Post
by Naga Tuma » 05 Mar 2024, 20:59
DefendTheTruth:
In my view, the question that you ask here is one of the important questions to ask in the entire history of mankind.
I don’t know if providence has the ultimate answer for this question. Its students may have explanations if there are some that have become evident to them.
I am also not a student of history but a curious reader of it.
Based on my limited reading, I had to ask a long time ago about the following anecdotes in the history of mankind.
Pharaoh Akhenaten was born circa 13th Century BCE.
The Exodus happened circa 13th Century BCE.
Classical Civilization, also called Classical antiquity, was around 8th to 5th centuries BCE.
The Torah was written circa 4th Century BCE.
The notion of the Chosen People presumably predates the completion of writing the Torah. This notion is contemporary to the Exodus.
The Council of Nicaea took place in 325 AD.
The Dark Age is from 5th to 10th or 5th to 15th centuries depending on scholarly authorities.
The Renaissance, which I refer to as the First Renaissance, was a cultural movement from 15th to 16th centuries.
The Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was from 17th to 18th centuries.
In the meantime, Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the late 15th Century AD.
The U.S. Constitution was written and ratified in the late 18th Century AD.
Both the First Renaissance and the U.S. Constitution have their fulcrums on Classical antiquity.
Mind you, the fulcrum of Classical antiquity itself is Pharaonic Civilization, according to studies and scholars.
Ethiopia’s victory at Adwa to remain independent occurred in 1896 AD.
Within seven short years, aviation was invented in the U.S.
Ships traversed big oceans based on Archimedes’ discovery in the era of Classical antiquity.
Airplanes traversed airs to travel across continents and oceans based on ideas that floated during the time of the First Renaissance. Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawing of the flying machine predates the invention of the airplane.
Niguse Neghest Hailesellassie I was crowned in 1931 as Elect of God.
I have no idea what kinds of advices Ethiopia’s political leaders were getting between the Victory of Adwa in 1896 and the crowning as Elect of God in 1931.
However, I imagine that there were expatriates in Ethiopia during that time who were informed well enough about the notion of the Chosen People, the Dark Age, the First Renaissance, and the Age of Enlightenment.
Within about four short years of the crowning as Elect of God, the independent ancient African country was invaded, the American invented aviation rained poisonous chemicals on civilians and their ancient country, their leader was forced to flee his people’s ancient county, and Ethiopians had to be determined to pick up arms in their own people’s ancient country to free it from the invaders that came crossing the seas.
It took Sigmund Freud to make a forensic study of ancient history to dispel in 1939 the notion of the Chosen People, a little while before the colossal Holocaust.
You may ask now for how long that notion was preached and existed.
Take that idea even further and ask yourself for how long the pyramid building, alphabet inventing, and democracy lending Pharaohs have been in preachings to be condemned as cruel leaders.
I suspect that you are a good student of the Good Book. If so, how many times have you asked yourself how to interpret it, for example, why you should condemn the Pharaoh?
If not so much, who would you condemn more? Your teacher or the good student you? I don’t have an answer for this here. Do you?
Several years ago, I had an email exchange with someone I don’t know personally. He wrote something in passant. It shocked me terribly that I had to respond that we have irreconcilable differences.
He wrote that our people have to pass through it. His unsuspecting assertion shocked me more than his conviction that it is necessary to do for our people.
አብተዉ ከበደ ሂከሜ ሞ አመስ ህዻ ጅረ?
I have no idea if there are any parallels between the kinds of advices the Elect of God and this person were getting from the expatriate political circles?
A simple study of the source of the convictions of both of them might be utterly revealing.
The fulcrum for the Age of Enlightenment is a singular but crucial outlook: Turning from hoping for a fortune from without to the power of imagination within.
Our people are organically spiritual. I have no expertise about the difference between spirituality and superstition.
However, it is not hard to imagine the difference that the shift of outlook from hoping for fortune from without to the power of imagination within makes during an individual’s adult life, let’s say 50 years.
In my opinion, the problem is that simple or that complex to understand, depending on who you talk with in order to understand it and make them understand it.
Filling in the missing link of the fulcrum of the First Renaissance is poised to make the Second Renaissance deeper and broader.
Put simply, this takes a deeper understanding that there are historical markings that the First Renaissance missed.
De Rerum Natura, which means On the Nature of Things, was written in the 1st Century BCE. It was recovered by an Italian during the Age of Enlightenment, about 16 centuries later.
Presumably the English man wrote that Christopher Columns was the discoverer of America, a continent where people were thriving before he arrived.
46 Presidents later, no Italian has become its President. The British man is one of those who left Italian Catholicism.
Do you blame him for that?
Then again, what right does the British man have to the land, labor, and life of the Native American? None. What right does he have to the land, labor, and life of the African man? None. What right does he have to the land, labor, and life of the Indian man? None.
Italians pioneered the First Renaissance and the Italian Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean before a British man, at least as far as I know.
Who can the Italian man blame for not becoming its President 46 Presidents later?
I heard just recently that Italian has a culture of attack, attack, attack. It made me react quickly that it doesn’t know Ghandi who would have said that attack, attack, attack, would make the whole world their enemy. I am not suggesting that; I am only reflecting that that kind of culture suggests it. Crucifying Christ didn’t help the Roman Empire. Did it?
Now, the litmus question, at least in my view, is what gives that the Italian pioneered the First Renaissance and crossed the Atlantic Ocean first has yet to become its leader while the British man feels entitled to it time after time, term after term?
Does that also point to the missing link?
Is it possible that the First Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment hasn’t been elevated for many to Polity? I think so.
Polity comes from polite. Right?
I don’t know if you have watched Donald Trump enough or if you care to watch him. If you have, do you read in him any organic sense of Polity? I fail to do so.
I am convinced that the Second Renaissance will in the decades to come, if not any time soon, fill in the missing link and make polities more abundant here and there.
By virtue of it being the righteous thing to do, polities will not only defend their rights but also your right and the rights of others. In that kind of environment, the likes of Donald Trump will fail to convince many Americans that he is better for America than American polities.
In that kind of environment, American aviation would not be used to rain poisonous chemicals on civilians in Ethiopia or anywhere else by an Italian fascist or any fascist. Instead, you would find an American Ambassador who would work with Ethiopian leaders about how to make planes. In that kind of environment of the polities, there would be more planes to fly around the world than there are people willing or free to fly. There will be more wheels to roll around the world than there are people willing to drive or be driven at any given time.
This is a long commentary for a crucial question that you have asked here.
I hope it helps in terms of balancing both blame and taking responsibility in terms of the failures of the power of imagination here and there over the ages.
It is more than a century and a quarter later that we Ethiopians are learning to celebrate Adwa as one ወገን። Shame on us if we blame it on anyone instead of our own power of imagination.
Last but not least, I wonder if I make sense here. If yes, ask yourself how many people you can take it to and understand if they can make sense of it. If not, I will have to try harder to make sense.