Africa's cultural and ethnic diversity: a blessing or a curse?

Africa's intrinsic make-up is very prone to factional fighting. Wars between tribes and ethnic groups make it extremely difficult for African countries to become democratic. This is one reason why democracy has eluded the continent for many decades.

Take for instance Cote d'Ivoire. Recently in Cote d'Ivoire, the two final contenders of the presidential elections, Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent from the South, and Alassane Ouatarra - the winner of the elections according to the Electoral Commission -  from the North, are both fighting for power. The country is split with northerners supporting Ouatarra and southerners backing Gbagbo. If calm is not restored, the current street fighting and sporadic outbreak of violence may degenerate into another civil war. 

In Nigeria, there are three major tribes, the Hausas, the Yorubas and the Igbos. In the past, power has alternated between the Hausas and the Yurobas and the Igbos have always been sidelined since they make up the minority. But recently, Goodluck Jonathan, former vice-president who became president after the death of Omaru Yar' Adua is from the South. He has declared his intention to run for president in the next presidential elections. Hausas and Yurobas are conniving to throw him out of office. Again, the country maybe split into two or three factions, with each faction backing different candidates. 

In Cameroon, president Paul Biya has been in Power since 1982. Cameroon has more than 200 ethnic tribes and spoken languages in addition to being Anglophone and Francophone. Paul Biya has exploited the differences to his advantage since he came to power. There are 10 provinces/regions in Cameroon and the Anglophones constitute the North and South West Regions. The North West Region has scores of villages and tribes with different ethnicities, values and customs. When a person from one village is appointed to a high ranking position in government, the villagers are very proud and they consider it a victory over the other villages. This makes the neighboring villages very jealous and they fight to win many seats during the next local elections for the ruling party. In return, they are rewarded with government positions during the next cabinet reshuffle. These contentions sow deep division at regional levels between the tribes and ethnic groups. The divisions are so entrenched they extend to other aspects of society such as business, development, etc. and hamper any concerted efforts towards achieving a common good. It makes the people to focus their resources and energy on trying to outdo each other and it distracts them from holding the government accountable for its misdeeds and inefficiency.

Paul Biya uses the same strategy at the inter-regional level. The Cameroon constitution requires that the president and prime minister should be Anglophone and Francophone. Since Paul Biya is Francophone, he has to appoint an Anglophone premiere. This is where Paul Biya's strategy of divide-and-rule works best. But before I go into that, it is important to understand the anglophone problem in the country. The anglophones are highly marginalized and hold very few positions in government. Their grievance have been expressed in many forms; some groups call for the secession of the anglophones from the francophones to form a new country and Bamenda, capital of the N.W. Region is major seat of the largest opposition party in the country, SDF. 

If the anglophones come together, and with a little support from a few francophone provinces, they can unseat the Biya regime. So it is absolutely critical for P. Biya to make sure they remain divided, and the post of prime minister has come in handy for that. When Paul Biya appoints a north westerner, the south westerners are angry. They consider it a victory for N.W. and they work to make sure they outperform N.W. in the next election cycle. This has been going on for a while and the seat has been rotating between North and South West provinces for the last 28 years. It has kept the Anglophones divided and jealous of each other for three decades.

This makes democracy very elusive. Thanks to this divide and rule strategy, Cameroonians have forgotten that during elections, the seat to be contested is the presidency, and not mayorship, nor a ministry, nor the prime ministers office. They have, by default, surrendered the presidency to Paul Biya. In otherwords, Paul Biya Cameroon is like a constitutional monarchy except that, the president is the most powerful person in the country. He not only appoints the prime minister, but also Governors of the different regions, ministers, directors of state-owned companies, parastatals, government delegates, etc.

With the exception of being bilingual, Cameroon is not alone. This same principle applies to most African countries where there are dictatorships and multiple ethnicities as with Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire. 

Contrasting to Europe where most countries are nation-states, Europe is very stable and democratic. In eras where multi-ethnic "states" existed, such as the Austra-hungarian empire, France under Napoleon, Rome, the same situation applied. There were wars, social unrest, marginalization of various ethnic groups, etc. The same as we see with Africa today. The sad problem is, the boundaries imposed on Africa by their colonial masters are there to stay. The Hausas in Northern Cameroon and Northern Nigeria are never going to join together to form a single nation and the Igbos and South Western Cameroonians, who have similar cultures and traditions will never unite to form a single nation. 

