Near the end of Jacob Zuma’s recent State of the Nation address, he made the point, “[South Africa is] building a developmental and not a welfare state..”
Welfare vs. Developmental State. This intrigues me.
Selling South Africa as a developmental state is tough; currently 30% of South Africa’s 50 million people receive some type of social assistance grant—this could be child support, old age support, veteran and disability benefits, etc…
The number of beneficiaries has skyrocketed in recent history—up 300% since 2000.
This led opposition politician Mario Oriani-Ambrosini, of the Inkatha Freedom Party, to claim that “South Africa is a welfare state which dreams of becoming a developmental state.”
But what is South Africa to do?
In 1994 when Nelson Mandela took his long walk to freedom South Africa was two countries—one was among the world’s most developed, and the other among the least.
That is still largely true.
In fact, South Africa is more unequal now than in 1994. (Commentators often point out that inequality usually increases as economic growth increases.)
The Two South Africas
How could the African/Colored/Indian populations just snap their fingers and compete with the white populations who had benefited for so long from schooling, finances, geography, access to political power, skills training—everything?
Thus the South African state began a long term black empowerment strategy that, in its current manifestation, is referred to as the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes (BEE for short).
This required, and still does require, a degree of intervention in economic and state affairs that would be unthinkable in most other countries.
Almost everyone—conservatives or liberal, Afrikaner or Black, Malay or Indian—agrees that South Africa is a special case, and needs to target previously disenfranchised populations with additional help.
The agreement stops there. How much assistance, for how long, and under what conditions, remains extremely contentious.
***(Last week I was speaking with a South African living in the U.S. who told me that South Africa has had ‘one man, one vote, one time’ for more than 15 years, and if Black business can’t compete yet, then they never will… If I may be allowed a slight exaggeration, that would be similar to telling a Black American family in 1878 that they had been free for 15 years, and now they should be able to compete freely and equally in business and society.)***
Americans have been sharpening their arguments on the role of the government for centuries, but I am not sure our tired tag lines on big and small government relate to a situation like South Africa’s.
There are certainly vulnerable, historically disenfranchised communities in the United States— but it’s all a matter of degree.
The side-by-side nature of South African inequality also makes the situation incredibly volatile. Black townships where most of the population lives far below the poverty line exist only kilometers away from affluent, mostly non-black neighborhoods (not unlike parts of the U.S.).
How can the ANC, whose control of the government depends on massive support from poor, black voters, withdraw social support from Black communities that see everyday how ‘wealthy’ the other South Africa is?
Even if the ANC government thought that money would be better spent on job creation initiatives, or education, or health, projects that might reduce dependency, I don’t see how it would be politically feasible for South Africa to transform itself from a welfare to a developmental state.
In that is the case, South Africa needs to achieve the 6% or 7% growth necessary to bring down unemployment without breaking the social safety net.
I’ll stop here, because at this point readers can just turn on CNN for the rest of the arguments. African political problems really aren’t that foreign after all.
I was going to continue exploring why some people, or states, support pariah regimes (this time with a more sympathetic view towards the supporters), but I was side tracked by a wonderful article from GRANTA magazine entitled “How to Write About Africa”. (The article is actually from a while back)
Please read it. It is not so long, and it will make you laugh, and maybe cry a little on the inside.
“How to Write About Africa” is a spoof how-to for would be journalists or novelists writing on Africa.
It offers advice like; “Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize.
An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these.”
These are taboos; “ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation”.
One last excerpt.
After forbidding would-be writers to discuss normal African family life or run-of-the mill dreams and ambitions, the author states that…”Animals, on the other hand, must be treated as well rounded, complex characters.
They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and have names, ambitions and desires.
They also have family values: see how lions teach their children?
Elephants are caring, and are good feminists or dignified patriarchs. So are gorillas.
Never, ever say anything negative about an elephant or a gorilla.”
You get the idea.
In the last few years I think serious journalists have begun to realize their Africa play book was not only out of date; it was absurd.
African authors, inventors, artists and other public figures have brought actual African perspectives to the fore, and BBC and RFI programs on Africa now routinely feature African commentators. From time to time BBCs African perspective podcast is quite good.
I remember the first time an African-American friend of mine took me through Disney movies and pointed out how all the lazy, slovenly but good natured characters with bad diction had southern African American accents, all the hyper, overly risky and violent prone characters had Latin American accents, and suspicious, shifty eyed traders inevitably sounded Middle Eastern.
I wondered how my entire childhood this blatant negative stereotyping escaped me….
