By Takura Zhangazha.

A number of friends recently forwarded a link to a popular blogsite titled ‘You Lazy (Intellectual) African Scum!’ to my email inbox. It’s written by a Zambian doctoral student based in the United States of America, a Mr. Field Ruwe. It has an anecdotal beginning wherein it offers a real or imagined scenario about an assumedly black African sitting next to a white American on an aeroplane ride from Los Angeles to Boston. It turns out that the white American has worked extensivley in Africa and spent a lot of time in Zambia(he even knows the nickname of Zambian President Sata!) What follows as one reads further is what I would hazard to call ‘bar-stool’ conversation. The white expatriate who is referred to as Walter, explains much to the initial shock and then eventually ‘deification’ acceptance of his one person African audience everything that is assumedly wrong with African society, intellectuals and African political leaders. On the face of it, the observations made by ‘Walter’ are premised on assumptions of ‘hard facts’ or alternatively a ‘let’s cut the white/black man nonsense’ and look at facts. The underlying truth however is that ‘Walter’s’ arguments are made on the very same basis, i.e a white man lecturing an assumed ahistorical black figure on the comparative historical successes of ‘western civilization’. All this done with the seeminlgy neat caveat that it is completely the fault of the Africans that they are where they are today. And to make ‘Walter’s’ argument seemingly insurmountable and beyond reproach, he invokes the now ubiquitous comparison of what the Japanese, Chinese and Indians have done to play ‘catch-up’ with the Western world. Never mind the fact that the historical trajectories of these three countries have been profoundly different from those of Africa. In any event it is an argument that dismisses Africa’s historical arrival at where it is in favour of substituting the making of African history for a Western trajectory. So much so to the extent that it would not be surprising had Mr. Ruwe’s ‘Walter’ character insisted that Africa first undergo not only an industrial/ technological revolution a-la-carte the West but ensure that the same is ‘teleologically’ accompanied by a couple of World Wars (with the attendant horrific genocides) as well as never ending ‘war’s on terror’ against one ‘bloc’ or the other from the global east. Knowing my colleagues as I do, they probably forwarded the link to me because while they might find some of the blog’s contents unpalatable, they are probably drawn to what they think are some valid points. Particualry if the argument entails moving away from the syndrome of blaming the ‘Western other’ in dealing with the challenges that Africa and Africans are facing continentally and globally. In fact, Mr. Ruwe’s friend goes into a semi-confessional mode where after the ‘real or imagined’ berating and denigrative lecture from ‘Walter’, he undertakes a serious self whipping act of contrition. After which, he then offers advice to Zambian President Mr. Sata not to be ‘highly strung’ by ‘Walter’. This contrition however has a ‘technological’ catch to it wherein Mr. Ruwe argues “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.” And therein lies the fundamental problem with the argumentation. Its premise is too embedded in a wrong assumption that Africans are ‘inferior’ because they do not make tractors, cars, planes and razor blades even (in fact we do make cars or contribute significantly to the making of them, even though we might not have been the first to invent them). We might not be as technologically savvy as our Western compatriots but we are not here to be judged inferior as human beings by them on the same basis either. If that is the case, we might as well all manufacture nuclear weapons. Our challenges may be more numerous but in some instances are not any more different than those of our compatriots in the West. That they hide their societal challenges from full purview does not mean the same challenges are in any less need of redress. Contrary to the assertions of ‘Walter’, we are all equal as human beings. Wholesale judgements of the success or failure of a continent have rarely been made elsewhere save with regard to the ‘native’ African and the African continent. To seek to perpetuate such judgements is borderline acquiescence to racist stereotypes of our continent. It can only be viewed as an unfortunate attempt

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.

I write with reference to Peter Lockwood’s piece entitled “Somali Nationalism: A Dead Concept?” published on 9th January. I don’t usually respond to articles, however this one demanded a response for several reasons:
• Firstly, Mr. Lockwood is a Junior Consultant at UNESCO in Nairobi and has written other pieces on Somali politics that have been published. Thus, he is part of the international bureaucracy that is responsible for administering Somalia and, notwithstanding his current, if somewhat bizarre, designation of “Junior Consultant”, is likely to become a member of the international nomenclature recognised as ‘Somalia experts’. Thus, his views and perspectives on Somali politics are likely to have an impact upon international policy on Somalia and need to be addressed as such.
• Secondly, while the title of the piece raises the question of Somali Nationalism, the piece is actually concerned with the disintegration of the Somali Republic and argues that Puntland (the autonomous and relatively peaceful part of the erstwhile Republic) and Somaliland should help in ensuring that south and central Somalia do not become “…pawn(s) of other regional and international powers.”. This argument echoes those put forward at the roundtable meeting held by Chatham House in July last year, and the policies of the current Silanyo administration in Hargeisa, that Somaliland should get involved in the search for the establishment of a viable state in Somalia.
• Thirdly, the piece seems to argue for the re-establishment of the erstwhile Republic of Somalia, while not explicitly coming out for this position. In the concluding paragraph, Mr. Lockwood seems to posit the idea that Islam can provide the basis of a new Somali Nationalism that supersedes the divisive clan identity that he believes continues to bedevil the search for peace and viable governance in Somalia.