This doesn't mean Africa is condemned to fight forever or that democracy will elude us forever (Botswana, Ghana, Mauritius, etc. are doing fine). What Africans have to do is, they have to stop treating their fellow Africans as strangers, as the others. They have identify values common all tribes and unite around those values. Until the rise up above their differences and come together to confront their problems, African cultural and ethnic diversity will be a curse and not a blessing.

Can the West accommodate the rise of the East?

‎A projection on when China and India (Asia) will overtake the west as the world's leading economic giants. I may not agree with some of the statistics but the talk is riveting...


http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_asia_s_rise_how_and_when.html


27th July 2048 is the year Rosling predicts that the growth curves of the West and East would intercept and take on different trajectories, with the latter dominating the former... these are mere predictions and America's productivity, ingenuity, and spirit should never be underestimated. I have always held that the freest society shall in the end be the most prosperous - capitalism and democracy go in tandem. Greenspan dedicates a chapter in his book, "The Age of Turbulene" discuss the "choices that awaits China". The communist leadership in Beijing can maintain its grip on power for only so long. With the advent of technology, the internet, iphones, twitter, facebook, the Chinese society continues to open up to the world despite government censorship and within minutes of any protest outbreaks, i-reporters would send images and video footages of what is happening. So no other Tienanmen square massacre can go uncovered. In addition, more and more Chinese are getting educated and becoming more and more assertive and holding more and more protests in demand for more and more rights (to borrow Friedman's style). If there's no political reform - transition from communism/dictatorship to democracy within a decade or two, there will be huge backlash against the communist party and that will beset China's rapid growth.

What about Africa? When shall we catch up? Did I say catch up? Oh I meant, a sustainable level of economic development.

Me vs. you, us vs. them, we win or they win

And here I was (see picture below). I had just arrived America - the new world, the dreamland - in search for a new meaning of life, a better education, a better understanding of world problems and certainly a balanced perspective. I had come searching for answers to the many questions were lingering on my mind since I came of age (we all come of age and different ages). Even though I must admit I have had a more balanced perspective, most of my questions remain unanswered. Rather, my exposure to more information, seeing the divide between the developed and 'developing' (not all world outside the developed world is developing) world has left me even more confused - searching harder, digging ever deeper in quest for answers to even more complex problems. One answer begets two questions. The two questions in turn beget an answer each and those answers beget two questions each. The more I learn, the more complex the world becomes.

Oh, but this ( all the searching and digging) is only a 'luxury'. When I was in Africa (at home), I cared little about what was happening in the world. I cared less about 'searching and digging' or about the many gaps (see my previous notes on Africa) between the West and Africa. All I wanted was a decent education, my circumstances defined my dreams. But now that I am having a decent education (we may not agree on my quality of education, but because in this context, I am seeing things from only one perspective - which is what I urge against in this note -, I think the education I am getting is decent. lol), my occupations have changed. The same story goes for everyone no matter the background.

Take people who live in crises-stricken areas, their only worry, their sole occupation is to find a means to survive the crises. In Niger today where there is famine, a person can only bother to find food and survive to see the next day, swimming or going to the gym is a luxury few can afford. In Afghanistan where conditions are so precarious, where the veiled woman standing next to you might be a suicide bomber in disguise, where the car behind you may be packed full of explosives or the wedding of your family/friend might end up being a target for insurgents, one's occupation and worry is to survive the next attack. All other cares about life such as vacations, politics (this or that ideology), human rights, freedom of speech are luxuries. The same goes for people in Darfur and Somalia. In Pakistan now, before the rivers swelled and its banks broke and ravaged lives, people had different occupations and indulged in various activities according to their needs and preferences. But in the wake of the catastrophe, every affected person has only one occupation: how to deal with the flood and return to living a normal life.