(By the way- Disney heard this criticism loud and clear, their modern stuff has been much better. But if you haven’t been given this tour, go back and check out the classics like Jungle Book, Dumbo, Aristocats, Aladdin, the Little Mermaid…you will cringe.)
I get that same feeling now when I read articles on Africa that fit the GRANTA piece’s spoof advice.
But Africa writing has come a long way in the last five or so years…
This is what New York Times writing on health looked like in 2004.
I am obviously cherry-picking from hundreds of articles, but in my opinion these are reasonably representative samples.
When you read the 2004 pieces you might say- “well how can someone talk about this awful situation, be it health or education, in a positive way?”
That is not the journalist’s job. The state of health and education in many African countries was, and still is, in need of serious work.
But in 2004 the journalists rolled around and wallowed in the helplessness and misery of it all.
The 2010 pieces touched on the barriers to health and education, and then went on to evaluate what people are doing about it.
In other words, I am not asking that people write only positive articles about Africa, simply that they use the same intellectual and investigative tools that they apply to other regions of the world.
A nuanced description of the problem- a 3d portrait of some of the people it affects—a briefing on the obstacles—and an overview of how people/institutions are dealing with it.
Spare me the wallowing.
As always, I am exempting the horrible situations in some conflict zones where misery over-rides other aspects of life. These are, thankfully, few and far between.
East Africa is booming, so many of the stories of 2010 were terrifically good news. But there were the tragedies as well like the Kampala bombings. Below I try to put the year in perspective with my top ten stories for East Africa for 2010.
1. Populace democracy grows.
2. Terrorism grows, as does the battle against it.
3. Huge stop in the mercenary purchases of Coltan.
4. Momentum for peace in the runup to establishing a new South Sudan.
5. Tourism clashes with development, especially with the proposed Serengeti Highway.
6. New discoveries of fossil fuels produces new wealth and a new relationship with China.
7. Gay Rights grow public but loses ground.
8. Rhino poaching becomes corporate.
9. Hot air ballooning’s safety newly questioned in game parks.
10. Newest early man discoveries reconfirm sub-Saharan Africa as the birthplace of man.
#1: POPULACE DEMOCRACY GROWS
Theoretically, all the East African countries have operated as “democracies” except for the torrential years of Idi Amin in Uganda. But the quality of this democracy was never very good.
Tanzania was a one-party state for its first 20 years, and that same party continues to rule although more democratically today. Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi experienced one dictator after another, even while democratic elections at regional levels challenged the executive.
But the end of the Cold War destroyed the alliances these developing countries had with super powers. Purse strings were cut, and political cow-towing ended. All of them moved towards a truly more democratic culture.
And in 2010 huge leaps were made in all the countries towards more truly representative government. The most important example by far was the overwhelming passing of the new constitution in Kenya in a national referendum where more than 75% of registered voters participated.
And like the U.S. election which followed shortly thereafter, and like support for national health care in the U.S. and so many other issues (like no tax cuts for the rich), Kenyan politicians dragged their feet right up to the critical moment. They tried and tried, and ultimately failed, to dissuade Kenyans from their fundamental desire to eliminate tribalism in government and more fairly distribute the huge wealth being newly created.
I see this as People vs. Politicians, and in this wonderful case, the People won!
And there was some progress as well in Tanzania’s December election, with the opposition growing and its influence today moving that country towards a more democratic constitution.
(It was not so good in Rwanda or Uganda, where stiff-arm techniques and government manipulation of the electoral process undermined any attempt at real democracy.) But the huge leap forward in Kenya, and the little hop in Tanzania, made this the absolute top story of the year.
#2: TERRORISM GROWS
Four smaller bombings in Nairobi’s central business district over the year were eclipsed by two horrible simultaneous bombings in Kampala bars on July 11 while patrons were watching the world cup. Police display an unexploded suicide vest.
Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda in Somali, claimed responsibility. And throughout the year Shabaab grew increasingly visible along the Kenyan border as its power in Somali increased.
I’ve written for a long time about how the west has had its collective head in the sand as regards terrorism and Al-Qaeda in particular. Long ago I pointed out that the locus of Al-Qaeda terrorism had moved to the horn from Afghanistan, and this year proved it in spades.
The country with the most to lose and most to gain in this war on terror is Kenya, because of its long shared border with Somalia. And the year also marked a striking increase in the Kenyan government’s war on terror, and with considerable success.
With much more deftness and delicacy than us Kenya has stepped up the battle against Al-Shabaab while pursuing policies aimed at pacifying any overt threats to its security, by such brilliant moves as allowing Omar Bashir into the country and not arresting him (on an international U.N. warrant). As I said in a blog, Kenya Gets It, and the story is therefore a hopeful one.
