Wednesday, 2 September 2009
The Grand Inga project in DR Congo will be like the colonial train and road system
The Congo River (a Naza picture)
BY GEORGE KAGAME
The setting is perfect for a good development story for Africa; its script is worth any prestigious award. Africa has enormous capacity to increase the production of hydro electricity, and to supply it to more than 500 million people on the continent, or so documents state.
This reminder comes in the wake of two electricity deals whose negotiations were announced last week between major insurance and investment companies in Europe as well as several African countries, the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
According to the two deals, the increased power will be generated on the Grand Inga Dam project in Kinshasa, which is on the powerful falls of River Congo and is set to begin next year.
The other plan is in the Sahara desert where another project is to tap the solar extracted from the scorching heart of the sun to produce electricity.
The Grand Inga project was announced in 2008, but only then the information given at its launch indicated that it will significantly increase access to electricity by more Africans than ever before.
The Europeans were not mentioned as potential backers and customers of the new solution to Africa’s energy shortfall.
Figures representing the power distribution were dropped, and sufficient interest and alarm was raised.
In DR Congo for example where the new Grand Inga electricity project is to be established, only 8 percent of the population is and will remain connected to the power grid according to the World Energy Council even with the end of the project.
And while the country is currently grappling with several wars, the idea of electricity wars is likely to feature also.
The second deal is also equally important but not controversial; it is undertaken by Desertec a solar energy specialist in Morocco and Algeria.
The electricity generated from here as well as from the Grand Inga will mostly be exported to Europe.
The Grand Inga is most crucial as it can and will be connecting largely settled parts of the continent to the electricity grid and therefore lighting up Africa and increasing investment opportunities in Africa. While the later is ideal because it will be established in the very sparsely populated Sahara region.
That at least is the rule book of the African Development Bank and the World Bank.
Sadly, it is these two organizations that are the ones working on plans to generate the hydro electricity from DR Congo and export it to Europe.
The two institutions have in fact worked out a deal with Europe such that investors, can start on the Grand Inga as early as 2010, and then sell it to a market that can afford.
And these people are in Europe, they have proven credibility to be trusted to pay for the power and they have a negotiable currency with which to negotiate and pay.
The mistrust of Africans and the absence of any effective mechanism financial or administrative, with which to negotiate such a deal ensured that the only people worthy of ‘credit substance’ to satisfy investors are in Europe. And so African electricity will supply and light Europe.
At current numbers electricity supply in most African countries including giants like South Africa, is limited to only urban areas while the average 80 percent of Africans that live in rural areas have never had electricity.
This is what created the notion of the ‘dark continent,’ and the announcement in 2008 of the Grand dam, was seen by many as a good attempt at solving energy problems.
Sold as a possible success story for the public private partnerships, the new deal will most probably start from where the road construction and railway network system stopped at the helm of colonialism in Africa.
Where the railway and road system passed by human settlements and interconnected only minefields, government agencies and international exits.
People that discussed the business of the transportation networks were mainly visitors. Africans saw vans cruise by with visitors that never stopped, they never even spoke their language, and these visitors were in most cases government, colonial and investment officials.
But while the African leaders during the time of the colonial deals were easily hustled by humble men driven by greed and racial superiority, the Africans that discuss the new deals as the two power projects in the week are a smooth talking bunch of advisers, consultants, negotiators and experts.
The earlier generation of African hustlers came at their will and did as they willed; today’s hustlers are encouraged to come and asses Africa and then invite appropriate hustlers, kind of trouble-shooters.
It is difficult identifying between the fleecier and the fleeced. In Rwanda, the cost of sustaining their services in 2007 was Frw 73 billion, 4 percent of the entire GDP.
And the figure is not much different in other African countries. And they will not solve our problems. The bottom-line is that however well marketed the Grand Inga will be, it is not worth being given to the service and management of Europeans.
The rightly stated reason for transferring this otherwise crucial project to Europe-irrespective of the moral arguments Africans and our sympathizers will-is that Africans do not have a have viable creditability or mechanism to uphold commitment to pay for the investment.
To develop this credit history, there needs to be a private sector that is competitive, diverse and sizable.
It will help with the creation of a stable financial market and an efficient, peaceful and stable central government system.
So Africans now alongside microfinance need to start the process of learning about equity, shares, management of trading and investment institutions as well as moving from mere consumption to participation in the management of the economy.
This will involve at the start, a debate to move away from fighting for land to what we can use the land for. That is the challenge presented by the two deals in my simple opinion, not the arrogance of the Europeans to fleece away resources from Africa again.
The recent offer of Kenya’s Safaricom shares for East Africans to purchase was a right step.
Ends
FROM THE HAMMOCK:I promised the Mudugudu chief that I’d be more courteous
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Sunday, 09 August 2009 at 01:56 | Edit note | Delete
Health workers applaud President Kagame at the National Stadium recently
BY GEORGE KAGAME
The children in the community where I went to elementary school were normally warned against giving out information about our respective families to anybody, from neighbours that were not in the ‘friends’ circle of the family to government agencies.
In our communities, the name of your family simply stated whether you could be recruited to help government machinery and therefore join the table where the national cake was cut or you waited to clear that table at end of the feasts.
The authors of the rule to be uncooperative to government reasoned that it was not delivering any services in this community and therefore not speaking to it was only reciprocal.
But there were no services to speak of. The local governments never built schools in the locality, school age children walked the whole of 16 miles daily to and from school. And yet after seven years of making this trek even that school never had a registered examination centre.
So upon completing seven years at the local school we had to walk another 16 miles to the nearest primary school with an examination centre to be able to sit for the national primary leaving examinations.
One day at school a friend shoved me and I stepped on an old sharp nail that was pointed upwards protruding from broken furniture lying in the classroom. The nail pierced through my foot. There was no clinic at the school or nearby to help with stopping the bleeding.
If it had been there, my brother and I would not afford to pay the bill and there was no health scheme from which to benefit. Had the scheme been there, I would not be eligible to access it because there was no way of identifying who I was. Our people never had any identification documents.
So, with such a nature of things, our people never felt any need or desire to work with local government authorities and as a result governments continually ignored them. Only when one political force showed up and promised them this and that they got interested in government. But this relationship was usually short-lived.
