GENERATIONAL BITTERNESS-CONSISTENT
AND PERENNIAL PROBLEMS OF HATE, DISLIKE,
DISDAIN AND CONTEMPT BETWEEN GENERATIONS
Chris Osegenwune, Ph.D. Department of Philosophy,
University of Lagos
Abstract
This paper examines the conflicts and contradictions associated with religious intolerance in
most societies as presented by Soyinka in The Credo of Being and Nothingness.
In this work, Soyinka portrays how religious fanaticism and fundamentalism have constituted
tension, hatred, mutual suspicion and social instability among individuals, parties, and groups.
Each religious group tends to derogate, ridicule and humiliate the other especially with
contending ideological positions to the detriment of the national interest. Opinions are defended
as if they are sacrosanct even in the midst of superior logic and overwhelming evidence. To give
credence to these ideological positions exhibited by these religious groups, Soyinka points out
such assertions, Christianity is nothing; Islam is nothing. For him these assertions are not
derogatory but demonstrate the fundamental questions of philosophy as they affect human
existence. The crucial question Soyinka tries to analyse is the metaphysics of being and
nothingness as they depict man’s capacity to transcend the realm of thought. What is this
Nothingness? Is it a void, a vaccum, a negation or a primeval state? By negating or reducing to
nothing, other views expressed by other parties irrespective of superior logic we create an
atmosphere of dogmatism, vengeance, revenge and hatred. This attitude or disposition is
responsible for hatred, disdain, contempt, terrorism, enduring tension, conflict and war, whose
ultimate consequence is social and political instability.
Introduction:
This paper seeks to address the problems associated with religious intolerance that exist between
generations, how these problems have been consistent and perennial. This paper also seeks to
show how these problems have resulted in hatred, dislike, disdain and contempt in human
relationship. The fact that human society in various parts of the world is engulfed in various
crises is as a result of suspicion, mistrust and intolerance. In one of his academic threatises, The
Credo of Being and Nothingness, Soyinka x-rays how religious intolerance has torn apart the
core of human interaction, peaceful co-existence, social and political stability. From such
findings, the paper examines how these monstrous features of society can be managed for
posterity.
Conceptual Clarification:
Certain key words require explanation in a discourse of this nature. This clarification is
necessary because words are capable of having various meanings. The key words here are as
follows: Generational bitterness, consistent and perennial problems of hate, dislike, disdain and
contempt.
Generational bitterness: It portrays a state of acrimony, envy and intolerance found among a
whole body of persons thought as being born about the same time.
Consistent and perennial problems of hate: To hate means intense hostile aversion; compounded
by anger and fear and centered on real or supposed cause of inquiry or to dislike strongly. When
hatred becomes consistent and perennial, it can lead to a destructive instinct without attachment
to human values. When hatred is glorified by the mind, the consequence is disdain and contempt.
Disdain means scorn, exhibition of contempt, to dismiss something as unworthy of consideration
or attaching any value whatsoever. Contempt is an attitude to despise something as worthless,
insignificant, vile or total disregard. The key words which form the background of this research
demonstrate how intolerance promotes dissonance in peaceful co-existence and human
relationship.
The Credo of Being and Nothingness:
The work Being and Nothingness is a title of the magnum opus of Jean-Paul Sartre, a French
existentialist philosopher published in 1943. In this work, Jean-Paul Sartre grounded the human
condition exhibited in anxiety, anguish, fear and insecurity on the nexus of nothingness.
According to him, nothingness lies coiled like a worm in the heart of Being. It seems to me that
Soyinka was inspired by this Sartrean presentation of Being and Nothingness which he
expounded within the matrix of religious intolerance in society. Religious intolerance in
Soyinka’s opinion is the most persistent credo that militates against the evolution of a
harmonious human community. But what is Soyinka’s understanding of Being and Nothingness?
