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The Trouble With Amen By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

I spent America’s Independence Day holiday in and around Paul Revere’s hometown. Paul Revere became an American hero for taking a ride across New England to warn American militia that the British were coming to attack patriots fighting for America’s Independence.

I spent America’s Independence Day holiday in and around Paul Revere’s hometown. Paul Revere became an American hero for taking a ride across New England to warn American militia that the British were coming to attack patriots fighting for America’s Independence.

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During the July 4th holiday, while scrolling down my Facebook page one morning, I came across a typical status update by a reverend gentleman. This friend of mine said a prayer for us, his friends. In it he stated that our success was on the way and that it would be as easy as sunshine emanating from the sun and as effortless as the river flowing down the banks. As usual, the reverend’s post attracted a series of amen from his friends who rushed out to claim the blessing.

Instead of hurrying to claim mine, I went to the post as a raconteur to remind the reverend and his amen-chorusing friends that the sun had to burn parts of itself to produce sunshine. I also informed them that for the river to flow water molecules had to accelerate under the influence of a force. I went further to remind them of the old saying that when a gentleman wakes up in the morning and is a success, check very well he had not been sleeping.

Our reverend gentleman could not stomach my audacity in challenging the simplified version of life he was selling to his gullible friends. I must state that it was not the first time that I had had reasons to challenge the reverend’s propensity to feed his flocks with retired platitudes primarily aimed at eliciting amen.

In his reaction, the reverend gentleman made a post on my timeline asking me to desist from writing on his status- “keep your thoughts to yourself,” he wrote. Apparently I was interrupting the flow of his friends' reinforcing amen.

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I wrote him back and informed him of an easy way to ensure that I kept my thought to myself. I asked him to unfriend me, that way his status update would stop coming to me. And as long as it stopped coming to me, there would not be any compulsion from me to respond to them.

The reverend gentleman unfriended me.

The reverend’s choice made me reflect deeply on the health of dissent in our society vis-à-vis that of conformity. I have asked people who should know. The general answer I got was that once a society strangles dissent it sets itself up for a quick degeneration.

It can be a tricky thing. People who suppress opposition often believe they are protecting their society. But more than anything, an active opposition questions a society and keeps it on its toes. Without a viable opposition a society stagnates. Like all human endeavors, a society that is not kept on its toes by forces that threaten to drive it to a different direction does so little to prove itself or aim to be the best it could be.

The worst thing that happened to Nigerian universities in the last twenty years was not the disruptions that incessant strikes by lecturers brought. It was not the sellout of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS). It was not the lack of real and sustained funding of universities by the government. They all contributed. But what killed the Nigerian university system was its decline into cantonment mentality where you can neither oppose nor ignore. In Nigerian universities of today conformity is the order of the day.

There are only two kinds of lecturers left - those who get their arousal by demanding sexual pleasures from students and those who get their arousal by invoking sexual pleasures from religion. Gone are the weird lecturers who pursued ideas, experimental and unconventional, that are aimed at exploring the world beyond our comfort zones.

The same virus has spread to the students they teach. There are two kinds of students left in our universities- those part time students whose primary engagement is the pursuit of heaven and the part time students whose primary engagement is the pursuit of happiness. Gone are the students with robust desire to explore knowledge and create new paths.

The evisceration of the right to dissent creates an atmosphere of groupthink. Groupthink has only led to group suicide and extermination. Reasoned arguments are simply those that have earned themselves a vigorous scrutiny.

We are usually susceptible to the power of suggestions. In the hands of people placed in influential positions it is often dangerous.

Conventional wisdom is nothing but convenient wisdom. Things that are accepted are not necessarily right. Things that are accepted are not essentially settled. Sometimes things that are accepted were never really approved for human consumption. People just keep doing what others before them had done. Slavery, apartheid and Jim Crow were once accepted by so many. There are always new truths to be discovered. The day we run out of them, that day humanity stops evolving.

Just as 70% of the universe is full of dark energy and another 25% full of dark matter, so it is that a high percentage of what we know and believe are “unknown unknowns” –potential errors - if not errors of today, definitely, errors of tomorrow. It’s only when new truths are allowed to come in contact with error that knowledge is improved. Openness to different ideas is the only way to confirm, upgrade or discard established ideas. It is not enough to abhor censorship. It is essential that we make room for dissenting views if we wish to illuminate the views we subscribe to.

Our better angels are often intimidated by group mentality which is often based on long held ideology that we have accepted as universal truth without sufficient questioning.

Only three years ago, confronted with the bombing of the UN office in Abuja, some Nigerians were swearing that no Nigerian could have partaken in suicide bombing. Four thousand deaths later, those arguments looked so foolish now. We get used to unspeakable evil so quickly that most of us default to the safety of unquestioned amen. The frequent reoccurrence of evil desensitizes us so much that there is no shock in remembering. But we must remember and must provoke shock else evil will keep repeating itself.

That injustice is everywhere does not make it right. That injustice does not affect us today does not mean that it will not eventually reach us one way or another. If we see injustice around us but prefer to join the chorus of amen because it is safe, we are mere cowards. But be afraid when you do not see injustices around you for chances are that you are part of the perpetrators.

There are usually societal expectations, cultural norms and government policies that are unjust. It takes great courage for an individual to rise up against such in a society where a great majority is saying amen. For every atrocity that undermines our faith in humanity, an army of men and women should rise in challenge. That’s the only way the human condition has improved over generations.

Cass R. Sunstein in his book, “The Importance of Dissent” proves that individuals and society-at-large perform better and prosper more when they welcome dissent and promote openness. He shows that dissenters perform valuable social functions at great personal expense. His assertion is also true for corporations, churches and governments.

In 1964 New York Times Co Versus Sullivan, the US Supreme Court ruled that, “unfettered interchange of ideas on public issues must be uninhibited, robust and wide-open.” The Court states that, “it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

The world learns more from those saying NO than it learns from those saying YES. By saying yes, typically, one does not need to explain why. But those who say NO must explain.

Reflecting on the state of our modern society I came to a chilling conclusion that conformity is a recipe for disaster. Nothing strangles independence the way amen does. For every chorus of amen we join, we kill a bulb of independence. There may be other paths to better thinking and better decisions, but definitely not by joining amen chorus.

Please correct me if I'm right.

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