AS AFRICA prepares for its annual ritual, the AU summit, it is important to reflect on the missing link in the continent’s post-colonial experience.
As Africans, we are eloquent in describing what we do not want but we seem not to be capable to define what we want.
The continent’s citizens shared something bigger and stronger in their struggle against colonialism and apartheid. Africa had a cause that it used to launch the anti-colonial struggle and crusade. The justice of the continent’s cause against a race-based hegemony was the justice of its struggle.
Most African countries are still filled with citizens who have no clue of the big picture and what the continent needs to accomplish to reposition its brand as a sustainable and winning brand.
The founding fathers of Africa have in many cases failed to give citizens a sense that they or their contributions are important and invariably the continent’s citizens end up retreating to their comfort zones where they focus on their individual circumstances without any incentive to do more. How much faster would Africa be able to address its developmental challenges if every African had the heart and soul wrapped up in taking aim and shooting at the same target? How many of Africa’s citizens are part of the renaissance crusade or the platinum rights struggle?
A cause is the real reason that any progressive society exists. A cause gives rise to an action, a motive, a principle, a belief or purpose. A cause ordinarily comes from a defining moment in any nation’s history. Searching for meaning and the need to be part of a global community that is progressive and capable of addressing its own problems with home grown solutions should spur us to be less tolerant of our current predicament.
We must ask why the cause that encouraged and inspired Africans to fight for civil rights has not been succeeded by any new cause to provide a feeling of belonging, a sense of purpose and loyalty, peer pressure to perform and a catalyst for action against individuals who masquerade as Africa’s leaders while engaging in actions that undermine the continent’s progress. It is important that we critically examine the leadership issue and who really makes decisions for Africa.
After 50 years of independence, Africa’s decisions continue to be made by non-Africans operating under the umbrella of African flags. The critical decisions about what Africans eat, wear, and which resources to exploit and the utilisation of its human capital continue to be made outside the continent and yet the decision to liberate Africa was made by Africans.
Africa’s colonial system was maintained by a systematic investment in ensuring that the natives remained perpetually ignorant about money, economic education, and financial literacy to the extent that being white was associated with being smart and rich. While the colonial system used ignorance as a key raw material for its sustenance, the post colonial African state has not fared well in the fight for equality and justice.
We can only do better if we know better and we seem to have invested in making Africans believe that there is a causal relationship between political leadership and education on the one hand and business success and education.
The anti-colonial struggle was about civil liberties, the democratization of the rule of law in ensuring that the constitution had a meaning to all citizens, leveling the legal level playing field. However, nothing has changed in Africa and the struggle continues to be about civil liberties, economic and political democracy fifty years after “uhuru” and yet it should be about building on the gains of the struggle and should be concerned with better education, greater ownership and access to capital. Africans in general have been short changed by themselves and really no one is the biggest enemy of Africa than us. In the final analysis, no one can hurt us, but us.
There can never be a more noble call than a call for Africans to take their lives back. Africa needs a new cause that suggests that we must all take a new and more optimistic yet practical and pragmatic approach to politics and economics. Why, because so many African nations with a few exceptions are in trouble; with so many negative and frightening indicators that are far worse than at the time of independence, it should not matter whether someone is black or white, rich or poor, capitalist or socialist/communist, liberal/neo-liberal or conservative and illiterate or literate as long as change visits the continent. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in regime change or not but change must visit those African states where no change means more in the wrong direction. Anyone who advocates change should be seen as a friend of Africa than those who are against change in the mistaken belief that no change helps the poor and vulnerable.
It should not matter as one Chinese leader once said what colour the cat is if it can catch a mice. Our leaders have failed to put in place policies and programs that are needed to eradicate poverty in our communities. Last week, I chaired a debate on the topic: “The Africa we want – What ideology should inform it – Capitalism or Socialism”. The consensus at the end of a heated and lively debate was that Africa should not waste its time on discussing the “isms” but the continent’s policies should focus on: “Getting It Done”.
Africa needs to Get It Done, because a good deal of the work done by African governments to improve the quality of life for Africans has simply not worked for everyone. We have had our wilderness period following the successes of the liberation struggle, but now is the time to move on. In 2007, we can no longer simply have a hope for a better Africa; we must live it in our generation and on our terms.
Africa needs a new deal. The struggles for political hegemony in post colonial Africa has largely been between political elites who come from the same womb. Africa’s post colonial leaders have been drawn largely from the academia and their adversaries have largely been drawn from the labour movement. In both Africa’s academic reservoirs and labour think tanks, we have yet to see any evidence of practical demonstration of leadership that adequately captures the imagination of Africans to be better and not bitter.
Africa needs a new charter that calls for the full opportunity for economic and financial wealth and the assertion of economic rights as platinum rights for which a crusade is needed. This struggle needs new leaders who can inculcate a new set of values for the continent. Africans need to embrace a new ideology of platinum rights in their individual lives, making a commitment to invest in education for themselves and their children as the highest priority after food in the refrigerator and a roof over their heads. Africa needs a new generation of stakeholders beyond the academic and labour interest groups.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Kofi Annan and the outsourcing Africa's future
LAST week, Cape Town hosted the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa 2007 whose theme was “Raising the Bar”.
The former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, had to wait for the conference to announce his appointment as the First Chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution (AGRA) an initiative of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
With 53 countries, Africa still has a long way to go in generating and taking ownership of its destiny and will continue to be a football that can be kicked around for other people to score while Africa’s icons play second fiddle or subsidiary roles on the defining issues of the time.
Is Africa in the Comfort Zone? Who is the WEF? Who is AGRA? Why would Africans be comfortable having a Swiss-based organisation take ownership of its important conversation? When did Annan know that he was destined to be Chairman of AGRA? Is there any agenda behind AGRA? Why the African spokesman?
Africa has produced brilliant minds that have a global rating and yet the continent continues to exhibit signs that Africa has a paucity of the brain power to transform itself out of poverty. I had no choice but to start my conversation of this week with a definition of what “comfort zone” means in relation to the contemporary African condition and how it manifests itself.
A comfort zone denotes the limited set of behaviours that a person will engage without being anxious. It describes that set of behaviours that have become comfortable without creating a sense of risk. A person’s personality can be described by his or her comfort zone. A comfort zone is, therefore, a type of mental conditioning that causes a person to create and operate mental boundaries that are not real. Such boundaries often create an unfounded sense of security.
A person who has established a comfort zone in a particular axis of his life will tend to stay within that zone without stepping outside of it. A comfort zone often results from the unfounded beliefs which, once dispelled; expand the scope of a person’s behaviours within the same environment. A comfort zone may alternatively be described with such terms as rigidity, limits, or boundaries, or habit, or even stigmatised behaviour. A typical example could be a recognised need by many Africans in the diaspora to leave unsatisfactory jobs in the host country but the fear of doing so as it would result in losing the sense of security the individual derives from the job and environment. The sense of security the individual perceives could be attributed to the mental conditioning formed initially.