Perhaps it was because at the time, local government institutions were mainly used as forums within which targets for benevolence and sheer cruel power of government was channelled.
Since my community had little chance to be invited to the government dining table they saw it prudent to close out.
In 2007 at the onset of Umurenge performance targets, I was watching a pirated music video when a Mudugudu official dropped in and handed me a piece of paper that had a list of items which the local authorities had promised the central government that they, the local leaders would encourage us, the dwellers to have in all our homes in a given period. The nature of my relationship with government was increasingly changing I observed.
The list included such items as radio sets-for sensitization, television, (in the hope that Rwanda Television would improve the quality of its programming or some merciful investor would introduce an affordable alternative,)-for entertainment, health insurance cover and whether we had a toilet and kitchen.
Looking at the list and my inbred mistrust of people that want information from me, in this case being the arm of government, I wanted to scream to the official and swear in the names of many cows that he gets the hell out of my house. But cooler instincts prevailed.
In comparison to when local government’s major function was to, and whether that individual was on ‘this’ or ‘that’ side and control who moved to Kigali local authorities today run their affairs differently.
My first place of abode in Kigali was in the outskirts of the famous Nyabugogo hub. Two days after moving in, it was demanded of me by my neighbour that I visit the Mudugudu chief to tell him, as Ugandan musician Bobi Wine sings that, “Wendi.”
Next I had to get a Mutuelle de santé cover card, Indangamuntu, and RAMA, the health insurance scheme for Rwandans in formal employment and so forth.
For many slightly arrogant visitors to Kigali and its aficionados -the Ipod kind-this sort of arrangement is too controlled and therefore boring. Added to the monthly Gacaca and Umuganda sessions and you have many cynics comparing the country to a catholic boarding school setting. Initially I belonged to this gang but I have come to learn that fences, strict rules are not limited to Rwanda alone.
The media stories this week tell of multi sectoral approach to achieving the various dreams of the government as enshrined in all programmes. The amalgamation of the CDF into a centrally managed fund, the entry of ICT buses-such that even the folks down in Gisagara can see and feel a computer following right in the footsteps of the One Lap Per Child Programme and finally the big meeting between Presidents Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame.
These things come at the sacrifice of many things. Like my cooperation with the Mudugudu chief.
The commitment of all local and national health officials to increase coverage to 100 percent of all cases, their promise to encourage family planning with gusto, encouraging their patients to have a toilet in all their homesteads and importantly to discourage public spitting also make creating a healthy Rwanda possible in the medium term.
Soon, we’ll be heading to the Umurenge offices to ask whether they have received the phones that Kagame promised to give us on Monday.
Ends
Sunday, 09 August 2009 at 01:56 | Edit note | Delete
Health workers applaud President Kagame at the National Stadium recently
BY GEORGE KAGAME
The children in the community where I went to elementary school were normally warned against giving out information about our respective families to anybody, from neighbours that were not in the ‘friends’ circle of the family to government agencies.
In our communities, the name of your family simply stated whether you could be recruited to help government machinery and therefore join the table where the national cake was cut or you waited to clear that table at end of the feasts.
The authors of the rule to be uncooperative to government reasoned that it was not delivering any services in this community and therefore not speaking to it was only reciprocal.
But there were no services to speak of. The local governments never built schools in the locality, school age children walked the whole of 16 miles daily to and from school. And yet after seven years of making this trek even that school never had a registered examination centre.
So upon completing seven years at the local school we had to walk another 16 miles to the nearest primary school with an examination centre to be able to sit for the national primary leaving examinations.
One day at school a friend shoved me and I stepped on an old sharp nail that was pointed upwards protruding from broken furniture lying in the classroom. The nail pierced through my foot. There was no clinic at the school or nearby to help with stopping the bleeding.
If it had been there, my brother and I would not afford to pay the bill and there was no health scheme from which to benefit. Had the scheme been there, I would not be eligible to access it because there was no way of identifying who I was. Our people never had any identification documents.
So, with such a nature of things, our people never felt any need or desire to work with local government authorities and as a result governments continually ignored them. Only when one political force showed up and promised them this and that they got interested in government. But this relationship was usually short-lived.
Perhaps it was because at the time, local government institutions were mainly used as forums within which targets for benevolence and sheer cruel power of government was channelled.
Since my community had little chance to be invited to the government dining table they saw it prudent to close out.
In 2007 at the onset of Umurenge performance targets, I was watching a pirated music video when a Mudugudu official dropped in and handed me a piece of paper that had a list of items which the local authorities had promised the central government that they, the local leaders would encourage us, the dwellers to have in all our homes in a given period. The nature of my relationship with government was increasingly changing I observed.
The list included such items as radio sets-for sensitization, television, (in the hope that Rwanda Television would improve the quality of its programming or some merciful investor would introduce an affordable alternative,)-for entertainment, health insurance cover and whether we had a toilet and kitchen.
Looking at the list and my inbred mistrust of people that want information from me, in this case being the arm of government, I wanted to scream to the official and swear in the names of many cows that he gets the hell out of my house. But cooler instincts prevailed.
In comparison to when local government’s major function was to, and whether that individual was on ‘this’ or ‘that’ side and control who moved to Kigali local authorities today run their affairs differently.
My first place of abode in Kigali was in the outskirts of the famous Nyabugogo hub. Two days after moving in, it was demanded of me by my neighbour that I visit the Mudugudu chief to tell him, as Ugandan musician Bobi Wine sings that, “Wendi.”
Next I had to get a Mutuelle de santé cover card, Indangamuntu, and RAMA, the health insurance scheme for Rwandans in formal employment and so forth.
For many slightly arrogant visitors to Kigali and its aficionados -the Ipod kind-this sort of arrangement is too controlled and therefore boring. Added to the monthly Gacaca and Umuganda sessions and you have many cynics comparing the country to a catholic boarding school setting. Initially I belonged to this gang but I have come to learn that fences, strict rules are not limited to Rwanda alone.
The media stories this week tell of multi sectoral approach to achieving the various dreams of the government as enshrined in all programmes. The amalgamation of the CDF into a centrally managed fund, the entry of ICT buses-such that even the folks down in Gisagara can see and feel a computer following right in the footsteps of the One Lap Per Child Programme and finally the big meeting between Presidents Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame.
