| Knowledge Transfer and the
Definition of Profit
by Jeff Buderer
I met with Professor Akiwowo at a diner while in
Manhattan in October 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.
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