|
It is
a sad fact that the innocuous navigation tool originated during and was
fuelled by the Atlantic slave trade. The technological development of
the innocent compass, invented in
China
for religious divination 2,000 years ago, allowed
Africa
to be ravaged in unspeakable ways.
It was the compass that created
the Atlantic slave trade, enabling the early colonial navigators — and
their blood merchants — to chart an accurate course from Gorée Island,
off the coast of Senegal, to Brazil; paving the way for the
trans-Atlantic slave trade, which began on August 8, 1444. This trade in
human merchandise covered four continents and lasted four centuries, and
serves as a shameful beacon for the depravity of human greed and
conquest.
The
compass became the de facto weapon of mass destruction, which led
to the de-capitalization and decapitation of
Africa.
It created the African Diaspora with one in five people taken out of the
motherland. It was the largest and most brutal displacement of human
beings in human history.
Today, it is hard to imagine that
such destruction and the wholesale abduction of a race could result from
a tool as common as the compass. Yet, as a people who survived the slave
trade, we must draw our strength from lessons learned from the past and
draw our energy from the power of the future. And the power of the
future lies in “controlling” technology and harnessing it for the
benefit of mankind, not for his destruction.
The
people of
Africa
must take note that the Internet is our modern-day compass, and within
it resides our own clay of wisdom. As we prepare for our great journey
into the cyberspace of the future, with its technological promise — its
clay of wisdom — we must understand the strategic value and potential of
this all-important tool. Our image of the future inspires the present
and the present serves to create the future.
Africa’s
lack of substantial technological knowledge of the Internet and its
potential may lead it to be assaulted or manipulated in unexpected ways,
just as it was devastated generations ago for the lack of a simple
compass. We didn’t recognize the power of the compass then; the danger
is that we don’t recognize the power of technology today. While
Africa
merely contemplates the future, the West, the quickest off the
mark to wield technology’s weapons, actually makes the future.
This fact, and how the power of
technology can be wielded against the poor, was brought home to me
clearly when I received the following email recently:
“About
a year ago, I hired a developer in
Africa
to do my job. I am paying him $12,000 a year to do my job, for which I
am paid $67,000 a year,” the sender wrote. “He’s happy to have the work
and I’m happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day. Now I’m
considering getting a second job and doing the same thing.”
Technology in the hands of others has been used to exploit
Africa
for centuries. But now it's time for
Africa
to grasp technology and finally embrace the modern age’s clay of wisdom
and advancement.
Africa
has the chance to show the world how technology can be used for good,
not evil. And the people of
Africa
can use today’s technology, not to mimic their own exploitation, but to
right the wrongs of the past and empower themselves with the same tool
that has been used to oppress them in the past.
Africa
can provide a shining example for the world in using technology for its
own upliftment and the benefit of mankind.
This time, it is our choice.
Excerpted
from a keynote speech delivered by Philip Emeagwali at the African
Diaspora Conference in
Tucson,
Arizona.
For the entire transcript and
video,
visit
emeagwali.com.
Nigerian-born
Philip Emeagwali won the 1989
Gordon Bell Prize, the Nobel Prize of supercomputing. He has been called
“a father of the Internet” by
CNN
and
TIME;
extolled as “one of the great minds of the Information Age” by former US
president
Bill Clinton;
and voted history’s greatest scientist of African descent by
New African.
|
Technology
is the Root of All Evil