The Asian miracle of the 1980s could have been the African miracle. Instead the 1980s were Africa’s catastrophe. Up to the 70s most African nations did not depend on foreign aid, it has now become a necessity! How does a nation move forward when more than 50% of its budget comes from Western and Chinese donors with political and economical strings attached?  For most nations, including Ghana, there’s no way out of the labyrinth. So what has gone wrong?

We do indeed have issues. Unfortunately Africans don’t know anything about our own  identity and why we arrived at in our predicament. We seem to be fleeing away from Africa; we are lost! In our mad scrambled for Western materialism we have collapsed Africa and the madness continues.  We do this through high living by a minority of political leaders…building the biggest church in the world would cost Ivory Coast 300million in 1980s…what for? In that same period Ghanaian ministers would have golden beds made for them, Mobutu, would drink pink champagne every day and hire a Concorde to fly his family to New York to go shopping. By the way, the guy died richer than his country as a president. Where’s the money? Sitting in untraceable foreign accounts!

Meanwhile, the government’s cash box would become empty. Ironically, these madmen we had as leaders (and some we still have) across Africa would forget to do the most fundamental thing in today’s world: investing in Africa’s human development. At the time most of our leaders were semi-literates, they innocently were ignorant of the fact Africa’s greatest resources were its people and not the vast material and natural resources the land possessed. They weren’t aware the potential human resources are useless without the knowledge to make them serve our needs without giving them away to finance their greed, wars and stupidity.

Whilst they were busy enriching themselves with diminishing resources, the masses were left to grow in ignorance. It never occurred to them that the colonialists (British,French, Portuguese) had left behind states without any sense of nationhood and that it was up to them to create this spirit by investing in the people aiming for unified nationhoods and economical progress. This failure would give us outrageous and demonic wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo and Rwanda. Wars that would destroy centuries of what a country had built. I dare not  talk about the psychological impact on the children that were turned into soldiers to kill, loot and rape at will.

All along uneducated soldiers were killing their boredom with series Coup d’état. As a result, generations of African children and youth would never recognize their potentials and live up to them, growing up to be ignorant, incompetent and/or corrupt. I hope by now that we do not have a hard time explaining why Africa, sadly, is worse now than in the 1970′s. And I believe it would turn out even worse unless the right measures are put into place now. Africa depends heavily on foreign aids but the total amount is nothing compared to the amount Africans in diaspora send through international money transfers like Western Union and Money Gram.How many young people in Ghana would have never been to school if it weren’t  for the help of parents or other family members remitting money home? How many of our grandparents would have been dead by  if their children weren’t struggling in foreign countries to take care of them? Do I need to go on with the questioning?

But what happens when the generation that left home in 1980s start going back home leaving children behind in UK, USA, Canada and Germany who don’t have that sense of sending money back home to distant family members they don’t even know? Three days ago, I talked to a Kenyan friend who during a meeting with the Vice President of Kenya informed him about the pains of living outside and a desire to return home. The Vice President told her it isn’t advisable to come home because Kenya wouldn’t survive without the money they send home.  I guess that it is this money that goes directly to family members that enable enough people to blind themselves to the incompetence and negligence of our leaders.   Who would exchange his country for a foreign land if his country afforded him the means of living a decent and happy life?

Africans must rise and develop Africa but we can only do so after taking note of where and what we went wrong. In Africa; Altered States, Ordinary Miracles, Richard Dowden, observed in 1970s, Ugandans (Africa) had a pretty good way of life and that it was stupid to throw it all away in a mad scramble for Western materialism. He warned that our wrong definition of development by indiscriminately craving for Western lifestyle at the expense of rejecting African culture and investing in Africa mind with long term benefits would have regrettable consequences.  He noted that at the rate our economies were developing, Africans would take decades to provide a Western lifestyle for more than a tiny minority. Our leaders were blindly spending beyond our means and each year, our development regresses.