The examples I have highlighted above are sadly the case for the more than the bottom-billion people in the world. Where there is no serious crisis or life threatening event, people indulge in various kinds of occupations. What they consider as basic necessities and fundamental rights, such as education, healthcare, sanitation, potable water, etc are luxuries to people in crises-stricken areas. One story featuring Niger on a BBC program, From Our Own Correspondent, highlighted the level of famine in Niger: A giant lizard that ate crops had been spotted on a tree. All the children and even some men went to hunt the lizard for food and camped under the baobab for days (maybe the lizard had even escaped). Now in the West - or anywhere where circumstances are not so dire - you cannot hunt without a license and animals' rights are strongly protected. It will be illegal to maltreat an animal or kill it in any barbaric way. But in Niger, at this time of farming, no one gives a heck about rights, whether it be animal or human rights. A man's environment heavily influences his choices. If we are put in the same conditions as the people in Darfur, we will operate in the same level and capacity as the people there now. If all of Bill Gates' wealth was taken from him and he was subjected to the same conditions as the people in Darfur, or Somalia, he will have but one occupation: how to survive, how to put food on the table and live to see the next day. This is not to suggest that humans are not ingenious or resilient. This is to simply say that, no matter who we are, when we are faced with certain constraints, we no longer function to full capacity, our vision is blurred, we don't dream big, we don't come up with new ideas, we don't go to face book to write notes or blog, we don't function in our full potentials. Of course this is no news and everyone knows it. But what we fail to understand is when we are in a different/better environment than others, we expect much more from those people (the others who are constrained) than we would've wanted some other people to expect of us had we been in the same condition.

"If I were born rich and white in South Africa during the apartheid, would I have been any different? Or if I were born in Germany during the reign of the Nazis, would I have been better or worse than them?" - Jean-Jacques Goldman. 

When we start putting ourselves in people's shoes ( asking questions such as the ones above), getting "under their skin" and seeing the story from their own perspectives too, then we would not only see the world through our own lenses, we would not only see the world from the American perspective or Afghan perspective or the Israeli or Palestinian perspective. We would see the world from the Christian and Muslim perspectives, the immigrant and the citizen's perspective. We would be able to find common grounds and strike compromises and the world will certainly be a better place. It will not be us vs. them, or me vs. you. It will be us and them and me and you. It will be a win-win situation. We will be able to trust the girl getting on the plane with the burqa or the dude called Abdu Mutallab sitting right next to us in the train or plane. We will be able to invest in Africa - trusting that Africans too can do business and get a better life - and still make profit, not dole out aid that only helps to empower the rich and disenfranchise the poor. We will be able to see a two-state solution in the Middle East and in Afghanistan life will return to normal. But so long as we see things only through our own lenses, people will continue to ask such questions as, do you have TV or mobile phone in Africa? Is Africa a country? Do you see lions roaming the streets? lol funny isn't it?

As always, your thoughts and ideas are welcome, critical reviews even more so.

Reflection point: Insight on Africa 2

Is it fair to say that any donor government or organization that intends to continue giving aid to Africa in the next 10 to 20 years is not interested to see it develop?

I know Africa will not develop overnight (in 10 to 20 years) but if any organization wants to continue giving aid to Africa indefinitely, I am afraid I will have to question its intentions. For how long has Africa been receiving financial aid? 10, 20, 30 or 50 years? My guess is 60. Back then, the idea and intent was good because it was expected that aid will help lift millions of people out of poverty. However, the aid approach to development had not been tested (as Moyo argues in Dead Aid, Marshall Plan is quite a different thing and shouldn't be compared to Africa). But after 50 years, the same approach, the same aid culture has failed to deliver. Is it not time for a new approach? 

When the West stops treating as Africa as a child that never grows up, a retard, an adult child-that never gets out of his parents' bosom, and starts treating Africa as a trading partner, a grown up able to salvage his way through life, then Africa will rise up to the challenge and take on the responsibility of achieving sustainable growth and long term development. But until that day comes, Africa, especially its leaders will continue to take advantage of Western aid. Mobuto, (former president of Zaire, present day DR Congo) before leaving office had amassed wealth of over 5 billion dollars, same for Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Hophouet Boigny of Ivory Coast. Wait until people like Mugabe, Biya, Ghadaffi, leave power and see now much money they would've embezzled. No it's not a false accusation!

