We are living in a tricky age,
In a world filled with rage.
When many people are making mistakes,
And the fate of humanity is at stake.
A globe where ‘I’ and mine alone matters,
For egoism is at the center of the matter.
Yet, it does not count!
Whether we are liberals or conservatives, religious or not,
It does not even matter,
Whether we are social or capitalists, rich or not,
It even counts less,
Whether we are intelligent or daft, wise or not,
It is of no point,
Whether we are fundamentalists or rational, staunch or partial,
Regardless of our colour or race; black or white, European or African,
Regardless of religion, race, nationality, status, and all customs,
Of everything we can feel, think, see or name.
We are all called to be a little bit more human, to love and serve!
For we should realize that everything we do
Affects not only our lives but others too,
That a single happy smile can always brighten the day’
For someone who happens to be passing by your way’
And that a little bit of thoughtfulness that shows someone we care,
Creates sunshine for both of us to share,
Yes, every time we offer a helping hand,
Every time we show a friend we care and understand,
Every time we have a kind and gentle word to give,
We find someone find beauty in this precious life we live.
For happiness brings happiness and loving ways brings love,
And give is the treasure that contentment is made of.
So my dear friends, humanity is the course we should take,
Healing human wounds and making sure we do not behind leave a speck.
For ‘humanity is like a great river flowing into eternity,’
Let us make sure we lead it there with all certainty!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
categories in my world
No matter what we think, feel, do or say, it is an open fact that this world has always had three categories of people and that somehow, most of us are always trying to navigate the ladder to reach the third category. I have tried tocome up with three appropriate names for these categories.
The first group has always been those I’ll term as ‘the existing!’ To the members of this group, medication and balanced diet is a luxury. Their income summed up and divided by their basic needs results into a disgusting figure and sometimes into a syntax error! These guys wake up not knowing what they’ll have for supper (coz this is a vague future tense.) For them, breakfast and lunch is a forgotten past tense. Any education that goes beyond the secondary level where something beyond 125$ a year is involved, falls beyond their sphere. For these masses, diseases like cancer and apenditis become a curse, coz they cannot afford the huge sums of money to have an operation or carter for a chemotherapy session. Luckily, they rarely suffer from such misfortunes. Since they believe that they are just but passing through this life, they are very religious.
The second category is what I will call ‘the surviving!’ Members of this category can afford moderate medication and education. They can afford three meals a day with a fancy tag: ‘balanced diet.’ Since they can afford music systems, they enjoy loud music with a result that the majority suffers from acoustic trauma and other hearing disorders before their middle age! This group has most number of obese people due to the excessive junk food they consume. Cardiovascular diseases like blood pressure are just conditions and not diseases, a direct effect of raising a family and handling a nagging boss. It is the members of this group that struggle to save money to go visit foreign lands and watch sleeping lions, admire mischievous monkeys and get excited by free flowing waters. Most of you reading this note belong here. Since people here think that they have an independent mind, they engage in almost anything; from religion, to politics, to sports and yes, to sex!!
Lastly, we have those who ‘Live!’ Basically, most people want to reach here. The members of this group can afford virtually anything money can buy. They can have one-month holiday in Bahamas, another month in St Tropez, two weeks at the Grand Canyon and the remaining days visiting a sophisticated costly gym. These people do not bargain and do not carry coins and as a result, they are synonymous with the phrase; ‘keep change.’ Since they want to protect what they’ve acquired, they cannot be separated from the phrase ‘Mbwa kali’ (harsh dog). Because any slight noise may be offensive to them, they’ll rather live a solitary life in the middle of nowhere!! In Africa, if we have any, it is an abomination for these guys to visit their rural homes. Unfortunately, with lots of stress on how to manage their finances, most of their families are in shambles, divorce is their companion. They suffer from psychological conditions, engage in illicit drugs and sex and most of them live a wretched life and die unfulfilled people.
A real challenge therefore is trying to make people appreciate who they are. The problem we have in our world today is that most of us do not exactly know what we want or let me just plainly state it that most of us think that money can solve all our problems. Yet to be honest, the more money we acquire, the more insecure we feel. This desire to reach the third categories has built into materially poor guys a feeling of inferiority and an anger that says “you rich guys have taken all that is rightfully ours” and the materially rich on their part are insecure that “the poor may steal our wealth so let’s build walled fences around ourselves.” Despite all these struggles, the freedom to be happy and realize one’s worth is always hidden deep within us and it is only through contentment that we can actualize ourselves. The pragmatic world has taught us that consumerism is a good thing, that capitalism is unique to human beings, yet such a mentality only takes us to the Hobbean ‘state of nature,’ where there is ‘war of all against all.’ It is within our power to look at the reality a new. My uncle P. (R.I.P) before he died told me, “when I was young, I wanted to have as much money as I could; I wanted to have a good family and a honourable life. i got the money right, but definitely not the good life i dreamed of."