These things come at the sacrifice of many things. Like my cooperation with the Mudugudu chief.
The commitment of all local and national health officials to increase coverage to 100 percent of all cases, their promise to encourage family planning with gusto, encouraging their patients to have a toilet in all their homesteads and importantly to discourage public spitting also make creating a healthy Rwanda possible in the medium term.
Soon, we’ll be heading to the Umurenge offices to ask whether they have received the phones that Kagame promised to give us on Monday.
Ends
Genocide Ideology in Rwanda:Three Bugesera pastors prefer to ride in Honda or Toyota
GEORGE KAGAME
A story is told in Bugesera of a wrangle between two or three Pentecostal clergymen that who, like many of their brethren in other parts of the country, involves a disagreement over-in no particular order and not limited to, a land title, management of funds and or ego rights.
As per usual, such stories have a similar rhyme, in many cases a visiting pastor in Kigali to preach the word of God, meets fellow men/women determined to serve Jesus. They agree amongst themselves to open a church. Soon, Believers with Hope Worship Kingdom Kinyinya opens. New converts are speedily attracted to the church, numbers swell.
After mass mobilization is undertaken to get new converts, a simple structure springs up, and city councils come around and threaten to raze the structure. A council member who could be among the new converts stands in for the church and the threat from council is temporarily deflected.
Meanwhile, a mass sensitization project ensures to get funds for a permanent structure. The foreign pastor goes back to his/her home country to converse for donor funds. His local partners also embark on an appeal to the church goers to build a better house of worship. The pastor returns after a while, the church goes up.
City council is sent with papers to shut up. Followers sing hosanna hallelujah on Sunday. After a while the church establishes itself as a prominent feature of that society, it attracts respect, admiration, more converts and in some cases more clout and revenue. It becomes complex to manage as the top leaders of the church get divided initially ideologically, or so the believers are told.
But their disagreements are kept between themselves.
However since the setting is a church, word gets around. The disagreements are contagious first among the wives of the pastors, then to their clubs, children, relatives and any other given in such a society.
Not long after this, believers are told that there’s a bank loan, a land title, grants, government support and revenue issues that are being discussed in church meeting at all levels. To this end, it is still an administrative hump but it is slowly developing into an epic script. The story gets thrilling with the podium setting a sweet background to the sometimes theatrical pastors. Many times it ends with each minister getting their own territory.
The script for the church in Bugesera could be quite different from the above, but no one can say there are no similarities with many Pentecostal churches in the country. Their metamorphosis differs as for example, Christian Life Assembly operates professionally, but many neighbourhood churches start in the above style.
Interesting when the Bugesera church started its natural growth, the news about disagreements between its one American and two Rwandan pastors about land titles, bragging rights, style of preaching and so forth could not be surprising. But hidden in its body, the story exposed that ugly evil that is genocide ideology raising its head, with new labels.
One of the pastors is alleged to have renamed the Tutsi and Hutu and branded them as Honda and Toyota. The story continues that he advised the Hondas not to be governed by the Toyotas, henceforth bringing a new dimension to the two famous ethnic tribes of Rwanda and their noted wars in automobile patent books.
The jury is out whether he used the simple analysis of first letters or he went further into differences in fuel consumption and comfort!
Yet this is the hi/story of our country, very few professional, personal, administrative and political issues are given their rightful place in our psyche. Whenever there have been disagreements in this country, they have been analyzed, debated and then standardized to fit into the two labels of Tutsi and Hutu.
That was certainly the case in the past; and we like to believe in the present. Today we have given it a name, a campaign, a structure and a name. It is Genocide Ideology. Every effort to help stop its spread is ‘eliminating Genocide Ideology’, and yet in schools, churches and at major universities we have failed.
These efforts-whether they are enforced or just thought about as the new ideology are suspect at closer examination. It is only two years ago that members of parliament, with the help of strange research techniques concluded that most secondary schools in the country were contaminated with genocide ideology. Their efforts led to the formation of a law specifically to deal with this ideology, a national commission was established later and we hoped-that the schools would be cleaned up.
Last year, the ideology reared its head in the students’ union politics of the National University of Rwanda, leading to the suspension of presidential elections in that institution altogether. Todate, the members of parliament have not yet carried out a follow up, so we cannot know the progress of the elimination process in schools. However, with stories from Bugesera, it is safe to suggest that the members need to carry out a new survey in the churches as well.
And the new ideology promoters must be braced because disagreements in church in Rwanda are of particular interest.
Rwandans, it can be safely argued, are deeply religious people. After all many don’t merely stop at believing that there’s a God. Rwandans go further than many Christians and believe that God actually has a job. He works during the day elsewhere and returns to sleep in the country at night. Somebody actually tried to convince me that he sleeps on top of one of the hills surrounding Rulindo district.
What happens in the church has a very powerful influence to what happens in Rwandan homes. The church is the cradle of all ideologies, the first step Christians, upon arriving in Rwanda-and they were first in Rwanda before other countries in the region-is to establish that there are two sides in Rwanda. And these two have never lived together peacefully. One has to eliminate the other for it to stay and the other, if it survives is expected to live in humiliation till the cycle returns.
Genocide ideology, it can be argued has been enshrined in that simplicity, and everybody that knows the country through newspapers and books believes this, especially the visitors.
It also safe to say that church does not have any power to eliminate the ideology anymore, even our alleged offer of God’s bedroom withstanding.
If one of the pastors in Bugesera that introduced the Honda and Toyota brands in the church was a visitor he was not being too cynical; he was only emphasizing what is popular. What many Rwandans have mistakenly accepted as normal. There are many other terms used by average Rwandans themselves daily. Toyota and Honda are just among a few that have been published.
So having concluded that the ideology is among us and we have accepted it to stay and continues to be used in defining our destiny what do we do?
Do we just lay back and hope that Jean De Diue Mucyo will send us a pamphlet with better trademarks and solutions? A Rwanda teacher prying his trade in North America who told me he actually drives a Honda recently said that every effort must start at elementary school through to university and let children find their own identities based on what the professionally trained teachers have taught them. Let parents keep driving their Hondas and Toyotas..
