NO MORE HEROES, ONLY BULLIES
Some Tentative Thoughts*
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Even Edmund Burke knew that
“the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing.” Or as John Ruskin would say, “you may either win your peace or buy it
- win it , by resistance to evil; buy it by compromise with evil.” No one can
doubt the fact that evil, in ever sophisticated forms and under all sorts of
guises, has been on the increase in our society. Evil, to be sure, is part of
life, but its growth undermines life, its triumph suffocates life, making it
hardly worth living. Many would say that it has been on the triumph,
particularly in the last one decade or so. Indeed in the last decade or so we
have seen a lot but apparently learnt very little. Learning in Nigeria, incidentally,
is out of fashion and what has remained of its institutions lie in ruins,
making forlorn any hope for recovery. The northern part of the
country has perhaps, paid (or is still paying) the highest toll. We have been
systematically decimated as a people, our values subverted, our institutions
destroyed and what mystique we may have had has all but crumbled. We have been
under all manners of attack and all we have done has been to sue for peace.
“The quickest way of ending a war”, George Orwell aptly observed, “is to lose
it” and this is all we have been doing. We apparently have lost the courage to
defend ourselves, even in the battle of wits. Our hold to political power, for
which we have suffered so much bashing, has been of no avail. We lay claims to
higher morals, but our kids are increasingly learning that it is foolish to be
virtuous. What little response we have managed to organise has been frantic and
feeble. We have been searching in vain, or groping, as it were, for what many
today call ‘a way forward’, yet we keep slipping backward with every passing
day. Perhaps it is time we began to search our souls. What went wrong? Where
and when? And what can or indeed ought to be done? I must say, from the onset,
I have no ready answers to these questions. This, in fact, is not the place and
I am certainly not the person to answer them. Why raise them then, you may
rightly ask? I am raising them not even because they have not been raised
before but because they have simply not been addressed sufficiently, as yet.
Whenever such issues are raised they have been glossed over. Yet these are the
questions to be addressed if we are to ever move forward. These are issues that
can best, some would say only, be tackled by scholars. Admittedly scholarship
has been the first casualty of this process of stagnation and decay. And the
depth, or lack of it, as it were, of what remains of our scholars, both Islamic
and Western, does not give one much hope. But, even the audience has lost the
patience to listen. Everyone seems to be in a hurry, but with out a clear
destination. We are so used to scratches on the surface and quick, if
temporary, fixes that many are apt to dismiss any serious attempt at addressing
our problems as an academic pastime or philosophy.(1) Hence years on end we
fail to solve our multitude of problems, much less pre-empt new ones. So the
bullying which has began will continue and the solutions to other problems will
remain ever elusive for as long as we refuse to fathom the fundamental causes of
the real malaise. For we seem oblivious of the futility, some would say danger,
of grappling with the symptoms and ignoring the disease. Perhaps we should take heart
that our problems are not unique to us, it is something we share to varying
degrees with other contemporary societies as well as societies of old. In fact
they are perennial human problems of
decay and regeneration or fall and rise of cultures and civilisations.
Ibn Khaldun is one towering scholar in this business of the rise and fall of
human societies and civilisations. One does not need to agree entirely with Ibn
Khaldun’s cyclic theory of civilisation to see the amazing parallel between our
behavioural traits today and the those of the last generation of a decaying
dynasty or civilisation. “Their military defence weakens, their energy is lost
and their strength undermined. ... People, meanwhile, continue to adapt ever
newer forms of luxury and sedentary culture and of peace, tranquillity and
softness in all their conditions, and sink ever deeper into them. ... They
forget the quality of bravery that was their protection and defence.
Eventually, they come to depend upon some other militia, if they have one.”
