Economic transformation and growth are social spheres that every poor individual wishes to realise in their lifetime. The same applies to societies and nations as a whole. Sub Saharan Africans have been dogged by material poverty for a considerable period and the aspiration to transform their situation for the positive and grow their asset base has been a constant in the minds of most. In this short article I want to give my perspective on the rationale for poverty in Africa and the ways in which we —as Africans — could transform our situation and grow our asset base. In this I will focus on identity, cooperation, value addition, long-term investments, patience and working for the collective.
Identity is one the primary challenges that face the modern African. The global media portrays Africa as a backward dirty place with limited hope for progress. This combined with colonisation has punctured the self-esteem of the African who in most cases is ashamed of being African and will work hard to look more like the European master in dress, speech, hobbies, attitude and even in culture. The result of the self-hate has been a failure to grow those things that are African. For instance, Europeans rarely come to Africa to part-take in our culture but rather to see wildlife given that there isn’t much to learn from people who are desperately trying to copy you. The result has been a weak culture and entertainment industry combined with a failure by Africans to tell their own stories through movies on television and any other medium. The self-esteem loss is shown in the multiple meme that pit the African against the European culture and laugh at how inferior African culture is. As a result, Africans —save for a few nations— rarely like African music, football, movies, art, food, religion or stories. THERE IS NO SOCIETY THAT EVER DEVELOPED WHILE HATING ITSELF. Christianity has done more harm than good to the African. We need to love being African first before we even attempt to get others to respect us. This to me is the first step on our journey upwards and without it nothing will come through. HOW I WISH WE ALL SPOKE SWAHILI INSTEAD OF ENGLISH!!!
Cooperation is the fundamental requirement for human progress. Without it, the individual human would not survive past the first week of birth. Africans struggle to work together and complement their efforts. They would rather compete than cooperate and be jealous than inspired. This is also a result of the low self-esteem that stems from the loss of identity. We tend to try and boost self-esteem by stepping on others rather than by raising them to our level and beyond. The same aspect is reflected at continental level where nations out compete each other for crumbs falling from the dining tables of the Europeans, Chinese and Americans. The borders are so many and sometimes really unnecessary —e.g. Lesotho and Gambia— resulting in a failure to unite and create a giant African market and cooperation point which would honestly need no one else but Africans. Until the African can cooperate rather than compete then there is no hope. HOW I WISH THERE WERE NO BORDERS AND THERE WAS ONE LEADER!!!
Value addition has been the major failure of African societies. We have massive natural resources but have abjugated the duty to think and make them more useful to humans in Africa and the rest of the world. This role we have left to everyone else. As a result, we are the raw material hub of the world and our education system continues to teach that hi-tech solutions come from outside Africa and that real engineers are not found in Africa. We continue to sell raw materials and but finished products at over 10 times the value. Thus, the production is actually resulting in a net Loss. We need to add value to out produce, un-teach terrible things to the technical students and push them to produce high tech equipment in Africa for Africa. Most of all we need to support research into these issues. HOW I WISH AFRICA COULD BE THE WORKSHOP OF THE WORLD ALONGSIDE CHINA!!!
Long-term investments indicate thinking beyond the self and planning for a better Africa in future. This also does away with the common 5 to 10-year arrangement of democracy where elected leaders aim to accumulate as much in the limited time they have. In the presence of a guiding long-term plan, the elected leaders become mere periodical drivers who give each other turns as we move to an agreed destination. Most Africans lack this long-term planning in their personal lives and as nations. Without such strategic thinking, most things happen by hook or crook or by chance leaving the African not in control of his/her destiny but rather serving the plans of other carefully marshalled by institutions such as the Bretton woods institutions. We need our own long-term vision and our own institutions that safeguard and are the custodians of this vision. HOW I WISH FOR A REAL AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK FOCUSED ON AFRICAN INFRASTRUCTURE AND LONG-TERM AMBITIONS TO CONQUER SPACE!!!
Patience is fundamental to any long-term investment. However, the pressure of social media to look good and successful combined with the inherent low self-esteem associated with the African have decapitated patience together with the previously discussed long-term investment. Get rich quick schemes and the need to post the latest German vehicle acquisition has turned young Africans into thieves and scoundrels. Limited thinking is given to long term strategic plans but rather to corrupt deals made at the expense of the collective in order to make the individual look better than others. This failure is at the heart of corruption and naturally breeds laziness, jealousy and lies which are all terrible traits out of sync with economic transformation and growth. HOW I WISH THERE WAS A 45-YEAR-OLD AFRICAN WHISKY MADE BY AFRICANS!!!
Working for the collective is a major challenge in Africa. Corruption and the lack of patience together with the failure to plan for the long-term has made the African focus on individual growth aimed at showing off rather than becoming better. This is seen through primitive accumulation of assets —a major sign of low self-esteem— usually at the expense of the collective. Government officials would rather steal the streetlight for light in their homes than let it light up the community. This should be rooted out of our societies if at all we are to see transformation and progress. Decisions must be made for the greater good rather than for the interest of so and so. To do this, institutions should remain impartial and lead in the selection of public decisions while civil society must remain vigilant and advocate for more inclusive decisions that benefit all. HOW I WISH FOR A STRONG AFRICAN STATE WITH THE RULE OF LAW AND IS ACCOUNTABLE TO THE PEOPLE!!!
In this short piece, I have outlined major factors that impede African transformation and economic growth. These are not exhaustive, but I believe form the bare minimums that would see the African race transformed into an equal global player with more say in the destiny of humanity as a whole.
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