VOICE OF COURAGE: Selected speeches of Obafemi Awolowo (Vol 2)

  Full text of lecture delivered by Chief Obafemi Awolowo at the First Lecture in the University Of Lagos Annual Lecture Series 011 Friday, 15th March 1968.

Continued from last week

AT the commencement of this renewed march, the synthesis becomes the thesis which in turn calls forth its own antithesis, and so on and so forth, until perfection is reached.

It will be seen, therefore, that every stage ill world history and development which is short of perfection contains in it the germ of its radical and revolutionary reformation.

Marx himself, once a Hegelian of the left, disagrees with the Hegclian dialectic. Whilst he accepts Hegel’s dialectic cycle of THESIS – ANTITHESIS – SYNTHESIS – THESIS, he rejects the Hegelian proposition that the events of Nature and of history, and the ideals of freedom, justice, religion, etc., which man cherishes, are the progressive objectification of the idea. In Marx’s view, all these are nothing but the rationalisation of the antagonistic positions which opposing classes of people occupy in relation to the material forces of Nature, and to production.

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels exhibit three basic ideas, namely; (I) that economic production and the structure of society of every historical epoch necessarily arising therefrom constitute the foundation for the political and intellectual history of that epoch; (2) that consequently, ever since the dissolution of the primeval communal ownership of land, all history has been a history of class struggles, of struggles between exploited and exploiting, between dominated and dominating classes at various stages of social evolution; and (3) that, by its normal operations, capitalism has produced its own grave-diggers, and that ‘its fall and the victory of the proletariat are inevitable.’

It will be seen that from the Hegelian or Marxian standpoint, capitalism, being an imperfect social system, is a thesis which is destined to bring forth its own antithesis which will contend with and destroy it, in due Course of time.

But the sense in which I use the dialectic is different from both the Hegelian and Marxian senses, though the result is the same.

I begin by affirming an a priori proposition that the universe is a cosmos and not a chaos. There is an immutable law which rules in the physical world of matters and action, as well as in the intangible and subjective world of thoughts, ideas, and ideals. This immutable law is sometimes referred to as the universal mind. It is latent, dominant and inactive until it is set in motion by human thoughts, words, and .actions.

It is now well established by the science of psychology, which was in its embryonic stages in the times of Hegel and Marx, that just as there is a conscious mind which functions through our five senses so there is the subconscious mind which operates independently 0f our objective faculties through the autonomic system of nerves and some well-identified glands, and that whatever Suggestion or idea is accepted and entertained by the conscious mind tends to be accepted by the subconscious mind which materialises such suggestion or idea in the physical world of matters, whether we like it or not. .

If we persistently think and cherish good thoughts, good will result; if evil, evil will result. Always, the law is latent and static; and man’s thought, word and deed are dynamic and, through the dialectic process, puts the law in motion and concrete materialisation.

• God can free us from sin, but does he want to?

It follows, therefore, that any thought, word or action which is selfish, hateful and evil will produce selfish, hateful and evil results. Similarly, any thought, word, or action which is other-regarding, altruistic, loving, and good, will produce other-regarding, altruistic, loving and good results.

Like cause always produces like effect; In kind, we always reap what we sow; but quantitatively, we always reap much more than. we sow. One good seed always produces its kind ‘a hundred fold.’ Ditto for one evil seed. But whilst the good seed, in spite of even the stiffest obstruction and opposition, proliferates, flourishes, and transcends itself in quality, through aeons of time, the bad seed, in spite of the most generous encouragement, tends, through time, though sometimes imperceptibly, to diminish in quantity and degenerate in quality until suddenly it suffers total extinction. This in my opinion is the statement of the concrete manifestation of the true dialectic.

As it was with slavery, feudalism, and other evil customs and systems in history, so it will be with any extant and prevailing evil system. We can only temporarily delay the full fructification of any good idea, we cannot permanently prevent it. Conversely, we can only temporarily accelerate the fruition of any evil idea, we can never succeed in perpetuating it. Good shall surely, though sometimes slowly, grow and manifest itself; but evil shall also surely, though oftentimes slowly and imperceptibly, wane in strength and finally perish.

To be continued