Transhumanism and Emerging Technologies: Hopes, Promises and Possibilities for People with Disability in Africa -By Leo Igwe

Transhumanism is a cultural movement predicated on using technologies to address and overcome human limitations, including morbidity and mortality. Transhumanism draws its visions from technological tendencies and possibilities, from advancements in robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnologies. Technological applications are having profound effects on human beings; they are alleviating human suffering as we know it. Transhumanists believe technologies can and will augment human intelligence, improve human abilities and capabilities, often encumbered by diseases, aging, and death. Technologies will transform human beings, leading to the emergence of transhuman/superhuman and posthuman.

Particularly, emerging technologies hold the possibility of curing disability as we know it, and ushering in some exciting futures for humanity. This possibility provides a compelling basis for hope and optimism in the face of gloom and despair for amputees, and people living with disabilities and their families. A part of the world that urgently needs the positive outlook and optimism that transhumanism promises, is Africa. I will use a few cases from Nigeria to illustrate this need.

The first case is that of Adamu, a young man from Gombe in northern Nigeria. Adamu’s hands were amputated after the uncle falsely accused him of stealing a phone. He tied Adamu up and left him in the house for hours. Later in the day, the uncle untied Adamu but the hands could no longer function. Adamu was taken to a local hospital and doctors amputated him. For most people in Nigeria, Adamu’s fate has been sealed. He would live and die a double amputee, a ‘disabled’ person. Adamu would never get to handle anything, make a phone call, or wear his clothes for the rest of his life. Like most amputees, and people living with disability in Nigeria, Adamu would spend the rest of his life begging on the streets, or dependent on his relatives to do basic duties like brushing his mouth, eating, taking his bath, going to the toilet, and carrying out other tasks. His family members will try and support him for a while, and at some point, they will abandon him to die.

Another case is that of Lawali Isa from Zamfara in northern Nigeria. Zamfara is one of the states in Nigeria where Islamic law is enforced. Amputation is a form of punishment under sharia law. In 2001, a Sharia court convicted Isa of theft. State officers took him to Gumi General Hospital, where doctors cut off his right hand from the wrist. Many victims of judicial sharia and extra-judicial sharia amputations live in northern Nigeria. Others are in Mali, Somalia, and other Muslim-majority countries where state or non-state actors enforce Islamic law. These amputees have resigned to fate, to suffering and living the rest of their lives without functional legs and hands.

In this category are children with disabilities as illustrated in the case of Deborah, a child with Down syndrome from Calabar in Southern Nigeria. Deborah’s father, a pastor, accused her of witchcraft, claiming she used to turn into a snake. The father subsequently murdered her. Many parents and families demonize children with disabilities. They regard children with Down syndrome as a curse and secretly kill them or abandon them to die because of the stigma linked to disability, and the notion that caring for them is a waste of resources.

Transhumanism, driven by the transformative visions and possibilities of emerging technologies, provides some hope for amputees and people living with disabilities in Africa. Despite doomsday projections and scary scenarios of nay-sayers and critics of transhumanism, amputees, and people living with disability have reasons to be optimistic about the future because emerging technologies have the potential of curing disability.

With the advancement of technologies, transhumanists envision that the deaf would hear, the blind would see, the lame would walk, and the dead would resurrect. Transcendental imaginaries would become realities. Human enhancement using technologies is no longer a form of science fiction but an existential fact, a realizable feat. Technologies have made religious fantasies real possibilities for all humans. In the cases of Adamu, Isa, and other victims of amputation, there is real hope that their hands would be restored. That technological engineering would yield functional hands and legs that they could use to perform tasks sometimes better and more efficiently than normal human hands.

At the moment, some prosthetics help amputees regain their mobility. Adamu and Isa could use ‘bioelectric’ hands to regain their ability to handle and hold things and carry out other functions. It is pertinent to note that, in the spectrum of technological promises and possibilities, prosthetics and bioelectric might soon become obsolete. In no distant future, they could be considered primitive because there are ongoing experiments on growing heart cells and tissues in the laboratory. So, soon, it will be possible to ‘grow’ cells and tissues for the formation of ‘hands and legs’ in laboratories.

In addition, transhumanism provides additional reasons why parents who have children with down syndrome or other forms of disability need not worry or despair. Africans should not demonize, or stigmatize these children because intellectual disability, like other disabilities, can technologically be fixed or cured. Families should desist from accusing, abusing, or secretly murdering these innocent humans because transhumanists envision using technologies to realize cognitive enhancement or genetically engineered solutions. Advances in neurosciences envision the improvement of brain functionality and human behaviour. One possibility is that some chips can be implanted to augment their cognitive abilities, and get these children to function and perform tasks like other humans or beyond humans.

Incidentally, these transhumanist promises are still distant possibilities for most amputees and people with disability in Africa. A lot needs to be done to make them a part of their everyday reality. There is a need for a cultural shift in the perception of people with disability. Africans need to humanize and not demonize or dehumanize persons with down syndrome and other disabilities. Africans should begin to see people with disability as those with limitations that can be overcome, not those with curses and ill luck who should be killed or eliminated from society.

People of Africa should realize that technologies can fix or cure disabilities. That this idea is not a mere abstraction, or some utopia. African governments should invest in emerging technological goods, research, and development in artificial intelligence, nanotechnologies, and genetic engineering. They should contribute to funding cutting edge research programs in universities so that they can readily partake in the gains and discoveries. African governments should make emerging technological goods accessible and affordable for all amputees and people with disabilities. African schools, colleges and universities should ensure that transhumanism, and posthumanism become potent features of African thought, culture, and education.

Leo Igwe is a scholar with a research interest in transhumanism and religion