His notion of nothingness goes back to pre-creation; the void or the primeval state. The primal
state of nothingness depicts the condition before the creation of the world both animate and
inanimate. This is absolute state of non-being, a total void—no trees, no rocks, no skies, no other
beings (Soyinka, 1991:1). As a young man, he tried from time to time to experience this state of
nothingness, the primal zero but without success. Such mental exercise though elusive is a
constant reminder of the nothingness of reality. The outcome is dizziness and scaring.
Many philosophical systems and religious groups have developed methods of attaining the state
of nothingness. In Buddhism, for instance, as a matter of spiritual training, one can empty his
mind, shed his flesh and his beingness, dissolve in the void and experience Nirvana (Ibid. p.2).
Nirvana in Buddhism is a paradise, where absolute tranquility is guaranteed and total liberation
(Moksa) is achieved. The exercise to dissolve oneself in order to attain a universalized state of
being is an old tradition practiced not only in Buddhism but also in Christianity and Islam. It
may be known by other names such as meditation or contemplation. Soyinka is of the opinion
that there are states of individual contemplation in Christianity and Islam which is very close to
the Buddhist ideal of Nirvana. He observed that among the orthodox groups among these
religions do not encourage as mental exercise as they are seen as dangerous and deviant and even
diabolical (ibid.p.3.). It is also clear that these religious bodies propagate a universal day of
judgment which goes to resemble Soyinka’s notion of the condition of universal nothingness, the
in-folding of the world into the original womb of darkness or as he put it, non-darkness and nonlight. To attain a state of paradise it is expected that one should die after living a good life and
transit to another state of being as the Christians believe. For the Moslems, transition to paradise
is instant especially when one dies fighting a holy war. The implication of all this is that this
material world can be relegated to a mere staging- post, awaiting the drop of the final grain of
sand into universal negation.
Soyinka’s experience of nothingness:
From the foregoing, Soyinka has exposed the nature of nothingness from the Buddhist, Christian
and Islamic traditions and how he embarked on a fruitless journey to the state of nothingness or
the void through deep mental exercise. It is possible from his analysis that that one can shed his
body and attain a state of Nirvana. From the point of view of existence as is conceived, life that
was preordained comes to an end. Indeed, time itself comes to an end. A more practical example
of Soyinka’s encounter with nothingness was his period of incarceration. It was a period when
one seems to be cut off from the world. According to him, in the solitary confinement of prison,
when time weighed heavily on my mind and showed no inclination to come to a desired end, I
found myself that very element, time, by reverting to my childhood exercises, the negation of
existence (ibid. p.4). When he remembered a number of condemned men waiting for their
execution, it dawned on him that the reality of nothingness was imminent. He also saw himself
drifting into a serious state of incorporeality not only himself but the surrounding world.
Man’s encounter with the state of nothingness is a demonstration of the profundity of thought.
Our encounter with nothingness shows the emptiness of the human mind. It portrays the phases
of human reality, its necessity and contingency and compels man to go back to the absolute
beginning, before the creation of the world. It is here that Soyinka agrees with Sartre that
nothingness lies coiled like a worm in the heart of Being (Sartre,1969:21). As Okoro, (2006:331)
observed, nothingness reminds of the primevality and primordality of thought, which as a
foundation of existence amplifies the point that what really sustains existence as existence, is the
human prowess of transcendence that rises from nothingness, projects into nothingness and
returns to nothingness. It is this nothingness that drives man to restlessness and enables him to
create meaning from the reservoir of complexity and chaotic experience. From what has been
said here it is clear that nothingness is fundamental to thought and assigning meaning to the
world of things and people. Nothingness is also a bundle of possibilities. In spite of the strategic
role of nothingness, there are misconceptions.
Conceptions and Misconceptions of Nothing:
Man has neglected nothing through out the history of ontology. This utter neglect and disregard
of nothing would appear to be legitimized by the fact that (nothing) is not anything that is. The
problem with what is at stake here is an ontological impasse. If nothing is intangible (not
anything that is) how can we determine or articulate it. On the other hand, we are compelled to
articulate nothing because it has the potentials of dovetailing into something
(Heidegger,1949:328). The relevance of nothing in meaning making and the activation of
thought makes it mandatory for the realisation of our active projects. For Heidegger, nothing is
the absolutely fundamental phenomenon of philosophical research. Nothing is the unthought
element of thought. It is the ground of anything that is since we cannot utter Being without
Nothing. Nothing is the ground of nullity. Man as Dasein projects into nothing. Man as Dasein
dissolves into Nothing (ibid).
