Interview with Dr. Kemafor Anyanwu

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Kemafor Anyanwu

Dr. Kemafor Anyanwu is an Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University. She supports WAAW Foundation in different capacities whenever we call on her, recently we caught up with her for an interview to share her views on the foundation, its mission and the state of STEM fields amongst women today.

WAAW Foundation: Tell me a bit about your professional background.

Kemafor: I graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka with a B.Sc. in Biochemistry in 1989. I worked as a chemist in a biotech company in New Jersey, for a few years after that. Subsequently, I decided to switch careers and got my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Georgia in 2007. I joined the faculty of the Computer Science department in North Carolina State University as an Assistant Professor in August of 2007.

 

WAAW Foundation: What do you think of the mission of WAAW Foundation – Promoting African Female education in Science and Technology?

Kemafor: It is laudable. The mission is an imperative for Africa. Africa will not have a place at the global economic table without developing its science and technology capacity. Without adequate science educational infrastructure, the goal of developing science capacity is futile. By educating women in science and technology, we reap the obvious advantages of enabling increased female representation in the science and technology workforce. A more subtle point is the fact is that women are often central to the career decision making process for their children. Exposing them to science will enable them guide their kids through a broader portfolio of career options that includes a range of science careers. In a sense, we would be increasing the population of important science ambassadors, a critical need.

WAAW Foundation: What challenges have you faced in your career as an African woman in Technology?

Kemafor: Well, I suppose that I will discuss this from the vantage point of a female academic in the US because that context makes a big difference in terms of the challenges. In that space, the challenges are enormous for women who dare to think that they can have both a professional life and a family life. An academic career by itself, particularly at a research university, is multidimensional and very tasking. It is like having several jobs all wrapped up in one. Couple that with the fact that women, and in particular African women, often have a lot of balls to juggle, what you have a recipe for a whole lot of stress. Some of these balls are peculiar to African women and are artifacts of our cultures like our extended family system ( which I happen to love by the way but is relevant to the discussion because we tend to inherit additional balls to juggle because of that). We should also note that there is the absence of the kind of infrastructure that commonly exists back home, in terms of assistance with domestic duties, and in African homes, women carry a disproportionate size of that burden (I am aware of the growing number of liberal African men, my husband included. However, I am still to find African families where domestics duties split right down the middle) This makes the balancing act is a formidable challenge for the African women.
There are some coping strategies that I have observed being used by many of the women in these careers. However, these strategies are not typically options that an African woman would consider, just by virtue of our culture. For example, some women will delay having children until the almighty tenure bar has been cleared. Even after tenure, some women will choose to have only one child. Neither of these is likely to be a popular idea amongst in laws. In other cases, the stress leads to divorce. I am aware of an institution were at least half of the women in a science department went through divorces during the tenure process. For many Africans, divorce is often not consideration.
You do your best to see it through, come hell or high water. I remember once a colleague told me how she coped with the demands of academia. She cooked once a week, rest of the time she and her family ate out. When she has a deadline (and this happens very often for us), she will lock herself in a room for days and not come out. She would have her food dropped at the bedroom door and when she was done, she’d put the plates outside the door of the room. She just didn’t get involved in anything in the house for days. That to me sounded much like a fantasy.

The demands on our lives really challenge our abilities to compete with male sand even other female scientists who can better afford near complete focus and relentless pursuit of career objectives with minimal distractions. This is important in science careers because science demands long periods of uninterrupted thinking and exploration. For most African women, that is simply luxury.

WAAW Foundation: What do you think is the most effective way to help Africa? What do you think of female education?

Kemafor: I think that African scientists in the diaspora have a significant role to play in the future of Africa because of the role of science and technology in future economies. There are a whole host of things that we need to help with. We need to (i) help cultivate an appetite for science in Africa and actively participate in mentoring young scientists and organization, (ii). act a conduit to developed nations e.g. initiating collaborations with the organizations that we are involved with outside of Africa. (ii) help with promoting the image of Africa as a viable destination for investment of resources and effort.

WAAW Foundation: What has surprised you most about STEM in Africa compared to the United States?

Kemafor: Well, STEM education in African and the US have similar challenges – dwindling interest. I think the major difference and indeed a source of great concern is that in Africa, there is no sense of urgency about this issue. Most governments pay lip service to their increasing interest in focusing on science and technology. On the other hand, in the US, there is a lot of investment being made now to develop ways to improve how science is taught all to achieve the goal of increasing interest and participation in science.
In terms of surprises, I think the only one that I can think of that I encountered when I first got here is the style of instruction. In Africa, at least in Nigeria which is where I was educated, the focus of education was to transfer knowledge. Examinations merely ask for rote repetition of what was taught. In the US, the focus of instruction is to develop critical thinking, to create innovative talent. Fostering innovation has not been a primary goal of science education in Africa. That needs to change.

WAAW Foundation:  What do you find most challenging about our cause in helping African women in STEM fields?