Could it be that Kofi Annan, like many of us, was scared of what he would do after his tenure at the UN and forgot to use his powerful position to empower his fellow Africans so that he could find sanctuary in uniquely African-conceived, structured and financed ideas and not end up becoming a spokesman for ideas that may well be his but financed by Gates and Rockefeller money?7
Annan is the first black African to get the address of the UN Secretary General and more is, therefore, expected from him than to end up with no home that is financed by Africans to use his experience, contacts and knowledge. It is common cause that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Yes, Annan could be different but the truth is that AGRA is an initiative that will rely on funding from the donors. One cannot fault the American foundation for identifying the green revolution in Africa as worthy of intervention and for which an African face in the name of Annan would be ideal. In as much as African recognise that the food and water management challenges of Africa need to be resolved, it is notable that Africans would not dare leave the comfort zone and create their own broad-based foundations by using their savings for better good in Africa.
When Gates chooses Annan to have a voice on African issues, we cannot blame him because we have abdicated from taking ownership of our problems. It may be the case that Annan started his conversations with Gates while he was still at the UN and used his access to sell the idea of AGRA but could not find African sponsors in the private or public sectors of Africa. African governments sponsored Annan for the highest office at the UN and yet none of them were concerned about what Annan would do after his tenure. His voice may well have been purchased already and Africa’s expensive investment has ended up being harvested by the very forces Africa seeks to reduce their influence on defining its destiny. Annan, like many of his brothers in the diaspora, cannot escape the comfort zone of the classic brain drain where Africa’s best brains end up being the pretty faces representing other people’s brands and ideas. The tragedy is that the best African minds find value in the imperialist world.
Now we turn to the WEF. It is significant that Annan only announced his appointment at the WEF meeting confirming that no African could provide an appropriate address for him to share his new address with the world. Can you imagine if Klaus Schwab, a Swiss business Professor, who is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the WEF, had not thought of the idea in 1971 where would Annan have had an opportunity to break the news?
We have not been able to create our own addresses for dialogue and debate about the major social and economic challenges facing Africa. The WEF has, therefore, provided an important address for Africans but the idea was conceived by non-Africans. Africa’s powerful institutions and individuals look forward to networking at the WEF and yet fail to pose to think why it is the case that Africans have over the last 50 years failed to produce a Professor with the same vision and initiative as that of Professor Schwab. Even Annan has not been challenged enough to get out of the comfort zone and be energised to create an African address that Africa’s big minds can use to ventilate their ideas on how best the continent can move forward.
I was not surprised to learn from a colleague who attended the Cape Town meeting that he could not help but notice that Africa’s Who is Who are not black Africans. In fact blacks were Missing in Action (MIA). The WEF has, therefore, been transformed into an address where the richest African and non African businesses can easily negotiate deals with one another and lobby Africa’s most powerful politicians in broad daylight for deals often at the expense of Africa.
It is an elitist get together and has perfected the skill of creating a power centre for those businessmen who are willing to pay the fees. Important decisions on Africa’s future are made at these meetings with the beneficiaries often being none other than non-Africans. Many of Africa’s budding entrepreneurs now are members of the Young Global Leaders and they are happy to pay the price but often are not willing to pay or belong to any of Africa’s many initiatives to create a platform for debate and dialogue.
The question remains: why have Africans not been able to create their own exclusive and elitist clubs or associations where their political decision makers will find value in using before outsourcing Africa’s future to non-Africans?
The former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, had to wait for the conference to announce his appointment as the First Chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution (AGRA) an initiative of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
With 53 countries, Africa still has a long way to go in generating and taking ownership of its destiny and will continue to be a football that can be kicked around for other people to score while Africa’s icons play second fiddle or subsidiary roles on the defining issues of the time.
Is Africa in the Comfort Zone? Who is the WEF? Who is AGRA? Why would Africans be comfortable having a Swiss-based organisation take ownership of its important conversation? When did Annan know that he was destined to be Chairman of AGRA? Is there any agenda behind AGRA? Why the African spokesman?
Africa has produced brilliant minds that have a global rating and yet the continent continues to exhibit signs that Africa has a paucity of the brain power to transform itself out of poverty. I had no choice but to start my conversation of this week with a definition of what “comfort zone” means in relation to the contemporary African condition and how it manifests itself.
A comfort zone denotes the limited set of behaviours that a person will engage without being anxious. It describes that set of behaviours that have become comfortable without creating a sense of risk. A person’s personality can be described by his or her comfort zone. A comfort zone is, therefore, a type of mental conditioning that causes a person to create and operate mental boundaries that are not real. Such boundaries often create an unfounded sense of security.
A person who has established a comfort zone in a particular axis of his life will tend to stay within that zone without stepping outside of it. A comfort zone often results from the unfounded beliefs which, once dispelled; expand the scope of a person’s behaviours within the same environment. A comfort zone may alternatively be described with such terms as rigidity, limits, or boundaries, or habit, or even stigmatised behaviour. A typical example could be a recognised need by many Africans in the diaspora to leave unsatisfactory jobs in the host country but the fear of doing so as it would result in losing the sense of security the individual derives from the job and environment. The sense of security the individual perceives could be attributed to the mental conditioning formed initially.
Could it be that Kofi Annan, like many of us, was scared of what he would do after his tenure at the UN and forgot to use his powerful position to empower his fellow Africans so that he could find sanctuary in uniquely African-conceived, structured and financed ideas and not end up becoming a spokesman for ideas that may well be his but financed by Gates and Rockefeller money?7
Annan is the first black African to get the address of the UN Secretary General and more is, therefore, expected from him than to end up with no home that is financed by Africans to use his experience, contacts and knowledge. It is common cause that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Yes, Annan could be different but the truth is that AGRA is an initiative that will rely on funding from the donors. One cannot fault the American foundation for identifying the green revolution in Africa as worthy of intervention and for which an African face in the name of Annan would be ideal. In as much as African recognise that the food and water management challenges of Africa need to be resolved, it is notable that Africans would not dare leave the comfort zone and create their own broad-based foundations by using their savings for better good in Africa.
When Gates chooses Annan to have a voice on African issues, we cannot blame him because we have abdicated from taking ownership of our problems. It may be the case that Annan started his conversations with Gates while he was still at the UN and used his access to sell the idea of AGRA but could not find African sponsors in the private or public sectors of Africa. African governments sponsored Annan for the highest office at the UN and yet none of them were concerned about what Annan would do after his tenure. His voice may well have been purchased already and Africa’s expensive investment has ended up being harvested by the very forces Africa seeks to reduce their influence on defining its destiny. Annan, like many of his brothers in the diaspora, cannot escape the comfort zone of the classic brain drain where Africa’s best brains end up being the pretty faces representing other people’s brands and ideas. The tragedy is that the best African minds find value in the imperialist world.
Now we turn to the WEF. It is significant that Annan only announced his appointment at the WEF meeting confirming that no African could provide an appropriate address for him to share his new address with the world. Can you imagine if Klaus Schwab, a Swiss business Professor, who is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the WEF, had not thought of the idea in 1971 where would Annan have had an opportunity to break the news?
We have not been able to create our own addresses for dialogue and debate about the major social and economic challenges facing Africa. The WEF has, therefore, provided an important address for Africans but the idea was conceived by non-Africans. Africa’s powerful institutions and individuals look forward to networking at the WEF and yet fail to pose to think why it is the case that Africans have over the last 50 years failed to produce a Professor with the same vision and initiative as that of Professor Schwab. Even Annan has not been challenged enough to get out of the comfort zone and be energised to create an African address that Africa’s big minds can use to ventilate their ideas on how best the continent can move forward.