A story is told in Bugesera of a wrangle between two or three Pentecostal clergymen that who, like many of their brethren in other parts of the country, involves a disagreement over-in no particular order and not limited to, a land title, management of funds and or ego rights.
As per usual, such stories have a similar rhyme, in many cases a visiting pastor in Kigali to preach the word of God, meets fellow men/women determined to serve Jesus. They agree amongst themselves to open a church. Soon, Believers with Hope Worship Kingdom Kinyinya opens. New converts are speedily attracted to the church, numbers swell.
After mass mobilization is undertaken to get new converts, a simple structure springs up, and city councils come around and threaten to raze the structure. A council member who could be among the new converts stands in for the church and the threat from council is temporarily deflected.
Meanwhile, a mass sensitization project ensures to get funds for a permanent structure. The foreign pastor goes back to his/her home country to converse for donor funds. His local partners also embark on an appeal to the church goers to build a better house of worship. The pastor returns after a while, the church goes up.
City council is sent with papers to shut up. Followers sing hosanna hallelujah on Sunday. After a while the church establishes itself as a prominent feature of that society, it attracts respect, admiration, more converts and in some cases more clout and revenue. It becomes complex to manage as the top leaders of the church get divided initially ideologically, or so the believers are told.
But their disagreements are kept between themselves.
However since the setting is a church, word gets around. The disagreements are contagious first among the wives of the pastors, then to their clubs, children, relatives and any other given in such a society.
Not long after this, believers are told that there’s a bank loan, a land title, grants, government support and revenue issues that are being discussed in church meeting at all levels. To this end, it is still an administrative hump but it is slowly developing into an epic script. The story gets thrilling with the podium setting a sweet background to the sometimes theatrical pastors. Many times it ends with each minister getting their own territory.
The script for the church in Bugesera could be quite different from the above, but no one can say there are no similarities with many Pentecostal churches in the country. Their metamorphosis differs as for example, Christian Life Assembly operates professionally, but many neighbourhood churches start in the above style.
Interesting when the Bugesera church started its natural growth, the news about disagreements between its one American and two Rwandan pastors about land titles, bragging rights, style of preaching and so forth could not be surprising. But hidden in its body, the story exposed that ugly evil that is genocide ideology raising its head, with new labels.
One of the pastors is alleged to have renamed the Tutsi and Hutu and branded them as Honda and Toyota. The story continues that he advised the Hondas not to be governed by the Toyotas, henceforth bringing a new dimension to the two famous ethnic tribes of Rwanda and their noted wars in automobile patent books.
The jury is out whether he used the simple analysis of first letters or he went further into differences in fuel consumption and comfort!
Yet this is the hi/story of our country, very few professional, personal, administrative and political issues are given their rightful place in our psyche. Whenever there have been disagreements in this country, they have been analyzed, debated and then standardized to fit into the two labels of Tutsi and Hutu.
That was certainly the case in the past; and we like to believe in the present. Today we have given it a name, a campaign, a structure and a name. It is Genocide Ideology. Every effort to help stop its spread is ‘eliminating Genocide Ideology’, and yet in schools, churches and at major universities we have failed.
These efforts-whether they are enforced or just thought about as the new ideology are suspect at closer examination. It is only two years ago that members of parliament, with the help of strange research techniques concluded that most secondary schools in the country were contaminated with genocide ideology. Their efforts led to the formation of a law specifically to deal with this ideology, a national commission was established later and we hoped-that the schools would be cleaned up.
Last year, the ideology reared its head in the students’ union politics of the National University of Rwanda, leading to the suspension of presidential elections in that institution altogether. Todate, the members of parliament have not yet carried out a follow up, so we cannot know the progress of the elimination process in schools. However, with stories from Bugesera, it is safe to suggest that the members need to carry out a new survey in the churches as well.
And the new ideology promoters must be braced because disagreements in church in Rwanda are of particular interest.
Rwandans, it can be safely argued, are deeply religious people. After all many don’t merely stop at believing that there’s a God. Rwandans go further than many Christians and believe that God actually has a job. He works during the day elsewhere and returns to sleep in the country at night. Somebody actually tried to convince me that he sleeps on top of one of the hills surrounding Rulindo district.
What happens in the church has a very powerful influence to what happens in Rwandan homes. The church is the cradle of all ideologies, the first step Christians, upon arriving in Rwanda-and they were first in Rwanda before other countries in the region-is to establish that there are two sides in Rwanda. And these two have never lived together peacefully. One has to eliminate the other for it to stay and the other, if it survives is expected to live in humiliation till the cycle returns.
Genocide ideology, it can be argued has been enshrined in that simplicity, and everybody that knows the country through newspapers and books believes this, especially the visitors.
It also safe to say that church does not have any power to eliminate the ideology anymore, even our alleged offer of God’s bedroom withstanding.
If one of the pastors in Bugesera that introduced the Honda and Toyota brands in the church was a visitor he was not being too cynical; he was only emphasizing what is popular. What many Rwandans have mistakenly accepted as normal. There are many other terms used by average Rwandans themselves daily. Toyota and Honda are just among a few that have been published.
So having concluded that the ideology is among us and we have accepted it to stay and continues to be used in defining our destiny what do we do?
Do we just lay back and hope that Jean De Diue Mucyo will send us a pamphlet with better trademarks and solutions? A Rwanda teacher prying his trade in North America who told me he actually drives a Honda recently said that every effort must start at elementary school through to university and let children find their own identities based on what the professionally trained teachers have taught them. Let parents keep driving their Hondas and Toyotas..
Africans, dancing, singing, running and women's lib
(Wanky rant of an African scribe)
COO
By the weekend, viewing CNN and reading the American media, it seems two things were left of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Africa trip were the swivel she did at the Carnivore Restaurant in Nairobi; and her angry response to a university student who asked her about her husband’s opinion, rather than her own, on a trade deal between the DRC and China.
