When the literary icon Chinua Achebe wrote the bestseller “Things fall apart” the world stood still. His inspiration was derived from William Butler Yeats‘s poem, The second coming. It was he who said that “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”. Owing to the fact that it is practically difficult to focus on holding too many things in place, the singular quest of my life has been to find out what singular thing needs to be held in place, for every other thing to be in place in our society. It has been my goal to uncover the singular factor that can stop anarchy from taking over our society. It has been my obsession to unearth what the authentic fulcrum of civilization is.The question we must ask ourselves is; What fell apart in Rwanda, when within 100days over 800,000 people were brutally murdered? What fell apart in Darfur, Sudan, when several hundreds of thousands of people were murdered, with another estimated 2.7million people displaced from their homes? What fell apart in Cambodia under the leadership of The Khmer Rouge where 1,386,734 people were executed? In fact, the Documentation Center of Cambodia put total deaths at about 2.5million human beings. Time will fail me to tell, of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of Somalia, of The Democratic Republic of Congo, of West Papua, New Guinea, all of these to mention but a few.
What fell apart in these once thriving societies? Reducing them to centers of violence, armed conflict, rape, hunger, disorder, disease and death. Was it leadership? Was it finance? Was it trade? Was it education? Was it infrastructure? True all these things were impacted by the deadly conflicts but what was the singular thing that was lost in these societies? The answer my friend is… LOVE.
Most of these conflicts were about power, religion, property, privileges and several other factors but the real trigger of these conflicts was that people began to love what they were fighting for, more than who they were fighting with. Love lost its place as the governing influence in those societies and everything else went haywire. People began to prioritize things, over the well being of their neighbor and their civilization fell apart. For civilization to thrive, love must be given first place or else everything will degenerate into conflict and fall apart. The nature of our cosmos is that whenever we make anything more important than the love of our creator and our fellow man, those things become a point of conflict. This is as true for homes, as it is for nations. Love must be given first place.
Take religion for instance, the moment religion becomes more about who is right or wrong,rather than about how we ought to love, it becomes a divisive force in society. Those who are quick to accuse the Islamists today of Jihad, must not be to hasty to forget the untold horrors of the Christian crusades of the high and late middle ages. Both forceful approaches to religious conversion were wrong,and contrary to the loving nature of our creator. Which of the various religions are right or wrong should be the least of our concerns. Rather, the fact that the benevolent creator tolerates the existence of us all, in spite of our religious differences, should be an example to us all about, how to live in mutual respect, love and tolerance of one another.
This societal inclination towards conflict is boosted by the fact that love education is conspicuously absent from the curricula of the primary educational institutions of our day. The three cardinal educational institutions of a society should be the family, the schools and the religious institutions. If a vibrant doctrine of love is not aggressively imparted to the populace via these three basic institutions,there is no way it will show up in society,during times of conflict. This love deficit in our societies is one major reasons why our entire civilization is at stake. Millions of dollars are invested into ensuring that the earth is protected from extra terrestrial entities. The reality however, is that,if the enemy within(hatred) doesn’t conquer us, the enemy without can do us little or no harm.
If our individual and collective communities will thrive and endure,it must be that love and not hatred must be allowed to sit on the throne of our communities. This love must put the welfare of its neighbors above every other personal motivation. How to love must be taught by precept and practice in our core institutions. Appreciation for diversity must be encouraged. Tolerance and peaceful coexistence must be institutionalized. Love must be allowed to be the immovable core of our societies. Loving our neighbor as ourselves,must be seen as being more than a religious maxim,it is the golden rule upon which every golden civilization is built. Only then will our communities flourish and bequeath a lasting legacy of harmony and prosperity upon the inhabitants thereof.
THE GREATEST IS LOVE.
Deji Olabode.
Love Dynamics Global.
Enthronement Assembly Lagos
lovedynamix@gmail.com
@lovedynamix on twitter.
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* Please note that all enquiries about speaking engagements and professional counseling should be sent by email to the above email address. Thanks.
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Yeahs! THE GREATEST IS LOVE.
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