The Dodd-Frank Act is our victory!The Congo Wars continue but are abating, and in large part because of a little known provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act which now makes it almost impossible for major corporations in the U.S. to buy the precious metal Coltan on the black market.
A black market which has funded perhaps Africa’s most horrible war for more than a generation. Hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – have been killed and raped, and more than 20,000 children conscripted into brutal wars, funded by purchases of Coltan and other precious metals by Intel, Sony and Apple.
It certainly wasn’t just this little legislative move. The U.N. peace-keeping force, fabulous diplomatic initiatives by Uganda and a real diplomatic vigilance by the U.S. all were instrumental. But the year ended with the least violence in the region in more than two decades.
#4: SOUTH SUDAN
I may be jumping the gun on this one, because the referendum to create a new country, the South Sudan, is not scheduled to occur before next month. But the runup to the referendum, including the registration process, while labored looks like it’s working.
Allied loosely with the Congo Wars, the civil war between the North and South Sudan had gone on for generations until a brokered peace deal five years ago included the ultimate end to the story: succession of the South into a new country.
The concept is rife with problems, most notably that the division line straddles important oil-producing areas. But in spite of all of this, and many other ups and downs along the way, it looks to me like there will be a South Sudan, and soon. And this year’s new U.N. presence in Juba, donor-construction of roads and airports, all points to the main global players in the controversy also thinking the same.
The creation of a new state out of a near failed one is not the be-all or end-all of the many problems of this massive and powerfully oil-rich area. But it is a giant leap forward.
#5: THE SERENGETI HIGHWAY & TOURISM
Last night NBC news aired a segment on the Serengeti Highway controversy, elevating an East African story into American prime time. Good.
But like so many reports of this controversy, the simplification ran amok. NBC’s reporter Engels claimed the motivation for the road was to facilitate rare earth metals like Coltan (see above) getting into Chinese hands more quickly.
While there may be something to this, it’s definitely not the main reason, which is much more general and harder therefore to fight. As I’ve often written, the highway as planned will be a real boon to the Maasai currently living to the east of the Serengeti, as much if not more than to the Chinese.
And as far as I know, Maasai don’t use Coltan.
Roads bring commerce and may be the single quickest way to develop a region. This region is sorely in need of development and recent Tanzania politics has aligned to the need for this regional development.
The highway is just one of many such issues which came to the fore throughout 2010 in Kenya and Tanzania. Concern that the west is just interested in East Africa as a vacation destination with no regards for the struggle for development, has governed quite a few local elections this year.
The whole concept of tourism may be changing as the debate progresses. I believe very deeply that the Serengeti highway as proposed would hinder rather than help development. But as I’ve pointed out, alternatives are in the works.
And the real story of which the highway story is only a part, is how dramatically different East Africans have begun to view tourists in 2010.
#6: NEW RESOURCE DISCOVERIES ALTER GEOPOLITICS
For years I and other African experts have referred to East Africa as “resource-poor.” Kenya, in particular, had nothing but potash. Boy, did that change this year!
Although only one proven reserve has been announced in Kenya, several have begun production in Uganda and we know many more are to come.
China has announced plans for a pipeline and oil port in northern Kenya at a cost of nearly $16 billion dollars, that’s more than twice the entire annual budget for the Kenya government! Deep earth techniques have matured, and China knows how to use them.
More gold has been found in Tanzania, new coal deposits in Uganda, more precious metals in Rwanda… East Africa is turning into the world’s rare earth commodities market.
A lot of these new discoveries are a result of technology improving: going deeper into the earth. But 2010 freed East Africa from the shackle of being “resource-poor” and that’s a very big deal.
#7: GAY RIGHTS ON THE HOOK
African societies have never embraced gay rights but as they rapidly develop, until now there was none of the gay bashing of the sort the rightest backlash produces in the U.S. U.S. Righties manipulating East Africa.
That changed this year, and in large part because of the meddling of U.S. rightest groups.
In what appears to now have been a concerted many year effort, support from U.S. righties is leading to a vote in Uganda’s parliament that would make homosexuality a capital offense, and would jail for long terms those who failed to out known gays.
This extreme is not African, it is American. Mostly an insidious attempt by those unable to evince such insanity in their own society to go to some more manipulative place. The story isn’t over as the vote has yet to occur, but it emerged and reached a crescendo this year.
