One week away from the 2020 US elections with so much tension in the air about the future. COVID-19, anthropogenic Climate change, 27 Named Tropical Storms, strong evidence of Thwaites glacier collapse, plastic pollution, police brutality around the world and need for social justice fills the air like a thick fog. No one knows what the next two weeks will hold and if peace will reign over violence.
In the background, there has been so much discussion about the 17 UN Sustainable goals for 2030.
I love all of these goals, but how do they manifest in the lives of normal people. What can they do? The main problem that I have with the SDGs along with Climate actions to address climate change is that they are top-down. They assume that governments will be the driver in all of these actions and that we should wait for the positive outcomes. The 2030 SDGs point to something that will be achieved within 10 years, which I have very serious doubts about. I remember meeting someone back in 2005 and they told me about the zero poverty goal for 2015. He really believed that it could be achieved and I just chuckled and thought this dude is dreaming. He does not know that the poor are part of a pyramid structure with a few rich at the very top. So while I am 100% behind the SDGs, I don’t know what principles serve as their foundation. Honesty, equity, fairness, balance, distribution of wealth, access, anti-racism, gender balance… and who came up with the foundational principles? Further, who provides the checks and balances?
I believe that the African worldview which is thousands of years old and still practiced today throughout the continent and the diaspora could really provide a functional basis for addressing our major challenges. Let me explain…
Those living are connected to the unborn and the dead (ancestors) where time is not linear but continuous in the forward and backward directions. The knowledge of the past gives us wisdom and is passed down from generation to generation to protect those unborn. Not just the unborn kids that women carry now, but those who will come 100 or 1000 years from now. Many say that one can communicate with ancestors, but at the minimum, they provide protection to the individual and ultimately the community. This connection is a strong guiding principle but there is more to pull from the past…
When people talk about Egypt they think of the Pharaoh and the pyramids. But even those dynasties were built on principles.
But the truth is that the period of the Pharaoh’s didn’t just come from anywhere or an alien society. The principles were very African and built on earlier periods (pre-pharaonic). These principles are literally written on the walls throughout present-day Egypt (Kemet).
The pre-pharaonic period provided the blueprint with the Maat sisters (Ast and Nebthet) providing balance, fairness, honesty justice, right thought and action, Jehwty providing measures to build, protect advance the mind, community and society, and Asar providing the voice to spread the blueprint to individuals and societies to improve their situation — he was a sharer of knowledge and not a keeper of knowledge like many of the institutions of higher learning that exist today.
Using principles such as those from Pre-Pharaonic Egypt and the African Worldview how can any individual, family, community come to grips with the multitude of challenges facing the globe? First, the principles of Maat and Jehwty gives each of us guidance about how to deal with challenge. For example, is my solution balanced and fair?, does it take into account the widsom of the ancestors?, does it protect future generations?
Lets take a stab at some contemporary problems
COVID-19
This is a disease that has killed more than 1 million people worldwide and more than 230,000 in the United States alone in the last 10 months. While we are all thinking about vaccines, social distancing, and masks as solutions, what would the African Worldview suggest? First, it would ask about the unborn, living, and ancestors. The elderly who are inline to become ancestors would be protected the most because their knowledge and wisdom must be passed down to the living and the unborn. When the grandparent dies before the proper time, knowledge, experiences, stories, and wisdom are lost and not sharable with the unborn.
So the burden falls on the living who must ask: am I using a fair and balanced approach along with right thought and action to protect the elders and the unborn? It’s not about your freedom but your responsibility.
Having widespread tests available to monitor the disease is the principle of Jewhty and spreading the word about the dangers is the principle of Asar. Such principles would likely lead to a reduction in the disease prior to any vaccine. We have the ancestors who survived the 1918 pandemic and wrote about their experiences, how do they inform us? It’s not about Dr. Fauci, Trump, Biden or the government but each individual.
Climate Change and Extreme Weather
The need to provide energy for society is natural, but when that need endangers the living through extraction, toxic fumes, oil spills and warming which threatens the oceans, may collapse the ice sheets, and is fueling weather extremes the principles driving the action are wrong. What about the African Worldview.
First, any activities that threaten the living would need to be addressed. This is the principle of Maat and considers the fairness and justice of such activity. Once it was clear from the observations (Jehwty) that dangerous outcomes were possible and this was discussed locally or globally (Asar), then the right thoughts and actions would be required. Not for the sake of profit but for the protection of the living and unborn, period!
The technology to move away from the negative impacts of fossil fuel already exists but the action of a typical politician does not consider justice. They see power, staying in office, and control of resources and people. This is a losing proposition. So what about the individual? Each of us must consider right action and thought, because we know that change is occurring now, with floods, fires, hurricanes, and warming.
We are past the point of asking if scientists are confident, now we must protect the present and future with our own right actions. At a minimum, vote for a president who protects the unborn by acting to mitigate greenhouse gases and preparing society to adapt. Conserve energy by driving less, winterizing your house, buying fuel-efficient cars, hybrids, or electric vehicles. Put pressure on your representatives, jobs, and cities to see carbon neutral policies. Most of all, consume less because that is the driver of emissions. When the time comes, we will have to accept adaptation — some areas will not be liveable from Climate Change. Such a sad thought but we will have to explain it to the unborn.
Sustainability
This is the core principle around the African Worldview. In this worldview, an individual or society cannot deplete resources, leaving anything for the unborn. I think about the fact that elephants were abundant in Senegal throughout time but taken for ivory and within two hundred years depleted by Europeans who also took people as slaves in collaboration with the various kingdoms in Senegal. There is a balance between nature and society with the ancestors providing the best practices on addressing scarcity and wealth. They presented no deadline like the SDGs for 2030, it was a way of life. Profit does not take precedence over the people or the environment. Sadly, the development of western civilization came at the expense of Africa and other indigenous societies in the Americas and Australia. The African worldview was seen as less because it never sought outright profit without considering the consequences.
However, I might say that hierarchical systems in Africa (kings and queens, militaries, governments) did not and do not share the core principles of the African worldview (slavery, caste, and class systems are wrong). So the principles of Maat, Jewhty, and Asar could not be implemented in such a system and the foundation was already in place for TranSaharan and TransAtlantic Slavery with Europeans arrived. Today, extraction, loss of biodiversity, and injustice can be found across the continent and the diaspora based on profit and greed.
But this will not last forever. Either individuals and societies will find justice, balance, honesty, right thought and action or we and the unborn will continue to suffer the consequences of wrong action.
Still, I believe that even in our faulty thinking there is hope, as titled by author Ayi Kwei Armah The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born — but they are coming.
To learn more about the pre pharaonic period and the African worldview consider reading Ayi Kwei Armah book wat not shemsw – the way of the companions and other books which can be purchased from Per Ankh publishing (bbkwan.com).
Stay cool, and calm (right thought and action) everyone over the next week and vote. Be nonviolent and seek a state of peacefulness.
Blessings.
