Many policymakers in Zambia,
and I can safely generalize this, in fact many African leaders, have little
time for “technical” details. They prefer instead a rhetorical approach with
high-sounding and fashionable clichés in common political parlance that appeals
to a short-lived emotional sensibility of the public. And yet, political
rhetoric is so often devoid of real explanation of social ills, their causation
or opportunities and, consequently of their popular understanding. The “image”
that Korten refers to is based upon a common sense view of the “big picture” if
it is to be a liberating one.
The big picture in nature
is often anchored onto very simple concepts. Because they are simple to many,
they become invisible and a search for more complex formulations of the problem
and goals is embarked upon. If we succeeded in inspiring our people to aspire
to achieve quality use of leisure time; enrich the quality of our family lives;
develop a hunger for continuous learning across the lifespan and structure
opportunities for productive and interesting work, would we not move the
boundaries of our images of suffering somewhat further away from us? These aspirations are simple. If not these
aspirations, what should our politics really be about? I sincerely believe that
our leadership must be about helping our societies overcome debilitating
images, which dis-empower and disembody them into an existence of nothingness.
If we understand Korten’s
argument about the power of images, let us examine the following story about
images. Golem, is an old Jewish thought that refers to that state of existence
only found in a form of a potential and nothing beyond. It is un-realizable
form of “being-ness”. It also refers to the yearnings of a legendary human-like
life form that the Jewish Cabal says could be created, but could never quite
achieve full humanity, as we know it. In other words, it behaves human-like but
is essentially a dependent thing, controlled and rather robotic. A somewhat
similar concept of a “Jinn” is found in Islam. In our own African myths
including Zambia’s,
there are such images. In Zambia,
“Ilomba” refers to a human-like contraption secretly kept and controlled by
people believed to have powers of witchcraft.
The Biblical Adam,
according to some Jewish thinkers, was a golem until God put breath into him
and gave him the freedom of choice between right and wrong. Other Rabbis
contend that Adam and Eve were still golems until there was a break between the
Creator and the creatures. Adam and Eve only assumed a conscience after
breaking loose from the Creator. In other words, humanity as we know it today
is only made possible as an act of rebellion.
Accordingly, Adam and Eve
realised their true identity as humans, their extracted images of a greater
Being, only after they were chased out of the ordered world of the Garden of
Eden. They imagined a different relationship with God, challenged their
carefully arranged and comfortable dependence, breaking loose from the predetermined
destiny. Rebellion and independence in this case, appear somewhat interrelated.
And so is independence and struggle for survival or inventiveness. Adam and
Eve, following their new independence, begun to sweat it out into the stark
realities of self-affirmation, a nakedness of real life, a life that is mortal
and has to be “survived” or lived in all its dimensions, both in terms of
quality and quantity.
It is perhaps a fact that
while the Holy Books, written or unwritten
(in the case of native folklore such as the story depicted in the Imprisonment of Obatala by a Nigeria writer, Obatunde Ijimere, in most religions refer to this rebellion or failure
to perform a task critical to the survival of a race, it almost sounds
sacrilegious to confirm the view that without it, we would perhaps be golems
and not humans in the sense we understand ourselves. Further, there is the
notion that this act of rebellion is the cause of human suffering. In other
words, in this epoch phenomenon of freeing ourselves through an act of
rebellion against the Creator, humanity comes out as a product of ingratitude.
We commit a mortal sin that explains the genesis of human misery. If this is
the case, the disturbing question for the ordinary believer is in understanding
the true purpose of the Creator’s need for our chronic self-prostration in
gestures that express our gratitude. Was the Creator in the business of
creating people after his own image so that they would, in an ego-centric way,
sit all day singing His praises in gratitude? This point becomes thinkable only
when we accept that there was an alternative being-ness to humanity that the
Creator could have conceived for his creatures that could be less than pleasant
such CG a golem.
An alternative thesis is
to assume that creation in fact presupposes a moment of liberation. Once an
artist paints the image formed in his head, puts it on canvas or leaves it
standing as a sculpture, it becomes apart from himself. While associated with him,
it is nevertheless, a thing unto itself and not him. We can assume that a
painter takes pride in his painting particularly when it is an object of
appreciation by “others”. That is, a painter enjoys his product when it is
beautiful to the eyes of independent judges. I am aware of the fact that some
artists argue that they care less about what “others” think of their artwork.
As artists, they are fulfilled by the sheer fact that the form of a thing that
they conceived in their heads now exists outside of them. Some thinkers
question this view and propose that such an artist is simply ring-fencing
himself or herself from the act of popular or informed judgment that
necessarily follow from a display of ones inner self through acts of creation.
If we accept this view, the artist is judged as equally as his product. But to
be sure, that individual painting cannot define the totality of the artist even
when it represents a part of his inner perception of certain forms that may
appear real or imaginary to the judge. It is simply an aspect of his
self-expression.
