Category Archives: African Transformation

May 26 2012

5000 Blog Hits: A Toast to Destiny!

When I felt compelled, ten years ago, to cancel that flight just four days from date of departure, I should have known I was being set up. Like everyone else, I wanted to immigrate to the UK and make my ‘pound’ of fortune. I had even dropped out of university, intending to carry on when I got there. It was a perfectly logical move considering that virtually all my siblings and their families lived there. But it was not meant to be. And the question I had at the time was why I could not bring myself to do this. This was an all expenses paid relocation, not even a cent was required from me, so why did I feel this check in my spirit?

Well I know now. One word. Destiny. And this blog had a lot to do with me discovering my destiny, which explains why I am writing an article in celebration of 5000 hits. Oh I am so excited! Let me explain.

When I started this blog, it was really out of curiosity to find out what blogging was all about, so I decided to write a couple of articles centred around what mankind could do to alleviate undesirable conditions, to promote growth and development and also to inculcate a sense of purpose, vision and destiny in the minds of people, particularly within the African context. That was as far as I could see at the time!

Talent vs. Purpose

I have always known I was a talented writer because I wrote my first book, called Dracula at the age of seven, complete with pictures! By the time I was in grade 7, I had written a full fledged thriller novel. Along the way I notched up a couple of impressive accolades as well. At that time talent was at work. I had no clue what I wanted to do with my talent nor why it had been given to me. I certainly never imagined that my talent was the one thing that would eventually open the door to my destiny.

As I continued writing on this blog, I became more aware of the issues I was writing about and realised that I had created a platform for myself and others to share our views and hopefully change a few mindsets. But I also realised that I needed to start thinking about the need to dispense my thoughts, philosophies, faith and all things related through a formal structure so that instead of just writing about them, I start adding actions and implementing my solutions.

In retrospect, I realize that it was at this point that I transcended talent and walked into my purpose; the true purpose for my talent and for the blog. It was all meant to make me a change agent. Writing on my blog revealed my purpose but more of that later.

Exercise Your Gift in Love

The point I am driving home is that if you are determined to establish your purpose and destiny but cannot seem to figure them out, the best starting point is to do what you love. You are not necessarily doing this for the money; you are just doing something you know you are talented at and that you love. Start doing that very thing. If you stick at it long enough you will begin to discover that your eyes will be opened to how you can use your talent to develop your purpose. Once you have established your purpose, it will then take you to your destiny. This is very important.

A Toast to Destiny

So I had become very clear about my purpose in life. It didn’t matter what I did or where I did it and who I did it for; the bottom line is I knew I was born to change the game and to inspire others to change their own game through the sum total of my work. This was my purpose and this is still my purpose in life; to change the game and to raise game changers. That can be broken down into different sections but I will not go into that. I am just trying to make a point.

As I began to think of ways to implement and live out my purpose using, not just my writing talent but every other talent I had, I became aware that I had to move on from purpose to destiny. I knew my talents. I knew why I was here. But where was I going? What was my destiny?

Game Changers

It was then that I decided to found an organisation called Game Changers for purposes of facilitating my destiny. Game Changers is my destiny because through the work I am doing and that I will continue to do using it as a vehicle, I will utilize all my talents, my knowledge, experiences and wisdom undergirded by purpose to live out my vision of changing the game, inspiring and raising game changers.

Game Changers is not my career; it is my destiny. There is a big difference between the two. A career is what pays your bills. Destiny is what you were created for; the sum total of your talents, abilities and efforts all bound together by your purpose in this life. When you are living out these things fully, you are living in destiny.

I see an opportunity to bring answers to Africa’s needs, particularly with regards to poverty eradication and economic transformation.

Game Changers’ Philosophy

My philosophy is that in order to see this kind of transformation, which should establish Africa as a prosperous continent, we need to change the way we think, one person at a time, particularly at the very influential levels.

We start of by developing people personally so that they are liberated from a poverty mentality and start believing in themselves instead of waiting for politicians to set them free. This is called Personal Development. Politicians are no better than the rest of us; they are just elected people but they are the same people we grew up with. How do they suddenly hold the answers to every problem we have? See my point? What they need, together with the rest of us is Leadership Development. This means we develop and propagate leaders out of ordinary people in addition to  teaching people the mechanics of leadership. There is a difference between Leader Development and Leadership Development.

As people begin to take charge of their lives at the spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical levels, and as they train themselves to exercise leadership over their finances, careers, social responsibilities and organisations that they lead, we will begin to see a move towards a prosperity mentality.

