Can Black People Build Prosperous Societies?

[AYOUB]

The Monitor (Kampala)

COLUMN

February 7, 2007

Posted to the web February 6, 2007

Elias Biryabarema

Mr. Yoweri Museveni has a background of good education. A calm and well exposed man. Straight thinking and intelligent. His grasp of contemporary world affairs, including some quite complex stuff, is commendably firm.

For years he burned his young energies battling vile governments. Narrowly escaping death on occasions, he showed resolve, sacrifice, devotion to his people and a deep abhorrence for oppressive leadership. Sure. This man had no shortage of good qualities.

And yet, to the astonishment of history, Mr Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has still failed us. 20 years at nation building have produced incompetence so shocking that some think a psychopathic illiterate, Idi Amin, did better work.

Uganda has been fairly stable long enough. The conditions for an economic takeoff have been there for 20 years. Mr. Museveni has enjoyed generous goodwill from nearly all the world's rich governments. Their largesse has poured in ceaselessly and in hefty amounts.

Uganda should have taken off. We haven't. We're stuck. And so is Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia, Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Eritrea, Malawi, Congo Republic and pretty much all of Black Africa, excluding the region's sole economic power, South Africa. This led me to pose a question to myself: can Black people build prosperous societies?

Just about every reason-from slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism to inequitable world trade rules-cited for the backwardness of Black African nations has been so debunked by time that it has now become necessary to look beyond the realm of such contemporary explanations. The maddening inertia of Black people and the mystical forces that keep tamping down our nations, in fact, seem to have their roots deep within us, not from without as has been argued for decades.

Just about everywhere you look, evidence abounds. Vietnam suffered a war of colonial conquest and it was eventually subdued by France in 1884. For almost a decade, it again fought a devastating independence war until France was vanquished in 1954. And then came the epic battle of 1965 to 1973 with US military and its allies, seeking to squelch the North Vietnamese communists.

When the guns fell silent with the withdrawal of US troops in 1973 and the eventual fall of Saigon in 1975, the Vietnamese toll stood at a horrifying three to four million. Diplomatically isolated, its economy shredded and its population maimed and traumatised on a scale unparalleled in any Black African nation (except DR Congo), Vietnam would seem to have no chance at success.

But just two and a half decades later, Vietnam is storming the world stage as an economic powerhouse. Its exports are flooding western nations; heavy and advanced manufacturing is thriving at a rapid pace. Its GDP, $258 billion, is having an average growth rate of 8%, the second highest in Asia after China. Europe had to put curbs on the country's shoe exports after they nearly sunk much of the continent's manufacturers.

According to a news report in New York Times on October 25, 2006, Vietnam now sells "nine times as much to Americans as it buys from there." Since 1990, a space of 15 short years, Vietnam has pulled off one of the most stunning economic feats: reducing absolute poverty-World Bank standard: subsisting on $1 a day-from 51 to 8% of its population.

Vietnam

Back home here, the sort of wars and the scale of devastation that Uganda has suffered since independence can hardly be said to be as crippling as the cataclysm that struck Vietnam.

This is true for many of the Black African nations. But the difference is staggering. Vietnam's economy is roaring. Sub Saharan Africa is dead stuck known more for: constant disease outbreaks, emergency food relief appeals, civil strive, genocide, chronic corruption, flimsy or nonexistent infrastructure, constitution breaches, state failure than anything else. This disgusting state of affairs after, according to an estimate by South Africa's Brenthurst Foundation, a colossal $580 billion worth of donor money has been poured into the region since independence. Why have the Vietnamese overcome their historical setbacks and prospered while Black Africans stagnated or regressed?

Or if we may ask another question: why is it that White people prosper wherever they settle while Black people head for the opposite direction. The British crown started asserting its colonial rule over small territories on the continent of Australia in 1788, taking several decades before it brought all the areas into a unified Australian colony.

Throngs of Europeans emigrated en masse and settled there throughout the 1800s. These émigrés went ahead, starting from really little or nothing, and established one of the world's economic and military powers that is Australia today. The history of New Zealand, the other White country in the Southern Hemisphere, is pretty much the same.

Now contrast these nations with Haiti, the only black nation outside of Africa. It gained independence in 1804. It's near the US, the richest market on earth and Haiti has a coastline unlike other African nations whose landlocked status is blamed for their underdevelopment. And fine, it has had a fairly brutal past but nowhere near Vietnam's horrors. But what have our Haitian brothers made of these generous natural advantages: it remains the most backward country in the Western hemisphere, bound up by privation, cyclical coups, spasms of mayhem and blood-thirsty gangs. At home and away, that's your Black people!

 

In fact Haiti is perhaps just about the best that we can achieve in nation building. Ethiopia never had colonialism. It registered impressively high levels of literacy as early as 1970, a fact a friend of mine brought to my attention recently. It has a rich and widely shared cultural heritage, a common ancestry. This should have propelled Ethiopia but see the shameful portrait of hunger and disease that this country projects to the world.

And so, to go back to that question that I have been chewing over and over again of late: can Black People build prosperous societies; I firmly believe the answer is a sad NO.

The dumbfounding incompetence of President Museveni thus is not a failure of an individual. It's a failure of a people: Black People. Museveni only rose and touched our low ceiling. The shamefully limited achievement of his "fundamental change" regime thus should be interpreted in this cruel context.

[ansaar17]

why is it black people associate themselves based on race?

 

look at the world, people are aligned based on beliefs and ideologies not based on color.

[NGONGE]

Heh. Inferiority complex on a grand intensity there! But the question still stands, why can’t black people build prosperous societies?

 

My personal take on this revolves around culture and civilisation. There doesn’t seem to be such a thing in black Africa (I stand to be corrected of course). Corruption, war and poverty do not come out of thin air. They must have a link to the societies they occur in! Is it the black character? Are we too emotional? Too disorderly? Stubborn?

