Can we be Good without God?

The second I wrote this title down, I realized how lost a cause I was embarking on. Microsoft Word, my document originator of custom, was the first manifestation of the loss of course I was rabbit-holing into:

Freddy:                Can we be Good without God?

Microsoft:           What you mean to say is “Can we be good without God?

All’s well and good. Parallel to what is often the Social Media case, whenever I talk about God, Microsoft chose to ignore the capitalization of God, but focus on the capitalization of Good. You see, on Social Media, the reverse has always been true for most.

Talk about any and everything under the sun, and more likely, you will be ignored. Talk about God and voila. Wildfire does not begin to burn the roots of how volatile that discussion can become. Especially, as is my norm, when you under-capitalize god.

The right good thing to do at this juncture may be to come out of the devil’s closet and pronounce – Atheists Nonymous – that I do not believe in god or his right-ordained Jubilee. But that would be too easy, too mundane, and too untrue.

I believe that there is good sense and proper thought in most every one of us beings on the universe, god and Jubilee included. There is also bad sense and improper thought in most every one of us doings and sayings on the universe, god and Jubilee included.

Take furious atheists, for example, many of whom I may identify with, but not necessarily fully agree with. How in the god’s good sense can you possibly believe that you know it all, are perfect and should not be questioned? Newsflash: since you are so smart, look at your self in a backdrop that features the fundamentalist, group-thinking, jihading, caste-systemic, authoritarian religionists. Compare, contrast; correlate, causate.

Your atheism is not right, is not good. It is a system of beliefs in reason, not a lack of belief. Otherwise, you would disbelieve and let believe. What you are doing with the loudness, is simply believing; believing that you are god. That your way is the only way, because the highway is full of ‘fundies’ and ‘religious trolls’, so because you are the one, the one that knows, you are right, are supreme. Can’t touch this! Hammer time…!

Your Christianity is not good: it is a system of beliefs that becomes a subtle way of living, way of being. There is good in Christianity, but to say that Christianity is good would be to generally condone the implementations of some bad ideas it consciously profers. Ideas like absolute indoctrination into an antediluvian system of living; or else Hades. Ideas like locking up children in their mothers’ wombs despite what the padlock does to them both; or else Hades. Ideas like What Would Jesus Do guiding your everyday existence, here, now, in Africa, where the sewerage does not part and allow you to walk through then vanquish your enemies behind you; or else Hades.

Your Islam is not halal: it is a system of beliefs that becomes a visible way of living, of doing. There is halal choice in Islam, but to say that all of Islam is absolutely based on Iman – the metaphysical aspect of the religion – would be to generally condone the implementations of some ideas that are not halal. Ideas like wearing a hijab because you have to, not because you want to; or else fatwa. Ideas like wearing a hijab to a pub, or that robe to the cab, only to emerge in the miniest of micro minis. Who are you kidding?

What is good is not simple, not a matter of running around with a label. It is what you evaluate, your beliefs notwithstanding, and find in to be in favour. It is what allows you, and others, to freely think, say and do what is beneficial to you and them, fair to you and them. It is what allows, not what grates.

It is a collaboration, hardly a compromise, and most certainly not about competition. Collaboration and compromise may sound alike to some, but to a little old semantic romantic such as I, they are not. One is a negative connotation of the other.

So am I an atheist? Am I a Kenyan? Am I religious? Do I believe? Today I’ll give that last one a shot.

I believe: in right and wrong, and the ability of humans to know the difference, because – like Jesus said, or didn’t he? – Humans would know it was right or wrong if it was happening to them and/or theirs. Knowing said difference is a realm of knowledge. I may or may not like to call this realm the fairness and justice of good and bad; or, its unfairness and injustice.

This is my literacy. Only mine. You can have yours; every single one of us can have theirs, and at the end of it all, it would be based on something. Something written, something read. Something experienced, something imagined. Something real, something perceived. Something quiet, something loud. Something good, and the other thing?

The other thing, bad.

Viva Afrique: The Good, the Bad & the Shame of Tana Country

It’s been a month since I presumed to have what it took to level an entire county and claim that the bad and ugly in it could possibly be whitewashed by the valiant frontline made up of these young men and women: men and women of a tender age, who have risen against the tall order that is a nightmare of conceited – and bigoted – perceptions and misconceptions about a people.

While I retain the optimism with which I wrote my first piece for Storymoja’s Imagine our World, life is a continuum of moments that can – if we so choose to let them – define us.

As I write this installment on literacy in a far-flung county, the country rests against a backdrop of mutiny: in the teaching ranks and in parliament – where Members broke into the veritable rabble they truly are, to mock teachers’ pay demands with redundant chants in their support. Here’s a thought: give up the ‘astronomical emoluments’ you have been granted after you ‘arm-twisted the treasury into paying’ towards your personal kitties to ‘[buy] a sinuous limousine.’ That alone would raise nearly Kes 2 Billion for the teachers’ kitty.

But rather than sit here and develop a cancerous multi-headed dragon of an ulcer – with every single one of your portraits pasted on all their foreheads – let me remember that you are but a mirror of our own society. You’ll be happy to know that your narrow-mindedness is not unique to your class. Oh no. An educated man I know had this to say of the teachers’ industrial action:

“TSC [Teachers’ Service Commission], kindly transfer all those teachers shown demonstrating in Nai[robi] to far flung counties. ‘Choices have consequences.’ North Eastern & Tana would do!!!”

