There have been too many cases of misapplications and arbitrary use of innocent words beyond what the world could contain and endure .
This may have evidently prompted philosophers around the world to raise their voices on the need for us to first of all redeem the WORD in order to redeem the WORLD.
A Chinese Philosopher, Confucius was definitely one of those who had been in this same frame of mind when he remarked that, the first thing he would do if given the opportunity to rule the world would be to first of all correct language.
" If language is not correct, what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, what ought to be done would remain undone; and if what ought to be done remains undone , morals and arts would deteriorate, if morals and Arts deteriorate, justice will go astray; if justice goes astray, the people would stand in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in whatever is said.This matters above everything. " He had remarked.
One of such words definitely is the word :" Titan" which from facts available has been befuddled with misapplications through mis-use, dis-use and abuse .
Physically, a Titan is a giant with immense stature and strength.
Spiritually, a Titan represents huge, primitive and hard-to-control forces while symbolizing a spirit of rebellion.
Mythologically, Titans were reportedly pre-Olympic gods who ruled the cosmos in ancient Greek before the Titanomachy war.
" They were giants, immortal deities and considered the first generational gods , born from the primordial gods , Uranus and Gaea. They ruled from Mount Orthys and each God had its realm to rule over ,they lost their Titanomachy and were banished to the underworld. "
In the Bible accounts of Titans ,they are described as giants of extraordinary size . It was said of Og,( a giant) King of Bashan, whose bier was nine cubits in length and four cubits in width. Also ,there was Goliath of Gath , a giant who blasphemed the God of Israel and was killed by young David .
The quest of people in different ages , to be Titans is the crave to be like God or the craze to be called the children of God.
This thirst to play God dated back to the beginning of the creation of the earth itself, even with each step by man at building a tower of Babel, which top would be in the skies, ending up in being forced back to earth by the hand of reality .
The first earthly parents, Adam and Eve ,wanted to be like God and they snatched at classified documents in the Garden of Eden even as they ended up thrown out of the palace of pleasure.
The sons of God were giants who went in with, daughters of men and whose acts of fornication and adultery led to intense violence which later culminated in the great flood by which God sacked the earth which had before then been polluted.
In ancient days, anyone with immense height, extraordinary abilities or stature were looked at as a child of God ,and which was why when Israelites rejected God, (wanting to choose their own kings and be like other nations,) they found the tallest choice in Saul as their son of God.
Even though it was in God's anger that He yielded to their inordinate demands, it was in His fury that God removed him and found a humble man after his heart in David .
At the time God mandated Samuel to go and anoint David secretly, this same Prophet nearly missed his assignment, as he was also looking at issues from the Titanic perspective to rulership .
Having called out all the children of Jesse from which list he was supposed to pick one , Samuel fumbled for a wrong choice. He picked Eliab because of his immense height , but upon which the voice of God corrected him thus:
Man looketh at the face but God looketh at the heart.I have rejected him .( referring to Eliab )
As widely circulated on the internet, the Titanic ship which was built by Thomas Andrews was also a story of a challenge which ended up in calamity . The ship was said to have met its Waterloo in the Atlantic ocean, lying at a depth of 2.5 miles and located at an estimated 370 miles off the coast of the Newfoundland in Canada where it was split into two after running into an iceberg.
Ostensibly playing Mr-Know-it-all, the owner of the newly constructed Titanic ship, who was answering a reporter's question concerning its safety, challenged God, spitting blasphemy that :" Not even God can sink the ship. "
So much for the Titans and the Titanic that the word Titan has not failed to instil fears and unhappy memories into the vocabulary mindset of people, the world over .
Some authorities have however defended the Titan phenomenon as the word is reputed to mean a Defender. According to an account picked on internet, Titan is a bold person. It is a name destined for greatness, often associated with the film :" Remember The Titans ."
But who are the real Titans ?
While we are not controverting or contesting that Titans have giant strengths and are of immense Godlike nature, the virtues peculiar to them are the ones that have suffered misapplications and misuse.
Before the birth of Jesus Christ, good news, often called Gospel was only to be expected from palaces of kings and royalty. This was why when the Shepherds saw the uncommon stars which signalled the birth of a Messiah, their first port of call was the Palace of King Herod.
That Jesus Christ was however born in a manger , redefined the concept of gospel and changed the whole meaning of the word Titan . Rather than defining it by mere physical heights or academic achievements, the word is more of spiritual and of metaphysical significance.
In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ corrected the concept of Titans as a being measured only by mere physical appearance. He stamped on it the spirituality of a child of God, Peace Maker ,Reconciller and Democrat who understands the meaning of Dividends of democracy.
" Blessed are the Peacemakers : for they shall be called the children of God. " He admonished.
