Innocent Chia
Citizen Journalist
Email: innochia@gmail.com
Culled from Mind of Malaka (January 18, 2012) and written by Field Ruwe***
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.
All I pray for is that this article gets the widest read possible!! The reality hurts!!!
Posted by: Patriot | January 22, 2012 at 01:41 PM
Very interesting read. "Bwana" truelly said it as it is.
Posted by: limbekid | January 22, 2012 at 01:59 PM
This reading may hurt but I think it can also inspire more creative thinking.
Posted by: Mary | January 22, 2012 at 05:29 PM
I would again go back to the words of late president Kennedy "Ask not what your country has done for you but what you have done you your country."
It is real, that is who we are.
Posted by: Morin N | January 22, 2012 at 05:32 PM
Well written by a typical African. I give him "A" for volume, content & clarity but an "F" in solution(s). I do not know his age but he certainly didn't apologize for waiting to meet Walter until he realizes the problem in his country. Typical! We pay attention when Whiteman speaks. I'll bet you there are hundreds of wise and noble men and women in Zambia that have said what Walter said and even offered solution but were ignored, may be because they are poor or categorized as selfish. What's the author's solutions? Zero. I need no foolish Walter to tell me what problems I have in my country. I know them and we all know them. We all need to GO HOME!!!
Posted by: Irin N | January 22, 2012 at 05:34 PM
Even if God comes down and settles in Africa,as long as the political culture of corruption which has reached unprecedented levels continue,what is ever going to change? Come up with an idea or invent something in your own country and you are demonised.The is the case of a cameroonian professor (Anoma Ngu-late) who after having invented a cure for HIV/AIDS-Vanhivax was ridiculed by his own government (as would have been the case in muzungu country) instead of support.And we cant keep blaming white people forever.There is a hypothesis that if the white man goes back to Africa,the continent will be transformed instantly to a paradise and if the black man is left to tend over the old world,he will instantly take Europe back to the dark ages.Looking at the kind of political leadership the continent has bred since the passionate nationalists of the 60s,can anyone contest the sanity in such a hypothesis?
Posted by: Austin Ngenge | January 23, 2012 at 05:17 AM
This is so true am a Kenyan and I relate to what is said about Zambia.It is indeed an african curse..I think the dark skin has a co-relation to slow thinking...otherwise how do you explain all this?
God help Africa but it should start with each one of us and the leaders were choose....
Posted by: Lincoln Mbogo | January 24, 2012 at 09:22 AM
And tell me why those in charge of Cameroon football still believe European coaches are better than domestic ones in managing the national team? We have had them over the years with no good results,yet they still invite them,each comes in his turn,and earn exorbitantly and is thrown out without good results,only to open the door for the next to come. They come in and out in turns,when they are not recognized in their own countries. We've got everything,yet we pay for what we are blessed with. Our wealth,and resources have been the yield of their farms for ages and quite often,we help them in the looting,and end up being mocked at.
Posted by: challow | January 24, 2012 at 04:25 PM
I'm with you challow the mindset we need to change in Africa is that of greed and blind tribal loyalty. If we are going to live within the boarders that were chosen for us, we need to defend them as one nation....not clan vs. clan.
Posted by: mamadee | January 24, 2012 at 06:18 PM
Nice to read your posting.There is a sense of failure in our collective thinking and the fact that we are coming to self realisation is already defining a possible path for the future generation.How would you not consider yourself inferior when you cannot make even a tooth pick?Being black African myself,i have wondered how long it would take for Africans to produce a dishwasher,blender,or coffee maker?2050,3000 A.D?We are a bunch of collective clowns but then all is not lost.Not just yet!!!If we are not monkeys just like Walter said,then we(the poor) will have to come up with alternatives as the Rich(leaders) continue to undermine our capacities and capabilities in quest of trivial favours.
Posted by: El Ejo | January 26, 2012 at 04:53 AM
This is pure rubbish. I wonder whether this fellow who wrote this understands well his statistics.
Majority of Africans do NOT study abroad. In Cameroon, 90 percent of otherwise hard-working graduates from Cameroon universities have been turned into motorcycle riders who merely fight with the further poor and neglected citizens for daily bread; and possibly turned into beggars by a corrupt and incompetent "elite" political class. Whether these elite have Ph.Ds or not is irrelevant; and but an insignificant number of graduates in the graduate pool.
Large sums of money that may be pumped into the economy for innovation is being stolen by thieves in power. How then can a hard-working person operate in such stifled environment where you have to be a member of a criminal enterprise to progress. These small band of people in African power structures are NOT intellectuals whether they possess PhDs on not. They are but criminals!
And who said graduates do not drink after work in Europe. Let this person come to the City of London at about 7/8 pm in the evening of a working day. You will experience workers drinking after a hard day's work. If Europeans feel superior, it has nothing to do with "lazy" Africans but because of a small corrupt class who have been betraying their people for the last 500 years. It has nothing to do with "laziness".
