" Ladies and gentlemen,I am sorry to disturb you, my name is .... I am out here selling candy not for no basketball team. I am selling candy to stay out of trouble and put money in my pocket. If you want to buy some candy or make a donation, it will be gladly appreciated. I gaht Starburst, Peanut M & Ms and Jolly Ranchers."
If you been in the New York City for a few days you may know that this is the typical pitch you hear at any time of day in this great city's subways. Though I have heard this countless times, the salesmanship has generally never moved me to part with my hard earned dollar to indulge myself in these sweet things. But for some reason, the salesmanship did move me last week. But it was not into my pocket to retrieve my pass to indulgence- the dollar bill. Instead, the salesmanship moved me into introspection and a great deal of mental exercise trying to figure out why the way things were the way they were. So here is what went down. I am sitting in the train when one of these guys walks in with the same old tired pitch. Some lady signals that she wants to buy these sweet things, but the guy did not have what she wanted. As a discerning consumer she tells the guy that she will not part with her dollar since he does not have what she wants. But the guy wanted the money anyway and he asks her to donate, to which the lady refuses. At that point the guy makes a comment that just ground my gears: " So you want me to be out there in the streets robing people?" the guy replies. Now that really ground my gears.
While I do recognize the fact that a large number of black males in the city are without jobs, I think it is a cheap shot to say that the only option for such people is to rob other people. I mean I do not want to discredit the guy's experiences, but I have heard that line in so many subway cars. And it bugs me because I think it is an attempt to psychologically manipulate people by instilling fear by exploiting the image of the dangerous black man. Can't these guys have any alternative to robing people? I mean, is that the only available avenue for a black man to survive in this city? I was appalled not because I think I am better than this guy, but because it is these same things that hurt the black community when others use such stereotypes against the race. Besides these reasons, I think the ...I am out here selling not for no basketball team is a tired line. It doesn't pass the salesmanship test and worse still it dismally fails the grammar test.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Blair in Africa
Every time I hear white friends who are quick to site their one black friend as evidence of their being cool with Black people, I get suspicious. When asked the question, if the speed of your count starts off at a fast pace and then really slows down as you search your mind for that token friend, well it may be that you do not have many in the first place. I am not suggesting that one has to be cool with everyone, but it would be nice sometimes to get a fresh honest answer. And by the way, not having black friends does not make one racist. There is no law that says you have to have a black friend, which is why it is a wasted emotion to feel bad about not having a friend of the melanin abundant ancestry.
Still on my suspicions, I also tend to be wary of Western leaders going to Africa. But, my mother would be appalled at my later suspicion because she taught us that it is African- and a good thing- to visit and be respectful to people. Visiting others is humble. And humility is good. So by virtue of my mother's instruction, well, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to Sierra Leone, Libya, and I can't remember what other country- is a good African gesture of respect. Blair is out in Sweet Salone making final touches before he leaves office. Rumor mongering has it that the man is to be knighted. Oops, no, he is to made an honorary Paramount Chief. And I do not doubt that the event will be blessed with the holy water that flows from palm trees. I wish I was in Salone, but of course not for Blair.
So as Blair puts his final touches in Africa, I have been wondering what he will tell his children about Africa. I wonder how history will judge him on Africa. Before history is told, I am beginning to hear some cynicism about Blair's accomplishments. While I applaud the man for trying to redirect global attention to Africa, I wonder whether celebrating over the progress in Sierra Leone is immature. I know the man sent in 800 soldiers in there.
The last time I was in Sierra Leone, evidence of war covered the length and breath of the country. In Kailahun District on the eastern boarder to Guinea and Liberia, destroyed houses were all over the forests and fields. In Freetown, the population growth and destitution of people who ran away from their homes during war were a remarkable characteristic. And so when Blair talks about the progress in Sweet Salone, my mind is quick to run to my database of these memories to contrast his view of the country. But I do not want to sound like I am blaming the man for intervening in the war, it is only that I want to shed light on the other Sierra Leone that my man Blair may not see as their make him Paramount Chief. He is chief donor and so they will treat him very well.
Then there is his whole love affair with Mugabe and Zimbabwe. The British have really failed to deal with the Zimbabwean situation in a way that is worth of drinking palm wine over. They opposed Mugabe's land reform, and his involvement in the Congo where he was involved at the request of the elected government there. This is what Blair did in Sierra Leone, but of course we should not compare these two countries. One is African and one is where her majesty resides.
Did I mention the Every time I hear white friends who are quick to site their one black friend as evidence of their being cool with Black people, I get suspicious. When asked the question, if the speed of your count starts off at a fast pace and then really slows down as you search your mind for that token friend, well it may be that you do not have many in the first place. I am not suggesting that one has to be cool with everyone, but it would be nice sometimes to get a fresh honest answer. And by the way, not having black friends does not make one racist. There is no law that says you have to have a black friend, which is why it is a wasted emotion to feel bad about not having a friend of the melanin abundant ancestry.
Still on my suspicions, I also tend to be wary of Western leaders going to Africa. But, my mother would be appalled at my later suspicion because she taught us that it is African- and a good thing- to visit and be respectful to people. Visiting others is humble. And humility is good. So by virtue of my mother's instruction, well, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to Sierra Leone, Libya, and I can't remember what other country- is a good African gesture of respect. Blair is out in Sweet Salone making final touches before he leaves office. Rumor mongering has it that the man is to be knighted. Oops, no, he is to made an honorary Paramount Chief. And I do not doubt that the event will be blessed with the holy water that flows from palm trees. I wish I was in Salone, but of course not for Blair.
Did I mention the African Commission that Blair and his buddies drank wine over to celebrate the new beginning in Africa? Well, whatever happened to that baby? Some people say, and I will not say who, that the commission was a big PR machine to shore up Mr Blair's image in the face of the Iraq war. But, I mean, since when do panels solve problems? May be the conception of the whole thing was off base. How are you going to put a panel of just a few guys to solve Africa's problems at coffee tables in London? The panel had the likes of Meles Zenawi who are killing the Oromo people- their own people. I do not care whatever reason they give.
