Is Africa the Problem? or the Problem Africans?

[t.D.A.]

I second that: I don't think geography has anything to do with it.

[Type R]

Tiktok, i agree when you say it is not an excuse, but at least we must factor in our challenges when we plan to develop africa.

Whenever you are preparing for a journey, you must take into account the length of that journey in order to decide what resources you are going to require to finish the job. For example, i live in nairobi. I know that with a full tank of petrol, my car can take me slightly past malindi. I know that petrol now costs about 90/= per litre.

My tank is about 43 litres in size. When petrol was 60/=, i could thus go to mombasa with 2400/= and have some fuel (and money) left in the tank for some escapades. At 90/=, i am talking a crazy 3,600/=, one way. I can look at my wallet/bank account and see if i have this money. If i don't, i look around.

Originally Posted by tiktok

you were doing well until you mentioned the above. Canada and usa combined are roughly the same size as africa with almost 1/3rd of the population. Canada, and russia are the least densely populated countries. South america is almost the size of africa with fewer countries. Size is not an excuse or a reason.

One way to mess someone up is to make them underestimate the challenges they face. A student may mislead another, "that subject is easy!" if you plan to develop africa, you must first understand its challenges. Only then, will you be prepared for the challenges. You don't want to run out of money, out of personal energy, out of staff, etc. When purchasing a company or going into a merger, you hire lawyers to do a "due diligence" to make sure you are not buying a debt ridden junk. When you want to start a mine, you call in geologists to analyse the quality, quantity, difficulty of extraction of the raw materials.

I repeat my earlier point, one of the biggest failures of men and women of goodwill is failure to understand the physical magnitude of africa.

Mr tik tok, from your response, i can see you are a victim of this misunderstanding. You say that "canada and usa combined are roughly the same size as africa." for many years, the standard map of the world - the one you probably had in school understated the size of africa.



in fact, russia used to be "larger" than africa. I believe this is where you get your wrong impression of africa = north america. A few years ago, that map was revised, showing the true relative size of our continent.



however, they still haven't got it right, so here we are (geography lesson): - africa: 30,301,591 km² compare that with the sum of: -
china: 9.6 million km²
usa: 9.4 million km²
western europe: 4.9 million km²
india: 3.2 million km²
argentina: 2.8 million km²
=========================
total (others): 29,900,000 km²



president abdoulaye wade says that africa needs to be split into economic units, maybe 5 of them, free trade areas. Comesa could be one, sadc another, ecowas another, plus one for central africa, another for north africa. That's it. 5 states!!! maybe we leave on neutral state just in case (like switzerland). Politicians will not like to lose power to larger state units, but they must swallow and allow africa to develop. A kenyan president may end up being a governor of jimbo kenya in a larger federal unit.

[t.D.A.]

Interesting perspective on the matter. However, I am still unclear on what that has to do with the development of Africa. Have there been countries in the past where Geography was an impediment to development? I still don't see how geographical size and the continent's prosperity are linked.

[HUH?]

Originally Posted by t.d.a

Interesting perspective on the matter. However, I am still unclear on what that has to do with the development of Africa. Have there been countries in the past where Geography was an impediment to development? I still don't see how geographical size and the continent's prosperity are linked.

A cultural anthropologist, and the author of "guns, germs, and steel" , Dr. Jared Diamond, tuckles the geographic impediment to the establishment civilizations. if you look at the globe today you'll realize that the most advanced countries seem to have had their knowledge flow laterally (East-West or West-East). in Africa's case most of our continental knowledge-flow if you will, had/has to spread longitudinally. through Dr, Diamond's research he has noted that the longitudinal spread of knowlege (as well as man-power) is much more difficult than the lateral spread. i'd also like to say that IMO geography plays a role, but it's only one piece of the puzzle.

Throughout the book Diamond argues that the East-West axis of Eurasia provided an advantage in the dispersal of useful, mainly domesticated, plants and animals. The chart on p. 87 identifies this as the most ultimate of ultimate factors. With respect to the lengths of days and the importance thereof for flowering plants, the argument makes fine sense. Maize's spread northward from Mexico was slowed by the necessity of genetic adaptation to different day lengths at different latitudes. Maize could spread much more easily East-West than it could North-South.

[t.D.A.]

Wow! You learn something new everyday. So how could we use this knowledge to Africa's advantage?

[Type R]

When you talk about "development," it is important that you qualify what kind of development you are discussing.

I say this because Africa has not been underdeveloped in all areas. Take the area of social/family structures. Africa was actually quite developed in these areas. There was a strong sense of communal responsibility in the extended family. Your brother's children were your children. The much-maligned "wife inheritance" was actually an exercise in social responsibility: someone had took take care of a lonely widow, to feed her, to fend for her. Westernization is destroying this fabric. These days, brothers and sisters feel competitive with their children, showing off "I'm taking my kids to school in Lavington/Braeburn, are yours still in that place in Eastlands?" etc etc. In fact, it is sometimes better to befriend strangers than it is to socialize with your family. In this sense, it is inaccurate to describe Africa as a "problem." As Moi once said, many African languages do not even have a word for "homosexuality."

Nor is Africa culturally underdeveloped. Music, poetry, painting, we have no "problem." In fact, Africa's diversity is very stunning.

