My name is Franklin Mukakanga of the Ila Tribe of Southwest Zambia. I represent the WTM Centre
in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka.
In October 2016 (which is about 3 months ago now), I downloaded 'FREEDOM: The End Of The
Human Condition' from the WTM’s website after coming across an online advertisement
offering a free copy. As it turns out, FREEDOM is biologist Jeremy Griffith’s definitive
work on the human condition.
Anyway, within 5 weeks I had devoured the book from ‘cover’ to ‘cover’, as well
as a lot of his earlier writing, and found his explanation of the human condition not
only answered so many questions about us as a species but also explained me as an individual
in ways that nothing else had done before—and it did this so thoroughly that it completely
rewired my understanding of the world and immediately began stilling my mind and healing
my soul.
FREEDOM deals with subjects as diverse as why we as a species are so divisive and destructive;
how and why we adopt the way of living that inevitably leads us to being egotistical and
hungry for fame and glory; why the sexes are at war; why the different ‘races’ or people
groups of the world are so different and interact the way they do; the origin, nature, purposes
and roles of religion and science and how they fit into the human journey; the path
to reconciliation of ourselves with ourselves and the wider world. This seminal work inspired
such a regeneration within me and sparked such hope for humanity’s future that I could
not sit on the sidelines and watch humanity hurtle towards self-destruction anymore.
Finally I had the answer to my own, and the world’s, troubled situation. The answer
that, though challenging and potentially confronting, as all truth must be, was, at the same time,
transforming. I started sharing what I’d learned with my friends, my colleagues, even
my children. The lights I saw coming on in their eyes as they grasped the understandings
and the deep changes taking place within them and myself as a result of coming into contact
with this information inspired me to open a World Transformation Movement Centre in
Lusaka. If everyone could get this reconciling understanding, we could restore humanity’s
alienated soul and save the human race from destroying itself. I had to do my part!
In working as part of the WTM I am helping to bring true healing and transformation to
the world, most especially to Africa, where I live, where the ravages of poverty, HIV
and inequality make life a living hell for the vast majority of people; and where the
struggle to make sense of our lot leads to such despondency and dysfunction. Knowledge
is power. And no knowledge is more powerful than self-knowledge.
As a Bantu, or African, man born and living in a country once colonised by the British,
like so many, I had no love for the Caucasian race.
I did not hate them. I just hated what they had done and continue to do to my people in
the process of bringing us ‘civilisation’.
It was incredible then to read Jeremy’s compassionate, first-principle based explanation
of the differences between the races. I learnt that these differences exist because each
race has had a different level of exposure to humanity’s psychologically upsetting,
but heroic search for self-understanding. And it’s these different degrees of exposure
that have directed the ways in which different races behave, both amongst themselves and
towards others. Well, when I learnt this, all the negative feelings I had harbored for
many, many years about the more ‘upset’ races from more advanced civilisations (such
as the Caucasians) immediately melted away.
Jeremy had so fully and accountably explained our racial differences that it healed my inner
resentment of ‘colonising Brits’ and by extension, of the Caucasian race and others,
cutting like a hot knife through butter. It even made me aware of my own race’s oppression
of other races such as the !Kung Bushmen.
From my own experience I can thus say with absolute certainty that, as the word gets
out, FREEDOM will provide the key to healing poor or strained ‘race relations’ throughout
the world. Basically, this understanding of the human condition will end all prejudices,
like racism, forever. It is so exciting to think about what the world is going to be
like when this understanding becomes widely known and understood because it is going to
bring about a world that is harmonious, healed and transformed, which is the glorious home
our species deserves at the end of its journey to self-understanding.
FREEDOM is a phenomenal, far-reaching work whose value, especially at this point in Earth’s
history, cannot be overstated and I am excited about being a part of the WTM’s momentous
project.