On community

It was my younger brother who introduced me to ‘Football made in Germany’ on GBC TV when we were children. He never missed the show on the black and white TV which was our GBC TV portal at the time. It seemed artificial to me at first. I just could not imagine how the ball always ended up with someone when it was passed. No one seemed to run to the ball, or run after it. The ball just seemed to find targets, and moved round the field. It was something that did not happen on our own football field after school. It was definitely not what I would see on Sports Highlights Ghana league section, where the commentator would ecstatically whoop: ‘top striker dribble one, dribble 2, dribble 3… and it is a goal!!!!’ No tidy triangles of coordinated human arrow heads navigating effortlessly there.  

There are few things more beautiful than the coordinated motion and synchronised purposefulness of a motivated team. There must be a hole in our corporate humanity that is meant to be filled by the beauty of focused interaction and purposeful synergy. If the capacity of a single individual, is potentially limitless, how much more the industry of synchronised will? As human beings, we are each capable of doing great things, but all the greatest ideas berth in the bulwark of united will, and actualise on the shoulders of common mind.  

There is no difference in capacities of minds across the borders of the world, I think. Just a difference in the mechanisms that recruit mind power. The countries that have moved forward, have done so by creating cultures that break the barriers of self interest and in breeding, and let loose the human potential that innovates for the public good. The communities that have thrived and added value, have pooled resources together so efficiently, that it is suicidal to plough on solo. Common good is so much more valuable than individual accomplishment, that it makes more sense to tow the line.  

Human beings are created with incredible capacity to interact with our environment and community and then to influence it. Our senses of hearing, smelling, tasting and more, are meant to take in as much of our surrounding situation as possible before reacting. We are built to seek out collaboration. We wither without societal reinforcement of individual inspiration. The true value of any innovation, is reflected in how many people it involves. If countries seem to have sustained development, it is usually because they have made the choice to deepen the channels that fast track dissemination and integration of innovative ideas. They have emphasised the role of education, free speech, justice, health care, peace and security and invested into communal and adequate access to all these. If education is free, health care is covered, security services are incorruptible, and people can gather and speak freely, it is only because the society not only understands how important these components are, but also commits to reinforcing them.  

If a community makes access to education difficult, ossifies health care development, trivialises democracy and free speech and yet pays lip service to development, it betrays a double-mindedness that is incompatible with growth. It is possible for such a community to keep pushing forward in time, but only cover the distance one plots on a treadmill. It is an old African proverb that advises collaboration to enable progress (to go far, go together). Our forbears knew this truth. Circumstances of our growth over the past few decades, may have caused us to overlook these nuggets.  

In the era of the self made man/woman, we have individualised success, and made it irrelevant to the public good. We have made the objective of education, the good job that provides the house secure enough to accumulate possessions in, with its own water supply, electricity and waste disposal. And which also provides the car big enough to overcome the potholes that we have accepted will never close. And success is only good enough, if it benefits one’s family, and ensures access to the things that seem so matter of fact in the developed world. The paradox is that we expect those who accept to lead our community, to suddenly transition into selfless people, who will only cater to the public good. People ultimately reflect the aspirations of their roots, and the community bears the consequences.

We are only human.