Dayo Sobowale argues that religion has a way of interfering with states’ capacity for sustainable growth
The world in recent times has witnessed a spate of global conferences which have highlighted the disparities and economic inequalities plaguing our world today . These conferences have largely called for new rules to redress the imbalance of the present lopsided economic rules that favor the developed world or global north at the expense of the developing or global south . The G 7 , G20 , BRICS , and G77 have all come and gone leaving good food for thought on the economic future of the world . The clear message is that it cannot be business as usual in a world in which the rich nations who call the economic and financial shots get richer and the poor nations continue to linger in poverty and its associated problems and tension of violence and political instability . The climax of these yearly , unending talk shops is the ongoing UN General Assembly in New York from September 19 to September 23 with about 140 world leaders attending.
It is my contention today that history and religion have a lot to do with economic development especially the rapid type we urgently need to redress the economic imbalance in the present world development order . Religion has been branded as the opium of the masses and Napoleon Bonaparte is on record as saying that religion was created by the rich to prevent them being killed by the poor . Neither historical piece is enough to justify persistent poverty of the poor and the glaring , opulence of the rich in spite of the sanctimonious morals of religion or the neglected lessons of history which are being ignored with impunity by those who control the world economic order today . I will use the dialogue and observations from these global events , a comparison of economic growth between China and India and the impact of religion on Nigeria’s 2023 presidential elections to illustrate my own conviction that the present global economic arrangement is exclusive to the west , unjust and unfair to the rest of the world and should be nipped in the bud urgently.
An article by Ashoka Mody , a University of Princeton professor titled ‘ Unlike China India cannot be an economic super power ‘ noted wryly that in the eighties the belief was that India will outpace China in becoming a world power because China would lose economic steam through its authoritarianism and communist ideology . But the opposite has happened because China has invested heavily in human capital development and India has not. Mody quoted a World Bank report that highlighted China’s remarkable strides towards gender equality during the Mao Zedong era . Rather than tax cuts and economic liberalism , the bane of the present World Bank lending conditionality , China under Mao acted on a historical fact confirmed by Brown University economist Oded Galor . That historical fact says ‘ that since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution every instance of economic progress – the crux of which is sustained productivity growth—has been associated with investments in human capital and higher female work force participation’ . In addition China invested heavily in education and health care and is well prepared for future opportunities .Chinese universities are amongst the world’s top 100 with Tsinghua and Peking universities in China among the top 20 .Tsinghua is said to be the world’s leading university for computer science while Peking is ninth . ‘By contrast no Indian university including the celebrated Indian Institute of Technology is ranked amongst the world’ top 100 universities .
My addition to these observations is that China is an atheist state with no room for religion and India is a very religious Hindu nation that revels in squeezing out other religions and has scant regard for gender equality . On that account alone it cannot achieve the same level of sustained productivity growth like China.
It is here that a comparison between Nigeria , India and China comes to mind. This is because Nigeria’s last presidential election was won on a Muslim Muslim ticket in spite of the delicate balance in population between the North and South of the nation and a presumed 50 – 50 balance between Christians and Muslims in the nation . In addition there is an imbalance in educational development in that the North is less advanced than South educationally . This has given rise to institutions like JAMB and the Federal Character Commission to arrest the imbalance . Terrorism especially Boko Haram which says ’No to Western education ‘ however does not allow for the educational gap to narrow between the north and south . Most interesting is that the North has mostly held political power and Northerners mostly Muslims have held power longer in spite of the educational imbalance against the North . Now a Southern Muslim is in power and has brought in meritocracy in appointments which favor the south west his catchment area and there have been loud protests. Especially from Catholic bishops who never liked the Muslim – Muslim ticket and campaigned against it and is still hostile to the government that came out of the victorious arrangement. So in many ways, Nigeria is like Hindu- led India with poor regard for gender equality in improving the work force especially with Boko Haram in the Northeast and poor regard for human capital development because of its reluctance to make education free. China which is atheist and has no qualms about religion is enjoying the benefits of sustainable economic development and is taking on the world hitherto led by the US and its globalized and deeply traumatized democratic system .
sobowale is of arise news