Tied to these is the need to observe and uphold Human Rights and Good Governance. You can’t have good governance without upholding human rights; it would be an oxymoron. A good government upholds human rights, particularly the sanctity of life. As good governance flourishes and the citizens of a nation are developed in their thinking and leadership philosophy, we will witness more entrepreneurial activity which eventually leads to economic transformation. Just create a conducive atmosphere where people are not afraid to pursue entrepreneurial projects in anticipation of monetary gains and Entrepreneurial Economic Transformation will flourish.

As we develop at every area, the net result is that African Transformation will take place. There is no African Transformation without African Prosperity; that would be false transformation.

So Bon Voyage

This is my own story; what is yours? As you read, it really all started with just a talent which led me to my purpose, which then took me to my destiny. I feel like I have just started my life in earnest.

So bon voyage as you seek out your own destiny but remember it all starts with doing what you love, what you are gifted at and before long your purpose will be revealed and it will take you straight to your destiny!

And to every reader who has ever placed a hit on my blog and thus helped me achieve my goal, a heartfelt thank you for your support. I wish you all the best in your own endeavors.

Apr 23 2012

African Transformation III: The Case for Change

So, having researched and acknowledged the myriad of challenges Africa faces, we have to start asking ourselves this question. Can the face and story of Africa be changed and if yes, why do we say so? And that is the question to be answered before we get to the how part.

I believe that the story of Africa can be changed and is changing. There is anecdotal empirical evidence of this change throughout the African continent but that will not do the whole continent any good if that positive change affects those few bright spots. Africa must needs be transformed as a whole for us to proclaim total liberation and success from our painful past.

I did a bit of research about nations that have changed and how they did it. I must say I was pleasantly surprised at how possible it is to be transformed from a nation of poverty to one of prosperity. That alone gives me hope before we even get to the more intricate issues of the African resilience, endurance and survival instinct in the face of formidable challenges.

So let’s begin.

The Korean Case

One of the most intriguing but tragic stories of our time is that of the Korean people. It is important to note that the Koreans were really one people sharing 5000 years of history and culture, who became victims of a proxy war between the Capitalits and the Communists.

According to Wikipedia, “The Korean War was primarily the result of the political division of Korea by an agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War at the end of World War II. The Korean peninsula was ruled by the Empire of Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II. Following the surrender of the Empire of Japan in September 1945, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th parallel, with U.S. military forces occupying the southern half and Soviet military forces occupying the northern half. The failure to hold free elections throughout the Korean Peninsula in 1948 deepened the division between the two sides; the North established a communist government, while the South established a capitalist one.”

So that’s how one people became divided into two mortal enemies to the present day.

In his book, “The Shackled Continent” Robert Guest paints a horrendous picture of the dire straits Korea found itself in.
“Korea, for example, was annexed by Japan in 1910 and freed only when America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While they ruled Korea, the Japanese colonists tried to destroy the local culture and to cow the population into servitude. They banned the Korean language, barred from universities and systematically desecrated the country’s most sacred hilltop shrines. They shipped young Korean men to Japan to provide forced labour in mines and munitions factories, or conscripted them to serve the Imperial army. They drafted more than 100,000 Korean women, some as young as twelve to serve as sex slaves in military brothels. And the ordeal did not end with liberation. Soon after the colonists left, Korea was plunged into a civil war that cost a million lives and split the country in two.”

That really is a tragic story but here is the interesting thing; at the end of the Korean Civil War in 1953, South Korea was as poor as Ghana, which declared independence from Britain in 1957. As at 2004, South Korea was twenty times richer than Ghana. Just fifty years made that much difference!

The point I am trying to make is that no matter how oppressed and plundered we might feel as Africans, we have no excuse for not rising out of the ashes and quickly too. It’s really up to us to formulate policies and implement programs that are carefully thought out and that can bring true transformation to our continent. The South Koreans did it.

Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore are all ex-colonies of Japan that have gone on to become spectacular success stories. What is our excuse?

What is even more interesting is that fifty years after the end of the Korean civil war, South Korea is at least ten times richer than North Korea. The problems of North Korea are well publicized; famine, hunger, dictatorship and the list goes on. While South Korea adopted a Capitalist approach, North Korea adopted Communism and the results are there for all to see. Whether Communism or Capitalism works is neither here nor there.

Whether in Africa, Europe or Asia, ultimately, it is in the power of citizens to pull themselves out of the quagmire of failure and into prosperity through the kind of philosophy, values and culture that they inculcate into their thinking and implement.