Personally, I am fed up about these commissions after commission seeking to solve Africa's problems. They always spend large sums of money doing studies and seating around tables telling each other how smart they are. The outcome? Well you guessed it, nothing except announcements that the solutions to the problems are in the pipeline. Speaking of pipelines, I just found out that part of the reason why oil has been going up is because the disturbances in Nigeria are affecting supply. Militants are blowing up pipelines and kidnapping oil workers. You know why? Rumor mongering has it that they have been told that development plans to share oil wealth are in the pipeline. So they are blowing up pipelines to retrieve the plans. Is that not amazing?
Still on my suspicions, I also tend to be wary of Western leaders going to Africa. But, my mother would be appalled at my later suspicion because she taught us that it is African- and a good thing- to visit and be respectful to people. Visiting others is humble. And humility is good. So by virtue of my mother's instruction, well, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to Sierra Leone, Libya, and I can't remember what other country- is a good African gesture of respect. Blair is out in Sweet Salone making final touches before he leaves office. Rumor mongering has it that the man is to be knighted. Oops, no, he is to made an honorary Paramount Chief. And I do not doubt that the event will be blessed with the holy water that flows from palm trees. I wish I was in Salone, but of course not for Blair.
So as Blair puts his final touches in Africa, I have been wondering what he will tell his children about Africa. I wonder how history will judge him on Africa. Before history is told, I am beginning to hear some cynicism about Blair's accomplishments. While I applaud the man for trying to redirect global attention to Africa, I wonder whether celebrating over the progress in Sierra Leone is immature. I know the man sent in 800 soldiers in there.
The last time I was in Sierra Leone, evidence of war covered the length and breath of the country. In Kailahun District on the eastern boarder to Guinea and Liberia, destroyed houses were all over the forests and fields. In Freetown, the population growth and destitution of people who ran away from their homes during war were a remarkable characteristic. And so when Blair talks about the progress in Sweet Salone, my mind is quick to run to my database of these memories to contrast his view of the country. But I do not want to sound like I am blaming the man for intervening in the war, it is only that I want to shed light on the other Sierra Leone that my man Blair may not see as their make him Paramount Chief. He is chief donor and so they will treat him very well.
Then there is his whole love affair with Mugabe and Zimbabwe. The British have really failed to deal with the Zimbabwean situation in a way that is worth of drinking palm wine over. They opposed Mugabe's land reform, and his involvement in the Congo where he was involved at the request of the elected government there. This is what Blair did in Sierra Leone, but of course we should not compare these two countries. One is African and one is where her majesty resides.
Did I mention the Every time I hear white friends who are quick to site their one black friend as evidence of their being cool with Black people, I get suspicious. When asked the question, if the speed of your count starts off at a fast pace and then really slows down as you search your mind for that token friend, well it may be that you do not have many in the first place. I am not suggesting that one has to be cool with everyone, but it would be nice sometimes to get a fresh honest answer. And by the way, not having black friends does not make one racist. There is no law that says you have to have a black friend, which is why it is a wasted emotion to feel bad about not having a friend of the melanin abundant ancestry.
Still on my suspicions, I also tend to be wary of Western leaders going to Africa. But, my mother would be appalled at my later suspicion because she taught us that it is African- and a good thing- to visit and be respectful to people. Visiting others is humble. And humility is good. So by virtue of my mother's instruction, well, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to Sierra Leone, Libya, and I can't remember what other country- is a good African gesture of respect. Blair is out in Sweet Salone making final touches before he leaves office. Rumor mongering has it that the man is to be knighted. Oops, no, he is to made an honorary Paramount Chief. And I do not doubt that the event will be blessed with the holy water that flows from palm trees. I wish I was in Salone, but of course not for Blair.
Did I mention the African Commission that Blair and his buddies drank wine over to celebrate the new beginning in Africa? Well, whatever happened to that baby? Some people say, and I will not say who, that the commission was a big PR machine to shore up Mr Blair's image in the face of the Iraq war. But, I mean, since when do panels solve problems? May be the conception of the whole thing was off base. How are you going to put a panel of just a few guys to solve Africa's problems at coffee tables in London? The panel had the likes of Meles Zenawi who are killing the Oromo people- their own people. I do not care whatever reason they give.
Personally, I am fed up about these commissions after commission seeking to solve Africa's problems. They always spend large sums of money doing studies and seating around tables telling each other how smart they are. The outcome? Well you guessed it, nothing except announcements that the solutions to the problems are in the pipeline. Speaking of pipelines, I just found out that part of the reason why oil has been going up is because the disturbances in Nigeria are affecting supply. Militants are blowing up pipelines and kidnapping oil workers. You know why? Rumor mongering has it that they have been told that development plans to share oil wealth are in the pipeline. So they are blowing up pipelines to retrieve the plans. Is that not amazing?
While the world plays politics with HIV AIDS drugs.....
My uncle is dead. He just died this morning. Though I am not completely certain, I suspect that he died of AIDS from the symptoms my family have been describing about his condition. I had three uncles from my mother's side, all of them are gone. The three that have since passed were raised by their sister, my mother. She is a very very strong woman who has stood the challenges of her time, from her parent s's death, the loss of her two children- before we, her children, knew this earth-to the countless times my father was imprisoned and exiled in pursuit of my people's freedom before and after the so called independence- of my beloved country. And now, the death of her siblings.
My mother had been the sanctuary of hope in all of my uncle's lives. They all died in a similar fashion. They got ill from miles away across the country and returned to my family's house for their final days. Last night was my uncle's last night at the "half way house." My family jokes that our house is like a half way house because the relatives and family members we never hear from for years bring their sick to the hospital in my town and find sanctuary in my house.
