: that place from which one can look back and see how far one has traveled...a place from which one can look forward and realize that the better part of the journey has been completed. 

At my current age, I cannot get back the time that has passed - those times when I didn’t do what I should have done; times when I should have made those phone calls that I didn’t make; times when I didn’t make the choices that I should have made; times when I did not move to do something because I either thought I had plenty of time left or believed that I wasn’t yet in the prefect position to act...times when I kept silent when I should have spoken up. 

What about those times when someone that I saw frequently just faded away and I did not try to find him/her because I wasn’t paying attention - or because he/she wasn’t someone that I had any interaction with?  Or times when a peer stopped coming to class and I didn’t try to reach out to the peer? Or times when someone just stopped coming to church and I didn’t know why and didn’t ask what happened?

Could it just be that these are trivial things? Am I giving life and oversized shoulders to insignificant imaginations or am I just reminiscing because the final destination of my life is now closer than when and where my journey began?

I don’t know but...should it matter that these are the things I am thinking about instead of being the guest of honor at my own birthday bash?  Maybe not...but to me it matters because I feel a strong sense of responsibility to leave my imprint in this beautiful world that I have been blessed to inhabit for as long as I have. 

With wars, famine, corruption, ill-health, racism, religious persecution, heterosexism, gender discrimination, poverty, inequality and social injustice all around us, it would be easy for me to close my eyes or bury my head in the sand but my sense of humanity and spirituality lays on my shoulders a responsibility to love my neighbors as myself, to rise, to write, to speak and, even more, to act in the hope that, perhaps, just perhaps, I can through my actions create a ripple such as Julia Abigail Fletcher Carning meant when she wrote the words of her 19th Century famed hymnal:

Little drops of water 

Little grains of sand

Make the mighty ocean

And the beauteous land

The Long, Arduous Trek To Social Justice

Recently, I stumbled on my first-ever published work, South Africa’s Bondage Ties Us All.  Written and published in a local newspaper in 1989, I argued in that short article that none of us was truly free for as long as South African Blacks remained subjected to the bondage of apartheid. 

When I wrote that article, South Africa was paramount in my mind.  I had become increasingly bothered by the fact that leaders of countries were paying lip service to the concept of freedom as they promoted that idea around the world while actively helping the South African government to sustain its apartheid policy.  I was also angered by the fact that some preachers of my faith were boldly saying on Christian television that South Africa's apartheid regime was God's will and that black South Africans were the cause of their own oppression.  In retrospect, I feel that in my disappointment and intense desire for change in South Africa, I did not look beyond the plight of black people in South Africa to consider the potential that so many in our world would still be subjected to so many forms of social injustice long after Blacks in South Africa became free.  However, I recall that I looked sufficiently far back in history and knew enough about oppressed groups to be able to say in that article that it would only be a question of time before the black people of South Africa became free because oppression in that form was hardly sustainable in an increasingly connected world. 

Well, South African Blacks did become free but injustice continues to survive in increasingly diverse forms around the world.  Also, its varied complexion and multiplicity of forms now make it more difficult to hope for a world devoid of injustice.  That would be a world in which we all recognize that we are not truly free when some of our brothers and sisters are in chains; a world in which some among us do not have to prove themselves to be accepted just because of their pigmentation; a world in which people who possess the same credentials and perform comparable tasks are remunerated equally despite their gender; a world in which people are not judged and condemned because of who they love; a world in which people's freedom of movement is not curtailed just because of what they look like; a world in which people are not profiled for punishment just because they do not come from the dominant socioeconomic class or culture; a world in which we accept our responsibility to care for the sick among us rather than subject that responsibility to heartless political debates; a world in which all are truly equal in the application of law just as we all are in the eyes of God.  Simply, that is the world that we need but it is not the world that we have – and the chances that we will ever have such a world are increasingly diminishing by the day.  We should never claim to live in a just society (or world) if any among us remains a victim of social injustice. 

