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7. Emmanuel Ayankanmi Ayandele
Professor Ayandele was born on October 12, 1936, in Ogbomosho, Nigeria. He studied at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science, and Technology, at the University College of Ibadan, Nigeria, and at King's College, University of London. In 1972 he became dean of the History Department of the University of Ibadan. He is a member of the Club of Rome and has written numerous books, among them, African Exploration and Human Understanding and The Educated Elite in Nigerian Society.
Do you agree that this symposium of the Club of Rome is at last turning away from statistics and computers toward the more basic human problems of this earth: namely, becoming aware that there is no problem as urgent and worrisome as that of the rich and the poor?
Yes, but before we go into this question let me make some remarks about the Club of Rome, of which I am happy to be a member. Since I was admitted to this club about two and a half years ago, I have been impressed by several concrete facts about it.
First, as a historian I am impressed by the fact that so many people who live in entirely different parts of the world are so aware of the huge problems which have arisen out of man's triumph in science and technology. In other words, that these members of the Club of Rome have not been enslaved by achievements which obviously have in some ways brought men material comfort. Of no less importance, I feel, is the fact that club members have been far more fair-minded than their predecessors. When I say their
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predecessors, I mean not the imperialists, because that term might be too subjective, but, rather, the colonial masters, whose conceptions of Africans or inhabitants of other underdeveloped parts of the world was that they were organically inferior; that therefore they did not have to be consulted in any consideration of global human problems. The Club of Rome is a very important organization which recognizes this point. Club members realize that the problems involved in the problématique confronting humanity are basically human, and that the solution to these problems should be obtained not only by tapping the wisdom and the resourcefulness of people from developed parts of the world, but that those from the underdeveloped areas should also be consulted.
As a matter of fact, it is more than consultation. Within the Club of Rome we have always consulted and deliberated on the basis of perfect equality. We feel a sense of oneness. In our midst, spontaneous, brotherly exchanges take place. We attack issues for what they are, completely oblivious of geographical, racial, or ethnic labels. For me this is a most important fact. Not because I am a moralist, although I am by nature moralistically inclined, perhaps as a result of my upbringing, but also because my conception of history, my understanding of man, is such that I hold it as something more than a hypothesis - in fact it is perhaps even a maxim - namely, that man is basically man, no matter where he is, and that the differences which have been imposed on him are differences that are basically geographical and ecological. I believe that the accident of color or ethnic label is absolutely irrelevant and does not constitute a challenge to the validity of the biological equality of the human race.
The Club of Rome - and I discovered this when I went to the first meeting I attended in Montreal in 1971 - behaves like one community in attacking world problems in scientific terms. This seems to me very important, and it conveys a message to other international organizations. There are no constraints in this club. If you take any other professional organization, by the very nature of the different professions, they often are subjective and discriminatory. Not to speak of United Nations circles, which are a hotbed of political intrigues and the rest.
I think that the outside world should be told that the Club of Rome is an absolutely ‘nontribal’ organization, in the sense that it has no prejudices I know of.
As Harvard psychologist Gordon W. Allport once wrote, ‘It is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.’
Exactly. What also should be told is that the members of the club seem to
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be globally made. Global in the practical sense, trying to more or less exemplify a kind of world-citizenship concept. One is reminded of the Stoics in the third century prior to the Christian era who claimed originally to be citizens of the universe. Without intending to romanticize them I think members of the Club of Rome are citizens of the world. You can ascertain that the various problems they have been deliberating over the past five years are not regionally oriented but treated with genuine universal concern and given a global conspectus.
When we speak of the ‘predicament of mankind,’ the first slogan used by the founder of the club, Aurelio Peccei, we identify one of the basic problems that confronts mankind - that of resources. Should one be selfish in this age, and should one wish to satisfy one's appetites and exploit the resources the earth holds in the most callous manner? Should people choose to multiply in such a way that there will be more people than the world could feed? How are we to bring about the Green Revolution? These are some of the basic problems which concern all peoples irrespective of religion, color, or clan. The Club of Rome has been seeking to tackle these problems. In their efforts they don't just deal with the present generation. If they were selfish people, they would not be spending so much of their time thinking of the future, when they would long have been gathered to their forefathers.
