The Challenge for Africa Part 3

In “The Challenge for Africa,” Wangari Maathai continues to speak about leadership and how Africans need to believe in and help themselves because no one else will come to help them. She mentions the role played by Western nations in Africa since her independence and how these nations have continued and will continue to spoil African resources as long as possible. She speaks about the organizations such as World Trade Organization (WTO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and how these organizations created by Western powers have only benefitted the West and no one else.

Wangari Maathai continues to talk about leadership and the African culture. She mentions that leadership does not mean that one has money or power but rather it means making the right decisions that will benefit the society at large. However, she realizes that Africa will need a person in power as well to bring people forth and accept that they all can be leaders in their everyday lives. This she believes is the hard step. The current leadership exists only to exploit its own people and has done nothing good. All they seek is to hold power so they can have the money coming into Africa by selling her resources to developed nations. She believes that in order to bring true leadership back, Africa has to go back to its own roots rather than looking at Western cultures and traditions. She mentions how current constitutions of many African nations are based on Western constitutions and laws. Such laws were liked by Europeans because it allowed them to retain control during colonialism; however what this has done in Africa is create laws that allow the same corrupt people to sit in power for over 40 years. What it has also done is remove the idea that leaders should be experienced and knowledgeable, rather today if one wants to be a leader in Africa, they only need to spend money and get in a favorable position with the current regime and they will hold significant power as well.

Wangari Maathai also mentions how the West has spoiled Africa’s resources. Large sums of loans have been given to Africa for years, when the West knew this money will only go in the pocket of leaders and never reach the people of Africa. However, they continued to loan because today they use these loans as a way to have power in these nations. They create laws to exploit resources such as demand privatization or trade treaties that favor Western markets in order for Africa to continue as sovereign nations. What ends up happening is that resources of these nations are spoiled immensely. A lot of resources are bought in for cheap due to the favorable laws, and then sold back to the African nations at a higher price. For example cocoa is purchased from African nations for cheap and then converted into Chocolate and sold for a much higher price in Africa. IMF and WTO are huge part of this as they include all nations as equal when we all know that is not true. Nations are not treated equally and Western powers are given privileges and rights that make them stronger everyday as Africa continues to struggle.

Over the years Africa has struggled to achieve social and economic success. It is finally starting to see some strong activity but it has taken so long because of the lack of leadership and the influence of Western leadership that has done everything to spoil Africa’s resources as long as possible. Africa has to stand up for itself, return to its own cultural roots, bring leadership from within rather than looking outside to continue growing and becoming stronger every day.

The Challenge for Africa 2

As we continue to read Wangari Maathai’s “Challenge for Africa,” we learn more about the challenges Africa faces and how we can help the African nations succeed against the odds and win. We continue to see marked history of colonialism and how that changes Africa to its current state and how detrimental the colonization process for. We also learn how problems facing Africa cannot simply be solved by throwing money at these countries but rather we need to first create an awareness of the problems.

One thing that was quite interesting to learn was how Africa has a history of a wonderful civilization and how today we don’t associate Africa with that rather we associate with barbarism, lack of education and culture and more tribal “caveman” things. This however is highly untrue and Wangari Maathai discusses how this image comes from colonialism.

Africa once thrived with development however as Western powers started moving into these countries, they came during the era of industrialization where things were changing and the Europeans had better technology. This impressed the natives and they welcomed the Europeans so they could learn about this technology; however Europeans were more interested in colonization and power. The most important invention they shared with Africa was the gun. The gun led to the conquest of Africa where the sticks and arrows could not resist this power.

The second thing that hurt the culture of Africa was the idea of religion. As various religions sent their missionaries to Africa, they started establishing the idea that African practices were old and did not exist in the modern world, that the African gods were not as great as the gods of the Europeans. This created an idea of inferiority amongst the Africans who thought that since gods have sent these humans scriptures, they must be the superior ones. This led to the fall of African culture creating a society that had no basis but to copy the European powers. However, European powers were only there to exploit so all they learned was to exploit their own people once Europeans left.