Turns out the student’s translator was incompetent and got the question wrong; he hadn’t asked about former president Clinton’s views. So, was Clinton too thin-skinned? No exactly. I am not a fan of Mrs Clinton, but in DR Congo, every woman has a right to be very afraid. Clinton should have responded more strongly. The UN estimates that 3,500 women have been raped in DR Congo so far this year—and it is a “good” year by the country’s standards. In Eastern DRC, gangs roam villages looking for women to rape. In this environment, the mistake by the translator who put Hillary down by suggesting her husband Bill’s view on the Congo-China was more important than hers, has deep political significance. It is a product of the same demented views women as an object of rape.
If you don’t appreciate that, and the international media seems not to, then you can’t understand why there was a dance thingy at the Carnivore that swept Clinton away. There is a view held by racists and Africans who have despaired about the black man’s lot, that Africans are poor and go hungry because they spend all their time singing, dancing (and having sex) instead of working. Wrong.
The opposite is true. Because of the horrors of life in DR Congo, from King Leopold’s time to this day, the Congolese are some of the world’s best singers and dancers. Like other Africans, they dance and sing as a coping mechanism. It is the only way many Africans avoid being plunged into depression and madness by their adversity. So, without song and dance, most of them wouldn’t be able to work.
I think, that is the same context that explains why it is a black man, Usain Bolt, who ran the 100 metres in the once-unthinkable time of 9.58 seconds. I used black in the political, not racial sense.
I have written elsewhere that running has become a metaphor for the survival of black people. They ran from slave traders; they ran from colonialists; they continue to run from their dictators; to scamper into refugee; they flee famines, war, racism, and an international economic and political system that they feel squeezes them (a view I don’t share); and if you are a Kenyan, South African, or DR Congolese woman, you are tormented by the fear of rape every hour, every day.
Usain Bolt, then, runs for us. I don’t think Tyson Gay will ever beat him or equal his time. As American society continues its torturous journey of becoming less racial (they have a black president in Obama, don’t they?) the global dominance of African-American athletes will continue to decline. Gay needs the motivation of a grievance, not money, to beat Bolt. Or he needs, to paraphrase Sting, to become a Jamaican in the west first.
COO
By the weekend, viewing CNN and reading the American media, it seems two things were left of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Africa trip were the swivel she did at the Carnivore Restaurant in Nairobi; and her angry response to a university student who asked her about her husband’s opinion, rather than her own, on a trade deal between the DRC and China.
Turns out the student’s translator was incompetent and got the question wrong; he hadn’t asked about former president Clinton’s views. So, was Clinton too thin-skinned? No exactly. I am not a fan of Mrs Clinton, but in DR Congo, every woman has a right to be very afraid. Clinton should have responded more strongly. The UN estimates that 3,500 women have been raped in DR Congo so far this year—and it is a “good” year by the country’s standards. In Eastern DRC, gangs roam villages looking for women to rape. In this environment, the mistake by the translator who put Hillary down by suggesting her husband Bill’s view on the Congo-China was more important than hers, has deep political significance. It is a product of the same demented views women as an object of rape.
If you don’t appreciate that, and the international media seems not to, then you can’t understand why there was a dance thingy at the Carnivore that swept Clinton away. There is a view held by racists and Africans who have despaired about the black man’s lot, that Africans are poor and go hungry because they spend all their time singing, dancing (and having sex) instead of working. Wrong.
The opposite is true. Because of the horrors of life in DR Congo, from King Leopold’s time to this day, the Congolese are some of the world’s best singers and dancers. Like other Africans, they dance and sing as a coping mechanism. It is the only way many Africans avoid being plunged into depression and madness by their adversity. So, without song and dance, most of them wouldn’t be able to work.
I think, that is the same context that explains why it is a black man, Usain Bolt, who ran the 100 metres in the once-unthinkable time of 9.58 seconds. I used black in the political, not racial sense.
I have written elsewhere that running has become a metaphor for the survival of black people. They ran from slave traders; they ran from colonialists; they continue to run from their dictators; to scamper into refugee; they flee famines, war, racism, and an international economic and political system that they feel squeezes them (a view I don’t share); and if you are a Kenyan, South African, or DR Congolese woman, you are tormented by the fear of rape every hour, every day.
Usain Bolt, then, runs for us. I don’t think Tyson Gay will ever beat him or equal his time. As American society continues its torturous journey of becoming less racial (they have a black president in Obama, don’t they?) the global dominance of African-American athletes will continue to decline. Gay needs the motivation of a grievance, not money, to beat Bolt. Or he needs, to paraphrase Sting, to become a Jamaican in the west first.
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
FROM THE HAMMOCK:It’s now cool to live downtown
Wednesday, 19 August 2009 at 01:11 | Edit note | Delete
Upscale Nyarutarama
BY GEORGE KAGAME
Recently I announced to one of my friends that I had moved out of my outskirts suburb to down town Nyamirambo. The friend put her hand to her mouth and looked genuinely surprised. She said, “Urumoji?”
I wondered whether her reaction was based on the fact that she had never lived downtown, or in a neighbourhood as busy and diverse as Nyimirambo.
I never understood her reaction.
And yet because of the historical political economy of suburbs like Nyamirambo, it is right that the reputation is highly dubious.
The tiny business hub is also an enduring example of how diverse Kigali is. And for all the ugly past of Rwanda, the fanatical mistrust and hatred of Rwandans never invaded the social fabric of Nyamirambo, say like Kimiruhura.
Downtown suburbs in developed countries bring together a group of achievers instead of privileged kids living in the most affluent neighbourhoods in Kigali and other capitals in the region.
Apparently to many in Kigali, a neighbourhood like Nyamirambo and any other Kabagari is not expected to be a prospective choice of suburb to reside in, if you can afford rent elsewhere.
The story is similar across Africa. In many capitals neighbouring Kigali the pattern of settlement is identical. I say it smells and is an indicator of corruption.
If you happen to be a resident of Nairobi, you will notice that the residents of Karen, and Muthaiga-with the exception of Westlands, are not very different from each other.
If they are not heirs to a long fortune or establishment in the country, they are expatriates mostly from the same countries. Walk down to Kibera and all the various parts of the country are represented.
Muyenga and Kololo go for Kampala while Msanani and Oyster Bay in Dar Salaam, and clearly Kimiruhura and Nyarutarama represent Kigali.
The residents of these suburbs normally frown upon the dwellers of suburbs like Nyamirambo, their story and image is unanimously summed up in the term, ‘Ndagasqwi.’