Ghana, the first African state to gain independence would go bankrupt within eight years if foreign aid was to end. Regrettably Africans are still not equipped to compete in today’s economy. All because our leaders 20-60 years ago never cared or were too ignorant to invest in our minds. Sadly, our leaders haven’t learned from this erroneous enterprise They continue to sell us the idea of rapid development whilst repeating the same mistake; meaning Africans 20-50 years from now would still have to travel with the hope and illusion of securing a better life or become beggars in our homelands serving the interest of China.

During the 18 years after Independence Ghana would venture a series of false needs that would deplete our resources, leaving a vacuum at the bottom. In 1978, Ghana would waste billions on her health system doubling her health workers and facilities from which only the top 20% of the population would receive any benefit. 90% of Ghanaians, who working in rural areas, produced the country’s principal exports and source of wealth would go home with empty pockets. At the same time South Korea was  diminishing illiteracy in its country.  I don’t have any training in the health sector but I know the top health problems (malaria, cholera, malnutrition, etc.) are all preventive illnesses and we needn’t spend billions of  Cedis on people for anything other than hospital work.   Yet the same madness and false needs continue. Billions are wasted on the modernisation of the capital city when the majority of Ghanaians live outside Accra and all parents struggle to put their children (the future of Ghana) through schools. Does anybody benefit from the government of Ghana when it comes to obtaining good education? And yet our alliance-for-promoting-our-selfish-interest-parliament think its members could need more honors and increase in salary.  Who needs a city looking as splendid as Dubai when a great majority of its inhabitants are  ignorant, and ill-equipped for tomorrow’s world?  Oh Africa, is there hope?

After his studies in fashion Design and textiles at Ho polytechnic, Douglas thought it was time to put his studies and passion into practice. His carrier began in 2003 as a professional make-up artist with Ghana Television (GTV).

Three years into his carrier, he felt he needed a more challenging role hence he embraced an offer as a Wardrobe Executive and a senior Make-up Artist with Metro TV. In the same year he founded a make-up and fashion company called Sadion FX Make-up/ Fashion. He built his portfolio with Sadion FX Make-up/ Fashion as a make-up artist.

Douglas, one of Ghana’s few male make-up artists, says with extensive experience in the fashion and beauty world he feels proud of the profession he has chosen. Having worked with editorial and high profile private clients, Douglas now concentrates on commercial shoots, wedding, special effect (FX), film, runway, models make-up etc. He has developed a reputation for flawless skin work and the ability to add colour perfectly to enhance his client’s best features. His in depth understanding of colour theory has played an important role in his success and equally comfortable creating flawless minimal looks as in creating exciting dramatic haute couture looks. He has worked very closely with each of his client’s skin tones by adding colour to enhance beauty and toning down colour where it is required.

Douglas says if you want to become a fashion make-up artist, you’ll have to focus on trendy looks. Fashion is all about clothing, accessories and even make-up being in style. More than that though, you also have to be original; as fashion designers have one-of-a-kind creations to display, their models’ make-up must coordinate with the designs in a unique way. Understanding how to apply make-up on people of different skin types and colours is also crucial.

Douglas Sappor future plans is to create a  a fashion and make up line. Visit Sadion FX The world fashion & Make-up @ Website: www.sadionfx.page.tl and See his make-up and beauty blog for a natural, flawless and professional finish.
Come with me to www.facebook.com/sadionfxgh

Douglas will be our lifestyle expert providing advise to our readers on all things related to beauty, fashion and lifestyle.  Send your questions to kate@feintandmargin.com subject heading lifestyle question.

The DASO advert has hopefully marked the final homecoming of white youth to the motherland. Before the DASO advert that went viral on twitter in January, DA youth were understood to be non-existent by the general public. However the DASO advert that showed a naked white male embracing a naked black female caused an uproar on the social networks. It was loved by some, criticised by many. It sparked enormous debate with others saying “@africasaCountry 20 years later the DA woke up and found the immorality act was no more.”  Of course I am not naïve the first person to post the DASO advert on twitter was a DA black youth however on twitter we heard the young white voices debating politics at long last.

Much has been said about the advert. I said a lot myself all disapproving mostly of the nudity but in general really shocked that this advert is 20 years late to say the least. I would like to applaud DA youth for being so stupidly brilliant. Stupid because after all the DA’s racism denialism they came up with an advert that exposes the very issue only weeks before their leader had flatly denied, many times. It all began on twitter once again when Lindiwe Shuttle-Mabuza had written that black people were second class citizens in Cape Town it did not matter if they were celebrities. Helen Zille responded denying that racism was an issue despite the fact that people were sharing their experiences of racism with her. This kind of denial is often found among white liberals. I have since been convinced that there is a school of racism-denial in the camps of white liberals where the teaching is “just do it and deny”. It keeps racism alive and it is never dealt with. This is why I think the DASO advert was so brilliant. They confronted the racism. A much needed confrontation from the very party that denied its existence. Black and white people were unhappy because it was sexual but others were unimpressed that DASO mixed black and white. Black men were upset that they used a black woman. It became ugly at times as people felt that the advert proved that the DA undermined the country’s real needs such as economic equality.  The worst comment must go to Trevor Noah who wrote: “It’s not as though they used a black man and a white woman.” How would it have made it better or worse?

However this drama took a day, no, it took seconds on twitter to discover that the DA did after all have an active student body DASO.  This begs the ancient question “Can a nation be born in a day? Are we living in the days where that is possible? What took years to happen in decades past and even a year ago can happen in split seconds now. Can the landscape of a country be changed at a mere click of a cell phone? Perhaps it has never been easier to reach people. It has also never been more possible for people of different backgrounds to finally have a conversation about matters they have only discussed in braais among people like themselves. Even though much can be said about the longevity of social network impact, if something happens that fast, it may be forgotten as quickly. It can be argued that Justine Bieber has not gone away. He was discovered on social networks. Could it be that one day, one second away we could have a brand new leader emerge from our country and go viral in just a moment away? As for South Africa’s white youth don’t disappear. Next time shock us with solutions about land redistribution. The ANCYL have suffered from lack of competition. We have suffered from listening to a one-sided-show. It is time for various kinds of debates to bring a new spark to the land of the young. Say something, even if it seems stupid, it maybe stupidly brilliant.

The concept itself has various definitions which are all to some extent inextricably linked. According to Prof Makhanya, “Africanisation means acknowledging and introducing knowledge systems that are rooted in and relevant to Africa next to other knowledge systems in the quest to discover, explain and produce knowledge.”

Prof Barney Pityana defines Africanisation as, “an African system of knowledge production and a generation of ideas that intentionally engages itself and other systems based on African epistemologies which affirm the relevance of learning from experiences, languages, symbols and communities.”

The African philosopher M.B Ramose defines Africanisation as, “a thought world enveloped in African idiom and symbols, recognition of a diversity of ways of knowledge and alternative epistemologies and a variety of ways of learning and understanding the world of experience and of constructing a future.”

Of the three definitions, the one I liked best, was Prof Makhanya’s definition, because it posits the quest for Africanisation within its rightful global context and endeavours to show how Africa and Africans can use knowledge production systems that are unique to them to contribute to the development of the human race as a whole, and not just that of the African. In other words, the goal of Africanisation, is to become contextually and globally relevant whilst also becoming more innovative in order to solve the problems that face the world.

Contrary to what has become popular amongst contemporary African so-called scholars and intellectuals, Africanisation does not imply simply replacing a Western approach by an African paradigm. To promote Africanisation also involves being willing to venture beyond our local contexts; being creative, imaginative and attentive to not just Africa’s, but the world’s future as well.