Congruently, change is possible in Africa but we have to change the way Africa thinks.

The Case of East and West German

As a result of the Cold War, Germany was split into East and West. Fifty years later, West German was four times richer than East Germany.

The Case of Botswana and Zambia

At independence in 1960, Zambia was Africa’s second richest country and Botswana had virtually nothing until the discovery of diamonds after independence in 1967.
Nationalization of copper mines and bad economic policies resulted in Zambians progressively becoming poorer after independence as compared to before.

“When diamonds were discovered in 1967, a year after independence, Botswana was among the ten poorest countries in the world. Now, because it supplies 22% of the world’s total output (in value) of rough diamonds, it is a middle-income country with a GDP of nearly $14,000 a head at purchasing-power parity. Diamonds produced by Debswana, a joint venture between Botswana’s government and De Beers, the world’s biggest rough-diamond trading company, account for a third of the country’s GDP, half of its public spending and three-quarters of its foreign earnings.” http://www.economist.com/node/14707287

And it can be argued that the secret was good governance and efficient fiscal and monetary policy implementation.
So there we have it; two countries in Southern Africa with completely different economic trajectories. I know this is a very simplistic view of the issue but globally it supports my argument that through implementation of sound policies, the story of Africa can change.

The Case of Israel

As late as the 1940s, Jews had no country of their own. They were scattered throughout the world and in most cases were not wanted there.
In order to fully comprehend the miracle of the resurrection of Israel, we have to take a crash course in the history of its troubled past.
According to the Torah, God promised land to the three Patriarchs of the Jewish people, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. On the basis of scripture, the period of the three Patriarchs has been placed somewhere around 2000 years BC.

The first Kingdom of Israel was established around the 11th century BC. Subsequent Israelite kingdoms and states ruled intermittently over the next four hundred years.

After the fall of the Northern Kingdom, the Muslims conquered and occupied Israel for a period of over 1500 years. After that, the region came under Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Sassanid, and Byzantine rule. In the year 635, the region, including Jerusalem, was conquered by the Arabs and was to remain under Muslim control for the next 1300 years. Control of the region transferred between the Umayyads, Abbasids, and Crusaders throughout the next six centuries, before being conquered by the Mamluk Sultanate, in 1260. In 1516, the region was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, and remained under Turkish rule until the 20th century.

Because of persecution and rejection wherever they went, Jews longed to return to the land of their inheritance. The nation of Israel was indeed founded but not before the Holocaust claimed over 3 million Jewish lives. To fully understand this atrocity and its effect on the Jewish nation, consider that the population of Israel stands at just over 7 million today. You can be sure in the 1940s, it was a lot less.

On 29 November 1947 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union as Resolution 181 (II).

On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency declared, “the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel”

In 60 years, Israel has had to endure 7 wars including one a day after declaring independence. But just 60 years later Israel has risen to become the regional superpower in the Middle East, is a nuclear power and is at the forefront of technological advancement.
Israel is producing the highest number of patented innovations annually in the world, more than twice what even the USA is producing. All the big technology companies want to be or are in Israel, including Google, Microsoft and Intel. Even warren Buffet, the apostle of risk aversion and one of the wealthiest men in the world has invested in Israel.

Just sixty years to establish a country from scratch to a success story the world over!

Conclusion

I believe I have made my point.

To change Africa, we have to change the individual blocks building it; yours and my country. If we can change our way of thinking as blocks building individual countries, we know the transformation of Africa has started in earnest.

Many countries have changed their story. A people, based on attitude, culture and ideology,can either harm or enhance the destiny of their nation. Africa’s countries are no exception.

The call is for citizens to seek greater participation in influencing policies that shape the future of their nations instead of leaving it to politicians. A lot is at stake here. If we can transform first, countries and second regional blocks, we can, third, transform Africa.

South Koreans changed their story out of the ashes of civil war. West Germany is presently Europe’s economic superpower. Botswana is one of the most stable countries in world. Israel has built a superpower out of nothing in just 60 years and South Africa has cast aside the throngs of apartheid and maintains its status as the economic powerhouse of Africa, contributing more than a quarter to Africa’s Gross Domestic Product and leaving the rest of the 50 plus nations to share the balance.

Africa can be changed. But our countries need to change first. And for them to change, Africans need to change the way we think.
What happens at the microcosm can be projected and can happen at the macrocosm.

