Prompt reaction of the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, to the mass protests of Nigerians to excess and unprofessional activities of a unit of the Police, serves as a good omen of an evolving new world order. In a similar way, current warnings about the possibility of another phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, should serve as reminders that humanity would experience changes and challenges of unexpected nature. Surely, changes are vital spices of life, but not all changes bring smiles.
Evolving new world order should be understood to mean changes that would bring order, discipline, justice and equilibrium in human activities and interactions. Ordinarily these desirable conditions would hardly come without some protests and force, owing to the recalcitrant attitude of humans. Recalcitrant nature of humans includes the tendency to look down on what is simple and less complex. Rather, humans take things seriously when they are made difficult, hard to attain through complex rigours and life-threatening.
The haste and vigour applied in getting what should have required simple rules of discipline, gives the average human being a feeling of greatness. There was laughter in a mass communications lecture when a writing principle tagged “Kiss” was introduced. Some mischief-loving students had the audacity to say that the lecture was about prophylactics. But “Kiss” simply means “Keep it short and simple”, whether it involves writing or talking. Rather, humans have the tendency to make what they write or say so obtuse and superfluous that they become ambiguous and complex. So, there becomes a need for attitudinal restructuring!
An evolving new world order, a long-lasting process, would bring about forced changes in many human activities which had involved arbitrariness and acts of impunity. Consequently people would learn, the hard way, to respect due process and the rule of law, rather than take the law into their hands. A major cause of mass protests, revolutions and resort to violence is usually obtuseness on the part of power holders, who would not respond appropriately to humble appeals by people who have valid reasons to make complaints. In this particular respect, President Buhari’s response to the mass protest over the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) brutality is commendable.
A responsible leadership is not only one that listens to protests and then acts promptly but more importantly one that monitors excesses of subjects and applies corrective measures without waiting for protests. There is hardly any human leadership that is flawless, arising largely from factors having to do with human shenanigans. Even global leadership as represented by the United Nations (UN) can hardly be said to be free from the flaws of other categories of leadership. Therefore, issues relating to the evolving new world order have little to do with the strengths or weaknesses of human leadership. There’s ruin when there are no checks!
Nations and humans have existed on the earth for quite a long time with various laws put in place to ensure stability and collective well-being. Apart from recalcitrance and numerous weaknesses, not all humans are equal with regards to inward development. The probability is that there are more people inclined towards wrong-doing than the percentage striving to embrace what is noble and right. Causes of such wide diversities are quite many, ranging from ignorance to willful recalcitrance.
Where there are no checks and balances any system would break down and collapse. Hardly would any one accept the idea that over-indulgence, over-tolerance and permissiveness arising from weakness, are acceptable attributes of a good leader. Neither would any honest person dismiss the fact that collective humanity had erred and strayed enough that a new world order is not called for. Surely, there have been clamours from various quarters for some drastic changes to bring in some discipline.
Human expectations would not be the decisive factors in the shape of things to come. Neither would the clamours of the masses nor the predictions of the numerous prophets come close to what the new world order portends and demands. One thing is sure, namely: only by force can obtuse and recalcitrant humanity be helped. Parts of the forced changes necessary to restructure human attitudes and perceptions would include new ideas and interpretations of what we call love and other concepts that have been grossly distorted by humans. Would genuine love, for example, mean condoning weaknesses indefinitely?
Docility and gullibility have been among the factors that fostered other weaknesses in matters of belief. There is no way that a new would order can sweep across humanity without dismantling long-existing faulty foundations in every ramification. Therefore, every individual would be thoroughly shaken so that personal faults, excess luggage, indulgences, cracks on the walls of beliefs and non-beliefs, would crumble. The need to examine and weigh issues, ideas and then put personal resources of perception to maximum capacity, would dawn on every adult. This would also include development of sound judgment and self-reliance, such that herd-mentality would be done away with.
One of the objectives of the evolving new world order is the acceleration of personal maturity which is associated with increased personal responsibility, whereby an individual becomes highly conscious and knowing. In such enhanced status of personal awareness, no one would be mentally enslaved by another and much of current anomalies would cease to exist. For some people, greater force and shaking would become necessary to make it possible for a cleansing process to be effective. This is where obtuseness and recalcitrance can bring agonies and pains to many.
Like Nigerian Prisons now becomes Correctional Centres, key essence of the evolving new world order is thorough transformation of an existing state of aberration into an improved status. Like a refining process, recalcitrant and hard-headed elements which heat cannot transform, would be subjected to more radical catalysis. Religious pundits call such process a global judgment. It is here now!
Dr Amirize is a retired lecturer from the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.