By Bassey Ubong
The troubles and crises in interpersonal relationships, in groups, and within/among nations would be minimal if the concept of love operated in everyone and every group in every situation.
When animals in the wild feel love, they express it without reservation, just as they express hate. Human animals express love in quanta and in limited circumstances. Reason? The world rolls daily downhill towards a precipice, which may lead to its end sooner than expected.
The word love evokes the idea of emotional feelings towards individuals of the opposite gender or same gender, as in the case of gays. But love goes beyond intimacy and the carnal. It straddles the world and acts as the unseen force which keeps societies together from two persons to entire nations.
Social concepts, such as loyalty and patriotism as well as the psychological concept of amygdala and economic concept of sustainability, are non-material manifestations of the love principle.
In essence, the world cannot survive without love and the absence or diminished form of love informs the current crises all over the world, including the climate crisis.
If the human beings of today love human beings of tomorrow, they would avoid, or at least limit the damage done to the environment, which threatens entire human existence in the future.
When a youth says: “show me love”, the person expresses a wish that has deep implications. Those who hear it are likely to ignore or laugh, but it may signal a serious need that can keep the person away from existential issues and crimes.
The Oba of Ogbaland in Rivers State, Nigeria, Oba Chukwumela Nnam Obi II (God rest his affable soul) used to refer his guests to the mystical manifestation in the kola nut whenever he discussed humanity. Each nut or seed in his opinion represents a composite of lobes held by an unseen principle which he described as love. To break one seed sometimes requires some measure of force which may require the use of teeth or knife. What creates the things which generate the bonding among the lobes cannot be seen with the naked eye.
His Eminence saw the mystery of the clasped lobes as a manifestation of the concept of love, which should be applied in all levels and spheres of human relationships for the growth and sustenance of societies.
Love, in the context of this discourse, becomes a metaphor to represent bonding, unity, oneness, closeness, inseparability, and growth. Families that understand the mystical principle of love are like the kola nut. Some local traditions extend the concept of group unity through a simile: one stick of broom can be broken with ease by a baby, but one bundle of broomsticks cannot be broken by a strong adult.
When crises erupt among groups from nuclear families to nations to entire humanity underneath lies absence of the love principle. When scientists by accident or by design played games with viruses in the Wuhan Province of China love had no place in their beings. When a brute batters a spouse or the ruler of a strong nation terrorizes a weak nation, love cannot be found in the dictionary of the brute.
How would an officer in a position of trust steal to insane proportions what millions of people should enjoy? Why should a person in position sit on the progress of subordinates and those to be cared for, including discrimination in line with tribe, tongue, and group affiliation? Why should a teacher assign an F (fail) to a student who deserves a pass grade, but regards it as convention? When these happen, love has been blocked or exterminated from the human system.
Some of us know one or more cases of long term bitterness between friends and among siblings of which the origin can be traced to absence of the love principle. To hear or read of persons from the same womb who fight over inherited property amounts to the greatest misfortune any society should be subjected to.
We hear of siblings in prosperity who stand by to watch their siblings pine in extreme want. When I think of this, I let the eyes of my mind retrace to two years and five months of grinding poverty, which I went through while I waited for pension from the National Pension Commission, an agency where love continues to be as scarce as the dollar bill in Nigeria. I recall the role played by my siblings and a handful of brothers and sisters in my former place of work as well as two fellow Rotarians, and I bless my God for the helpful few. Stories of lifelong illnesses, mental disorientation, and in many cases cessation of life arise from hopelessness when the individual has been abandoned by family, friends, and associates who have suppressed the love principle and left the distressed to fate.
And love makes complete meaning when it operates in the universal context. Someone cannot say with any degree of correctness love exists when he or she demonstrates the principles or characteristics of love to his or her family to the exclusion of others. No one expects anyone to use ones entire earnings on neighbours to the neglect of family. But love stands on one foot when someone or people look the other way at others in desperate want, because they belong to other families or ethnic groups or religious groups or social groups.
A young man came face to face with ethnicity at Abuja last year when his bosses reassigned him from a ‘juicy’ beat back to Head Office and sent their tribesman to take over the beat.
In Nigeria, tribe has attained the status of objective reality along with the obverse, hatred of non-tribes people. Yet no nation in the world can claim to be as religious as Nigeria and all the major religions – Christianity, Islam, and animism are based on love for fellow human beings.
In this context, patriotism at ethnic and national levels stands to be questioned when neighbours are traumatized for the sole purpose of the comfort of one’s ethnic group or nation. This informs the justification of outcry against oppression of one ethnic group on others or one nation against another. It justifies the world’s reactions against Vladimir Putin as he functions in the traditional big bear mode of erstwhile Soviet Union. It informs the leadership position occupied by the United States of America because, despite occasional terrorist acts of self-interest, the country in general extends helping hands to much of the world and needy parts of the world in particular.
Meanwhile, the world watches with bated breath as China warms up to attack the tiny island of Taiwan with a population of 23.9 million people living on 35,800 square kilometres of land, total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $700 billion, and per capita income of about $16,000 in 2022.
