So I got this in my email this morning…
They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished. In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.
“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”
Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come. When I first discovered I was going to spend my New Year’s Eve next to him on a non-stop JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston I was angst-ridden. I associate marble-shaven Caucasians with iconoclastic skin-heads, most of who are racist.
“My name is Walter,” he extended his hand as soon as I settled in my seat.
I told him mine with a precautious smile.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“Zambia.”
“Zambia!” he exclaimed, “Kaunda’s country.”
“Yes,” I said, “Now Sata’s.”
“But of course,” he responded. “You just elected King Cobra as your president.”
My face lit up at the mention of Sata’s moniker. Walter smiled, and in those cold eyes I saw an amenable fellow, one of those American highbrows who shuttle between Africa and the U.S.
“I spent three years in Zambia in the 1980s,” he continued. “I wined and dined with Luke Mwananshiku, Willa Mungomba, Dr. Siteke Mwale, and many other highly intelligent Zambians.” He lowered his voice. “I was part of the IMF group that came to rip you guys off.” He smirked. “Your government put me in a million dollar mansion overlooking a shanty called Kalingalinga. From my patio I saw it all—the rich and the poor, the ailing, the dead, and the healthy.”
“Are you still with the IMF?” I asked.
“I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …”
He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.”
Quett Masire’s name popped up.
“Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.”
At midnight we were airborne. The captain wished us a happy 2012 and urged us to watch the fireworks across Los Angeles.
“Isn’t that beautiful,” Walter said looking down.
From my middle seat, I took a glance and nodded admirably.
“That’s white man’s country,” he said. “We came here on Mayflower and turned Indian land into a paradise and now the most powerful nation on earth. We discovered the bulb, and built this aircraft to fly us to pleasure resorts like Lake Zambia.”
I grinned. “There is no Lake Zambia.”
He curled his lips into a smug smile. “That’s what we call your country. You guys are as stagnant as the water in the lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wildlife and leave morsels—crumbs. That’s your staple food, crumbs. That corn-meal you eat, that’s crumbs, the small Tilapia fish you call Kapenta is crumbs. We the Bwanas (whites) take the cat fish. I am the Bwana and you are the Muntu. I get what I want and you get what you deserve, crumbs. That’s what lazy people get—Zambians, Africans, the entire Third World.”
The smile vanished from my face.
“I see you are getting pissed off,” Walter said and lowered his voice. “You are thinking this Bwana is a racist. That’s how most Zambians respond when I tell them the truth. They go ballistic. Okay. Let’s for a moment put our skin pigmentations, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the difference between you and me?”
“There’s no difference.”
“Absolutely none,” he exclaimed. “Scientists in the Human Genome Project have proved that. It took them thirteen years to determine the complete sequence of the three billion DNA subunits. After they
were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotide bases were exactly the same in you and me. We are the same people. All white, Asian, Latino, and black people on this aircraft are the same.”
I gladly nodded.
“And yet I feel superior,” he smiled fatalistically. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The white guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education. I can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff. Tell me why my angry friend.”
For a moment I was wordless.
“Please don’t blame it on slavery like the African Americans do, or colonialism, or some psychological impact or some kind of stigmatization. And don’t give me the brainwash poppycock. Give me a better answer.”
I was thinking.
He continued. “Excuse what I am about to say. Please do not take offense.”
I felt a slap of blood rush to my head and prepared for the worst.
“You my friend flying with me and all your kind are lazy,” he said. “When you rest your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are damn lazy, each one of you. It is you, and not those poor starving people, who is the reason Africa is in such a deplorable state.”
“That’s not a nice thing to say,” I protested.
He was implacable. “Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”
I held my breath.
“Do you know where I found your intellectuals? They were in bars quaffing. They were at the Lusaka Golf Club, Lusaka Central Club, Lusaka Playhouse, and Lusaka Flying Club. I saw with my own eyes a bunch of alcoholic graduates. Zambian intellectuals work from eight to five and spend the evening drinking. We don’t. We reserve the evening for brainstorming.”
He looked me in the eye.
“And you flying to Boston and all of you Zambians in the Diaspora are just as lazy and apathetic to your country. You don’t care about your country and yet your very own parents, brothers and sisters are in Mtendere, Chawama, and in villages, all of them living in squalor. Many have died or are dying of neglect by you. They are dying of AIDS because you cannot come up with your own cure. You are here calling yourselves graduates, researchers and scientists and are fast at articulating your credentials once asked—oh, I have a PhD in this and that—PhD my foot!”
I was deflated.
“Wake up you all!” he exclaimed, attracting the attention of nearby passengers. “You should be busy lifting ideas, formulae, recipes, and diagrams from American manufacturing factories and sending them to your own factories. All those research findings and dissertation papers you compile should be your country’s treasure. Why do you think the Asians are a force to reckon with? They stole our ideas and turned them into their own. Look at Japan, China, India, just look at them.”
