OP INION
Hon. Taiwo Akerel e Director, Policy House International | Author, Sage of Growth and Stranger in Power | Chairman Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Abuja Chapter
Cr e a t iv it y As Th e 'Ne w Su p e r Po w e r ' Wit h o u t Bo r d e r s Transiting through North Africa, on my way to the United States in the early summer of 2021, gave me an opportunity to digest a non-fiction book, I bought a year ago at the San Francisco International Airport. It was titled the Silk Road: New History of the World written by John Koparkan, a renowned historian at the Worcester College Oxford, published in 2015. The size of the book, about 636 pages, will discourage even a professor from starting it. However, on this trip, I took the time to read through the book and digest the contents for the two nights I spent enroute to New York, while attending to my mission. The summary of the book is that for thousands of years, the world has been ruled and dominated by very powerful individuals who built empires and conquered kingdoms. Territories and treaties were either peacefully signed or cities were violently taken over. Millions of people were forced to pay taxes and royalties to those who have more power and exert influence, rather than those who should legitimately do. The book also tried to explain that outside of Europe, there was a significant trading and buoyant economic system that existed in the Persian Empire, which in turn spurred the economic and industrial growth in Europe centuries later. It depicted the very powerful Persia present day Iraq, the Roman Empire, the Portuguese conquest of the East Atlantic, the exploits of the Mongolian war lords, under Ghenghis Khan and his very powerful successors, such as Ogedei that ruled between 1221 and 1241, the role of Christopher Columbus in the discovery of the new world and the very innovative Spanish Kingdoms that established forts and military bases in Southern America. The conquest of China, and the rise and fall of Constantinople, which
is present day Istanbul. I was proud as an African, reading about the Songhai Empire and the rich golds of Mali and the generosity of King Mansa Musa, who ?literally dashed?gold to everybody on his trip to Mecca and Medina. This book also painfully detailed how slavery started and in the process Africa were the major victims as millions of Africans were forcefully sold into slavery in far flung places, such as Spain, North and South America. The inspiration, one got from this very inspiring and well researched book, is that for centuries, the world has been shaped to be ruled and governed by those who have the instrument of force and power, of cohesion, this has later been reduced to a few persons coming together to draft a document on behalf of others and call it the constitution. This document further details codes and modes of conduct expected of residents in that location prescribing what institutions that could be established, such as the Supreme Court for instance, and other arms and tiers of government. Such is the new world order, that has replaced the use of force and physical conquest, which has seemingly brought relative peace to the world as against the old order of wars and warlords and the medieval era that was described by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, as short, nasty and brutish etc. While it is instructive enough to note that, yes, the world may have moved from the era of physical warfare rulership, to colonialism and now to constitutionalism, self rule, sovereignty and independence, territorial integrity and institutional order. A vast majority of governments and people across the world are yet to wake up from their slumber that a new world order has emerged albeit without territory or physical government. and a capital devoid of the different arms of government as evidenced in the era that is gradually going obsolete.