Mar 14 2012

Stop This Man: Joseph Kony

It’s not every day that you meet a person fighting for no discernible cause in the most violent and despicable of ways. Sometimes you hear the most absurd reasons for launching an insurgence but there is one guy I just cannot figure what his agenda is and why he has chosen to implement the methods of warfare he uses. His name is Joseph Kony.

The Facts

Joseph Kony carries the notorious dishonour of being the first man ever to be indicted by the International Criminal Court in 1995 for crimes against humanity.

On his watch, hundreds of thousands of people, among them women and children have been killed. Kony and his thugs, going by the name the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have raped and mutilated civilians, abducted more than thirty thousand children to be used as child soldiers in the case of young boys and sex slaves in the case of young girls. Some of them are also used in rituals. The LRA is notorious for slicing off ears, noses, lips and chopping off hands of victims.

These victims are totally defenceless as they are civilians. On many occasions, would be peace brokers have tried in vain to understand just what it is this man is fighting for. His answer? The implementation of the Ten Commandments in Uganda. So he is fighting for the implementation of the Ten Commandments by going against everything the same Ten Commandments teach. This man is nothing more than a demented psychopath!

What makes this man so evil is his preference for abducting children. Is it because they are the most vulnerable? The most defenceless? The most pliable, mentally? The least likely to escape? Maybe. But why force them to kill their own parents?

The Machine Gun Preacher

Machine Gun Preacher is a movie detailing the story of a man called Sam Childers, who left a prospering construction business to rescue and nurture LRA abducted children in Southern Sudan. Sam had lived a life of violence, drug abuse, drug dealing and sleeping with married women all at a young age. In the early 90s he gave his life to Christ and in 1992 in an Assemblies of God Church meeting, his Pastor prophesied that he was going to Africa.

That prophecy came true in 1998 when he visited a village called Yei in Southern Sudan to help repair huts damaged during the ongoing Second Sudanese War.

Returning several months later, he established a mobile clinic in Yei. Seeking to fulfil God’s call on his life, Sam built an orphanage in a warzone along the Ugandan border in a village called Nimule. With the orphanage finished, Sam began to conduct armed raids into LRA territory to rescue abducted children from the jaws of hell.

13 years later the orphanage has rescued and raised over 1000 orphans.

Gerald Butler stars as Sam Childers in this movie based on Sam Childer’s Biography, Another Man’s War.

The Contrast

One man’s mission is to plunder, kill, destroy, rape and mutilate hundreds of thousands of fellow Africans and an American comes to the scene with no direct obligation whatsoever to those civilians yet takes this cause upon himself even to the point of risking his own life to rescue these war victims. The contrast could not be starker.

About three years ago, I wrote about this issue under the topic “Statistically Insignificant” on this blog. I said then that what was needed to remedy that environment of despair in Africa was for humanity to take this cause of ensuring the upholding of human rights seriously. One unnecessary death in one death too many. One rape, especially child rape is one rape too many. One child soldier is one child soldier too many. We cannot afford to fold our arms and just feel sorry when lives are at stake. You can read the article here:

http://raymondkasinganeti.com/2009/05/18/statistically-insignificant/

http://raymondkasinganeti.com/2009/06/12/statistically-insignificant-ii/

That is why in my own small way I have decided to feature this infamous criminal, Joseph Kony, to bring awareness to what is happening in the world out there so that those who are looking for a cause to adopt can also consider this one. I chose to bring awareness of such issues through my blog and hope that one day I will even contribute financially and otherwise to such worthy causes.

Current Efforts to Capture Joseph Kony

In October 2011, US President Barack Obama authorised 100 armed military advisers to assist Uganda in the search for the leadership of the LRA. During the Bush administration, the US also sent counterterrorism advisers to Uganda to train troops and provided millions of dollars worth of funding to the Ugandan army.

In early March, the US-based charity group Invisible Children released a video which it says “aims to make Joseph Kony famous to raise support for his arrest”. The video went viral with over 74-million views on Youtube in a matter of days. You can view the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/invisiblechildreninc/featured

Kony has not been seen in Uganda for at least six years. It’s estimated that the LRA, which continues to operate in South Sudan, the DRC and Central Africa Republic now has no more than 400 members left. At its peak it had over 10,000 armed militia.

The net is closing in on Joseph Kony and very soon he shall face the wrath of the law.

People like Joseph Kony give Africa a very bad name. Africa can do without people like him and indeed no effort should be spared in ridding ourselves of such satanic agents.

Mar 7 2012

African Transformation: The Problem with Africa III

AIDS and other sicknesses

I wrote a bit about the devastating effect of AIDS in Africa. What I did not mention is that statistics show us that the disease strikes mainly the productive income groups. This naturally creates more poverty which in turn aggravates HIV spread due to lack of access to proper information, protection and treatment by ARVs.

