VISITING CAPE TOWN IN SOUTH AFRICA

My visit to South Africa in April continued to wake me up from the slumber that many of us Africans are in. We enjoy going to visit developed countries, envy them, wonder how they got there, hope we can live there, but happy with our own poor countries. At my age, I am wiser, I am more knowledgeable, I can see, probably, why Africa is the way it is. Poor and largely underdeveloped. I also realized how important knowledge is in solving Africa’s problems. My gut feeling is we will remain poor for years to come because we lack knowledge of two types; scientific education knowledge and the knowledge of why we are poor. My main question is, is poverty our destiny? I do not think it is. To a great extent we have been pushed to it but we don’t know. Black Africans believe they will never be wealthy. They tend to believe their destiny is to be given free things while continuing to be poor. They tend to also believe that they may never catch up with whites. They believe good things are for whites. If you live well, they say “Oli nga Omuzungu”, If you eat well “Olya nga muzungu”! How do you expect people with that thinking to change and grow economically? The next question is, do we have a choice to determine our destiny? And the answer is yes we do have a choice but this choice involves a lot of searching, negotiating and sacrifice. I am not sure whether we have anymore African nationalists and for that matter Pan Africanists who can steer Africa’s economic miracle. Those Africans who can sacrifice. The Mandelas! If you visit South Africa, go to conferences, shopping malls and go back home, you know you have been to a dream country if you come from a typical African country It is only when you go to the South African slums that when it hits you, this is Africa!

I visited Soweto last year. Of course Soweto is much better than many African towns. There is good infrastructure but I do not think the black people in Soweto are happier than those in our typical African villages who do not have the facilities like the people in Soweto have. The black South Africans, with due respect, may not actually know they are a group of people who were disenfranchised psychologically much as they can vote in normal political elections. They appear to be okay with those poor conditions despite the wealth of the country. They want government to give them things! Possibly houses and vehicles not very different from their folks in other African countries!

I bought a book about the Zulu traditional culture, on the cover page of this book is a beautiful picture of a happy innocent child with a big cock in the hand. Comparing that to a white child in the West, the Western child would be scared of holding a cock. The question is why we then want to disturb the order that this Zulu child has lived and expose her to the chicken made in a fridge when she looks so happy! This is one of the contradictions in society which must be resolved. Have Africans failed to adopt the modern technology. Will Africans stay in the traditional society of the Masais and those tribes marketed as tourist attractions?

Western countries have transformed into industrial societies while African countries have not. African countries continue to be poor, rural and underdeveloped. Poverty in its respect is measured by the access to the manufactured industrial goods used by people. These products are a result of the industrial revolution. I am convinced that the concept of business in Africa is yet to mature and for this reason Africa is comfortable with the level of underdevelopment it enjoys or is it! This to me is not Africa the continent but the indigenous people. This partly explains the poverty black South Africans live in amidst all the glamour and glitter of modern development.

Something that hit me on this recent journey was a statement by one of our host to the slums about the black South African who taught the famous Dr. Christiaan Barnard heart surgery! In 1967, the world was treated with news of the first heart transplant by a heart surgeon Dr. Christian Bernard. The information that is available among South Africans- black and white is that while he did not go to medical school Hamilton Naki, a black South African is the one who actually removed a heart from one Denise Darvall who had died and transplanted it into Louise Washkansky. Some other information is that Naki used to participate in the heart transplants which were conducted by Dr. Bernard. A professor in the University of Cape Town says that he worked with Naki transplanting pigs’ livers in 1967. Naki is surrounded by controversies. Others allege he never worked in a theatre at all, others that he was in the back up team of transplants. When he died in 2005 Naki was credited by many medical journals, magazines and newspapers for having participated in the first human heart transplant. Many of these publications subsequently retracted these obituaries! Black South Africans say that this was done by pressure from the white community in South Africa. Was this true? The truth lies somewhere. One of the things that is reported is the heart transplant took place during the time of apartheid and Naki, a black could not be acknowledged for having played a role in the heart transplant. But probably the most important bit was if he did especially during that period, it vindicates the struggle by the black Africans against apartheid. It means the deliberate locking out of Africans from Education and other opportunities has a major role to play in Africa’s backwardness