From the outset, let me extend my appreciation to Mr. Lockwood for championing Somali self determination and independent statehood. This critique of his piece is not meant to impugn his motives, nor question the morality of his intentions. However, his perspectives, and therefore his prescriptions, suffer from a limited knowledge of Somali history and nationalism. Firstly, he does not seem to understand fully that the clan identity of the Somali people has both a fusion as well as a fission tendency. Indeed it is the sense of Somali-ness (evidencing their common language, religion and culture) which distinguishes the Somali people of the Horn of Africa from their neighbours, be these neighbours Oromos, Amharas, Danakil (Afars), Masai or Kikuyu. It is this fusion tendency which gave rise to modern Somali nationalism during the 20th century and underpinned the dream of Greater Somalia and the creation of the erstwhile Republic. Thus, automatically equating clan identity with divisiveness, i.e. the fission tendency, is a major flaw in Mr. Lockwood’s understanding of Somali nationalism and, therefore, of the analysis presented.

Another glaring weakness in the analysis is equating Puntland and Somaliland in the context of their respective positions regarding the efforts to establish a functioning government and state structure in Somalia during the last two decades. Puntland has not declared independence from Somalia and has been intimately involved from the beginning in the establishment of successive so-called governments in Mogadishu. Indeed, the late Abdillahi Yusuf, the first President of Puntland, mounted a successful campaign to accede to the Presidency of Somalia in 2004. Further, Puntland has been very vociferous in demanding and securing its share of, and from, every government that has been established for Somalia since the collapse of the Siyad Barre dictatorship, whether such ‘share’ be cabinet positions or allocations of aid. The latest conference (which concluded earlier this month) to determine the government of Somalia after the term of the current TFG ends in August 2012, was held in Garowe, the capital of Puntland. Thus, it is only Somaliland which has remained aloof from the search for a government for Somalia and this is because the successive ‘governments’ established for Somalia have myopically insisted upon their dominion over what is in effect a separate country.

Yet another weakness in the analysis is the misreading of the brief period of relative peace and unity under the rule of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) during 2006/7. Mr. Lockwood suffers under the impression that it was the Islamist doctrine of the ICU that won over the support of the people, when it was their perceived personal honesty, civic morality, patriotism and judicial impartiality compared with the venality, brutality and foreign loyalties of the warlords they sought to transplant that generated widespread public support and loyalty. The irony is that it was precisely the alien and medieval nature of the ICU’s brand of Islamism, with its banning of innocent pursuits such as watching sports on TV (indeed watching TV at all), wearing of bras by women and the shaving of beards by men, that brought them into conflict with the general public. Indeed, one could argue that the ICU was able to secure widespread public support by espousing and practising many of the virtues of Somali nationalism, i.e. clean, accountable government, the rule of law and equality before it that characterised the independence era.

The statement by Hassan Aweys that Mr. Lockwood quotes approvingly in his penultimate paragraph laying claim to Ethiopia’s Fifth (Somali) Province and the Northern Frontier District (NFD) of Kenya actually represents the very worst of the ICU, and marks the takeover of the group by the extremist wing that would lead to its downfall. This extremist wing, of course, came out of the closet as Al-Shabaab after the success of its plan to takeover the ICU and engineer a confrontation with Ethiopia and its Western backers. The simple fact is that the political calculus underlying the collapse of the state in Somalia cannot be reduced to the seductive simplicity of clan identity = divisive anarchy; Islamic identity = inclusive peace. Indeed, the reality of Somali political culture demands that this much sought, and seemingly elusive, inclusive peace must be charted through the very clan identity that facile analysis posits as the problem. The primacy of clan identity within Somali culture and politics is a given that can be neither wished away nor ignored, nor relegated to the periphery of political discussion and organisation, and any prescription or proposed solution that does not recognise this primacy is but a pipedream.

Somaliland’s recovery of its independence in 1991 and its establishment of a functioning state with a representative, indigenous system of government across clan lines is a clear demonstration that the fusion tendency of Somali nationalism is alive and well. The fact that this unrecognised country of limited means is host to hundreds of thousands of refugees from the anarchy south of the border is testament to the potency of the fraternity that underpins this pan-Somali identity or nationalism. The pan-Somali nature of much Somali business, much of which has its base in Somaliland where it can thrive in peace and under the protection of law, also attests to this fraternal and unifying trend in Somali social organisation.

