A Human State - What Mwalimu Understood and We Need to Carry on. Part 1

The human being is the greatest creation on earth. It is as a result, no wonder, that all that humanity has created, at best, is an extension of what we know or don’t know about ourselves in relation to our environment.

This provides us with two clear paradigms for examining our existence: that which we know and can understand enough to believe in as a result - the physical and mental; and that which we don’t know and cannot understand but are compelled by circumstance to believe in still - the spiritual.

As a result, the spiritual being provides a barrier (limits) for our physical actions and mental thoughts as we pursue the critical task of distributing amongst ourselves limited resources to ensure not only our survival in the moment, but rather, and probably more importantly, as we have come to learn over time, to secure our sustained existence as planet earth’s dominant species.

These three parts (the physical, the mental and the spiritual) effectively inform the realms that complete our being as humans: that which is of the body (the physical being); that which is of the mind (the mental being); and that which is of the conscience (the spiritual being).

As the world revels at the dawn of a forth and arguably final revolution (bold assertion) and the super power supremacy of the United States of America (the lead architect of the modern world as we know it today) is seemingly being challenged by its current economic equal - China, one cannot help but wonder what does it all really mean and why Africa, in particular, should be very concerned?

Surviving the forth revolution requires an honest understanding of these realms (the physical realm, the mental realm and the spiritual realm) in relation to our evolution as a societal good.

These three realms have always been in existence only differing in the dominance of each given our level of understanding of our humanity.

Allow me to characterize the dominance of each of these realms for a better understanding of their consequence in defining our humanity:

The dominance of the physical realm.

The physical realm was the first to take prominence as the physical being is the primary building block of our existence as a species and was informed by a period when we were still ‘victims’ of nature compelling us to instinctively embrace our ‘animal’ nature.

The physical realm is characterized by the use of the physical being, the body, in order to survive and culminates with the introduction of mechanical machines (an extension and enhancement of the physical being). Consequently, conflicts were resolved through physical combat and military warfare.

During this period, the mental and spiritual realm supported the dominance of the physical realm. As a result, this phase saw the literal rise of the ‘strong man’ personalities (breeding brutality as a governing medium) and spiritual and mental capabilities were used to prop up the physical being, climaxing on a societal level with the formation of Kingdoms / Empires and military forces that pay allegiance to a superior bloodline and / or human being.

This period had the consequence of fostering male dominance and emboldening humanity as result of its ability to use machines to defy humanity, if not, destroy it altogether along with the physical world that hosts us as we had come to know it, as was best evidenced during World War 2.

The dominance of the mental realm.

The mental realm was the second to take prominence of the three as we became more aware of ourselves and the environment in which we lived and was informed by a period when we became ‘victors’ over nature compelling us to embrace our human nature differentiating ourselves from other animals - civilization.

The mental realm is characterized by the use of the mental being, the mind, in order to survive and culminates with the introduction of computing machines (an extension and enhancement of the mental being). Consequently, conflicts are resolved through intellectual discourse and economic warfare.

During this period, the physical and spiritual realms supported the dominance of the mental realm. As a result this phase saw the rise of ideas (breeding rationality as the governing medium) and physical and spiritual capabilities were used to prop up the mental being culminating on a societal level with creation of institutions, like Government, Bank, Capital Markets, Academia and Religion, that effectively challenged the hegemony of personalities and gave prominence to ideas.

This period, not only saw the rise of books as a physical output, but more importantly spawned intellectualism; taking our curiosity about our environment to another level resulting in theories on survival (economics, social sciences) and scientific discovery (the age of discovery) further emboldening us but now without a gender or lineage bias as intellectualism is independent of physical strength which naturally favors men. It can be argued that the dominance of the mental realm reached its climax with the financial crisis which threatened to bring down the world economy as we have come to know it.

The dominance of the spiritual realm.

The spiritual realm, which I am convinced, is currently taking prominence, as we become more aware of the limits of our creations and is informed by a period when we feel independent of nature altogether and are compelled to embrace what I like to call our virtual nature. The spiritual realm is characterized by the use of the spiritual being, the conscience, as the primary means of survival and culminates with the introduction of artificial intelligence. Consequently, conflicts are resolved through spiritual conviction and cyber warfare.