I was not surprised to learn from a colleague who attended the Cape Town meeting that he could not help but notice that Africa’s Who is Who are not black Africans. In fact blacks were Missing in Action (MIA). The WEF has, therefore, been transformed into an address where the richest African and non African businesses can easily negotiate deals with one another and lobby Africa’s most powerful politicians in broad daylight for deals often at the expense of Africa.
It is an elitist get together and has perfected the skill of creating a power centre for those businessmen who are willing to pay the fees. Important decisions on Africa’s future are made at these meetings with the beneficiaries often being none other than non-Africans. Many of Africa’s budding entrepreneurs now are members of the Young Global Leaders and they are happy to pay the price but often are not willing to pay or belong to any of Africa’s many initiatives to create a platform for debate and dialogue.
The question remains: why have Africans not been able to create their own exclusive and elitist clubs or associations where their political decision makers will find value in using before outsourcing Africa’s future to non-Africans?
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
The Africa we want
THE G8 summit was held last week and as expected, Africa was on the agenda of developed countries. This was the eighth such meeting involving the participation of selected African heads of state.
From Tokyo in 2000 to Heiligendamm last week, the African story has occupied the minds of the rich nations exposing the challenges that still confront the continent in addressing the poverty trap that seems to be an enduring defining characteristic of post-colonial Africa.
In as much as African governments have the tendency of despising the rich nations; it seems that they have resigned themselves to being accomplished lobbyists for handouts and free food at the table where the rich meet to discuss issues of mutual interest.
The mere fact that Africans expect the rich to make it their agenda to invest in Africa’s poverty and development challenges goes a long way to show that we still have a long way to go. Most African nations cannot function and deliver services to their citizens without the financial intervention of the very imperialist forces that they seek to blame for their misery. No other continent’s issues have been the subject matter of the rich nations for eight successive summits with no visible sign of hope.
The love hate relationship between Africa and its former colonial masters is no different from the relationship that characterised former slaves with their former slave masters. The behaviour of house and plantation niggers may not be any different from the behaviour of those who get invited to the house of the rich nations and those who would never be welcomed by the rich.
While the house niggers may take comfort in that they are worthy to eat the crumbs from the master’s table and pose for photos with the masters, they are acutely aware that the master will never be blackmailed into giving up his/her privilege. The plantation niggers are too angry and usually remain alienated from the affluence of the master. Freeing the slaves did not give them the freedom to make their own choices and most of the slaves had become so accustomed to being dependent on the master that it became difficult if not impossible for them to think for themselves and take ownership of their destinies.
Even at the last G8 summit, the spokespersons for Africa’s plight that the media focused on for comment were not Africans. Why is it that Africa’s problems do not attract African champions and advocates? The rich nations now compete on who cares most for Africa? The day before yesterday it was Clinton, yesterday it was Blair and today it is Merkel. We then have our African champions whose mission is to convince the rich nations to be less rich by targeting their income to invest in Africa’s poverty. It may not be surprising to see Blair teaming up with Kofi Annan, Clinton, Bono, Gates, Geldof etc as the new champions of Africa.
Even if the rich countries poured more than US$60 billion in Africa over the next three years, I am confident that Africa’s problems will remain with us. The real question is: what will it take for Africa to rid itself of the development challenges and fast track it into the global matrix of progressive nations and functional brands?
The poor will always be there in as much as the rich will always be there. Africans pretty much know what they are against but they seem not to have clarity on what they stand for. There is no consensus on what kind of Africa, Africans want. Should Africa’s ideology be communist/socialist or capitalist? To the extent that African leaders are not comfortable with the rich nations, how can rich Africans be understood and accommodated by African governments? Should Africa’s resources be exploited by non-Africans? What is Africa’s agenda? Who should drive the African development agenda i.e the state or the individual African?
Africa needs to grow up and we need to look at ourselves in the eye and ask ourselves critically why despite the continent’s great potential and human resources, the continent continues to face some of the world's greatest challenges. The numerous initiatives designed to spur and stimulate Africa's development have failed to deliver sustained improvements to the continent’s majority. Even with the end of apartheid and colonialism, the majority of Africans continue to be challenged by poverty.
It is ironic that Africans were colonised by a few organised Caucasians who knew what they wanted from Africa and yet most African leaders appear to be unable to figure out what they stand for. Colonialists came to Africa often with bibles as their currency and a few guns to tame the natives but what was clear was that they stood for white privilege and their system was accordingly constructed on values that celebrated white progress. Our post-colonial leaders in the main have not been able to stand for black progress viewing it as a threat to their hegemony and seem unable to communicate what kind of society for Africa should be and what Africans need to do to join the commonwealth of global progressive nations. Even after 13 years of Uhuru in South Africa, it would be unthinkable to find a white person looking forward to eke a living in an African township like Soweto or Langa.
Although Africans occupy State Houses, the majority of Africans continue to occupy the informal settlements. The prime responsibility for Africa's future must lie with us. We have to make the hard choices on issues of governance, rule of law, democracy, property rights, and the role of the individual African child, woman and man in the development process.
I have been privileged to occupy the space that enables me to speak with confidence on a number of African issues. I am comforted by the fact that every African rich or poor has his/her own address and like a pyramid we all have a contribution to make in sustaining our pyramid. The rich are as important as the poor because in the final analysis every poor person may also want to live and occupy the address of the rich.
In the political transitions that have taken place in Africa, perhaps the most classic is the overnight trading of places between the colonial elites and the black elites. Even in the case of South Africa, with the exception of Winnie Mandela and a few others, most black elites have seamlessly taken over white addresses and yet spent most of their time despising the people who built their comfortable shelters for them. We still have to see a shopping mall conceived and developed by us. Our residential and work addresses typically reflect the inheritance from the colonial system that we seek to destroy without embracing the informal settlements that the majority seem incapable of escaping from.
My own story may not be different from the stories of other Africans. I never thought that my story could occupy the minds of non-Africans but early last year, I was surprised to receive an email from an African American that had stumbled on my name in the cyberspace and became interested in what had been written about me. He is a film producer based in New York who found my story intriguing and fascinating to the extent that he was anxious to get my permission to do a documentary on my story. I did not know how to respond not only because I was not sure which aspect he had read about but because I did not know the person. I took the courage to respond to him and told him that it would be best to meet with in person to establish precisely the nature of his interest in my story.
When I met the gentleman in New York, he was shocked to find out that I was just another ordinary person. I asked him to tell me what was so fascinating about my story. He then said that he had read all that has been covered in the media about me and surprisingly he had concluded on his own that the manner in which my story has been covered is no different from how the media has treated African American persons in my position.
Accordingly, he wanted me to tell him the real story. He said that he did not believe that I was a fugitive, crony, and dishonest. His primary interest was to focus on how African governments treat their own kind while allowing other nationals to monopolise the exploitation of Africa’s resources.
He said that he could not believe that the Zimbabwean government would like to claim credit on my achievements while displaying ineptitude in dealing with national development challenges. What was most disturbing to him was that even journalists who credit themselves as Robert Mugabe’s critics and the political opposition seem to be indifferent to the human and property rights abuses perpetrated by the government of Zimbabwe against African businessmen. He was surprised that my case had not been taken seriously to expose the hypocrisy of the government of Zimbabwe.