He paused. “The Bwana has spoken,” he said and grinned. “As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”
He tempered his voice. “Get over this white skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff for god’s sake.”
At 8 a.m. the plane touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Walter reached for my hand.
“I know I was too strong, but I don’t give it a damn. I have been to Zambia and have seen too much poverty.” He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something. “Here, read this. It was written by a friend.”
He had written only the title: “Lords of Poverty.”
Thunderstruck, I had a sinking feeling. I watched Walter walk through the airport doors to a waiting car. He had left a huge dust devil twirling in my mind, stirring up sad memories of home. I could see Zambia’s literati—the cognoscente, intelligentsia, academics, highbrows, and scholars in the places he had mentioned guzzling and talking irrelevancies. I remembered some who have since passed—how they got the highest grades in mathematics and the sciences and attained the highest education on the planet. They had been to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only to leave us with not a single invention or discovery. I knew some by name and drunk with them at the Lusaka Playhouse and Central Sports.
Walter is right. It is true that since independence we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13 million civil servants dependent on a government pay cheque. We believe that development is generated 8-to-5 behind a desk wearing a tie with our degrees hanging on the wall. Such a working environment does not offer the opportunity for fellowship, the excitement of competition, and the spectacle of innovative rituals.
But the intelligentsia is not solely, or even mainly, to blame. The larger failure is due to political circumstances over which they have had little control. The past governments failed to create an environment of possibility that fosters camaraderie, rewards innovative ideas and encourages resilience. KK, Chiluba, Mwanawasa, and Banda embraced orthodox ideas and therefore failed to offer many opportunities for drawing outside the line.
I believe King Cobra’s reset has been cast in the same faculties as those of his predecessors. If today I told him that we can build our own car, he would throw me out.
“Naupena? Fuma apa.” (Are you mad? Get out of here)
Knowing well that King Cobra will not embody innovation at Walter’s level let’s begin to look for a technologically active-positive leader who can succeed him after a term or two. That way we can make our own stone crushers, water filters, water pumps, razor blades, and harvesters. Let’s dream big and make tractors, cars, and planes, or, like Walter said, forever remain inferior.
A fundamental transformation of our country from what is essentially non-innovative to a strategic superior African country requires a bold risk-taking educated leader with a triumphalist attitude and we have one in YOU. Don’t be highly strung and feel insulted by Walter. Take a moment and think about our country. Our journey from 1964 has been marked by tears. It has been an emotionally overwhelming experience. Each one of us has lost a loved one to poverty, hunger, and disease. The number of graves is catching up with the population. It’s time to change our political culture. It’s time for Zambian intellectuals to cultivate an active-positive progressive movement that will change our lives forever. Don’t be afraid or dispirited, rise to the challenge and salvage the remaining few of your beloved ones.
Field Ruwe is a US-based Zambian media practitioner and author. He is a PhD candidate with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism, and an M.A. in History
Via Mindofmalaka.wordpress.com
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He is right, we must stop blaming others for our stupidity. The Asians have proved that you can Leap Frog or Fast tract development of a Nation. We can fix all infrastructures of Africa within 30 YEARS. It took America 100 or more years to attain such level of development
Walter the Bwana is a wicked preacher! Perhaps he was referring to all Africans and not just Zambians. But one day, and i know the day is near, we shall sing a new song! Take note, Walter!
My friend, you aren’t talking just about Zambian intelectuals, but all Black African intelectuals. So arrogant, pampous, lazy with unbelievable lack of commonsense as a result of real hardcore enlightment lacking. Enlightment that comes with real education. Not the kind of education where we go through but doesn’t go through us. All the mess that we are in today is ninety five percent caused by these African intelectuals who are too lazy to think out of the box, and too quick to ape and regurgitate theories and other experiments from different environment verbatim which could not work in theirs for obvious reasons.
Society starts from homes and schools … A Fourth class graduate in Africa will make a First class in Europe, UK where ever in the world. The Change we talk about starts from the way superiors treats subordinates. Our politicians misuse, abuse maltreat and do/say whatsoever they feel like, not caring for the masses ….
Walter has left a bitter-sweet taste in my mouth; bitter because it is the truth (and like it’s been said “truth is better”), sweet, because all hope is not lost, but only if we decisively change our direction and face the direction of purposeful, positive and even radical change.