I don’t know what Ndagasqwi means but I think it is not something flattering.
It is a term that residents of Kibagabaga, Remera, Kiyovu use while describing the lower part of Kacyiru, the former Kimikyanga and Nyamirambo.
The residents of the affluent neighbourhoods in our countries in all the major cities neighbouring Rwanda are usually similar, they could all be from the same home town or are working for the same company and therefore making these neighbourhoods a symbol of one thing or another.
Yet it is these neighbourhoods that normally identify the true picture of a city, usually they are more multi culturally mixed, more cosmopolitan, and diverse parts of the city, the most enduring identities of any city worth a name.
In very developed countries, living downtown is an achievement.
The closer an individual in a western country lives to downtown; the more independent, the more skilled and higher they are on the economic or intellectual ladder.
The rich run away from such suburbs as Black, Jewish, Italian, Asian suburbs and their trademarks to a more diverse downtown.
With more emphasis put to the words individual and ladder. Here you are discouraged as much as possible not to buy a vehicle.
And it is normal; to have a vehicle in the west is not a sign of “I have arrived” as it is in East Africa.
It is a burden. The city administrations and government ensure that the public transport is very efficient for those that can afford to pay for it.
The price is also fixed basing on the living standards of the lowest income earners of each city.
This way not everyone with a job is forced to buy a car to get them to work as his/her first priority upon being employed, the transport network is planned to reach all areas of the city with human settlement and services.
The price is affordable to anyone that has a reason to move from one part of the city to another.
In comparison, if you are a Jean Claude Safari, and happen to be living in Nairobi, Dar Salaam and especially Kigali, the first item to occupy your immediate attention upon getting a job is buying a personal car.
Then you need a fence and a security guard therefore a higher salary than those without vehicles. If your salary cannot cover these costs you have extra incentive to take a bribe. Enshrining and sustaining the vice of corruption.
This state of affairs will also continue the talk of capacity building. Because a few people with skills keep the money within themselves and the rest are left with none.
The areas where these same people reside are developed at the expense of the centres where many make their money from.
The Safaris of East Africa are in most cases related in many African countries, and as I indicated earlier it is hard to find new entrants if they are not related to the established circles or the expatriate communities.
Interestingly, Kigali is being rebuilt. The downtown centres of Nyamirambo, Kacyiru and Kimikyanga are all being redesigned, residents of Kimikyanga, Nyamirambo and Kacyiru being forced to vacate to create room for new structures in the city.
Kigali is now moving towards a real city worth of a beautiful country.
It remains to be seen that when the construction of the new structures in these suburbs is completed, the new residents of these once cultural hotspots in Kigali are as dynamic, more diverse and industrious as their former occupants.
And when I tell you that I stay in Nyamirambo you’ll not be shocked anymore.
Ends
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Dark continent tag to be dispelled with launch of sea cable fibre optic connection
By GEORGE Kagame
One of the most fascinating stories I have had the pleasure of reading was written by Rwandan writer Rama Isibo for his blog sometime in 2007. Having saved money to buy his first personal computer, Isibo was bemused by the amount of information that the computer shop salesman gave him. I related to the story because my own attempt to secure a first computer were very testing.
Isibo's challenges were much different from mine in purchasing his first computer, as at that time I believed he was living in the UK and so he didnot have to clench his fist and gnash his teeth while saving up the money for a computer.
Nonetheless, his experience with the computer shops were quite hillarioius. In the end, Isibo signed off his article promising to keep the memories of his exercise to tell to his children.
As a budding journalist myself at the time, it was a basic necessity to have a personal computer. It remains todate as one of the most challenging battles of my life so far. I had to save my salary for two months and default on practically every other essential daily expenditure. When I believed I had the right amount I took a day long bus ride to a neighbouring country where computers were selling at cheaper price. At the end of the ordeal my roommate at the time evicted me from the house for failing contribute my share of the monthly rent.
At the time I was saving for my computer, government along with South Africa and other members of the EAC were in negotiations with SEACOM , a fibre optic cable firm to form a marine based cable connecting Cape Town to Cairo through Dar Salaam, Mombassa via Kigali Kampala, Ethiopia and then to Cairo. The cable would then link Africa to India through the Indian Ocean and Eurpe.
The attitudes to computers is just one of various challenges that government and other policy makers will have to address starting in October when Rwanda is slated to sign on to the sea cable submarine fibre optic network that is owned by SEACOM a South African private consortium that specializes in selling cheap bandwidth to internet subscribers. The operation of SEACOM was launched on Wednesday in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa and according to economists and ICT experts will go a very long way in removing the international infrastructure bottleneck and supporting East and South African economic growth.
Rwanda was not among the first countries to join the cable system because first the national fibre network roll out was still being constructed across the country and also the obvious factor for not being close to the ocean. Interesting, it is only Rwanda in the region that has embarked on a nationwide fibre optic cable rollout, and is also so far, the only country with a national policy framework for ICT in the region. Kigali city and its suburbs have already been connected by 77km of fibre optic cables, over 70 percent of the country according to the EDPRS framework is covered today.
Nevertheless, owning a computer remains a daunting challenge to a very large majority in the country. In fact it is a fair assumption to say that computers are only limited to a select few in the country. And this is not just because the gadgets are expensive or Rwandans are too unsophisticated to handle computers. Many of my colleagues have very expensive mobile phones that could buy two new sets of computers. Yet interestingly the owners of these phones have no ideal use for the features in these phones and most times our telephone service providers do not have the software to use these mobile phones. This is testimony that the purchasing knowledge of most consumers is tuned to bizarre attitudes that only a seasoned anthropologist would attempt to figure out.
If you like, the success of most development programmes in the country hinge on this fibre optic cable. Starting with the One Laptop Per Child Programme, which on top of increasing the quality of education that school going children will be able to access, will foster the delivery of health initiatives across the country as well. Already the Centre for Research and Treatment of HIV/Aids and other infectious diseases-TRAC-was using mobile telephones to connect patients to care professionals but the cost of airtime was an unnecessary hump in the process. High speed internet connection to health centres will ease this burden. A child whose computer is connected to the internet will help other family members that could be sick in accessing ARVs. The members are helped when they are easily connected to the specialists that TRAC has stationed in most health centre across the country to monitor the health of patients and the child would have learnt invaluable lessons in the process. In the long run the quality of life on the continent will improve and we shall leave the group of people that have a very short life expectancy.