Indeed we have been in the habit of the use of mercenaries even in the purely
intellectual field. But worst, perhaps, is that the “evil effects of all this
situation on the dynasty show themselves in the form of senility.”(2) Senility here is simply a
euphemism for imbecility. A lot of our behavioural traits in the north today
cannot but appear imbecile: our knack for complacency in the face of the crisis
of the magnitude we are facing; the wastage of our human potentials through
begging and hawking, the filth that surrounds us and assume a garb of piety;
the low self esteem that allows us to persistently put up with abuses and
humiliations; a fatalism that encourages us to indulge in ascribing to God all
our failures. Education, perhaps our only hope, is crumbling at every level,
right in front of us, and yet no one seems to be able to do anything. The most
obvious social consequences of the collapse of the educational system are
clearly beginning to unfold, but even then no one could be bothered. We seem to
have no appreciation of the future and most unwilling to see our faults: it is
always the faults of others or the act of God. We even want others to believe
that it is not in our character, by simply writing a book. It reminds one of a
German poet who remarked that, “Against stupidity the gods themselves struggle
in vain.” Arnold Toynbee, perhaps the
greatest Western historian, took a lot after Ibn Khaldun. He shared a lot of
Ibn Khaldun’s ideas, even the sense of destiny emanating from a depth of
religious perception. Coming some five centuries after Ibn Khaldun, Toynbee had
the benefit of examining the contemporary Western civilisation under whose
shadow we have been toiling for the best part of this century. In his magnum
opus, A Study in History, he made exhaustive efforts to fathom the cause of the
rise and fall of cultures and civilisations. One of the factors he discussed
which appear relevant to the issue at hand is what he calls ‘the sense of drift
and the sense of sin’ in the disintegration of civilisations. “The sense of
drift” writes Toynbee, “which is the passive way of feeling the loss of the
élan of growth, is one of the most painful of tribulations that afflict the
souls of men and women who are called upon to live their lives in an age of
social disintegration; and this pain is perhaps a punishment for the idolatry
committed through worshipping the creature instead of the creator; for in this
sin,” he continues, “we have already found one of the causes of those
breakdowns from which the disintegration of civilisation follows”.(3) “Chance and necessity”,
Toynbee argued, “are the alternative shapes of the power which appears to rule
the world in the eyes of those afflicted with a sense of drift; and , though at
first sight the two notions would appear to contradict one another, they prove,
when probed, to be different facets of one identical illusion.” It is this
illusion that gave birth to the development of laissez-faire, modern Western belief in the omnipotence of chance,
some time in the 19th century. “The doctrine of laissez-faire cannot be claimed as an original Western contribution
to the stock of human wisdom, for it was current coin in the Sinic world some
two thousand years ago. This Sinic worship of chance, however, differs from
ours in deriving from a less sordid origin.”(4) Our own brand of the worship of
chance here in Nigeria may not have the same sordid origin, but has certainly
similar pernicious manifestations. Not only do we leave so much to chance, but
when things go wrong, as they too often do, we only watch with hands folded, as
if waiting for a miracle, and after it has come to pass, we retire to lament in
the comfort of our homes and company of friends. We simply fail to learn from
previous experiences that we keep repeating the same mistake several times
over. History, it has been said, repeats itself precisely because men refuse to
learn from it. Many of us may not be
Marxists, but unfortunately we don’t realise how much in common we have with
Marx, for we seem to have emptied man of his moral component and operate on the assumption (or is it belief
?) that man lives by bread alone. We seem eager to explain civil unrest, crimes
and even corruption entirely in terms of economic hardship even as Marx’s
assumptions have crumbled along with Berlin wall. We have today people living
below poverty line and had no course to resort to unrest or crime while others
living above poverty line have made corruption and crime a way of life. Living
by their wits has actually become a way of life even among the affluent. Marx
did not have time to understand the man he thought he knew, whose problems he
wanted to solve. Our assumption about man may not be the same as that of Marx,
but it may not be better either. Perhaps we should listen to Alexis Carrel, who
