Is there any thing to be learned from it? and if there is, what is to be done about it? I simply leave it open for all to make some imputes.It may take some time,but it worth it.
They called 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 discoveries, inventions, and innovations.
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 will 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 C 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 precarious smile.’ where are 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 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 the chunk of your dept.Your government owes not the world
bank 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 the smartest
thing for him to do,” At midnight we were airbone.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.
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 stagnant as the water in the
lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wild life
and leave morselscrumbs.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, and the entire Third World country.”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 pigmentation, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the different between me and you?” “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 sub units. After they were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotides 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 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 reset your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are dam lazy, each of you. It is you, and not those poor and uneducated 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 market and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in the 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.
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, and the entire Third World country.”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 pigmentation, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the different between me and you?” “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 sub units. After they were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotides 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 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 reset your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are dam lazy, each of you. It is you, and not those poor and uneducated 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 market and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in the 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 the 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 alcohol graduates, Zambian
intellectuals work 8-5 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 very own parents, brothers and sisters 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. “Wakeup 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 literatithe 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, 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 independent we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13million 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 had little control.
The past government 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 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 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.
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 very own parents, brothers and sisters 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. “Wakeup 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 literatithe 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, 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 independent we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13million 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 had little control.
The past government 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 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 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.
Culled from UNIFyED BILL!
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