Kemafor: The biggest challenge I think is for most individuals, there are many more urgent needs, food, shelter, health etc. As such it is difficult to get buy in on an issue that doesn’t immediately translate to solutions to those needs. The benefits of science are often years in the making. The other challenge is the lack of incentives. I mean really, where are the employment opportunities for those who endure the challenges of a science education? Yes, there is some activity in the engineering, technology and telecommunications sectors, but what about employment opportunities for chemists, physicists, etc? It is hard to encourage people to study these subjects without the promise of lucrative career.

WAAW Foundation:  If you could change one thing about the cause of WAAW or the organization, what would it be?

Kemafor: Right now, I am completely satisfied with the mission and goals.

WAAW Foundation:  What would you tell someone who is thinking about donating, volunteering, etc. to WAAW Foundation?

Kemafor: There is a quote by Edmund Burke that I think is very apt. “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.” Often times, we feel that the little that we have to offer may not make a difference so we don’t bother. The truth is given the enormity of the challenge that faces us in Africa, every little bit of help is necessary.

WAAW Foundation:  What do you think will change about the cause or WAAW Foundation or Female education or Innovation in Africa over the next decade?

Kemafor: I hope that it doesn’t change. I expect that perhaps different periods will have different emphases depending on the needs and gaps to be filled but I hope that overall the mission stays the same.

WAAW Foundation:  What might someone be surprised to know about you?

Kemafor: Hmm, my personality is generally open. There’d be few surprises, I think.

WAAW Foundation:  How would someone describe you?

Kemafor: Light hearted.

WAAW Foundation:  What do you do when you aren’t working or volunteering?

Kemafor: Running after my 3 children.

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WAAW Foundation Scholarship – 2011 Analysis

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The WAAW scholarship program was three years old in 2011. It is aimed at providing financial support to academically promising female African students who are currently in STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics) related undergraduate disciplines in an Africa university. Criteria for eligibility includes: (a) Female students of African origin, living and studying in Africa.(b) Currently enrolled in undergraduate degree program (c) Studying in a university or college in Africa. (d) Demonstrable financial need, and (e) Excellent Academic Record. To learn more about the WAAW Foundation Scholarship program, click here.

We received over 200 applications in 2011 with majority of the African countries represented- 65% from East Africa, 24% from West Africa, 11% from South Africa. Interestingly, majority of applications were from Kenya (40%) and then Uganda (21%) and in 2012 our objective will be to ensure that our campaign targets none represented countries by creating more awareness. To date 7 candidates have been shortlisted for the awards and by May 1st, the 2011 WAAW Scholars will be announced.

Top Countries

Country No of Applications Percentage
Kenya 89 40.27%
Uganda 39 17.65%
Nigeria 23 10.41%
South Africa 10 4.52%
Cameroon 7 3.17%
Tanzania 5 2.26%
Ghana 4 1.81%
Senegal 4 1.81%
Satelite Provider 3 1.36%

 

Top Cities

Country No of Applications Percentage
Nairobi-Kenya 19 8.60%
Kampala-Uganda 13 5.88%
Doula-Cameroon 5 2.26%
Port Harcourt-Nigeria 3 1.36%
Dar Es Salem-Tanzania 3 1.36%
Dakar-Senegal 3 1.36%
Pretoria-South Africa 2 .90%
Durban-South Africa 2 .90%
Georgetown-South Africa 1 .45%
Abuja-Nigeria 1 .45%

 

“As a volunteer, I think this is one of the most ingenious ways of progressively transporting Africa as a continent from being a 3rd world nation to a 1st world status, with significant human and sociological improvements. Women are the mothers and inferably the hearts of any nation and creating an opportunity to expose and empower them is one of the easiest ways to bring about socio-economic change. And I believe this program is one that Africa needs like yesterday.” – Amara Okeke Okafor.

 

Meet the Director, WAAW Foundation Scholarship Initative:

Amara Okeke Okafor

Amara Okeke Okafor graduated from Federal University of Technology in 2001, with a degree in Petroleum Engineering. In 2005 obtained a Masters degree in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University. Since graduation she has worked in the Oil & Gas industry as a Reservoir Engineer for Schlumberger and currently Marathon Oil Corporation, Houston, Texas. She has been with WAAW Foundation since inception.

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How Schools Can Help Moms Stay in Science

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Courtesy of MentorNet

By sapna – Posted on 17 February 2012

We talk a lot about the discrimination women face in science and engineering, but a new study says there may be a bigger reason why women don’t rise higher in these fields: motherhood. Right now, science and engineering departments don’t know how to deal with profs, postdocs, and grad students who might also want to be moms. But there are some simple changes they could make that would help a lot.