I told him that it should not be strange for him to appreciate that it is difficult for Africans to accept and celebrate the progress of one of their own given our common poor heritage. Anyone who makes it is often labelled a crony or corrupt. I also told him that it is to be expected that anyone in my position would naturally be a target not only of the political elites but the general public. I said that I am the only fugitive in the world who has not changed an address for the last 12 years and who is a foreign citizen to the forum country. He was shocked to learn that I have not been a resident of Zimbabwe since 1988 and that I acquired South African citizenship voluntarily.
He wanted to know why the government of Zimbabwe has not been exposed for trying to poison the public with a version that I became a South African citizen because I was running away from Zimbabwe. I told him that if I was running away from Zimbabwe I would not have been eligible for citizenship in a foreign country but political asylum. I asked him whether he had ever read about me vacating an office in Harare that the government would surely have raided if it existed. How could I be accused of being a fugitive without locating the place I ran away from? He also wanted to know about the Mnangagwa connection. I told him that it is not unusual for the simple African mind not to think beyond cronyism and corruption.
The starting point for an average African person is to put himself into my shoes and try to imagine whether he could rise to the occasion without the capacitation of a third party like a politician. The normal answer is that a person’s own inadequacies are so overwhelming to the extent that it becomes rational to explain any business success in political terms. I told him about the Zuma/Shaik case where the two have been accused of having a generally corrupt relationship and yet in my case, Mnangagwa remains a free man suffering no disability or under an investigation for purportedly corruptly helping me in my businesses. I informed him that to date there has been no evidence to suggest that I was a beneficiary of any corrupt relationship, but for some strange reason, even the most informed think otherwise.
I provided him with all the documentary evidence in support of my position that the government of Zimbabwe has acted illegally and unconstitutionally in confiscating my Zimbabwean assets and manufacturing a special law to assume control of my property while misinforming the public that I was some kind of a criminal who stole from himself in so doing inviting the government to step-in protect me from my assets.
After reading all the material that I provided him, I jokingly told him that this may be the kind of Africa that the liberation war was fought for. He could now understand why businesspersons who benefited from unjust regimes like apartheid would be more acceptable to Africans than an African who is perceived to have benefited from a black government. In fact, many people expect African businesspersons to naturally be adversaries of political African elites while expecting foreign or former colonial beneficiaries to be the right business partners. A European businessman can benefit from being European in Europe and still benefit from being an African in Africa. Who ever said that the world was fair?
I concluded by telling him that it is our collective responsibility to improve our literacy on business issues. My encounter with this African American was before I started writing my weekly column on New Zimbabwe.com. If there was anyone who inspired me to start writing about my reflections on many business and political issues it was this African American who saw more in my victimisation than my own close friends and fellow continental Africans.
I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email again from the same African American last week in response to my article entitled: “Africa’s development challenges”. He wrote as follows:
“I read your editorial. I hope all is well. I have many opinions about it. Here in the states, I've been a sort of pariah amongst my peers because I've been an opponent of affirmative action. My argument against it is several:• legislation seeking to fix certain aspects of the educational system amount to tacit admission of inherent (i.e. built-in) inequity. In other words, the fact that legislature is willing to put forth and enact affirmative action is admission that the system has pre-existing bias. This amounts to a band aid on a shotgun wound; it is insufficient and undesirable.
• the modern educational system in the US issues standardised testing (standardised nationally) but does not provide standardised education. Education, if measured by dollars spent per student, is best in districts where the parents make the most money, as educational dollars are spent per capita based on district pre-tax income.
• it enforces the notion of inherent academic inferiority of those of African descent - a notion which is affirmed when it seems that black Americans champion damning legislature such as this.
I bring up affirmative action - and believe it relates to your point for this reason. More than anything else, Africans across the planet suffer from a crisis of culture. In this crisis, Africans have internalised previously forced-upon marginalisation. We've internalised what has been projected upon us. It is this crisis of culture - this subconscious disbelief in our own ability to exert effective hegemony over what is rightly ours, which marks black people across the planet. It's this idea that we can ask oppressors to stop oppressing us - it is this notion that we collectively seem to be ignorant of what other maligned groups in the past have done to circumvent and neutralise the boots of imperialism and tyranny and exploitation. My mother always said, "Don't beat yourself up trying to figure out how to do something. Everything's already been done. KNOW what you want to do, and read where the best people have done it before and refine it to your own needs. There is no need to reinvent the wheel." There is a crisis of leadership. But even more pertinently, and I'm not sure to amend this - there is a crisis of culture. I think I've relayed the anecdote of the Haitian Revolution before. At the time of the revolution, there were 50,000 whites and 250,000 blacks on the Haitian portion of the island. The revolution essentially boiled down to a Eureka moment, i.e. - "Oh shit, we have them 5 to 1." It's a simple mindset - it's a switch that needs to be flipped. It's a fine sheen of dust, this mantle of victimisation - that needs to be shed - and effective leaders will naturally arise from this cultural shift. I never thought I could have the time to write a weekly column for more than a year without miss. However, when other people find value in what you have to say then you can only know that it is worth the effort. After all, there is no coffin that takes any cash or a grave that has an ATM machine. All we leave for the next generation are recorded conversations and things that we have created through our actions.
In 1995, I resigned voluntarily from the World Bank to come back to Africa to play my part in the renaissance of the continent so that never again should Africans look forward to gate crash the meeting of the rich so that they can confuse the rich to become less rich as a strategy for African progress.
In 1996, I acquired an asbestos focused mining company and in less than ten years transformed it into a diversified mining, industrial and financial services conglomerate that was attractive enough for the government of Zimbabwe to pass legislation with retrospective application so that they could acquire my assets without any compensation.
On the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, the government of Zimbabwe inherited the following companies that were under my control on the pretext that my companies were insolvent (no stock exchange will allow an insolvent company to remain a listed counter): (1) CFI Holdings Limited, (2) Nicoz Diamond, (3) First Bank Corporation, (3) Steelnet Zimbabwe Limited, (4) General Belting Limited, (5) Turnall Holdings Limited; (6) Zimre Holdings Limited, and (7) Fidelity Life Assurance Limited.
The government of Zimbabwe that has been universally credited for creating the best dysfunctional and decaying economy in the world believes that it is a better shareholder than I. To take control of my companies, the government saw it fit to appoint an administrator to manage the affairs of my companies and yet will not find any justification in appointing an administrator to take over the administration of the affairs of Zimbabwe in view of the economic crisis that has visited Zimbabwe under the watch of President Mugabe.
Food for thought: if a government can steal companies from a shareholder in broad daylight why can it not steal an election in 2008?
From Tokyo in 2000 to Heiligendamm last week, the African story has occupied the minds of the rich nations exposing the challenges that still confront the continent in addressing the poverty trap that seems to be an enduring defining characteristic of post-colonial Africa.
In as much as African governments have the tendency of despising the rich nations; it seems that they have resigned themselves to being accomplished lobbyists for handouts and free food at the table where the rich meet to discuss issues of mutual interest.
