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Touchstones of a world against itself and in dire need of new agendas – chivalry in the 21st century -By Jimi Bickersteth

For a little lesson in semantic analysis. In Greek, the word was also applied to the torment of men being tested with torture. The Greek word for “torture” is derived from the word for “touchstone” and may refer to the torment of imprisonment to which Man is destined to be consigned, locked away in the securest of prison–death itself. In English, “touchstone” means “a test or criterion for determining the quality or genuineness of a thing.

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Jimi Bickersteth

This evening, the horizon was clear, and the sky evidently cloudless in this season of shorter days longer nights. In the meantime, the heavens darkened up with clouds and wind and a great downpour began to occur. Little cloud became many, filling and darkening the sky. A great wind blew. The parched ground drank in the drops.

As the downpour began to increase, the road became flooded, swelled and filled the crater-size potholes and failed portion of the governor Ibikunle Amosun’s haphazardly and half-constructed Akute-Ojodu-Ijoko road. Albeit, the rain drop a relief and a blessing on the sunlight baked granite walls, and a relief to the citizens inhaling laterite dust.

From my private balcony shaded by a green and white awning, it was becoming chilly as I opened the laptop to start pounding its soft keys, on my mind was the hurricane IDA, climate change, Afghanistan, the earth’s general conditions that calls for the touchstones. What is? What about! Touchstone is a method of testing for quality. As the testing of gold with a touchstone became a common practice among traders, the word for “touchstone” came to mean a method of testing.

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For a little lesson in semantic analysis. In Greek, the word was also applied to the torment of men being tested with torture. The Greek word for “torture” is derived from the word for “touchstone” and may refer to the torment of imprisonment to which Man is destined to be consigned, locked away in the securest of prison–death itself. In English, “touchstone” means “a test or criterion for determining the quality or genuineness of a thing.

Understanding the touchstone test and the figurative expressions the practice gave rise to shed light on what will happen to the world in an era of endless recession that was curiously witnessing the birth of so many billionaires. Billionaires who have come to filled the world with numerous factory fitted yachts, private jets, private beaches, several suits of polished armour, libraries of expensive books that no one reads, and lots of the other very expensive and useless thing the world have come to consider as the sum and summary of living.

Yet, longed to live in a society where war was incomprehensible and repulsive. In hard, toneless voice, and you gasp and open your mouth in awe, you filmed in your minds respectable people, the people salute them, the police holds them in high esteem and are sometimes placed above the law as they earned preferences and right of way from battening, foot stomping arms above the head stunts of ‘alright sir, boys’, all a tough egg in the naked world, but not tough enough to stay in the world. A world that was always at war with itself.

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“I promise you that this will be the final war –the war to end all wars.’ -Woodrow Wilson, U.S. President (1913-21). Those were the high expectations of one world leader at the end of World War 1, about 90 years ago. That global conflict was so horrendous that the victors wanted–and needed–to believe that their many sacrifices would bring lasting benefits.

But human wars rarely solve problems, let alone eliminate the deep-rooted problem of war itself. About 20 years after President Wilson made that rash promise, the second world war erupted. It caused much more death and destruction than its predecessor. Two decades of technological advances had made mankind more adept at mass killing. As the second world war came to an end, global leaders realized that the spectre of war loomed larger than life.

In 1945, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur proclaimed: “We have had our last chance. If we do not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door.” General MacArthur knew what two atomic bombs had done to Nagasaki and Hiroshima during the final days of the second world war. The appalling destruction unleashed on those two Japanese cities led him to ascribe a new meaning to the word “Armageddon”–an all-out nuclear conflagration and chemical weaponry that could mean the end of civilisation on planet earth and the only planet suitable and friendly habitat for the human constitution.

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Because of what is happening all over the world, war of attrition, expansionist tendencies, of hunger, poverty and so on, one is forced to ask, what is the future for the earth. Indeed, today the earth is being ruined by several abuses, of human rights, of precious resources, such as water, forests, and the delicately balanced ecosystems and atmosphere. The world has been warned of threats by such things as a large meteorite, an exploding star, or the exhaustion of the sun’s hydrogen fuel.

