Wednesday 17 June 2020

The Anatomy of Threat

This article is essentially not a specific health issue from a holistic point of view and view of the time/times, needs to be reflected upon.                                     THE ANATOMY OF THREAT.The world war was sparked off by an innocuous diplomatic misunderstanding in which an English consular attachee was slapped by a German officer. The poor management of that storm in a tea cup eventually metamorphosed into a conflagration that would consume millions of people.Through ages and times, men have always resorted to.wars over simple issues bordering on sovereignty and land and  water rights; even irrelevant issue as unimportant as acquisition of women. Though the history of wars has been even par excelsia and ecclesistic yet our rudimentary purview of wars were glimmered by the campaigns of the MedoPersian war chests and Odysses. Why do men in spite of the monumental waste of lives and properties resort to wars over issues that should end at the table; every war has always ended at the table with handshakes and liquor. Why do men fight, taking the beastly path of perdition instead of recognition of the fact that adrenaline remains the focus of wars and their genesis. History is replete with wars and even ones that God fought for the oppressed. The main focus of war causations remains greed which perniciously feeds an ego. The cave men lived a vagabond time of lifestyle and so maintained an itinerant habitus which meant that families tended to go from place to place in search of food, forage or fish. With dwindling resources New habitats were south for and dominated. This itinerant lifestyles exposed communities to skirmishes and so the need would arise to either fight or flee. When man settled in organized communities, the need arose to stratify and consolidate in these communities to ensure a social cohesion. To this end and as people dispersed from the Tower of Babel, they migrated to  different parts of the world to found kingdoms, clans and countries. Following the voyages of discoveries and expeditions which enabled the early explorers to discover other worlds or comunities, the former started founding artificial states or countries. The most significant of such states was the ones squeezed into the Indian subcontinent. Such nations were also  found in Africa such as Nigeria, Senegambia, Rhodesia etc. In Europe artificial nations also existed such as Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Prussia, Soviet union etc. As at the last count, these nations apart from Nigeria had since disintegrated into nations who have now come to enjoy massive growth in industries and commerce. It must however be emphasized that almost all of these countries saw war before accepting the corollary of the indisputability of wild goose chase of potentates muzzling the people for selfish reasons. Back tracking, it should not be lost to us that even Ashur Banipa, Salmanasor, Tiglatpillezzer and later Sennecherib all waged wars to keep and expand the Assyrian empire which only exist today in history's books. Later, Nebucchadnezzer II with Madok (Evil Merodach)who temporarily succeeded him before he was assassinated by his brother in law all waged wars to keep Babylon together. The Greeks fed on wars yet the Greek city states of Corsica, Sicily and Sadenia all to day exist as figments of the imagination though blood flowed and men lost lives and limbs to keep them. Women and children also bore the burdens of all these wars being the Canon Fudders. Following the arrival of the modern age and the birth of United Nations, the expeditions by nations and sovereigns to expand their empires were put in check. The anatomy of threat tries to x-ray the internity of threats as a harbinger of wars. Whether artificial or natural nations, the main custodian of the existence, persistence and and endurance of these nations is etched in the law of social contract. Jacques Jean Rousseau made it clear that for peace to reign in any nation, the law of social contract should remain the guiding principle for association of diverse elements constituting that nation. According to the treatise of these scholars, social contract remains the voluntary agreement among individuals by which, according to any of various theories, of Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau, organized society is brought into being and invested with the right to secure mutual protection and welfare or to regulate the relations among its members. When the social contract is jettisoned on the alter of tribalism or bigotry a societal ferment sets in. According to Rousseau, government is by consent. By expansion, it means there must be a crite for appointing or selecting the peoples who should represent the electorates. It means the methodologies of selection or elections must conform to the rule of law. Threatening people to  vote or not to vote like oba Akiolu did during the last governorship election in Lagos is an Achilles hill to the narrative. Threatening to kill people runs contrary to the laws of natural justice. Trying to use the force of arm to subdue a people runs counter productive at the end. 'A captain that wishes to take up a city', according to Machiavelli, 'should rid the inhabitants of the pressures of necessities'. 'After he has succeeded in doing this, he will succeed in convincing them that the very people who are protecting them are their enemies'.'The captain would then easily overrun that city without even shooting in the air, while fighting to take it'. When you shed the blood of the youths who represent the future of a people, you should come to  terms of the fact that you will never capture the mind, mood or mirth of those people. The more you kill, the more these bloods especially in extant of war, cry before God for vengeance; whether you believe in God or not. Carl Witz in his brilliant little book boomed that wars are used to threaten and subjugate people but the truth remains that no matter the amount of ammunition a king lines up, with attendant threats, it is impossible to bend the knees of a determined people, especially when those people have indigenous roots.