The benefits of fibre networks cannot be overemphasized, online education will not only expand but it will also be a reality to many more people as will government's promise to make all its operations digital. The network will also reduce the slice of the national budget that was being diverted to the wallets and egos of public officials that have been handling such policies and fees that go with them.
The bigger picture is that the integration of Africa will be enhanced as SEACOM will attempt to complete Vasco Da Gama's dream of a connected triangle bringing together Europe, Africa and India, the cooperation of African countries will increase with faster internet and we might be the generation that casts away the image of a dark continent. For the new generation of wannabe Ga Gamas to Africa, the cable will make it easier for them to make travel arrangements faster online and this way seeing more of the continent.
As Seacom’s undersea cable project is the first of its kind to connect to East Africa to the rest of the world through links to India, the United Kingdom and France. This will open up unprecedented opportunities, at a fraction of the current cost, as government, business leaders and citizens can now use the network as the platform to compete globally, drive economic growth and enhance the quality of life across the continent.
Africa has been slow to catch up with bandwidth as most connections on the continent were by satellite which is quite expensive and unaffordable to many.
Yet for the fibre optic cable to make a real change to the lives of Rwandans other challenges on the continent will need to be dealt with faster. For example, expanding the electricity grid to all parts of the country will have to shift from EDPRS documents to all major trading centres across the nation. Most important is the general political stability of Africa will primarily be a responsibility of Africans as the recent pirate insurgency on the Somalian coastline demonstrates. The pirates apparently hindered the completion of the cable connection on time as they were operating in waters where the cable passes in February and March. Where Africa left the international community to deal with the pirates, now it will be upto to all of Africa to ensure that Somalia stabilizes.
This will not be a difficult task as it appears on paper. The stability of the East African coastline has in the past been achieved after serious insurgencies. It is said the Arabs and Da Gama first operated as a pirates on the coast before they each took turns at settling at Fort Jesus.
One of the most fascinating stories I have had the pleasure of reading was written by Rwandan writer Rama Isibo for his blog sometime in 2007. Having saved money to buy his first personal computer, Isibo was bemused by the amount of information that the computer shop salesman gave him. I related to the story because my own attempt to secure a first computer were very testing.
Isibo's challenges were much different from mine in purchasing his first computer, as at that time I believed he was living in the UK and so he didnot have to clench his fist and gnash his teeth while saving up the money for a computer.
Nonetheless, his experience with the computer shops were quite hillarioius. In the end, Isibo signed off his article promising to keep the memories of his exercise to tell to his children.
As a budding journalist myself at the time, it was a basic necessity to have a personal computer. It remains todate as one of the most challenging battles of my life so far. I had to save my salary for two months and default on practically every other essential daily expenditure. When I believed I had the right amount I took a day long bus ride to a neighbouring country where computers were selling at cheaper price. At the end of the ordeal my roommate at the time evicted me from the house for failing contribute my share of the monthly rent.
At the time I was saving for my computer, government along with South Africa and other members of the EAC were in negotiations with SEACOM , a fibre optic cable firm to form a marine based cable connecting Cape Town to Cairo through Dar Salaam, Mombassa via Kigali Kampala, Ethiopia and then to Cairo. The cable would then link Africa to India through the Indian Ocean and Eurpe.
The attitudes to computers is just one of various challenges that government and other policy makers will have to address starting in October when Rwanda is slated to sign on to the sea cable submarine fibre optic network that is owned by SEACOM a South African private consortium that specializes in selling cheap bandwidth to internet subscribers. The operation of SEACOM was launched on Wednesday in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa and according to economists and ICT experts will go a very long way in removing the international infrastructure bottleneck and supporting East and South African economic growth.
Rwanda was not among the first countries to join the cable system because first the national fibre network roll out was still being constructed across the country and also the obvious factor for not being close to the ocean. Interesting, it is only Rwanda in the region that has embarked on a nationwide fibre optic cable rollout, and is also so far, the only country with a national policy framework for ICT in the region. Kigali city and its suburbs have already been connected by 77km of fibre optic cables, over 70 percent of the country according to the EDPRS framework is covered today.
Nevertheless, owning a computer remains a daunting challenge to a very large majority in the country. In fact it is a fair assumption to say that computers are only limited to a select few in the country. And this is not just because the gadgets are expensive or Rwandans are too unsophisticated to handle computers. Many of my colleagues have very expensive mobile phones that could buy two new sets of computers. Yet interestingly the owners of these phones have no ideal use for the features in these phones and most times our telephone service providers do not have the software to use these mobile phones. This is testimony that the purchasing knowledge of most consumers is tuned to bizarre attitudes that only a seasoned anthropologist would attempt to figure out.
If you like, the success of most development programmes in the country hinge on this fibre optic cable. Starting with the One Laptop Per Child Programme, which on top of increasing the quality of education that school going children will be able to access, will foster the delivery of health initiatives across the country as well. Already the Centre for Research and Treatment of HIV/Aids and other infectious diseases-TRAC-was using mobile telephones to connect patients to care professionals but the cost of airtime was an unnecessary hump in the process. High speed internet connection to health centres will ease this burden. A child whose computer is connected to the internet will help other family members that could be sick in accessing ARVs. The members are helped when they are easily connected to the specialists that TRAC has stationed in most health centre across the country to monitor the health of patients and the child would have learnt invaluable lessons in the process. In the long run the quality of life on the continent will improve and we shall leave the group of people that have a very short life expectancy.
The benefits of fibre networks cannot be overemphasized, online education will not only expand but it will also be a reality to many more people as will government's promise to make all its operations digital. The network will also reduce the slice of the national budget that was being diverted to the wallets and egos of public officials that have been handling such policies and fees that go with them.
The bigger picture is that the integration of Africa will be enhanced as SEACOM will attempt to complete Vasco Da Gama's dream of a connected triangle bringing together Europe, Africa and India, the cooperation of African countries will increase with faster internet and we might be the generation that casts away the image of a dark continent. For the new generation of wannabe Ga Gamas to Africa, the cable will make it easier for them to make travel arrangements faster online and this way seeing more of the continent.
