NTOABOMA — The concatenation of European economic heuristics and spiel—in particular, its relation to Africa—results in one thing: that GREED is good. And GREED by any means is actually, fantastic. Western European academics, including their North American cousins, have indulged in this centuries-long lucubration for rationalizing greed, and thus rationalizing the means to achieving ultimate greed. Such means have included the Terrorism of Africa; the Colonialism of Africa; the Kidnapping of Africans; the Confiscation of African resources; the enslavement of Africans in the diaspora and then there are two modern heads of that medusa in modern times: (1) Neo-imperialism (USAFRICOM) and (2) Neolibralism (such as Feminism, Philanthropy and Aid).
One can say that the resultant of all this western European academic Kitsch is Capitalism. Nothing more beautiful has emerged from western European academic thought and achievement in economics than Capitalism: God is GREED; GREED is Good. In fact, God wants us all to be GREEDY. To be greedy is to be human. To be greedier than the next person is to be a better human being than the next man. More, to be so greedy that nothing else—not even human or earthly dignity—matters is to be, actually, a fantastic human being!
The European colonialists and the academia behind them have tried for so long to convince Africans that GREED is good. That greediness is godliness. In some respects, they have succeeded. The Metha (the Mission-Educated-Than-His-Ancestors) have accepted this religion of greed from their colonial mission school headmasters. Other Africans, the Vodunists, and the Traditionalists, for instance, still, have not accepted this paradigm. They cannot accept the prevailing abecedarian regime that greed is good. First, for the very reason that this European Appetite, GREED, is based entirely, if not exclusively, on their own African exploitation, and second for the philosophical reason that parasitism itself, which is what greed by any means is, cannot be shown to be constructive and sustainable in any natural environment.
GREED as the prevailing paradigm, or guiding principle of European thought and expression in economic affairs, remained unopposed in Africa for much of the centuries leading up to the twenty-first. That is, until the Vodunists begun en masse to learn European-speak, understand European-thought and scrutinize its fungible origins. It turns out that the European academic achievement cannot hold water. Its turns out that European philosophy is guided by dust—nothing material or impressive can be gathered behind it. That the idea of Greed, and of Capitalism, is lissome Kitsch.
Now the European philosophers and their figureheads in Africa, particularly in Accra, Ghana, are forced to defend an idea they never intended to defend by reason. They had hitherto defended the idea of Greed by violence (by any means necessary). Although this part of the violence necessary for defending European ideas has escaped the Metha for more than a century until now. The way that western Europeans, in particular, have defended the idea of GREED for the latter half of the last century of failed consultancy-economics to its colonies, is by pointing to the “GOOD” that violently wealthy Europeans engage in within the colonies: Philanthropy to the Poor! Raising Women’s Awareness in Ghana! Building new Wells for the Poor! Purifying Rain Water! In sum, Aid to Africa! Even then that tune has begun to wane: It is beginning to change and even the Metha are becoming aware of the GREED undergirding the very ideas of Capitalist Philanthropy and Aid.
You are likely to now read stuff like: “Big Philanthropy is definitionally a plutocratic voice in our democracy,” according to one European American scholar, Stanford University professor, Rob Reich. Something hitherto, before this century, would not have been admitted by a European American scholar! He continued that philanthropy is “an exercise of power by the wealthy that is unaccountable, non-transparent, donor-directed, perpetual, and tax-subsidized.” In other words, the Capitalist, the Greedy, still use Philanthropy to advance their greed, and to shroud their ultimate greed. Greed then, even greed by any means, cannot be good. It is violent. It is parasitic.
The problem in Africa is the Metha—the new colonial African species gone wild. Some still argue that without a piquant alternative theory (“piquant” is key here since without elevated excitement, the Metha loses interest) from the pens and speakers of the Vodunists, to counter the European Appetite of Greed, we must all in Africa in the interim accept Capitalism; we must accept the terms of multinational European/American monopolies which batten on the working classes of Africa.
