By Abdu Rafiu
Print as well as electronic media are filled with opinions on the Israeli-Gaza war. Horrendous devastation in Ukraine has yielded space to news from Gaza City with unceasing palpitation among the readers. The conflict in Sudan has paled into insignificance. There is the anxiety among those who have deep feelings over when destructions of life and property in the war-torn belt will end. We want to know what the United States is saying; what is the position of China on the Gaza war? The world wants to know what Germany is saying and what is coming out of Britain. We cannot ignore the thinking of North Korea. Diplomats and experts in international affairs pre-occupy themselves with analysis of developments. People from across the world are glued to their television sets and radio. A great many are busy fidgeting with their videos, clicking on this link and on that link, of course wanting to know the latest pronouncement by Israeli Prime Minister Ben Netanyahu.
In all this, indeed, in all conflicts, in all wars, as they say, truth is the first casualty! United Nations’ General- Secretary Antonio Guterres has been pressing for a ceasefire but Netanyahu with superior fire-power is saying no. Indeed, clashes have been taken to hospitals as Israel accuses Hamas of using the medical centres as bases, making them what Israel calls “legitimate military targets.” Controversies are raging. There are fears that the already worsening humanitarian crisis will be compounded.
The world is divided, but I am not delving into the war in Gaza or into the Russian-Ukraine war. The foregoing reference is only to buttress the point about the Majesty of Truth. As I was saying, in wars and in all manner of conflicts the truth is the first casualty. In controversies the world is divided as it is over different subjects, most times, sharply. Because of the Light pressure of these times, multitudes are on edge, patience is brittle. In communities, opinions are expressed in favour of one thing or the other, or against them. In families, in societies, in clubs, name it, the debate goes on in an attempt to find the truth. There are opposing views on every subject. Condemnations assail governments, whether at national level, sub-national level or local council level, while many stand ready to praise them. Investigations are instituted; probe panels are raised when there are disagreements to get to the root of the matter, or to the root of just any occurrence.
In journalism, so potent, so unassailable is truth that editors would say to sub- editors that facts are only facts; they are not yet the truth. Truth is proven facts. In courts, litigants present their respective sides of a case through their lawyers; everyone believes in the rightness of his own case, human rights activists in the rightness of their cause.
Atall times, the question that arises is: Where lies the truth? It is either that one party is right or the other is wrong. Where parties to an issue are unable to agree on the truth, they settle for compromise. Consensus becomes the substitute for truth. In parliaments, it is the majority that decides. It is by a show of hands or voice vote which is followed with the banging of the table with the gavel and the pronouncement, “The Ayes have it.” And it becomes law. The Mace is lying there, the symbol of authority. Where it cannot stand the crucible of truth, an amendment is sought and made. From day to day, in conversations, in debates, the eloquent invariably carries the day. In no time, a subject thought settled agitates the mind; it begins to raise its ugly head. It is believed, parliamentarians having learnt from experience, that it is only truth that can make their decision to endure or permanently resolve the subject. Thinkers begin to wonder: Is there nothing like absolute truth which stands above the tidal waves of opinions which should form the standard against which everything is measured?
What then is this elusive truth that the whole world raves in search of it? It must lie somewhere. Everything cannot be relative. Philosophers invited themselves into deep thinking, contemplating truth and where to find it. Can a man be a hero and at the same time a devil? Researchers searched and scientists set to work. Socrates, Plato, Rousseau, Aristotle and many others preoccupied themselves with the theory and search for truth. They opened the eyes of the world to the imperative of the pursuit of truth. Finding it elusive, researchers appear to have thrown up their hands in resignation, and so came to the conclusion that truth is relative.
In the higher knowledge spreading on earth in these times, we learn that actions are carried out not in absolutism of truth, but in observation and limited recognition of its effects. Joachim believes that what is true is the whole complete truth and judgments and beliefs are not the “whole complete truth.” The hope is that science will one day and perhaps sooner than later come to the rescue and produce results with scientists shouting: Eureka, it is found! Institutions were set up in ancient times in pursuit of truth. Scholars are deemed to live by such pursuits. They pored over writings in the pursuit of truth. Huge grants were given and still are by governments and foundations in pursuit of truth. Progress has been made in partial understanding of the effects of truth but not of the truth itself. Air inhaled, for example, is identified as and named oxygen, exhaled, carbon dioxide. One is healthy for the body, the other is not. It is poisonous. It is known that a farmer who plants guava can never harvest mangoes. That truth must go beyond scientific inventions. Will the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) lead mankind to truth? AI is already sending many to the labour market, erasing jobs and positions in companies and service industries.
The truth the world is seeking is one that is consistent. It is above crisis, chaos, wars and confusion. It must be one that is unaffected by revolution and time. It must be universal. It is one that is the same in Zurich as it is in Nairobi and the same in Ontario as it is Rio de Janeiro as it is in Accra, Aberdeen or Lagos. It is the same in Seoul or Johannesburg, Miami or Ottawa. It must be the same in Melbourne as it is in Cardiff or Amsterdam. It must not be different from the one in Beijing. It must be valid for all peoples on earth.