#8: RHINO POACHING EXPLODES
Poaching is a constant problem in wildlife reserves worldwide and Africa in particular. Rhino are particularly vulnerable, and efforts to ensure safe, wild habitats have been decades in the making. Dagger from rhino horn.
This year, they seemed to come apart. It’s not clear if the economic downturn has something to do with this, but the poaching seems to have morphed this year from individual crimes to corporate business plans.
This leap in criminal sophistication must be explained by wealth opportunities that haven’t existed previously. And whether that was the depressing of financial goals caused by the economic downturn, increased wealth in the Horn of Africa where so much of the rhino horn is destined, or reduced law enforcement, we don’t yet know. But 2010 was the sad year that this poaching exploded.
#9: IS HOT AIR BALLOONING SAFE?
Hot air ballooning in Africa’s two great wildernesses of the Maasai Mara (Kenya) and the Serengeti (Tanzania) has been a staple of exciting options to visiting tourists for nearly 30 years. That might be changing. Is it Safe?
A terrible accident in the Serengeti in early October that killed two passengers and injured others opened a hornet’s nest of new questions.
After working on this story for some time I’ve personally concluded 2010 was the year I learned I should not step into a hot air balloon in East Africa, at least for the time being!
#10: EARLY MAN WONDERS
There were not quite as many spectacular discoveries or announcements about early man this year as in years previously, but one really did stand out as outstanding and you might wonder what it has to do with East Africa! Representation by Tomislan Maricic.
DNA testing of Neanderthal proved that early man from Africa didn’t wipe them out after all, but absorbed them into the ever-evolving homin species.
And that absorption, and not massacre, happened outside Africa to be sure. But it finally helps smooth out the story that began in Africa: It’s likely that Neanderthal were earlier migrants from Africa, and absorption was therefore easier, physiologically and biologically.
It’s a wonderful story, and fresh and exciting, unlike the only other major African early man announcement about Ardi which was really a much older story, anyway.
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HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my loyal readers, with a giant thank you from me for your attention but especially your wonderful comments throughout the year. See you next year!
STOP!! Don't pick it, honey! It's not yours!So let’s say you’re enjoying the weeds in your backyard during this warm, beautiful fall when you come across this cute little azure flower. Don’t pick it! It might belong to Pfizer!
Last week’s major COWPEA conference that began in Nairobi and ended in Senegal is the latest of a number of African initiatives to take back their weeds!
Yes, I know, it’s sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? But it happens to be true. In today’s globally managed world of trade, more and more western corporations – mostly pharmaceuticals and agrogargantuans – are stealing magical African life forms that they then patent and make billions from.
These end product treasures include sugar substitutes, many drugs treating everything from diabetes to erectile dysfunction to weight-loss, to plants NASA can grow in space stations for feeding astronauts, to Australian hamburgers!
And the way the world’s closely held patent regulations work allows any corporation that gets its hands on the mother plant first, to look deep inside it for something useful, and then tweak it ever so carefully so that its chemical nature is changed enough to be considered “different.” Then, it patents it. Then, it owns it.
The reason Africa is such a big playground for this game is that the western world has essentially found everything in its own backyard already, and the world’s jungles are too pristine.
Too pristine?
Exactly. Africa has been worked over by growing human populations for millennia, unlike the depths of the Amazon or Borneo. Plants, fungi and microbes have had enough time to evolve into forms with greater associations to humans.
The earliest extant case of this biological theft from the world’s poorest currently benefitting the world’s richest was in the 1980s. Deft little organic theft from one of Kenya’s poorest, most primitive tribes, the Boran, and Zimbabwe’s least developed tribes, the Tuli, led to a current strain of beef used in Australia, an industry estimated to be worth about $7 billion annually.
Australian agro-researcher, Dr. John Frisch, was working to find a way to successfully supply Australian’s growing love of burgers. Australia is basically an arid land, especially where cattle farming occurs.
So he went to Kenya and discovered how healthy the cattle were in the deserts lived in by the Boran tribe. Not quite beefy enough, though. But apparently years before (maybe hundreds of years before) DNA pointed Frisch south, and he discovered in the much more developed country of Zimbabwe the same strain of Borani cattle now selected even better for mass breeding and slaughter among the Tuli tribe of herders.
So then what did these Australian cowpokes do?
Well, first they formed a respectable association, a “joint venture” that allowed Australian scientists into the Boran and Tuli communities doing undoubtedly good work like studying sand and inoculating cows against flu, while … just a bit on the side and very much on the sly… collecting embryos from pregnant cows.