Ethnicity

In the 90s, 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 6 weeks, in Rwanda. All that capital exterminated in less than 2 months? Rwanda holds the repulsive record of the fastest genocide in the world as a result. It has taken Rwanda a very long time to recover psychologically and economically in the aftermath. Very powerful people used their influence to inflame ethnic hatred by making it appear as if they were competing for very scarce economic resources and thus creating an us or them scenario. Needless to say this impoverished Rwanda immensely and set them back a few decades in terms of holistic development as a country.

We have seen the ethnic tensions manipulated in a lot of African countries. Even here is South Africa, who can forget the Inkatha/ANC wars in the locations and in the hostels.

Aid and Trade

Studies have shown that foreign aid by itself has not improved the economic performance of the recipients probably because it focuses on poverty alleviation instead of eradication. The reason for that is that sometimes that aid is spent bankrolling policies that favour a few at the expense of the masses. Some of the time, governments really mean well but only discover too late how counterproductive those policies are.

Between 1980 and 1986, Africa was the world’s most aided continent yet Gross Domestic product fell by an average of 3.4% per annum.

Trade barriers both inter and intra Africa have ensured the lagging behind of Africa developmentally. We know that Africa has more fertile lands, abundant sunshine and cheap labour as compared to Europe. That would mean the cost of producing agricultural goods in Africa should be cheaper and therefore we should compete favourably on the international market but sadly, that is not the case.

According to Marian Tupy in Reclaiming Africa, in 2001, subsidies on agricultural production in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries came to about US$347 billion.

Someone illustrated it this way. A cow in England gets US$20 per day in subsidies while a child in some part of Africa lives on 50c per day!

African countries make it more expensive to trade between themselves than between one African country and another European country.  How in the world are we supposed to develop and catch up with the rest of the world?

Difficulty of Doing Business in Africa

For the longest of time Africa was considered (still is considered) a high risk investment destination though that is changing with the emergency, in some countries, of better governance and economic policies favourable to investment and business growth.

This has resulted in Africa trailing behind the rest of the world in terms of technological advancement, entrepreneurship and development of new industries.

A typical businessman’s experience trying to do business in Africa invariably includes experiences with bad roads, demands for bribes, power cuts, red tape(even against local companies)  and so forth.

Foreign investors are out for a quick return in Africa due to the perceived high political risk. Except in a few countries like South Africa and Botswana, many of them are not willing to commit long term. The result is they come, do business, harvest as much as they can and ship it off to their motherland and there are no sustainable economic gains as a result. Unemployment remains where it was.

The slow pace of technological advancement also means that business is retarded. In a world where information technology is key, some parts of Africa have yet to use a cellphone. This also presents colossal opportunities for entrepreneurs but more of that later.

Politics

You would be shocked to know that in some instances those wielding the levers of power, both political and economic, are reluctant to allow the status quo to change as long as it benefits their bottom line. People can fight tooth and nail just to maintain control of resources within a clique of the chosen few. The result is that only the few benefit but the masses get impoverished more and more. The policies enacted are for the benefit of those few and policies that would really benefit the nation are sometimes placed on the back burner. This is an unfortunate reality.

Structurally, the cold war also contributed to the continued impoverishment of Africa. Africa became a pawn in the ideological game between the Communist/Socialist Block and the Western Block. As a result of the funding activities of both blocks to their preferred parties in African countries, civil wars became inevitable or got prolonged, a case in point being the western funded UNITA against the Communist funded MPLA in Angola. The war itself dragged for almost 3 decades and thousands of Angolans lost their lives.

The end of the cold war witnessed the withdrawal of readily available aid from both the capitalist West and the Communists, with the fall of the Soviet Union. Africans were suddenly and without warning, left to their devices. No proper support had been put in place to cushion the governments against the fall out. This is what eventually led to the demise of presidents like Mobutu Sese Seko whom the West no longer needed because the cold war was over. Left to his devices, it was not long before he was deposed from power. Savimbi suffered the same fate because the CIA which was funding him also left him to meet his fate, which came when he was killed in combat in 2002, almost 10 years after the end of the Cold War, effectively ending the civil war in Angola.

Sometime you have to wonder who really writes the African script.

I could go on and on but I think the points raised above suffice.

The question is, “Where to Africa?”

Mar 5 2012

African Transformation: The Problem with Africa II

The Problem with Africa

The way Africans live now is not much different from the way most Europeans lived until the Industrial Revolution, just over a hundred years ago.