Theoretically, alienation
of that which is created from its creator, in other words, its independent
expression of the creator, cannot be the cause of evil or suffering. This
maturation through the process of formation, seen from our human condition, is
an act that is mutually liberating both for the parent as it is for the grown
up child. A parent relishes a moment when his children will be able to provide
for themselves. He nurtures the children through an exit strategy that affirms their
mutual identity while processing their separation. This is different from a
slave-owner versus slave relationship. Because it is in fact anticipated that
once the work of formation is completed, that which was created will be
“spaced” away from the creator, we may therefore think of the Biblical story of
rebellion as a beginning of a new journey, new space, in which man begins to
discover the beautiful things that the Creator has endowed within the
environment that surrounds us. In this human condition, we carry the values,
intuitive logic and common senses embedded in the nature of our relationship
with the Creator. We seek to deconstruct the turbulence that is fomented by our
inappropriate actions in our environment, to define and chose right from wrong,
to strive for joy and overcome suffering, overcome many poverties that are
intrinsic in our failure not to discover the power of our existence as
self-affirming, thinking and feeling beings.
KNOTTED IN TURBULENCE AND FAILED DREAMS,,,IF ANY
The image of a golem, this
story, provides us with an insight into our socio-political and economic
experience in our country and, more generally, in Africa
in the 21st century. The romantic image of our traditional African
past speaks of communities of mutual support systems, care and generally,
self-sufficiency. An Africa that was providing
for all was made possible because of a complete balance in the relationships
within communities, between communities and the ecosphere. That is the story of
colonial anthropology. But Africa today shares
no romantic images with its anthropological past.
In Zambia as in much of
Sub-Saharan Africa, political, social and economic changes that have taken
place before, during and after colonial rule, have emphasised the growing
awareness of the turbulent environment within which public life has to flourish
or falter and systems of governance have to be developed and implemented. The
question objective analysis must face is not whether pre-colonial Africa was
the romantic garden of Eden but rather, how at various points of history,
“bifurcation” and consequently, turbulence was fomented and manifested itself,
and how societies have coped with it. Here we have some lessons from students
of chaos theory.
As for today, whether we
call it globalisation, neo-colonialism or something else, the turbulence that
the world has witnessed has been characterised by certain general features.
Increasingly, we have come to witness that a single event in one part of the
world can catapult major global dislocations. Two planes plunging into the
World Trade Centre and another into the Pentagon, estimated cost of this
terrorist suicide bombing strategy, at $500,000, enacted on September 11, 2001
has completely transformed our global culture of air travel. Even more
noteworthy is the fact that our entire way of life including some fundamental
values of privacy, relations between nation-states have radically changed. Our
banking industry cannot pride itself as a secret custodian in the management of
our private savings. Above all, we appear uncertain whether we can ask
questions about the moral authority or identity of those, if any, who may be in
full control of this gigantic social, political, and economic engineering. The
balance of accounts between what is being gained against what is being
sacrificed or simply lost is not at all clear. We learn of just and unjust
wars. Worse still, we are mired in apparent deception regarding purposes of
overt use of awesome military might against perceived enemies of “global
interests”. Even the global institutions we have given ourselves are rendered
impotent on some occasions. Life is always after the fact. What about the story
of false intelligence about Iraq
weapons of mass destructions (WMDs). Now, we hear of the doctrine of regime
change. Saddam Hussein had to go! The fact that there has been more loss of
life after Saddam is of no immediate interest to global forces of revenge
against Saddam.
Turbulence, with its
non-linear characteristics, weaves false certainty by layering various problems
into one big digital experience, which is named such as globalisation,
terrorism, or good governance. Perhaps because of its non-linearity, we secure
ourselves cognitively by giving a new name to our apparently new experience.
What is named must have shape; we can visualize it, even as “virtual reality”
and argue about its substantive form. This imagination, this weaving of reality
creates at the same time, a sort of collective social amnesia about the
totality of processes and antecedent events. We accept as a given that a new
world is born and the past must be forgotten. A new World Order, meaning new
rules of relating whether it be at the institutional, nation-state, or personal
levels have come into existence and must be obeyed. Everyone must take the new definitions of our
experiences for granted. Either you are with us or against us. Nations must
choose and the United Nations is the grand theatre where all the drama is
acted.
Underlying this process
are experiences similar to those described by students of chaos theory on one
hand and of religious conversion on the other. These apparently polarized
fields of thought share much in common in evolving new “paradigms”. Chaos
theory is the study of non-linear dynamic systems. A dynamic system includes a
collection of all possible states whose coordinates are able to define the
system at any one point. According to this thinking, this system can be
described with a simple initial value problem. Dynamical systems can be
“deterministic “or “stochastic”. When they are deterministic, there is only one
solution for every state. However, when they are stochastic there are many
possible solutions that can be chosen from a probability distribution. Chaotic
systems are deterministic, and yet unpredictable. The reason for this is that
they are sensitively dependent on initial conditions. This means that seemingly insignificant
adjustments to the system will be compounded over a time and can dramatically
change the overall behaviour of a system. This is the process sometimes
referred to as bifurcation. It can lead to either greater complexity in order
or the behaviour of the system or degeneration to primordial forms.
