Good News, Everyone!

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 17 September, 2015.

If you open a newspaper today, or browse Facebook, open your favourite news site or even turn on the television news, chances are you’ll see stories about death and mayhem, corruption and crime, and other terrible and depressing events. What is the world coming to? It seems as if the world is getting worse by the minute, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.

But is it really? We are now living in the information age, and our consumption of news has also increased as a result. A research team from the University of Southern California crunched the numbers, and we now know that in 1986, we received about forty 85 page newspapers worth of information each day. By 2007, this had skyrocketed to 174 newspapers per day. Perhaps it’s not the world that is getting so much bleaker – it’s just that we receive so much more information now than in the past!

Good news seems like a thing of the past. People love to blame the media for the plethora of negative news. Claims range from journalists seeking out bad news since it is more compelling to the audience, to the fact the cynical reports on crime and corruption are simpler stories. But the truth, alas, is a bit more complex.

Researchers at McGill University in Canada devised an experiment whereby people were to select news stories to read under the guise of tracking eye movement. And while the participant afterwards reported that they preferred reading good news, the study showed that they invariably chose negative stories. It is, in fact, us that have trained the media to report bad news, simply by responding more to negative tones.

These researchers suspect this is linked to our ‘negativity bias.’ As a species, we’ve evolved to react quickly to potential threats, and we still seek out signals of a bad situation we should avoid. People generally have more to lose by not learning about a negative event than they have to gain from absorbing a positive one. 

But some good news deserves to be brought to attention. 

The world is not as violent as it seems. While there’s a lot more news about wars, the world is currently in the longest period of peace ever seen. No major powers have clashed since World War II, and even the wars we have now would be classified as skirmishes in times past. Global violence has declined steadily since the end of the World Wars. Instead of causing us to become more violent, the modern world and its cultural institutions has made us much more noble. This is the most peaceful period in world history!

AIDS was once an automatic death sentence. But thanks to antiretrovirals, HIV patients can now live decades past their diagnoses. The global rate of HIV infections have dropped by 25% since 2001. And access to these life-saving drugs have increased by 22-fold. Namibia has benefitted greatly from antiretrovirals, especially its effect of reducing mother-child transmission of the virus. There are young people in Namibia walking around, working, starting families and seemingly completely healthy who have had HIV for their entire lives. 

We are also conquering poverty. In 1981, 70 percent of those in the developing world subsisted on the equivalent of less than $2 a day, and 42 percent had to manage with less than $1 a day. Today, 43 percent are below $2 a day and 14 percent below $1. From 1990 to 2012, worldwide poverty was cut in half. Never before in the history of the world have so many people been lifted out of poverty in such a brief stretch of time. 

And we’re also living longer. In 1810, the life expectancy worldwide was below 40. In Africa and Asia, the average life expectancy was about 25. But science marched on. We’ve increased agricultural output, and significantly reduced death by hunger. Advances in medicine have enabled us to emerge victorious against most parasitic and infectious diseases, with diseases like polio almost wiped out.  The average life expectancy in Africa is now at 60 years, a 50% increase in 45 years. And while Namibia bottomed out with the AIDS epidemic in 2001 with a life expectancy of 54 years, we’re now back at 65 years. Between 1840 and 2007, life expectancy world-wide increased by one year every three years, and it shows no sign of stopping.

We are actually living in humanity’s golden age. People sometimes have so little to complain about, that they’ll invent new things to be upset about – and if that’s not a glowing endorsement of how far we’ve come, I don’t know what is. 

So remember next time you read or watch the news, and browse Facebook, or visit a website – the world is not as bad as it seems. And if someone tells you things were better ‘back in the old days,’ you can laugh. The world is better now than it has ever been, and I cannot wait to see where we’ll go from here.

The Spice of Life

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 10 September, 2015.

The planet Terra, known as Earth. The planet of water, home to the spice of life. This spice controls empires. This spice extends life. This spice expands consciousness. This spice is vital for travel. And most of the spice that we know to exist in liquid form, exists on only one planet, Terra. 

Dihydrogen Monoxide – The spice of life. Also known as water. This planet is 71% covered by water, and it’s absolutely vital to all life we know. In fact, all life as we know it originally started in the water, over 4 billion years ago. And here in Namibia, we are quite aware of the importance of water.

Water has also been the herald of civilization. Our earliest ancestors were hunters and gatherers, constantly searching for food and water. It was the discovery of abundant freshwater that gave rise to the agricultural revolution – the ancient Egyptian civilization rose up around the Nile River, after all. And the access to water made them the preeminent civilization on earth for about 30 centuries. 

Their pre-eminence lasted until the next revolution in the utilization of water – the Roman Aqueduct. The ancient Roman Aqueducts are considered by many to be perhaps the eighth wonder of the ancient world. Indoor plumbing, a sewer system and running water elevated the Roman civilization far above its peers, with its systems centuries ahead of its time. This contributed to the urbanization of humanity, and only in the past few centuries have modern plumbing moved beyond the Roman design. 