I have always said travel is big school, primarily because of what I learn from wherever I go. I travelled to Cape Town to attend a CAPA conference. CAPA is the Common Wealth Association of Technical Universities and Polytechnics in Africa. MUBS is a member by virtue of its history offering vocationalised diplomas in the areas of business. Cape Town is a beautiful place. The waterfront is a very beautiful attraction, it’s the gate way to Roben Island where Mandela was imprisoned. It has a beautiful down town and malls. It is a place that one should visit. If you attend a conference in Cape Town and you do not request to see the area where blacks stay you will not understand what South Africa is. A country largely divided by race, a country where race largely determines your income class. The visit to the African quarters brings you back home as an African, it enables you feel the poverty amidst the plenty If you are wiser you understand why South Africa is the way it is. You also have an idea on why Africa is backward. You may also get indicators of the solutions to Africa’s problem. It was on this visit that this tour guide talked about Hamilton Naki and he believed Naki taught Barnard how to do heart transplant but he reckoned no white would accept that! 

We live in a world of conflict, conflict that emerges from the differences that we have. People of different colour will conflict because of colour. People of the same colour but different religion will conflict because of religion. People of the same colour, same religion but differences in levels of income or places where they stay will conflict. This is the nature of mankind. To raise above this is Statesmanship, a rare virtue, a virtue found with the few Mandelas, a few Mother Theresas, and a few Martin Luthers. This kind of statesmanship is based on the ability to tolerate different views, the ability to appreciate differences in opinion, the ability to appreciate that we are different. It is not an easy task. And that’s why there’s so much conflict around the world. The world is short of statesmen and women. Africa will not develop until such people take leadership in the “civilized” world.VISITING CAPE TOWN IN SOUTH AFRICA

My visit to South Africa in April continued to wake me up from the slumber that many of us Africans are in. We enjoy going to visit developed countries, envy them, wonder how they got there, hope we can live there, but happy with our own poor countries. At my age, I am wiser, I am more knowledgeable, I can see, probably, why Africa is the way it is. Poor and largely underdeveloped. I also realized how important knowledge is in solving Africa’s problems. My gut feeling is we will remain poor for years to come because we lack knowledge of two types; scientific education knowledge and the knowledge of why we are poor. My main question is, is poverty our destiny? I do not think it is. To a great extent we have been pushed to it but we don’t know. Black Africans believe they will never be wealthy. They tend to believe their destiny is to be given free things while continuing to be poor. They tend to also believe that they may never catch up with whites. They believe good things are for whites. If you live well, they say “Oli nga Omuzungu”, If you eat well “Olya nga muzungu”! How do you expect people with that thinking to change and grow economically? The next question is, do we have a choice to determine our destiny? And the answer is yes we do have a choice but this choice involves a lot of searching, negotiating and sacrifice. I am not sure whether we have anymore African nationalists and for that matter Pan Africanists who can steer Africa’s economic miracle. Those Africans who can sacrifice. The Mandelas! If you visit South Africa, go to conferences, shopping malls and go back home, you know you have been to a dream country if you come from a typical African country It is only when you go to the South African slums that when it hits you, this is Africa!

I visited Soweto last year. Of course Soweto is much better than many African towns. There is good infrastructure but I do not think the black people in Soweto are happier than those in our typical African villages who do not have the facilities like the people in Soweto have. The black South Africans, with due respect, may not actually know they are a group of people who were disenfranchised psychologically much as they can vote in normal political elections. They appear to be okay with those poor conditions despite the wealth of the country. They want government to give them things! Possibly houses and vehicles not very different from their folks in other African countries!