Africa's problem doesn't stem from aid alone. Of course the system is corrupt (and aid fosters corruption, Moyo contends), dysfunctional and lacks credible infrastructure. Worst is the fact that we, a poor continent with cheap labor do not attract foreign companies and FDI. Why? The problem is in many folds, and as I argued in the first part of my fb post, Education can and is a solution. 

Problem #1. Even though we have cheap labor, the cheapest on the planet, there is only a small percentage that is qualified. Microsoft, Google, and other big multinationals outsource jobs to India, Bangalore. Why? Because the Indians don't only have cheaper labor than the US. They have a highly skilled and competent work force trained by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). So if we want companies to come to Africa, we need to train a workforce that is competent and ready to compete.

Problem #2. Even if we had cheap labor plus the skills, companies will still look unto China, India, Singapore, Honkong, etc instead of Africa because they have a more flexible system that is easier to navigate. In Africa, bureaucracy, red-tape, unfavorable business practices, the legal system, etc create a hostile business environment and scare away would-be entrepreneurs and investors. Why go to Africa to start up a business when it takes more than a year to get the paper work done meanwhile the same business can be started in Singapore in less than three weeks? In this "small" world, if we (Africa) must succeed, if we must develop, we need to reduce these barriers to trade and create a dynamic and open system where entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity are encouraged and even rewarded.

Another problem we face is lack of infrastructure. Roads, bridges, buildings, uninterrupted power supply, I know, are hugely ambitious and daunting projects but if we must stand up and take our future from the IMF, the World Bank, celebrities and other African sympathizers into our hands, then there's no other option. China did it in less than a quarter century; we can do it by 2035. All we need is some ambition, visionaries, agents of change, a good workforce. And we can produce all these through education after all India did it through the IIT. 

The relevance of education to our development: World economy shifted from being a commodity based economy to service based economy. Today it has moved from a service based economy to an idea based economy. What makes people rich today is not oil, or rubber or cocoa or timber. It is thinking, creativity, new ideas, innovation, etc. People like Rockefeller and Carnegie made money through oil and they were the richest men in their epoch when world economy was mainly based on commodities. But today, in an idea based economy, names like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Sergey Brin, etc come to mind. These innovators did not sell oil or cocoa or timber as we do in Africa. They conceived ideas, transformed these ideas into products and/or services and marketed them - so, they got rich and contributed to the economies of their country. If Africa dreams that she will rely solely on her natural resources to get rich, I am sorry she will get poorer - Dutch Disease, resource-curse are all forces that plunder resource rich countries. Sierra Leone, Liberia, DR Congo, etc come to mind. So what about Middle East? you ask. The case for the Middle East is different and I don't want to go into that now. What will drive this ingenuity for us Africans and create new ideas? The answer is Education.

There are hundreds of thousands of children, perhaps millions sitting in forgotten corners of Africa, in refugee camps or roaming the streets who if given the opportunity may become the next Steve Jobs, or Mo Ibrahim or K'Naan. All we need to unlock this untapped potential is education, education education!!! So if you are passionate about Africa and want to help, invest in a child's education.

If you are interested to read more, I suggest the following books. Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo, The World is Flat, By Thomas Friedman, The post-American World, By Fareed Zakaria, The End of Poverty, by Jeffery Sachs, etc. I draw most of my arguments from their thought and ideas.

Don't forget about the question at the start of this essay.

Blaise Buma.

Reflection point: Insight on Africa

It has long been evident to me that there is a huge creativity gap, ingenuity gap, economic gap, etc, between Africa and the West. But to wake up to the fact that the same gap is emerging between Africa and India, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc is shocking. These are countries that had the same level of economic development as Africa just after independence in the 50s and 60s. What went wrong in the past fifty years, why is Africa still lagging behind? What can we do?