Material wealth and good life have never been synonymous!!
The first group has always been those I’ll term as ‘the existing!’ To the members of this group, medication and balanced diet is a luxury. Their income summed up and divided by their basic needs results into a disgusting figure and sometimes into a syntax error! These guys wake up not knowing what they’ll have for supper (coz this is a vague future tense.) For them, breakfast and lunch is a forgotten past tense. Any education that goes beyond the secondary level where something beyond 125$ a year is involved, falls beyond their sphere. For these masses, diseases like cancer and apenditis become a curse, coz they cannot afford the huge sums of money to have an operation or carter for a chemotherapy session. Luckily, they rarely suffer from such misfortunes. Since they believe that they are just but passing through this life, they are very religious.
The second category is what I will call ‘the surviving!’ Members of this category can afford moderate medication and education. They can afford three meals a day with a fancy tag: ‘balanced diet.’ Since they can afford music systems, they enjoy loud music with a result that the majority suffers from acoustic trauma and other hearing disorders before their middle age! This group has most number of obese people due to the excessive junk food they consume. Cardiovascular diseases like blood pressure are just conditions and not diseases, a direct effect of raising a family and handling a nagging boss. It is the members of this group that struggle to save money to go visit foreign lands and watch sleeping lions, admire mischievous monkeys and get excited by free flowing waters. Most of you reading this note belong here. Since people here think that they have an independent mind, they engage in almost anything; from religion, to politics, to sports and yes, to sex!!
Lastly, we have those who ‘Live!’ Basically, most people want to reach here. The members of this group can afford virtually anything money can buy. They can have one-month holiday in Bahamas, another month in St Tropez, two weeks at the Grand Canyon and the remaining days visiting a sophisticated costly gym. These people do not bargain and do not carry coins and as a result, they are synonymous with the phrase; ‘keep change.’ Since they want to protect what they’ve acquired, they cannot be separated from the phrase ‘Mbwa kali’ (harsh dog). Because any slight noise may be offensive to them, they’ll rather live a solitary life in the middle of nowhere!! In Africa, if we have any, it is an abomination for these guys to visit their rural homes. Unfortunately, with lots of stress on how to manage their finances, most of their families are in shambles, divorce is their companion. They suffer from psychological conditions, engage in illicit drugs and sex and most of them live a wretched life and die unfulfilled people.
A real challenge therefore is trying to make people appreciate who they are. The problem we have in our world today is that most of us do not exactly know what we want or let me just plainly state it that most of us think that money can solve all our problems. Yet to be honest, the more money we acquire, the more insecure we feel. This desire to reach the third categories has built into materially poor guys a feeling of inferiority and an anger that says “you rich guys have taken all that is rightfully ours” and the materially rich on their part are insecure that “the poor may steal our wealth so let’s build walled fences around ourselves.” Despite all these struggles, the freedom to be happy and realize one’s worth is always hidden deep within us and it is only through contentment that we can actualize ourselves. The pragmatic world has taught us that consumerism is a good thing, that capitalism is unique to human beings, yet such a mentality only takes us to the Hobbean ‘state of nature,’ where there is ‘war of all against all.’ It is within our power to look at the reality a new. My uncle P. (R.I.P) before he died told me, “when I was young, I wanted to have as much money as I could; I wanted to have a good family and a honourable life. i got the money right, but definitely not the good life i dreamed of."
Material wealth and good life have never been synonymous!!
Monday, March 22, 2010
the piracy lesson
I know so many of us may not like it, but surely, placed in the same position, certainly most of us, if not all, will not act differently. I am a Christian right, whose number one priority is to uphold high moral standards and hopefully, help others walk in the same path. I nevertheless, as a rational being, think that this pirates in Somalia, though their actions cannot be justified morally, have a point!
A human being, in the African context is termed as a social being precisely because he cannot live apart from others and as a matter of fact, others cannot leave them to live alone. Humanly speaking, all human beings have a fundamental right to live, that is to say, live in an orderly society with a right to adequate food, shelter and with the modern world, education and not just education, but a quality one. All human beings have a right to quality medication, free assembly, free association and of course fair trial based on the existing conventional rules. Such are the rights of man!! Now imagine yourself stripped off of all these fundamental rights as in the case of Somalis. For two full decades, these essential rights have been a luxury to these people. No sufficient food, no quality education, to proper shelter, no structures for medication, no peace. All they have known is how to fight, how to hate, how to revenge and possibly, how to kill.