Water eventually also became vital for maintaining empires and shipping. Today, the primary lingua franca of the world is English, ironically. This is principally due to the victory of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, where the Royal Navy achieved a decisive victory over the French and Spanish Armada’s during the Napoleonic Wars, preventing Napoleon from invading the UK, and establishing the Royal Navy’s hegemony over the seas for about two centuries. This established the greatest empire the world had ever seen – the British Empire. At its peak, over 20% of the world’s total land area and population was under British control.

Suffice it to say, water is the most critical resource not only for life on this planet, but for civilization as well.  Only with modern sewage and plumbing has humanity managed to achieve dense urban populations and mass industrialization. Only with modern water distribution systems and agricultural techniques have we found a way to feed this burgeoning population, and reached new heights in our population boom.

But this easy access to potable water has made us lose sight of its true value. In our relentless pursuit of industrialization and modernization we have slowly altered the climate of our planet, and we’re starting to see the effects of ignoring water already. Windhoek itself is slowly edging into a severe water crisis, with barely enough water to sustain us until June next year, unless we have a bountiful rainy season. The drought in California has resulted in quite severe measures having to be taken to preserve life on the edge of the North American deserts, with social unrest following its severe water restrictions. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Currently, there are water crises in Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Afghanistan, China, India, Iran and Morocco. Without water, society collapses. And as the refugee crisis in Europe shows, this is not only a crisis for those specific countries, but also for their neighbours, who would be, if you’ll pardon the pun, flooded with refugees in such cases. 

In many ways, Frank Herbert’s seminal 1965 novel Dune was ahead of its time. In describing a desert world, along with all its ecological problems, Dune was the first major ecological science fiction novel written, and perhaps, also prescient. Given the problems we face, not only as a nation, but as a species, we should take care of this little blue dot we live on, lest we too need to learn how to survive on a desert planet.

A Secular Society

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 3 September, 2015.

November 1989. The Namibian people vote for the first time. The results of this election form the basis from which the members of the Constituent Assembly of Namibia is selected. The Constituent Assembly, chaired by a certain Hage G Geingob (our current President) proceeds to draw up the document that forms the basis of our Republic, The Constitution of Namibia. 

Article 1 reads as follows: “The Republic of Namibia is hereby established as a sovereign, secular, democratic and unitary State founded upon the principles of democracy, the rule of law and justice for all.”

As a nation, we are quite comfortable with being a sovereign nation. We are proud to be a united, unitary nation. And we celebrate being a democratic nation. And yet somehow, we appear to neglect being a true secular nation.

In essence, a ‘secular state’ is a state that is officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion. And yet even in his inaugural address, His Excellency Dr Hage Geingob initiated proceedings with the distinctly religious quote, “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.” And he closed out his address similarly, with “Thank you, and God bless you all.”

This passed with nary a comment, but that is to be expected. After all, Namibia is quite a religious country. Approximately 86.5% of the country claims to be Christian, with approximately 4.5% following a traditional religion, 0.5% following other religions, and 8.5% non-religious. 

Importantly, a secular state does NOT mean an atheist state! It is simply a separation of church and state. It exists to ensure freedom of religion. A secular state is barred from interfering in religious affairs. Conversely, it also bars religious institutions from interfering with affairs of state. A secular state ensures that freedom of conscience and freedom of thought apply equally to all citizens, no matter their religious belief, or lack thereof. 

Hospitals, clinics, police and schools are public facilities of which all citizens may avail themselves of – a secular state exists to allow these institutions to service everyone, regardless of their religious beliefs. No one should be disadvantaged or denied access on the grounds of their religious beliefs, or lack thereof.

And yet state schools for a long time featured Bible Studies. While this was eventually replaced with Religious and Moral Education, which featured a more inclusive syllabus, in recent years there has been a push again to force a RME syllabus to focus on Christianity. 

There are quite a few religious institutions who appear to be pushing for a less secular state. And yet while they’ll happily apply pressure for their own religion to be included, there’s a distinct lack of interest when a more inclusive approach is presented that includes more disparate religions, or even acknowledges atheism or humanism.

It is telling that some of the most draconian regimes world-wide are not secular states, nor are most of them even democratic. A secular state guarantees citizen’s equality before the law and parliament – justice for all, you might say. Religious states often have laws against apostasy and heresy, and thus severely restrict freedom of speech and freedom of expression. This editorial, in fact, would have me either imprisoned or executed in several of these countries. No idea should be immune from criticism or discussion. It is important to remember that individuals have rights – ideas do not.

And yet Namibia continues on its slow descent from a true secular state. Only Christian holidays are national public holidays – no other religion enjoys that privilege. Government officials continue to espouse religious views and discriminate against the LGBT community based on those views without fear. Only the Christian Sabbath enjoys work exemption in law, with overtime pay for working on a Sunday. 

The preamble of the Namibian constitution claims that “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is indispensable for freedom, justice and peace;” and points out that “these rights have for so long been denied to the people of Namibia by colonialism, racism and apartheid;”

Let us not slide backwards into a new colonialism, into a new apartheid, based on religious domination.