By Elempe Dele
I must borrow thoughts, ideas and words from one of Wole Soyinka’s Reith Lectures: Climate of Fear, Lecture 5: I Am Right, You Are Dead, to be able to accomplish this endeavour.
Today, Nigeria is largely involved in controversy over the 25th general election where those who voted for Mr. President, Senator Bola Tinubu, are less than those who did not vote for him if you add up all the votes from the 3 other major contestants.
I am aware that objections to my article will suffice as the timing is provocative, but I do not share in the sentiments that declaring hostilities should be used to gag the press. The positive role of discussion cannot be wished away; it is an ethical reminder that the press have a duty to the people, and it is the preoccupation of this article.
The country today is faced with a kind of disease that can be likened to a terminal illness.
The disease is fanaticism.
Although it has not graduated to the Timothy MacVeigh’s kind of crusade, or that of his other siblings who veil their hatred of mankind under religion, it is however that censorship of freedom of speech and thoughts which the free world cannot accomodate that is the crux of this article.
Since the result of the election was announced, we now have a clear cut dichotomy; ‘we against them’ mentality. The remarkable fanatics that are plaqued by righteousness over a manipulated untruth, that consciousness that cannot be appeased no matter the libation, have become a real threat to the freedom of having opposing views. It is a dogmatic view, in my own estimation, not to allow for creative responses to social issues.
Fanaticism.
At stake is tolerance. You dare not disagree with their strongly held notion, whether their notion is right or wrong. They propel propaganda and assign realities to it in the contest for both moral and political supremacy. There is that urgent angry sense of repudiation anytime you oppose their notions, even those that are derived from deliberately manipulated fake news. They do not want their illusions to be corrected. It is their source of survival in their world of ‘me against the world.’
I must confess, without fear, that this fanaticism is gradually expanding to the extent they wish and call the military to take over a duly elected government despite our sorrowful experience under such unremitting juntas in the past.
Since the election result was announced, we have been plagued by this social issue, fanaticism, on social media to the extent a former minister had to take legal action against purveyors and content developers of this fake news that are defamatory and are meant to mislead the gullible and the vengeful apprentice in the world of hate.
But I can sense factors apart from hatred; as a matter of fact, the citizens have suffered so much under the deceit of successful generations of recircled politicians, so they no longer have trust in them. They imagine a Messiah, Christ-like, that will set them free from the shackles of oppression and maladministration. So they easily loath anybody or group who does not align with their realities.
I think their pains are genuine and their aggressive, arrogance, unconscious debate, doctrinaire principles of disavowed hatred for the establishment is understandable, but tolerance for others should not be encouraged.
Intolerance is a fallacy of inconsistence in my own estimation. That deep craving towards infallibility is not achievable.
What makes the rigid totalitarian dictatorship different from those who wish to install an infallible government yet are intolerant of other views? No difference; they meet in the same point of intolerance in spite of the democratic tendency in one and dictatorship in the other.
Social issues should be open to contestations. Thesis must be tried. Instead of suppressing freedom of speech and association should rather be encouraged. Social issues have but more than one windows to explore. The absolute function of the mind should not be discouraged through herd mentality or spiral of silence.
What danger the fanatic posses to us in terms of human freedom cannot be quantified. The fanatical mind should learn to purse at times and reflect on the things he is told in comparison to the things available in the real world he is part of. Social issues, even political engagements, must be given rational thoughts rather than dogmatic admission and acceptances. The mind must be allowed to function on its own without being controlled in certain ways. The mind ought to be a free agent. It must be allowed to think, roam outside the confines of whatever is garbage into it. This is the only the time when alternative views on specific issues, be they social or political, are given rational or alternative views. We should not all be believers, we can be unbelievers of popular views, or at least doubters.
Under the fanatical order, alternative views are not allowed, they are suppressed. You are only allowed to think in a certain way or else you are sanctioned or insulted. Social media platforms have these people who are unremitting in their doctrines that all of us must be absolute in our submissions to their dictates. They have been revealed to by higher orders within their political opportunists that only their group can save the nation from corruption and economic doomsday. The fanatic that has been indoctrinated into this walling in is the most dangerous being in Nigeria.
Few social media platforms are exempt from the depredation of the fanatics that is plaguing us today. We must purse to identify them for condemnation and immediately sound alarm about this growing a
danger because the ultimate destination of the fanatic is destruction. At least we can prove this fact from history.
Yes, we cannot downplay this very issue or threat of fanaticism in our politics today because the world of the fanatic is the same. That is, the channels that feed the lake of fanaticism may come from different sources; injustices, economic suppression, disenfranchisation…but they end up in the same point – that is the zone where believes must not be questioned and alternative views are not allowed.
Today, fanatics are everywhere in Nigeria, even within the circles of pessimists. Theirs is of the close world. They have created an alter ego, a kind of king-god, even when it is imaginary, and execute his ideals even if it is against the or in contempt’s of the larger society in which they live in and earn a living.
It is true, admittedly, that tolerance is a virtue. There are many windows to any issue. The windows are open to contestation, even what we assume as the truth is not infallible. So the nation need not be incinerated or set ablaze over what we assume is the eternal truth. The idea behind the supremacy of one political believe over another is a curse, not a virtue.
I do not share in the sentiments that dichotomize us, the politically pure, from they, the infidels. We must reject such extreme pronouncements that have been plaguing the world since the dawn of the 21st century. We must repudiate the clamour of ‘they are criminals, we are saints.’ We do not owe ourselves such blunders, such irresponsibilities even when decades ago, those who held such notions have since called for Dialogue of Civilizations. We must avoid paths of perditions that will lead to remorse because there are no known societal mechanisms that can be used to control the unhinged fanatic as soon as they are let loose. No matter how slow, we must be able to still try to slow down at some points to question these unquestionable authorities of our self acclaimed righteousness in matters that need deep and alternative considerations.
I will like to end this article with a borrowed thought I have come to agree with: Nigeria lacks philosophical thinkers in spite of its huge population. We need to start looking at political and social issues with acceptable global views where alternative views can be considered.