As I sit here powerless, trying to distract myself with these keyboards, and in part trying to contemplate the days I spent with my uncle and the cause of his death, it is hard to imagine what the future will be for his wife and children-my family- and indeed my country and Africa. I wonder how many half-way houses are out there on the continent and how many grandmothers, brothers, and sisters like my mother are at the forefront of HIV/AIDS without the limelight shed on the likes of Clinton and Bono.
My uncle died at home because the hospital was full and without part of the medication he needed. So, while I cry for my uncle, I also mourn for my continent and country for we have been reduced- sometimes in our complicity- to a people that cannot feed themselves, a people that cannot medicate our sick, a people who know no peace and continue to fight themselves over the symptoms of our lack of sovereignty and inability to sustain ourselves using our abundant resources.
I am disheartened by the fact that world leaders are playing politics with access to food and life saving drugs while the innocent people like my uncle die. In the last few years since Zimbabwe implemented the land reform programs, the many innocent people have died a " collateral damage" because of the West shutting out access to everything required to sustain lives. They play politics with our access to essential drugs under the umbrella of protecting so called human rights while denying people the basic right to life.
Zimbabwe is being bypassed by the surge of international funding that is beginning to prolong the lives of Africans with AIDS because of political reasons. They kill innocent children with sanctions on medication and basics because President Robert G. Mugabe is "one of the most undemocratic." It is fact, not fiction, that Zimbabwe's children are being punished for Mugabe being the most anti-Western African leader. According to UNICEF-, the average amount of international funding each year in Southern Africa is $74 per person infected with HIV.
In Zimbabwe, that figure is $4 while a few miles from my house, Zambia is receiving $187 per infected person. An estimated 1.8 million Zimbabweans have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Of that group, 295,000 need antiretroviral treatment immediately, but only 8,000 -- less than 3 percent -- are getting it, according to a December report from WHO. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria rejected Zimbabwe's request for more than $250 million, citing technical flaws in the proposal in December.
So, I write in part to celebrate my uncle's life and memory, but in part because there is not much I can do from this foreign land where I sit trying to earn a living for both my family, our half way house guests, and me. So I will just write. I will write for my uncle who can no longer write because he lost his right to life to politicians playing politics with so called human rights while denying people the right to life. I will write in memory of my uncle who used to tell us tall tales about his hunting in the country side.
I remember one day I had the opportunity to go hunting with him. And as is the case with all hunters in the villages, we carried spears and a pack of hungry and angry fierce dogs. After walking for almost 10 miles we came to the mountains where we expected to catch wathorgs- wild pigs. We dug a small hole through the side of an anthill to trap the animal through and set out to look for our catch. When the dogs smelled the warthog and started barking, we formed a semi-circle and all pursued the wild dog into this anthill hole trap. Wathogs will run for dear life into any hole. We had to trap it because they have sharp task like teeth that will wipe out a man's future generations if they got the opportunity to come in contact with you from the front. From the back, they can cut all your nerves, still rendering your future generations extinct.
After about 15 minutes, we finally drove the animal into the hole trap and put a pile of logs to disable it. Then we dug at the front of the whole from where we use our spears to kill the animal and our ropes made of tree bark to hang and skin the animal. The memorable part is always the stories that my uncle managed to pull out that simple hunt after a few drinks of local brew. He tell how the animal had run towards him, how the dogs had deserted him, and how, he, alone, had struck the killer blow to the animal after we, town boys, had been outrun by the animal. Had it not been for him, the family would have been eating okra. And at that, his wife would praise him for his warrior qualities, while we-"town boys" got nothing for our efforts. This was my uncle, the story teller, the family man, the man who taught us about the different medicinal qualities of trees in our village. Now he is gone, and I will miss him dearly. Malume.RIP
My mother had been the sanctuary of hope in all of my uncle's lives. They all died in a similar fashion. They got ill from miles away across the country and returned to my family's house for their final days. Last night was my uncle's last night at the "half way house." My family jokes that our house is like a half way house because the relatives and family members we never hear from for years bring their sick to the hospital in my town and find sanctuary in my house.
As I sit here powerless, trying to distract myself with these keyboards, and in part trying to contemplate the days I spent with my uncle and the cause of his death, it is hard to imagine what the future will be for his wife and children-my family- and indeed my country and Africa. I wonder how many half-way houses are out there on the continent and how many grandmothers, brothers, and sisters like my mother are at the forefront of HIV/AIDS without the limelight shed on the likes of Clinton and Bono.
My uncle died at home because the hospital was full and without part of the medication he needed. So, while I cry for my uncle, I also mourn for my continent and country for we have been reduced- sometimes in our complicity- to a people that cannot feed themselves, a people that cannot medicate our sick, a people who know no peace and continue to fight themselves over the symptoms of our lack of sovereignty and inability to sustain ourselves using our abundant resources.
I am disheartened by the fact that world leaders are playing politics with access to food and life saving drugs while the innocent people like my uncle die. In the last few years since Zimbabwe implemented the land reform programs, the many innocent people have died a " collateral damage" because of the West shutting out access to everything required to sustain lives. They play politics with our access to essential drugs under the umbrella of protecting so called human rights while denying people the basic right to life.
Zimbabwe is being bypassed by the surge of international funding that is beginning to prolong the lives of Africans with AIDS because of political reasons. They kill innocent children with sanctions on medication and basics because President Robert G. Mugabe is "one of the most undemocratic." It is fact, not fiction, that Zimbabwe's children are being punished for Mugabe being the most anti-Western African leader. According to UNICEF-, the average amount of international funding each year in Southern Africa is $74 per person infected with HIV.