There are two senses of Nothing identified by Heidegger. In the first primordial sense Heidegger
uses the Nothing of Being to refer to pure Being which makes possible the occurrence of beings.
In this primordial sense pure Being reveals itself as Nothing, as the “opening of a self concealing
sheltering”. Pure Being is thought as the Nothing which grants Being, truth and thinking. The
Nothing of Being in the first primordial signification is that from which beings emerge and into
which they withdraw. Heidegger describes this nothing as the ground of all nullity and the seal of
man’s ineluctable finitude (Cf Unah,1997:235). The second sense of the Nothing of Being
understands Being as something permeated with Nothingness through and through. Nothing here
is that which hits ones face after separating the different profiles of being. Nothing here depicts
what one finds or encounters as one penetrates the interior of being. This dimension of Nothing
is responsible for man’s indigent dynamism or man’s native hunger for meaning making
otherwise called Dasein’s transcendence (ibid). From what we have said so far, both senses of
Nothing are important because they restate the point Nothing is capable of generating something.
It is also clear that Nothing is presented on a positive dimension.
The Misconception of Nothing: The misgivings and misconceptions of Nothing has a long
history and has also affected interpersonal relationship of man and society. Science is concerned
with what is, the familiar, the manifest and the concrete. By neglecting what is not, science has
created an attitude of dominance which is responsible for the crisis of humanity. Speaking in this
direction, Heidegger observes thus:
That which scientific exposition effects its
“irruption” is what-is – and beyond that,
Nothing--- what is to be investigated is-and nothing else, only what-is- and
Nothing more; simply and solely what-is
and beyond that, Nothing (Heidegger,1949:328).
The misconception of Nothing leads to mutual suspicion, discrimination, hatred, dogmatism
and misunderstanding. The background of the analysis of Being and Nothingness in this work is
necessary in order to put in correct perspective Soyinka’s presentation of the Credo of Being and
Nothingness which has complicated the problems of religious intolerance globally creating a
state of insecurity and fear.
To bring the discussion of Nothing down home, Soyinka gave an example of a statement credited
to an Islamic cleric, Sheik Gumi in these words, ”Christianity is nothing.” For him this statement
is likely to elicit bitter reactions from the Christian community especially those fanatical ones.
According to him, that perception will be wrong because having had good orientation as an
experimenting spiritualist of nothingness since childhood, graduating under prison conditions,
into an even deeper illumination into the profundities of nothingness, it is very clear that Sheik
Gumi was paying Christianity one of the most enlightened compliments from the calendar of
piety (Soyinka,1991:5). For Soyinka, that statement, “Christianity is nothing” is not only
objective, but also, a deeply thought out statement. He compared this statement to the words of a
Buddhist mystic Malarepa which he recited in a section of one of his works, The Man Died: “I
need nothing, I seek nothing, I desire nothing”. What Soyinka is saying has a great metaphysical
connotation. If one dissects the object of a phenomenological inquiry, the out come is nothing,
the result of the exercise is nothing but at the end of the day one has done something. Any
activity one embarks upon starts from nothing and ends in nothing. Theologians of intellectual
made this point clear that God created the world out of nothing. So, what is this nothing? Is it a
substance, human subjectivity, void or absolute negation? In an attempt to foster ones opinion on
the nature and dimension of nothing, divergence of interpretation and wrong opinion emerges
thereby creating a superior holier than thou disposition which manifests as religious intolerance
the focus of this essay.
