“I think, therefore I am” or “I fear, therefore I hate”? Humankind chooses “We are, therefore we will.”

The Constitution of the United States was crafted in a vibrant milieu that is succinctly described by Descartes’s phrase, “I think, therefore I am.” This phrase has traditionally been taught as one that empowers individuals to reclaim self-worth and political power against another era of government described by Louis XIV’s “I am the State,” an era in which too many people were disposable and starved by the policies of their own government.

This year, we seem to be on the precipice of a return to tyranny that I believe is describe thusly: “I fear, therefore I hate.” World-systems historians and economists are not surprised to see a resurgence of hate-speech roughly 75 years since the fascist era in which Europeans nearly self-annihilated through genocide. We can chalk this up to Kondratieff cycles in objective, quantitative analyses. Philosophers and political scientists can do the same using Hegelian dialectic. The danger is that, while we write, the ink in our pens and printers may turn from black to the macabre iron oxide red of spilled human blood.

One of the tragedies of the 2016 presidential election discourse is the inward focused, navel-gazing that blinds too many from the positive achievements of the United Nations Millennium Development campaign. There is a beautiful movement in the world in which those who ascribe to “I think, therefore I am” are working collectively to use laboratory and indigenous scientific knowledge to find and implement sustainable solutions to climate change. http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sdgoverview/

“We are, therefore we will” is the zeitgeist of the planet now. The human family has decided that we will live and we have a collective will to do so with dignity. Many of us will still be poor in terms of material goods but we will not live in poverty. We will not be poor in spirit.

Ironically, it is the spirit of the U.S. Constitution, that document that secured and stabilized the first nation to throw off the chains of colonialism, that catalyzes the global evolution from “I think, therefore I am” toward “We are, therefore we will.”

Please, as you encounter those who suffer from and succumb to “I fear, therefore I hate,” inoculate them with love and kindness and knowledge that humankind, people of all colors, religions, genders and creeds, has decided to work to help them transcend the poverty of body or soul that ails them. They have no need to hate anyone or anything but fear, itself.

Malala Yousafzi, Mali and the Matriarchy/Patriarchy Frontier

So many of us admire the courage of Malala Yousafzi and the miracle of her recovery. Here we see a young lady who wants the education that is her right to have as a citizen. I am confused about those who claim that Muslim women should have limited education. Islam is often presented as one of the earliest feminist religions for some of the earliest Islamic jurisprudence guaranteed women the right to full education if for no other reason than to prepare them to be the first teachers of men. Then there is the example of Khadijah, wife of the Prophet Mohammed. She is known for her international trading business. I am not sure how one justifies confining women when that practice seems to be the opposite of the lifestyle led by the first convert to Islam. However, I am still reading and searching for an answer. Until then, I do not understand why Malala Yousafzi should be limited in her education.

In Mali, approximately two years ago, a debate over changing women’s legal rights moved from discourse to legislation.

In patriarchal international political discourse, one discusses weapons and monopolies in Christian and Islamic nations.

When we gender the political frontier, as I illustrate in Matriarchy, Patriarchy and Imperial Security in Africa, we see an outbreak of patria impotestas in Malala’s neighborhood and in Mali.  In both regions, ordinary men see prosperity all around them yet they are unable to feed their wives who are nursing babies and more men are unable to marry at all due to insufficient financial resources.

In Mali, Ansar al-Din claims to bring a solution for such desperate men. What they are doing is duplicating Ibn Tumart’s Almohad invasion of Almoravid territory. In this model, one claims that Islam demands that men usurp the education and wealth of women. This gendered revolution works like a proletariat uprising but it occurs at such a micro-level that it escapes the notice of many Western political analysts who just shrug it off to domestic violence.  The ideology for Ibn Tumart’s revolution was inspired by intellectuals from Baghdad.  While I may not be able to trace Ansar al-Dine’s ideology, I do wonder where the weapons are produced and if those weapons are purchased with newly liquid capital from rural Mali.

Malala Yousafzi’s neighborhood and rural Malian insurgencies are indeed connected. They are peripheral outposts in an 1300 year old form of imperial expansion that occurs at a micro-level beyond the lens of drones.