I bought a book about the Zulu traditional culture, on the cover page of this book is a beautiful picture of a happy innocent child with a big cock in the hand. Comparing that to a white child in the West, the Western child would be scared of holding a cock. The question is why we then want to disturb the order that this Zulu child has lived and expose her to the chicken made in a fridge when she looks so happy! This is one of the contradictions in society which must be resolved. Have Africans failed to adopt the modern technology. Will Africans stay in the traditional society of the Masais and those tribes marketed as tourist attractions?

Western countries have transformed into industrial societies while African countries have not. African countries continue to be poor, rural and underdeveloped. Poverty in its respect is measured by the access to the manufactured industrial goods used by people. These products are a result of the industrial revolution. I am convinced that the concept of business in Africa is yet to mature and for this reason Africa is comfortable with the level of underdevelopment it enjoys or is it! This to me is not Africa the continent but the indigenous people. This partly explains the poverty black South Africans live in amidst all the glamour and glitter of modern development.

Something that hit me on this recent journey was a statement by one of our host to the slums about the black South African who taught the famous Dr. Christiaan Barnard heart surgery! In 1967, the world was treated with news of the first heart transplant by a heart surgeon Dr. Christian Bernard. The information that is available among South Africans- black and white is that while he did not go to medical school Hamilton Naki, a black South African is the one who actually removed a heart from one Denise Darvall who had died and transplanted it into Louise Washkansky. Some other information is that Naki used to participate in the heart transplants which were conducted by Dr. Bernard. A professor in the University of Cape Town says that he worked with Naki transplanting pigs’ livers in 1967. Naki is surrounded by controversies. Others allege he never worked in a theatre at all, others that he was in the back up team of transplants. When he died in 2005 Naki was credited by many medical journals, magazines and newspapers for having participated in the first human heart transplant. Many of these publications subsequently retracted these obituaries! Black South Africans say that this was done by pressure from the white community in South Africa. Was this true? The truth lies somewhere. One of the things that is reported is the heart transplant took place during the time of apartheid and Naki, a black could not be acknowledged for having played a role in the heart transplant. But probably the most important bit was if he did especially during that period, it vindicates the struggle by the black Africans against apartheid. It means the deliberate locking out of Africans from Education and other opportunities has a major role to play in Africa’s backwardness

I have always said travel is big school, primarily because of what I learn from wherever I go. I travelled to Cape Town to attend a CAPA conference. CAPA is the Common Wealth Association of Technical Universities and Polytechnics in Africa. MUBS is a member by virtue of its history offering vocationalised diplomas in the areas of business. Cape Town is a beautiful place. The waterfront is a very beautiful attraction, it’s the gate way to Roben Island where Mandela was imprisoned. It has a beautiful down town and malls. It is a place that one should visit. If you attend a conference in Cape Town and you do not request to see the area where blacks stay you will not understand what South Africa is. A country largely divided by race, a country where race largely determines your income class. The visit to the African quarters brings you back home as an African, it enables you feel the poverty amidst the plenty If you are wiser you understand why South Africa is the way it is. You also have an idea on why Africa is backward. You may also get indicators of the solutions to Africa’s problem. It was on this visit that this tour guide talked about Hamilton Naki and he believed Naki taught Barnard how to do heart transplant but he reckoned no white would accept that! 

We live in a world of conflict, conflict that emerges from the differences that we have. People of different colour will conflict because of colour. People of the same colour but different religion will conflict because of religion. People of the same colour, same religion but differences in levels of income or places where they stay will conflict. This is the nature of mankind. To raise above this is Statesmanship, a rare virtue, a virtue found with the few Mandelas, a few Mother Theresas, and a few Martin Luthers. This kind of statesmanship is based on the ability to tolerate different views, the ability to appreciate differences in opinion, the ability to appreciate that we are different. It is not an easy task. And that’s why there’s so much conflict around the world. The world is short of statesmen and women. Africa will not develop until such people take leadership in the “civilized” world.