America for all its economic, military, educational and scientific power and breakthroughs, can learn something from the Yoruba Ethnic Group of Nigeria that if America is blessed by God with power like a Lion, it must be careful never to use that power like the Lions
I learned that principle or wisdom as a post graduate student in Clinicsl Psychology and Social Work and as a Karl Ichan scholarship recipient from 1991 to 1993 at the Yeshiva Jewish University of New York.
The scholarship had covered 50 percent of my tuition. It was the remaining 50 percent of my tuition that I had to take a student loan from the Citi Bank of New York to earn my second Master’s Degree in Social Work and Clinical Psychology and my licentiate from the State of New York to practice Social Work in America.
I took a Course for all my 4 Semesters in that University titled, “Human Behavior in the Social Environment” taught by one of the best Professors in that University named Norman Tokayer a Jewish Professor.
Norman Tokayer is one Professor I can never forget in a hurry like I can never forget two of my learned Professors In the late Harold Seidman and Milton Tenzer of the State University of Connecticut who both supervised my Post Graduate Studies in that University.
But the one I particularly want to appreciate and eulogize in writing this article is Professor Norman Tokayer whose amazingly thoughtful lectures appear to me to complement and to reaffirm what had I learned as a teenager from my grandfather the 41st Deji of Akure Oba Afunbiowo Adesida the longest-serving Deji of Akure from 1897 to 1957 and the pioneer architect of the golden century of Akure History from 1897 to 1997 as I acknowledged in his Biography authored by me and published by. International Publishers of Eleiyele, Ibadan in 2007 and formally launched at the Federal University of Technology Akure on Dec 19, 2007 and at the Queen’s Campus of the City University of New York ( CUNY) on September 13, 2008 with Ambassador Prince Ibrahim Agboola Gambari the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations as the Special Guest of Honor and Keynote Speaker
My grandfather used to teach me when I grew up in the Deji’s Palace under the nurturing care of my grandmother Queen Mother and Olori Alojo Olutoye- Adesida, a Princess of Idoani who had come to Akure with his Uncle at the age of 7 but ended up marrying the Deji of Akure as documented in the same biography of my grandfather titled, “The Lion King and the Cubs”
I apologize for the little digression but the digression is Germaine to the central message or focus of this article that if America has a power like a Lion, it must be careful never to use that power like a Lion because if it does, it might do incalculable and irredeemable damage to its own reputation as the only surviving Super Power in the World now.
America must always remember that strong Empires come and go and that no Empire lasts forever.
If you don’t believe me I ask you to explain to me why we now only talk of the other Empires in the past tense and why we no longer hear of the great Greek and Ottoman Turk and Roman Empire, or the Egyptian Empire or Mesopotamia or Iranian Empire, or the Russian and the British Empire.
Whether America likes it or not, other Empires are sure to emerge as we are currently finding out from China which is growing by leaps and bounds in its astronomical transformation and could predictably catch up and push to second place the current American domination of the World, if you see what I see. It is only a question of time and that is why America cannot afford to abuse the privilege or the advantage and superiority it currently enjoys.
I would not end this article without explaining how the Lion uses its brutal power?
The Lion is not called the King of the Wild just for the fun of it.
When the Lion in the Wild is hungry and cannot find a prey to kill and eat because the Lion by rule only eats fresh meat and drinks fresh blood.
My grandfather, the Deji of Akure had thought me story about the Lion I can never forget till breath my last.
When the Lion is very hungry and starved, and cannot find fresh meat to eat, it would demarcate a space in the Wild and encircle the space with its own urine.
It would roar like a Lion normally does. That roaring would cause mayhem,
fear and confusion to all the animals nearby that are within earshot of the Lion’s roaring noise and they would panic and scatter and begin to run helter skelter and and in their confusion few of them would cross the line of demarcation set by the Lion and they would be caught by the Lion and eaten alive.
The Lion does not understand there is any limit to its power and in so doing it would sometimes attack a Porcupine and meet its own death in so doing because the Porcupine is full of arrows it releases when if it feels threatened by a more powerful predator
That is why America would be well advised never again to use its power like the Lion because it can irredeemably hurt itself in so doing.
As small as the needle is, it always poses a big problem for the mother hen or rooster to swallow.
Iran with its 93 million population is small compared to America but it has something that America cannot afford to ignore or underestimate- its national pride and indomitable spirit and willpower as the cradle of civilization that started around the River Tigris and Euphrates.
There is a limit to the Lion’s Power is my point that I think that America cannot afford to ignore or sweep under tha carpet
I rest my case.