Aurelio Peccei once told me how he liked doing something constructive for his grandchildren and for children in general.
This kind of altruism you do not really find in many organizations. It also is quite untypical of the behavior of man throughout history, as far as I know.
In my view, this is in a large part owing to the unique leadership and personality of Aurelio Peccei.
I think our deliberations in Tokyo, with the participation of experts from outside the club, on the energy crisis and the question of food production in the world have been extremely useful. For the Club of Rome, being basically a think tank, does not express opinions based on abstractions, but ones based on empirical data, data collected from all parts of the world.
You are right - I am really overwhelmed at times by the passion with which Aurelio Peccei is pursuing this most desirable cause.
You realize he would not want any credit for his endeavors and probably dislikes us even to discuss them.
Perhaps. But he has been the brain of this movement.
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Have you been discussing the Club of Rome with your students at Ibadan?
No, and this is deliberate. One has to watch one's timing. People in the developing parts of the world are presently in the stage where whatever program you might want to bring them, you must first be certain that it is something they would readily buy. The language and message of a study such as Limits to Growth, commissioned by the Club of Rome -
- would sound like Chinese to most people in Africa.
Precisely. This study would need considerable explanation if it is to be successfully presented in Africa. It would be somewhat illusory, like missionary work, to introduce this kind of language and this kind of message in our part of the globe. Political instincts in Africa are very strong indeed, after having been subjected to colonialism and imperialism for so long. Naturally, Africans are bound to suspect any organization that is directed mainly by people from the developed parts of the world. Nor should this be surprising. Even in some parts of the developed world there are people who suspect the Club of Rome on ideological grounds. For instance, some see club members as conspirators against their affluent class. So you can well imagine how most Africans would react to the picture in Limits to Growth presented by rich Westerners. The message would never reach the grass roots.
At this moment, and I have given the problem a lot of thought, I think the best way to present the programs of the Club of Rome to Africa is to try to interest political leaders first, and explain the issues of universal concern to them. This does not mean - let me stress this - that African audiences would be as naïve as some people think they are. We are gifted with incredible capacity to understand issues, provided you speak to us in the right language and at an appropriate time. It would be a mistake to rush the Club of Rome's message to audiences through the popular press, prior to clearing the ground most carefully. For without proper preparation the masses would reject the Club of Rome as a neocolonialist plot, the more so because the club is made up of businessmen, scientists, and policymakers from other parts of the world.
I could not help but think of the present famine in central Africa when I saw the overloaded dinner tables and buffets in the top floor of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, where those attending the Club of Rome symposium were eating crabmeat until it came out of their ears!
Exactly. That illustrates to you once more the gaps in stages of development between those who discuss the predicament of mankind, as the
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Club of Rome does, and those who live the predicament of mankind, as the inhabitants of the sub-Sahara are doing right now, experiencing bodily the cruel hunger that prevails in those areas. That is, by the way, the point which the Polish delegate to the symposium, Professor Adam Schaff, made repeatedly.
Seconded by his Polish colleague, Josef Pajestka, and numerous Latin American delegates to the conference.
You see, I remember how brochures about family planning are often mailed by well-intentioned foreigners to us in Nigeria, warning us that the tropics of Africa may soon be overpopulated. But the Nigerian readers are aware of the facts. And since these alarming sounds for the most part come from abroad, Nigerians - indeed, Africans - are liable to look upon such talk as a white man's conspiracy. They know their mathematics - world population country by country in relation to geographical and physical sizes. They would simply say to you, for example, ‘And what about the Netherlands?’ since they have been told that Holland belongs to the most densely populated areas in the world.
But the Dutch are being told by the Dutch that their present population of well over thirteen million should be brought down to ten million at the most. If Limits to Growth were introduced rudely into African public opinion -
- it would have an adverse effect.
Right. Africans would say, ‘Look, the white man does not want us to multiply. But historically, he has multiplied, hence the dispersal of the British to populate other parts of the globe - North America, South Africa, Australia - because Britain became overcrowded.’ The story might be different, but this is how Africans would, naturally, see it. Nigeria's population is estimated at about sixty to sixty-five million, or somewhat the same as Great Britain. Yet, we have in Nigeria four times the territory of England. Our people would not be prepared to accept that they are in such trouble as that predicted by population alarmists like us members of the Club of Rome, whose judgment is based almost exclusively on the white man's milieu.