The kind of development you are discussing is the material development. This focuses us on three or four areas where Africa has never had a strong widespread tradition: -

(a) science
(b) technology
(c) industry (incl. commerce)
(d) economic management

A: The scientific tradition

What has compromised the scientific tradition in Africa? Why did it never gather momentum and reach critical mass? Are we stupid? Simply pointing out great black scientists (George Washington Carver) and philosophers here and there is not enough. We want to see great universities, great ideas being developed as the centuries go by, research, great findings, etc, etc, etc.

This same question could be asked the other way round: what spurred on the scientific tradition in Europe (specifically)? Then, How did Europe overtake the Middle East, which was once the "headquarters" of the intellectual tradition when Europe was thuggish? How did America overtake Europe?

Cultural phenomena are difficult to understand. Take for example, Bill Gates. What motivates someone to drop out of Harvard and start working in a garage? Early computer developers did not understand the explosion they were about to unleash. If they did, they would not have programmed their systems to accept only two digits for the year (Y2K problem).

The lack of a written tradition is definitely part of the problem in Africa. In early days, scientists would communicate with each other across cultures, and across centuries. Writing also enables an individual to communicate with himself over time and those around him, because written ideas can be clarified, because memory can fail. This was enabled by means of written documents.

Unfortunately, writing was introduced alongside alien languages (English, French). This means that the world of ideas is someone alien to the masses. Many people think that they are not clever enough to understand concepts, when their main problem is their lack of comfort in a foreign language.

Next... Technological backwardness.

[Type R]

B: Technology

The desire to solve recurrent problems is almost non-existent in Africa!!!

The desire to achieve ambitious objectives, the desire to face insurmountable challenges - we find almost no Africans who "suffer" from this form of creative madness.

Take for example, Kenya: the floods in Budalangi. Is there no one at all who says, "That is my problem. I will and must conquer it at all costs." Whenever you see an African working very hard, he is probably doing so for money.

By the way, "development" does not need very very many people driving the process. It requires just a few super-excellent people. I remember an American saying that "great civilizations walk on the shoulders of giants." Then he told me, "Africa has no giants."

Please read about the British engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Please also read about the African American, George Washington Carver.

Take a look at John Snow, who determinedly tracked down the source of a cholera outbreak to water borne germs at a time that people believed that cholera was an airborne contagion. It requires great individualism and a belief in observation and logic (Africans may still be a bit superstitious and erratic in thought).

These are men who were so determined to achieve their goals that they starved and worked and suffered, Carver turned down a $100,000 per year job (equiv. to $1m today or more), just because of dedication.

In Africa, we are almost like Russians, very fatalistic. "What will be will be." We don't like taking dangerous risks.

We need people who are ready to defy risks and public apprehension or skepticism.

[Type R]

C: Industry

Another area where we lack "giants."

Maybe our perspective is too small. Maybe we lack discipline and determination. Maybe we lack greed. Maybe we lack the madness necessary to become Bill Gates and Andrew Carnegie.

Africa is not the problem because this is the continent of minerals and other resources. If you dam River Nile and River Congo, imagine the electricity that you could generate.

We need to create an environment with a diversity of professionals. The mistake we are making today is rewarding the top cream very highly and neglecting the mid-level professionals. The result is that Africa's technical experts migrate, "Brain drain." Leaving behind managers and manual workers, not exactly the best setting to technological advancement. These managers will tell you to your face, "We can do without you and your degree." That's the problem: who wants to "do"? You want to excel? Kenya can "do" without it's educated people but it cannot excel without them.

I saw one exceptional professional burn himself out and commit suicide. Maybe Africans have not mastered the art of personal management (time management, work vs play vs rest - holidays, etc). I think mzungus are ahead of us on this one. If women prove to difficult for a mzungus career, he divorces and spends time with langas. How many mzungu CEOs do you see in F1 and F2 and Hotel Lala Salama during the week? These guys are very focussed on their goals.

Lack of individuals with sufficient effective drive.

[t.D.A.]

Wow! I agree with you entirely Type R, keep it coming.................

[TikTok]

Type R,

The four things you have identified above are manifestations of a deeper problem we face as africans. I personally do not buy into the argunment that these four are the raison etre of why the african is lagging behind.

Europe and Asia achieved the above four in periods of great turmoil. Remember how the church used to persecute people, yet it is in those eras that we see a surge in achievments in the arts, sciences, and philisophy.

My take is that the social constructs at those times and their evolution to the present day are what made these societies produce 'giants'. Theirs were societies that encouraged experimentation, allowed one to fail safely, societies that refused to accept the status quo. It is this very opposite that is prevelant in africa, and that is why our true 'giants' are finding solace in western countries and very soon to eastern countries while mother africa remains barren and exploited.

Mind you, I totally agree with your view points, because to be honest with you I still cannot understand how Moddy Awori whose constituency experiences the budalangi floods could be so contented with a vice presidency that has no benefit to his people. I would have expected him to push through forcefully policy and legislation to once and for all put an end to floods. It did not happen. We are seeing Kalonzo repeating the same and five years down the line his people will wonder what was the vice presidency for.

But again, as you correctly note, africans have negative nationalism. While it is fine to want to protect your own, in the same breathe one has to be ready to hold one's leaders accountable. It just never happens with us.