By Tafataona Mahoso

RECONSTRUCTION of the African living law of relations is directly related to the reconstruction of an African living law of value.
Destiny, sovereignty, heritage and legacy cannot be priced on the stock exchange.
In the instalment on pricing versus value (October 24 2014) I asked the question:
“How can real value follow the stock-market index, up-and-down, up-and-down, like a yo-yo?”
Heritage is not a price.
It is a value.
The value of one’s heritage cannot be measured by the jumping index of the stock market or the IMF’s Staff Monitoring Programme (SMP).
The stock market on the one hand represents excessive reliance on fake prices, often driven by speculative rumour; while heritage and legacy are determined by the laws of a people’s relationships under God.
In our history pricing has always been associated with cheating, manipulation, short-cutting, envy, treachery, corruption, instant gratification, game-playing, and the obsession with adversarial relationships.
The replacement of journalism with media has worsened this trend. Any stupid and impulsive opinion can masquerade as representing a national direction as long as it appears in media.
But the recovery of a people’s heritage, the founding of a people’s movement and revolution in pursuit of their destiny, is the long-term succession of generations.
Our ancestors put this well when they said:
“Mai musuwa usikaseiwi mumuto.”
The mother to a child is complete food, needing neither relish nor additives.
“Aparura (kana kutara) gwara rakanaka haatizi naro.”
Do not be envious of those who have shown you the way, after all, they will not disappear with it.
That path will still be there for you even when the pioneering elders are gone.
“Umhandara ishongakamwe, chikuru umai.”
Girlhood is glorious; but motherhood endures.
Motherhood endures and is valued above girlhood because it is the fountain of nation building.
And the Old Testament agrees in Proverbs 13:22: “Mubereki wakanaka anosiira vana vevana vake nhaka yakakwana.”
Living Demonstration
In the current struggle between Russia on one hand and the US, NATO and Europe on the other hand, stock markets showed massive falls in prices of all Russia-related assets as a result of Western sanctions on that country.
And Western media urged Russia to capitulate in response to stocks.
The intention of the US and its allies was to make the price of Russian sovereignty impossible to bear and to intimidate President Vladimir into abandoning Russia’s destiny, sovereignty and legacy, in response to stock market indices driven by Western speculators.
Even worse, the idea was to reduce the Russian leadership to mere managers of prices based on Western speculations about that nation’s future.
Russia instead focused on the long term values and relations at stake; by defying the Western-driven attempts to price sovereignty through sanctions.
Joseph and the fate of Israel
The Old Testament is also a classic source on the living law of relationships and the pursuit of long-term value against countless but temporary setbacks and negative group interests.
Genesis 30, the birth of Joseph to Jacob’s second wife Rachel is associated with the destiny of his people.
It is there that Jacob declares his independence from Laban, the father of his two wives, Leah and Rachel.
Laban had calculated and made Jacob to marry Rachel’s older sister Leah against Jacob’s intentions.
But Jacob decided to comply with Laban’s design and to delay his departure and work an extra seven years in order to be allowed to marry Rachel on top of Leah.
It is the young Joseph, son of the younger wife Rachel, who is chosen by God to see the long term future through his gift of interpreting dreams.
But Joseph’s older brothers are not only involved in managing the here-and-now, their father’s flocks of sheep and camels.
They are also engrossed in managing their feelings of envy, competition and jealousy, especially against Joseph the gifted dreamer.
When Jacob sends Joseph to go and inspect his older brothers who are herding sheep, the majority of the older brothers suggest that they should kill him in order to nullify his vision of the future shown through his dreams.
But one older brother, Reuben, speaks against murdering Joseph and suggests putting him in a dry pit after stripping him of his beautifulrobe. Reuben thinks he can later smuggle the boy safely back to their father and save and sustain the long term value of Joseph’s life as well as the true destiny of the whole people.
But the other brothers are still struggling with their negative feelings and interests against Joseph and Israel’s destiny.
In the absence of Rueben, they take the opportunity to sell Joseph for 20 pieces of silver to Ishmaelite traders travelling to Egypt. When Reuben later goes to the pit with the intention to rescue Joseph and send him to their father, he finds the pit empty.
So a story is made up that Joseph has been eaten by wild animals. The conspiring brothers soak Joseph’s robe in the blood of a lamp and take it to their father as evidence that Joseph has been eaten by wild beasts.
The merchants who purchase Joseph for 20 pieces of silver sell him to the house of Pharaoh. After many trials and tribulations, Joseph is promoted to become Primeminister and Minister of Agriculture in Pharaoh’s government.
During that time a great feminine strikes the entire region, driving Jacob to send Joseph’s brothers to go and buy grain in Egypt.Joseph recognises his elder brothers during their grain-purchasing missions and refuses to avenge their treachery.
Instead, he arranges their relocation to grain-rich Egypt.
Chapter 46 of Genesis records the ultimate reunion of the entire clan, after Joseph has revealed himself and brought his father and the entire family to settle in Egypt and escape starvation.
The entire clan is now at Joseph’s mercy. But Joseph remains focused on the destiny of the whole people.
This reunion and the resettlement of Jacob’s family in Egypt then lays the foundation for the reconstruction of a new nation and a new people through the leadership of Moses, born of one of the houses of Jacob which Joseph invited to settle in Egypt.
The history lesson is clear through this highly abridged story.
Those characters who are engrossed in pricing and managing their personal ambitions, jealousies and interests tend to focus on knee-jerk decisions similar speculative stock-market pricing.
And they think everyone else is driven by the same short-term and selfish interests: Price everything, value nothing. But in reality, all the memorable men and women of destiny in the history of struggle have become so memorable precisely because they made strategic long term leadership decisions concerning the collective fate and destiny of their people, while subduing their own individual ambitions,
jealousies and interests.