The thing is that, the Metha is unwilling to accept or even identify any alternatives other than those from his headteachers, the colonialists (the terrorists). Specifically, the colonialist is not wont to supply an alternative to his parasitism. So, the Metha speaks of alternatives while looking in the direction that this alternative would never come from, while still ignoring the very alternatives available to him from his Ancestors’ own cultures and traditions. We cannot then present a Ma’at-ocratic paradigm of thinking about our economy without first defeating the self-defeatist Metha whose whole goal is not only to stifle African identity, but to block African ingenuity and innovation in this regard.
For instance, the Metha sensing an attack on his high esteem for Capitalism quickly erects a Catholic Cathedral in Accra, Ghana, to honor the Horrors and Terrorism of the Catholic Church on the Slave/Gold Coasts of Africa. The Metha is hard to defeat, hard to change and incorrigible even in the face of the facts of his own exploitation. The Metha has become a kind of intellectual gulf, a buffer of sorts, to uncompromising European parasitism. So, the Metha still accepts that GREED is Good. In fact, GOD is GREED. You ought only look at Mensah Otabil in Ghana and his ilk to comprehend and appreciate the fact of the decadence of the Metha’s pharisaism.
“In fact, God wants us all to be GREEDY. To be greedy is to be human. To be greedier than the next person is to be a better human being than the next man.”
Nothing is more prominent in western European academic thinking and literature than this. You capture the imaginations of the mainstream western intellectual really well in this very deep sentence.
An implication of this thinking is straightforward: To be Human is to be Greedy, else One cannot be Human. When Africans refuse this lecture, and let’s say, when western Europeans found an Africa devoid of GREED, their conclusion was straightforward: AFRICANS are not GREEDY, therefore AFRICANS cannot be HUMAN. Who is calling himself HUMAN, after all? Do Africans think Europeans HUMAN, at all?
The correct phrasing fo such statement-making must be put in the proper context. Perhaps the saying must proceed as follows: To be Neanderthalic is to be GREEDY, else one cannot have Neanderthal blood.
This statement is true however one looks at it. Like you say, nothing more “beautiful,” in your tongue-in-cheek phrasing has emerged from mainstream western academic thought than Capitalism. To this end even the Neanderthal finds justification for enslaving Human Beings and confiscating, through utmost violence, Human Resources, for the gross end of destroying this Human Habitat, the Planet.
Peace,
K.A>
FRUITFULNESS is not the same as GREED, unless it is a sloth doing the definition.
As trees spread their roots and branches in fulfillment of the FRUITFULNESS command, so must every man be fruitful in his given.
GREED is a lazy sloth’s accusatory weapon for masking his disinterest in fruitfulness, or a perfect description of the psychosis of unbriddled inhumanity in the acquisition of things when valued above people.
Even mosquitoes wake up to work their fruitfulness.
Fruitfulness is not Greed. It is human.
Yet, I have never seen a tree employ other trees to fund its own fruitfulness. I have never seen one tree bear all the fruits in a forest of trees! I am still yet to observe a forest in which only a couple of trees own the all the fruits of the entire forests. This is because trees aren’t GREEDY, and fruition is a Tree-right. It just turns out that in the Human forest, the right to have a sustainable life is only reserved for the GREEDY ones like Bill Gates!
Hence, analogies are misleading when not accurately applied. Then there’s the problem of the mosquito you mention. Please do not refer to anything the mosquito does as work. It is incorrect. Else in this sense any man who wakes up and eats has already worked. This cannot be correct.
Fruitfulness for sure! “Even mosquitoes wake up to their fruitfulness”. This is not in question.
But I think Narmer’s views as espoused here speaks to the wholesomeness of the methods engaged to achieve fruitfulness. Narmer rightfully underscores the philosophy behind European/American fruitfulness.
GOD is good but the god of religion is greedy.