A LECTURE DELIVERED BY DR. CHRIS MUSTAPHA NWAOKOBIA JNR. AT THE ROTARY CLUB OF GBAGADA, MARCH, 3RD 2010 PROGRAM TO MARK THE WORLD PEACE AND UNDERSTANDING MONTH HELD AT THE LTV COMPOUND, AGIDINGBI, IKEJA, LAGOS.
TOPIC
THE IMPERATIVES FOR WORLD PEACE AND UNDERSTANDING – EMPHASIZING THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN.
Friends, Comrades and Compatriots, every so often the quest of our universe are for peace and global understanding. The responsibility entrusted on me to do justice to this broad universal demand brings me untold joy.
I am humbled and honoured to be your Guest Speaker today knowing the great credentials that the ROTARY movement worldwide possesses. The depth of my effort at the subject THE IMPERATIVES FOR WORLD PEACE AND UNDERSTANDING – EMPHASIZING THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN, draws life from the very UNIQUE CORD that holds our universe together. I have chosen from a massive parameter a slant that is most often avoided, we have heard a plethora of discusses where the imperatives of world peace and understanding is the subject, but today we shall attempt this very important discourse from a new paradigm.
I shall predicate this on the premise that humanity well understands that GLOBAL PEACE AND UNDERSTANDING is not negotiable. I shall also thrive upon the praxis that our world appreciates the present global demands for love, oneness and togetherness, therefore it is no longer time to debate the imperatives of world peace and understanding but now is the time to seek, to search, to find and to excavate all that must berth a new world of peace, love, oneness and global understanding.
Friends, to create and to embolden the vistas of peace and understanding in our universe we must first appreciate the imperative call for ‘Patriotism’ to the HUMAN RACE, we must locate this at the unalterable doorsteps of HUMANITY, Providence and Love. To appreciate that humankind possesses a common ancestry and shares a common ultimate patrimony is the way to deepen the call for Human Development, Peace, Conflict Resolution, Anti-Terrorism, and a flourish of the Human Comity thus strengthening the existing fabrics of global understanding.
I cannot locate a shortcut to global peace and understanding without stating first that our RACIAL DIFFERENCES, that our ETHNIC COLOURATION & RELIGIOUS PREACHMENTS are God made forms that beautifies the rainbow which our UNIVERSE is. We are all CHILDREN of the Most High, The Buddhist, The Christian, The Muslim, The Animist, The Humanist et al, and even the Atheist; because Atheism is God to the Atheist as that which you profusely profess is your GOD. In emphasizing our common ancestry, we make weak that which implodes and explodes the rudiments of our fraternity as Homo sapiens concomitantly the cords of oneness, of peace and of global understanding is toughened.
To the racist who preaches racial supremacy and to those who predicate their racial hate on Slavery and Slave Trade, I must inform that we must collectively seek to remove humankind from the biases of creed and clan knowing that Slave Trade was a transaction between two invidious parties, the rapacious Blackman and the ravenous Whiteman, the Guilt is theirs to share and the credit for the collapse of Slave Trade as well as Apartheid is for the Proactive Black and the Receptive White to appropriate. WE ARE ONE. We all make the colours of our UNIVERSE glow. Friends, a conscious realization of this inimitable imperative will definitely foster global peace and understanding and mortify the vestiges of racial hate that traumatises our universe.
On global TERROR and the pervading threat of same, we must realize that the Terrorist is a brother whose flame of love and oneness has gone dim, the challenge before humankind is therefore neither TERROR nor the WAR on TERROR but the call for global understanding predicated on the inimitable TRUTH that all men hail from GOD. That TERROR and TERRORISM is disservice to GOD and that when we refuse this TRUISM and seek to defeat terror through terror, we postpone human redemption and deepen the bile of hate that hangs over POSTERITY.
Friends, Brothers and Sisters, to achieve global peace and understanding, our universe needs a new paradigm, we must covet a new universal understanding rooted in this ageless and flawless command, LOVE YOUR NEIGBHOUR (YOUR FELLOW MAN) as YOU LOVE YOURSELF, & THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, ALL YOUR STRENGTH AND ALL YOUR MIGHT. This truism is the fulcrum of all HUMAN FAITHS (Religions) and we deceive ourselves when we claim to love God and wish our fellow humans death either in terror, in racial violence, in Political violence, in religious violence, in cult conflict and the likes; thus it is imperative for world peace and understanding that humankind seeks the deepening of LOVE-BASED FAITH.