There must be such truth that withstands time and condition, indeed, above all situations and it is timeless. It must be outside the reach of inventions, technologies and theories. It cannot be moved by earthquake or tornadoes. It cannot be anything thought out by human brain. Human beings can only encounter it, recognise it, relate with it because they feel it to the tip of their fingers, but cannot possess it except only its rays beamed on objects or people, personal or impersonal. It is these rays, the splitting of Truth that nature beings, the faithful servants of the Creator, use to weave flowers, make trees, form hills and build mountains, construct rivers, oceans, the lagoon drive air and winds.
The nature of truth must be such that it cannot be grasped with emotions. It must be simple and accessible to logic and reason such that the qualification to grasp it must not lie in scientific learning, reading or ability or skill to write.
Consider the simplicity and verity, the richness of proverbs for example. MKO Abiola was wont to say “You cannot shave a man’s head behind his back.” That is in the man’s absence. “No one can clap with only one hand.” There are other deep pronouncements by our people and other people such as: “Whichever way the moon shines, it cannot dry up the leaves”; “It is never wise to cock a gun to shoot a mosquito;” “Where a hyena is the judge a goat will not get justice;” “No one tells a dumb that it is rainy outside.” “One should be wary of the herbalist whose wife trades in coffin.” There are a great deal many in the Proverbs in the Bible. These are not from sophisticated people but from people who have demonstrated capacity to absorb the splitting of Truth streaming down from On High.
What lies behind this truth that it is so universal, and beyond the avarice and calculation of man, what human craftiness cannot touch, whether he be Black or White, American, Afghan, French or African?
Since the Truth under contemplation is universal, all embracing and valid in all lands and for all peoples, dripping with logic, it can only be beyond anything devised or thought out by human mind. Also take reputation or name as an example. In every culture care is taken that it is not tarnished and a man can go to any length to reclaim his name if stained. It is simply because a man is the name he bears. It is his fate—nomen est omen. Shakespeare’s Othello has had to say: “Good name in man and woman…is the immediate jewel of their souls.”
Since the qualities ascribed to truth cannot be found among human beings, it should follow that we look for it somewhere else high above us human beings. In other words it can only be shed from Above. Splitting of it had reached down to human beings over the millennia in accordance with their maturity and absorptive capacity—first by servants and later by Truth Himself Who brought Absolute Truth, the Lord Jesus Christ. Unfortunately all the splitting has been dimmed. Human beings distorted them and used them to bargain for position, power and influence. Today, only very few human beings genuinely long for the Truth while the majority are still hostile as ever.
The closest we as human beings can recognise as the absolute truth are the eternal principles of life. Principle is synonymous with origin. These eternal principles of life are expressed in the eternal Laws of Nature which in turn manifest the outworking of the Will of God, the Creator. Has it not been shown and proven that what we sow is what we reap? Has it not been shown again and again that birds of the same feather flock together? We know that the lighter an object is the higher it floats.
The Laws as has been stated in this column time and again are the mechanisms with which the Almighty Creator governs His Creation from Paradise down to this material world of which the earth is the outermost part. The Laws are unchanging; they are self-acting and self-enforcing, bringing reward or punishment to man to the degree of our compliance with them, that is out of His Will and is maintained by them serving as lifeblood that runs through the entire gamut of life.
If the Laws are the expression of the Will it also means they mirror life. Many have come to realise that Life is Truth, the absolute Truth. Let’s hold life in our hands, gaze at it and contemplate it. Life is eternal as the Laws of Nature are and the Holy Will is. Any wonder then that the Lord Christ said: “I am the Truth and Life.” No one comes to the Father except through Him, He said. As Christ is Life, absolute Reality, Christ being Part of the Reality, it stands to reason that He is the Truth and Life, as the Holy Spirit is. Life is independent, requiring nothing to keep it alive because it is Life Itself. It is eternal, hence the recognition that the Creator has no beginning and no end. If He is eternal, it should follow that His Will manifested in the Laws of Nature also known as Divine Laws and Laws of Creation manifest the Truth. Because everything is dependent on this Truth it cannot be found in man but in Life to which man owes his existence, development, progress and happiness.
HOMAGE TO TRIBUNE
If it is truth that precipitates existence, engenders development and triggers progress and happiness, it can then be understood that for continuing existence, development, progress and happiness of the Nigerian Tribune, her editors have had, over the decades, to stand by the truth according to their own light and with absolute disregard to personal consequences. That was Chief Awolowo’s philosophy firmly anchored in the scriptural verity that it is righteousness that exalts a nation.Truth is the foundation of righteousness which in turn gives rise to wholesomeness. Awolowo was the founder.
The triumph of William Tyndale in holding on to his conviction and translating the Bible from Hebrew to English language is in the Bible being in the hands of millions of human beings in the English-speaking world. The population of Christians is 2.38 billion worldwide. The establishment got rid of Tyndale gruesomely on October 6, 1536.
The Nigerian Tribune is 74 years old today. Salute to the courage, clear headedness and sacrifice of her editors, the tenacity of the Board and management and the staff in the years of persecution and excruciating struggle to plant liberty and freedom in the Nigerian space, and protect same at great costs. It is a great institution.
The Guardian