The attitude of Africans to the overpopulation bugaboo cannot be understood except in the context of their philosophy of life in relation to the traditional milieu. What is the philosophy of life in indigenous Africa? First of all, the average man does not believe that he is poor. African farmers are always assessed at the standards of those who do the assessing. The belief that African farmers are wretchedly poor is a product of the thinking of the
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rich men from the affluent countries, who are not necessarily as happy as the so-called poor people they are commiserating over. I would even assume that many an African considers himself considerably qualitatively and spiritually richer than a lot of people in the so-called rich nations, their literate counterparts.
They feel that they have a future to work toward in building their nation up to modern standards.
If the ‘they’ you are alluding to are the educated elite, I would say yes. But I have so far been referring exclusively to the unlettered masses, who are still in the majority and are not yet much contaminated by Western habits and notions. As an educated African I subscribe to the credo of your question. But the man in the African countryside does not necessarily subscribe to it. This is the point I am making with due emphasis. The Africans who worry about family planning are intellectuals like myself. But they are the ones who do not need to be preached to or lectured at about it. We know the advantages of family planning and endorse the program. But the common man would look at you literally confounded and out of his wits if you were to tell him to plan his family, and plan it small; he would doubt your sanity. Behind the common man's attitude is the deep belief that a child is a blessing from God that should not be killed or rejected. It is as simple as that. And do not charge him with being primitive since, after all, this is the Roman Catholic view of life! The concept of family planning touches on the sacredness of life itself.
The unlettered African's reasoning is perfectly logical and quite in order. Around him is plenty of land, plenty of land more to be cultivated: The more children you have the more hands are available to help till the land. Unlettered Africans still hold on to their traditions and religious concepts. And I repeat, they do not feel they are so poor, as people in London or New York might consider them to be, in a milieu in which they are convinced that the white man is not a civilized being.
Nevertheless, some family planning groups seem to be active in Nigeria.
My university, the University of Ibadan, has been studying family planning for some years, asking the population questions we have been examining in the Club of Rome. The concept of family planning, sponsored, I think, by some American foundation, has been slowly gaining in Nigeria as well, primarily among the educated elite.
In your view, what would be a program, or perhaps even several areas, in
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which the Club of Rome could begin to undertake special studies with their famous model method aided by computers, on the African continent?
I might start with a personal academic prejudice, arising out of my professionalism as an historian. It is that I do not believe that man can be computerized or resolved into mathematical components. Far more than we care to know, man is complex and unfathomable, beyond the ingenuity of the computer. Methodologically, the model approach, which has become the passion of a group of scholars, is based on assumptions to which man is not central. Need we be surprised, then, at the disastrous fallibility of man-designed machines to resolve basically human problems?
The point I am making is that no computerization, or hair-raising alarms, or models theoretically rational and valid, can solve the problem of the threat to human resources, so-called overpopulation, and so on, until man's being is first changed to the point where he would eschew and renounce tribal, racial, and imperial instincts; megalomania, avarice, incorrigible selfishness, and so on.
With particular reference to African problems, I am not persuaded that the models of system dynamics are presently of any relevance, except remotely in potential terms. For example: related to the vast mineral and sylvan resources with which Africa is endowed there is no doubt whatsoever that the continent could sustain an even greater population. Since industrialization, is only embryonic, pollution is a nonexistent problem. The elusive search for a higher-quality life and the longing to escape from the tyranny of a crass materialism, such as the Japanese are hankering after, are remote phenomena in an Africa still predominantly agrarian, traditionalist, and illiterate in the Western sense.
Studies of African problems demand a different approach and a different methodology. But what is the African predicament? It can be summarized as follows: How to employ technology for maximum economic growth and a better-quality life without these being accompanied by the dehumanizing social problems that afflict Europe and North America; how to retain in the course of the process of economic development and industrialization the spiritual properties of indigenous life. All this may sound unrealistic, or like wanting to eat our cake and have it too....
But the African predicament is compounded by the incubus of neocolonialism, the logical and murderous successor of colonialism, according to which Africa and Africans continue to be systematically exploited and milked by the ‘developed’ or ‘advanced’ peoples of the world.
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