The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
So the bad leaders are not a problem for North Korea – even though they are really awful. Their choice of economic policies: state control of the entire economy, absence of private property and competition, limited openness to trade etc could be a hindrance but not a deterrent as in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The case of North Korea can also be seen in China which, when it chose to reform herself under the same communist party but pursue capitalism, launched herself on the world’s most dynamic journeys from poverty to riches. In less than 40 years it has transformed from a poor country with per capita income levels of Africa to the largest economy in the world by PPP. Today it is the factory of the world.
As Africans we should therefore be asking ourselves what it is that inhibits our ability to produce our own technologies? Note that most sub-Saharan nations possess political institutions and public policies that (we are told) ensure prosperity.
Is it, therefore, our education system which is the problem? Is it our social organisation? Is it our colonial history that destroyed our self-belief in our ability to produce our own technologies? Is it the hegemonic ideology of global capitalism that keeps us looking outward for the solutions to our problems?
It is possible many Africans are busy tinkering with technology, producing small and big things in their backyards and in small labs. But our mindset, which shapes our political institutions and public policies, could be inclined to ignore these multitudes of inventions and innovations because we are fixated with the idea that technology comes from outside. So we do not invest in our own innovations.
I once visited the Uganda Industrial Research Institute in Kampala and found a semi-literate guy from the city’s metal fabrication hub, Katwe, had built a car engine. The project ended there. The nation’s top university, Makerere, also recently produced a car. But many Ugandans – in their narrow-minded hostility – sneered at it.
Could it be this lack of self-belief – prevalent in the minds of leaders and citizens (remember the leaders come from amongst us and therefore reflect who we are) – that explains our inability to master technology?
Our mindset is to always look outside for solutions to our problems. So we are obsessed with listening to international bureaucrats at World Bank and IMF for policy advice. We look to ICC to try our leaders. We seek Foreign Direct Investment as the solution to our investment needs. We want to educate our children from Europe, North America and Asia – not so that they can come apply the knowledge home but so that they can get a job at Google in California or Microsoft in Seattle. We want our political institutions to mimic those of Europe or North America. That mindset could be our real problem between us and progress.
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editor@independent.co.ug
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amwenda@independent.co.ug
What language does North Korea speak? India? France? Germany? And what language does Uganda speak? Kenya or Africa for that matter? What if the leadership of North Korea was more receptive to the outside world, may be the economics would have been different?
1. Ministry of Education
2. Longevity in power
The major problems of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Andrew and all,
Unfortunately, in a forum like this, I cannot do full justice to a topic as dear to me at this moment as this one. However, let me give a few thoughts from my recent research and current effort on ‘decolonising’ engineering education in sub-Sahara Africa.
First, all those things: safety pins engineering, automotive engineering, chemical and nuclear, aero and astro engineering etc. are within the capabilities of most well trained and motivated teams of engineers irrespective of their colour, race or whatever. There is sufficient knowledge out there in the open for anyone with a proper mindset to use and make progress in these areas. What is needed are the materials, the organisation and motivation (both intrinsic and extrinsic) to do so.
In most of SSA, materials and necessary critical mass threshold numbers (of technical and engineering personnel) are missing – in part due to balkanisation of the continent and a deliberate effort by colonialists to eliminate traditional engineering/technical work.
Knowledge is easy to acquire: skills to use that knowledge take time to develop. When traditional African artisans were eliminated, the education that replaced their training emphasised non-technical work like clerical, teaching the 3 Rs, administration, – and later, law, commerce, etc. Medicine came in so that the Africans could be treated by their kind – but you realise it is also NOT Technical. Technical education that has capacity to transform the societies was downgraded and left to ‘failures’ first at P7 and then at S4 level.
Apart from knowledge and skills, the other necessary ingredient to transform society is ‘attitudes’. Colonial education ensured (and so does the post independence one I am now fighting against) that the old African semi-egalitarian outlook to life in society was thoroughly swept out of minds of those who acquired the new education. An individualistic and capitalistic outlook was and continues to be implanted in our learners and opinion leaders. Education is no longer free nor compulsory as it used to be. It is now monetised and looked at as an individual family’s capital investment which must obey the usual capitalistic rules of investment (maximise monetary returns in the shortest time possible). Failures in the system resort to previously abominable means of recouping their failed investments (e.g. through corrupt politics and unethical business). The idea of a common good is long gone in SSA. Thus, even the motivation on the few engineers and technicians to work for the good of an unrewarding society first and foremost is apparently gone. It is therefore a far cry to have a China, a North Korea, a Russia, an India, etc. among these tiny SSA countries. That is a war some of us have to fight!
For some reason (may be length?) this comment had been ignored.
Andrew and all,
Unfortunately, in a forum like this, I cannot do full justice to a topic as dear to me at this moment as this one. However, let me give a few thoughts from my recent research and current effort on ‘decolonising’ engineering education in sub-Sahara Africa.
First, all those things: safety pins engineering, automotive engineering, chemical and nuclear, aero and astro engineering etc. are within the capabilities of most well trained and motivated teams of engineers irrespective of their colour, race or whatever. There is sufficient knowledge out there in the open for anyone with a proper mind-set to use and make progress in these areas. What is needed are the materials, the organisation and motivation (both intrinsic and extrinsic) to do so. In most of SSA countries, materials and necessary critical mass threshold numbers (of technical and engineering personnel) are missing – in part due to balkanisation of the continent and a deliberate effort by colonialists to eliminate traditional engineering/technical work. Knowledge is easy to acquire: skills to use that knowledge take time to develop.
When traditional African artisan training was eliminated, the education that replaced it emphasised non-technical work like clerical, teaching the 3 Rs, administration, – and later, law, commerce, etc. Medicine came in so that the Africans could be treated by their kind – but you realise it is also NOT Technical. Technical education that has capacity to transform the societies was downgraded and left to ‘failures’ first at P7 and then at S4 level.
Apart from knowledge and skills, the other necessary ingredient to transform society is ‘attitudes’. Colonial education ensured (and so does the post-independence one – some of us are now fighting against) that the old African semi-egalitarian outlook to life in society was thoroughly swept out of minds of those who acquired the new education. An individualistic and capitalistic outlook was and continues to be implanted in our learners and opinion leaders. Education is no longer free nor compulsory as it used to be. It is now monetised and looked at as an individual family’s capital investment which must obey the usual capitalistic rules of investment (maximise monetary returns in the shortest time possible). Failures in the system resort to previously abominable means of recouping their failed investments (e.g. through corrupt politics and unethical business). The idea of a common good is long gone in SSA. Thus, even the motivation on the few engineers and technicians to work for the good of an unrewarding society first and foremost is apparently gone. It is therefore a far cry to have a China, a North Korea, a Russia, etc. among these tiny SSA countries. That is a war some of us have to fight!
Pan Africanist/Inventor: Eng Kamt Ateenyi
The Motto of some primary school in Bugolobi reads”Slowly by Slowly an egg shall walk just imagine the impact such a motto will have on its pupils.
Uganda is slowly becoming a charcoal stove(sigiri) economy just pass by any market in Kampala both men and women are cooking food along the road side you fund Rajab & his wives with their 3 huge saucepans of yams waiting for customers now can a nation develop in that way?Omeros opens up a retail and thinks he is working so hard how do you sell 50kgs of sugar and gain 3k as profit per bag in 1 month?
Africans should allow their natural resources to be exploited by the rich nations if they are to gain some good bucks. the price of a missile and that of coffee or toursim are not the same definitely one who sells technology and electronic gadgets and ammunition will make more bucks.
USA and North Korea are terrified of each other even movies causes tension amongest these states.( The N.Korean president has the best hair cut in the world he is the only president who owns a play station)