When Ideology Becomes Biology

In Abuja, Nigeria, a bomb goes off, killing over 78 people and wounding almost 200. In Kansas City, U.S.A, a gunman shot and killed a 69-year-old man and his 14-year-old grandson in a Jewish community campus. Minutes later, another 53-year-old woman was shot dead while visiting her mother at Village Shalom retirement home. In Syria, another report surfaces about the use of poisonous gas in the raging civil war. These are just a few of the many crimes against humanity ravaging every corner of our world today.

The root of all the unrest is actually IDEOLOGY.

1. Religious ideology – the dangerous belief that one religion is right and the other is wrong.
2. Political ideology – the idea that one form and approach to governance is superior to the other.
3. Economic ideology – the idea that an approach to wealth creation and distribution is more societally effective than another.
4. Ethnic and racial ideology – the delusion that a certain race or class of people are superior to their neighbours.

What suffers for this “I am right and you are wrong” orientation is OUR BIOLOGY – the very existence of human life as we know it. When ideology overcomes biology, our civilization is bound to collapse.

RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY

Many believe that religion has done more harm than good to our society, though not entirely true, there is an element of truth in it. It is interesting to note that there is a religious undertone to most of the conflicts in our society. The moment religion becomes more about, who is right and wrong, rather than about how to develop a dynamic relationship with our creator, it becomes a destructive force in society. The religious extremists on the various sides of the divide must realize that any divinity that requires us to fight for him, by fighting each other must be a very weak divinity. In spite of our respective religious positions, we must realize that the fact that our GOD did not personally annihilate those who don’t serve him in the now, but grants the same benefit to us all, must mean that he values peaceful human coexistence over religious correctness. We also must follow suit and live at peace with our fellow man.

POLITICAL IDEOLOGY

The moment governance singular aim becomes the preservation and conservation of power, it becomes an equally destructive force in society. Most of our leaders are ignorant of the primal route to power. It is that power does not proceed from an office, it proceeds from service. If the power we wield in our society comes from an office, then the moment our tenure expires, we would cease to be followed. However, if our power flows from our service, our relevance will outlast our office. Any leadership that is willing to kill the led in other to lead has lost the moral authority to lead. This is why certain continents like mine suffer from a famine of good leaders because most of the officeholders (not leaders) that our political machines enshrine are incapacitated by their own selfish and self-serving interests.

ECONOMIC IDEOLOGY

Money is a good servant and a bad master, markets likewise. Money does have some value in our society, with its improvements in our quality of life can be acquired. However, when economic wealth becomes our sole objective in life, we are courting the downfall of society. We are not to use people and love money, we are to use the money to love people. Unfortunately, the ever-widening gap between the haves and the have nots foretells an imminent collapse of our civilization as we know it if a radical change in perspective isn’t achieved. The poor compensation systems of our capitalistic structures are bound to someday cannibalize our peace and security. The capitalism as creative destruction that Schumpeter discussed, may well become destructive destruction a few generations from now. The biblical axiom of the love of money being the root of all evil, could not be more valid today.

ETHNIC IDEOLOGY

The idea that one tribe or race is superior to another is one of the most destructive notions that can be espoused by a people. We might be unique but we aren’t better in anyway. Some trace this supremacy to the genetic make up of certain races but I beg to disagree. One writer testifying about our creator said” And hath made of ONE BLOOD all nations for to dwell on all the face of the earth,and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation”. If all nations were synthesized from one blood,how can your blood be superior to mine,or mine to yours? This notion of ethnic superiority is a sociological fallacy, that lacks no spiritual substantiation. All men are born equal. The supremacy of some races over another is therefore not genetic but cultural in orientation. Every race and their respective cultures have their strengths as well as their weaknesses. We must all celebrate our strengths and undermine our weaknesses. We must choose to see the value in the difference that other races represent and be willing to learn from each other and live with one another. After all we are indeed brothers and sisters(one blood), children of the same cosmic father.

In a case where a negative form of these four preceding ideologies exerts simultaneous influence on the polity,the society is bound to implode, with a resultant loss in peace,law,order and life. This is why a new generation must arise that must place the love and well being of man above all other ideologies. When this love generations arises, ensuring that all other ideologies serve the ideology of the dignity of man, our society will flourish in peace and prosperity. Will you be a part of that love generation?

THE GREATEST IS LOVE.