In Zimbabwe, that figure is $4 while a few miles from my house, Zambia is receiving $187 per infected person. An estimated 1.8 million Zimbabweans have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Of that group, 295,000 need antiretroviral treatment immediately, but only 8,000 -- less than 3 percent -- are getting it, according to a December report from WHO. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria rejected Zimbabwe's request for more than $250 million, citing technical flaws in the proposal in December.
So, I write in part to celebrate my uncle's life and memory, but in part because there is not much I can do from this foreign land where I sit trying to earn a living for both my family, our half way house guests, and me. So I will just write. I will write for my uncle who can no longer write because he lost his right to life to politicians playing politics with so called human rights while denying people the right to life. I will write in memory of my uncle who used to tell us tall tales about his hunting in the country side.
I remember one day I had the opportunity to go hunting with him. And as is the case with all hunters in the villages, we carried spears and a pack of hungry and angry fierce dogs. After walking for almost 10 miles we came to the mountains where we expected to catch wathorgs- wild pigs. We dug a small hole through the side of an anthill to trap the animal through and set out to look for our catch. When the dogs smelled the warthog and started barking, we formed a semi-circle and all pursued the wild dog into this anthill hole trap. Wathogs will run for dear life into any hole. We had to trap it because they have sharp task like teeth that will wipe out a man's future generations if they got the opportunity to come in contact with you from the front. From the back, they can cut all your nerves, still rendering your future generations extinct.
After about 15 minutes, we finally drove the animal into the hole trap and put a pile of logs to disable it. Then we dug at the front of the whole from where we use our spears to kill the animal and our ropes made of tree bark to hang and skin the animal. The memorable part is always the stories that my uncle managed to pull out that simple hunt after a few drinks of local brew. He tell how the animal had run towards him, how the dogs had deserted him, and how, he, alone, had struck the killer blow to the animal after we, town boys, had been outrun by the animal. Had it not been for him, the family would have been eating okra. And at that, his wife would praise him for his warrior qualities, while we-"town boys" got nothing for our efforts. This was my uncle, the story teller, the family man, the man who taught us about the different medicinal qualities of trees in our village. Now he is gone, and I will miss him dearly. Malume.RIP
No need to celebrate Sudan sanctions and Zoellick
I was trying to piece together the puzzle of today's events when it suddenly hit me that the announcement of US Sanctions on Sudan coincided with the nomination of Robert Zoellick as World Bank President. Then I read an article in the Jewish Sentinel lamenting the treatment of Sudanese immigrants in Israel. It is said that the displaced sons and daughters of Sudan were being treated like criminals in Israel because they are "citizens of an enemy state." A state that is in fact the reason why they are in Israel as refugees in the first place. Some of the Israeli government people are suspicious that some enemy (read as Arab) governments may send their spies as refugees. I understand, but am apalled! And that is why I feel a great sense of biological bitterness over the mockery that I hear in the echoes of those wine glasses and loud sounds of people patting their backs for a job well done on sanctions while the children of Sudan are displaced, dead, and dying. Without a home, they are left to roam the world in search of a sanctuary, while others are basking in the comfort of their "heroic" actions for calling the slaughter of Darfurians a "genocide" and issuing sanctions that have done nothing to stop the killing of innocent people.
Call me pessimistic, but if you were in my shoes you would understand why I am not celebrating over the smokescreen that the US has finally gotten to its senses to call for more sanctions against Sudan. Remember that we listened and celebrated when the world said never again after Rwanda? And it was a lie. So who is supposed to be benefiting from these sanctions if the people of Darfur are still dying?
I wonder what is in store for the motherland and the Sudanese now that the man who was part of the negotiations is in power wielding the greenback instead of just the power of diplomacy. Money talks, the World Bank has a lot of it, and Zoellick is el Presidente. But, do you remember that Zoellick is the man who represented the interests of Wall Street as U.S. trade representative? Remember this is the man who championed the protection of intellectual property rights in a way that systematically and dramatically reduced access to essential medicines for millions of people with life-threatening diseases throughout the developing world? Do you remember that on January 26, 1998, Robert Zoellick was a signatory to a letter that implored Clinton to bomb Iraq to take out Saddam as part of the larger strategy for US domination proposed by the Project for the New American Century? (http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm) In the letter, the signatories endorsed that Iraq should be taken out, " to protect our vital interests in the Gulf." "American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk," the man and his people including Wolfowitz claimed. Now Wolfowitz is out, and Zoellick is in, and yet they hatched from the same ideological egg. The US went to Iraq and is still in Iraq.
So, instead of Africans celebrating the sanctions on Sudan, we should be channeling our energies toward encompassing and real sustainable solutions for African peace and prosperity from Cape to Cairo. And this needs to be FUBU because we cannot expect a Zoellick to champion our causes. For as long as Africa is the table top on which the powerful countries arm wrestle, Africa shall know no peace. The solution to our problems lies within us, but we cannot serve two masters at once. It is either Africa or the West.
Call me pessimistic, but if you were in my shoes you would understand why I am not celebrating over the smokescreen that the US has finally gotten to its senses to call for more sanctions against Sudan. Remember that we listened and celebrated when the world said never again after Rwanda? And it was a lie. So who is supposed to be benefiting from these sanctions if the people of Darfur are still dying?
I wonder what is in store for the motherland and the Sudanese now that the man who was part of the negotiations is in power wielding the greenback instead of just the power of diplomacy. Money talks, the World Bank has a lot of it, and Zoellick is el Presidente. But, do you remember that Zoellick is the man who represented the interests of Wall Street as U.S. trade representative? Remember this is the man who championed the protection of intellectual property rights in a way that systematically and dramatically reduced access to essential medicines for millions of people with life-threatening diseases throughout the developing world? Do you remember that on January 26, 1998, Robert Zoellick was a signatory to a letter that implored Clinton to bomb Iraq to take out Saddam as part of the larger strategy for US domination proposed by the Project for the New American Century? (http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm) In the letter, the signatories endorsed that Iraq should be taken out, " to protect our vital interests in the Gulf." "American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk," the man and his people including Wolfowitz claimed. Now Wolfowitz is out, and Zoellick is in, and yet they hatched from the same ideological egg. The US went to Iraq and is still in Iraq.
