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“If you had a choice between the
clay of wisdom or a bag of gold, which would you choose?”
“The bag of gold, the bag of gold”
the naïve children cried, not realizing that wisdom had the potential to
earn them many more bags of gold in the future.
Seven thousand years later,
Iraq
— the cradle of civilization — has its own private bag of gold as it
sits perched atop the world’s third largest oil reserves. Meanwhile,
Israel,
tucked away in the hostile terrain of a barren desert, has the clay of
wisdom — the weightless wealth of intellectual capital embodied in the
collective mind of its people.
The striking economic gap that
persists between rich and poor nations has increased sevenfold over the
past century to what is now an all-time high. The accumulation of
intellectual capital by rich nations has helped broaden this gap because
it has enabled them to control technology and collect hidden taxes from
less affluent nations. For instance, Nigeria pays a 40-percent
“royalty” tax on its petroleum revenues to foreign oil companies that
are ripping out its family jewels — the huge store of wealth in its
oilfields. These oilfields started forming when prehistoric, dog-sized
humans — our common ancestor with the apes — walked African grasslands
on four legs.
It’s a shocking reality, but the
deep oil reserves laid down by Mother Nature millions of years ago and
nurtured through the millennia in Africa have been whittled away within
decades. And, for the dubious privilege of surrendering its natural
resources forever,
Nigeria
is required to pay half its petroleum revenue in the form of “royalties”
to the rich kids on the global block, the
United States
and the
Netherlands.
That oilfield has been exchanged for a bowl of porridge, and the black
gold that should serve the underserved in
Nigeria
is helping wealthy Westerners get wealthier.
Today, half the
world’s population — three billion people — live on an average of $500 a
year. In contrast, Bill Gates earns $500 every second. By controlling
technology and taxing computer users, Gates has become wealthier than
each of the 70 poorest nations on earth and using his financial might
has conquered more territory than Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar and
Alexander the Great combined.
While Bill Gates is the new
millennium’s Prince of Technology, he is by no means the first to have
taken on the huge potential offered by the realm of technology. The
Romans used roads and military technology to expand their empire. And,
for centuries,
Britain
ruled a quarter of the Earth due to its unparalleled ability to command
maritime technology and conquer the Seven Seas.
Britain
undoubtedly established itself as the world’s first superpower through
its rapid and ruthless colonial expansion program. The British raised
the Union Jack over Canada and Australia, India and Hong Kong, Egypt and
Kenya, and countless other countries — even the United States. The Union
Jack cast its shadow in every global time zone, giving rise to the
saying, “The sun never sets on the
British Empire,”
a fact that was cold comfort to the colonized nations.
In the same way, the
United States
has embraced its technological supremacy, both offensively and
defensively, to build its own global empire without a physical presence
in any of its “colonies.” The sole remaining superpower is at the
forefront of every major technological advancement, which it has used to
become deeply embedded in three-quarters of the globe. The
US
has accomplished a virtual economic colonization manifesting its
presence throughout the globe by harnessing the power of technology and
capitalizing on its clay of wisdom.
Africa’s
inability to realize its potential and embrace technology has left it at
the mercy of the West. The time has come for
Africa
to seize the day and resist the efforts of
America
and others to leave their imprint and plunder its natural resources.
Numerous examples throughout
history support the idea that technology can be used as a tool of
oppression. And there’s little doubt that
America’s
technological advancement has allowed it to exploit natural resources
around the world. This is particularly evident in
Africa,
where the
US
is exploiting oilfields beneath the pristine rainforest — and being
rewarded with a 40-percent tax at the expense of the African people.
This lends credence to history’s assertion that those who control
technology oppress those who do not, eventually enslaving them and,
finally, wielding power around the globe.
Excerpted from a keynote speech delivered by
Philip Emeagwali 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 extolled as “one of the great minds of the Information Age”
and as "the Bill Gates of Africa" by former US president
Bill Clinton.
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Technology Widens
Rich-Poor Gap