It entails  the centering of Africa and African intellectual thoughts, knowledge systems, epistemologies, innovations and technologies whilst not neglecting understanding and learning from the knowledge systems, philosophies, epistemologies and insights that derive from other contexts, regions or the broad global community. Africanisation is under-girded and framed by endogenous expressions of indigenous knowledge to the extent that they assume an ascendancy in Africa and ultimately take their rightful place as equals, amongst the canons of the rest of the world.

The call to Africanise entails balancing contextual relevancy with global impact. It is about the African making his contribution to the betterment of humanity at a global level, whilst not neglecting his local context and its rich intellectual heritage and potentialities. Africanisation is key to the development of humanity within a globalised context because it is all about promoting African thought, philosophies, interests and epistemologies as relevant in solving critical global challenges.

Africanisation is not about romanticising Africa, African history, African cultures, its peoples etc. It is not about opposition to Western/European thought and traditions as some would mistakenly interpret it to be. It does not mean a lack of engagement with other knowledge systems , but rather calls for an awareness of the location of the production of knowledge in Africa. Africanisation is about improving our ability to innovate as a continent  and apply research and other skills and methodologies to address not just the critical needs of Africa but of the world as a whole.

It is thus clearly obvious that Africanisation is integral to the development of humanity because it is not about being parochial and closed-minded but rather giving the African the ability, the opportunity and the wherewithal to make his contribution to the improvement of humanity at large.

In short, the call to Africanise can be summarised in the ideals of the deconstructive philosophy of Negritude which was pioneered by great African thinkers such as Aime Cesaire  and Leopold Senghor, “we Africans need to know the meaning of an idea, to be able to choose it and believe in it freely , and out of a sense of personal necessity, to relate it to the life of the world. We should occupy ourselves with present questions  of world importance, and, in  common with others , ponder upon them in order that we might   one day find  ourselves among the creators of a new order.” In the end, at its heart, Africanisation is fundamental and necessary in a globalised world, because it ultimately aims at the creation of a “new world order” which will be kinder and more accommodating to all its peoples.

I espoused it

even above the offspring of success

while I lusted cheaply

after black sisters in mini skirts

desired a little bit of fame

took charge and purchased some delight

sitting on the hype of this game

my existence knew no shame

as I placed my dignity on sale

and borrowed the support

of friends who did same

I tried fashion

smoking and a little bit of booze

was all over the nuuz

felt like I owned the time

and treated almost everything

as though the worlds booty was mine

made love to sophistication

and won a spot on an overly publicized TV commercial

wanted a goddess for a wife

dreamt of platinum all my life

I envisaged an existence

five star and beyond

when amidst fancied memories

I crafted for myself an imaginative bond

had a high regard for Puerto Rican ladies

Imagined our Ghanaian sweeties

in their twenties

secretly, I searched

but inwardly, I felt empty

Where am I-

that I cannot be cheese of happiness and success

Where am I?

Where am I-

that I cannot  stand against this defenseless storm

of reflexes and illusions

Where am I?

Where am I-

in diffused billow smoke roll

Where am I?

that I hardly feel the warmth of trees and hear the buzz of bees

but sneeze of “Etsie”, and deep sighs of hmmm…

Where am I?

Why am I-

soaked in misery at day and hopelessness at night,

unlike where I aged,

the haven of Eden and Adam

Where am I?

Who am I-

that I sob in tears

and call for manna to grease my fears

Where am I?

Of different colors and distorted thoughts

screwed with threats of daggers and bullets

scared of brutalities and tease of inequality

But I opine,

“We are hybrids of one royal blood, and angelic cells”.

Why am I?

messaging that we are no island, but one people

Where am I?

A world of sand in disguise and atrocities

Is where I surely am

But I ask? “To whom does this land of sand belong?”

that a million children die a day

of starvation, tsunamis and wars.

To whom?

Let bygones be bygones

and allow the past to mend its own wounds

To whom do we surrender these shames?

Again, let bygones be bygones

and with a strive of iconic breath and common heart,

we can create a Paradise of our own,

‘Coz a heart saved, is a soul won.

To whom, and where?

Let bygones be bygones

And,

with a renewal of our art

we can pat each one at the back

and smile to the natural serenity we uphold

by creating a home for all

through silence, to a call to “Peace”,

and love for “Humanity”.

Four pairs of eyes and two flash lights were good enough to see through the dark and brought us behind Papa Atta’s wall, where we were sure the hen coop was situated.
Having successfully completed all of our other operations without being spotted, boosted our morale and made us confident that we would definitely get away with that.

K. B was the first to jump and he made a clear landing, avoiding ears and attention. B-Duke was next and he also made a clean landing. One person was to wait behind the wall with the sack so he loads it with the roosters that we would be passing over. Gabby volunteered, so I also jumped into Papa Atta’s compound.

Our search was for roosters, since our intention was to prepare jollof rice with them. But the roosters had been avoiding their coop and were sleeping on a tree which stood over the coop.
Our flash lights caught sight of what we all believed was the biggest of Papa Atta’s roosters also asleep on the tree.

I warned them that we should let that particular rooster be, since Papa Atta would definitely have eyes for the rooster and probably had plans for it as we were nearing Easter. But K.B seemed to have had his own plans for it and swore that he was going nowhere without that rooster.

We made a clean catch of two roosters, grabbing them by the necks and preventing them from crowing for help. All they could do was to struggle,  the other roosters were fast asleep to be startled.

It had rained earlier and the air was cold. The birds seemed to be enjoying their sleep. We were surprised to see that the biggest rooster we had our eye on was alarmed by the struggle the second rooster we grabbed was making.

The biggest rooster started jumping from one branch to the other, going upwards and away from our reach. K.B decided to climb the tree and go after it since I had the second rooster in my hand and B-Duke also had the first one.

“K.B, make you bone that rooster, we go fit grab two more take replace am, wey we go get more chicken pass what that rooster sef go provide.” I asked K.B, to leave the big rooster alone, so we could grab two more in replacement, hoping that he will give up and back off.
I felt uneasy as I was very  aware that K.B’s profound ambition and interest in that particular rooster could get us caught, but he was not ready to let that rooster be.

I decided to climb up as well and help K.B grab that rooster, since I knew for certain that K.B would never leave without it. I therefore turned the rooster I had in my grip’s head into its wings and it slept peacefully. A little knowledge I obtained when I went to visit my grandfather in the village.

The big rooster was stubborn, as if told to do so, it kept climbing upwards and upwards until it was out of reach.

“Who ask you say come join me for here?” K.B asked why I joined him up on the tree in anger. “Then I get everything under control. Like you for no dey join me for here.” He further reprimanded me for joining him up there.

“Did I make any noise in joining you? I only thought I could help, but it turns out this rooster is not ready to be stolen. There will be more chances and more operations to undertake when this rooster can be dealt with. But for now, we can grab two more  and leave before we get caught.” I told K.B in a pleading tone.

“I get plans give this rooster. Like we go take make separate pepper soup wey we go enjoy am alongside the gallon of fresh palm wine my grandmother take come from the village, to sell at the big market,” K.B made known his plans; what he would have used the big rooster for. He whined on, almost in tears

“You have plans for your grandmother’s palm wine? Chale the old woman go die oo. Remember she has not recovered from the debt our other operation cost her?”

“Ah, and who cares? ‘Dead body no dey pay money.’ When she dies, the profitable thing I go get be say I go have the house all to myself, wey her debt go cancel.”

We burst out into laughter, forgetting that we were not supposed to be where we were and laughing out loud could get us caught and beaten before taken to the police station.

In the course of our laughter, the light in Papa Atta’s living room turned on. Our laughter ended abruptly, and the fear of Papa Atta crept back into us.

Papa Atta was the only man in the neighbourhood with a double barrel gun. He was an old soldier who was relieved of his duty after using excessive force and use of firearms where it was not needed. Everyone feared him and all the other groups of thieves would not touch anything that belonged to him.