During this period, the physical and mental rhealm will support the dominance of the spiritual realm. As a result, this phase will see the rise of feelings (breeding emotionality as the governing medium) and physical and mental capabilities will be used to prop up the spiritual being culminating on a societal level with values harbored by individuals (the populous) that challenge both personalities and institutions.

This period is born out of the inherent failures of the dominance of the physical and mental realm pushing spirituality to the fore. Spirituality in this case is manifested through the conscience - the force that subdues our feelings towards our thoughts (the mental) and the resulting actions (the physical) breeding restraint.

Africa’s challenge...

Africa, at best, is an extension of the west as opposed to it being an intention of its own making. Africa has not been allowed the evolutionary handover of these realms like most of the advanced world and finds itself in the peculiar predicament of having deal with the collision of all three as it pursues its development agenda. This often has the effect of confusing everyone - observers and players alike.

Mwalimu’s solution.

Mwalimu went the route of forging this evolution by fostering restraint (the alfa and omega of the continued existence of human beings as the dominant species) using ujamaa and the Arusha Declaration.

At a time when intelligence will soon be something you can buy over the counter and the modern man is reaching its peak by the eminent saturation of pure science as we now know it, where now, not only can we destroy humanity, but we can also ‘create’, if not, replicate humanity.

What lies ahead?

The concept of choice makes conflict an inherent part of our being as humans and the culmination of conflict is war. It should come as no surprise then that wars, in particular, the definitive world wars present us with the best explanation of the expanse and limits of our humanity.

The first two world wars were ‘physical’ wars (the strong man factor) dependent inherently on physical might measured by military capacity and capability to physically dominate your adversary - other nation states. These were wars, at best, that were fought to establish supremacy of a race/ nation state and not ideas.

The last world war, the Cold War, that established the USA as the world’s super power, was, at best, a ‘mental’ war (the smart man factor) dependent inherently on economic might measured by economic ideologies and practicalities to grow and sustain economies. This war was fought to establish supremacy of ideas and not a specific race and / or nation state defined by physical boarders.

Why Africa needs to act fast...

Mwalimu Nyerere understood the dynamics at hand enough, as the Cold War grounded to a deafening holt with the collapse of the Soviet Union, to subscribe to the non aligned movement of the ‘south’.

Much has changed over the 30years since and Africa is the only continent left behind still, primarily because of the entrapments of embracing ideals without understanding the idea behind these ideals.

Economic growth means nothing, in the long run, if we don’t do the hard work of building economies into relevance like China and most of the east has. Africa’s challenge is to remove itself from the dependency syndrome (swahili: ‘utoto’) if it is to grow into a ‘responsible and independent adult’.

We took from the west just like China did but we didn’t do the hard work of building nations and economies; we just milked the wealth of our rich ‘parents’ without a thought for building our own wealth.

And now we want to take from China, yet again, without doing the hard work of building our nation states and economies?

To what end?

It is not by chance that China’s greatest investments over the last 50yrs has been in the form of infrastructure, education and medical research. These are inescapable ingredients in building strong and sustainable nation states and economies in the context of the modern world.

My prediction is that the next world war will be fought in defense of spiritual convictions, as this in the final realm yet to be ‘contested’ in defining our humanity (remember human beings are physical, mental and spiritual beings). Spiritual, not in the way of divine revelation (religion), as this is a product of the spiritual realm propping the physical and mental realms, but rather spiritual in the way of enforcing a conscience that governs our mental and physical actions with the aim of preserving our existence as the dominant species as per God’s original plan for us.

Unlike the physical and mental being, which are consequential (think/ do then see), the spiritual being is more causal (see then think/ do) depending more on values to guide us through our actions and thoughts then consequences to correct us after we think and do.

These are trying times simply because, when it comes to values, people are only as good as we make them - garbage in, garbage out. It is for this reason that education systems have to build people with a spiritual conviction to preserve humanity before they even build people into scholars and/ or practitioners.

Our future will depend heavily on the quality of investment made in the spirituality of our people and the extent to which this spirit cultures restraint at a time when mentally and physically everything seems possible.

Take it or leave it this is Magavilla’s take...