So, instead of Africans celebrating the sanctions on Sudan, we should be channeling our energies toward encompassing and real sustainable solutions for African peace and prosperity from Cape to Cairo. And this needs to be FUBU because we cannot expect a Zoellick to champion our causes. For as long as Africa is the table top on which the powerful countries arm wrestle, Africa shall know no peace. The solution to our problems lies within us, but we cannot serve two masters at once. It is either Africa or the West.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Africa’s Storied Colleges, Jammed and Crumbling
Lydia Polgreen's New York Times piece entitled Africa’s Storied Colleges, Jammed and Crumbling left me wanting to have a one to one talk with her (05/20/07). The article was basically about the crisis faced by Africa's finest universities because of mismanagement, neglect and policies that favor basic education.
If you are from the continent of Africa you know that many of your friends will call you just to ask if you saw this or that story about Africa. You could be from Lesotho and they will ask you to tell them about what happened in Liberia. It keeps me up trying to read ahead, just in case. Sometimes it worries me too. I once called home in a haste after learning from my friend that some rebels had kidnapped some oil workers at home. So it turns out that my friend was really talking about kidnappings in Nigeria, while in fact that month my country Zimbabwe was without oil. Yes, I wished I was Nigerian! Oops, not really actually.
But you cannot blame my friends for thinking that Zimbabwe is Nigeria. I am grateful that every week gives me a different African country to be from! But on a serious note, I sometimes wonder whether my friends have some devine message they are trying to tell us Africans. You know how great inventions like Penicillin were discovered by coincidence? Could it be that coincidence is revealing to us Africans that we should begin to see each other simply as Africans instead of as Nigerians, Zimbabweans, Ghanians, African Americans, e.t.c.? If the Westerners can see that Africa is one country, why can't the Africans- who would benefit from seeing themselves as one people- see that and start working for the betterment of the whole continent as one. On a personal level, may be I could pursuade the government of "Africa" to recognize my efforts representing them in their absence. Boy or boy, God knows the amount of hours I spend telling the other side of the African story that my friends never read in these newspapers be it on AIDS or AID. When misery strikes in the Congo I am Congolese, sometimes I am Nigerian, a change from days when I am South African speaking on AIDS.
And here is the other side of the story. The piece on these crumbling universities was really great. But, I am always struck by the omissions. This material is not immaterial because therein lies the other pieces of the puzzle that will lead us to the truth. The quest for truth has been and is one of humanity's most important preoccupations since the word. And yes, in the beginning was the Word. Word!
Now the word in this article is that " Africa’s best universities are collapsing. It is partly a self-inflicted crisis of mismanagement and neglect, but it is also a result of international development policies that for decades have favored basic education over higher learning even as a population explosion propels more young people than ever toward the already strained institutions. The decrepitude is forcing the best and brightest from countries across Africa to seek their education and fortunes abroad and depriving dozens of nations of the homegrown expertise that could lift millions out of poverty...When the World Bank and International Monetary Fund came to bail out African governments with their economic reforms — a bitter cocktail that included currency devaluation, opening of markets and privatization — higher education was usually low on the list of priorities.Fighting poverty required basic skills and literacy, not doctoral students. In the mid-1980s nearly a fifth of World Bank’s education spending worldwide went to higher education. A decade later, it had dwindled to just 7 percent."
Of course the story was not one paragraph, but I think the gist of it is all the sentences above. And yes, I have beef! My beef with the story is how it takes the intricate topic such as this and condenses it into a very simple tale of how bad African governments have failed their people. If you read you will get this message because the story simply gives facts without the context that allows any reader or let me say the Western reader to intepret these facts. It is not that I think these governments are doing an amazing job, but it is only that everything that gets written on Africa is often read within the context that our governments are bad and corrupt. This message has been told countless times so that if you ask anyone in any part of the world, their gut feeling is that our poverty is self-inflicted. God if only these people would stop the corruption then Africa would be fine! But is that true? First of all these governments are stealing from a small pot or crumbs- the meat has allready been stripped by the big kahunas.
The article quotes the the Commission for Africa, a British government research organization, asserting that " African universities are in a “state of crisis” and are failing to produce the professionals desperately needed to develop the poorest continent." You don't say! What is the mission of the Commission for Africa- to help Africa?
In dealing with the facts the piece does not talk about the brain drain that has continued unabated in Africa. African governments invest a lot of the little money they have educating nurses, teachers, and doctors, most of whom go abroad leaving their countries with the burden of no return on their investment and crumbling systems of education. There is no continuity in the system, governments invest, invest, and invest, without much returns. You see it is as simple as this in the West. Some of the best medical doctors trained at Harvard stay there to either practice or inform the research needed to advance medicine. New discoveries are made everyday in university hospitals and then they are taken to the laboratories which publish new knowledge that becomes the fountain for the future generation's education. Some doctors and students go and start companies that feed the economy with jobs and new services. Good example is Google founded by university students at Stanford. All along the way, the research, education and economic fruits are supported by the governments and private entities. At the end of the process, the state and country have a return on their investment on education and anyone who has never been to school can also come to Google, Inc, as a janitor to make a living for their family. It is a system! One that is none existent in most of Africa.