Soyinka on Religious Intolerance:
This is the critical point of this essay which brings to attention the problems of generational
bitterness- consistent and perennial problems of hate, dislike, disdain and contempt between
generations through the lenses of religious intolerance. Soyinka sees nothingness is grounded
from a profound spiritual intuition from the abyss of the mind into the spoken word. Sheik
Gumi’s controversial statement, “Christianity is nothing” is a demonstration of the power of
thought. Soyinka captured this utterance in these words, “in the beginning was the word”, and
Sheik Gumi has gone back, not only to the beginning, but to the predicted end of the very
purpose of Christianity and other religions. The word as end and beginning was pronounced but,
alas, his listeners were caught in the middle (Op.cit.p.6). My take here from what Soyinka is
saying is that interpretation of metaphysical concepts from our own sensibility is responsible for
religious crises and by extension religious intolerance. The interpretation of nothingness to mean
void, negation or a rejection of whatever that does not appeal to us breeds an attitude of
dominance, vengeance, dogmatism and authoritarianism.
Dimensions of Religious Intolerance:
Soyinka is of the view that both Christianity and Islam are foreign and represent conservative
forces that retarded Nigeria’s ability to cope with the modern world, whereas traditional
religions-Yoruba religion at least- is something much more open, and much capable of
adaptation. He maintained that the new wave of religious intolerance was non-existent in his
youth. According to him, during the Ileya we celebrated with our Muslim friends because, they
would send us meat from their ram; the Oba will go to mosque, even if he was a Christian, and
vice versa: during Christmas and Easter, our Muslim friends would come to the house. There
was always equality between the religions and this means acceptance (Soyinka,1997:3).
Soyinka’s conviction in this regard is that no religion is superior to the other, rather, the more he
learned about Yoruba religion the more he realized that was just another interpretation of the
world, another encapsulation of man’s conceiving of himself and his position in the universe;
and that all these religions are just metaphors for the strategy of man coping with the vase
unknown (Ibid). Soyinka seems to be recommending traditional religion because it is
accommodating, liberating and this in his view seems logical because whenever a new
phenomenon impinged on the consciousness of the Yoruba- whether a historical event, a
technological or scientific encounter- they do not bring down the barriers- close to the doors.
They say: Let us look at this phenomenon and see what we have that corresponds to it in our
tradition, that is, a kind of analogue to this experience. Yoruba religion attunes itself and
accommodates the unknown very readily.
Certain issues have to be pointed out for the purpose of clarification. Fanaticism is a dominant
factor in all religious whether Christianity, Islam or traditional religion. One can safely argue that
intolerance does not have the same measure in all religions. Today, some Muslim friends still
share meat during celebrations. The problem is that even when they share, some people will not
take on the ground that it is against their faith. I think this is borne out of ignorance. No religion
can claim to know it all and no religion will claim to be closer to God more than the others. The
moment this metaphysical temperament builds up and consolidates in the mind, it will be
difficult to correct. It also to be pointed out that the Oba going to Church if he is a Moslem or the
Oba going to the Mosque if he is a Christian is a conventional practice. In Nigeria, the President
is seen as having no religious affiliation but this is in principle. What is important in this regard
is total commitment to the cause of national integration, cohesion and solidarity irrespective of
religious differences.
Soyinka’s Notion of Structured Ignorance:
Soyinka uses structural ignorance to show the inability of groups and individual to learn from
others what they do not understand in the course of their historical experience. These systems
whether they are philosophies, religions or world-views are to be examined patiently before a
valid judgment can be drawn. Soyinka argues that even when some of these religions such as
Christianity and Islam have been affected, or infected by aspects of other beliefs and religious
practices, is his contention that such religions have failed to grasp the essence of those faiths
which now constitute “impurities” within their own spiritual blood stream. They prefer to
persecute manifestations of such realities, to excommunicate or indeed exterminate them,
thereby depriving themselves of the most rudimentary knowledge of what does not exist
(Soyinka,1991:15). To vent their anger over perceived inconveniences in their blood stream, one
often hears statements like this, “erase that temple! demolish that Mosque! Obliterate that
cathedral! Flatten that shrine”. Soyinkas deduction from this antagonistic approach is that each
major religion and even sects within the same religion appears periodically incapable of finding
its own centre by the act of reducing the other in some form or the other to nothing (Ibid. p.12).