What this says to me is that Africa is in a far better position to catch up with the rest of the world faster due to better technology and information sharing. We do not need to reinvent the wheel in many instances; we just need to appropriate the relevant technology to advance to the next level.

But first the possible causes of Africa’s present dilemma.

The role of geography

Rich nations tend to have temperate climates i.e. 93% of the people in the world’s 30 richest nations live in temperate zones.

Tropics tend to be poor; of 42 World Bank classified Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) in 1999, 39 were either in the tropics or largely desert areas. The remaining 3 HIPCs (Malawi, Zambia and Laos) were land locked.

It can be speculated that this is due to conducive conditions for the emanation and spread of tropical diseases that devastatingly afflict both people and livestock e.g. the notorious Ebola virus from the Congo region.

The only problem with this theory is that Israel is a tiny desert country with no natural resources yet it’s at the forefront of technological innovation even though it was only founded in 1947. It has also become a regional super power in the Middle East.

Slavery

The slave trade of the 18th and 19th century resulted in millions of Africans being shipped off to the West under inhumane conditions.

The transplanting of Africans to Europe disrupted African society’s progression immeasurably.

According to Van Sertima and Kaluli Nengo, in Reclaiming Africa, Africa lost 7 sciences as a result of the disruption caused by the slave trade. These are Communication Sciences, Metallurgy, Astronomy, Navigation, Mathematics, Architecture and Engineering, Agricultural Science, Medicine and Writing Systems.

Only recently have archaeologists begun to find clues as to how these sciences were developed by the Africans. That disruption virtually stopped the development of the African continent dead in its tracks.

It didn’t help matters that the Arabs had already been trading slaves with African chiefs who themselves had held between 30% to 60% of their subjects as slaves before the Europeans arrived. Thus for a long time, Africans were just commodities for trade. This was the same concept of serfs or bonded labourers in Europe about 30 to 40 generations ago.

Colonialism

We know that the division and colonisation of Africa started with the 1884/85 Berlin conference and lasted until 1994 when South Africa, the last African country to be decolonised was granted independence.

However, the first country to gain independence was the then Gold Coast, now know as Ghana in 1957. Others followed in the 1960s and 1970s often after protracted and vicious liberation wars as in the case of Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Colonialism kept the African suppressed and in arrested development. That point is out there for all to see. What is less obvious is the effect of colonialism on the African psyche. And this is where the real problem in the present lays.

There is a pattern of post colonial governments treating their subjects as badly as their colonial masters. This points to deep seated inferiority complexes that suggest that it’s acceptable to treat a fellow African as inferior because there must be something wrong with us Africans for us to be treated the way we were by the Europeans. This somehow makes it okay for those now in power to suppress their opponents even though both are Africans. I can’t understand how this works, honestly. Also, the fact that Europe developed faster than Africa and conquered Africans with relative ease somehow means Africans must be inferior. This kind of thinking is very dangerous and detrimental to the development and emancipation of Africa.

Steve Biko calls this phenomenon “Colonisation of the mind”. As long as we consider ourselves inferior to other races and accept that it is okay to treat like skinned people in the same way that colonial masters treated us, we will not develop as a continent. It is imperative that we put our efforts and resources together in order to surge forward.

Another legacy of colonialism was lumping people together, of incongruent cultures, languages and values. This was a result of the Berlin Conference. Suddenly these ethnic tribes had to share resources and somehow co-exist. The equilibrium in those societies was disturbed, in some case, permanently.

For fear of sparking new conflicts, African countries have decided not to tamper with these borders.

So even though colonialism is long gone, the effects are very much with us to this day!

Bad Governance and Economic Policies

“The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hall marks of true leadership.” Chinua Achebe

Bad management and disabling policies to would-be investors are rife in many African countries. These include lack of freedom to seek own fortunes without official harassment, absence of the rule of law, lack of contract enforcement thus creating a huge political and commercial risk, absence of solid property rights, corruption and so forth.

One dilemma that young African governments found themselves in just after independence was satisfying the impatient but euphoric masses that expected to see change overnight. This placed a formidable burden on these young governments. To cope, they borrowed from banks and multilateral institutions to spend on free healthcare, education, agriculture, prestige projects like dams, steel mills, conference halls and so forth. Since most of the investment was social, many of these young governments eventually found themselves being unable to service their loans and began to default.

This meant that their credit rating has since been downgraded, which affects access to credit and foreign direct investment (FDI).