Let's talk about Africa for a second. Universities are underfunded as governments are told by the World Bank to cut social spending and use that money to pay back the interest on their loans. Some of these loans were taken by colonial governments to bolster their oppression of the masses. A case in point is South Africa. Today they are still repaying the loans that went to buying tanks and gas to suppress their right to freedom during Apartheid. You also have the World Trade Organization who insist on allowing Western countries to distort markets where Africa has a chance to succeed. World trade is scewed to benefit the West. And it is as simple as this: Africa exports raw materials that the West buys at stupid prices, we import finished products for our industries at a higher cost. The machinery we buy needs to be refurbished time and again and because we have no industries to maintain these machines, we then rely on the West. Consultants fly in and out to maintain our industries at unbelievable costs, so all the money Africa earns flies through the back doors. On trade, the fact that the World Bank encourages all developing countries to produce raw materials such as coffee means that competition for these goods is dog eat dog among poor countries while the West has the luxury of buying these commodities at stupid prices. Then because our industries cannot be sustained by the silly prices, we import these goods and the few business people who have been trying to produce finished goods locally have to compete with cheap goods dumped on our markets. So our business geniuses end up hustling people or selling bananas. Overal, there is no innovation or economic systems to support these individual endeavors. So where should the money to improve schools come from if the basic systems that are supposed to provide for Africa's economic independence are but tributaries that feed into the river flowing to quench the greed of the West's need for raw materials at nonsensical prices?
I believe education is supposed to serve the advancement of a people. But in the case of the continent, education is neither from within our environment nor serves as mechanism to develop our capacities for advancement. Instead, it is but a package contained in the blueprint of strategies that we need to adopt to be more Western- not poor. It exists outside of our context and it is no wonder that some people with PHDs cannot come up with original ideas of turning around their local conditions because they are basically learning to emulate the West in all of their education. And those of us who come to the West and return home sometimes refuse to see things from our people so that we come with suitcases of ideas suited for the West. We cannot answer the basic questions asked by our people. And most of the materials in African schools are developed by foreign universities such as the University of Cambridge, Oxford, and other former colonial institutions. In most cases, there is nothing African about African education. And it is no wonder that Africans know so much about their colonial masters than they do about their neighbors or their countries for that matter.
Interestingly, the article demonstrates the ethnocentrism that is so endemic in how Africa is viewed. The article talks about how things were better in the past, how " the University of Dakar, drew students from across francophone Africa and transformed them into doctors, engineers and lawyers whose credentials were considered equal to those of their French counterparts." It talks about how Makerere University in Uganda was considered the Harvard of Africa.Can't Makerere just be Makerere?
The assertion that things were better in the 60s,70s, and 80s when most African countries were still under the yoke of colonialism is sad. But I do understand the omission that these were better because Africans were not running these institutions to the ground then. First of all these institutions had been segregated and blacks were kept outside. The few people who ended up to university were mostly those that the colonial institutions looked to use for its purposes either as a statistic or as a means to their ends. Soon after independence many countries inherited these institutions without the resources that they needed to run them. They inherited universities and World bank policies and conditions that were anti-education, anti-health care, anti-security, anti-development, in fact anti-African.
The whole equality of qualifications is even more interesting. It exists within a paradigm in which the African is deemed as inferior as well as whatever we produce, even academic credentials. During the times in which only a few Africans could get an education and could therefore afford to have access to enjoy crumbs from the table of their colonial masters, their qualifications were seen to be equally potent. After majority rule and the consequent evacuation and flight of colonial masters in some of these areas, the situation changed. Today, the infusion of African knowledge and values in any systems is always considered to reduce the quality and potency of education on the continent. Essentially, your Cambridge certificate is better than your local certificate produced by local examiners without the input of the British or French! Why? Could it be the vast ideology of Western superiority over all things African that is even evident today in the class room, streets, and job markets.
If a student comes to the United States to study, they automatically raise their income potential in Africa. It is the norm rather than the anomaly that Western-educated Africans tend to make more money than their counterparts on the continent, even for fields that they are less qualified. I tend to think that Westerners place a high value on the acquisition of their culture and values more than academics. Coming to the West makes you civilized enough to make a better salary while your brothers and sisters on the continent still need some washing up to do. This even translates to academia. You will be hard pressed to find the majority of African professors with far more experience of their field and experiential knowledge of their subjects getting their work published in most of these so called African journals. Instead, a trip to Africa and may be a bunch of books that a Westerner reads makes them an African expert.
So, while I do acknowledge that African universities are collapsing, I think the reasons given are so elementary. The article does not ask questions. Why does the World Bank have to tell African governments what to do for their people? The article even sweetens the intervention of the World Bank by saying that the bail the governments out. Wow! I thought bailing a prisoner out means that they actually come out of the prison? Reality tells us that countries are worse off after World Bank intervention. In fact the whole idea of bailing Africa out is deep. Could it mean that they bail us out because we are not really free? And why do African professionals leave for the West? Is it that Western governments entice them with money taken from Africa through the back door and that the local economies designed to sustain the material needs of the West cannot meet the needs of Africans for whom they should help?
It is nonsensical to excuse the World Bank for erring for the past few decades when in fact they are really about maintaining the status quo-making Africa the motherland. We know that children always take, take, take, and take from their mothers and never return.
And I refuse to believe that Africa's finest universities are crumbling because of mismanagement, neglect and policies that favor basic education. For as long as the policies of neocolonial institutions are to give the African enough education to socialize them into servitude, the finest will always be crumbling. I refuse to believe that the Africans who come to West are always the best and brightest, for, what bright person would let their own home burn while basking in the temporary comfort of a neighbor's house. In fact, the real bright African students are the ones who still get succeed in the midst of all adversity. The few scholarships given to some top students do not necessarily make the people left behind not so bright!
And I am not saying the continent is blameless, but if the West keeps changing the rules of the game to suit their circumstances, should Africa be blamed for losing the game? But of course this is more than about who is to blame. All I am saying is that the facts presented leave a lot to be desired. The story does not ask the relevant questions. And when we begin to ask tough questions on the failure of the African States, it is when we shall begin to see that far from the assertion that the continent has largely failed because of its leaders, the truth is that our failure really stems from the injustices of the world systems that have relegated for us a place on the periphery of decision making and action about our own destiny.
