Dismantling Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) Ideology
Man's actions are always bound within the parameters of purposiveness or what we call teleology in philosophical language. Now, in my own assessment, the Impetus of BBI seems dangerous, unsafe and problematic. BBI is a conundrum that is supposed to be eschewed at all cost. Clifford's principle states that "it is wrong always, everywhere and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." For to have sufficient evidence of a belief, one ought to have sufficient evidence of sufficient evidence of a belief. BBI does not meet the requirements of Clifford's Principle. Quantitatively and qualitatively speaking, Kenyan people have no sufficient evidence of what BBI aims at. Kenyans do not know the problem that BBI intends to solve. Now, you cannot tell us that BBI is the solution of our problem yet you have not stated the problem sufficiently. This is what makes BBI a remote thing.
Now, in my academic endovours, have always stated that that philosophy of any country must be influenced by its historical and cultural framework. Therefore any ideology that is not deeply rooted in the history and culture of the people, it brings disorder, perplexity, and social schizophrenia.
To substantiate the claim stated above, ideology cannot be copied from one country and pasted in another country due to the principle stated below. Ideology must be generated from a particular history and culture to serve a definite purpose in a limited space and time. This means that when copied and pasted in another society, it automatically suffocates due to strange and unconducive ambiance which it was not created for.
African society (Kenya included) today suffers under-development because after independence, political systems of the colonial master such as education, constitutions, democracy etc were largely inherited. The colonial master created these political ideologies to suit his economic advantage.
In Kenya particularly, the constitutions that we have is purely American, education system is British. The American developed their constitutions out of what their culture is all about. They developed it to govern themselves considering the problems of their time and space. Funny enough, we copied and pasted in our country. The question is, is our constitution meant to govern Kenyans or Americans? On the other side, any education system is meant to solve the problems in a limited time and space. The British constructed their education system to solve their problems. Our government copied and pasted in Kenyan land. The question is, does our education system solve the problems of Kenyan people or British? It does not, because it was meant to solve the problems in a limited time and space; the British society.
My point is that Africa must first study her culture and history, and develop ideology that serves her needs if at all social order and development is the case.
BBI aims at amending the constitutions. The point is this, the constitution in use is American, it was developed to govern the American society not Kenyan society. Let us study our society, our culture and identify our problems and then develop ideologies from what we are. Amending the constitution will not help us. Let us develop our own constitutions and education system if we want to govern ourselves and serve our purposes.
