HomeOld_PostsGood speech and conduct in life and politics

Good speech and conduct in life and politics

Published on

THE teachings of Ptahhotep was written at least 2 500 years before Christ.
That makes it the oldest text in the world.
Ptahhotep was 110 years old when he wrote it.
That makes him one of the oldest authors and scholars in the world.
As Dr Hilliard III says, “The system of higher education in Africa, Kmt, provided for a choice of two paths, one sacred, the other secular such as politics.
“Ptahhotep renounced the throne and politics in favour of the priestly calling.
“It was because of the teachings such as Ptahhotep’s that students from all over the world came to Kmt to drink at the fountainhead of African wisdom.
“They included Hebrews, Asians and the greatest known classical scholars of Greece and Rome.”
As Bill Joyner says, “Africans can use these principles as their heritage today to achieve moral and spiritual excellence and uplift the political, social and economic life of their nations.”
The best translations of the text in modern English are by Dr Hilliard III, Larry Williams and Nia Damali.
This is where the following extracts come from.
Ptahhotep says his purpose for writing them was “to use the status that old age affords to teach the hearers so that strife may be banned from among the people and that peace may prevail.”
He then goes on to instruct as follows:
If you want to have a perfect conduct and be free from evil, guard against the vice of greed. Greed is a grievous sickness that has no cure.
There is no treatment for it.
It is a compound of all evils and a bundle of all hateful things.
It parts the wife from the husband.
It embroils everyone in strife.
Only the person whose rule is just and walks a straight line leaves a legacy that will endure.
The greedy has no tomb.
So, do not scheme against people.
People’s schemes do not prevail.
God’s command is what prevails.
What God gives comes by itself.
If you want to endure in the mouth of the hearers, speak after you have mastered the craft. Beware of releasing the restraints in you.
Conceal your heart.
Control your mouth.
Be quite exact before your audience.
Be deliberate when you speak so as to say things that count.
If you meet a disputant, one who is more powerful than you, fold your arms and bend your back. To confront him will not make him agree with you.
Pay no attention to his evil speech.
If you do not confront him while he is raging, people will call him an ignoramus.
Your self-control will be the match for his evil utterances.
If you meet a disputant, one who is your equal, one who is on your level, you will overcome him by being silent while he is speaking evilly.
There will be much talk among those who hear and your name will be held in high regard among the great.
If you meet a disputant, who is a poor man, and is not your equal, do not attack him because he is weak.
Leave him alone.
He will confound himself.
Do not answer him just to relieve your own heart.
Wretched is he who injures a poor man.
If you ignore him listeners will wish to do what you want.
You will beat him through their reproof.
If you are a man who leads, a man who controls the affairs of many, then seek the most perfect way of performing your responsibility so that your conduct will be blameless.
Great is the man who follows the path of truth, justice and righteousness.
These are everlasting values.
They are not changed by time.
To put obstacles on their path is to open a way to a condition of violence.
If you are a person of trust sent by one great person to another great person, be careful to stick to the essence of the message that you were asked to transmit.
Give the message exactly as he gave it to you.
Guard against provocative speech which makes one great person angry with another.
Just keep to the truth.
Do not exceed it.
If there was an outburst in the message, you should not repeat it.
Report the thing that you were commissioned to report without error.
If you are fluent in your speech, it should not be hard for you to report.
As to the authorities, their affairs will fail if they punish you for reporting the truth.
If you are a man who leads, a man whose authority reaches widely, then you should do perfect things which posterity will remember you by.
Don’t listen to the words of flatters or to words that puff you up with vanity.
If you are mighty and powerful then gain respect through knowledge and gentleness of your speech.
Don’t order people around except where it is fitting.
Don’t be haughty lest you be humbled.
If you are an official of high standing, and you are commissioned to satisfy the many, then hold to a straight line.
When you speak, don’t lean to one side or to the other lest someone complain that you are unjust and your deeds turned into a judgment against you.
The heart of the wise matches his tongue.
His lips are straight when he speaks.
The wise have eyes that are made to see and ears that are made to hear what will profit posterity. The wise person acts with justice, truth and righteousness.
He is free of falsehood and disorder.
Hearing is useful to one who hears.
The fool who does not hear looks at ignorance and sees knowledge.
He looks at harmfulness and sees usefulness.
He lives on the things by which one dies.
People who know him say, “There goes a living death.”
Good speech and wisdom are more hidden than emeralds.
Yet they may be found among maids at the grindstones.
So, don’t be proud and arrogant with your knowledge.
No one is born wise.
Consult and converse with the ignorant and the wise, for the limits of art are not reached.
“A man with wisdom is better off than a man with any amount of charm and superstition,” says an African proverb.
So, “Let your life be an example and live justly and wisely,” says Bill Joyner.
“For, if justice remains a firm foundation, our posterity will prosper.”

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest articles

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

The contentious issue of race

 By Nthungo YaAfrika AS much as Africans would want to have closure to many of...

More like this

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

Discover more from Celebrating Being Zimbabwean

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading