4 comment(s)

1. Israel Mlambo | Jul 22, 2007 | Reply

   I am empathetic with your hard realisation and rude awakening that had to come to of late, and accept that the cocktail of hardships of Africa haunt its weakest inhabitants. But I am sympathetic, extremely so, to your ‘pessimistic’ view on the future of Africa. Such views, regardless of the reality of the day, only serve to conclude what Caucasians always sang: that we are inadequate. That view of pessimism, in my view, is a foresight of doom. Doom not by nature default, but by design of man, man who live within African and in other distant lands. Why do I symphathise? Because I do not wish such a generalized and undermining conclusion about African futures. And I will expand on this just now.

   What we need for Africa, as you concept reveal as well, is less theories and more action. There’s been, as you say, too many mouth-gymnastics that take place in uber hotels, and come out with the most bewitching concepts geared toward paving gateways to African development, and what do we have often, failures.

   But we have to admit that a lot has been achieved. What would have happened if Nelson Mandela had painted a pessimistic picture of South Africa’s future after realising, following only half of his sentence in isolated jails, that he may be there for equal the time he had already spent in incarceration? What would have happened if the 1976 youth of Soweto decided that only doom and bloodshed lay at the end of the day of their uprising? I am sure answers to that are obvious. Now, as I said I would expand on why I sensed generalizations and undermine, and this is why.

   Mandela was a visionary. The 1976 uprising youth organizers were brave visionaries and the actions of both elements, made a global ripple that could not be ignored any longer. I think that it takes a little bit of faith to trust that Africa, and its many units, will come out triumphant. Who, in their right mind, without any degree of faith and brave vision, would trust that the Zimbabwe situation will be resolved and that it will not necessarily take long? Certainly anyone who wants to bank their faith on Africa. But is not it faith that we lack?

   I like your entry a lot. It is as much a mirror of me and my views about so many long standing and complex African issues as it is of the faith that I need to muster so that I can see the light within this dark tunnel.

2. Omotaylor | Jul 23, 2007 | Reply

   I agree with both the sentiment and the observation on both sides. Guess the next cyber contest should encourage a discourse on practical ways to start the wheel of change really rolling as regards our African problems.

3. Israel Mlambo | Jul 23, 2007 | Reply

   What we need is the re-enlightenment of the African mind. And you are right, action oriented ‘action’ is better than debates that serve themselves. Africans, of late, regardless of their status in society, toil for more status and to climb the next ladder. And as a result we have a lot of status-people who are in fact, morons in the likes of Mugabe, who only stand to reverse the works of other African leaders. But as I said, we can easily be caught up in the trap of generalisations and over-simplification.

4. Omotaylor | Jul 24, 2007 | Reply

   Dear Israel, all these “status-people” will forever exist just like we will always have beggars in our societies. Nevertheless it should not stop sane minds and visionaries from coming together and begin a proactive move towards change in Africa. We have all done the theory bit for so long. Can someone attempt to bell the cat – please.

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