”Turn off the flash lights… Quickly… quickly,” I whispered to B-Duke, who had not yet seen the light in Papa Atta’s sitting room turned on.“Do you think he has a hint that we are here?” I asked K.B, still in a whispering tone.

“Make you keep still. No movements. Hold the roosters tightly, or them go betray our presence,” K.B whispered to B-Duke in a frightened tone, telling him to tighten his grip on the roosters least they betrayed our prescience.

Sweat had started pouring down my body profusely. My face was also buried in sweat, as we all stood stifled and on full alert.

I could hear from beneath the tree that B-Duke had started murmuring words of prayers. Though I could not hear exactly what he was saying, I was sure from subsequent situations, that he was praying one of his ‘Get away and come back no more’ prayers. In such instances, we were always too petrified to laugh at his deed, but we always did so after a successful getaway.

The situation upfront was at its worse, as Papa Atta’s light stayed on. Knowing the consequences of being caught, I saw K.B brush a trail of sweat off his brow and continued to stare, probably hoping that the lights in Papa Atta’s room would turn off and allow us to leave immediately.

After what seemed like eternity, Papa Atta’s light finally went off and we all gave a heavy sigh of relief. But B-Duke was still drowned in his prayers; so deep that I was only able to call him to attention after calling multiple times.

“K.B, we have five roosters in our custody and that is enough chicken for our jollof, and if you still want, the pepper soup we will be using to do justice to your grandmothers gallon of ‘palm wine,’” I said, consoling K.B and hoping he would accept defeat.

“Abua! Akoko!” K.B threw insults towards the rooster at a pace that made me think that I was the one he was talking to, in response to what I told him. “We go definitely come back for you. By hook or by crook, and even if we no fit get the chance to come this close to you, I go make sure say I go stone you to death when I see you around in the neighbourhood.” K.B continued to throw hot words and threats at the rooster.

As soon as K.B was done threatening the rooster, it started to make noise, as if it understood what K.B said and was offended. We all stood, watching the rooster in drop-dead horror, wondering how to appease it and make it silent.

Our horror intensified when Papa Atta’s light turned back on. Our prayers now was that the earth should burst open and swallow us, as we watch Papa Atta open his curtain to see what could have caused the rooster’s noise.

We watched on…

Papa Atta let go of the curtain and it dropped back to its former position. With the lights still on, we saw his shadow creeping slowly into one of the rooms.

“He is going to bring his double barrel gun!” These words blurted out of my mouth without asking permission from my mind.

“Hurry…hurry, make we get out of here” K.B said to us.

I jumped from where I stood on the tree without any concern about whether or not I could get hurt jumping from that height.

B-Duke had long reached the wall where Gabby stood behind waiting with the sack. I waited for K.B to come down. In some few seconds he was standing right beside me on the ground, and to my surprise, he had the big rooster in his grip.

“How did you do it?” I asked in full surprise.

“It’s just one of the things I dey do best. I be more efficient when scared. I go fit make just about anything come to pass when I am scared,” He boasted how he could do anything when he is scared.

“Man, you are real. You be the worse guy in town,” I said, in full praise of him.

“Hurry, make you grab the other roosters let’s go.” K.B asked me to cut the praising and focus on getting out of the den.

Despite our fear, we were determined not to let our labour be in vain and that we still had to get away with some of the roosters.

I had two roosters and K.B was also carrying two. B-Duke made away with only one rooster. When we reached B-Duke at the wall and were all set and ready to jump, we heard a voice ask Gabby from behind the wall,
“Hey boy, what are you doing here at this time of the dawn and with a sack in your hand?”

“I am looking for metal scraps,” Gabby said to the man with a firm and confident tone.

With the tone of voice he used, a man could not ask more questions, but only advise,

“Be careful with where you seek your scraps. Not around Papa Atta’s terrain. You won’t find anything here, and you might not come out alive.”

