Opinion: There’s too much chaos – Africa needs an Intellectual Revolution!

 

Photo credit: Watsuptek

 

By Prince Adeoye Afolabi

Today if you are an African reading this you must start a conscious effort to develop your mental prowess.

The first law of nature is self- preservation; every living creature has one or more defence mechanism inbuilt to obey this law of self-preservation.

In all of history every society develops and evolves through strife, war, and struggles against natural disasters. At every point in time during these catastrophes, the society grows; it develops the collective instinct of survival using all or parts of every natural resource within reach.

Within the last two to three millennia we’ve seen the rise and fall of different civilization, we’ve been able to trace how it all began to Egypt and its spread through Greece and the China dynasty, the rise and fall of the Roman empire, the influence and development of the English royal house in colonizing America, the renaissance which began in Italy culminating again to the industrial revolution in England.

Finally we have the American brain child; democracy and capitalism. Each epoch has one common underlying factor that stimulated growth; survival.

Just as there are societies that grew out of subjugation and relegation so also there are those that have been totally dominated by alien cultures and ideologies. Some are already extinct and others at the edge of extinction.

Today there is only one continent and a race of people with so much chaos; they seem to be in a perpetual dream world and abject poverty. Others who came to learn one or two things from them are hundreds of years ahead in terms of development in every sphere of life. They confuse leadership with tyranny and tenaciously hold on to power not to serve but rather to oppress their kindred.  They are at the edge of extinction because they already lost their identity (culture) to alien religion and standards.

The African societies replace their cultural identity with those of the West and imbibed their ideologies hook, line and sinker without a check on which best fits into her nature. They took in others culture not for any sort of development but rather out of fancy and to entertain their emotions. In every black society of African origin the same problem persist, from the slums of the west to the dirty business deals in the east they are found in the lowest strata of life. Africans live the truth (religion) of others without an effort to search within to find their own spiritual self. The African problem is that of mental laziness.

A black man would rather keep carrying a bowl of water from point A to point B than work out a way of building a machine to do it even if it continues for the next one thousand years has not learned how to channel those physical energies to brain power. The question that comes to mind is if there is any difference between an Asian, American, Indian and an African. The answer is NO; all humans regardless of the skin colour are the same.

All scientific studies including the human genome project show proof that all humans have the same physiologic and metabolic semblance. We only think in worlds apart. What’s the way out of the doldrums for Africa?

There is an urgent need for an intellectual revolution in Africa; there is a need for all Africans no matter where and how they find themselves to start an exploration into the mind. Within the mind of man lies all the miracles he seeks. All of the beautiful and magnificent inventions we see today were once only ideas.

Today if you are an African reading this you must start a conscious effort to develop your mental prowess. Africa must first tackle the issue of leadership; every African must understand that leadership starts from the self. You must deal with your mental understanding of what true leadership is all about. Leadership is true and selfless service to humanity, it’s about allowing every member of the society to express both their mental and spiritual free will. Lead yourself aright first by expressing those moral virtues of existence then all else would follow.  A morally bankrupt leader is not much different from a pauper and an infidel.

The future starts now and it lies in the hands of the youths of today to ignite an intellectual revolution, let each and every young African aspire for true knowledge to develop his/her own society. The time is now to go back to the roots and let go of alien ideologies. Your college or university education won’t take you anywhere; your role models who ride in fancy cars are not worth emulating because their knowledge cannot stand the test of time. The only favour you can do for this generation is to be the best mentally, spiritually and morally, the future awaits you to spark the intellectual revolution now.

 

 

 

 

Comments (3)

  1. Very inspiring. Nice one

  2. What a beautiful piece!

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