As Seacom’s undersea cable project is the first of its kind to connect to East Africa to the rest of the world through links to India, the United Kingdom and France. This will open up unprecedented opportunities, at a fraction of the current cost, as government, business leaders and citizens can now use the network as the platform to compete globally, drive economic growth and enhance the quality of life across the continent.
Africa has been slow to catch up with bandwidth as most connections on the continent were by satellite which is quite expensive and unaffordable to many.
Yet for the fibre optic cable to make a real change to the lives of Rwandans other challenges on the continent will need to be dealt with faster. For example, expanding the electricity grid to all parts of the country will have to shift from EDPRS documents to all major trading centres across the nation. Most important is the general political stability of Africa will primarily be a responsibility of Africans as the recent pirate insurgency on the Somalian coastline demonstrates. The pirates apparently hindered the completion of the cable connection on time as they were operating in waters where the cable passes in February and March. Where Africa left the international community to deal with the pirates, now it will be upto to all of Africa to ensure that Somalia stabilizes.
This will not be a difficult task as it appears on paper. The stability of the East African coastline has in the past been achieved after serious insurgencies. It is said the Arabs and Da Gama first operated as a pirates on the coast before they each took turns at settling at Fort Jesus.
Sunday, 26 July 2009
And then there was the internet, "don't speak or look at me!!"
BY GEORGE KAGAME
The social networking and online dating sites like this one are one of the latest inventions concepts in a consumer society. In this society, every aspect of life is geared towards making all of us into consumers and participants to a drama that has become our lives than actually living it.
Lets see, when you're out with friends on a trip or a night/day out, chances are that you will be more occupied with taking pictures of all the moments to upload on facebook than actually enjoying the time out or the company of our friends. When you get home, very carefully prepared adverts of the camera you're using the pictures await you on the television.
Two, Instead of speaking to somebody in a night club or bar, some marketing agency has done that for you. The club hoists its advert on the web and tells prospective patrons of the day that today they have a ladies night and therefore whoever is coming to the theme night needs no company. The advert will also give you pick up lines once you get inside the club, a prospective target for your advances would also have been propped up on what to expect. And so as you dance your way to the object of your desire on the dance floor or counter, everybody in the body club can tell what you're up to. The feeling between hunter and prey is amicable. It is possible that when you go dancing these days you'll end up between the legs and arms of someone whose name you don't even know and most certainly know nothing about other than the fact that your sexual appetite is at an all time low!
When you wake up the next morning, both of you are more concerned with where you dropped your pants and running away from each other's space as fast as you can. You get on the bus or train to your home early in the morning as if you worked the night shift the previous night. As you ride to your place you don't want any eye contact with a person seated next to you on the train or bus. After all he/she is from home to their job wand they're fresh for a new day while you're on the way to your home from your away romp and after a quick shower then to your work. You will report to work late on a monday and therefore start the week on a sour note and most probably end it that way. A life of stress, you'll spend the entire week watching watching adverts on how to fight stress and the any medicines to fight it.
The internet-which upon its creation in the late 1980s was said to make life so simple has instead complicated it and created machines out of human beings, robots. WE are tasteful,lazy, suspicious and choosy bunch, full of fear, uncreative and many assumptions about the person seated next to us on the bus and the cafe. Like the creation of our hands and minds, the internet has made human beings of our generation into commodities, especially the ones living in the west. But with the launching of the EASSY marine cable network in East and South Africa last week, even Africans are going this way soon.
As you head to your apartment in the morning after a night in the club and sleeping over at somebody's place-who picked you up in the club-you're torn between two worlds. On one hand you're happy that you were conquered and so will be planning on what to wear or say next time you're out so as to appear a more successful candidate to be picked up. As a result you will spend most of your time browsing askmen.com or Ivillage.com.
On the other hand you're regretting within, how cheap have you become? You're not much different from a prostitute, a gigolo, there's a price tag on your head. You're predictable,. You are a piece of auction, open to the highest bidder. While these things are taking place in your head, you don't somebody to speak to you. Once one actually does speak to you, you'll react like a bomb has dropped on your head! You're a machine, you're programmed. The internet has made us distrust ourselves so much and made us become best friends with computers than fellow human beings. Your computer can give you directions to where you're going without asking for directions, get you a boyfriend/girlffriend, your ideal restaurant and even get you a job. On top of this it can help you to order medicines from the pharmacy and doctor to heal whatever illnesses you secretly surfer from. What's the need of having people around you? In case you need any type of contact, the computer will connect you to a local pet shop where you'll order for a dog, duck, bird and cat. While we are still at it, you can go to the nearest endoscopy and fertility clinic to have a baby. Everything done on the internet.
In their method of control against the spread of STDs and abortion, the Catholic Church has been busy campaigning against stem cells development, cloning and condoms -in the process denying many of us in Sub Saharan Africa that grew up in the late 90s the opportunity to indulge in the blessings of youth for fear of STDs and pregnancies-but the Vatican has not addressed the real dangers of ICT to this generation.
The world today is fighting its most important battle as a result of the collapse of the credit economy and financial institutions. The credit crunch happened because people in Europe and North America switched on their computers, saw figures that were calculated by computers believed them bought shares that were not existent. Invested in projects that never really existed and ended up being fleeced by unscrupulous banks and investment agencies. Most of the transactions that led to the collapse of the world's financial set up took place in the comfort of their homes. On their computers.
The collapse of the international economy which happened as a result of ICT access to people that did not deserve or misused it has not been condemned by the Vatican. The Vatican is concerned only with its dogma than the realities of a changing world. As a result of this crisis immigrants in South Africa, Europe, North America and Japan are denied a chance to access services and jobs. Some have even been killed as they're a threat to employment opportunities and other services.
But the fear is not only to immigrants, citizens of the western world are have given up their rights to finding partners with whom to share their time and good life to the internet. Cue e harmony.
Coming soon. e Harmony>>>>>>
dating in the west is done on the computer-it is very easy to find someone to have sexual intercourse with and the next day each party acts as strangers
Internet dating conference due in September in London
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