thought the matter serious enough to warrant a book, which he simply, if aptly
tittles, Man the Unknown. “We are unhappy,” said
Carre, “We degenerate morally and mentally. The groups and the nations in which
industrial civilisation has attained its highest development are precisely
those which are becoming weaker. And whose return to barbarism is the most
rapid, but they do not realise it. They are without protection against the
hostile surroundings that science has built about them. In truth, our
civilisation like those preceding it, has created certain conditions of existence,
which for reasons still obscure, render life itself impossible.” P. 38
........... “Man must now turn his attention to himself, and to the cause of
his moral and intellectual disability. What is the good of increasing the
comfort, the luxury, the beauty, the size, and the complications of our
civilisation, if our weakness prevents us from guiding it to our advantage. It
is really not worthwhile to go on elaborating a way of living that is bringing
about the demoralisation and the disappearance of the noblest elements of the
great race.” P. 51 ........... “Man is the result of heredity and environment,
of the habit of life imposed upon him by modern society. ...... Hygienists
would be asked why they concern themselves exclusively with the prevention of organic
diseases, and not with that mental and nervous disturbances. Why do they pay no
attention to spiritual health. Why do they isolate people with infections, and
not those who propagate intellectual and moral maladies. Why are the habits
responsible for organic diseases considered dangerous, and not those which
bring on corruption, criminality and insanity.” (5) (P. 255) A one time American
secretary of state, rather surprisingly, echoed a similar concern. John Foster
Dulles wrote, “Something gone wrong with our nation, or we should not be in our
present plight and mood. It is not like us to be on the defensive and to be
fearful. That is new in our history. The trouble is not material. We are
establishing an all-time record in the production of material things. What we
lack is a righteous dynamic faith. Without it all else avails us little. The
lack cannot be compensated for by politicians, however astute, or by scientist,
however inventive, or by bombs, however powerful. Once a people comes to be dependent
on material things, unfortunate consequences are inevitable. At home, our
institutions do not attract the spiritual loyalties needed for their defence.
There is confusions on men’s minds and a corrosion of their souls. That makes
our nation vulnerable to such hostile penetration as is illustrated by the spy
activities so far revealed. No F.B.I., however efficient, can protect us under
these circumstances.” P. 253 “With that change comes ever growing danger.
Americans had security in the only way in which security can be assured,
namely, as a by-product of great endeavour. When our endeavour lagged behind
and we began to seek security as an end in itself, it more and more eluded us.
It will always be that way. However rich we are, security cannot be bought at
any money price. Five billions, or fifty billions, is not enough. Security and
peace are not purchasable commodities. The Roman Emperors in their declining
days tried to buy peace, and the effort only whetted the appetites of those who
sought to destroy them.”(6) P. 255-6 America has been described
as the one nation that has moved straight from Barbarism to decadence with out
going through civilisation. We don’t have to agree with this description to
concede the fact that the American nation is in some serious social crisis.
Whether this is in spite or because of its material progress is not so much the
issue. The issue rather is the simple one that the American case amply
demonstrate the fact that material progress is neither a guarantee to happiness
nor does it provide, on its own, a solution to the social crisis of our times.
In other words, the social, economic and political problems of our contemporary
times are essentially and fundamentally moral. Our failure to appreciate this
may have been the main cause of the delay in arriving at the solutions. The
closest we came to addressing the problems of discipline and corruption, for
example, was the days of the famous WAI. But the WAI campaign was waged on the
Western Hegelean assumption that corruption was emanating from lack of
nationalism and patriotism. It was thus centred around “singing the anthem,
reciting the pledge and saluting the flag - in short worshipping of the nation,
which may appear attractive to children ...”(7) Nigeria, however, is not Europe
where these ideas originated and may therefore have some meaning. “For all the
people of this country including those in Government, the nation does not come
first, each morning they recite their first pledge, but it is not the nation.