The mere fact that Africans expect the rich to make it their agenda to invest in Africa’s poverty and development challenges goes a long way to show that we still have a long way to go. Most African nations cannot function and deliver services to their citizens without the financial intervention of the very imperialist forces that they seek to blame for their misery. No other continent’s issues have been the subject matter of the rich nations for eight successive summits with no visible sign of hope.
The love hate relationship between Africa and its former colonial masters is no different from the relationship that characterised former slaves with their former slave masters. The behaviour of house and plantation niggers may not be any different from the behaviour of those who get invited to the house of the rich nations and those who would never be welcomed by the rich.
While the house niggers may take comfort in that they are worthy to eat the crumbs from the master’s table and pose for photos with the masters, they are acutely aware that the master will never be blackmailed into giving up his/her privilege. The plantation niggers are too angry and usually remain alienated from the affluence of the master. Freeing the slaves did not give them the freedom to make their own choices and most of the slaves had become so accustomed to being dependent on the master that it became difficult if not impossible for them to think for themselves and take ownership of their destinies.
Even at the last G8 summit, the spokespersons for Africa’s plight that the media focused on for comment were not Africans. Why is it that Africa’s problems do not attract African champions and advocates? The rich nations now compete on who cares most for Africa? The day before yesterday it was Clinton, yesterday it was Blair and today it is Merkel. We then have our African champions whose mission is to convince the rich nations to be less rich by targeting their income to invest in Africa’s poverty. It may not be surprising to see Blair teaming up with Kofi Annan, Clinton, Bono, Gates, Geldof etc as the new champions of Africa.
Even if the rich countries poured more than US$60 billion in Africa over the next three years, I am confident that Africa’s problems will remain with us. The real question is: what will it take for Africa to rid itself of the development challenges and fast track it into the global matrix of progressive nations and functional brands?
The poor will always be there in as much as the rich will always be there. Africans pretty much know what they are against but they seem not to have clarity on what they stand for. There is no consensus on what kind of Africa, Africans want. Should Africa’s ideology be communist/socialist or capitalist? To the extent that African leaders are not comfortable with the rich nations, how can rich Africans be understood and accommodated by African governments? Should Africa’s resources be exploited by non-Africans? What is Africa’s agenda? Who should drive the African development agenda i.e the state or the individual African?
Africa needs to grow up and we need to look at ourselves in the eye and ask ourselves critically why despite the continent’s great potential and human resources, the continent continues to face some of the world's greatest challenges. The numerous initiatives designed to spur and stimulate Africa's development have failed to deliver sustained improvements to the continent’s majority. Even with the end of apartheid and colonialism, the majority of Africans continue to be challenged by poverty.
It is ironic that Africans were colonised by a few organised Caucasians who knew what they wanted from Africa and yet most African leaders appear to be unable to figure out what they stand for. Colonialists came to Africa often with bibles as their currency and a few guns to tame the natives but what was clear was that they stood for white privilege and their system was accordingly constructed on values that celebrated white progress. Our post-colonial leaders in the main have not been able to stand for black progress viewing it as a threat to their hegemony and seem unable to communicate what kind of society for Africa should be and what Africans need to do to join the commonwealth of global progressive nations. Even after 13 years of Uhuru in South Africa, it would be unthinkable to find a white person looking forward to eke a living in an African township like Soweto or Langa.
Although Africans occupy State Houses, the majority of Africans continue to occupy the informal settlements. The prime responsibility for Africa's future must lie with us. We have to make the hard choices on issues of governance, rule of law, democracy, property rights, and the role of the individual African child, woman and man in the development process.
I have been privileged to occupy the space that enables me to speak with confidence on a number of African issues. I am comforted by the fact that every African rich or poor has his/her own address and like a pyramid we all have a contribution to make in sustaining our pyramid. The rich are as important as the poor because in the final analysis every poor person may also want to live and occupy the address of the rich.
In the political transitions that have taken place in Africa, perhaps the most classic is the overnight trading of places between the colonial elites and the black elites. Even in the case of South Africa, with the exception of Winnie Mandela and a few others, most black elites have seamlessly taken over white addresses and yet spent most of their time despising the people who built their comfortable shelters for them. We still have to see a shopping mall conceived and developed by us. Our residential and work addresses typically reflect the inheritance from the colonial system that we seek to destroy without embracing the informal settlements that the majority seem incapable of escaping from.
My own story may not be different from the stories of other Africans. I never thought that my story could occupy the minds of non-Africans but early last year, I was surprised to receive an email from an African American that had stumbled on my name in the cyberspace and became interested in what had been written about me. He is a film producer based in New York who found my story intriguing and fascinating to the extent that he was anxious to get my permission to do a documentary on my story. I did not know how to respond not only because I was not sure which aspect he had read about but because I did not know the person. I took the courage to respond to him and told him that it would be best to meet with in person to establish precisely the nature of his interest in my story.
When I met the gentleman in New York, he was shocked to find out that I was just another ordinary person. I asked him to tell me what was so fascinating about my story. He then said that he had read all that has been covered in the media about me and surprisingly he had concluded on his own that the manner in which my story has been covered is no different from how the media has treated African American persons in my position.
Accordingly, he wanted me to tell him the real story. He said that he did not believe that I was a fugitive, crony, and dishonest. His primary interest was to focus on how African governments treat their own kind while allowing other nationals to monopolise the exploitation of Africa’s resources.
He said that he could not believe that the Zimbabwean government would like to claim credit on my achievements while displaying ineptitude in dealing with national development challenges. What was most disturbing to him was that even journalists who credit themselves as Robert Mugabe’s critics and the political opposition seem to be indifferent to the human and property rights abuses perpetrated by the government of Zimbabwe against African businessmen. He was surprised that my case had not been taken seriously to expose the hypocrisy of the government of Zimbabwe.
I told him that it should not be strange for him to appreciate that it is difficult for Africans to accept and celebrate the progress of one of their own given our common poor heritage. Anyone who makes it is often labelled a crony or corrupt. I also told him that it is to be expected that anyone in my position would naturally be a target not only of the political elites but the general public. I said that I am the only fugitive in the world who has not changed an address for the last 12 years and who is a foreign citizen to the forum country. He was shocked to learn that I have not been a resident of Zimbabwe since 1988 and that I acquired South African citizenship voluntarily.
He wanted to know why the government of Zimbabwe has not been exposed for trying to poison the public with a version that I became a South African citizen because I was running away from Zimbabwe. I told him that if I was running away from Zimbabwe I would not have been eligible for citizenship in a foreign country but political asylum. I asked him whether he had ever read about me vacating an office in Harare that the government would surely have raided if it existed. How could I be accused of being a fugitive without locating the place I ran away from? He also wanted to know about the Mnangagwa connection. I told him that it is not unusual for the simple African mind not to think beyond cronyism and corruption.
The starting point for an average African person is to put himself into my shoes and try to imagine whether he could rise to the occasion without the capacitation of a third party like a politician. The normal answer is that a person’s own inadequacies are so overwhelming to the extent that it becomes rational to explain any business success in political terms. I told him about the Zuma/Shaik case where the two have been accused of having a generally corrupt relationship and yet in my case, Mnangagwa remains a free man suffering no disability or under an investigation for purportedly corruptly helping me in my businesses. I informed him that to date there has been no evidence to suggest that I was a beneficiary of any corrupt relationship, but for some strange reason, even the most informed think otherwise.