If and when we ask, we will perhaps learn that Africa loses more money in trade than it gains in Aid, that the impact of the AIDS epidemic could be lessened if only the Western drug companies had the humanity to put people over profits. We would know that puddles of crocodile tears on Africa's failure are far short of the river of hope that can and needs to come from acknowledging the failure of the world economic and political systems that control and exploit Africa. It is then that we can talk about crumbling schools with an idea that somewhere lies a brick and mortar to build the future of the children of Africa. Amandla! Word!
If you are from the continent of Africa you know that many of your friends will call you just to ask if you saw this or that story about Africa. You could be from Lesotho and they will ask you to tell them about what happened in Liberia. It keeps me up trying to read ahead, just in case. Sometimes it worries me too. I once called home in a haste after learning from my friend that some rebels had kidnapped some oil workers at home. So it turns out that my friend was really talking about kidnappings in Nigeria, while in fact that month my country Zimbabwe was without oil. Yes, I wished I was Nigerian! Oops, not really actually.
But you cannot blame my friends for thinking that Zimbabwe is Nigeria. I am grateful that every week gives me a different African country to be from! But on a serious note, I sometimes wonder whether my friends have some devine message they are trying to tell us Africans. You know how great inventions like Penicillin were discovered by coincidence? Could it be that coincidence is revealing to us Africans that we should begin to see each other simply as Africans instead of as Nigerians, Zimbabweans, Ghanians, African Americans, e.t.c.? If the Westerners can see that Africa is one country, why can't the Africans- who would benefit from seeing themselves as one people- see that and start working for the betterment of the whole continent as one. On a personal level, may be I could pursuade the government of "Africa" to recognize my efforts representing them in their absence. Boy or boy, God knows the amount of hours I spend telling the other side of the African story that my friends never read in these newspapers be it on AIDS or AID. When misery strikes in the Congo I am Congolese, sometimes I am Nigerian, a change from days when I am South African speaking on AIDS.
And here is the other side of the story. The piece on these crumbling universities was really great. But, I am always struck by the omissions. This material is not immaterial because therein lies the other pieces of the puzzle that will lead us to the truth. The quest for truth has been and is one of humanity's most important preoccupations since the word. And yes, in the beginning was the Word. Word!
Now the word in this article is that " Africa’s best universities are collapsing. It is partly a self-inflicted crisis of mismanagement and neglect, but it is also a result of international development policies that for decades have favored basic education over higher learning even as a population explosion propels more young people than ever toward the already strained institutions. The decrepitude is forcing the best and brightest from countries across Africa to seek their education and fortunes abroad and depriving dozens of nations of the homegrown expertise that could lift millions out of poverty...When the World Bank and International Monetary Fund came to bail out African governments with their economic reforms — a bitter cocktail that included currency devaluation, opening of markets and privatization — higher education was usually low on the list of priorities.Fighting poverty required basic skills and literacy, not doctoral students. In the mid-1980s nearly a fifth of World Bank’s education spending worldwide went to higher education. A decade later, it had dwindled to just 7 percent."
Of course the story was not one paragraph, but I think the gist of it is all the sentences above. And yes, I have beef! My beef with the story is how it takes the intricate topic such as this and condenses it into a very simple tale of how bad African governments have failed their people. If you read you will get this message because the story simply gives facts without the context that allows any reader or let me say the Western reader to intepret these facts. It is not that I think these governments are doing an amazing job, but it is only that everything that gets written on Africa is often read within the context that our governments are bad and corrupt. This message has been told countless times so that if you ask anyone in any part of the world, their gut feeling is that our poverty is self-inflicted. God if only these people would stop the corruption then Africa would be fine! But is that true? First of all these governments are stealing from a small pot or crumbs- the meat has allready been stripped by the big kahunas.
The article quotes the the Commission for Africa, a British government research organization, asserting that " African universities are in a “state of crisis” and are failing to produce the professionals desperately needed to develop the poorest continent." You don't say! What is the mission of the Commission for Africa- to help Africa?
In dealing with the facts the piece does not talk about the brain drain that has continued unabated in Africa. African governments invest a lot of the little money they have educating nurses, teachers, and doctors, most of whom go abroad leaving their countries with the burden of no return on their investment and crumbling systems of education. There is no continuity in the system, governments invest, invest, and invest, without much returns. You see it is as simple as this in the West. Some of the best medical doctors trained at Harvard stay there to either practice or inform the research needed to advance medicine. New discoveries are made everyday in university hospitals and then they are taken to the laboratories which publish new knowledge that becomes the fountain for the future generation's education. Some doctors and students go and start companies that feed the economy with jobs and new services. Good example is Google founded by university students at Stanford. All along the way, the research, education and economic fruits are supported by the governments and private entities. At the end of the process, the state and country have a return on their investment on education and anyone who has never been to school can also come to Google, Inc, as a janitor to make a living for their family. It is a system! One that is none existent in most of Africa.
Let's talk about Africa for a second. Universities are underfunded as governments are told by the World Bank to cut social spending and use that money to pay back the interest on their loans. Some of these loans were taken by colonial governments to bolster their oppression of the masses. A case in point is South Africa. Today they are still repaying the loans that went to buying tanks and gas to suppress their right to freedom during Apartheid. You also have the World Trade Organization who insist on allowing Western countries to distort markets where Africa has a chance to succeed. World trade is scewed to benefit the West. And it is as simple as this: Africa exports raw materials that the West buys at stupid prices, we import finished products for our industries at a higher cost. The machinery we buy needs to be refurbished time and again and because we have no industries to maintain these machines, we then rely on the West. Consultants fly in and out to maintain our industries at unbelievable costs, so all the money Africa earns flies through the back doors. On trade, the fact that the World Bank encourages all developing countries to produce raw materials such as coffee means that competition for these goods is dog eat dog among poor countries while the West has the luxury of buying these commodities at stupid prices. Then because our industries cannot be sustained by the silly prices, we import these goods and the few business people who have been trying to produce finished goods locally have to compete with cheap goods dumped on our markets. So our business geniuses end up hustling people or selling bananas. Overal, there is no innovation or economic systems to support these individual endeavors. So where should the money to improve schools come from if the basic systems that are supposed to provide for Africa's economic independence are but tributaries that feed into the river flowing to quench the greed of the West's need for raw materials at nonsensical prices?
