No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. – John Donne (1572-1631)
I tinkered with several captions for this soulful effort. Sincerely, I rummaged the carapace of my mind in search of a most suitable title, the elimination series thereto left me with three topics, the first was FADING HUMANITY, the second, THINNING HUMANITY and the third, WANING HUMANITY. I elected the third because it perhaps serves this discourse best.
Here I am not just looking at humanity as a specie; I am looking at the essence of that specie. I am not just looking at the human pilgrimage; I am looking at the nuances and the tendencies of that pilgrim. I am not just looking at the global count of the homo sapiens; I am looking at that which must separate this anima and animus as a Homo Sequendum. Yes, I am looking at man as the summumbonum of creation and as the cord that must hold the universe in harmony.
In the inimitable quote that opens this series, the great English writer and poet, John Donne captured the true essence of man. He defined true humanity and spelt out man’s matchless universality. Tragically, man has invented biases and prejudices that threaten our brotherhood. Religion, race and colour which otherwise should beautify our pilgrimage have become knives ripping through the soul of our humanity and putting asunder the human community.
Humanity wanes, like a free fall; humankind slides from civility back to the Hobbesian nuances and the state of nature. Man’s days yet again are increasingly becoming brutal, selfish, and life short. Terror, brigandage, banditry, insurgency and unconscionable bellicosity define the proclivities of this generation. The news is awash with gory tales and soul-rending pictures of human barbecues dished by suicide bombers across the world, from the Maghreb to the Sahara. Humans are slaughtered like rams, limbs severed and bodies decapitated in the pursuit of causes most inexplicable. In the Arabs, the Sunnis are at war with their Muslim Shite brothers; ISIL is killing Muslim brothers in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and beheading foreign aid workers in furtherance of an Islamic state script; in Europe, South and North America as well as other seemingly civilised democracies, gunmen bump into schools and parks like Hollywood movies, snuffing life out of kids, out of women and out of the hapless, thus exterminating the flowers that the good Lord has fashioned for a graceful morrow. Sad!
In my dear continent of Africa, terror has become business, murder and insurgency political chips, brigandage and banditry lucrative, and life have become very expensive as death becomes prevalent. In my country Nigeria, a certain murderous group prefers illiteracy to learning. Are they for real? Or is it a political chip? Within the past 6 years, the Boko Haram insurgents have killed over 14,000 Nigerians and left over 100,000 internally displaced citizens as trophy for their villainy.
The human soul appears thinner today, the claws of a live conscience short, the human spirit seems further removed from God, and we have a universe of godists without godliness. Churches everywhere, mosques everywhere and all kinds of worship centres abound without the God essence. The golden rule of faith which is LOVE, otherwise the sum total of worship, appears obsolete. The Muslim is at war with his Muslim brother, the Christian is at daggers drawn with a Christian of another denomination, Muslims are at war with Christians and vice versa, Buddhists are fighting Hindus, the Eckankar faithful suppose that the Hari Krishna faithful would have a greater effulgence of light going to God their way. The list of such creed-oriented dichotomy goes on ad nauseam ad infinitum.
I know that we are all children of one God: Jews, Christians, Muslims, Animists, Humanists, Confucians, Hindus, Buddhists, African Traditional Worshippers et al. I know that the good Lord breathed HIS essence into all humans. I know that we all belong together. I know that God is beyond religion. I know that the greatest commandment is love, and I know that love surpasses and supersedes all doctrinal propensities of faith. Yes, somewhere, I read an ageless reprimand: ‘How can you say you love God when you do not show love to the brother you see’ and do not get it twisted, Jesus the Christ used the Samaritan, the Priest and the Jew, men of variant creeds, faith and tendencies as the copious nexus of brotherhood.
Humankind must repent and rebuild her waning humanity. We must seek God, and the shortest path to HIM is to see HIM in all men. We must realise that any life decimated in the pursuit of faith is a brutal abridgement of divine peace. We must realise that war is an impious tool that never truly solves any conflict. We must realise that the primacy of human life and the purity of the human blood are standards only God can vitiate. And we must begin a collective overhaul of our values as Homo sapiens.
I repudiate war, I repudiate violence, I repudiate religious fundamentalism, I repudiate bigotry of any kind, and I repudiate any supremacist inveigle, be they of creed, of clan, of colour, of gender, of thought and of tendencies. I see God in all men and all men in one God. If you think I am wrong, then defeat me only through love, if you consider me lost, win me to your God like the Master of your faith won you over. Yes, LOVE ME.
TO BE CONTINUED.