The embryos were quietly taken to Cocos Island in August 1988 where they were implanted into surrogate cows. In March 1990, live calves – parading as ‘Aussies’ – landed in Australia. Since then the now named “Tuli breed” has largely been used as a crossbreed in Australia’s beef industry.
According to the Australian government the introduction of these embryos in 1988 now contributes A$2 billion annually to the value of the beef market.
And now, according to Oduor Ong’wen, director of a prominent Kenyan Trade Think Tank, Australians are selling (note the word, “selling”) pure-bred Tuli embryos on the world market.
And how much have the Boran or Tuli earned from this bio-theft? Zip.
(Much of this post can be attributed Ong’wen’s amazing Biopiracy article published this week in Pambazuka.)
Since that early beefy heist, there have been some victories for the little African guy. The most celebrated case came from the Kalahari Desert.
For thousands of years, the San people (Bushmen of the Kalahari and Namib Deserts) ate the Hoodia cactus to stave hunger and thirst. Unlike western remedies like caffeine or black market drugs, the cactus is a stimulant that doesn’t produce jitters.
In the mid 1990s, South African scientists from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) identified a previously unknown organic molecule in the Hoodia which they christened P57 (with no equivalent translation into click languages).
CSIR then patented the molecule and sold it in 1997 to Phytopharm plc, which in 1998 subleased the marketing rights to Pfizer for $32 million plus royalties from future sales.
The San people got it together and sued. They sued CSIR, Phytopharm and Pfizer. Pfizer has yet to develop a widely used drug from the source, but it has subsold some of its rights to a number of health food companies and it continues to study the molecule.
Meanwhile, the health food craze over Hoodia exploded and Pfizer easily recooped its initial $32 million investment by selling various rights to health food companies.
Pfizer and Phytopharm have settled with the San Peoples in a questionable agreement. The San are to get 8% of the royalties of any finally created Pfizer product. But there isn’t any finally created Pfizer product yet, even while Pfizer rakes in funds from the health food companies.
Boran/Tuli beef and Bushman uppers are hardly the tip of the iceberg. Current battles are raging in foreign ministries and trade organizations over hundreds if not thousands of life forms being taken from Africa by the western world and turned into lucratively marketed products.
Among the most contested right now, on which western corporations hold patents and Africans are trying to get their fare share, are:
– brazzeine, a protein 500 times sweeter than sugar from a plant in Gabon;
– teff, the grain used in Ethiopia’s flat ‘injera’ bread;
– thaumatin, a natural sweetener from a plant in West Africa;
– the Kunde Zulu cowpea, a bean with super protein that grows fast and easily;
– the African Plum from Kenya for treating certain forms of Prostate cancer;
– a bacteria SE 50 found in Kenya’s Lake Ruiru used to treat diabetes in the drug acrobase;
– a bacteria stolen from a termite hill in Gambia used in an anti-fungal and an immunosuppressant, 29-desmethylrapamycin
– the seeds from a Congolese plant used to manufacture Bioviagra
But there are thousands more.
World law is just developing that will license and control this “BioPiracy.” Needless to say, the big firms are on the side of Pfizer.
Clockwise from bottom left: Zita Kamwendo, Ranaf Makhani, Jimmy Masaua and Unnamed Herdsboy.It’s high school graduation time! A time for celebration, parties and boasting! Here’s a selection of graduates from Tanzania. I’d like to know which you’d like to meet.
These four kids have been born and raised in northern Tanzania, but their stories are replicated continent-wide.
Headed to the University of Cape Town’s engineering school is Jimmy Masaua. He won the top Cambridge exam award in geography. (The Cambridge exams are used more in Africa than SATs for college-bound students.)
Jimmy is destined for a busy career. Tanzania’s infrastructure is set for an enormously rapid development with the new discoveries of oil, gas and gold.
And Zita Kamwendo won the top Cambridge exam award in business studies. She’s headed to either Rhodes or Wits universities in South Africa and wants to become a lawyer. Zita is currently working at a hotel in Arusha, a city which has been growing rapidly and unlike so many cities, in a beautiful way.
Ranaf Makhani, in his own words, wants to be “The savior of Tanzania’s economy (possibly).” He was the top performer in the Cambridge exam’s economics division. He’s headed to the London School of Economics. Ranaf’s humor of “possibly” saving Tanzania’s economy is filled with truth. Many people believe Third World needs an economic revolution to stabilize.
And then, there’s the unnamed herdsboy.
There are probably ten unnamed herdsboy for every Jimmy, Zita or Ranaf. He’s nondescript. His name changes with his dreams. He doesn’t want to be an unnamed herdsboy, but he’s poor. He went to school for as long as his family could support him doing so, which wasn’t for long. There’s nothing glamorous about his life. He’s often sick and usually hungry.