       

I am inclined to believe that our world will get better because more and more of us will embrace and work for social justice.  Yet, even if I had a crystal ball, I would still consider it foolhardy to make such a pronouncement.  Instead, here is what I can say for sure: The trek toward social justice is long, difficult and sometimes a hopeless journey but there is no guarantee that the destination can ever be reached.  I believe, however, that we can make this a more just world if each of us plays his/her part.  It would require that we join our hearts and hands, raise our voices on behalf of the voiceless, march against injustice on behalf of ourselves and those who cannot march on their own behalf, and lift those in our midst who need a helping hand.  If we give hope to the hopeless, help to the helpless, water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, empower the powerless and not only talk but live the gospel of social justice, then we make it possible for ourselves and those who come after us to hope for a world in which we can convincingly say and believe, as Dr. Martin Luther King did, that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”.  

The Ghosts of Our Fathers

As a young man, I thought that the idea that our actions out-lived us and were capable of potentially impacting the people and society that we left behind was uniquely African.  Then I read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at age 14 and knew instantly that the words of Mark Antony's speech at Caeser’s funeral might never leave me.  To this day, I see images of Mark Antony standing before the audience and expressing as follows:

Friends, Romans, countrymen

Lend me your ears

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 

The evil that men do lives after them; 

The good is oft interred with their bones;  

So let it be with Caesar.

Certainly, the meaning of these words continue to play out daily in the lives of men and women, as good deeds are often forgotten in man's insatiable appetite to glorify self and praise his/her benefactor for today's gifts while wasting no time to verbally assault the name of the same benefactor for tomorrow's inability to provide.  To me. however, Mark Antony's words on that fateful day were, and remain a lesson that the idea of life's continuation beyond death is not uniquely African.  Had I not learned this lesson at that age, I would have had to learn it at my father's funeral service many years later when the preacher declared: "Venerable Archdeacon Jonathan Oni Eseleh lived a life of righteousness and will forever be an example for all of us.  He lived his life helping others and serving His maker with humility and grace".  Then, echoing Ezekiel 18 verse 2, the preacher continued; "Therefore, it will never be said of his children that "...The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge".  Here in a religion older than Julius Caeser was an acknowledgment of the potential impact of our actions on our children even long after we are gone. Well, I was not expecting any more of this lesson when I chose to become a psychotherapist.  So, needless to say that I was pleasantly surprised to learn as a graduate student, that solidly grounded in research and practice knowledge was a very sound articulation of the position of multi-generational processes in human development, behavior, treatment and wellness.

If we take the time to look very closely around the world, we can see the impact of the works of our fathers on the societies that they left behind.  Leaders and citizens of successful societies always maintain a consciousness of history and do their best to stay close to the foundations and guiding principles laid by their founding fathers.  They are grateful for the sacrifices of those who came before them and lead as if they are guided by the ghosts of those fathers to maintain a sense of responsibility and diligence to the paths paved by history.  In such societies, individuals and groups anchor their sense of pride on an identity carved and projected by their understanding and belief in a living history that was built and preserved by selfless visionaries who understood that they were called to a purpose greater than themselves.  An immoral and distasteful leader may arise at some point in the life course of such a society but then another leader soon comes who rights the course toward history's trajectory as envisioned by the fathers long gone

In unsuccessful and struggling societies, on the other hand, history is destroyed rather than preserved, shunned rather than embraced, and relegated rather than elevated.  Also, the role of culture and tradition is in some cases disregarded in favor of what is thought to be modern, however alien.  In such societies, the young have no knowledge of the depth of their society's history because those who should teach them have abandoned their roles.  In their quest either for survival or fame, those who ought to protect and pass along the memories of service and respectability that their societies' fathers represented embark on the dangerous course of ignoring the ghosts of their fathers.  Yet, the evidence is all around us that individuals and societies that ignore history wander aimlessly, often blind to the fact that others can see through the hollowness of their momentary trappings of success.  

As individuals, most of us know the circumstances of our societies and are aware of how far we have veered from or stayed close to the lessons of history as crafted and delivered to us by our fathers. When we succeed in suppressing our consciences, ignore the ghosts of our fathers and act as if we gained no knowledge from the lessons of history, we fail in our responsibility to make the world a better place for our own descendants.  This is a very bad thing.