China posted a population of 1.4 billion people who lived on 9,388,211 square kilometers of land, boasted a GDP of $18 trillion, and per capita income of $9,020 by 2022. These imply Taiwan had 1.64% of the population of China, 0.38% of China’s land mass, and 3.8% of Chinese GDP although ahead in per capita income. The tiny nation state cannot as much as scratch the skin of the most populous and second richest country in the world yet the dinosaur wants to crush the ant. When China attacks Taiwan the reason should be traced to the love principle because it has no place in the veins of Chinese leaders.
And who can ignore the neo-colonialist tendencies of China as it provides economic ‘assistance’ to poor countries through debilitating loans which none of those ‘beneficiaries’ can repay? Caveat emptor can be advanced, but this legal principle must be seen as being bereft of any drop of love any day.
Back home in Africa’s richest and most populous country, where lies the love principle when rulers budget for limousines and yatchs for themselves in the face of mass poverty? How do we explain does, while the upper echelon organize birthday parties with millions of Naira and in general indulge in conspicuous consumption? Love went on leave if it exists at all in the breasts of the rulers.May be we can reflect on the love principle as scripture directs us. All religions preach love as an intrinsic principle and practice of life.
Islam says no one will secure space in paradise unless the person believes in Allah and believe takes form only where love for others exists. If a handful of Moslems carry out actions which speak of hate, the fundamentals of the religion cannot be used as a basis for their actions.
The Baha’i Faith sees love as the basis of life and existence as does Confucianism. In the religion of Confucius, love is regarded as a metaphor to represent compassion and benevolence which can show itself by action and duty to the community.
Christianity has dozens of references to the concept of love of which one approximates the Confucian understanding. For instance, to say “be well” to someone in hunger, illness, and without clothes has no meaning as James 2 verse 16 says. Church leaders as a rule take much but give little in material terms to the flock and to the society. They fly in private aircrafts and float in limousine, but buy and run rickety buses for their devotees who attend functions to donate themselves into further poverty. Prayers are perfect, but food to the hungry serves better, because someone has to be alive today to enjoy the dividend of prayer tomorrow. Which church runs a soup kitchen even during the Christmas mega conventions which rake in millions of Naira to the churches?
To love one another as written in John 13 verse 34 runs through all scriptures. But how many people do, from the heads to the tails? If people did suffering would be minimized all through the land.
When people feed, clothe, and visit brethren in prison they do it for the Godhead as Matthew 25 verses 35-40 note. Islam insists the faithful should love one another for the sake of the Almighty.
In the secular arena, how do we, for instance, treat our employees and domestic assistants? How many of us pay school fees for children of the poor, or buy school materials for them? Imagine someone who buys a third or tenth SUV at over one hundred million Naira as a private car, or an official car when the child of the gateman has no exercise books! Majority of Christians and Moslems have no claim to the tag good.
Take a hypothetical case of a public officer who organises a party at the paltry sum of fifty million Naira. At N100,000 per academic year, N500,000 paid to a university would take the child of the poor from year one to year four plus extra 100,000 for sundry expenses.
In which case 50 students would be sure of tertiary education in place of one binge by the super rich. Imagine the case of a national legislator who the media said spent N300 million for his mother’s birthday party at Dubai. Imagine the multiplier effect of 600 graduates to the national economy.
The sad thing continues to be the run against conventional wisdom. The loveless continue to flourish but, well, they achieve greatness in the context of the green bay tree which Psalm 37 verses 35 to 38 describe. They go into oblivion in a short while and their children may fritter away the wealth given the mode of acquisition. A heart bereft of love gives God nausea anytime, any day.
But consider a friend who has engaged sixteen people and spends his pension and part time earnings to the tune of about half a million Naira a month to pay stipends. I watch him month to month and I observe the satisfaction on his face each first day of the month after he has paid the persons he has engaged to develop one idea or the other. Federal legislators who earn three score millions and above would wonder whether such person should be regarded as normal. I refer to Professor U. Atakpo who delights in the nurture of young talents. It will be of interest to listen to a definition of love for fellow human beings which excludes what those who place food on the tables of people do.
Love will remain the foundation of religion of whatever persuasion. No one can claim to love the Almighty (irrespective of religious persuasion) when love for human kind has no place within. To take life created by the Almighty as assassins and people in power do against perceived enemies or opponents, to take by force the property acquired by another person, to covet someone’s spouse or riches, to marginalize or neglect someone who deserves something good, to compel others to worship the Almighty in the way we prefer when the same Object of worship grants all humans freedom to worship the way they see best as Joshua 24 verse 15 says, and to deplete the stores of the group for individual good are all acts traceable to absence of love and they are abominations unto the Most High.
No conclusion can be more fitting than direct quotes from Jesus the Christ when someone enquired of the greatest commandment in scripture. He said in Mark 12 verses 31 to 32: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” These submissions tell the world we waste our time and the time of the universe when love has no place in our structure and operations every day.
Political leaders should desist from self deceit when they extol the principle of love in their broadcasts during Christian and Moslems festivals but practice and make policies on anything but love. Ordinary citizens will however continue to hope love will enter the hearts of rulers to enable the poor to breathe.
Dr Ubong, a writer and public policy analyst, lives in Uyo.