After reading a couple of books and carrying our my own findings, I have come to the conclusion that what is needed to jump-start economic growth, innovation, creativity and bridge the many gaps is not aid but education. The aid model, Moyo argues in her book, Dead Aid, has clearly failed. So if the west really wants to solve the problem of AIDS, corruption, bad governance, lack of democracy, it should invest in building schools in Africa. Schools that will educate our own engineers, doctors, scientist, economists, etc. I don't mean here that we have to rely on the West to solve our problems but if they [G8 and other donor organs] cared at all, the rightful thing to do would be to invest in education.

Well, you may argue that we can educate our own professionals abroad in foreign schools. There are only so many students that can study in America, Britain, France, etc at any given time. We are a continent of more than a billion people, we cannot train all the professionals we need abroad. We need home-trained professionals. The people who built the American economy didn't study in Britain or France. They studied at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, etc. The people who developed Britain as we know today didn't study in the US or France, they studied at Oxford, LSE, Cambridge. The same goes for other countries. Take India for example. Since the creation of the Indian Institute of Technology in 1947, the Indian economy has never been the same. In less than 6 decades, the Institute has trained well over 170,000 graduates in various professions. From engineers and business men and women to architects and computer scientists. In fact, the success of its alumni let the US Congress to pass a resolution honoring the contribution of IIT graduates to the American economy. China has also acknowledged the success of the system and wants to copy the model (wiki).

This is what Africans needs, the Indian model. If we must rise up and wean ourselves off aid and develop our continent, we need to heavily invest in education. It will take years of lobbying to convince any donor to invest in educating Africans instead of giving billions of dollars to corrupt governments and bureaucrats that never trickle down to the masses or have any meaningful change society. Meanwhile in reality, education is the panacea to Africa's myriad-fold problems.

Question; If you were a policy maker in one of the donor institutions, or a lawmaker in the US or Britain or France, any donor country, what would you advocate for? More aid to dictators and lazy governments or meaningful investment in the continents future such as education?

Reflection point: Insight on Africa

It has long been evident to me that there is a huge creativity gap, ingenuity gap, economic gap, etc, between Africa and the West. But to wake up to the fact that the same gap is emerging between Africa and India, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc is shocking. These are countries that had the same level of economic development as Africa just after independence in the 50s and 60s. What went wrong in the past fifty years, why is Africa still lagging behind? What can we do?

After reading a couple of books and carrying our my own findings, I have come to the conclusion that what is needed to jump-start economic growth, innovation, creativity and bridge the many gaps is not aid but education. The aid model, Moyo argues in her book, Dead Aid, has clearly failed. So if the west really wants to solve the problem of AIDS, corruption, bad governance, lack of democracy, it should invest in building schools in Africa. Schools that will educate our own engineers, doctors, scientist, economists, etc. I don't mean here that we have to rely on the West to solve our problems but if they [G8 and other donor organs] cared at all, the rightful thing to do would be to invest in education.

Well, you may argue that we can educate our own professionals abroad in foreign schools. There are only so many students that can study in America, Britain, France, etc at any given time. We are a continent of more than a billion people, we cannot train all the professionals we need abroad. We need home-trained professionals. The people who built the American economy didn't study in Britain or France. They studied at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, etc. The people who developed Britain as we know today didn't study in the US or France, they studied at Oxford, LSE, Cambridge. The same goes for other countries. Take India for example. Since the creation of the Indian Institute of Technology in 1947, the Indian economy has never been the same. In less than 6 decades, the Institute has trained well over 170,000 graduates in various professions. From engineers and business men and women to architects and computer scientists. In fact, the success of its alumni let the US Congress to pass a resolution honoring the contribution of IIT graduates to the American economy. China has also acknowledged the success of the system and wants to copy the model (wiki).

This is what Africans needs, the Indian model. If we must rise up and wean ourselves off aid and develop our continent, we need to heavily invest in education. It will take years of lobbying to convince any donor to invest in educating Africans instead of giving billions of dollars to corrupt governments and bureaucrats that never trickle down to the masses or have any meaningful change society. Meanwhile in reality, education is the panacea to Africa's myriad-fold problems.

Question; If you were a policy maker in one of the donor institutions, or a lawmaker in the US or Britain or France, any donor country, what would you advocate for? More aid to dictators and lazy governments or meaningful investment in the continents future such as education?