The Gbetto Revolution: Willing the Unimaginable into Existence.

The Gbetto Revolution: Willing the Unimaginable into Existence.

There’s a fine line between idealism, or hope, and naiveté. In other words, what many may perceive as hopeful, often turns out after all objective consideration, to be naiveté on mass display. Hope requires a level of logical consideration of reality, albeit an exaggerated intoxication of the facts; whereas naiveté is consumed with the immaculate suspension of all logic—that is, naiveté is solely delusional in composition.

Furthermore, and to put this quite clearly, hope and naiveté are Incommensurate Actions—one, that is hope, can produce some result, yet the other, which is delusional, never produces anything. Invariably, one action does not involve the other. In the Old Dann Traditional Philosophy (of the Yoruba, Ewe, Ge, Ga, Dann), hope is likened to Childishness while naiveté is thought of as mere Foolishness.

A child, under proper training, grows out of childishness. Foolishness, on the other hand, is not time elastic. That is, foolishness is common in adults. It is time-invariant. Consider another explanation: a person may adjust their level of hopefulness, or even discard hope altogether when the reality underlying the premise for that hopefulness changes over time. Naiveté is not so—because it is based in foolishness, it is invariant to conditions that inform its premise. In fact, naiveté can be thought of as lacking premise.

All that said, every now and then a Revolution occurs: naiveté becomes a powerful action, and then it produces a powerful result. Traditional Dann Medical Doctors spoke of such occurrences in their practice—they called it the Miracle of Recovery (MORE). A patient wills himself from a state of non-recovery to full recovery. Every now and then a patient will decide that despite the grim reality of their medical condition, they would rather live and overcome their ailment than die.

In Dann Philosophy, this idea is called the “Willing of the Inconceivable into Life.” In other words, willing the unimaginable into existence. The idea was further developed into a description of proper historical and sociological events in Ewe (Dann-homey, or Dahomey) Philosophy and History. A group of people suffering dire violence, and who could be thought of as without hope, can—given enough courage—will themselves out of their suffering and regain their dignity and freedom.

A Revolution. The Mianor, or the Gbetto Warriors of Dahomey, were the instance in history of that kind of historical sociological event. With men fighting and their numbers dwindling in the tens of thousands by the years, a society decided that rather than die, they would rather live. Even Our beloved Mothers (Mianor) became relentless warriors to ensure that we lived and stayed together, despite the barbarism that was visited upon us from the European Powers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

That was a revolution. The Mianor will always remain, in the hearts and minds of Africans, the Symbol of Revolution against the barbarism of European Imperialism. Perhaps the sons and daughters of the Mianor, of the twenty-first century, are unaware of willing the unimaginable into existence. Suffice it to say the least that we are still capable of willing Africa back to life, back to her former greatness, despite the relentless levels of barbarism we have faced from outsiders for more than three centuries. Call it hope. Or naiveté. Doesn’t matter!

Narmer.

(Image: Mianor, aka the Gbetto Warriors of Dahomey. Gbetto means hunter. Girls trained to become astute hunters from as young as 9 years old, and the best hunters of age were chosen over a decade of training to join the Kings Army.)