International Development – Why paper gets burned?

 

This blog is getting closer to the end, so I need to conclude the theme: “International Development”. In Ghana, October is the time of an Islamic festival and Muslims show their appreciation for livestock. And last year when an Islamic organization donated one cattle to our school, a miserable “crime” happened. There are 5 kitchen staffs in our school and they cooked the meat of the cattle for “282” students, instead of 277, namely they added the 5 number of students to the real number in order to steal meat. Sadly this wasn’t the first time for them to cheat, and there were some other cases of “crime” done by school staffs in the past. I was really surprised and disappointed by them.

And one time I heard a speech of the president of Ghana on radio, saying “In Ghana, corruption is wide spread in any levels of class in society. And even to get a piece of paper, you have to bribe some people…” Let me give you a question here. When you put fire on paper, why does paper get burned? Most of you would answer, “Because you put fire on paper”. This is very true. Yet there is another answer: “Because paper has its nature to get burned when you put fire on it”. In short both internal and external factors are necessary for paper to get burned, but people normally focus on external factors and ignore, or don’t notice, internal ones, and put all responsibilities on external ones. So what about stone? Can you burn a piece of stone with fire? The answer is “No”. Although some may answer “Yes” cynically, I’m not talking about scientific phenomenon but common sense. In sum, to understand things in the world you should look at both internal and external factors objectively.

Here’s another question: “Why is Ghana still a developing country?” From time to time, I talked about some negative facts of history in Ghana, or Africa, but were they only caused by “white people”? As for slavery, there was the internal slavery in Ghana and “white people” used the indigenous custom for their profit and systemized it, and imperialism would be an expansion of such a structure. Although it doesn’t change the sin of “white people”, it is very true that there were Ghanaians who collaborated with “them” and profited from the slavery. Sadly enough, I witnessed that this malicious mentality is inherited in the hearts of my colleagues who exploit students for their own profit, which is the same spirits of “white people”. As I emphasized before, my usage of “white people” has nothing to do with color of skin, race, nationality, or shape of skull,  but it means those who have mentality and behavior of exploitation. Namely those who cheat, lie, deceive, betray, and forge history, brainwash people, manipulate information by mass media etc. are all “white people” in my definition. So how can we resist against “them”? You don’t bring any physical aid to Africa, but please bring fairness, devotion, and sincerity, and plant such good spirits in their hearts. The spirits can save Africa and change the world. This is my belief and what Japan did in history.

And “Integration” is a weapon for developing countries and Individualism is a weapon for “white people”. That is why America executed the WGIP (War Guilty Information Program) after the WWII to destroy spirits of Japan and integration of Japanese. And “knowing truth” is also a weapon for us. There’re bad people in any societies so we have to protect ourselves by knowing their tricks. I conclude that slavery, imperialism, and colonization, all these malicious histories were done by “external factors” but Africa also allowed “them” to do so. The real cause is in internal factors. To develop your country, you need the spirits – devotion, fairness, sincerity etc. and integration, which are all invisible. L’essntiel est invisible pour les yeux. – The important thing is invisible to the eyes.