I provided him with all the documentary evidence in support of my position that the government of Zimbabwe has acted illegally and unconstitutionally in confiscating my Zimbabwean assets and manufacturing a special law to assume control of my property while misinforming the public that I was some kind of a criminal who stole from himself in so doing inviting the government to step-in protect me from my assets.
After reading all the material that I provided him, I jokingly told him that this may be the kind of Africa that the liberation war was fought for. He could now understand why businesspersons who benefited from unjust regimes like apartheid would be more acceptable to Africans than an African who is perceived to have benefited from a black government. In fact, many people expect African businesspersons to naturally be adversaries of political African elites while expecting foreign or former colonial beneficiaries to be the right business partners. A European businessman can benefit from being European in Europe and still benefit from being an African in Africa. Who ever said that the world was fair?
I concluded by telling him that it is our collective responsibility to improve our literacy on business issues. My encounter with this African American was before I started writing my weekly column on New Zimbabwe.com. If there was anyone who inspired me to start writing about my reflections on many business and political issues it was this African American who saw more in my victimisation than my own close friends and fellow continental Africans.
I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email again from the same African American last week in response to my article entitled: “Africa’s development challenges”. He wrote as follows:
“I read your editorial. I hope all is well. I have many opinions about it. Here in the states, I've been a sort of pariah amongst my peers because I've been an opponent of affirmative action. My argument against it is several:• legislation seeking to fix certain aspects of the educational system amount to tacit admission of inherent (i.e. built-in) inequity. In other words, the fact that legislature is willing to put forth and enact affirmative action is admission that the system has pre-existing bias. This amounts to a band aid on a shotgun wound; it is insufficient and undesirable.
• the modern educational system in the US issues standardised testing (standardised nationally) but does not provide standardised education. Education, if measured by dollars spent per student, is best in districts where the parents make the most money, as educational dollars are spent per capita based on district pre-tax income.
• it enforces the notion of inherent academic inferiority of those of African descent - a notion which is affirmed when it seems that black Americans champion damning legislature such as this.
I bring up affirmative action - and believe it relates to your point for this reason. More than anything else, Africans across the planet suffer from a crisis of culture. In this crisis, Africans have internalised previously forced-upon marginalisation. We've internalised what has been projected upon us. It is this crisis of culture - this subconscious disbelief in our own ability to exert effective hegemony over what is rightly ours, which marks black people across the planet. It's this idea that we can ask oppressors to stop oppressing us - it is this notion that we collectively seem to be ignorant of what other maligned groups in the past have done to circumvent and neutralise the boots of imperialism and tyranny and exploitation. My mother always said, "Don't beat yourself up trying to figure out how to do something. Everything's already been done. KNOW what you want to do, and read where the best people have done it before and refine it to your own needs. There is no need to reinvent the wheel." There is a crisis of leadership. But even more pertinently, and I'm not sure to amend this - there is a crisis of culture. I think I've relayed the anecdote of the Haitian Revolution before. At the time of the revolution, there were 50,000 whites and 250,000 blacks on the Haitian portion of the island. The revolution essentially boiled down to a Eureka moment, i.e. - "Oh shit, we have them 5 to 1." It's a simple mindset - it's a switch that needs to be flipped. It's a fine sheen of dust, this mantle of victimisation - that needs to be shed - and effective leaders will naturally arise from this cultural shift. I never thought I could have the time to write a weekly column for more than a year without miss. However, when other people find value in what you have to say then you can only know that it is worth the effort. After all, there is no coffin that takes any cash or a grave that has an ATM machine. All we leave for the next generation are recorded conversations and things that we have created through our actions.
In 1995, I resigned voluntarily from the World Bank to come back to Africa to play my part in the renaissance of the continent so that never again should Africans look forward to gate crash the meeting of the rich so that they can confuse the rich to become less rich as a strategy for African progress.
In 1996, I acquired an asbestos focused mining company and in less than ten years transformed it into a diversified mining, industrial and financial services conglomerate that was attractive enough for the government of Zimbabwe to pass legislation with retrospective application so that they could acquire my assets without any compensation.
On the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, the government of Zimbabwe inherited the following companies that were under my control on the pretext that my companies were insolvent (no stock exchange will allow an insolvent company to remain a listed counter): (1) CFI Holdings Limited, (2) Nicoz Diamond, (3) First Bank Corporation, (3) Steelnet Zimbabwe Limited, (4) General Belting Limited, (5) Turnall Holdings Limited; (6) Zimre Holdings Limited, and (7) Fidelity Life Assurance Limited.
The government of Zimbabwe that has been universally credited for creating the best dysfunctional and decaying economy in the world believes that it is a better shareholder than I. To take control of my companies, the government saw it fit to appoint an administrator to manage the affairs of my companies and yet will not find any justification in appointing an administrator to take over the administration of the affairs of Zimbabwe in view of the economic crisis that has visited Zimbabwe under the watch of President Mugabe.
Food for thought: if a government can steal companies from a shareholder in broad daylight why can it not steal an election in 2008?
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Africa's development challenge - from civil to platinum rights
ON JUNE 1, 2007, CNBC launched in Johannesburg, South Africa what it is describes as Sub-Saharan Africa’s first international business news channel, CNBC Africa.
President Mbeki was the inaugural guest together with about 70 business leaders. Africa. For those who watched the program, they would not have been surprised to recognise that Africa’s business architecture continues to exhibit the absence of Africa business leaders even after 50 years of Uhuru. CNBC is part of NBC Universal, which is owned by US giant General Electric (GE).
Business leaders from New York, London, Paris, and the Middle East were featured on the program and the profile of business leaders that were selected as guests for the program only served to demonstrate the challenge Africans face in this 21st Century in transforming the civil rights gains into platinum (economic) rights.
Anyone who dares to focus on the financial, business and economic news of Africa will soon realise that Africans (black) are predominantly missing in action. The Who is Who of African business has not changed significantly to reflect the raising of post-colonial flags. The critical decisions on Africa’s future economic issues are not made in Africa and the role of African governments has shifted from protecting the colonial political elites to entrenching the economic power of non-Africans. Yesterday it was the Caucasians and today it is Asians and yet the difference may ultimately be the same.
Africa’s intellectual and business minds will remain marginalised until we shift the mind set from what did African leaders do but what we are going to do from here. The issue when African countries gained independence was poverty and it is still poverty today. Over the last 50 years, we have become experts at what are against and not what we are for. We are against colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism (even embracing American values through CNBC Africa), neo-liberalism, capitalism etc.
Ignorance was a key raw material for slavery and it continues to be an enduring road block to African progress. What do Africans need to do in this century often dubbed the African century not because Africa for the first time is hosting the World Soccer Cup but because there was optimism that after the complete decolonisation of the continent, Africans will get their act together and claim a piece of the action in a fast moving global environment where other former victims of colonialism have demonstrated that with literacy, empowerment is not a pipe dream?
We continue to be challenges in our understanding about money and the construction of capital. Financial literacy for African children is generally low so is the absence of empowering economic education not only in the rural areas where the majority of Africans reside but in Africa’s boardrooms where the few Africans are assimilated often at the expense of African values.