The consequences of these commands given above are nothing but violence and destruction.
Soyinka made this position clearer in this way; violence appears to be the one constant in the
histories of all major religions of the world a primitive aggressiveness, violence despite the lipservice which their tenets pay to the need for tolerance, peace and understanding. The
manifestation of religious intolerance according to Soyinka is seen among the major religions in
their attempt to interpret their scriptures. Once there appears to be a disagreement there is bound
to be confusion. The Moslems will say that Mohammed is the last prophet and anybody after him
is unacceptable. The Christians will also maintain that Jesus is the only way to heaven any other
way leads to hell fire (Soyinka, 1997:3). Unah,(1997, 2002,2006,2010), restated this position and
describes it as the problems of metaphysical thinking. According to him, when a metaphysician
adopts a position and takes it as all there is, he repudiates as nothing what does not fit into his
conceptual scheme. What he holds supreme becomes superior above any other consideration.
Unah maintains that this superior holier-than-thou-attitude that reality is one and that I alone can
know it or that there is only one set of meaning to be made in the world and that I alone can
exhaust it is the major weakness of metaphysical thinking. The consequence of this is that when
a metaphysician takes a basic position and relegates whatever that does not fall within his
expectation he is thinking a nihilating thought. It is Unah’s view that such position results into
the following, “Capitalism is the best political arrangement and socialism is an ideology of
poverty” or that “Christ is the only way and Islam is a distortion of divine revelation”. Such
ideological position according to him, creates an atmosphere of vengeance, intolerance, conflict
and instability because outside what I “see” and interpret, there is total nothing. Unah also
observes that the attitude of traditional metaphysical thinking results in utterances that have been
responsible for totalitarian tendencies, fanaticism and war. Unah then summarized the basic
flaws of metaphysical thinking as follows: (a) The metaphysician denies freedom of thought to
others while himself presupposing it in his endeavour.
(b) The metaphysician ascribes nothing, that is, absolute nothing to his opponent’s thought. This
manner of thinking is a negation of the law of thought which stipulates that consciousness is
object-directed. (c) By insisting that his own perspective encompasses that totality of being, the
metaphysician creates an orthodoxy, a total system of values from which every mortal must not
deviate, thereby extolling an attitude of fixism, fanaticism and intolerance.
The point to be made here is that intolerance holds the key to the authoritarian creed that has
boxed humanity to a dead end compounding the friction experienced globally. It is an offshoot of
Greek humanism and the culture they influenced. This culture has promoted the mass production
of nuclear weapons which threaten world peace, progress and development. To show the extent
of religious intolerance, Soyinka draws attention to unfriendly relationship between the Israelis
and Palestinians, Sikhs and Hindus, Christians and Moslems. Bringing it back home one will not
forget the terror unleashed on its citizens the activities of Maitasine fundamentalist and now
Boko Haram. The damages to life and property cannot be quantified in a society where the
adherents of these religious preach peace. One begins to doubt their own understanding of peace.
Having reached the cross-road of religious fundamentalism occasioned by intolerance, what is
the way out for a pragmatic management?
Management of Religious Intolerance:
The pragmatic management of religious intolerance holds the key to constant ethnic conflict,
hostility, crises and wars. This can be achieved through a liberated mind. For Soyinka, the truly
liberated mind is never aggressive about his or her system of beliefs. This is because such belief
is founded on such total self confidence, such acceptance of others, that there is the need to
march out and propagate one’s cause. That is why Soyinka is of the opinion that Yoruba religion
has never waged a religious war, like the Jihad or the Crusades (Soyinka, 1997:4). The religious
war he is talking about boils down to this: a reluctance, or outright refusal, to create an
environment for the diversity of views in society, and on any subject under the sun. The
consequence of this according to Soyinka, is the emergence of a specious doctrine of cultural
relativism. Our culture does not permit the exercise of dissent, or plurality of views (Soyinka,
2008). Cultural relativism has been at the base of the conduct of those societies that openly adopt
and implement policies of discrimination as a fundamental condition of state, manifested in the
state’s regarding of, and conduct towards sectors of its own community. Our culture, they tell the
world, is different, and our traditions remain sacrosanct. Unfortunately, when you examine such
traditions carefully, you discover that one sector of society is privileged, in both trivial and
profound ways, at the expense of another, a state policy that appropriates an infallible status onto
itself (Ibid).
