THE wheel of a car is moved by a system of shafts and joints that mimic the legs of mammals.
The rotation of these shaft and joints is identical to that of a person’s legs pushing on peddles to ride a bicycle.
Even an aeroplane’s mechanics are based on the physical structure of actual birds with the head, wings, tail and the wheels as legs.
The gliding techniques, the adjusting of the wings and the moving of the rear to control direction and speed are all observable in flying birds.
The laws of nature are fixed and if one can decipher the means by which animals move and birds fly, and successfully mimic these properties with non living matter, then mechanisation will be achieved. Even the early inventions like cups were simply the mimicking of a cupped hand which was the earliest means by which mankind drank water.
The earliest cars were carts that were pulled by horses and rickshaws that were pulled by men.
This animal and man power was replaced by engines which again mimic the internal systems of living organisms.
This is why a vehicles’ potential strength is still known as horse power.
The horse drank water and ate grass for energy to pull the cart and likewise the engine needs water and fuel to power the car.
Science is the quest to understand the environment in which we live and after doing so, there is no limit to what mankind can invent.
Africans were so surprised at the inventions of the West because we were never in need of anything unnatural.
Africa was, and continues to be, blessed with numerous living organisms that we tamed and made use of from long ago.
In times of war, blacks like Hannibal of North Africa used elephants and Theodore the 2nd of Ethiopia used lions.
These animals have the ability to understand exactly what the human wants if they are trained just like the horse and the dog. We used cattle to cultivate, dogs for security, cocks as alarms and such was our technology, not machinery.
The places that were not so abundant in these natural labour sources were forced by necessity to mimic our God-given wealth with fire and metal.
Now, an African will opt to use the electric mill instead of the traditional duri which was used in ancient times to pound grains. This is because machines replace manpower. But does this make machines better?
Machinery comes with a cost of land degradation and pollution.
Land is drilled to access fossil fuels which are at present the most commonly used fuel sources for machines.
Pollution is caused by the burning of the fossil fuels which cause the emission of hazardous fumes like carbon monoxide.
Using the duri to mill corn and the guyo to make peanut butter meant only the burning of human calories and the falling of sweat.
This is in no way harmful to the environment but is actually healthy for the human being.
Again, because the West has no abundant fossil fuel and metal resources, carbon-based machinery has driven them to colonise and make war with the countries of Africa and the Middle East.
Nowadays people favour walking instead of driving.
As a result of people’s preference to machines, laziness and subsequent disease have plagued the modern generation. It is important to note that before the machines of the West were invented, it was black slavery which was at play.
Blacks were continually trying to find ways to make their burden of slavery lighter and they were motivated to make and improve tools.
Only when the whites had become prosperous and their produce excessive could they begin participating in tertiary activities like industry, banking and insurance.
The approach of China towards development is very practical.
They are not limited by Western standards but they think outside the box in their attempts to solve their own problems.
For example; riding a train from south China to Hainan Island, I was wondering how we were going to cross the Sea.
The Chinese simply put the train in the same ship we were boarding and connected that same train to a railway line on the island.
They have mastered mechanics and use it as they please.
The Chinese thus have their own way of navigating the seas, venturing in space and other things without having to copy the West. But if there is something working in the West, they do not hesitate to use it.
During the Opium wars, China realised that the Westerners were outdoing them in battle because of guns.
They quickly learnt the mechanics behind guns and added them to their indigenous artillery comprising swords, spears, bows and arrows.
Yes, the Chinese were the inventors of gunpowder but they did not call it gunpowder and did not use it for killing.
The Chinese called it huoyao which literally means fire medicine.
They used it for fireworks and exploding the earth in the field of mining.
But when they realised the modern use of their fire medicine by the Barbarians, they upgraded their knowledge to suit the time and situation.
The Chinese use their own writing and language. Learning complex fields such as mathematics and science with a foreign tongue is very limiting and the contrary is very empowering. Whatever one learns in his own tongue becomes like his own.
They simplified the classical Chinese characters but still make use of the old ones in places like Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
The simplification was to allow people to write faster.
The new characters are based on the old but they incorporated phonetics to help express their language to Westerners who make use of the English alphabet.
They also switched their writing from right and going down to from left and going right so as to adapt to the modern world standards.
This shows that the Chinese indeed retain their own and absorb other peoples’ systems as long as they are good and efficient.
They kept their beliefs and instead of celebrating Christmas and Easter, they observe the Spring festival, Grave sweeping and so on.
They mark their dates with the Western calendar which has Roman roots in Pope Gregory but still observe and set their dates of festivals with the traditional lunar calendar.
The Chinese are proud of their culture and treasure traditional arts like martial arts (Wushu), the Chinese opera, calligraphy and so on.
They have not compromised their identity in order to fit in and we should emulate this because it is the source of their strength.
They navigate their seas and invest a lot of manpower and machinery to monitor potential threats like the US navy which is present and close to China’s southern seas. They quell poaching and prevent invasion by so doing.
The Chinese are not against Western medicine but they prefer their own traditional medicine.
Like African medicine, the Chinese healers only used natural sources like roots, herbs, bark and so on to make medicine.
The Chinese traditional healers are actually certified doctors with competitive stores in which they sell their concoctions just like pharmacies.
They still practice massage, acupuncture and meditative healing; things they did not learn from the West but inherited from their ancestors.
Africans ought to partake of the same programme of modernising what they already understood.
It is one thing knowing and understanding foreign religions but to completely abandon one’s own for a foreigner’s is a cultural uprooting.
Whatever is good in our own culture should be retained and whatever is good in others should be absorbed.
This has worked very efficiently for China since the days of Deng Xiaoping who pioneered the ‘Opening up of China’ policy (Gaigekaifang) which laid down the blueprint for the modern China we see today.