I have no doubt that the new CNBC channel will continue to perpetuate the notion that Africans are better off integrating themselves into the global community of nations as second class citizens. Due to commercial imperatives, the business people that will be featured representing Africa will be those that can afford the expensive airtime. After all CNBC Africa is a commercial enterprise taking advantage of the knowledge, capital and execution gaps existing in modern day Africa.
It is obvious that Africa’s fight for equality and justice will not be waged and won in government offices and in the streets but in corporate boardrooms and financial literacy classrooms. Knowledge about institutions and money can be an enduring poverty alleviation tool because when someone knows better they tend to do better. Those of us who know better for some reason we tend to privatize and monopolize the knowledge with often unintended consequences.
Africa’s political leaders have managed to create a political base for Africans to decide on who should govern them but have failed to provide an economic base on who should feed them. Yes, South Africa has been integrated into the commonwealth of African nations that is characterised by poverty as the common thread that unites the quilt of nation states that still have a long way to go to give hope to their citizens.
Yesterday, political apartheid was not acceptable in Africa and yet the products and institutions of the same system are the new torch bearers of hope in Africa. If one looks at the real players in Africa, one will recognise that with few exceptions, the exploitation of Africa’s resources is the preserve of South African (white controlled), Caucasian and lately Asian people.
South Africa inherited a sophisticated industrial, mining and financial system that is being put to good use by the former beneficiaries of apartheid to the extent that the value system that informs African business is being mediated through individuals who believe that Africa’s future should be inclusive. It is not surprising that many African businesspersons who may be looking for business rights from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to distribute their products in Africa may discover that such rights are already allocated in perpetuity to South African entrepreneurs (often white) who do not see a need to partner with their historically disadvantaged black brothers and sisters.
Africa may have invested in human capital but unless its business institutions believe in African capacity, it is unlikely that the brain drain will be stopped. While Africans choose to vote with their feet other nationalities choose to come to Africa to exploit its resources often with the encouragement of African governments. Most African leaders believe that Africans lack capacity and, therefore, it is risky to put any real faith in them. With this mind set, any enterprising African businessmen is often labelled corrupt or a crony.
While African leaders dealt with issues of race and colour divide, we must find new ways to address issues of poverty and class in Africa. We need new strategies and fresh ideas to ensure that Africa lives up to its promise and potential. We need to begin to understand the capitalist system, integrate our financial resources just like we integrated the political divide with universal suffrage. Democracy should not be restricted to the political market but must be extended into the economic sphere.
There are many of us who are against capitalism and yet fail to show us what other system can deliver the goods. The Chinese and Indians were slow to recognise that it is through the individual that any nation can progress to greater heights. In the final analysis, it is up to us to invest in the new African identity that is deeply rooted in African values. Even the late President Nyerere recognised the futility of an ideology that emphasized distribution of the sweat of others at the expense of production. He bowed out of power not because he was no longer popular but because he realised that his ideas did not connect with the aspirations of his own people. How many other African leaders with obsolete ideas will be prepared to step down to allow their people to take ownership of their destinies?
Africa’s youngest child, South Africa, is fast becoming the repository of values that should inform the development options for the whole continent. However, to fast track the integration of historically disadvantaged persons (42 million blacks) into an economy dominated by about 5 million whites, the government has put in place a legal framework that on paper should see whites giving up their economic and financial hegemony to allow blacks to also enjoy the African economic sunshine. While this may represent a step in the right direction, one cannot but recall what the late Dr. King said in 1968 when confronted with the poverty that continued to visit Black America: “You cannot legislate goodness or pass a law to force someone to like or respect you……the only way to social justice in a capitalist country is economic parity.”
The Black America and Black Africa’s stories are not too different and yet in Africa, blacks are in the majority and cannot, therefore, afford to put in place legislation that conditions them to think that they are a minority that needs legal protection. If we use our majority spending power into economic power, I have no doubt that we can create our own Mittal, Gates, Buffett, Soros, etc. However, in the vocabulary of business, we seem not to be challenged by the fact that we have been incapable of investing in the transformation of converting African cheque cashing customers into banking customers, renters into homeowners, micro, small and medium scale business owners into large scale business owners with sufficient interests to prevent African political leaders from using Africa as a football for failed ideologies and bankrupt ideas, minimum wage (and no wage) workers into living wage workers, and the economically illiterate into the economically empowered natives.
Transformation of Africa from a desert of poverty to an oasis of affluence requires collective action. We can use our individually meagre savings to create an integrated pool of investment capital that African dreamers can tap into without expecting those who dislike us to feel pity for our condition. How many of us are comfortable being passengers in other people’s cars where we have no rights to determine the speed and destinations of the journey? Africa started a journey 50 years ago and yet we seem confused about who should drive the process. We have perfected the skill to blame others for our confusion. Many cynics have observed that there appears to be a conspiracy between Africa’s political elites and foreign business leaders (and white Africans) to ensure that African capacity is marginalised and house “niggers” are more acceptable than independent minds.
If channels like CNBC Africa were to ask African political leaders to identify even 10 African businessmen who should be given airtime, I am confident that they would come up with names that are not African. Can you imagine that in the top 1000 African companies there may not be any that is genuinely African in the same sense that for an instance an Indian company is Indian? Our most famous African brands from mining to banking are controlled and managed by people who may also believe that Black Africa has no capacity in as much as African leaders have accepted this notion. What is surprising is that no leader in Africa or anywhere for that matter is elected because of their intellectual or management expertise and yet when they are so elected they end up believing that they alone are the custodians of morality, wisdom and intellect.
Black economic empowerment (BEE) will not get us where we need to go if it comes from legislation only but if it is a result of the collective consciousness of the natives that it is only through their actions today that Africa will have a claim to a brighter day tomorrow. Yes, it is easy to expect the rich nations to look out for the poor but I think that any nation that is alive to the needs of its people must build its own pyramid of hope. Those at the top should realise that those at the bottom are necessary in as much as those at the bottom should find hope in the possibility that they or their successors can be at the pinnacle.
In a market system, it is the consumers who determine the success or failure of any economic enterprise but in Africa’s political market, citizens often end up helpless. How many Africans have been forced to join the ranks of those in the diaspora because of bad policies and misguided ideologies? How many African minds are imprisoned and victimised by bad leaders and yet Africa’s poverty continues to be blamed on third parties?
President Mbeki was the inaugural guest together with about 70 business leaders. Africa. For those who watched the program, they would not have been surprised to recognise that Africa’s business architecture continues to exhibit the absence of Africa business leaders even after 50 years of Uhuru. CNBC is part of NBC Universal, which is owned by US giant General Electric (GE).
Business leaders from New York, London, Paris, and the Middle East were featured on the program and the profile of business leaders that were selected as guests for the program only served to demonstrate the challenge Africans face in this 21st Century in transforming the civil rights gains into platinum (economic) rights.
Anyone who dares to focus on the financial, business and economic news of Africa will soon realise that Africans (black) are predominantly missing in action. The Who is Who of African business has not changed significantly to reflect the raising of post-colonial flags. The critical decisions on Africa’s future economic issues are not made in Africa and the role of African governments has shifted from protecting the colonial political elites to entrenching the economic power of non-Africans. Yesterday it was the Caucasians and today it is Asians and yet the difference may ultimately be the same.