But tourists want to meet him. Tourists want to meet him much more than they want to meet the truly promising kids: Jimmy, Zita or Ranaf. I’ve never understood this.
Africa’s young and well educated kids tower above their western world counterparts. No matter how privileged they may have been, how lucky to have been born into a family with some modicum of wealth, the efforts they put into their studies and upbringing are goliath compared to a typical American kid.
But who cares? Not American tourists. American tourists prefer to meet the unnamed herdsboy. They especially want to see him in his filthy village. After all if you can afford a safari, you probably have your own Jimmy, Zita or Ranaf.
The herdsboy agrees to meet tourists, because they sometimes give him food. Otherwise, he mostly covets their wealth, and then despises himself for doing so, and then becomes very angry.
Jimmy, Zita and Ranaf are destined for glorious futures well deserved and earned with an obsession that a typical American youngster might bring to PlayStation3.
Unlike Jimmy, Zita or Ranaf, the unnamed herdsboy is destined for a miserable, short life. Except for one possible career usually open to him. As a tourist, you wouldn’t want to meet him once he embarks on his job, so make sure you visit his village early.
All countries with a colonial history struggle with the psychological and economic impact of colonialism.
In many African countries, colonial masters empowered one people group over another and left a legacy of racial or tribal inequality that persists to this day.
This legacy is particularly potent in South Africa, where the gap between haves and have-nots remains among the worst in the world.
Inequality Map 2004
Dealing with inequality is a complicated and emotional issue. As I see it, African governments can frame policies aimed at addressing inequality in two ways– righting old wrongs, or growing the economy.
This is clearly of the ‘righting old wrongs’ variety, much like the government’s efforts at land reform over the last decade.
In 2000, the government participated in the seizure of 110,000 Sq Kilometers of farmland for redistribution.
Many of these farmers were neither re-settled nor reimbursed.
These ill-fated land reforms further eviscerated the production capacity of the former “bread Basket of South Africa”, and their memory casts a long shadow over the present indigenous empowerment legislation.
The current manifestation of the Indigenization and Empowerment Act would require foreign owned businesses valued over US$500,000 to sell or cede 51% of their business to indigenous Zimbabweans.
It would also require all companies to “procure 50 % of all [their] goods and services… from a business in which a controlling interest is held by indigenous Zimbabweans.” (Text of Indigenization and Empowerment Act)
Businesses and investors are fleeing for the hills.
The head of a large German investment group, Andreas Wenzel, was quoted as saying that, “Prompted by the recently introduced regulations… the German-Southern African Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Johannesburg are putting on hold their plans to bring German investors to Zimbabwe”.
Contrast this with South Africa’s Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment initiative (BBBEE).
The Department of Trade and Industry claims that Black empowerment and growth go hand in hand in South Africa—”This will only be possible if our economy builds on the full potential of all persons and communities across the length and breadth of this country.”
While the ANC has been guilty of populist pandering in the past, I do not believe that this policy deserves that criticism.
The BBBEE in South Africa rates companies on a BBBEE scorecard, awarding points for the percentage of Black senior managers, owners, and employees, as well as awarding companies points for doing business with other high scoring companies.
If you want to do business with the government (a huge purchaser of goods and services in the South African economy), then you must score well.
In this way, the South African government uses their buying power to encourage companies to find qualified black personnel and business partners.
Even though claims of reverse discrimination abound, the South African government rightly understands that developing the human capital of the entire rainbow nation is crucial to the country’s growth and success.
Righting old wrongs by throwing untrained and under financed indigenous people on previously profitable land, or forcing shotgun weddings between foreign firms and potentially unprepared indigenous partners, will only make everyone poorer.
If you believe Jared diamond, geography gave certain parts of the world a first mover advantage that has exerted tremendous influence on world affairs from the dawn of agricultural societies to the present.
Around 8500 BC, the Fertile Crescent had 32 large seed grasses that lent themselves to rudimentary cultivation; Sub-Saharan Africa had 4.
Around the same time, Eurasia boasted all five of the important domesticateable animals while Africa had none.
In 2009, 74.2 % of people in North America could access the internet while 6.8 % of Africans could.
Guns, germs, steel, and internet access.
The internet’s growth in Africa will make this millennia old advantage as insurmountable as the guns that held the continent hostage in the 19th century, or it will be the great equalizer.
This process has already begun.
What do you do in Kenya if ants start eating your potato crop?