Bifurcation in chaos
theory refers to when a complex dynamical chaotic system becomes unstable in its
environment. Because of perturbations, disturbances or “stress”, an attractor
draws the trajectories of the stress, and at the point of phase transition, the
system bifurcates and it is propelled either to a new order through
self-organization or to disintegration. The edge of chaos is the place where
the parallel processing of the whole system is maximized. The system performs
at its greatest potential and is able to carry out the most complex
computations. At the bifurcation stage, the system is in a virtual area where
choices are made, the system could choose whatever attractor is most
compelling, could jump from one attractor to another, but it is here that
forward futuristic choices are made: this is deep chaos. The system
self-organizes to a higher level of complexity or it disintegrates. The phase
transition stage may be called the transient stage, the place where transitory
events happen.
Three kinds of
bifurcations occur: The subtle smooth one; the catastrophic, abrupt with
excessive perturbation and lastly the explosive, sudden and discontinuous
factors that wrench the system out of one order into another - a
self-organizing criticality. Scientists focusing on chaos have observed these
dynamics in traffic flow, weather changes, population dynamics, organizational
behaviour, shifts in public opinion, urban development and decay, cardiological
arrhythmias, epidemics. It may occur in cell differentiation, immunology,
technologies, decision-making, the fracture structures, and turbulence among
many others. Complexity can occur in nature and in man-made systems, they may
be very large or very small, the system is neither completely deterministic nor
completely random, and exhibits both characteristics; the causes and their
effects are not proportional; the various parts of a complex system are linked
in synergistic manner and there is positive and negative feedback.
The search for meaning
according to Victor Frankl, a Jewish Nazi Camp survivor and Professor of
Logotherapy is an existential need in all of us. Spiritual meaning is
interwoven in much of what we, as human beings do. Many of us are struck by the
importance of religious metaphors in many group experiences. It is clear that
the more we understand processes involved in ordering religious orders, the
better we can perhaps understand our human nature and our search for meaning or
new world “order”.
In the spiritual sphere,
there is first the definition of the existing system as “chaotic”, “sick”, or
“sinful” or formless. Genesis in the Judeo-Christian tradition starts with the
theory of Chaos. We read of chaos, nothing but void, formless matter, infinite
space. A picture emerges where out of chaos emerges life and out of order, we
only see habit. The religious description of chaos today starts with a
progressive moral decay and a possible scenario of options: hell or heaven is
defined in the hereafter, or of a peaceful, rewarding here and now existence is
given. The dynamics involves conversion processes, including brainwashing,
persuasion, healing, the giving up of one way of life and the taking on of a
new way of life; the meaning for a group of believers of a sacred idea or
ideal; the importance of the ritual of worship ceremonies (very much like
seminars, conferences, and workshops led by the enlightened gurus of a new
technological order); and in the normal life cycle, the significance of
confession before others (the “free” media exposes all in the secular world);
the process of restitution (penance/helping others); the role of charismatic
leadership; the emergence of such phenomena as community fellowship groups;
interest in the occult, devil worshipping and many such manifestation of
religious matter. The unpredictability involved in all these processes is
clearly remarkable. Is it only by faith or works or both? Is it just love for a
neighbour, visiting the prisoner, feeding the hungry etc? Nothing is definite.
( cf Karen Armstrong, History of God)
In political matter, chaos
or better still turbulence, invariably forces governments into politico-technocratic
responses that are: self‑evidently partial, incoherent, and provisional in
nature. And when this becomes evidence of failure of system of government to
perform, or outright moral imprudence, public confidence in politics and
politicians wane. (Charles Leaderbeater and Geoff Mulgan :Life After politics,
1997)
Many events appear like
involutions. The rise of the far-right in European politics, the war on
terrorism, the violence in Seattle at the WTO and Prague at the IMF meetings,
the suspicious election victory of President George W. Bush, the actions of
Milosevich of Serbia, the just or unjustness of the Iraq War against the
popular will of global opinion, The Hutton Inquiry into the death of a British
Military scientist apparently by suicide, the gunning down of Amadou Diallo by
New York Police, Debt cancellation campaigns for highly indebted poor
countries, the seemingly counter pressure for good governance in such countries
spear-headed by lender nations, El Nino, are these related events in anyway?
Who can keep track of such events even if they were related and relevant to
understanding the butterfly effect of global events?
Under the current
environment of turbulence, political explanations and their solutions have
become numb in the face of growing problems whether of poverty, unemployment,
AIDS, Ebola, political violence, street
children, urban housing standards, ethnic tensions, or the disappearance of the
Black Lechwe in the Bangweulu plains of Northern Zambia. These problems stand alone in the
minds of policy makers and cannot therefore be fully grasped. If government has
lost capacity to deal with the disappearance of the Black Lechwe in the
Bangweulu Plains of Northern Zambia,
where from can it mobilize its will to deal with street children who in turn may
be manifestations of poverty and HIV\AIDS? Under such initial conditions, the
form that bifurcation may take becomes unpredictable. A catatonic state of
political experience is often felt. Numbness in the Greek meaning of idiocy
becomes a popular, even if unacknowledged experience.
