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Knowledge Transfer and the Definition of Profit

by Jeff Buderer

I met with Professor Akiwowo at a diner while in Manhattan in October of 2003 in an attempt gather some information for Joerg’s WSIS presentation on Knowledge Transfer between cultures. Born into Yoruba culture he has spent many years as a Nigerian sociology professor instrumental in helping Africans to rediscover their cultural roots after so many years of being told that their culture and way of living was inferior to Western civilization. Peter Burgess has who has logged many miles as financial manager working for African development organizations also attended.

The grafting of the Western value system onto the indigenous in Africa and throughout the world was done without any consideration about the compability and sustainability of these cultural and social development. Colonialism did not allow for local innovation, local customs were stifled and suppressed. For many years now Professor Akiwowo has been part of an African movement to restore a local sense of identity based on indigenous values. We see such a process as key to a successful development program.

The struggle up to now in Africa has stemmed from faulty economic and social theories that were forcibly imposed in Africa from the colonial period up until now. While these assumptions may be suitable in the West they are not at all suitable for non-consuming economies. Peter Burgess' passion is to develop ways to harness the human and resource potential with the idea that we can help Africa by developing business models that are designed to thrive in nonconsuming nations.

Professor Akiwowo spoke of his childhood and the impact it had on who he is now. Community while often open to many interpretations is something that allows each individual participating to derive meaning from the exchange of interpersonal interactions so that they can find fulfillment as human beings. There is a great distance between indigenous cultures and the modern world in terms of how each defines profit. Akiwowo says his culture teaches it people that profit is more than financial and that the Yoruba have five kinds of profit:

Money

Bearing children

Good health

Living long

Overcoming obstacles

When a community does not have those five Yoruba attributes of profit, it is not a fully functional community. Any system that denies this will not be productive, but instead over the long term create a hollow kind of productivity that lead will to increases in vice and addiction—an empty wealth that sustains today’s modern economy so well. Many in the Western world are now waking up to the realization that profit is not simply about balance sheets there is a movement to redefine the notion of profit and to overcome Wall Street’s assumption that one cannot do good and also profit.

Communities are held together through a system of mutually beneficial attributes and these must perpetuated for the community to continue to exist as vibrant and viable entity. Social problems begin to emerge as persistent and irreconcilable aspects of a society only when the society denies the five attributes of profit. Akiwowo asks us to look at how we spend our resources. When a community does not have or value those five Yoruba attributes of profit, it is not a fully functional community. Any system that denies may well be productive over the short term and may be even be persuasive in touting its attributes over those of indigenous societies but over the long term create such a system will create a hollow kind of productivity that will lead to increases in vice and addiction. This notion of empty wealth sustains today’s modern economy, that is we have so much money but not the capacity to translate it into happiness because of the absence of authentic community structures in our lives. Many in the Western world are now waking up to the realization that profit is not simply about balance sheets. There is now a movement to redefine the notion of profit and to overcome Wall Street’s assumption that one cannot do good and also profit.

The Yoruba culture understood the meaning of social sustainability long before modern hubris made such a word a necessity in the English language. This word has taken on renewed importance only because within the existing financial system the notion of mutually beneficial interactions is not important at all. Such thinking does not fit in a world that almost exclusively sees profit in terms of the accumulation of resources at other people’s expense—zero sum I win you use. The paradigm that results not only undervalues the very things that make indigenous cultures so valuable to the people who struggle to keep some aspect of their traditions alive, but the very idea of authentic human community.

We live in a world of great suffering, and there is a tremendous amount of energy devoted to numbing us from this reality. Professor Akiwowo notes that if someone is suffering and you do not intervene, you will not be able to sleep. Suffering and tragedy is not an inevitable byproduct of life but is the result of denying the deeper aspect of the world in the most obvious aspect of our lives. The notion that humanity is suffering dominates our consciousness because we fall into line accepting the idea that there is only one notion of profit. The human community would come closer to realizing its true potential if we accepted the richness of life that comes with the larger and more encompassing Yoruba concept of Profit. So long as the practical realm is dominated by the single-minded consideration of making money and dominating over others in a zero sum game—I win you lose—humanity’s condition will continue to clouded by a sense of despair and depression.

Western development models have not only encouraged top-down macro-level approaches but ethnocentrism and have proceeded from a one size fits all notion of progress, without accepting the need for each culture to modernize differently with respect to its unique cultural attributes. Knowledge transfer across cultures should be based on mutual respect. For the Yoruba the concept of a global exchange or knowledge transfer must be mutually beneficial to all parties involved in the exchange. Akiwowo puts forward the chair as a metaphor to explain how the function of something is based on its integrity. A three-legged chair is not a chair if it is not designed to work on three legs. A broken chair is not a chair it is a pile of scrap wood. We can apply this understanding to our notion of community. Akiwowo adds to the five notions of profit by introducing another word Ere, the process of breathing in and breathing out and another aspect of this is the process of spiritually mentally and emotionally cleaning house. This is an essential and basic property of all life. Our real desire is not money or power but balance within that inner core being that makes us whole and drives us in life towards a higher state of being, advancing learning and evolving. True success in life is not about making money but about achieving inner peace and also creating those sacred spaces in our lives that facilitates the evolution of our essential being.

Building infrastructure like hospitals, educational centers and development programs and dedicating ourselves to helping others is not sacrifice, but fulfillment, for it helps us to overcome our anxiety about ourselves and the world. As we give to others, we surround ourselves with a network of hopeful and loving people. Akiwowo adds to the five notions of profit by introducing another word Ere, the process of breathing in and breathing out and another aspect of this is the process of spiritually mentally and emotionally cleaning house. This is an essential and basic property of all life. Our real desire is not money or power but balance within that inner core being that makes us whole and drives us in life towards a higher state of being, advancing learning and evolving. True success in life is not about making money but about achieving inner peace and also creating those sacred spaces in our lives that facilitate this process.

The grafting of the Western value system onto native cultures in Africa and throughout the world was done without any consideration about the compatibility and sustainability of these cultural and social incursions. Colonialism did not allow for local innovation and local customs were stifled and suppressed. For many years now Professor Akiwowo has been part of an African movement to restore a local sense of identity based on indigenous values. Any sustainable knowledge transfer between cultures and therefore by default any successful development or assistance program must involve building relationships based on the mutual respect of each group’s experiences, accomplishments and attributes.

The struggle up to now in Africa has stemmed from faulty economic and social theories that were forcibly imposed in Africa from the colonial period up until now. While these assumptions may be suitable in the West they are not at all suitable for non-consuming economies. Peter Burgess' (visit his Afrifund website) says we can break the aid and dependency cycle and access the human and resource potential that is untapped in Africa by developing business models that fully harness and seize upon the economic advantages these nations have such as low cost of living, high levels of natural resources and a year round growing season.

Key to understanding how to create a successful transfer of information between cultures is to see it from a perspective that promotes development among parties. All five notions of profit have to be respected not just in relation to maintaining the integrity of Africa cultural values but to promote an universal understanding of value that respects the social as well as the environmental commons. Any sustainable global economy/society must base itself on these values in order to maintain its integrity as a global system of mutually beneficial relationships. Key to understanding how to create a successful transfer of information between cultures is to see it from a perspective that promotes real development among all parties involved. Any sustainable global economy/society must base itself on these values in order to maintain its integrity as a global system of mutually beneficial relationships.