Africa’s intellectual and business minds will remain marginalised until we shift the mind set from what did African leaders do but what we are going to do from here. The issue when African countries gained independence was poverty and it is still poverty today. Over the last 50 years, we have become experts at what are against and not what we are for. We are against colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism (even embracing American values through CNBC Africa), neo-liberalism, capitalism etc.
Ignorance was a key raw material for slavery and it continues to be an enduring road block to African progress. What do Africans need to do in this century often dubbed the African century not because Africa for the first time is hosting the World Soccer Cup but because there was optimism that after the complete decolonisation of the continent, Africans will get their act together and claim a piece of the action in a fast moving global environment where other former victims of colonialism have demonstrated that with literacy, empowerment is not a pipe dream?
We continue to be challenges in our understanding about money and the construction of capital. Financial literacy for African children is generally low so is the absence of empowering economic education not only in the rural areas where the majority of Africans reside but in Africa’s boardrooms where the few Africans are assimilated often at the expense of African values.
I have no doubt that the new CNBC channel will continue to perpetuate the notion that Africans are better off integrating themselves into the global community of nations as second class citizens. Due to commercial imperatives, the business people that will be featured representing Africa will be those that can afford the expensive airtime. After all CNBC Africa is a commercial enterprise taking advantage of the knowledge, capital and execution gaps existing in modern day Africa.
It is obvious that Africa’s fight for equality and justice will not be waged and won in government offices and in the streets but in corporate boardrooms and financial literacy classrooms. Knowledge about institutions and money can be an enduring poverty alleviation tool because when someone knows better they tend to do better. Those of us who know better for some reason we tend to privatize and monopolize the knowledge with often unintended consequences.
Africa’s political leaders have managed to create a political base for Africans to decide on who should govern them but have failed to provide an economic base on who should feed them. Yes, South Africa has been integrated into the commonwealth of African nations that is characterised by poverty as the common thread that unites the quilt of nation states that still have a long way to go to give hope to their citizens.
Yesterday, political apartheid was not acceptable in Africa and yet the products and institutions of the same system are the new torch bearers of hope in Africa. If one looks at the real players in Africa, one will recognise that with few exceptions, the exploitation of Africa’s resources is the preserve of South African (white controlled), Caucasian and lately Asian people.
South Africa inherited a sophisticated industrial, mining and financial system that is being put to good use by the former beneficiaries of apartheid to the extent that the value system that informs African business is being mediated through individuals who believe that Africa’s future should be inclusive. It is not surprising that many African businesspersons who may be looking for business rights from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to distribute their products in Africa may discover that such rights are already allocated in perpetuity to South African entrepreneurs (often white) who do not see a need to partner with their historically disadvantaged black brothers and sisters.
Africa may have invested in human capital but unless its business institutions believe in African capacity, it is unlikely that the brain drain will be stopped. While Africans choose to vote with their feet other nationalities choose to come to Africa to exploit its resources often with the encouragement of African governments. Most African leaders believe that Africans lack capacity and, therefore, it is risky to put any real faith in them. With this mind set, any enterprising African businessmen is often labelled corrupt or a crony.
While African leaders dealt with issues of race and colour divide, we must find new ways to address issues of poverty and class in Africa. We need new strategies and fresh ideas to ensure that Africa lives up to its promise and potential. We need to begin to understand the capitalist system, integrate our financial resources just like we integrated the political divide with universal suffrage. Democracy should not be restricted to the political market but must be extended into the economic sphere.
There are many of us who are against capitalism and yet fail to show us what other system can deliver the goods. The Chinese and Indians were slow to recognise that it is through the individual that any nation can progress to greater heights. In the final analysis, it is up to us to invest in the new African identity that is deeply rooted in African values. Even the late President Nyerere recognised the futility of an ideology that emphasized distribution of the sweat of others at the expense of production. He bowed out of power not because he was no longer popular but because he realised that his ideas did not connect with the aspirations of his own people. How many other African leaders with obsolete ideas will be prepared to step down to allow their people to take ownership of their destinies?
Africa’s youngest child, South Africa, is fast becoming the repository of values that should inform the development options for the whole continent. However, to fast track the integration of historically disadvantaged persons (42 million blacks) into an economy dominated by about 5 million whites, the government has put in place a legal framework that on paper should see whites giving up their economic and financial hegemony to allow blacks to also enjoy the African economic sunshine. While this may represent a step in the right direction, one cannot but recall what the late Dr. King said in 1968 when confronted with the poverty that continued to visit Black America: “You cannot legislate goodness or pass a law to force someone to like or respect you……the only way to social justice in a capitalist country is economic parity.”
The Black America and Black Africa’s stories are not too different and yet in Africa, blacks are in the majority and cannot, therefore, afford to put in place legislation that conditions them to think that they are a minority that needs legal protection. If we use our majority spending power into economic power, I have no doubt that we can create our own Mittal, Gates, Buffett, Soros, etc. However, in the vocabulary of business, we seem not to be challenged by the fact that we have been incapable of investing in the transformation of converting African cheque cashing customers into banking customers, renters into homeowners, micro, small and medium scale business owners into large scale business owners with sufficient interests to prevent African political leaders from using Africa as a football for failed ideologies and bankrupt ideas, minimum wage (and no wage) workers into living wage workers, and the economically illiterate into the economically empowered natives.
Transformation of Africa from a desert of poverty to an oasis of affluence requires collective action. We can use our individually meagre savings to create an integrated pool of investment capital that African dreamers can tap into without expecting those who dislike us to feel pity for our condition. How many of us are comfortable being passengers in other people’s cars where we have no rights to determine the speed and destinations of the journey? Africa started a journey 50 years ago and yet we seem confused about who should drive the process. We have perfected the skill to blame others for our confusion. Many cynics have observed that there appears to be a conspiracy between Africa’s political elites and foreign business leaders (and white Africans) to ensure that African capacity is marginalised and house “niggers” are more acceptable than independent minds.
If channels like CNBC Africa were to ask African political leaders to identify even 10 African businessmen who should be given airtime, I am confident that they would come up with names that are not African. Can you imagine that in the top 1000 African companies there may not be any that is genuinely African in the same sense that for an instance an Indian company is Indian? Our most famous African brands from mining to banking are controlled and managed by people who may also believe that Black Africa has no capacity in as much as African leaders have accepted this notion. What is surprising is that no leader in Africa or anywhere for that matter is elected because of their intellectual or management expertise and yet when they are so elected they end up believing that they alone are the custodians of morality, wisdom and intellect.
Black economic empowerment (BEE) will not get us where we need to go if it comes from legislation only but if it is a result of the collective consciousness of the natives that it is only through their actions today that Africa will have a claim to a brighter day tomorrow. Yes, it is easy to expect the rich nations to look out for the poor but I think that any nation that is alive to the needs of its people must build its own pyramid of hope. Those at the top should realise that those at the bottom are necessary in as much as those at the bottom should find hope in the possibility that they or their successors can be at the pinnacle.
In a market system, it is the consumers who determine the success or failure of any economic enterprise but in Africa’s political market, citizens often end up helpless. How many Africans have been forced to join the ranks of those in the diaspora because of bad policies and misguided ideologies? How many African minds are imprisoned and victimised by bad leaders and yet Africa’s poverty continues to be blamed on third parties?
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