The change begins with everyone of us: literate/illetrate,rich/poor, high/low, intellectuals/artisans, oppotuned/not-so-opportuned alike; it’s time to concertedly channel our energy to make it happen by ourselves, for ourselves and the time is NOW…
this is perhaps the most indicting and yet concientizing piece yet. And yes, we are the reason we r where we are
This is an excerpt from the book ‘CRUSHED’ written by Tope Fashua. That book is a revolutionary. It awakens the mind of the African esp the Nigerian.
I feel humbled,angry and sober at the same time.
Truth as bitter is such a poisonous venom.
Gone to grab that “Lord of poverty”.
Grant and Loans have been employed to instil laziness,greed and corruption in our half baked and diretionless leader! Africa the time is now ARISE
wow this ia a charge thus gr8tnes it also geared the rekindling of inner man’s ability to contualise the impact of what he can be remembered about thereafter.kudos
The man has said ????† all,the problem of Africa is leadership we have leaders who are only interested in their pocket….. We give undue advantage over fellow brothers,we have educated illiterate who are only G??d in speaking of grammar but not problem solver. We abadoned our culture for A???? white man culture. its high time we rise up in Africa and D?????? the right things
Although true, bt nt posbl in Nigeria. not until we put sectionalism and tribalism aside. Can we do that?????????
Just yesterday, I wanted to know who founded the CAT caterpillar company. You know, CAT the makers of those earth-moving, heavy duty tractors used for construction and agriculture. it turned out to be an adventorous American., who roamed with the cowboys for a bit, and was enrepreneuraial. His name was Daniel Best. Not a word was said in reading his bio about any academic achievements, One day while he was healing from a loss of three fingers, to a sawmill machine, he had time to think and viola! Invesntions sprung forth! Over a period of 43 years, he is said to have received 41patents! including that of his invention the combine harvester . Even the US military and other allied forces military needed his equipment during World War 1.When he retired, his son took over and that company today, sells its equipment all over the world.
We African’s need to bring up our childern as problem solvers. Not scream their creative thoughts down and tell them ancient history about how they must comply with ‘tradition’ or become outcasts. This style of upbringing kills their creativity and stops us from being inventors.. I rest my case.
Hmmm..it hurtz but yet d gospel truth,Fud 4 tort,lyk 13million civilservantz waitin 4 Govt pay cheque…
there is indeed, no comfort in the truth. Pain is all dt we get.Arise o! Compatriots
Well said, this really is food for thought!
Africans whether educated or not even our forefathers. Gari has been taken as gari since not even to change the colour. Gari is a derivate of cassava, Nigeria is the highest producer of cassava and yet one of the poorest in the world. Cassava can replace wheat but the lazy Africans will say i doesnt thirst like wheat which he has enslave himself and generation to. It is a shame that we cant produce handkerchief. From cassava we can produce Ethanol (paraga) starch, livestock feed, bread, glucose etc. Present generation wake up.
We are experts in blaming our condition on someone else. Even the writer blamed the government for lack of political will. What we forget is…every individual’s effort count. Let each person start something today, no matter how small. Some of the 19th century scientists were carpenters, or cobblers etc and some 20th century inventors were dropouts. Start something, anything by yourself today. I’m doing something, no one has heard of it but that’s not the point.
Perhaps Walter is right. Perhaps we are lazy. Perhaps we are inferior.. But we are not murderers.. We don’t go to people with the idea of cheating them. We don’t build think tanks with the sole aim of destroying and keeping other people under. We don’t take advantage of religious zealots and destroy the middle east.. We don’t kill off a who race of Native Americans to steal their lands.. No we are not inferior. We are not thieves and murderers. And all the so called innovations Walter is claiming where created by others, including Africans. America is made up of people from many other countries. Its a nation built by gangsters and pimps and still run by gangsters. The banksters own America and most Americans are broke and poor. And Please Walter don’t even start to talk about the black americans, because after taking them from their lands ans suppressing them for decades, they’ve come up from marching for their rights to become scientists, engineers, sports starts, senators, businessmen, and to the white house. Even tho they are still been undermined… Have you ever worked with the good peoples of our continent before? You help kill the good peoples of every place u go and work with the corrupt of those societies, so you can loot and plunder. Need I say more about the recent efforts you are making? Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now Syria. That Cuban guy has fought against ur corruption his whole life… In Ghana you destroyed Nkrumah’s efforts.. Pls you are not that smart. Anyone can become a gangster and a pirate. That’s what you have done thru history.. The Aborigins in Australia, the Native Indians on continental America, the Aztecs, etc.. Don’t be talking abt technology.. Of the Ancient wonders of the world, which one is still standing? Yup! The Pyramids of Giza, and it was built by Black Africans, not the ones with stolen identities.. So get ur fact right.. We are rising. Again. Yes, because we where not always like this.. And this time, we won’t trust you punks! But we won’t sink into the base of humanity like you are.. Thank you very much for the wonderful lectures about who you truly are!