Dear newcivics,
I refer to:
> Below is a message from my friend Swami in Kenya. I asked if I could share
> it, as I feel it gives it gives a glimpse into very real experience that is
> different from what most of us go through, and it shows people making a
> difference despite adverse conditions. It is not exactly a positive
> message, though.
<snip>
> I have only yesterday returned from a rather sobering and disheartening
> trip to various parts of Zaire, one of the highlights however was being
> there when the soldiers of Laurent Kabila took Kinshasa sending Mobutu
> (long term megalomaniac, tyrant, dictator, multibillionaire, and
> sleazeball) into a shameful exile.
<snip> and
> I was basically on a trouble-shooting, needs-assessment and quality
> control mission of our projects. Since the trouble started there and my
> numerous visits to the region over the last few years, I had come to
> believe that I was now used to seeing dead bodies and suffering; but I was
> in no way prepared for the suffering my eyes beheld.
<snip> and
> We are doing much to assist in this tribulation, and may God be
> pleased with our efforts. Yet there are times when it feels that even
> though we are doing our best, our best is such an insignificant fraction
> of what is required; one feels so helpless.
Messages like this about Africa, whether in print or in picture,
leave us dumbfounded.
As you all know (or might gather from my email address), I live
in South Africa. I have been born here as probably the fourteenth
generation of settlers from European stock. For fourteen
generations we have heard here in Africa one message: "you
whites are not welcome here because you are responsible for our
black's misery". The more my forefathers tried to prevent
misery, the more they were inadvertedly caught up in greater
powers causing more misery. Thus we are now at that stage where
we function as icons for all that has been causing misery.
Since my childhood, 45 years ago, I have been reading about
similar events and stories of earliers, similar events. (I
am now 52.) These events are typical of Africa, south and east of
that giant desert - the Shara. These events have troubled my
heart for many years. I often troubled my mind trying to
understand why such events happened and what to do to prevent
them from happening again.
Nobody will know if these events were frequent in Africa more
than 400 years ago. The simple reason is that we have no written
history going back to earlier times. But the documentation which
we do have since then, is heart touching. It is especially
the documetation of this century which make us weep.
Now, at the end of this century, you and I are contemplating a
new civilization. I often read with joy about your visions which
correspond to mine in many ways. But I also read them with
sadnees. Why? Because I am absolutely convinced that your
visions will not bear fruits untill such time when Africa is
fully included in them.
Africa, most probably the birth place of humankind, is your
instrument for detecting what have been done in the rest of
the world. The joys of Africa will show you if the global
village is on the right track. The pains of Africa will alert
you if the global village is heading for disaster.
What are the basic problems of Africa? How many of these
problems stem from one or two radical (root) problems?
I believe that Africa now has one radical problem. Its peoples
have slowly been transformed from producing societies to
consuming societies. For example, their leaders consume whatever
these peoples are capable to produce without giving anything
back which these leaders themselves have produced, namely to
keep these peoples in step with the rest of the world. Their
merchants consume their natural riches in the name of trade for
fast money which cannot buy enduring, spiritual qualities. When
in times of great tribulation as refered above to, these peoples
cannot even produce medical help for themselves. If there is
nothing left to consume, their only future are genocide.
What can we do? We have to break this viscious loop of
consumption. Thus we have to disourage all practices which lead
to merely an increase in consumption while promoting all
practices which definitely lead to an increase in production.
We have to this in all realms of human existence: economical,
social, political, educational, spiritual, etc.
Whatever we do, we should be extremely sensitive to the concept
of empowerment. We should seek the empowerment of every person
in Africa. We should guard against any act which causes even the
slightest disempowerment of even a small minority. Since a person
is empowered by improving that person's creativity, try not to
patronise or intimidate any creative person. Try to prevent
others to do the same. Try to promote the creativity of evry
person.
Africa is now in a moral crisis, probably more so thna in the
rest of the world. What is morality? In a certain sense morality
is the effective promotion of the creativity of all fellow
humans. The creativity of the peoples of Africa has been
declining sharply during this century. Likewise the morality has
been declining. If Africa should continue on this path of
declining creativity and morality, the end will be too ghastly
to contemplate.
In my forth-coming book, now in the final stage of editying the
manuscript, I have kept the plight of Africa constantly in my
mind. (Its title will be "Entropy, creativitity and Learning:
how to manage chaos, order and complexity in nature and
culture".) In that book you will learn about the dynamics and
mechanics of creativity. We now know, even in an intuitive and
tacit sense, much more about the mechanics of creativity than
its dynamics.
In the new civilisation we will be rediscovering the dynamics of
creativity. We will see just how important spirituality (as a
hightly ordered emergent of creativity) is in this dynamics of
creattivity. Few of us realise that Africa has become extremely
insensitive to the dynamics of creativity. This another facet of
the radical problem of Africa. Africa thinks that it is the
mechanics of creativity which is driving this world. Africa
appears to be ignorant to the dynamics of creativity. We have to
break this ignorance.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
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