I believe education is supposed to serve the advancement of a people. But in the case of the continent, education is neither from within our environment nor serves as mechanism to develop our capacities for advancement. Instead, it is but a package contained in the blueprint of strategies that we need to adopt to be more Western- not poor. It exists outside of our context and it is no wonder that some people with PHDs cannot come up with original ideas of turning around their local conditions because they are basically learning to emulate the West in all of their education. And those of us who come to the West and return home sometimes refuse to see things from our people so that we come with suitcases of ideas suited for the West. We cannot answer the basic questions asked by our people. And most of the materials in African schools are developed by foreign universities such as the University of Cambridge, Oxford, and other former colonial institutions. In most cases, there is nothing African about African education. And it is no wonder that Africans know so much about their colonial masters than they do about their neighbors or their countries for that matter.
Interestingly, the article demonstrates the ethnocentrism that is so endemic in how Africa is viewed. The article talks about how things were better in the past, how " the University of Dakar, drew students from across francophone Africa and transformed them into doctors, engineers and lawyers whose credentials were considered equal to those of their French counterparts." It talks about how Makerere University in Uganda was considered the Harvard of Africa.Can't Makerere just be Makerere?
The assertion that things were better in the 60s,70s, and 80s when most African countries were still under the yoke of colonialism is sad. But I do understand the omission that these were better because Africans were not running these institutions to the ground then. First of all these institutions had been segregated and blacks were kept outside. The few people who ended up to university were mostly those that the colonial institutions looked to use for its purposes either as a statistic or as a means to their ends. Soon after independence many countries inherited these institutions without the resources that they needed to run them. They inherited universities and World bank policies and conditions that were anti-education, anti-health care, anti-security, anti-development, in fact anti-African.
The whole equality of qualifications is even more interesting. It exists within a paradigm in which the African is deemed as inferior as well as whatever we produce, even academic credentials. During the times in which only a few Africans could get an education and could therefore afford to have access to enjoy crumbs from the table of their colonial masters, their qualifications were seen to be equally potent. After majority rule and the consequent evacuation and flight of colonial masters in some of these areas, the situation changed. Today, the infusion of African knowledge and values in any systems is always considered to reduce the quality and potency of education on the continent. Essentially, your Cambridge certificate is better than your local certificate produced by local examiners without the input of the British or French! Why? Could it be the vast ideology of Western superiority over all things African that is even evident today in the class room, streets, and job markets.
If a student comes to the United States to study, they automatically raise their income potential in Africa. It is the norm rather than the anomaly that Western-educated Africans tend to make more money than their counterparts on the continent, even for fields that they are less qualified. I tend to think that Westerners place a high value on the acquisition of their culture and values more than academics. Coming to the West makes you civilized enough to make a better salary while your brothers and sisters on the continent still need some washing up to do. This even translates to academia. You will be hard pressed to find the majority of African professors with far more experience of their field and experiential knowledge of their subjects getting their work published in most of these so called African journals. Instead, a trip to Africa and may be a bunch of books that a Westerner reads makes them an African expert.
So, while I do acknowledge that African universities are collapsing, I think the reasons given are so elementary. The article does not ask questions. Why does the World Bank have to tell African governments what to do for their people? The article even sweetens the intervention of the World Bank by saying that the bail the governments out. Wow! I thought bailing a prisoner out means that they actually come out of the prison? Reality tells us that countries are worse off after World Bank intervention. In fact the whole idea of bailing Africa out is deep. Could it mean that they bail us out because we are not really free? And why do African professionals leave for the West? Is it that Western governments entice them with money taken from Africa through the back door and that the local economies designed to sustain the material needs of the West cannot meet the needs of Africans for whom they should help?
It is nonsensical to excuse the World Bank for erring for the past few decades when in fact they are really about maintaining the status quo-making Africa the motherland. We know that children always take, take, take, and take from their mothers and never return.
And I refuse to believe that Africa's finest universities are crumbling because of mismanagement, neglect and policies that favor basic education. For as long as the policies of neocolonial institutions are to give the African enough education to socialize them into servitude, the finest will always be crumbling. I refuse to believe that the Africans who come to West are always the best and brightest, for, what bright person would let their own home burn while basking in the temporary comfort of a neighbor's house. In fact, the real bright African students are the ones who still get succeed in the midst of all adversity. The few scholarships given to some top students do not necessarily make the people left behind not so bright!
And I am not saying the continent is blameless, but if the West keeps changing the rules of the game to suit their circumstances, should Africa be blamed for losing the game? But of course this is more than about who is to blame. All I am saying is that the facts presented leave a lot to be desired. The story does not ask the relevant questions. And when we begin to ask tough questions on the failure of the African States, it is when we shall begin to see that far from the assertion that the continent has largely failed because of its leaders, the truth is that our failure really stems from the injustices of the world systems that have relegated for us a place on the periphery of decision making and action about our own destiny.
If and when we ask, we will perhaps learn that Africa loses more money in trade than it gains in Aid, that the impact of the AIDS epidemic could be lessened if only the Western drug companies had the humanity to put people over profits. We would know that puddles of crocodile tears on Africa's failure are far short of the river of hope that can and needs to come from acknowledging the failure of the world economic and political systems that control and exploit Africa. It is then that we can talk about crumbling schools with an idea that somewhere lies a brick and mortar to build the future of the children of Africa. Amandla! Word!
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