Life’s marketplace at Easter
It was Chief Araba Fabunmi, then Odole Atobase of Ife, who opened our young minds to life’s many ambivalences. The grand old man had been invited as a keynote speaker to a philosophical seminar at the University of Ife, but he mounted the rostrum without notes. Everybody else carried notebooks and mimeographs. What was this […]
It was Chief Araba Fabunmi, then Odole Atobase of Ife, who opened our young minds to life’s many ambivalences. The grand old man had been invited as a keynote speaker to a philosophical seminar at the University of Ife, but he mounted the rostrum without notes. Everybody else carried notebooks and mimeographs.
What was this old man going to say?
The elderly chief began: “Thank you for inviting me. That shows love. You don’t invite people you hate. I will attempt to summarise all your philosophical enquiries in one word – Life. Without life, we wouldn’t be here; we wouldn’t be philosophising. But life would have no meaning without death. Can you imagine coldness if warmth did not exist? How would you describe darkness if there was no light? Is one not the absence of the other? Can you appreciate goodness if there was no evil?
“See that fat lady at the back there. Compare her to the slim lady upfront here. Is the woman-ness of one greater than the other? If we were all generally tall to the last man, how would we comprehend shortness? Is sickness not the absence or impairment of health? Look at the seasons – see how the rains peter away and give room to biting harmattan; or how summer glides into autumn and winter only to transmute to spring for life to be renewed all over again….”
Baba Fabunmi went on and on for ninety breath-taking minutes. This was African philosophy being espoused by an authentic African philosopher. His wisdom wasn’t pinched from any book. He was only giving us a sip of that age-long fountain of our forebears which almost died with time for lack of documentation. Giddy with nectar from the master’s fount, the two thousand-strong audience rose in uproarious applause – a salute to wisdom of the ages.
For some reason, I remember Baba Fabunmi in this season of Easter which is a commemoration of the Resurrection of Christ and a call on humanity for renewal. The winter of the Crucifixion is conquered by the bright summer of the Resurrection. The Victim becomes the Victor.
In his treatise on Christian eschatology, the great philosopher and theologian St. Augustine of Hippo (full name, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis), took a deep look at how man begins his journey at the cradle, how he ends up in the grave and hopes for afterlife glory. My fascination with Augustine, I confess, is further deepened by the fact that he was an African from what is today known as Algeria. Man should explore the world, he said, because “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page”.
Nobody gets out of this world alive. The world cannot agree on one single narrative about what lies beyond the grave. That is why we have the many religions of the world, each with its own logic. For Augustine, however, the very reason of our coming to this world was so that we could return to the Author of life at the end. He encapsulated those sentiments in his famous book, Confessions – “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
One of the most confounding aspects of life is that it is so unlike the storekeeper’s rule of First In, First Out. As babies die on one hand, centenarians are celebrating on the other. Green leaves make the journey of no return from the treetop while dry leaves sway in the wind. Nothing is guaranteed. When the final bell tolls for a friend, you wonder how fair life is, but, as they say, we are all putty in the hands of Fate. Some are moulded to expire early and we are not allowed to even ask why.
And have you noticed how racy this race to the grave is? It seemed like only yesterday when we played in the sand, climbed trees, swam and roamed the neighbourhood as kids do. Remember the uncertainties that attended the first coup in Nigeria and how we thought all the issues would be ironed out peacefully until the war began? I still have the picture of the state wedding of General Gowon etched in my brain as if it was yesterday. It seemed but a while ago when my table tennis game in Lafiaji, near Dodan Barracks, was interrupted with the news that Murtala Mohammed had been assassinated – and we all ran for cover ….
Time flies!
Nothing brings the matter home as forcefully than when you run into a girl who used to run your errands in those days and is now a grandmother. You’re on your way home, mate, wherever that may be.
But nations are not individuals. They don’t have a 70-100 year lifespan. Nations are meant to endure if they’re founded on justice. The world used to know of great kingdoms and empires in years gone by. They died. Their boundaries changed. Some of the great empires of those times are now tiny nations. A land of migrants in the New World now calls the shots. Another nation in Asia, consisting of 9,569,901.00 square kilometres with a population of 1,343,239,923 is waiting in the wings to take over leadership of the world. The old order changeth, yielding place to the new (apologies Tennyson).
That is why at Easter, I wish my country, Nigeria, a rebirth so that it can endure. As the very successful author and alternative medicine guru, Deepak Chopra, argues, “The symbolic language of the crucifixion is the death of the old paradigm; resurrection is a leap into a whole new way of thinking.”
Rebirth! New way of thinking! So let it be with Nigeria. Happy Easter.