Our Naked Society

We have lost our social cohesion as a society.

Our collective history has failed to mold us into a society anchored on genuine unity and positive peace.

When I grew up, our fathers (in their wisdom) used to run their own burial "societies" which have now been replaced by the modern day funeral services.

With modernity we have lost the communal responsibility of mourning with each other.

These days a proper funeral is only possible when one has a funeral policy, even in people's last moments- the transactional demeanor is more important than the relational responsibility.

Back in the days, our mothers used to have a simple mechanism for collective saving they called "round". The idea of rounds was enhanced to joint priority setting and assistance of each other in time of need in what they also called "societies".

As young men we would play football in community teams, had study groups where we would effectively utilise the thin collection of books among ourselves or share books we would have borrowed from the library.

During our high school days, we started  a group and named it "Troika". We would sit by the corner drainage at sunset to comment on social issues, advice each other and through satire challenge bad behaviour.

It is through discussions in Troika meetings that I picked some early lessons about adulthood. It was a space for sharing our individual plight with people of similar problems and aspirations. Back then there was always a society around me.  

In those subtle ways we had good models of social cohesion, where anybody's business was everyone's business.

It is back in those days when a  funeral would mean life stops for the whole neighborhood  We would not even switch on the radio and play loud music in our cars passing bye as we do these days.

Romanticising with the past does not in any way suggest that we had to be stagnant with our social development. Instead we should have taken the multiple lessons from these rich networks and seriously maintain our social cohesion.

In my own view, we have lost what we had back then because of two main reasons:

Firstly, party politics has divided us in bigger ways than what meets the eye.

The trust we bestow in our politicians to effectively represent our collective interests has continuously been betrayed.

Periods of political violence have caused negative peace in us. We see the absence of violence and think that we are enjoying peace when deep down we seethe with anger from unresolved conflicts. The one who perpetrated violence and the one who was a victim both pretend to be at peace with each other whilst both have wounds to bear-visible or not.

Sadly, in political contestations our voice has been taken away. A simple gathering like our "Troika" to discuss social issues or otherwise has been criminalised.

Independent thought or seeing things slightly different has been simplified to mean dissent. We have been schooled to think different mean bad or not good enough.      

Politics has left us convinced that there are people better than all of us whose only qualification is being "liked" by more people and being brave to stand in the rough terrain called politics.

Politics has worsened the divide, it's now more of an anointing or simply is it about economic clout and the need to be better than the rest of men.

Politics has also taken everything from power, decision making, livelihood from the micro level (from you and me) to the macro level (to them).

My second reason to explain why we no longer have social cohesion is nothing more than poverty with its twin cousins of disease and crime.

Now more than ever, our society is worried of the economic value of any action and decision. Social investments are no longer part of our priorities because of poverty or the fear of it.

We have slowly been mutating and now what matters more than anything is our selfish interests and never the collective.

We muscle out each other, out-compete and outwit to gain access to resources, gain the loudest voice and drive the most expensive cars.

Digressing a bit about cars, it is interesting to have a very big population of people driving those big trucks with 3litre engines to work- and work is an office in town or a suburb near town- isn't there something wrong there?

Our fear of taking responsibility of each other's welfare is much rooted in our insecurity. We feel that there is just not enough. It is our fear of poverty that has taught us that social cohesion threatens abundance.

Although we pride ourselves of being a Christian country, we have desisted from one fundamental of Christianity that of loving one another as Christ loved us.

We used to be a community that would help each other but now we cannot hesitate to tramp on each other to achieve our own personal goals.

Our hope lies in recreating the cohesion we once had.                                     

I am not sure whether the new networks that are cyber based will manage to stomach the increasing need for us to be stronger together again, I am not convinced that our politicians will take up the moral obligation of genuinely unifying us again, I am hoping that we become secure enough to stop worrying about the immediate self but start thinking of our common good.