The West and our wellbeing

The West in-no-too-distant-future may likely to assume the powers of God. They think they alone possess the right to set laws for humanity which must be obeyed. In outright deification of material philosophy, it now relegates the worship houses or even equates them to opium parlour where the masses go for solace. To take the […]

The West in-no-too-distant-future may likely to assume the powers of God. They think they alone possess the right to set laws for humanity which must be obeyed. In outright deification of material philosophy, it now relegates the worship houses or even equates them to opium parlour where the masses go for solace.

To take the campaign to its possible limit, the West insisted that religion should be expunged from school curriculum. This is an implicit war against anything Islamic. What the West fears is the universality of Islam that teaches moral values and enforce justice system; where the weak and strong enjoy equal treatment. This is not the case in the West which is under capitalists’ grip.

The West has abandoned the word of God for technology – as if the two cannot go together. Former German ambassador to Tunisia and Morocco, Wilfried Hofmann, said in his book, ‘Religion on the Rise’, that only Islam can rescue the West from itself. I’m sure Hofmann knows West more than we do, so this is a warning for all of us. If the West itself needs to be rescued from impending doom, how can we take it as a role model worth copying? My fellow Nigerians, we do not need to tread their own path before we arrived at the Promised Land.

Trying to copy the West in any case can only mean inferiority complex. Unless we are able to discover our mission on earth, we are doomed. The late Harvard professor, and one of the twentieth century leading political scientist, Samuel Huntington, proposed in his book, ‘The West Unique, not Universal’ that “the belief that non-Western peoples should adopt Western values, institutions, and cultures is, if taken seriously, immoral in its implication.”

I therefore plead with our northern governors to reject any move that goes contrary to our belief, even if it tallies with the wishes of the West. It is imperative for parents to patronize schools where religious courses are taught, because the Almighty will call them to account.

Usman Abdullahi is a computer tutor, Alfijir Science College, Ahmadu Bello way, Kano.