We heard the man walk by, but just as we were about to jump over the wall, Papa Atta came out of his room with his gun in hand. We had no option but to lay still, flat on the ground. At that point, we all realized that nothing more than B-Duke’s get-away prayers could get us out of the jaws of Papa Atta…

To be continued next week

The problem with this  South African story is that no one wants them there.

The children have never been invited to any birthday parties that their neighbours have thrown for their kids,nor have they been to any parties that their classmates have organised. The neighbours wanted to know if the man was trying to turn “their” neighbourhood into Khayelitsha.  To top it all off, this family has had apartheid style raids conducted on their home, with the police claiming that they are looking for drugs; yet it just so happens that they are the only house where these raids happen. Not only that, they happen during the night when no one else can see (except maybe the neighbours who called them in the first place) and these have taken place more than once.

When sharing this story with some friends, I was informed that  in Port Elizabeth, there is an area where black people find it very hard to buy any property, because it is said that black people bring down the value of such places.

So how does one begin to think about interacting with the white population, especially in the Cape? Many black people have left to go to Johannesburg, because that is a place where a black person can not only find success in their career, but also have better life opportunities that do not seem to exist for black people in Cape Town. Those of us who are left behind try to make a life for ourselves, but it seems all the decks are stacked against us. As much as I try to interact with most white people here, it seems impossible to relate to them at all.

There are some anomalies though, those whites who not only lend a helping hand to try to lift one out of a rut, but also want to know who you are beyond the colour of your skin. Every time I meet up with them or talk to them, they leave me in awe at the idea that they are those who are willing to go beyond their comfort zones and make an effort to reach into a black person’s life. And when they welcome you into their family as if you belonged there, it usually leaves me stunned for the whole time I am with them.

So being black in the Cape seems to be a disadvantage from the start – from shop assistants that don’t give you the light of day except to take your money, to those who still think you can’t afford anything they have when you walk in. As a black person in the Cape I am not treated the same way as a white guy, simply because your financial capability as a black person is judged by your skin colour. But it doesn’t matter how much money I can make, being black means I still will not be accepted in the rich white circles, unless I have shown the slave mentality of trying to please all the members of that group by licking their boots and looking stupid. Only when superiority has been established am I fit to even listen to their conversations, while remaining the token black guy who carries the opinions of all the black people in the country.

Just like during the days of slavery, black people have gained their liberty, but what constitutes freedom is dictated to us by the very whites who oppressed us. We lack an understanding of what freedom really means; we see it as having the same liberties as the white people do, so you see black people buying cars they can’t afford, living off credit to make themselves look good in white people’s eyes and doing everything else that can make black people as white as possible even in their black skins.

And it seems the slavery days will continue for a while to come, because the very white communities that are still discriminating against the blacks are teaching their children the same thing, which is that black people are beneath them. And so racism refuses to die, because behind closed doors, being white is still seen as having might, since the economy is being controlled by rich white people.

Coming back to the original story – what the white affluent neighbours don’t realise is that one day, they will wake up and they will be surrounded by rich, black neighbours. And we all know that most black people don’t live in a big house alone; they will bring loved ones in and truly make their own Khayelitsha.  And for those white people who don’t know what it means, look it up and you will see why it is so appropriate that all oppressed people turn their place of residence into Khayelitsha.

Ethnicity in Africa is often misunderstood. Many people including many contemporary Africans suppose that in the pre-colonial period, Africans lived in groups called ‘tribes’. As such, many assume that virtually all contemporary ethnic groups in Africa are descended from these kinds of ‘tribes’. A tribe is often defined as a ‘a group of people who are descended form common ancestors and ruled by a hereditary ‘chief’ who share a single culture and live in a well-defined geographical area. However, it is usually misleading to speak of modern ethnic groups as ‘tribes’ as such ‘tribes’ rarely exist in today’s contemporary world.