In the background, the United Nations, an organization built with human rights as its backbone and the African Union, a panel set to protect the lives of all the Africans, are ‘blindly’ watching. The G8 (I cannot guess what this means) are silently watching. Basically, the world is silently keeping vigil in this dark hour when Somalis slaughter each other. They seem not to notice, may be because these are Somalis and probably less human: believe me, there are some people considered less human, ask Hegel! Or because these people have no interests in this country, no oil or minerals! Somalis are treated as criminal and may be terrorists. If it was you, wouldn’t you strive to survive?
I so much admire Barack Obama. This guy is not only a great president but also a great rhetoric. While receiving the noble peace price recently, he answered his critics on the issue of sending troops to Afghanistan by stating blankly that indeed “there are times when peace can be obtained by use of force.” I totally agree with him. If the Somalis have refused to come together for a dialogue, a reasonable force can be used to bring the rebels together. As we buy time, these people are becoming more and more dangerous. A rebel group recently claimed to be linked to Alqaida. It means that Somalis have not only become a threat to themselves but indeed to the whole world. When we cry of our loved ones killed by suicide bombers in Israel, Iraq or wherever, we should also remember that there are women and children in the streets of Mogadishu waiting for someone to show their brothers, husbands and sons to stop killing each other. We should know that there are peaceful men who cannot be peaceful anymore because no one is listening to them. Somalia has become a real ‘hell’ in the world.
I have been wondering how someone can afford to kill oneself in the name of suicide! Neglecting Somalia is a sure way of manufacturing such characters. Attaining peace is a collective responsibility we can never afford to ignore.
That’s why it is understandable when the Somali pirates, though it is ‘illegal’, hijack and ask ransom from multinational companies. These people are just trying to improvise ways to survive, to get food, shelter and education. They are reminding the world that yes, ‘we too deserve a better life than this hell.’ They are telling the world that if you don’t act now, it may be too late when you try. Yes, they are saying that we are tired…
I, put in the same position, will not act differently…and I am sure, you too. It is easy to criticize them because we have never faced the same ordeal!!
A human being, in the African context is termed as a social being precisely because he cannot live apart from others and as a matter of fact, others cannot leave them to live alone. Humanly speaking, all human beings have a fundamental right to live, that is to say, live in an orderly society with a right to adequate food, shelter and with the modern world, education and not just education, but a quality one. All human beings have a right to quality medication, free assembly, free association and of course fair trial based on the existing conventional rules. Such are the rights of man!! Now imagine yourself stripped off of all these fundamental rights as in the case of Somalis. For two full decades, these essential rights have been a luxury to these people. No sufficient food, no quality education, to proper shelter, no structures for medication, no peace. All they have known is how to fight, how to hate, how to revenge and possibly, how to kill.
In the background, the United Nations, an organization built with human rights as its backbone and the African Union, a panel set to protect the lives of all the Africans, are ‘blindly’ watching. The G8 (I cannot guess what this means) are silently watching. Basically, the world is silently keeping vigil in this dark hour when Somalis slaughter each other. They seem not to notice, may be because these are Somalis and probably less human: believe me, there are some people considered less human, ask Hegel! Or because these people have no interests in this country, no oil or minerals! Somalis are treated as criminal and may be terrorists. If it was you, wouldn’t you strive to survive?
I so much admire Barack Obama. This guy is not only a great president but also a great rhetoric. While receiving the noble peace price recently, he answered his critics on the issue of sending troops to Afghanistan by stating blankly that indeed “there are times when peace can be obtained by use of force.” I totally agree with him. If the Somalis have refused to come together for a dialogue, a reasonable force can be used to bring the rebels together. As we buy time, these people are becoming more and more dangerous. A rebel group recently claimed to be linked to Alqaida. It means that Somalis have not only become a threat to themselves but indeed to the whole world. When we cry of our loved ones killed by suicide bombers in Israel, Iraq or wherever, we should also remember that there are women and children in the streets of Mogadishu waiting for someone to show their brothers, husbands and sons to stop killing each other. We should know that there are peaceful men who cannot be peaceful anymore because no one is listening to them. Somalia has become a real ‘hell’ in the world.
I have been wondering how someone can afford to kill oneself in the name of suicide! Neglecting Somalia is a sure way of manufacturing such characters. Attaining peace is a collective responsibility we can never afford to ignore.
That’s why it is understandable when the Somali pirates, though it is ‘illegal’, hijack and ask ransom from multinational companies. These people are just trying to improvise ways to survive, to get food, shelter and education. They are reminding the world that yes, ‘we too deserve a better life than this hell.’ They are telling the world that if you don’t act now, it may be too late when you try. Yes, they are saying that we are tired…
I, put in the same position, will not act differently…and I am sure, you too. It is easy to criticize them because we have never faced the same ordeal!!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
common sense, not common at all.