In conclusion, Mr. Lockwood, Somali nationalism is far from dead. Indeed, I would posit the opposite, that it getting its second wind (much like a long distance runner) and we are witnessing its re-emergence in a different and stronger, if less emotive  form. However, recognising its new formulation and articulation by a generation of Somalis that have different imperatives and that are characterised as much by their experiences of war and exile as by the new era of technology and the primacy of information acquisition and exchange in which they have grown up, will require a more in-depth and nuanced analysis. As for Somaliland getting involved in the search for peace and governance in Somalia, this is not a new idea. Indeed, since 1995 Somaliland has repeatedly offered its services in this endeavour with the clear understanding that this will not impact the legitimacy of its independence.

It has been the myopic and misplaced intransigence of southern politicians and the unquestioning, passive support of this inflexibility by the donor powers that have conspired to ensure Somaliland’s distance. Far from ignoring the plight of their brothers to the south, Somaliland has sought to broker peace among them in the only credible way open to it, i.e. by protecting the hard-won peace and stability its own people have achieved. These efforts have been consistently sabotaged by the very same self-seeking politicians that squabble over apportionment of cabinet positions and aid monies, even as foreign terrorists and their local franchisees fight over their people and territory with invading armies and US drone attacks. The irony is that among the ordinary people of Somalia, the independence of Somaliland is widely supported and admired.

SOURCE: HIIRAAN ONLINE

Maxaa kuu diiday guurka adigoo weliba sidan ilaahay qurux kuugu deeqay?

Macalimadi ayaa tiri, waxaan idiin sheegayaa qiso  ee iga dhegaysta dabadeedana sidan ku bilowday sheeka aad layaab uleh:

Waxaa jiray beri nin qabay naag u dhashay shan gabdhood wuxuuna bilaabay ninkeedu inuu ugu goodiyo hadii ay gabar kale dhasho inuu ka takhalusi doono. Ilaahay amarkiis, waxay naagti dhashay gabar. NInki  ayaa gabdhi qaaday salaada cishaha kadib dhigayna masaajidka albaabkiisa marki salaada subax la gaaray ayuu tegay bal si uu u soo eego in la qaatay iyo inkale. Nasiib daro ama nasiib wanaag lama qaadan sidaas ayuuna ugu soo celiyay gurigi. Wxuu habeen walba gayn jiray masaajidka ilinkiisa subixina kasoo qaadi jiray maadaama aanan la qaadanin. Marki uu sidaas samaynayey todoba maalmood hooyadeedna ay ilaahay ka barayaysay inuu  usoo celiyo gabadheeda ayuu ka quustay in la qaato sidaasna guriga ugu soo celiyay kuna dhaafay. Hooyadi ayaa aad u faraxday ilaahayna u mahad celisay.

Waxaa dhacady inay xaaskiisi uur kale yeelatay sidaasna cabsi kale ku soo wajahday iyadoo ka baqaysa in hadii gabar ay dhasho ay la kulmi doonto xaalki gabadheedi hore ee aabeheed isku deyay inuu ka takhaluso. Markan waxay dhashay wiil laakiin waxaa dhimatay gabdhahi lixda ahaa tii ugu waynayd. Mar kale ayay hadana uur yeelatay waxayna dhashay wiil markaan waxaa ka dhintay gabadhi ku xigtay tii hore ee dhmatay ee hablaha ugu waynayd. Sidaas ayay iskugu xijisay shan wiil laakiin gabdhihi oo dhan ayaa ka dhintay marka laga reebo tii aabeheed masaajidka hortiisa dhigi jiray.

Muddo kadib hooyadi caruurta dhashay waa dhimatay. Sidaas ayaaa waxaa ku koray gabadhi aabeheed doonayey inuu ka takhaluso iyo shanti wiil.

Macalimaddi ayaa ku tiri asxaabteedi ma taqaaniin gabadhaasi waa tuma? Isla ayadi ayaa su’aasheedi ka jawaabtay oo tiri: waa aniga gabadhaas massjidka la hordhigi jiray habeenki subixina laga soo qaadi jiray. Waxaan u guursan waayey maadaam aabeheey uu duqoobay aanu  lahayn cid kale oo xanaanaysa. Waxaan u qabtay khaadimad si ay uga caawiso wixi uu u baahanyahay iyo inay cuntada u kariso.  Walaalehaygi uu aabeheey ku hami jiray inu hal mar arko wiil uu dhalay maantay waa kawada tageen oo kan ugu roon ayaa soo booqda bishi hal mar. Laakiin aabeheey har iyo habeen wuu ooyaa asagoo ka qoomameeya  wixi uu falay.

Sidee bay arintan idiinla muuqataa kuwiina ka xumaada inay gabar u dhalato?

Gabar iyo wiil ilaahay ayaa haysta ee markastaba ku ducaysta inuu dhashiina idiin barakeeyo kuwa kheyr qabana idinkaga dhigo. Badanaa gabdho boqol wiil ka wanaagsan dhan walba!!!