Quintessential Monu'rabi: Some of my Professors are Monkeys.

According to the Abrahamic faiths, yes all of them, when God created the heavens and the earth and the creatures of the field, He then created man and put him in the garden of Eden with one sole caveat which I shan’t bother to repeat.

Adam, as we all (with the possible exception of Richard Dawkins) know, just couldn’t do as he was told and ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, thereby tainting all of us, forever. Some say that the tasty, irresistible fruit lumbered us with self-awareness, shame, excuses and rationalisations. In Nigeria, we call this “speaking grammar”. More correctly, “speaking too much grammar”. Grammar may alternatively be referred to as “speaking English” or “speaking too much English”.

Monkeys, on the other hand, didn’t have this problem. I dare say it wasn’t because they were better behaved, or more disciplined than Adam, more likely it was just because God hadn’t imposed the forbidden-fruit constraint on them. Therefore monkeys don’t suffer from “speaking too much grammar”. With monkeys, what you see is what you get, and it’s safe to assume that they still dance to the same tune that God intended them to.

Whenever I listen to experts and academics in discourse on any subject, no matter how cunning their rhetoric, you know that speaking grammar is involved and that the “truth” of the matter is inevitably obscured by it. At times like this, I turn to the monkeys. “What would the monkeys do?”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that I necessarily approve of what I think the monkeys would do, BUT, I take their assumed position as ground-zero. That’s the way things were before we came along with our various improvements to the natural order and the laws of natural justice, equity and good conscience.

Science relies on the monkeys too, to give us some insight into what’s right and proper. And, in some cases insight into human social phenomenal that rather defy explanation.

You’ve heard the story of the hundredth monkey, haven’t you? The story is quite likely apocryphal, but goes something like this. On a distant island archipelago in the sea of Japan, scientists were studying a tribe of monkeys called the Makaks. I don’t know if they call themselves that, or whether this is us imposing our grammar upon them. Not important. These monkeys are unique in the monkeyverse, in so much as they have to contend with harsh icy and snowy winters; no other monkeys do. The wintery hardships demand a higher level of creativity from these guys than their cousins in tropical climes.

The Makaks do a lot of cool things. They bathe in hot springs, jacuzzi-style, to keep warm, and they dig the frozen soil to find root vegetables when the summer fruits and nuts are gone. They make out OK. Having said that, eating sandy, gritty, uncooked potatoes, freshly dug up from the ground would be somewhat unpleasant for anyone, wouldn’t you agree? The monkeys thought so, but there wasn’t much they could do about it.

One fine day, however, a young Makak, who we’ll call Kevin to protect his identity, fumbled his potato and dropped it into the bubbling waters of the hot spring. He scrambled to retrieve his prize, and having succeeded in doing so, realised that “washing” his potato significantly improved the eating – at least, so he said. Before long, all the monkeys in the tribe had learned from our young innovator, that it really helps to wash your potatoes.

That Kevin the monkey taught his tribe to wash potatoes is not the phenomenon at the centre of “the Theory of the 100th Monkey”. The phenomenon is that suddenly and spontaneously monkeys hundreds of miles away, on other islands in the archipelago, started to wash their potatoes as well!

The theory of the 100th monkey, teaches us that when a certain “critical mass” is achieved ideas spread spontaneously, somehow! We don’t know how and to so much as attempt to explain would be to resort to speaking too much grammar anyway.

Oh, and before I go, let me say that I’m justly proud of my monkey heritage. Some of my professors are monkeys and if you don’t like it, consider this:

Child: “Father, is it true that man is descended from apes?”
Father, angrily: “You might well be, stupid child. But, I most certainly am not!”

Are we clear? Thanks.

About the Author: Monu

Monu lives in Lagos, Nigeria. A family man, motorcyclist, glider pilot and entrepreneur using technology to help transform the regional economy. A keen observer of cultural diversity.