A “wired Imam” in Mali uses the Internet to promote tourism at Mali’s famous mud mosque in Djenne.
Some East African seamstresses receive orders via email.
My favorite thing about internet access is that it puts the onus on the user to take advantage of available resources as opposed to waiting for someone else to actualize their potential.
If you let your mind dwell for a moment on the social, political, and economic consequences of widespread internet use in Africa you will become dizzy.
What if protesters in African states could use web-based social networks like the Iranians?
Or if pictures of vote rigging in Benin made the rounds on youtube as fast as those of Burmese monks being beaten by security forces?
Access to micro-credit services like Kiva would skyrocket.
Banks and business records could be digitized.
The diaspora could lend their experience back home.
People could access legal information and use the law to their advantage.
Early warning systems for natural or manmade disasters could be improved.
People could learn languages, apply to international universities, and access an infinite variety of training materials online.
Officials would be scrutinized by a media with more access and resources.
I have to stop. I have gone and made myself dizzy.
All this is happening already but the pace of change will accelerate exponentially as more people get online.
So where are we now?
For the 60-100 million internet users in Africa (hard to figure when internet cafes account for much of the use), connecting remains slow and expensive—but this is changing fast.
From 2000 to 2009, internet access in Africa grew by well over 1000%.
Recently, a rash of privatizations in South Africa and elsewhere combined with infrastructural improvements to put more than 10% of South Africans online!
Surprised?The chart on the left breaks the growth in internet usage down by country.
Projects like One Laptop Per Child and their competitors are striking deals with governments in Nigeria and Libya.
In rural Kenya, Google currently finances engineers from the University of Michigan to install small solar powered satellite dishes to connect villages to the web.
I am particularly impressed by the “hole-in-the-wall” learning centers inspired by Dr. Mitra’s success in India. He proved that children can teach themselves how to use the computer/internet without any supervision or guidance. Hole-in-the-Wall projects are now underway in Uganda. The Next Generation of African Internet Users is On Their Way
Within a few generations these projects and their progeny will connect almost a billion African consumers/producers with the rest of the world
Geographic determinism be damned. The information age might just level a playing field that has not been level since 8500 BC.
Education is fine if you’ve got something to do with it. Is there going to be war in Ngorongoro?
The great experiment known as the “NCA” in what ABC’s Good Morning America christened one of the world’s Natural Wonders is coming apart.
Most tourists know it as “The Crater.” But Ngorongoro Crater National Park is just a tiny 100 sq. mile circular caldera sunk into a much larger wilderness area twenty times as big, officially known as the NCA (Ngorongoro Conservation Area).
The crater’s unique ecology collects more water than virtually any other part of the NCA, and its deep flat sedimentary and volcanic substrata – like the Serengeti – creates areas of grassland plains perfect for Africa’s great herbivores.
So the crater itself attracts a larger concentration of animals than the surrounding NCA. But there’s plenty out there in the NCA, too, on the gorgeous highland hills that ultimately descend onto the Serengeti’s prairies. And if wildlife couldn’t flow between the sunken crater, the NCA and the Serengeti, there wouldn’t be any wildlife in the crater.
Yesterday, the Parliamentary Committee in Dar assigned to the area began moves to forcibly evict Maasai from the NCA.
It spells trouble.
Committee member Dr Raphael Chegeni claimed there were now more than 60,000 Maasai living in the NCA with “unsustainable” numbers of cattle. This is well beyond the 25,000 Maasai Parliament authorized as sustainable.
You see it was presumed that as Tanzania developed, so would Maasai, and that they would choose to abandon traditional lifestyles for modern opportunities, and so while technically their population would grow, they would leave the wilderness.
And to its credit, the Tanzanian government, Italian NGOs and even the American Peace Corps have spent years building schools and dispensaries to get Maasai healthy and educated and ready to be a bank clerk.
But graduating from primary school in Ngorongoro didn’t turn out to be the magic wand intended. There aren’t any jobs for fresh school leavers. Modern Tanzanian bank managers don’t like Maasai kids.
Tanzania is an increasingly corrupt society, its superficial democracy immune from ethnic troubles but dominated by a small cadre of rich and educated.
Maasai in the main are neither rich or educated.
Recently, actually, things looked promising. Several years ago Tanzania’s Prime Minister was Maasai, and he was a fabulous Ben Nelson! But alas, he got implicated in several huge corruption scandals and lost his job and his clout. He’s headed for jail.
Before foreign hunters or tourists there were Maasai. Maasai and wild animals have always lived together just fine. And this is the heart of Maasailand. But over the years (starting in 1921) the Maasai have been squeezed into smaller and smaller areas, reserving larger and larger areas for foreign hunters and tourists which bring in much more revenue than hut taxes.
