OBMSGATEWAY

OBMSGATEWAY
Making Things Easy for Nigerian Diasporans back Home

Friday, May 22, 2015

THE THRESHOLD OF CHANGE

The Threshold of Change 

A question that has repeatedly been asked is this; at
what point does the concept of life of a community,
society, nation or its people change and advance for
the better?

Is the point of change a realization that there is
need for a new concept of life to guide human affairs?

Is it based on the acceptance of warnings by far
sighted ones in a society who understand that the
present concept of life is no longer workable?

Or can it be said that by virtue of being persuaded
and reasoned with, peoples or nations can change their
concepts of life for the better?

To Leo Tolstoy, the life of humanity changes and
advances, like the life of the individual, by stages,
and every stage has a concept of life appropriate to
it.

It is the same with the changes in the beliefs of
peoples and of all humanity as it is with the changes
of belief of individuals.

He adds that: “If the father of a family continues to
be guided in his conduct by his childish conceptions
of life, life becomes so difficult for him that he
involuntarily seeks another philosophy and readily
absorbs that which is appropriate to his age”.

To paraphrase a popular saying, ‘when I was a child, I
behaved like a child. But when I became a man, I put
away childish behavior’

The principle is that the need to change a society’s
concept of life is usually brought about by the
experiences of life itself.

In other words, a society will abandon a concept of
life which is inappropriate to its present stage of
existence and invariably submit to that which is
appropriate.

So, change is directly related to the difficulties
being experienced in a society and whether such
difficulties become intolerable.

The threshold of change becomes the intolerable
conditions of life that threatens the very existence
and wellbeing of society.

The reason for a forced transition may not be
unconnected with the fact that most nations,
societies, communities and humanity itself are usually
not driven by a core vision.

Tolstoy identifies three broad concepts of life; these
are the primitive concept of life, the social concept
of life and the neighbor concept of life.

The primitive concept of life caters primarily for the
interest and the need of the individual, where the
guiding principle is the survival of the strongest.


The social concept of life recognizes the limitations
of primitive existence by putting the interest of the
wider society first.

The neighbor concept of life is the highest concept of
life, where everyone sees the neighbor in everyone
else.

The underlying principle of the neighbor concept of
life is in treating other people as you would want to
be treated.

The nations of the earth are locked into the first two
concepts of life, with the undeveloped nations in the
primitive, and the developed nations in the social
stages.

Remember the issues here are in respect of concepts of
life and the underlying philosophies that drive human
existence.

The major short coming in the primitive concept of
life is in the heightened state of internal conflict
within a society, as individuals pursue what is in
their best interest.

For the social concept of life, it is in the
heightened conflict between nations, as each nation
promotes only what it regards as is in its best
interest.

The neighbor concept of life is centered on love for
God and man. This is different from the love of
humanity, which is an advanced operation of the social
concept of life.

Where do you place a society where funds meant for the
execution of public projects are tied down in bank
fixed deposits while government officials get kick
backs?

How do you describe a society where investors rush to
acquire shares of publicly quoted banks who utilize
public funds meant for the people in the first place?

What would you say about a society where government
officials predominantly utilize public funds for their
private purposes?

How do you define a society where funds allocated to a
tier of government that is closest to the people, are
diverted to other purposes?

What will you call a society where the easiest means
of getting news reported by the new media is to pay
for it?

What do you call a society where over 75% of its
citizens are mired in deep poverty in spite of huge
earnings from natural resources?

What will you say about a society whose leaders take
regular trips abroad for medical check ups and
holidays, while its citizens resort to alternative
sources?


What if I told you that I know of a society whose
leaders and elites have their own power supply, water
supply, security, and whose children attend only
private schools?

What if I mentioned the conspiracy in a society
between government officials and the professional
class on the use of consultants to siphon public
funds?

What if I told you that I know of a society that is
least interested in the wellbeing and welfare of its
hen that lays golden eggs?

What if I told you that there is a society where legal
disputes take an eternity to be resolved and that
suspects awaiting trial serve their sentences even
before conviction?

What if I said that there is a society where
regularly, people commit killings due to land
disputes, religious, cultural, and other differences?

Where individuals can influence electoral votes due to
meeting the basic needs of people, otherwise the
responsibility of government?

Where you consistently pay for public services that
are seldom rendered by near comatose public utilities?

Where government, corporate and powerful individuals
impose half baked ideas, policies, concepts, programs,
promotions etc on ordinary people?

Where the ordinary man is made to carry the burdens
and yokes of others and told to his face that that is
a privilege and honor?

Where the most profitable businesses are those
operated by middle men, who add no value to anything
and yet rake off all the profits?

You would clearly call such a society worse than
primitive, and you will be right to say that such a
society will be characterized by high levels of
internal conflicts and crises.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Welcome to Nigeria, a nation in
which we have felt the value of the social concept of
life, but are still locked in a primitive concept of
life.

Nigeria is a nation that has to transit from a
primitive concept of life to a social concept of life.
To do otherwise is to push the self destruct button
all the way.

The corollary of this is that to hasten the pace of
change, then things have to get progressively worse in
order to get better.

So what does this trend portend for Nigeria and its 170,000,000 citizens? Your
guess is as good as mine

No comments:

Post a Comment