The nation is a tool to be protected and endeared in proportion to its uses.”(8)
Solutions to our social and moral problems, as Abdullahi Smith (of blessed
memory) would insist, are to be found in the forgotten history of our
pre-colonial societies. Perhaps we should return home and look inwards. We have been blessed, in our
recent history, with scholars who have had the experience of regenerating a
society perhaps far more decadent than ours, with far scantier resources than
ours and under circumstances far more difficult than ours, perhaps. We are
particularly lucky to have scholars of the calibre of Sultan Muhammad Bello and
indeed his father Shehu Usman and his uncle Shehu Abdullahi. Muhammad Bello,
unlike his father and uncle, has had the rare privilege of having gone through
the three distinct stages of societal
transformation. For, Muhammad Bello, as Ibrahim Suleiman observed, “was born
into a state in decline; he was brought up in a movement which, through long
and arduous process, brought about a revolution and established the Caliphate;
and he was the architect of the new Islamic political and social dispensation.”(9)
Furthermore Muhammad Bello lived long enough (d.1837) to see the seeds of decay
germinating barely three decades after the revolution that established the
Islamic Caliphate. Bello, “standing from the vantage point of both leadership
and scholarship”(10), found time to put his thoughts into a book he simply
titled al-Dhikra, Reflections, which
Ibrahim Suleiman describes as “a philosophy of history, written by a maker of
history”.(11) In al-Dhikra, Muhammad Bello contended that decline starts with an
inclination towards comfort and admitted that the trend towards comfort is
inherent in man and there is ultimately no escape from it. The first casualty
when decline rears its head is the Sharia, and this gives birth to injustice,
oppression and corruption. Corruption will continue to erode the moral and
social fabric of society until it falls on its knees. But if this trend is
inherent in human society what hope is there for recovery stagnation and decay?
Here Muhammad Bello was quite confident, for as he argued the drive towards
good and regeneration is also inherent in man and every society contains with
itself the seeds of its own regeneration. It is in these indestructible seeds
of regeneration that the hope of the community lies. These seeds drive their
strength from three unique features Muhammad Bello argued. The first is zuhd, abstemiousness in contrast to the
gluttony and licentiousness around them; the second is yaqeen absolute faith and conviction; and the third is the will to
make sacrifices. Our hope therefore, would
appear to be pinned on the presence amongst us of people with faith and
discipline who are prepared to make sacrifices. These are qualities of heroes.
But today we have no more heroes; we
have only bullies. August 1996 *This is an attempt to reflect over a two page submission under the tittle of “The Bullying has Began”. The discussion on this submission raised a few fundamental issues which, it was thought, were worthy of further reflection. FOOTNOTES1. Philosophy, many believe, is of no practical or immediate relevance. If we recall that the whole of Soviet Union and its numerous satellites in Eastern Europe and else where owe their existence primarily to one philosopher who spent the best part of his life in libraries, we can easily see the fallacy of this belief. This erroneous belief, to be sure, goes back to the time of the great Greek philosophers. Socrates was once asked, of what use are philosophers? None, was his reply. But he added immediately that they are of no use precisely because people don’t know how to make use of them. 2. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, F. Rosenthal (trans.) N. J. Dawood, (ed. and Abrgd.) London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978. P. 135. 3. Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, D. C. Somervell (Abrgd), New York, Dell Publishing Co. 1981. Vol. 1, P. 507. 4. Ibid. P. 507-8. 5. Alexis Carrel, Man the Unknown, quoted in Sayid Qubt, Islam the Religion of the Future, Delhi, Markazi Maktaba Islami, 1974. Pp. 87-9. 6. Ibid. Pp. 96-8. 7. Dr. Dahiru Yahya, ‘The problems of Corruption in Nigeria - Causes and Control: A Socio-Historical Perpective’, Unpublished Paper, presented to Public Lecture Series, Historical Society of Nigeria, Kano Branch, 11-13 April 1985. P. 15. 8. Ibid. 9. Inquiry, London, October, 1985. P. 47. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. |
