Disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation is clearly widespread, especially online. Like much online communication of a more benign or ambivalent character, problematic information is often distributed via platforms, especially popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, popular video sharing sites such as YouTube (owned by Google), and popular messaging applications such as WhatsApp (owned by Facebook). Paradoxically, while the global community mourned the passage of an iconic figure in person of H.M Queen Elizabeth the II, the platforms of social media was used for unholy purposes to the bewilderment of the entire universe.
Fundamentally, diverging views are needed for humanity to evolve. We cannot hold one singular thought as true. It’s anti any form of education to do so. Different opinions makes for more robust living and learning. Nature is rarely one way so it’s amusing that we think we can ever colonise ourselves into one way of being. However, there should be a clear demarcation between Freedom of expression and insults. Emphatically, the place of empathy cannot be substituted with insults and ill-will. As such, whenever you are given the microphone, don’t say too much if your heart is filled with hatred and deep-seated animosity.
Traditionally, the African societies and even her cultures functioned through an elaborate system based on the family, the lineage, the clan, the tribe, and ultimately a confederation of groups with ethnic, cultural, and linguistic characteristics in common. These were the units of social, economic, and political organizations and inter-communal relations. Sadly, the way some of us responded to the glorious passage of the Queen of England H.M Queen Elizabeth the II, who gloriously exited to the greater beyond on the 8th of September at the age of 96, after reigning for over seventy years on the throne. It was clearly not in consonance with the African culture.
As humans, our empathic abilities help us to infer the thoughts and feelings of others and to generate the appropriate affective and behavioral responses. Our ability to feel and infer others’ emotion is considered crucial for healthy functioning in interpersonal relationships. Emotions play an essential role in human communication. An important part of our interpersonal lives is the production, perception, interpretation, and response to emotional signals. Being able to perceive these signals accurately carries clear advantages for predicting behavior, as well as forming and maintaining social bonds.
Whilst the dictum kept resonating among us that the proverbial “London bridge” has truly fallen. The bewildered global community mourned, but suddenly like a thunderstorm, a tweet from one of us: “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.”- @UjuAnya. Sharp response from @JeffBezos: “The is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow.”
Where is the African ideology in all of these? Where is our humanity? Where is the African culture? That’s what you will do when you can’t differentiate between Freedom of expression and insultings. Sadly, when we lost our humanity and continue with the way that is suggestive of hatred and deep-seated animosity we lost our heritage completely. I argued that Uju Anya, a professor, an erudite scholar by her own right and a mother should have employed the riches of empathy as a social, liberatory virtue that not only throws light on the pains of ordinary Africans, and the global community but also can enhance human flourishing in African communities and the entire universe.
Finally, permit me to conclude this article that focuses on empathy and good conducts by joining my brothers and sisters ‘Africans’ home and abroad to identify with the royal family members and the global community in general, particularly at a time like this. Ideally, this is a time for deep/sober reflections and solemnity. Profoundly, we therefore, wish to emphatically state that we are well cultured and the vast majority of Africans don’t disrespect institutions. Goodnight our Queen, sleep well H.M Queen Elizabeth the II.
Richard Odusanya is a Social Reform Crusader and the convener of AFRICA COVENANT RESCUE INITIATIVE ACRI