To make such wild generalisations is not only dangerous, arrogant but truly irresponsible.
Mbua
Posted by: Mbua | January 29, 2012 at 04:08 PM
After all the expression of anger, can we stop for a moment to see if there is anything we can learn from this story that has gone viral on the Internet? This story has nothing to do with where Africans have studied. It has something to do with the way we, Africans, approach issues, especially the development challenges facing us.
We, as a people, are sloppy, we are not detail-oriented, we hate comptence and spend more time fighting people who have natural gifts we don't have. We always believe that it is our right to have more because of our positions. Read this article again and you will see where the focus should be.
It is about our inability to invent and be innovative. Our inability as a continent to engineer inspiring leadership that can pull the majority of our people out of poverty. In 50 years, we have made great strides backwards in terms of development and poverty reduction. More Africans are today unfortunately living in poverty than they did at independence. On the contrary, more Chinese and other Asians are today enjoying their new found wealth after 30 years of hard work.
After fifty years of independence, more Africans are making the West their home whereas their parents had fought to be independent of the West. Our health care systems have collapsed like a pack of cards while our people are living and dying as animals. These realities are stark and instead of being enraged, we should rather try to learn from the mistakes that have been made. Don't forget that we, Africans, are not into research. Each time you tell African something, he tells you he knows. If a man knows everything then there will be no incentive and reason for him to undertake research. Besides, research is the quest for the truth and the African hates the truth because it cuts through his fragile and underdeveloped mind like a hot knife running through butter.
While all of us may want to blame all of our failures on poor leadership, we must not lose sight of the fact that our leader did not come from outer space to rule us. They are products of the cultural environments we have in a continent that strives to preserve what has outlived its usefulness. For any people to progress, they must take a hard and long look at what they have to find out if there are things that need to be jettison. Africans are yet to do so.
Western culture has been very progressive and this explains why it is dynamic and is gone viral, especially over the last thirty years. The Chinese had their cultural revolution, it is no wonder that they are making admiral and significant progress. Has any African country thought of altering its culture so that its people can make a decent living? Are all of us not embracing today some of those aspects of our culture that we once considered as having outlived their usefulness? How many people of Manyu descent living abroad head home each here to join Ekpe just because they want to be called Sesekou? I have been watching this drama of titles and it sickens me to the stomach.
Gentlemen, until we learn to accept the truth, genuine development on the African continent will be a distant tomorrow aftair. Besides, if our leaders do not become philosophers, or if our own philosophers do not become leaders, ours will remain the kingdom of tears and disrespect.
Joachim Arrey
Posted by: Joachim Arrey | January 29, 2012 at 04:22 PM
"This is so true am a Kenyan and I relate to what is said about Zambia.It is indeed an african curse..I think the dark skin has a co-relation to slow thinking...otherwise how do you explain all this?"
This is the most retarded analysis I have ever heard. Do you really believe what you're saying?
Posted by: kumcom1 | April 22, 2012 at 04:56 AM
Im from Eritrea and we dont need a white man to tell us what our problems are. Its easy to say "why dont you start building your own parts, cars, planes, etc..." without knowing what it really takes. Personally, I doubt this conversation even took place. It sounds like a fictional account designed to get maximum African readership. The author must be of the opinion that that us African brothers and sisters don't listen to advice unless its solicited by a white man.
The overall message though is correct, Africans need a policy of self reliance and in order to do that they need a political establishment to develop society's self confidence by making citizens feel that they are part of the culture of self reliance. This task is not as simple as it sounds since doing so will threaten the economic interests of western nations who want cheap raw material. An educated and self reliant Africa would be a nightmare to many western interests because their economies rely on the status quo to continue as is. So any African nation or any developing nation for that matter that pursues such an agenda aggressively will be met with stiff resistance or sabotage from the outside.
A good example is Eritrea; one of the smallest and newest Countries on the African continent that has only had 5 years of peaceful existence has managed to build infrastructure required for economic innovation, develop its agricultural sector to be able to feed itself (a task that its own larger neighbours cannot do), has been able to defend itself against the largest Army in Africa (twice) and despite all its problems was the 10th fastest growing economy in the world in 2011. All this and it has been slapped by unjustifiable sanctions based on false accusations. More sanctions are planned against it and they are targeting its economy. If you think the west will let us to come out of poverty without a fight, just take a look at what is happening to Eritrea and never forget it! Any African nation that wants to pave its own path and have true economic independence will be met with the same force so take notes! Move swiftly and with confidence and never ever give up! Like Eritrea, Africa too will eventually prevail!
victory to the African people!
Posted by: TheEritrean | April 24, 2012 at 09:00 AM
If a stranger knocks your door and you let him in and he ends up stealing from your home, shame on him. but if the same stranger comes back and you still welcomes him and he steals again shame on you. Shame on Africa for falling asleep while a stranger is stealing his belongings.
Posted by: Sami Djibo | May 03, 2012 at 04:27 PM