By Abdu Rafiu
Columns in newspapers normally attract remarks from readers, sometimes shedding more light on a subject they have read. In certain cases, reactions come in form of questions. There are a few of them to which I have decided to respond because of the tremendous interest the piece on Whiteman, Blackman has predictably generated. We are all either black, white, brown or yellow in pigmentation. Any discussion on colour is bound to attract more than passing interest of readers. In addition to questions on the race, there is another on a group of women who are said to have done remarkably well running their countries in the face of the challenges of these times.
If I may start from the last question:
A lady forwarded to me images of heads of government in the Western world. Men are put in one compartment and women in another. The leaders are those of countries most affected by the corona virus, which are the USA with Mr. Donald Trump in the saddle; Brazil, President Jair Messias Bolsonaro; Russia, President Vladimir Putin; Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez; the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Boris Johnson; Italy, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte; and France, President Emmanuel Macron. The countries that are recognised as having managed the crisis best are Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel; New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Arden; Prime Minister Sanna Marin; Prime Ministers of Iceland, Finland, Norway, Denmark and President Tsai Ing-Wen of Taiwan.
The question is why is it so? Why is it the women who have done better in managing the COVID-19 better than men? Why is this so, Sir?
Response: The COVID-19 pandemic is a spiritual affliction. Many people are already sensing it that there is more to it beyond ordinary human understanding. Neither vaccine nor drugs as definitive weapons to defeat the pandemic have been found. Scientists have come off with postulations and theories and most times they do not agree among themselves; nothing yet has given the world hope and joy. As of Monday in the United States, according to American online reports, more than 3.1million US citizens had tested positive for the virus; but the US Disease Control and Prevention suggest that as many as 25 million people in that country may have been infected. One of the reports says more than 133,000 people have died, a frightening figure said to be about twice the number of the cases in Brazil. Forty-three states have recorded average daily increase in confirmed cases in the last fortnight. And 29 states have seen number of patients in hospitals gone up during the period. It is so staggering that more than 80 per cent of beds in intensive care units are filled up in three states—Alabama, Arizona and Georgia. As it is in those states, so is it in Houston, Miami and Phoenix. Some are seeing a second wave, with afflictions going up for example in New York. California is averaging more than 7.900 a day. That is in the United States, a country that can be said to have everything going for her in terms of human capital and material resources. It is home of technology. Confirmed cases in Britain are 291, 530 with deaths totaling 44, 979; Russia, 752, 248 and deaths, 11, 952; France, 173,115, and deaths 30,047. More than 201,000 cases have been recorded in Germany with 9,148 deaths and New Zealand, 1, 349 cases and 22 deaths.
It is not surprising that a great many are seeing the pandemic for what it is— a consequence of spiritual decline among mankind for centuries. Humanity is thus humbled. Our world is at the moment in the throes of the proverbial End-Time. It is a period when the end is going back to the beginning in accordance with the Law of Cycle, bringing in its trail and waves the awakening of all that is dead, all that is slumbering in all human beings; and all mankind has sown into Creation, the good and the garbage. End-Time is harvest time. The bulk of the harvest is manifesting in different diseases, corona virus being one of them. Corona virus is one such garbage. The earth has been plaque-struck in a 100-year cycle, each cycle coming with intensification. The first recorded was in 1720, then 1820, 1920 (some say 1918-1920) and now 2020, when the intensification is more and seems headed for a crescendo. It is said that between 20 and 50 million people died in the one of 1920, estimated to be about a third of world’s population.
Why are women succeeding where men are overwhelmed and aghast? By their special spiritual make-up, women are unique. They are richly endowed and this makes them to be the bridge to higher Realms, forging connection up to Paradise. By their nature, they are more sensitive, psychic, perceptive and more intuitive. It is woman who will know in the dead of the night when a baby is in discomfort and what the matter is with him. She is the one who, on casting her glances on a visitor, would know if a visitor to her is welcome or not and would advise the husband accordingly. Have we forgotten what the wife of Pontius Pilate said to her husband: “Have nothing to do with the death of that man; I have dreamt bad dreams.” She told her husband that the Lord Christ was innocent. Could it be any surprise that the wife of Charles De Gaulle, a former President of France, said to her husband, “Charles, you rule France, but I rule this house, including you.”
In other words, a woman is placed in a position to readily sense wrong and right and to sensitise mankind to good and bad, propriety, refinement and ugliness. A genuine woman opens herself to the rays of Light, the flow of radiations from Above which, through her make-up, disperses dark and evil currents assailing mankind and their environment. Being susceptible to such Light radiation influences, she is able to receive guidance on what to do, also what to suggest to scientists, health officials and doctors who preoccupy themselves with the battle to curb and defeat the corona virus pandemic.
