adminHowever, it remains an anomaly that a significant number of so-called dignitaries or “VIPs” who graced the event still hail from the very same colonisers Africa should be viewing with a different eye. Maybe it is the power of aid which continues defining the direction the African economies follow. After all, the magnificent structure where the conference was held is a direct donation from the Chinese government.
Indeed, it is 50 years since Kwame Nkrumah foresaw a United States of Africa taking shape with sentiments of Ian Smith, the then Rhodesian prime minister, pointing to a continent which could not be expected to have black residents at State Houses.
Generally speaking, African economies have recorded significant economic growth for the past 10 years, a modicum of democracy seems to be gaining currency and the education sector has witnessed the non-discrimination of students as mixed races is what one sees during a visit to most schools.
The University of Zimbabwe opened its doors in the 1950s with a very dominant white populace being the order of the day. Then when doors opened for black Africans to be enrolled, certain faculties were literary reserved for the white populace which is a complete opposite of today’s state of affairs. However, the only traces of colonisation left at the university are in the names of lecture theatres and students’ residences.
The Golden Jubilee Africa is celebrating is supposed to be an economic statement that with five decades of political freedom by most of the states, donations can no longer continue setting the pace for nations’ economic programmes. The continent has matured enough to be self-sustaining considering a greater part of world resources the world is craving for are domiciled in Africa.
A scenario of national budgets relying on donor support for them to drive the economies must become a thing of the past. The leaders of Africa must develop symptoms of being ashamed for failing to define the course of their generation. What makes Africa is a common history of exploitation and it appears some of the state leaders still feel the Berlin Conference after effects as they rather scramble to Western nations for solutions to their economic problems when ironically the same West scrambled for mother continent in partitioning the continent.
Leaders such as Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Patrice Lumumba of the then Zaire, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Seretse Khama of Botswana, Joshua Nkomo, Albert Luthuli and Walter Sisulu of South Africa seem to be perishing in our political shelves with the new stock of leaders who are true disciples of Bretton Woods prescriptions taking over.
As Africa gathers to look back, what is it that the leaders has done to uplift the living standards of their people, to make the continent a better place to live? What have they done to fine-tune the African economies to become the engines of world economic growth given the abundance of resources we possess?
The golden tag we as Africans are putting on our lapels will soon gather rust unless we start realising that Africa will not be like Europe, America or Asia until it implements policies which are commensurate with its resource endowments, with its culture and tradition and at the same time with its climatic conditions.
When Esap failed in Zimbabwe, for instance, nobody bothered to tell the truth that Asia was turning the corner which means privatising and liberalising our economies was but just a recipe for disaster, that setting wage rates was a haven for brain drain.
It is the same Africa which forgot that by being a signatory to the International Criminal Court, they were putting their national interests at risk as the court exists to prosecute models who propel Africanism while celebrating the foreign values of capitalism, vague human rights such as promoting same sex marriage.
Now, as Africa we continue crying after one of our major brands, Nelson Mandela, is under siege from the business-minded individuals of the transatlantic who saw it as convenient to shout the icon’s name in defence of their mendacious interests. The common joke doing the rounds now is: it easier to “gatecrash” into Madiba’s birthday party with a French or English tone than with a Zulu or Xhosa accent.
Africa should start realising that any socio-economic course which will positively affect their standard of living has to start from our local chambers, the jobs we want, the resource ownership we crave for, the infrastructure we need and the politicians we admire. When Gaddafi was butchered in Libya, not even an iota of his demise has benefited a Tripoli or Benghazi resident.
When Mbeki was recalled, the unrest in South Africa’s mining sector escalated. When Lumumba was murdered, it could not save Laurent Kabila from his mysterious death. Unemployment in Egypt is much higher today as compared to the first day its deposed leader was arraigned to the courts of law and all these should serve as lessons that Africa might not necessarily be poor because of nationalists who challenge foreign values.
Our economic destiny as Africa originates from the path we create for ourselves, some of our youthful brothers had been hoodwinked to believing that knowing a gun would make their life better than building libraries. A visit to a vast strip of land between West and East Africa paints a sorry state as more than 30 percent of their army comprises child soldiers who are indoctrinated that they are fighting dictatorship when in fact there are clashing with posterity. The conflicts are mainly sponsored from the erstwhile colonisers and it won’t be shocking that military aid from the West to Africa eclipses food aid, for instance.
Africa should wake up and smell the coffee. The indigenisation policy in Zimbabwe is not the primary problem but rather it is our intellectuals who had been churned out from our local universities who had crammed the Western doctrine from foreign textbooks that owning your resources is fatalistic – the textbooks which emphasise that all scientists and thinkers do not hail from our continent. To fight such a stigma will require chivalric leadership which Africa has to start rebuilding now.
Christopher Takunda Mugaga is an economist. He is the Head of Research for Econometer Global Capital, a regional finance and economics research firm. He can be contacted on: [email protected] or +263 772 340 353/ +263 776 266 062.
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