| Contact Us: admin@aigaforum.com | |||||||||||
Flirting with Mari the daughter of Signor Juana and the colour of Individualism or Capitalism.__________________________________ Paulos Yrgaw
I vividly remember the day I left for the Western world my mother emphatically warning me to stay away from the ever-seductive Mari. Being a teenager at that time, it was natural for my mother to be more concerned about it. I had heard about Mari through anecdotal stories and through reading novels as well but never realized her virtually irresistible magnetic "charm". As I set my feet onto the land of the West, I felt her presence everywhere. Her pervasive presence pervaded in the wide spectrum of the society including in the wide range of all ages as well. Her seemingly unending saga is reputed to hail from an exotic land where the Conquistadores the likes of Hernan Cortez and Francisco Pizzaro fell under her spell and subsequently ushered her stories into the Royal isles of the Iberian kingdoms. Her father, Signor Juana who made a living in the ever vastness of the wild Andes and Central American terrains has given up on his daughter. She is ostracized from the society. The Ecclesia poured all the curses upon her and the mothers as well vowed with their wombs to remain dry than to give a birth to the likes of Mari. If the Biblical character Samson hid his almost divine power in his Nazarian long hair, men of science tell us that, Mari’s transcendental power is "treasured" in her system where the chemical Tetrahydrocannabinol makes its "wonders." Etymologists as well tell us that, the word "Assassin"* is derived from the inhabitants of the Ural mountains who under the intense influence of Mari ravaged villagers. The empire where the sun never sets on her colony as well duped the Sino-land into exporting Mari from India and elsewhere as a new medium of exchange. While solving their foreign-exchange problem, the empire set the stage for the war which brought the decisive foreign occupation of Sino-land.** In the last decades or so, the hotbed political debates in Central and Latin America took a center stage in fighting against those who promote Mari’s pervasiveness in the younger generation and against those who would subsidize the social outlets of the marginalised by the finances generated of her profits. America as well way before she turned her bayonet against terrorism, her foreign policy specifically towards the Banana Republics was designed to curtail the flow of Mari through America’s borders even though the conspiracy theorists indulged in the idea that, America intentionally let the under-dogs especially African Americans get bogged down in the pitfalls of Mari. The social-thinkers however, insist that Mari did not appear ex-nihilo. They assert that Mari is a product of a certain socio-political reality. As the "institution" of a family loses its organic manifestation, its cohesiveness gave-in to the idea of individualism. The intellectual roots of individualism strangely enough can be traced in the realm of mathematics where the father of Analytical Geometry, Rene Descartes coined and corroborated the notion of Reductionism. Rene Descartes who freaked us out in junior high those of us who are allergic to the abstraction of mathematics with his Cartesian Geometry argued that, if a seemingly complex problem is to be solved, it has to be broken down into its parts and the logic goes that, if we solve every single part of the whole, then the whole schema can be solved. Hence reductionism. This tragic way of thinking as opposed to Holistic approach to this day is the vade-mecum or modus operandi of the scientific enterprise. The torque of reductionism is not only confined to the hard sciences. Its ubiquity is more prevalent in the humanities and social sciences as well. When consilience (unity of knowledge) was the norm of the day and where knowledge was in a seamless flow, Descartes’ coeval or those great thinkers who stepped on his foot-prints tried at times with success to implement his mathematical reductionist theory in social problems as well. Locke and Hume to mention but a few applied the paradigm of reductionism onto the society. They asserted that, if every member of a society is able to solve his/her own problems, then the larger problem of the society can potentially be alleviated. This thinking is also applied in a given family as well. If the father, mother, daughter and son solves his/her own problem, the logic goes the problem of the family can be solved. This atomized thinking of course forsakes the organic or spiritual dimension of a family. This new paradigm, the thinkers argue that gave rise to the notion of individualism where the motto is a Cainian maxim, "Am I my brother’s keeper?" If the great sociologist Max Weber argued that the intense protestant ethic was the reason for the rise of capitalism, equally the father of liberal economics Adam Smith who mimicked his ideas from Descartes’ reductionism argued that if the society is left to operate on its whim with out external intervention (read government), then the dynamism of the society will have its own life and the means will be an end for the common good. The fallacy in this thinking is however, as the profit seeking greedy capitalists control the super-structure and use it for their own end, the week and meek is left behind and is alienated from his/her true self. This is where the irresistible charm of Mari comes in a full swing. The alienated and marginalised of the urban dwellers find a get away in Mari the daughter of Signore Juana–Marijuana. And otherwise productive lives get wasted. Ethiopia is not an exception. As Ethiopia strides into democratic liberalism with a crude capitalist proclivity, and as wealth is accumulated in the hands of the certain parts of the society, the destitute and marginalised resorts into decadent activities including into drug smuggling and addiction as well. In fact some people begun to observe when the colour of individualism is starting to kick in Ethiopia. Eighteen year olds are opting to move out and live with room-mates or at times in groups to be free from the "daunting" demands or expectations from the head figure of the family. Coupled with the "CNN-effect", young people are more swayed into unproductive activities and into idleness as well. As the de novo emerging society in Ethiopia is gravitated with an almost compulsive money seeking attitude, there is a rising danger of creating a vacuum with in the strata of the society where the left out are either enmeshed in drug seeking medium or worse into radical or populist political wings. Recognizing this creeping neoplasm is a peril forestalled. Recently, I heard an elderly man who just came back from Ethiopia lamenting about the unsatiable greed of some people who couldn’t care less about their siblings or parents dire moments when a family member is constrained with financial difficulties. It seems capitalism is turning us into machines where our spiritual and our sense of belonging to our love-ones is losing its grip. Of course, life is a trade off but moderation is a wisdom as well. Perhaps civic societies including religious centers can offer a helping hand to curb the ugly side of individualism or capitalism. It is true that, the benefits of capitalism including individualism outweighs its short comings however, it is a sober moment for the government to recognize this reality before it explodes beyond repair. *The word Assassin is derived from "Hashashin", people who killed people under the influence of "Hashish".
** Opium War (1839-42). |
Previous articles by author ________________
|