Therefore today's Peacemakers are those who understand and respect the principles of Dividends of democracy while realizing that the essence of true development and democracy fulcrums on the art of Carrying together rather than Carrying Go, with an attitude of Winner-Take-All .
Our world of arbitrariness of language has kept us from knowing the real meaning of Dividends of democracy as we often believe that it revolves only around building of physical bridges instead of building bridges of minds and developing minds.
When one looks at the meaning of the word dividend and juxtaposes it with the meaning of the word herd or herdsman, the idea of Dividends of democracy becomes clear and unambiguous.
Just as the word Dividend means a share which bears same proportion to the whole ,the word Herd means a number of beasts or cattle kept or driven TOGETHER ( with each bearing same proportion to the whole number of beasts kept together. )
It could be likened to a link in a chain having same strength with the entire chain .
If one sheep is lost in a collection of beasts or number of sheep, the herdsman ceases to be called by that name, because it is on the strength of the wholeness of the herds, driven together unbroken, that qualifies it to be called herds or herdsman.
This is why concerning the virtue of a democrat,even as exemplified in the Proverbial story of the Biblical shepherd or true leader ( not a Boss ) a herdsman would leave ninety nine sheep out of one hundred, in search of one that is lost .
Rather than justifying the arithmetical advantages in terms of number of sheep ,99,remaining in the fold ,the true Democrats believe in the need to win back the lost sheep or take care of the opposition, noting that the opposition equally bears same proportion to the whole population of voters he is leading.
Today we are talking of Titanic perspective to Leadership, and not to rulership which often plays God, even,with no sense of moderation.
With the marriage between media and technology, the world has shrunk into a global market, hence the death of Bossism and the yielding of power ( is responsibility) to the true democrat, Leader and Reconciler.
The world of physical giant in the movements of big monuments has yielded space to gigs, ( same family of Titans and giants in gigas; giant) where-in we are now having gigabytes, with a unit capacity equal to 1,024 megabytes.
To know those who are genuinely taking good political lessons from the Sage ,Chief Obafemi Awolowo, they would not be defining themselves as true Awoists through the way they are sheepishly aping and putting on his cap or glasses .
From the Titanic perspective to leadership, it is high time Awolowo's Free Education ( at all levels) programmes graduated to and accommodated Peace Education.
Nothing else we do or tend to accomplish , would matter without Peace .
It is instructive, right from here, even from this juncture , to note that it is never for fun that Aregbesola, right from childhood, had been given to the habit of expressing compassion for the poor, the aged, the needy and other less privileged people. According to the interpretation of his name "AR-RA'UF being a personification of mercy, it has the same meaning as AR-RAHM.
Conversely , and by the implication of his name , Rauf is being admonished
constantly to live by the quality personifying the
attributes of his name and by the virtues of his character
regarding showing pity, compassion and mercy to others.
Just as a Yoruba adage also says that "Oruko ni nro omo" meaning that the child lives in the spirit of his name, Rauf Aregbesola has been living true to the spirit and letters of his name AR-RAUF, even in words and in deeds:
To know how this becomes relevant to Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola ,as a Titan at 66 is to go back to the day he was born, Saturday, May 25, 1957, which was a day of Saturn , being the sixth planet from the sun; a heavenly body revolving round, using a motion of its own among stars.
From all intents and purposes, it was a day of prophecy in which diviners in the clothes of Journalism, had a free day sign-acting in artistry, language-use and in prophetic utterances about leadership in Nigeria.
Certain artistic impression that reportedly aroused the curiosity of newspaper readers on page two of the Daily Times Newspaper on Saturday, May 25, 1957, was the drawing of a SUPERMAN who rode in a car, driven along with about fifteen persons while the inscription accompanying it read :" Superman on his way".
What was strange in the whole episode was that the car whose brand bore no name, conveyed more people than it was designed to carry.
It was as if the newspaper advertisement was being futuristic on such a day which turned out to be a day of prophecy.
From the etymology of the word "SUPERMAN, it means "a man of the people " but as the car was nameless, it stood to reasonable conjecture that the superman was riding in the car of democracy.
If democracy is the form of government in which the sovereign power is in the people's hands, the word sovereignty, which is from popular Latin SUPERANUS is formed from Latin. "Super" could only be genuinely exercised etymologically by a superman.
When in 1957, the artistic drawing on page 2 of the newspaper ,captioned "Superman On his way" became a mystery which made no sense, as it was shrouded in Secrecy, psychics and prophets who knew that the day
was a day of prophecy, understood that in God's own calendar are specific words destined for fulfilment .
In later years, it became apparent that Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola was the 1957 Superman being referred to prophetically , as he is evidently bearing a testimony of Super-manliness .
OLALERE FAGBOLA
