The earth is old. According to Hebrew orthodoxy this year is 5776 after the earth was created. Christian Scientists hold it is over 4.5 billion years old. Followers of Islam would say it Rabi Al-Akbar 1437. Geological scientists suggest the earth is 5. 5 billion years old. Some book claims that Namibia started to appear some 2500 million years ago.
Afrikans would say the earth is older than their known kings.The world is big. As we get to know about this world wherein we live it gets either bigger or smaller, depending on our knowledge about it, our role and significance in it. Or who we think we are. Yet it gets bigger, wider, greater, more dangerous, more bizarre, and certainly more interesting. With so much technological innovations this world gets safer and more fascinating. It gets more and more unsafe as we realize that we are no longer as private as we used to be when we could hide in caves and no one would dare to get too close to the mouth of the cave because they were too scared of the dark which protected the cave’s tenants.
Now there is light to banish the dark and leave us all bare and unsafe. Information, good and bad, travels faster than our fear. All the time. At the same time. Information gets more and more – yet poorer and poorer in every respect. And as information becomes more it gets more unhelpful to help us negotiate our human existence. Our world shrinks all the time, not in size, but in power to intimidate us. We intimidate it, do we?
The world is safely unsafe
The world is ours
The word is itself
A world of contradictions:There are more people and fewer relationships
There are more educated people but fewer solutions
More information yet less understanding
More knowledge yet less wisdom
More stories yet more ignorance
More medicines yet less wellness
More food yet more hungry people
Safer to go to the moon yet unsafe to cross the road to visit neighbours
More expensive weddings yet more costly divorces
More safety weapons yet more rage and aggression
More love songs yet more family-based violence
More music yet less melody
Wider streets yet narrower viewpoints
More beauty yet less elegance
More healthy diets yet more illnesses
Taller buildings yet shorter temperaments
Bigger homes yet smaller families
High expectations yet low tolerance
More politicians yet fewer leaders
Parents make fewer children who make more children as children
More curiosity yet less generosity
More goods yet less God
Powerful people are more insecure
Those who produce more eat less
Those who eat more produce less
The weak protect the powerful
There is more politics yet less politeness
More courts of law yet less courtesy to love
More people to trample on and fewer to count on
Sleep is to escape the day’s memories than to rest from good labour
The powerful fear the weak
We speak more yet hear less
Greed informs our steps and monitors our stops.
World statistics challenge us to imagine that the world is a village of only 100 inhabitants. How and who would they be, and how would they carry themselves? This is how they would be and interact:
52 females
48 males
13 Africans
61 Asians
12 Europeans
14 Americans (North and South)
75 Non-White
25 Whites
33 Christians
22 Muslims
14 Hindus
7 Budhists
16 cannot read and write
50 do not have enough food
1 is near death due to starvation
1 is a university graduate
89 are heterosexual11 are homosexual
1 is HIV positive
21 are overweight
87 have access to safe drinking water
1 of 2 children live in poverty
51 live in towns
49 are rural dwellers
8 with no access to internet
39 have access to sanitation
24 have electricity
6 of them control
32% of the village wealth and all
6 are American citizens
26 are under
14 years of age
66 are between 15 and 648 are 65 and older
12 speak Chinese
5 speak Spanish
5 speak English
3 speak Arabic
3 speak Portuguese
3 speak Hindi
3 speak Bengali
2 speak Russian
2 speak Japanese
62 speak other languages, including Oshiwambo and Namlish.
If we take the top 11 most populated Afrikan countries as the only ones in the group, out of the 13 Africans 6 would be Nigerians; 2 Ethiopians; 2 Egyptians, 1 Congolese, 1 South African and maybe 1 Tanzanian.No wonder we have such inequalities.
Where are we? What do we eat? What do we wear? What do we speak? It’s time to learn to speak OshiAfrika!To Find Our Place In This Village.