Mar 5 2012

African Transformation: The Problem with Africa I

The African story is a tragic one. Africa’s problems are well publicised. A lot of people, Africans and non-Africans alike have asked themselves this question, “Is there hope for Africa?” I am one of those people. We carry the unenviable title of being the poorest continent with the richest natural resources. African countries have so far been the fodder for other countries’ astronomical growth for the past couple of centuries.

The African story is a painful one for me as I am irretrievably woven into its DNA by reason of descent. So troubled am I by this story that though I am not a political scientist, I have started off on my own journey of redemption. I want to play my part in contributing to the emancipation of this great continent.

It’s simple really. You accept that Africa is hopeless and live the rest of your life with the albatross of working in vain believing that all the hard work that fellow Africans are putting into constructing Africa will come to naught. Alternatively, you acknowledge the myriad of challenges Africa faces but refuse to let those in themselves enervate you to the point that you fail to lift a finger to try and change the status quo.

And this is my own story, born through a comprehensive thought process meant to shape me into the best candidate to carry, with like minded people, the developmental cause of Africa. And my departure point is asking questions; the right questions.

Let’s start with the problems. And let’s call a spade a spade.

When you think of Africa, you think of war. And there are two kinds of war that have ravaged our continent; liberation wars and civil wars. Liberation wars were very necessary because African countries had to liberate themselves from colonial masters and fight for the emancipation of the black race. It is not in the nature of the oppressor to grant freedom to the oppressed but the oppressed must take up arms and fight for their freedom. So that was very necessary though it came at the expense of many lives and resources.

Civil wars on the other hand are heart wrenching because it’s African against African slaughtering each other on account of ideological differences, ethnicity and control of resources. These really are unnecessary but a creation by us Africans.

With wars come famine and pestilence. The story of Somalia is a very sad one. The famine and disease that killed countless Somalis was completely man made. So intense was the hatred between the feuding parties that relief from well meaning donor organisations, among them the Red Cross, could not reach the affected civilians. People died.

Here are some more summarized facts that will awaken you to the African reality.

As at 2005, Sub Saharan Africa had grown poorer over the last 30 years despite virtually every African country being independent and power being in African hands.

Almost half of sub Saharan Africa live on US50 cents per day. That is equivalent to R4 a day.

The median African country has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$2 billion, which is roughly the output of a small town in Europe. Gross Domestic product is defined as the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period, usually annually. It includes all of private and public consumption, government outlays, investments and exports less imports that occur within a defined territory.

40% of Africa’s privately held wealth is offshore. In other words, wealthy Africans shun Africa as an investment destination!

Africa contributes about 10% of world population but controls 2% of world trade.

According to Robert Guest in his book The Shackled Continent published in 2004, more than 30 million Africans were afflicted by AIDS, 75% of the world’s AIDS related deaths occurred in Africa and 5 Africans died every minute from AIDS related sicknesses.

Robert Guest goes on to make a startling statement to the effect that the AIDS death potential in Africa was equivalent to all of Africa’s wars multiplied by 10 in the early 2000s.

We know that in this regard, some African countries have really stepped up the fight against HIV-AIDS, a case in point being Uganda. In 1992 the HIV prevalence rate in the country was 30% of national population but by 2002 it had drastically dropped to 5%.

Nigeria and Angola earn over US$100 million a day from crude oil imports yet in 2004 they were ranked among the 30 poorest countries in the world by BBC News.

I could go on and on about the challenges that Africa faces and all I would manage to do is depress you more and more. But we have to face facts.

Naturally, we would all want to know why Africa is where it is in comparison with the rest of the world. Are we a cursed continent? If we are, then who cursed us, why did they curse us and how did they do it? Did God curse us? Did we curse ourselves through shading our fellow brother’s blood? Or did the Europeans curse us more than a hundred years ago?

Jun 12 2009

Statistically Insignificant II

Continued from Part I

But the problem is, not all parents will always be enlightened and not all countries are conducive for one to pursue their dreams or even to be exposed to the opportunities that will enable them to think in that way. In some communities the issue is survival from day to day; there simply is no time to think about the kind of Business Empire one would like to run one day.

Sounds so depressing, right? I mean the world is so unfair and it’s easier to be angry at it. What am I driving at then? Do I have a solution to this issue? No, I don’t but I have two suggestions that may just lift your spirits. But before I present them, let me mess a little bit more.