There is an interesting angle to this that is absolutely imperative, and this is predicated on a TRIPOD ditto a three dimensional service to HUMANKIND, for the benefit of The BODY, The Soul and The SPIRIT of man. Here we must admonish Rotarians worldwide, True FAITH PREACHERS, THEOLOGIANS and indeed all well meaning humans to preach the true message of FAITH and of LOVE as commanded in our religious books. Governments and political operators must provide food as nourishment for the BODY and quality Education as nourishment for the SOUL, as such is sine qua non for civilised conduct. We must at all times seek to make GOVERNANCE RESPONSIBLE & RESPONSIVE thus etiolating the leverage for anger, pang, angst and violence.
Friends, I challenged the innermost recesses of my mind to do this brief expose’ on the brotherhood of all men with the confidence that humankind will do well to deepen the waters of oneness and understanding, whilst also praying that that STILL VOICE that orders all things illuminate the carapace of your minds such that the barriers that separates us as humankind will become history, antiquated and Shibboleth.
As I move to my conclusion, I must inform that I learnt in my early years that BLOOD can be transfused from a WHITE to a BLACK and vice versa. I learnt that same can be done from a MUSLIM or one of another religion to a CHRISTIAN and vice versa (save for the extreme biases of the JEHOVAH WITNESSES whose dogma repudiates blood transfusion in its entirety). I also learnt that one Roof (Cloud / Sky) and one HOME (Earth) holds together the HUMAN PILGRIMAGE under the Superintendence of ONE ALMIGHTY FATHER. I am passionately convinced that the differences in the BEDROOMS (CONTINENTS) that we live in are not sufficient to change our parentage.
We cannot forget so soon how the greater number of mankind rose against the 9/11 TERROR STRIKE in the U.S, or the 7/7 TERROR ATTEMPT in the UK. We cannot overlook how also the greater number of HOMO SAPIENS including Americans rose against George Bush’s WAR on Terror and voted out The Republicans partly because of the WRONG WAR in IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN and the likes.
The global attention that Haiti receives and the outpouring of love and concern for nations who presently are confronted with the threat of Earthquakes and Tsunami are mementoes of the fact that a single umbilical cord holds all men together WHITEMEN, BLACKMEN and COLOUREDS alike.
To foster global peace and understanding we cannot overlook this curiosity of mine which is encapsulated in the poser, COULD GOD BE ALLOWING THE TRAGEDIES THAT BEFALL US BECAUSE HE WANTS TO COMPEL HUMANKIND TO WALK THE PATH OF LOVE? WILL THESE TRAGEDIES ABATE IF AND WHEN HUMANKIND CHOOSES THE PATH OF LOVE AND ONENESS OVER HATE AND DIVISION? My thought and curiosities are perhaps too eclectic but believe me, I am somewhat persuaded that like one great Father, GOD desires that we all live in love and oneness, and HE allows all that must engender that comity no matter how painful and or expensive they appear.
The choice therefore is ours to make, we must engender the cord of love and tear down the tragedies that trouble our universe. We must effectively fan the embers of universal love, of LOVE-BASED FAITH, of oneness and of togetherness and make Shibboleth and history the nebulous cord of FALSE FAITH, of RACISM, of RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM, of TERROR, of ETHNICITY and of the GREED and AVARICE that corrupts Public Trust.
Finally, I bring you my kindest wishes for the blessed month of my BIRTH – March. May we in this month of March a month reputable for the call for GLOBAL PEACE AND UNDERSTANDING, march from PAIN to PROMISE, from POVERTY to PROGRESS, from BONDAGE to FREEDOM, from WANT to PLENTY, from CONFLICT to PEACE, from HATE to LOVE and from POLITICAL UNCERTAINTIES to the PROMISED CERTAINTY. May our hopes not be truncated and may GRACE line our paths.
THANK YOU.
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