Besides, who in their right mind would want to spend their lives in a straw hut? Chief Blackhawk was last photographed in a suit talking to President Grant!
In 1972 Maasai were bumped entirely out of what is now the Serengeti, and theoretically, out of the 100 sq. mile crater.
It was a contentious act, and the “treaty” with the Maasai allowed them to continue to live in the NCA provided they didn’t alter their lifestyles from traditional herding into, for example, planting sweet potatoes (which is exactly what many do, today). Another caveat in the treaty allowed them to bring their livestock down into the crater during times of drought.
Those concessions were clearly humane, but they have led to uninterrupted tension between the Ngorongoro Maasai and park authorities ever since 1972.
To begin with, who was going to define a drought? Jim with Edward, 1993.
I became quite good friends with a really sharp Ngorongoro Maasai in the 1980s who was the third most important son of the most important Maasai headman near Olmoti. When his two elder brothers died, he became the chief area spokesman.
There were several droughts during those years, and tension grew as the Maasai brought more cattle into the area. Rangers tried to evict them. Maasai are great spear throwers, but they turned out to be terrific rifle shooters, too.
Rangers and Maasai were killed in these gun battles. I remember camping with a group in Lemata on the crater rim when we were awakened by this gunfire in 1993.
My friend negotiated an end to the battles in the mid 1990s. Several Maasai, including him, were trained then hired as rangers. It was a brilliant move. Until he was killed in a war when he and other rangers were trying to evict Somali from the eastern Serengeti.
And since then, the area’s Maasai population has more than doubled.
Tanzania has some fabulous crusaders for human rights which have tried in the past to mediate between the government and the Maasai.
The Lawyers’ Environmental Action Team is among the best. But they tried and failed to mediate a dispute with Maasai in the northeast Serengeti last August, and they are now overwhelmed with work in the areas of Tanzania’s new gold mines and seem uninterested in the current dispute.
The conflict between animals and people is not the only conflict in the wilderness. The more important, and deadly, is the conflict between people and people.
This morning the breakfast hall of the Norfolk was quite full. The hotel is being used by many attending a very large conference in Nairobi.
The buffet breakfast was robust as usual: one side table was filled with fresh cut fruits: grapefruit, watermelon, oranges, mangoes, several kinds of passion fruits, placed next to a tub of various kinds of yoghurt with attractive little bowls of almonds, walnuts, and various Indian nuts and spices.
The long 25′ buffet table began with cheeses, smoked salmon, a dozen different kinds of pastries, a dozen different kinds of breads, and cold meats. There was then the cooking station where a friendly chef whipped up any kind of omelette or pancake or waffle, and there were six kinds of syrups and heavy creams for garnish. The rest of the table was laden with hot tubs of bacon, potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, several kinds of sausage, eggs benedict, the “chef’s special” and ended with a huge tub of appropriately altered “ugali” or (very delicious) corn porridge.
More than a thousand delegates were attending the World Congress of Agroforestry at the UN Headquarters in Gigiri, during which they predicted widespread famine in Africa. Today, the Kenyan Government announced up to 10,000,000 Kenyans were starving because of the drought.
It was a damn shame that I didn’t bring an umbrella, yesterday, because all morning long it rained in Nairobi. About half of all the Kenyan livestock in the country is dead because of the drought.
Many of us went for a quick swim in the Olympic-sized pool before going to work this morning. The Norfolk is my favorite hotel in Nairobi, and they heat the pool very nicely, wonderful in this cold season.
A third of Kenya’s population must now buy water to survive. Kenyans living in the city slums with a per capita of less than $300 per year must now spend $5/day for enough water to drink and cook. In the residential areas of central Nairobi, every other day is now without water.
Several of Nairobi’s popular discos – thought off limits to foreigners only a few years ago – are now popular with conference goers, tourists and foreign workers. The Simba Saloon is a popular suburban disco and Gypsy’s is very popular in the city. Every night, loud contemporary music, strobes and sometimes floor shows. Throughout most of Nairobi and the country, electricity is now turned off during the day, because of poor hydroelectric power. In many places, night rationing is beginning.
Schools can’t use computers. Refrigerators are useless. No one knows the news, because radios and televisions are quiet.
So goes the paradigm of heart-breaking Africa. Tomorrow, the first of my 22 clients arrive for a fabulous safari.
Education is fine if you’ve got something to do with it. Is there going to be war in Ngorongoro? 