Let’s consider a few details about the earth and the living beings:
i. Since the 19th century, human
activity has caused more than
200 strong earthquakes, says a
report in the German
newspaper Die Zeit Mining
triggered half of these
earthquakes. Other causes
appear to be the extraction of
gas, oil or water through global
reclamation exercises; fluid
injection; and the creation of
reservoirs.
ii. Between 10 and 14 billion rounds
of ammunition are
produced every year, enough
bullets to kill every person in
the world twice over. As the
inhabitants of the world have
turned themselves to sworn
enemies in a ‘pepper and eyes’
relationships.
iii.killings, extra judicial killings
that was making
mince meat of the Creator’s
sacred injunction repeated in the
Mosaic Law, that forbade the
consumption of blood and
killings.
iv.Rich or poor, many people fail to
see the link between their
habits and their health as a
matter of chance or as
something over which they have
little control. Such a fatalistic
view, (in Yoruba’s parlance, “ikú
kan ló ma pà’yàn”), hold many
back from improving their health
and leading a more productive
life. Even now, an
odour of embalming fluid,
aromatic, sweet and sickening
wafted into my nostrils, probably,
from a clinic nearby.
v. In some lands, obtaining clean
water can be hard work and
is expensive. Yet, drinking water
is vital to survival. Dirty
water is said to have killed more
people than wars or
earthquakes.
v. There comes the
onslaught of serious ailments
that attacks human respiratory
system. Reduced quality of
life and needlessly shortening it.
Increased sufferings, more
time lost to illnesses, and more
money spent on medical
bills.
vi. Most people no longer have trust
in their religious faith,
majority have lost confidence in
religion and its institutions
and their leaders. In my country
Nigeria, where loyalty to the
Church has been legendary,
scandals that have recently
rocked the church and its endless
list of general overseers
are blamed for the fact that public
trust in it has ‘plummeted.’
The credibility gap caused by the
clergy’s indiscretion and
integrity has resulted in its largest
institutional crisis in decades,
possibly in church history.
vii.A university education is no
longer a guarantee of a job.
Every year universities,
polytechnics and colleges of
education are producing tens of
thousands of graduates
that are not fitting into society
and who simply end up
among the unemployed, as the
institutions keep churning out
a long list of unemployable
graduates, because their
courses are incompatible with
what jobs are available.
viii.The concerns about a possible
nuclear Holocaust continue
to plague Man in a world where
superpowers had as far as the
1960’s devised a strategy of
MAD, “mutually assured
destruction.” Their goal was to
have sufficient missiles or
delivery systems to guarantee
the destruction of 25 percent
of the enemy’s civilian population
and 50 percent of the
industrial capacity–regardless of
which side started the
conflict. Few people found much
comfort in this strategy
for conserving world peace.
ix. Scientists have recognised that
inate tendency in human toward
disorder in all physical things
and the perishability in
all matter of creation and
revealing politics and
governments as a fraud.

Today, nuclear weapons proliferate and regional wars or threats of same and nuclear cataclysm continue to cause untold numbers of deaths. The possibility of a nuclear conflagration that will touch the lives of everyone on earth still threatens mankind. Although people long to see an end to war, few believe that a war or any other strategy could achieve this goal. It was battles, decisive battles, that determined the very course of civilisation, will battles, completely decisive battles not end same, you are wont to ask.

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Although many past wars fought have proved not decisive for world peace, none eliminated wickedness, selfcentredness or corruption in the human psyche. None really pitted the forces of good against the forces of evil, in the absolute sense. It’s all hooey! Logically, that type of conflict must originate with God. If
i-ix, above do not shock the world to rethink assumptions and assessment about the world’s conditions, I don’t know what else will.

I checked my inner feelings at the world’s precarious conditions, a world that has not learned to settled down, and a disunited UN equipped, and saddled, and expected to as a united front and force bail the globe out of its present quagmires. What I saw was a politicised UN that is a realistic waxwork in an exhibition of horrors, pushing the world through warped perceptions, wrong priorities and lacking in a united will, drive and direction. That’s the worth of bringing repressed individuals as Home representatives to a joint like the UN. Not blaisé! It must cut out the histrionics and intellectual pretensions and begin to see the big pictures.