A very poor sentiment, coming from the ‘ruling elite – the stratum educated enough to know better’; what he seemed to be saying was that the teachers’ demonstrations are wrong, as is the North Eastern region, and Tana County… I did not spare him a piece of my mind; I never do, when I have a piece to spare.

To quote a friend, “I think people should listen as much as they speak [if not more] to avoid the reckless mouthfuls being thrown around. It is also important that people know that their opinions, regardless of how informed they are, will not be universally accepted; and they should be comfortable with this thought. That should be a good place to begin from.”

Chanting slogans such as “Choices have consequences!!!” does not make anyone right. A nation whose baggage of unresolved historical injustices spills into a little brother and that gives us the right to ape it? Because we have more historical injustices unresolved, all tightly packed up, accepted as part of our own litany of disdainfully ugly usikondes? Kenyans do, after all, love a sideshow. This is reflective of our own society’s lack of a sense of direction, and its general good logic of ‘acceptable’ mediocrity.

Moving on, while there is of course an aspect of sideshows-becoming-the-issue, what with the Susan Tujuanes, KTN presents: laughter, KTN presents: Ciku, Art Caffe brouhaha et al; whether it’s the issue or the sideshow we discuss, it’s all very classist. Susan the classy girl who does ‘not do fries’ went ham on a poor Joe from Eastlando, so the slum that is Kenya’s mis-educated online banditry goes ham on Susan. Art Caffe staff alleged to be racist, classist, and whatnots, and so the lower caste that has never stepped into Art Caffe reacts. One fortunate lady actually has no idea what a croissant is – or crossiant, as the menu at The Mug calls it. Cue the French Mandazi retorts from the so called upper caste.

Instead of focusing on collaboration, coming together to understand each other and forge ahead with the understanding that we coexist in ONE bloody country, we result, always do, to the lowest form of wit and shared witticisms. You don’t need to imagine it: this failed state of mind is our world.

Yet creative collaboration, even with real issues in our society, is not only necessary to progress. It is critical in our development beyond self-interests. Why does your face always have to be on the landing page of every website you own? Every issue there is to talk about? What, pray tell, do you do with your time, other than sit around and wait, hoping that another Huddah shows her boobies so you can get credits for the most retweets and shares? Or are you retarded enough to believe those shares mean anything in the market?

Nairobi is trying, if not hard enough, to be LA. A newly made British ‘friend’ says we’re building a copy of California’s infrastructure with nearly zero of its industry. I 100% agree. And while I realize that many feel they have no employ, or choice of employ, that thought in itself IS the problem. Until we realize that the people are, ideally, stronger than The Industry and The System combined, and remember that Post-Election Violence in 08 was not a Horror Movie, there’s no changing jerk. Hence there’s simply no point talking about it either.

But we’re living in a country that gives no damn about itself. Because if you feel your job sucks bad ass, it’s your fault you’re there. That you earn shit and so need tips which don’t flow from dark skins is not your employer’s fault. You made a choice; it has its consequences. The ‘nyeuthi’ guys being generalized as having been served only to give a ceiling of 50 bob tips don’t live in the bubble these generalized high-tipping wazungus and absolutely ignored other races do. I guess we can rest the classist vs racist case in pieces.

Tips are not essential to your job, so quit acting like they are already, and get a real job. Where you get paid for what you do, and how you do it, not because you think you deserve it! Watch a few sports – I’d suggest football – and soon you might learn that deserving to win, and winning, are two very alien concepts.

As we established earlier, having an opinion does not entitle anyone to being listened to. Ergo, you do not have to listen to me.

However, if you’re still reading, another opinion:

“Not everybody is like that; many accept the choices and conditions of others. I’m an agnostic atheist, hopelessly straight, 1% biker, geek, nerd, Gamer, and much more similar crap, but I accept people of all religions, homosexuality and all the spectrum of consensual sexual orientations, weekenders, cagers, athletes and whatever, so long as they do not want to change me, from my freakiness to their freakiness.
At the end, it’s a question of tolerance, of quid pro quo.”

We’ll call this a re-introduction to my piece on Tana County. Simply because talking about literacy, with all this fucking illiteracy floating about, beats the shit out of any conceptual framework I would intend to pass on through any form of report on the Tana County literacy project.

I’ll end with a couple of quotes from a Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi talk:

On Classist separations of complaint:

“Complaining about our problems is an art form [for Nigerians]… But if a European were to say the same things … to recite the same litany of complaints exactly, Nigerians become defensive; sometimes angrily so. I have always been curious of this brand of defensiveness, which I myself often exhibit, by the way. It seems to me that we have it because we assume that the complaining Nigerian is aware that Nigeria is not only about its problems; is aware of the human complexities; knows of the intelligence and ingenuity of people; knows how they cry and laugh; knows what motivates them; what they aspire to, and what they find meaningful. And we suspect that the European – entrenched in a view of us as ‘needers’ of charity – does not know these other stories, about us…”

On the illusion of Privilege:

“That I understand the structural setup of the world, speak better English and send my relatives money, does not make me morally or metaphysically better … than them.”