Another thing that we learned is that the problem of Africa cannot simply be solved by throwing money or donations at the nations. Wangari Maathai speaks about malaria and how bed nets are highly important in reducing the disease amongst children. However, there is not enough knowledge among the poor that these are more important for the children, and hence the adults end up using these bed nets leaving the children unprotected and hence leading to high mortality rates among children due to malaria. Even though we have provided these bed nets for free, the problem of malaria still exists at a significantly high level because of the lack of awareness and knowledge. It is the same scenario with other donations, whether it is tractors or water collection resources and so on. Hence what we truly need is to create awareness and knowledge.

Wangari Maathai touches upon a lot of good points in her book on how we need to change the image of Africa we hold in our minds. The image of an uncivilized Africa comes from the mindset of colonialism and if we continue to have that image we cannot help Africa. We also must create awareness and knowledge among the people of Africa, so they can help themselves and value their resources rather than throwing donations at them that are completely useless and have failed us for so long.

The Challenge for Africa

As I read “The Challenge for Africa,” by Wangari Maathai, I can relate to so many things that the Ms. Maathai discusses. She starts the book discussing the various issues the African continent faces and how the Western world has treated these problems. Not only that but also how the people of Africa have treated these issues themselves. She discusses the terrible legacy of colonialism that has left Africa in disdain, and the sad lack of leadership post colonialism. She discusses how leadership is important, but also how people must stand up for themselves and help themselves out if they wish to move out from poverty, injustice, and suppression.

Africa faces issues of not just poverty but also a lack of education, leadership and a feel of nationalism. The continent got its freedom from colonial powers a long time ago; however, it is still marked as a nation of people who have made no progress. This is because the countries lack sincere leadership. Most leaders have betrayed the trust of their people and have been lost to the greed of power and money. They no longer care about their people. Not only that but on order to maintain their power, they also suppress their own people and take away educational opportunities and guidance so these people cannot rise to the top.

The Western World plays a role where it prefers not to look at this as injustice and often supports this injustice for its own political and economic reasons. The people who wish to help are focused on a level that is far more macro when the problems of Africa need to be resolved on a micro level. The problems of Africa can only be solved by living among the people, the farmers, and the workers. Most non-profit organizations work on a governmental level, speaking with leaders and it leads to no change at all.

She also discusses how the people of Africa have to help themselves. Nobody will come help them out. They have to understand that they cannot exploit their own resources. They have to think long term and not short term because if they think of only short term, they are going to lead to their own destruction. Their land will lose its nutrients and the farms and forests they rely on will be gone very soon if they exploit it for the short term.

In conclusion, we realize that Africa has had a hard time since independence but that is due to a lack of leadership and education about the long term. Post colonialism, the people trusted in leaders and these leaders betrayed the trust of the people. This led to a more destruction of the community when Africa really needed to build itself back up. The West has turned a blind eye to this for its own economic and political benefit, and as Wangari Maathai like to put it, there has only been a change of faces after independence. Most of the economic and political factors are still controlled by the West. We can help out by understanding the micro issues and spreading education in the community, but we will not succeed if we only look at the problems at a macro level.

Who Are You?

Do you want to understand your personality? Understand why you take a certain action? Why you prefer certain things over other? Well I can tell you how to do that!

Earlier this week, one of my friends asked me what my Myers Briggs personality type is and it reminded me of my BUAD 304 class where I took the quiz the first time. Today I will discuss the Myers Briggs quiz and why it is helpful in understanding your personality.

Myers Briggs is a personality test that can be taken online and it explains your personality type. The test rates every individual across four types, Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I), Sensing (S) or Intuition (N), Thinking (T) or Feeling (F), and Judging (J) or Perceiving (P). This leads to 16 personality combinations, as shown in the picture below.

Each personality according to the Myers Briggs is equal. It does not mean one is better than the other. However, the test does allow a person to understand their inclinations better. It allows a person to make decisions that allow for the best use of the individual’s personality characteristics. Not only that, but this can help a person understand which job/profession they would be a better fit in and what will make them happy. This also allows for a person to work on their personality because you realize what you wish to improve upon with this knowledge.

The Myers Briggs is not the perfect tool, but it can be helpful in guiding you about your personality. I highly recommend all individuals to give it a try and see their personality type so they can make a better use of their skills. The test can be taken online at www.mbtionline.com. If you do not have time, you can take smaller quizzes as well at websites like www.16personalities.com. Do let me know what you think of the test if you take it or have taken it before.