Common sense is a very funny phenomenon. I guess this should be the reason why people like me think that it is not common after all. By stating that we all have somewhat the same capacity to synthesize the various objects of external sense is saying that we are all the same, yet nature as we know it proves otherwise because all of us are unique entities. In this regard then, it is certain that despite this kind of sense, we also have a sense that I will rightly call “faulty common sense.”
Examine for example the Karamojong (traditional natives of North-Eastern Uganda) who, because of the extreme hot weather, choose to walk around naked. Is this some kind of common sense? For a normal or rather abnormal person like me touring this region, I’ll definitely feel otherwise. I will stick with my clothes regardless of the weather, no matter how heavy they may be. Then I ask myself, who amongst ourselves has a proper common sense and who is definitely wrong. Their can never be too rights regarding the same situation because in such a case, we’ll be falling into relativism which is not, by any standards, the best way of judgment.
It is because of the very same reason that I disagree with Immanuel Kant. By Kant arguing that morality is a duty, he negates the whole essence of free will and categorizes all people as same. This definitely is not just because although some may view it as a sense of duty, it is also out rightly clear that most people’s moral acts are out of a sense of free will. We can never have the same motives, thinking, imaginations or even dreams. We are all unique and a sense of commonality can never arise. I have already, by my own reason, refuted the idea of universal and necessary ideas, but that is for another day.
I have lately been following the developments as regards the health-care overhaul in the United States. If there is anything like ‘common sense,’ then any sane normal being would have realized that that bill has more sense than ‘non-sense.’ It is, by our human nature, our responsibility to take care of the not so fortunate in the societies we live in. That would have been some sort of ‘common sense.’ But since it is true that we can never think or act in the same way nor speak the same voice, there is all these nasty bickering and cheap politics that has clouded that part of the world. Should I blame the republicans and their disciples? Not at all! All of us, as I have already stated, are different in our own right and capacity. It is no wonder that all will differ even on a subject ‘so clear’ as the controversial health issue in the USA. Goes without saying; that bill, if passed, will be the best thing that has ever happened to the citizens of united states, of course after the declaration of independence that has eluded them up to now!! It is only through accepting that we all different that we can start living together
Thus, I refute that there is anything like common sense. This is reducing a human being to a pure animal. We will always have opposing views and as such, no objective ideas can ever exist. If at all we want to talk of ‘common sense,’ then lets also accept that their will be a ‘faulty common sense’ along the way. For we will never be the same at any particular point!!
Examine for example the Karamojong (traditional natives of North-Eastern Uganda) who, because of the extreme hot weather, choose to walk around naked. Is this some kind of common sense? For a normal or rather abnormal person like me touring this region, I’ll definitely feel otherwise. I will stick with my clothes regardless of the weather, no matter how heavy they may be. Then I ask myself, who amongst ourselves has a proper common sense and who is definitely wrong. Their can never be too rights regarding the same situation because in such a case, we’ll be falling into relativism which is not, by any standards, the best way of judgment.
It is because of the very same reason that I disagree with Immanuel Kant. By Kant arguing that morality is a duty, he negates the whole essence of free will and categorizes all people as same. This definitely is not just because although some may view it as a sense of duty, it is also out rightly clear that most people’s moral acts are out of a sense of free will. We can never have the same motives, thinking, imaginations or even dreams. We are all unique and a sense of commonality can never arise. I have already, by my own reason, refuted the idea of universal and necessary ideas, but that is for another day.
I have lately been following the developments as regards the health-care overhaul in the United States. If there is anything like ‘common sense,’ then any sane normal being would have realized that that bill has more sense than ‘non-sense.’ It is, by our human nature, our responsibility to take care of the not so fortunate in the societies we live in. That would have been some sort of ‘common sense.’ But since it is true that we can never think or act in the same way nor speak the same voice, there is all these nasty bickering and cheap politics that has clouded that part of the world. Should I blame the republicans and their disciples? Not at all! All of us, as I have already stated, are different in our own right and capacity. It is no wonder that all will differ even on a subject ‘so clear’ as the controversial health issue in the USA. Goes without saying; that bill, if passed, will be the best thing that has ever happened to the citizens of united states, of course after the declaration of independence that has eluded them up to now!! It is only through accepting that we all different that we can start living together
Thus, I refute that there is anything like common sense. This is reducing a human being to a pure animal. We will always have opposing views and as such, no objective ideas can ever exist. If at all we want to talk of ‘common sense,’ then lets also accept that their will be a ‘faulty common sense’ along the way. For we will never be the same at any particular point!!
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