While absentmindedly scrolling through my Twitter feed a few weeks ago, I stumbled across a tweet containing a passage that subsequently irritated me to no end. Apparently written from the point of view of a Maasai tribesman in Kenya, it expressed a thought that went something along the lines of “You will take my semi-itinerant rural lifestyle from my cold, dead hands.” Apparently being asked to learn the ways of the urban Kenyan so as to survive and transition away from a fundamentally doomed lifestyle at a time of climate change and shifting economic wind was unacceptable.
In what to my eyes read as the most petulant, self-pitying, foot-stamping written tantrum ever penned by a full grown adult, the fellow said that after taking a hack at the city life and finding it difficult and humiliating, he would return to “the way of his ancestors,” and woe betide anyone who tried to convince him otherwise. I could almost picture the writer as Eric Cartman, the South Park character grabbing his ball after losing a game against his friends and yelling “Screw you guys! I’m going home!”
Only this time Cartman is not a fat white kid from Colorado, but a slender adult black male from Central Kenya shaking his fist at Nairobi and screaming “Jamani watu! Naenda nyumbani!” Up until that point, I hadn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was at this point that I formed a hypothesis. My hypothesis is that this character archetype in all its ethnic, racial and national iterations is responsible for continually retarding the growth and convergence of humanity into a prosperous, integrated species. In a world where communication, commerce, relationships and all sorts of complex interactions now happen in real time between Shenzhen and Shangisha, I believe that the continued existence of Provincial Man is now one of humanity’s biggest problems.
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Provincial Man: The same, yesterday, today and forever
Provincial Man in the 21st century is no different from his predecessor in the Middle Ages, even though he now rides in modern transport, uses modern communication and interacts with the modern economy. Like those who came before him, his sole plea and purpose in life is this: “Please let tomorrow be exactly like today, and a little bit more like yesterday if possible.” Provincial Man hates change and evolution. The idea of learning new things, unlearning familiar things and allowing himself to evolve, is to him a vicious personal assault or an unprovoked slap in the face by an external aggressor.
It was the Provincial Man who executed Galileo for proving that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way round. It was a medical council of Provincial Men in Vienna that stripped Dr Ignaz Semmelweiss of his medical license in the 1800s and threw him into a mental asylum after he successfully theorised that doctors should wash their hands between patients to avoid transmitting disease. Provincial Man it was, who kept the Nsibidi writing script as a secret within an exclusive cult in what is now southeastern Nigeria for centuries, so that his society would not achieve information saturation and his tiny cult would remain in control.
At every point in Nigerian, African and human history, there has always been a critical mass of Provincial Man to ensure that new ideas and thinking are fought off vigorously until change eventually happens by sheer force of cosmic persistence
When the British finally banned slave trading in the 1800s, it was armies of Provincial Men across the West African coast from Liberia to Okrika who fought wars against the British so as to be able to continue selling their neighbours to the Portuguese and Spanish in return for gin, mirrors and beads. Post-independence in Nigeria, it was a Provincial Man who decided that he must continue with the empire-seeking goals of his ancestor Uthman Dan Fodio, rather than countenance the idea of maybe trying to settle into the new country based on partnership. And we know how that has turned out for all of us.
At every point in Nigerian, African and human history, there has always been a critical mass of Provincial Man to ensure that new ideas and thinking are fought off vigorously until change eventually happens by sheer force of cosmic persistence. You can always recognise Provincial Man wherever you are on earth by observing the same obdurate refusal to accept change, only to inevitably end up ignominiously crushed and swallowed by it.
Provincial Man in the 21st Century: A threat to human progress
The Western racist? Provincial Man. The African tribalist and ethnic chauvinist? Provincial Man. The xenophobe who hates immigrants, technology and globalisation? Provincial Man. The African academic still recommending more of the same Marxist-Communist bunk that has created by far the world’s poorest continental population? Him too. The “Pan Africanist” still quoting discredited bluster written 65 years ago by Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure? Same guy. The African voter who is perfectly capable of earning a living, paying taxes and parenting children like any adult, but suddenly takes leave of their senses and becomes an impressionable child when a politician says so? Australopithecus Africanus Provincias.
I can go on and on but the point is clear – the Provincial Man in my thinking represents the very worst of humanity boiled down to the essence of all that is terrible about us – petulant, selfish, unyielding, unreasoning, arrogant, malevolent, wilfully stupid and disingenuous. If humanity is a train moving along the track on the road to advancement, enlightenment and freedom, Provincial Man is Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight – a ceaselessly malevolent entity constantly trying to derail and blow up the train for no greater reason than wanting the world to burn. Provincial Man has decided that he has no stake in the world of tomorrow, so his sole mission is to ensure that tomorrow never comes.
Ultimately it is always a wasted effort because tomorrow always comes. However, the thing about being a species cursed with millions – perhaps billions – of Provincial Man among our number is that he ensures that progress always happens at snail’s pace. It is well known for example, that poorer countries can move up the chain by embracing innovation and opening themselves up to trade ideas and investment. Yet the agglomeration of poverty-stricken countries known as Africa consistently does the exact opposite. $800 residence permits for fellow ECOWAS citizens, refusal to issue drone and alternative transport licenses despite terrible transport infrastructure, extreme capital controls and economies organised under Marxist principles – these can only be the brainchild of Provincial Man.
Where African countries like the DRC, Nigeria, Kenya, Mali, Ethiopia, Chad and Angola show clear and obvious signs of state collapse due to low state capacity outside the capital city, common sense and logic dictate that devolution of power to avoid conflict is the rational course of action. Not to Africa’s Provincial Men in power though, who will keep on smiling and greeting each other at AU meetings in Addis Ababa while they inevitably lose the power to be head of anything more than their capital cities. When countries established on immigration and changing demographics like the U.S. reach the start of another demographic change cycle and what should happen is to embrace the change, Provincial Man votes for a billionaire Eric Cartman who promises to “get rid of the immigrants.”
Everywhere on earth where Provincial Man is allowed to have a say in running a country, the results are the same – avoidable conflict and social dislocation, economic retardation and a huge opportunity cost in lost development and growth.
And the worst thing about Provincial Man?
He’s not going extinct anytime soon.