With increase in human freight and trafficking, increase use of hard drugs and narcotics, gun-totting and arms smuggling, and
alcoholism’s the world has as much chance of surviving as scoop of ice cream dropped in a furnace. Thus, the world needed a fast intelligence flow and modalities for speedy intelligence in its management and efforts geared to keep the globe afloat, and safe and peaceful. But it needs the truth of the big picture to get its psyche readjusted.

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This times are terrible. A time the world is fighting so many battles from so many fronts, and these are battles that must be won. I looked at the mirror hanging opposite my writing desk, the eyes that stared back at me look like little pools of ice, as I reflected on a world that kept going on as if nothing was happening.

With so many billionaires and so much money in the world, paper money and investment portfolios and resources, something basic is changing on the globe’s social, political, and economic scenes, something that is having profound impact and effects on its people. I tried to imagine what the future, mine and the world portend. What was going to happen to humans lot with accidents, health concerns, all forms of cancers, injustices, corruption, covid-19 issues et al and the world’s well-being.

Life’s hard but not bad, but that sentiment would not apply to some millions worldwide including children sent to the street to fend for themselves for many soul-destroying years. Parents dreaded half-heartedly the almost certain prospect of an unwanted pregnancy and children breastfeeding their own babies. In the street below a child yelled, a woman called across the street to another woman asking of her children whereabouts.

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The world’s best hope is that something will provide the necessary lead time for the world powers to develop their strategies of adjustments. It’s been hard, but not really bad, and nothing really bad must be allowed to happen to our world. In spite of the fact that the values began in the war period, its causes still dwell somewhere in the realm of theories and conjectures. But, clearly, expectations are on the march.

The expectations have consequentially created new areas of instability, new situation of tension, and the world have been caught in the web. It will be perhaps misleading in an age and world of discontinuous change, to in any order, single out any particular trends, but, the world can focus on:
a. the phenomenon of changing
values and global expectations,
b. the protracted economic
meltdown and or downturn that
has wilynily excavate
extraordinary political acrobatics
around the world.
Both of which are beginning to make the streams of global thoughts to flow in quite different directions and to wit: ‘principled’ self-centredness, thus making everyone look like fugitive from a nightmare.

It seem logical therefore, to conclude that the UN must, as one condition for success expand its forecasting system as a motivation, even as it,
i. upped its ante as it tried to
provide a judicious mingling of
global peace with the gaiety of
strong moral social intercourse,
ii. such a course is the antithesis
of global unity and equality in its
diversity, and would be essential
for the world’s future vitality,
iii. it must further engaged in
proactive strategies to deal with
the global security, social,
economic and political forces.

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There’s the need for a major adjustment, transformation and realignments in a world that appears to be blind, and with blindness it flicked its muscles the way a horse flicks its muscles to get rid of flies. The adjustments would be greater. However, it only need to consider the changing values inherent in the new perceptions about right and wrong, about the right relationships across the globe in its economics, ecology, a balanced businesses and trade, Politics and society.

The world has the direness and in earnest to search for renewing power for the world’s supply of resources which at first seem inexhaustible–including the solar system that the world depend on for stability, light, and energy before they descend into total disorder and ultimate destruction. It won’t get anyone anywhere to jump off the deep end.

With everyone’s face turned to the morning sky, the light of the old world appeared to be fading in the light of the new dawn. Everything looked nice, but to me, it looked a long way away.

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Last line:
Baffled by a world of colours, shape, and perspective, the world is still dazed and unable to recognise its precarious position and making good sense of what it should be. There is something deeply soothing about the present state of the world and its tenants getting cast-iron arteries through it all. I want to hear the news of the present world conditions and circumstances spoken in a language I didn’t understand because too often I don’t like what I hear in English.

#jimibickersteth
Jimi Bickersteth is a blogger and writer.
He can be reached on Twitter
@BickerstethJimi
@alabaemanuel
Emails:
jimi.bickersteth@yahoo.co.UK
jimi.bickersteth@gmail.com

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