UNWar. Such a dreadful reality. Some wars have to be fought for the greater good of community but their devastation is never beautiful. Soldiers who are prepared to die for a cause go to war; that is their job description. And who sends them to war? Politicians, who are people with aspirations and ambitions. So what happens when soldiers are sent to war for the wrong cause, for instance the benefit of a cartel of powerful people with national influence? People die needlessly to secure the interests of a few. And who are the people who put those politicians into power? The very people who suffer as a result of war because they are not fully protected, neither can they afford high security for protection. They become a statistic. An insignificant statistic, as long as the powerful get their way.

Back to my suggestions. The first one is an appeal to all humanity. It’s a joint effort. The decisions that we make today affect the future generations. The people we put in power today affect our future tomorrow, so I would take my decisions seriously today. This is where the power of lobbyists with the right cause can be put to maximum effect. For instance because of lobbyists, practically everyone has heard of the need to combat global warming. More groups, smoothly coordinated, must be formed and make their voices heard. This is humanity saving itself from itself.

The second suggestion is on a personal level. Honestly speaking, for that kid who is born into a war torn country and becomes a child soldier, not much can be done unless the first suggestion is effected such that he comes into contact with the right people who see his plight and attempt to remove him from such a toxic environment. This might be his family fleeing the area with him, if they have that choice and exposure, or some outside ambassadors of good, like the Red Cross.

But for anyone else reading this, I declare that we are not that child and therefore enjoy a measure of privilege which we must fully utilize. I know this because we both have access to a computer. We can fight obscurity; we can refuse to be statistically insignificant. We can take steps, small steps that will add up to critical mass and subsequently tilt our fortunes in the right direction. For some it might be the need to go back to the drawing board and study for that qualification that they have been avoiding forever but need to get to the next level. For others it might be the need to stop doing things that get in the way of their progress.

Those of us who were given even half a chance to escape obscurity need to utilize that opportunity to the maximum. But if we have that opportunity to contribute to society by bettering ourselves first, and we still do not utilize it then I dare say I have run out of suggestions!

ObamaLastly, what would a piece be without something Obama? He is loved and adored by many but what most people don’t know is that Obama’s father was educated by his poor community in Kenya and sent overseas to study, where he met his wife and had the now famous and powerful Barak Obama. The facts are blunt; without that small Kenyan community’s involvement, there would be no Barack Obama today. That’s the power of humanity to create its own destiny. But once humanity has done its part, the individual, in this case Barak Obama, has to do his part to become significant and contribute to that same humanity’s advancement and perpetuation.

May 18 2009

Statistically Insignificant I

“I have always been amazed that the very people forced to live in the worst parts of town, go to the worst schools and who have it the hardest are always the first to step up to defend that very system.” Michael Moore in Fahrenheit  9/11

“The first guys to sign up to fight are the very ones this country doesn’t treat that well.” Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) in Lions for Lambs

“The tough thing about adulthood is that it starts before you already know it’s started, when you are already a dozen decisions into it.” Dr. Stephen Malley (Robert Redford) in Lions for Lambs

Okay, I will admit it; only the first two quotes above are relevant to this piece. What about the last one? Well, it just sounded so cool I had to include it!

GorillaIt’s now time to get thoughtful. Even gorillas get serious about life sometimes!

My Statistics lecturer introduced us to the concept of statistical insignificance early on at college because of its importance wherever numbers are involved. Its essence is that though there may be many numbers, not all of them are influential, of consequence or significant.

It is possible to go through life as a statistic, one that is insignificant, sheltered in obscurity. We all have one life and also one shot at life so if you miss this ride, there is no next one coming. This fact alone begs us to maximize on this one life that we have.

Child SoldierInsignificance is twofold; natural and manmade. For instance, what is the difference between a boy who is born in war torn Somalia, is recruited as a child soldier who dies in battle and one that is born in a private hospital in Sandton into a wealthy family? As far as the two kids are concerned, they have contributed nothing to their circumstances. One is born to have it hard in life and the other is born with a golden spoon. The first kid becomes statistically insignificant, while the other one, depending on the choices he will make in life ,has a chance at influencing society in a real way. We can thus conclude that at this level the circumstances in which one is born are not of their choosing, they are predetermined and thus natural to the newborn. However if we dig deeper, we find that Somalia, or any country for that matter, is the way it is because of countless small decisions made by the powerful, that may have appeared to be insignificant but that added up to create those hospitable or inhospitable conditions into which every child is born.

Happy KidsI used the example of a country above but the same principle can be applied to the family level. Parents affect the path that their kids are going to take in life. While they are still young, enlightened parents will already choose significance over obscurity for their children and fight hard to create and defend that path.