My take here is that intolerance whether political or religious, promotes discrimination, and such
case, if prolonged, lead to hatred, suspicion, dislike contempt and bitterness. This does not augur
well for man and society. It is also observed that a liberated mind avoids rigidity, inflexibility
and fanaticism all ingredients of intolerance. Dissent and plurality of views are necessary if we
must achieve peace and stability in society. Unah refers to this attitude of allowing the plurality
of views as a phenomenological orientation. According to him, a phenomenological orientation
is one which cultures us to patiently listen to the views of others (Unah,2010). Listening to others
is a demonstration of tolerance no matter how stupid the position may appear. Such view may
not make sense today, but, what about tomorrow? Reality in the Postmodern era is becoming
increasingly fluid that no solution offered by humans should be taken as final. Phenomenology
allows things to manifest themselves the way they are without fixing them into our own
conceptual scheme. This is what Soyinka regards as genuine tolerance. Tolerance in its totality is
the reconciliation of universal humanism, promotion of fraternity and profound understanding of
human limitations (Soyinka, 1990:77). To achieve tolerance, Soyinka admonishes that let all
religions call their proselytisers to order and eschew bitterness and hatred. Let history be our
teacher. The refusal of divergence in human thought lay at the brutal career of the Holy Roman
with its diabolical agency of the inquisition, also of its rival Muslim world, not forgetting the
secular complement of both- the atheistic empire of communism. This refusal according to
Soyinka, continues to take its toll till today, especially within the Muslim world where
irreconcilable disputes over dogma exact a dealier price, internally, than even against declared
infidels and other nominated enemies of God (Soyinka, 2008).
As opinions are diverse so is truth as stated by Tierno Boka, a sage. Truth is threefold: there is
my truth, there is your truth, and there is the truth. There is also the possibility of a fourth, which
is no truth, an anarchic condition that leaves the world floundering in a moral void, where even
Human Rights become a casualty, yet may be considered preferable to the conduct of the
fanatical, absolutist truth enforcers of our times. Soyinka concludes that despite such mutations,
nonetheless, the quest for an ultimate, inviolable truth, undertaken peacefully, tolerantly and with
the consciousness of human fallibility, guarantees, at the very least, an enrichment of the world
intellectually, creatively, and materially. The alternative route is responsible for what we witness
today- mind-closure, material and human destructiveness, the impoverishment of discourse, and
a retreat from true enlightenment. That right to seek true enlightenment is the foundation of
every universal human right (Ibid). There are world-views that insist that all verities of the
universe have been revealed, recorded and sealed, and that any enquiry amounts to an act of
hubris that would swiftly draw divine retribution. Neither the Sciences nor the Humanities
subscribe these days to such self-arrogating posturing. The purpose of existence, we insist, is
enquiry, and enquiry encompasses the past, present and future (Soyinka, 2006:5-6).
Intolerance is the old metaphysical order which draws one party against the other for
dominance, authoritarian, orthodoxy and rigidity. Society is getting more complex, complicated
and a new metaphysical order is required to move it forward. This new order is tolerance which
will create an enabling environment for a harvest of opinions for peaceful conduct of all sorts of
human transactions.
Conclusion:
Generational bitterness, consistent-perennial dislike, contempt and hatred between different
nationalities have been traced by Soyinka to religious intolerance. He anchored this analysis in
one of his academic prose, The Credo of Being and Nothingness where he exposed the
dimensions of religious intolerance. This phenomenon is responsible for crises, conflict and
wars. As a human phenomenon, its management should be vigorously pursued in order to
achieve peace and stability. A harmonious human community can be developed by mutual trust,
respect and tolerance. That which is considered nothing may be the source of another person or
society.
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