Building an informed Africa: time to act

“Information technology has created paths for development that are not affected by distance or geography. Africa stand up and show the world that you are worth it. Speak out AFRICA, silence is a betrayal.”

In any setting, the most knowledgeable individuals remain the most dominant and powerful over their counterparts. Being more informed gives them the mandate to dictate terms to the less informed, to the point of undermining their abilities in all aspects of life. That is where Africa is located today, we have been called third world countries, underdeveloped and we appreciate that denomination. Wouldn’t there be anything superior coming from Africa and telling the world that we are the same?

Because we are less informed and we don’t even give a fuck about that condition, I fear that we will stay like this forever. We have been brainwashed by the more informed into an unguided understanding that prosperity depends on where you are, rather than who you are and what you can do in whatever environment you find yourself in.

We Africans have come to believe that our countries are dry lands infested with poverty, HIV/AIDS, unemployment and every other inhumane way we can imagine. Imagine an African leaving his country for the Western world assuming that he is looking for greener pastures. Having acquired a decent education in Africa with government loans and grants, the African child still feels that the government’s investment was made for the Western world.

The key issue here is: there is a gap that needs to be closed in Africa. The opening is so big that it takes a lot of strength to conquer it. Since dynamite comes in small packages, I still believe a few inspired hands will make all the difference. I hope and believe that since Africans in the diaspora have access to information, they will also play a critical role in bridging the information gap. The story line here is not to be picky about ICT, computers and everything that follows. ICT initiatives have just arrived at the right time as the savior of Africa.

There is talk throughout the NGO network in the Western world about launching ICT initiatives in Africa. African governments are also talking about the same phenomena, electronic commerce, electronic government, legislation, etc. While I salute those who are striving to establish telecentres, Internet cafes, business centers, Internet connections and other support services, I have a strong feeling that this will not be the blanket solution to Africa’s problems.

Here the important thing that we are turning a blind eye to is the self in ICT and IT. The name of this technology has been qualified over and over again, but the only word that has stuck is INFORMATION.

Now, what is information and why should it matter at this point? Why all this hype about ICT projects? In recent years I have seen more ICT-focused business proposals than any other business venture. Along the way I have also written my ICT business proposal which has worked well. All the cyber cafes I have worked in were new centers and more and more are still opening.

In my introduction above, you can see how information is a very important part of our livelihood. The reason Africans are leaving their roots en masse is because they have HEARD (of course they are well informed) about greener pastures. That same voice that delivered the message of greener pastures should also have preached to Africans that these pastures are in our heads, not outside of it.

As Africans, we seem to lack inspiration in everything we do. That’s why when a family member gets rich, we try to link his fortune to some long-dead grandparent that he was a landlord of some kind.

Take a look at how information inspires people, the oral tradition told throughout the Shona people about the predictions of a spirit medium inspired Zimbabweans to go to war against the Rhodesian regime.

Now, because there is a lot of information about inventors, innovators, and explorers in the Western world, people there have a lot of information to inspire them. You would obviously venture into something because you have seen or heard of it somewhere else. So today our Africa needs to be inspired and motivated, the only way is to feed them with the right information.

We are also inspired by our brothers and sisters who have made it here and some abroad, and such information should reach the minds of African children now. If you want to see how information is a key factor, see how many countries survive without information ministries. Information is power and should be respected as such. A well-informed generation is the generation needed to bring Africa into this emerging knowledge economy.

I believe that with internet access all over the plains of sub-Saharan Africa and across the continent, this is the right time for African intellectuals to start building online content/information banks for Africa. The challenge is both for Africans in the diaspora (who now know that we cannot live without information) and for the geniuses around to pioneer the aggressive dissemination of information via the Internet.

The more people are informed, the more confident they will be in what they are doing. Being well-informed builds trust and therefore knowledge, and obviously knowledge is power, as we all know (the informed few know). Those who have knowledge have power and that number is really very small.

Let us Africans be educated, believe in ourselves and master the knowledge-driven economy. Our natural resources have not yet been depleted by multimedia and we need to show it to the world. We need to show the world that we can make the world better than dying trying to impress someone. It is time for Africa to realize that we can no longer feed ourselves from the ground but take our position at the table.

How are we going to control our destiny at world conferences when all we can do is beg for a reduction in our debts and even cry out for more help? Why can’t we use the advantage of these ICT initiatives to develop our own products and stop fattening Western pockets? One writer concluded that there were more Mercedes-Benz cars in Africa than in Germany itself. Imagine that every minister in an African government is supposed to have the latest model Mercedes-Benz.

It seems that Africa is the market for the western world when, in effect, the same donor money that we use for their goods is the same that they give us for initiatives driven by poverty and HIV/AIDS. By the way, have you ever tried to check what cars our NGO brothers drive? They simply reinvest donor money in Western powers.

In other words, the most lucrative business to own and run in Africa today is an NGO. We have the scapegoat to use in that case to drain money from Western sympathizers. Tell them about our politics, HIV/AIDS, poverty and obviously you will divert a lot of money and resources from that side.

Africa, how long are we going to survive in other people’s pockets? How long are we going to be dumping ground for used western clothing, dumping ground for used cars? Information technology creates a way to develop and license our intellectual rights and Africa, this is your chance.

Look at what all well educated nations are doing. Perhaps Africa is because we have allowed ourselves to be a religious garbage dump? Malaysians believe in themselves and are very devout in their religions and this has led them to build a large economic base based on knowledge. The same applies also to India and other Asian states that are making it.

Get informed Africa, get informed sons and daughters of Africa. Get up and shine Africa because your light has come, get up with one voice and tell the world that now is your turn. Imagine how proud the Western world is to discover Victoria Falls when, in essence, there were already people in Africa who knew about it all along.

It is good that we are realizing that we need information. So the ball is in our court whether to remain servants or create online consumable information centers for our fellow Africans. My advice is that when you find time to chat in a Western chat room, why not make that time conducive to indexing information about Africa on the Internet?

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who matter don’t care and those who care don’t matter.”