What the women leaders have been observed to have demonstrated on the COVID-19 issue is what women are capable of achieving — as guides, as teachers, as agents of nobleness, counselors, care givers and as nurses. They are to decide, men are to carry out, if we go by Creation Knowledge spreading on earth today. In the end, however, after the acknowledgement of their laudable efforts on the pandemic, there might be need to dig deeper to examine the primary roles Nature, ever true and wiser, assigns to womanhood.
How have the Brown races delivered themselves from the Whiteman without fights on the streets of the latter?
There are two angles to the question — the broad and the particularistic. First the broad: The question presupposes that there had always existed a supremacy and dominance of the “Whiteman”, and that other races have always been subjugated by him. This has not always been so as different races experienced their own dominant civilisations at different points in time.
True deliverance or freedom comes about, not only through “fighting in the streets” as suggested in the question, but by an inner conquest and development that ensures that the right things are always done in accordance with the Will of God.
The potency of such an upstanding disposition ensures that there evolves a healthy and invincible progress for the entire race.
Such progress, for each race, comes about solely through the development of its own culture and indigenous ingenuity which guarantees health, strength, and maturity.
The questioner will observe, therefore, that the more progressive races are the ones that have retained their own language, culture and commitment to a work ethos which ensures development and strength.
This is how other races have delivered themselves, without unimaginative imitation or “fighting in the streets”.
The particularistic takes us to who is White, Black or Brown. Who hides under the pigmentation? Whether Black, White or Brown, the man behind the veil is spirit, which knows no colour. We are White, Black, Brown or Yellow according to our needs in terms of environment and duties. The White slave merchant of yesterday may be the Blackman of today to taste of what it meant at the time to be a Blackman and fight for his dignity this time around. He would then be drawn to a community of the Blackman in accordance with the Law of Sowing and Reaping and the Law of Homogeneity. Culture itself is a reflection of how each people stand inwardly. As within, so without, they say. If the Brown people do not take on the Whites in the streets, it may well be they stand closer to the Whites in their inner being. As this column has said before, no one suffers because he is Black, Brown or White, but because he is himself! Each one and each people are expected to work on themselves. In the process, they would fashion the tool for their culture and refinement.
The issue of religion: If all are equal as claimed, why is it difficult to mention African religions by names (they do have names), even when your write-up got to Africa, and Greek gods were mentioned?
There is no difficulty in mentioning African religions by name but simply that the list would be quite long, given the polytheism which exists in many parts of Africa.
Monotheism in Africa is a more recent phenomenon.
The discussion in the post, however, sought among other subjects, to present the genesis of the long but gradual appreciation by man, of the concept of One Supreme God.
This awareness had not always been there but was subject to an educational process in which men were first able to perceive the forces of Nature around them.
So impressed were they by the resourcefulness and productivity of these elemental beings in their various activities involving earth, water, wind, and fire, that men designated them as gods. In Nigeria, the Yoruba people of South West call the elemental beings collectively as “Oro.” They recognise their activities, “Yemoja”, Watersprite, god of fertility that women entreat for children in the recognition of the importance of water in the Creation. Each person is 70 per cent water for example; “Sango” justice, “Oro”, for purity. “Orisa Oko”, god of harvest and plenty. Each year, there is yam festival in paying gratitude to the little gods that make bounty harvest possible. J.P. Clark’s “An Ode To The City” which is Ibadan, a city founded on seven hills, gives hints of the giants with heads touching the clouds, Gnomes, that formed hills and mountains and the people’s belief in protection in their hands or vicinity.
Effigies and shrines were thus established to pay tribute to them.
In their maturing, men came to a further realisation of a hierarchy among these elemental beings, atop which presided the Lords of the Elements, which they also called gods and to which homage was again paid.
Next to be perceived were the Spiritual Primordial Beings and later, after an extensive inward development, came the perception of the Primordial Beings, who are the true images of God. It was only after this that it was possible to receive information about the existence outside of Creation of the “One Supreme God”.
This was how the recognition of the One Supreme God evolved on firm foundations.
The issue of equality in this respect does not arise at all, but as explained, is dependent on the willingness of each man to strive upwards inwardly until in the ensuing maturity, much can be revealed and come to his awareness.
Unfortunately, many have remained at best, on the level of an initial recognition and adulation of the Elemental beings as practiced in many cultures today, while still more no longer hold any concept about a Creator and Lord of All in any real sense.
The Guardian
