YeKengalé

We all know and speak incessantly about how this unprecedented, tremendous access we all have to, and because of, modern technology…. how this in itself has ironically contributed as much to the  polarization of society as  to the homogenization  of cultural values, norms and mores; with the metropolitan heart center of the world pulsating somewhere between the East and West Coasts of the USA –  setting the standards and horizons for all the world to pursue.

The computing and processing capacity of the average cell phone used by street urchins wiping windshields at Jamaican cross-roads for alms, sent a few men to the moon 50 years ago. Only then it took a multi-story complex to house all the equipment required to generate that feat. Today, we can fit all that into the average pants pocket or purse…. In fact, into a tiny micro chip which could be hidden in plain sight almost anywhere.

The proliferation of that kind of knowledge and access could only create and exacerbate huge disparities of human experience. Opportunity is only maximized by the prepared, wasted (literally….in the sense of consumed) upon and by the clueless.

For the same reason that the times of the greatest economies earth has ever experienced, the greatest access to material resources – education, land, freedom of movement, choice, expression etc, for the largest set of people, has also coincided with extreme poverty and destitution – The increase of opportunity also increases (rather than diminishes) disparity  in the absence of a broad and comprehensive, commonly accessible system of education.

 India, poised to be perhaps the richest nation on earth within the next 50 years, not so long ago, at the very base of the so called third world seems to have understood this early.  Africa, when I was a boy, and amongst the ignorant still, –  a caricature for stone aged tribes running naked in the jungle hunting wild life, now poised to be within the same time period the most urbanized continent on the planet, her cities rapidly rising taller and faster and just as impressive, if not more, than anywhere else on the planet, is beginning to get the message.

Material progress can be eclipsed by economic disparity and social discontent in the absence of an efficient and commonly accessible system of education, hence the need to accurately define such as Arnold ‘Scree’ Bertram did in our CCC 1 (Caribbean Christian Conversations).

We note that in his working definition, the skill of cultivating harmonious and productive human relations across  disparities of cultural, religious and ideological context is prioritized over the skills essential to take our people to the moon, or wherever else they might want to go on earth or elsewhere. I wholeheartedly agree; and in the Values and Attitude Program,  Creating High Morale in the Public School, I took that proven position and sought to explain what some think to be rocket science, but which is in fact, the much simpler aspect of educational training and development….but which our confounded religious mindset has so effectively obscured. – i.e. The proper cultivation of the human spirit.    

The reasons for that confoundment are a source of constant contemplation. The link between politics and religion has been a central focal point for me for a long time. Transfixed as I was yesterday at the African American Museum in Washington DC by the potent symbol of the tattered remains of Nat Turner’s bible, I do think that the church in the Caribbean needs to return to its roots – to that good old time Religion …… But what that means specifically for Black people is far from clear….for reasons only beginning to be broached in our Conversation.

We don’t do that anymore I find – creative conversation. There’s no time. A technological demigod, straight out of the animated wonderworld being beamed into the minds of our infant children while we rush to fulfill the obligations of pleasing our other demigod…. Mammon, has robbed us of our creative capacities for personal reflection and thoughtful response. Our energies are spent in pursuit of the dictates of human progress as defined by these twin archons. The weight and wealth of the spoils of these brave new worlds fall to Hollywood and Wallstreet, derisively mocking us through tv set and cellphone, ourselves unaware.

Even when one would break free, having  prepared himself to ride the crest of the wave, like my brother Harlo Mayne, there is little oxygen left. How can you expect a supportive environment from a people whose minds are solidly lobotomized, spiritually and politically, from perceiving, much less tenaciously pursuing their own self-interest?  And if our promising flowers are not allowed to bloom, what hope is there for the lumpen?