What gives ethnicity a savage edge in Africa and the rest of the underdeveloped world is the way in which the concept is being manipulated by the urban elite, the media populace and politicians. Because national politics dictates the need for people to collaborate with one another to compete for resources, political leaders often mobilize these ethnic groups to create voting blocs or to organize ‘sides’ in civil conflicts. The December 2004 (and December 2008) elections in Ghana serve to illustrate how ethnicity is increasingly becoming a feature of politicking in recent years. During the run-up to the elections, the opposing camps rallied brutally against each other through the media machinery as manifested in the content of the advertisements created by the two opposing blocs. Media men and other high officials also helped in fanning the fumes of ethnicity by giving ethnic or tribal interpretations to serious issues and diverting attention from reality.

Oftentimes, when government appointments are made, high officials are primarily concerned about the tribal origins of the people concerned instead of assessing the ability, competence and moral standards of the appointees. In the early 1970s, Frank Kalimuzo was accused by President Amin of Uganda of being a disloyal Rwandan masquerading as a Ugandan. Kalimuzo was Vice-Chancellor of Makerere University at the time. In reality, he was a Ugandan by birth and ancestry, but he came from an ethnic group in Uganda that were related to the Rwandans. In broad daylight, Kalimuzo was arrested in 1972 by Amin’s soldiers from his home on campus never to be seen again and it was thought that he must have been murdered soon after his arrest. Did he die partly because of his ethnicity? It was not until 1986 that the tide turned and Museveni, ethnically linked to Kalimuzo and to the people of Rwanda captured power in Uganda. Today, countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, India, Pakistan and many underdeveloped nations still bear the scars left by ethnic polarization and ethnic wars.

Nonetheless, the significance of ethnicity in African can be exaggerated. Ethnicity may not always be the basis for political mobilization. Religion, for example, has been important in shaping political loyalties in Nigeria. Islam and Christianity and many other traditional religions are salient to people’s lives in Nigeria, as of course they are in many countries. Islam and Christianity have come to be identified to some degree with the political interests of the north and south of Nigeria respectively, even though many Christians live in the north and about a third of the Yoruba people in the south-west are Muslim. Politics has also been shaped by religion in Sudan, where again, Muslims are concentrated in the North and non-Islamic peoples in the South. The above examples serve to illustrate the fact that issues bordering on religion can also be as divisive as appeals to ethnic loyalty and can contribute significantly to undermining the development of a nation.

The picture is however not so gloomy in the Western world where ethnic talents are exploited to promote health, education and national development. Western political analysts often argue that mature democracies like those of the West do not play on the weaknesses of ethnic groups and rally these same weaknesses against each other in a bid to satisfy their own selfish interests. However, it should not be forgotten that, it wasn’t so long ago that ethnic discord in Bosnia and Herzegovina threatened the survival of the nation. Ethnic divisions in Bosnia prior to the 1992 civil war led to concentrations of Muslims, Croats and Serbs being interspersed throughout the country. By the end of the war in late 1995, nearly all non-Serbs from Serb-claimed lands located primarily in western Bosnia. In general, the political leaders of all groups have engaged in cultural projects aimed at ensuring that ethnic groups regard themselves as inherently different from one another. In reality, since the war, the country has remained divided in 3 ways – among the Muslims, Croats and Serbs – despite international attempts to unit it.

Indeed, some anthropologists, such as the Norwegian, Frederick Barth, have argued that the very idea of ethnicity exists only where there are boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ within a shared social context. Too often, the boundaries we draw around people with different languages, cultures, religions and traditions create an ideal context for the flourishing of ethnicity. We must begin to acknowledge and accept the fact that our individual nations are not blankets woven from one thread, one colour nor one cloth. Our countries are melting pots of numerous cultures and ethnic groups but there is unity in diversity and we must find strength in our differences. In our efforts to foster good governance and to make way for effective constitutional engineering, we must purge our democracies of the threat posed by ethnic and racial cleavages.