 

One might say that YES we are all of the above and a bit more. But is that a part of our genetic makeup (as the author seems to imply - he didn’t offer any answers)? I strongly disagree with that idea. I believe it’s only part of our social structures and cultures. Could it be a coincidence that in almost all parts of black Africa corruption is something to be proud of? Just cast your mind back to one of those Nigerian, Congolese and Ivorian e-mails that one regularly receives in their hotmail inbox! In our very own Somalia a conman, charlatan and crook is considered a ‘fariid’ whilst a straight, law-abiding and decent person is looked upon as a ‘*****’!

 

Africa’s real problem is it’s primitive and crude culture. The author talks about Ethiopia’s literacy level but he conveniently ignores the high levels of superstition and myths that dominate that culture (and many other African cultures). What’s the point of having all the wisdom and learning in the world if it can’t cleanse you from all these primitive falsehoods?

[Taliban]

Originally posted by abu ansaar17:

why is it black people associate themselves based on race?

 

look at the world, people are aligned based on beliefs and ideologies not based on color.

Good point.

[Peacenow]

There is a lot of negativety regarding Black issues. Only now, are people acknowledging that the African American community is the most successful and powerful minority in the most powerful country in the world.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RGPPNSD&CFID=112989344&CFTOKEN=4749ccb-a1b0c808-1e7a-469e-9963-5660a1b5a777

 

Please remember, that a Black country is the richest in the World. If you measure it in per capita. That country is Bermuda.

 

''Bermuda enjoys the highest per capita income in the world, more than 50% higher than that of the US. Its economy is primarily based on providing financial services for international business and luxury facilities for tourists. A number of reinsurance companies relocated to the island following 11 September 2001 and again after Hurricane Katrina, contributing to the expansion of an already robust international business sector. Bermuda's tourism industry - which derives over 80% of its visitors from the US - continues to struggle but remains the island's number two industry. Most capital equipment and food must be imported. Bermuda's industrial sector is small, although construction continues to be important; the average cost of a house in June 2003 had risen to $976,000. Agriculture is limited with only 20% of the land being arable.''

 

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bd.html

 

Countires like Bahamas, Barbados, Botswana, Angola, South Africa, Mozambique, Ghana, have excellent and growing economies. Not all of Africa is in a mess.

 

Equatierual Guniea has a higher per capita income than even the USA. Look at the CIA factbook. But in that countries case, sadly the full effect hasn't trickled down due to corruption. But the figure is nevertheless accurate!

 

For god, look at Italy, where I live. This is a real mess country, full of rubbish, grafitti, thieves, corruption and poor people.

But yet, most people in the world imagine it to be some wonder land of ice cream and fashion.

This is because, some countries are better than others in branding themselves and they will always benefit from it.

This is a lesson that the 'new' Somalia should learn.

 

How can we brand ourselves in a way that will create a changing perception of the country

 

The world is full of afro-pessism and it is a serious issue.

[Xudeedi]

Extremely important thread and I will participate it later. I have a very limited time at the moment.

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

the silly questions we ask ourselfs sometimes amaze me. We should try to avoid arguments whose conclusions we know will be racist. All human societies, regardless of race, are capable of " Building Prosperous Societies", through out histroy, every race has its golden age, we can not have an entire world of prosperous societies, because that would be too destructive to the earth. we must all wait our turn. "prosperous" is also very subjective. Wait tell the day two billion chinese and indians start to drive cars and you just might rethink this idea of "prosperity".

[rudy-Diiriye]

some 1 needs to get a life! woow...! how did u get brain washed like that!.... plz left your head up!!

[RedSea]

NN,

 

adiga waxkasta waa 'sily'. Waar ninyow, wuxuun bal lashir imo mar uun. Bahasha ka yar shaqaysii bal.

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

LOL@ "Bahasha ka yar shaqaysii bal". Sadly though, A lot of the things people here say are silly. You find it odd that I Find odd that this article questions an entire race's ability to "prosper"? Till me thats not silly. Why bother with questions whose answer, good or bad, will be racist? If that was not silly enough for you, is it not obvious that there exist and existed black societies that were prosperous? Prosperity is a relative thing and we know that in both today and yesterday, there are black societies, nations and even civilization that were and are prosperous. for me, this questions stinks of colonialist mentality.

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

some 1 needs to get a life! woow...! how did u get brain washed like that!.... plz left your head up!!

did you mean keep your head down. You are a cynic my friend, perhaps you should take your own advice:physician heal thy self.

[Fabregas]

I didn't bother read the article.Because the question of the thread is actually very ignorant."Black people" what ever that means have and are building Prosperous societies.........

 

@Ngone are you suggesting that African culture is primitive and thus a hinderence to build any civilization?

[Taliban]

Originally posted by Abu_Geeljire:

I didn't bother read the article.Because the question of the thread is actually very ignorant.

The question was asked by Elias Biryabarema. What is ignorant about it?

[NGONGE]

Abu Geeljire,

 

Was that a rhetorical question or did you not bother reading what I wrote too?

[Miskin]

Interesting question!!

 

In answering this question one needs to be honest and broadminded, It seems some of us are taking it personal.

 

The short answer to your question brother is NO. We black ppl cannot build sustainable societies, and if you ever need an example look at Africa. I have ben to many African countries and believe me they are almost the same in The problems they face and their strategies in dealing with them is almost the same.

 

We need to mature as ppl and think like other human do, but for now i cannot put hand-to-heart and say YES we can build sustainable societies, simply because we haven't. Mind you (seeing is believing).

 

This id not to say that we are not capable of building self sustaining societies, we ofcourse have the capacity but my point is we have not done that yet for whatever reason.

 

Miskin