Types of African cheese.

Ivory Coast – Wagashi 

Cameroon – Peuhl Cheese 

Ghana – Wagashi 

Senegal – Lben Cheese 

Rwanda – Ikivuguto Cheese 

Xenophobia & the King's Speech.

I'm very much a Pan-Africanist, I believe in Africa making strategic alliances to increase economy, infrastructure & security. But I also do not believe in unity for the sake of unity because that just causes contempt. 

Now, South Africa is known to be xenophobic. This is because some people are defensive of the economy. The old "foreigners occupying space meant for locals" story. Which is mostly true in South Africa, easier jobs are easier to obtain for foreigners & foreigners cost less & are less likely to complain or be part of a worker's union so they cost employers less. But as much as foreign labour is good for employers, they're not always good for locals. Recently, there were news that foreigners are selling expired & toxic goods at their spaza (tuck) shops. I've lived in townships & have seen the local spaza shop economy replaced by foreigners & this is because our people were simply not competitive enough at times. Somalian foreigners obtain bulk savings by bringing their money together to get discounts & deals direct from producers of products. Foreigners even manufacture some of their own products to sell at their shops. And, sadly, we've even heard of cases of foreigners bullying local shop owners out of business. Some foreigners in South Africa are, genuinely, breaking the law with their businesses but it's laws that are not reported by South Africans themselves because many South Africans dislike authority. So both South Africans & foreigners end up being quietly lawbreakers because nobody wants to report illegal activity. 

Now, I've already blogged about the unchecked migration of people into South Africa. But who is in charge of this? Who is in charge of Home Affairs, migration & border security? Why is everyone but the people responsible talking? And the people talking are not reporting to authorities or to the people responsible for the mass illegal immigration & human trafficking in South Africa. You'd think the people in charge of Home Affairs, migration & border security don't care or want illegal immigrants in South Africa. 

The King's Speech: 

I watched a film called The King's Speech once, starring Colin Firth & he played King George IV of England. A king who had a problem of stuttering & through going to a speech therapist, this King of England eventually learnt how to speak without stuttering. We do not have such a problem in South Africa but we do have a Zulu king who speaks "off-the-cuff" & is taken too literally at times by South African media. 

South African media needs you to be very specific on what you mean while being politically correct & that is a very difficult thing to do on-the-spot. As a public figure or traditional leader, you simply need a speech written for public events because some paid journalists & people with agendas will turn light words into a serious matter. 

I'm not really that xenophobic but do believe immigrants should enter a country legally & contribute positively to the land they're allowed into. Hopefully, the people in charge of the systems controlling immigration into South Africa explain what's happening or people in South Africa may get rowdy (as they're known to do) & attack foreigners indiscriminate of whether they are legal or illegal. 

A few political quotes...

"Sovereignty is the absolute & perpetual power of a commonwealth, which the Latins call 'Maiestas'; the Greeks 'Akra Exouisia', 'Kurion Arche' & 'Kurion Politeuma; & the Italians 'Segnioria'... while the Hebrews call it 'Tomech Hévet' - that is the highest power of command..." 

Jean Bodin (1576) 

"Our people are like children, who would never of their own accord decide to learn, who would never take up the alphabet without being compelled to do so by their teacher, who would at first feel despondent. But later, when they have finished their studies, they are grateful for having been made to go through them. This is evident today: has not everything been achieved under constraint? Yet now one hears gratitude for much that has already borne fruit." 

Peter the Great (1723) 

"A survey of all states in the world will show that those states which undertook reforms became strong while those states which clung to the past perished. The consequences of clinging to the past & the effects of opening up new ways are thus obvious. If Your Majesty, with your discerning brilliance, observes the trends in other countries, you will see that we can change, we can preserve ourselves, but if we cannot change, we shall perish." 

K'ang Yu-wei, Confucian reformer 

(Memorial to the imperial throne, submitted 29 January 1898) 

"No people ever die, nor stop short upon their path, before they have achieved the ultimate aim of their existence." 

Unknown 

"We estimate that if the seven billion people of the year 2000 have a GNP per capita as high as that of present-day Americans, the total pollution load on the environment would be at least ten times its present value. Can the Earth's natural systems support an intrusion of that magnitude? We have no idea." 

Club of Rome (The Limits to Growth 1972) 

Revolutionary Quotes

Quotes (IsiZulu)

Why Africa seems to lag so behind when compared to the rest of the world.

