The Fragility of Truth in the context of Sierra Leone: Based on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's speech

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, one of the most influential writers in the world recently received her 16th honorary doctorate degree from the Catholic University of Louvain. What fascinated me much was her speech that accompanied the honour she received. I have always loved to read her books and listen to her speeches. This is because of her truism in describing social maladies that continue to engulf the world.

I was greatly moved just like ever before by her speech which centred on the theme of the ceremony "La fragilité du vrai" which means in English "The fragility of truth" This title has a solid meaning that envelopes the rock that continues to press the world so hard. The insight I received from her speech is what I would like to narrow it down in the context of Sierra Leone.

La fragilité du vrai is a perfect phrase that captures the attitudinal and behavioural disposition of citizens that is largely skewed toward the dressing of lies, fake faces, and hypocritical citizenry into truth. In our nation today, we have made truth weak, and sometimes, replace it with well-dressed lies. "There is mounting disinformation all over the world with severe consequences for all of us, and today it is easy to dress up a lie so nicely that it starts to take on the glow of the truth." This is the reality of the condescending level of our citizenship. Thus, it is evident in all facets of our sustainable pillars as a nation. This includes social, economic, political, and religious pillars.

When we compromise our academic system into receiving popularity and mere formality we fall victim to what Chimamanda described as the fragility of truth. More sorrowfully, it destroys our developmental strings and sows the seed of future state collapse.

When we compromise our rational endowment, we put at risk the place of truth in our society. Thus, we give preference to individual biases that blind us from acting by the truth.

As citizens, we are responsible for our situation. This is because, we made it so. If we have the power to make truth fragile, weak, and inactive, we should also have the courage to make it prevail. Our educational system continues to become a scam, our religious institutions continue to derail us, our political set-up is that of restless warfare and victimization, and our public institutions are full of inefficiency and connectivity challenges, this Is because we have made truth fragile.

Having listened to her speech, I deduced based on the reality of Sierra Leone that truth in itself is an essence of development. The fact that it brings us to the acceptance of the reality and put to silence our pejorative perceptions on race, gender, ethnicity, party affiliation, and so on, sheds light on the horrors of our darkened life.

As citizens, the nations' credibility and sustainability tie strings on us that are only realized in the domain of truth. Thus, her assertion "We bear obligations as citizens and as human beings cohabiting this earth and those obligations must be based on truth." This point becomes the centre of who we truly are and what we should do.

As citizens, we have made truth fragile by shunning away from our responsibilities. We have made truth fragile by not taking the proper place in our roles as citizens for holistic development. We have also incapacitated truth by blatantly causing harm to our nation either by commission or omission. Furthermore, we make truth fragile when we only look at the negativity of issues and shun the efforts of others. We make truth fragile when we politicize everything at the expense of our development and national inclusion. This tells us that the truth behind national development is active participation at both the macro and micro levels of our existence.

The consequences of the distortion of truth are evident and severe. It has dragged our nation into deeper economic, social, religious, and political decadence. It has made us fall apart and placed human welfare at risk. With our own hands, we have created a nation so fragile, so boring and disgusting, with no promised future. This is because "...when we lose truth, we lose meaning and to live a life without meaning is to exist in a state of utter emptiness." This is the emptiness we are living in as Sierra Leoneans. Since independence, we have always been very good at making truth fragile. We should bear in mind that whenever we make truth fragile, we make our country fragile and empty.