I've always felt that Africa is given an unfair spotlight in certain fields, primarily technology & quality of life. The thing is, technology is often made in one part of the world then spreads across the region before spreading worldwide. While the wheel is commonplace today, it was made in Persia before spreading across the world. Austronesians, Australasians, trans-Saharan Africans & Native American tribes did not use the wheel until they learnt the technology from someone else. This goes for other technologies such as the firearm & electricity. In fact, neither the wheel, electricity or the firearm were invented or discovered in Europe. These three essential technologies of the modern world were all Asian. Technology spreads depending on it's usefulness. 

Why we did not develop our own technology in Africa despite seeing it from other peoples is because in sub-Saharan Africa we rejected a lot of developments due to simple complacency among other things. We almost didn't believe anything was greater than our way of life. Some African nations called the gun, the "coward's weapon" just to show how disdainful Africans were of Western technology. So even if we did see many modern technologies on journeys & from colonisers, we didn't think that they were better than our way of life on most occasions & technologies we saw as better or superior, we - obviously - quickly adopted. This was the southeast African mentality. 

I can quote two lectures online of people more educated than myself on why Africa didn't develop the same technologies that Eurasia managed to develop, one cites simple geography & the other cites modern misunderstandings of ancient Africa but I'm going to note that culture & the accepted ideas of a given people played a role in many African nations remaining unaccepting of foreign technology. In some regions, colonisers might have caused so much damage that anything they came up with from their clothes, food & technology may have been rejected. It was not lack of intellectual capacity that made Africa lag behind Europe & Asia but more culture, environment & geography coming together to prevent the adoption of new technologies. 

The quality of life in Africa correlates with our experiences; Africa is a large, hot, hostile continent... we have the common idea that possessions are not permanent so we often didn't bother in making non-permanent items, especially in southeast Africa. This was the same for Australasians & Native Americans as well. The only reason it seems like the southern African way of life is unique & exotic may be simply due to our skin colour. There is no other way to put it because on other continents they lived lifestyles that focused less on possessions as well. There are "uncontacted tribes" today in modern America & Asia who have not discovered the wheel & might be considered less developed than most African countries. 

Despite all this; the destabilisation of our nations, way of life & hostile environments - Africa has made a lot of contributions towards the development of the modern world. Comparing African countries to China by claiming that China was one of the poorest countries in the world thirty years ago works in humiliating Africa. Sure. But putting into context that China's massive population shares one language & national ideal while Africa's nations were forced into ethnic conflicts through European-made national borders & dealt with unfair deals in terms of land & mining since the 1800s will make you understand that China had a sociocultural advantage & was given a further economic advantage when the world (i. e. USA & associates) made China a giant manufacturing plant. There's no reason an African nation focused on agriculture, shelter, industry & defence couldn't be successful even if that African nation never reaches the heights of China & Europe. 

Our quality of life in Africa needs to be a priority or we'll forever be just the struggling, malnourished, corrupt Dark Continent. We cannot compare ourselves to other continents when we were clearly dealt a different set of cards. 

AFRICAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE MODERN WORLD 

The price we pay for Africa's development.

Why consensus in a language & identity is important in a land...

I spend some of my time studying human nature. Partly to make up for the time I was accepted to do a Sociology degree but chose to go to another university. I often study other countries concept of national unity compared to South Africa's lived reality. We have two realities in South Africa each trying to enforce their way of life as the truth. One group of people believes in a decolonised land & one believes the "natives" are savages to be tamed. This is the simple truth, a bipolarised land with no identity consensus. Anything else; crime, poverty, racism, tribalism, inequality & even some corruption are a byproduct of this underlying conflict.

We have to ask why is it that the most multiracial & multicultural countries are the most racist & tribalist. While most monocultural ethnostates, simply get things done. This is especially pertinent to Africa because we're not like Europe & Asia, our concept of nationhood was stripped away in the 1800s. The most common type of state historically & most successful type of state today is the single language nation-state. Yet, somehow, modern-day Africa did not get this memo. 

Unfortunately, in many cases where there is exteme nationalism or "rabid nationalism" as it is sometimes called, we get bouts of ethnic cleansing. This is unfortunately often a bloody process which I think could be fast-tracked by a better process of amicable deportation, making less enemies while freeing a people from an imposing group. Amicable deportation can even involve swopping of non grata population groups among countries to solve problems on two fronts. 

A monocultural ethnostate can most definitely accommodate minorities, we see this all the time worldwide but it is the native majority that is the accepted creators of the national identity not the minorities. If minorities are not imposing, discrimination of them is less likely to occur. This is simple human nature & requires no degree to comprehend. 

Language unity goes a long way in expressing ideas within the land, this alone causes the unity required for a land to move forward without implementing further unifying measures like standardised national education. 

National Unity