In a study published in the March-April issue of American Scientist, Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci write, “It is when academic scientists choose to be mothers that their real problems start. Women deal with all the other challenges of being academic scientists as well as men do. Childless women are paid, promoted and rewarded equivalently to their male peers (and in some analyses at even higher rates). Children completely change the landscape for women — but do not appear to have the same effect on the careers of men.” Why does this happen? Basically, prospective scientists finish grad school and postdocs and can apply for tenure-track jobs at an average age of 33. That means they won’t get tenure until they’re 35 or older. Until then, they have to work their asses off doing research and publishing papers. Which isn’t so compatible with being a mom. Williams and Ceci write,

Whether measured in hours spent or in percentage of one’s life energy devoted, the job demands devotion to the task at a level that is extraordinarily challenging for women who are mothers of young children. The tenure system was created at a time when few women worked outside the home and when raising children was assumed to be women’s work, and thus it was designed for people without significant responsibilities in household work or child care. In fact, many early professors were unmarried men who were expected to live in residence at their universities. A lot has changed since then, but the tenure system itself has remained much the same.

Result: women tend to drop out of science careers, especially in more math-intensive fields that require more research hours, when they have kids. The reality is, as they study authors point out, women are way less likely than men to have a stay-at-home or part-time-working partner to help pick up the childcare slack. New moms leave postdoctoral positions twice as frequently as new dads do, and earlier research shows that even planning to have kids in the future makes women more likely to drop out of science. Just anecdotally, I’ve heard young female scientists say they’ve given up on the idea of kids because of the demands of their career, or that they’re very afraid about balancing the two.

Luckily, there are solutions. One is stopping the tenure clock — when young professors get tenure-track positions, they get a certain amount of time to prove themselves worthy of tenure through research and publishing. If they don’t, they’re out. But many universities will now put that clock on hold for new moms (or dads) allowing them take it slow for a year before they need to start publishing again. Still, this isn’t a perfect fix. I talked to one science grad student who told me that even if your particular institution recognizes the clock-stopping, the field won’t — they still might think of you as less impressive than someone who’s been publishing continuously. For clock-stopping to really help, everyone would have to recognize that it’s necessary and legitimate. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, everyone who evaluates potential professors — not just their home departments — needs to understand “how stopping the clock is supposed to work, so that professors can use the benefit without fear.”

The grad student also told me that balancing motherhood and science is really a “time management issue,” and departments can help by easing the burdens of childcare. One way to do this is to provide onsite, affordable childcare. Lactation rooms are also important, the student said — they may seem like a small addition, but they can go a long way toward creating an institutional culture that’s accepting of motherhood.

Williams and Ceci offer a few other ideas, ranging from “the use of part-time tenure-track positions for women having children that segue to full-time once children are older” to “leveraging technology to enable parents to work from home while children are young or ill.” The bottom line is that if universities want to give female scientists equal opportunities — if they want to take advantage of all the available talent rather than just half of it — they need to recognize that raising kids takes time. And they need to figure out a way to give scientists that time while still letting them keep their jobs. It shouldn’t be that difficult — way simpler, really, than doing science.

 

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Busan Skirts Gender Equality

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By Miriam Gathigah

Originally published on Dec 1, 2011 Inter Press Service (IPS)

BUSAN, South Korea, Dec 1 (IPS) – Gender champions have lauded the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness for providing gender equality and the empowerment of women a special session, but there is dissatisfaction with Thursday’s Busan outcome document.

Although the document alluded to gender equality, experts feel that the scope is narrow and does not really touch the core issues that can be catalytic to the empowerment of women.

“There has been progress since the Paris Declaration, which had no mention of gender equality. In the Accra declaration, gender equality achieved some recognition in relation to development. Today, we have moved slightly beyond Accra,” Kate Lappin, regional coordinator of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, said.

But, she is emphatic that economic development is not a comprehensive indicator of human development.

Paragraph 20, Lappin says, “is about using women to achieve economic growth. Although there is mention of human rights across the ‘Busan Declaration’, there’s surprisingly no linkage of human rights to economic development under this paragraph.”

Perhaps this explains why although the Busan conference coincided with two important global events on human rights, particularly in relation to gender, women’s rights did not form part of the Busan agenda.

Women account for more than half of the HIV/AIDS disease burden globally as also the burden of care, the Busan Forum had nothing to say about how aid effectiveness can also mean life saving drugs reaching poor women. Even on Thursday, World AIDS Day,

Thursday also is fifth day into the 16 days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign. United Nations statistics show that across the world, one in every three women has suffered some form of abuse, be it physical, emotional or sexual.

Campaigns for a world where women can be free and enjoy their rights without fear and intimidation are funds driven. It costs money to integrate Gender-Based Violence (GBV) awareness and sensitisation programmes in the health sector.

“Currently, Nigeria is still coming to terms with the brutal murder of Titi Omozojie, a young woman who is alleged to have been mutilated by her husband in a domestic quarrel,” said Iro-nsi Bose, executive director of Women’s Rights and Health Projects in Lagos, Nigeria.

“Civil society took to the streets and ensured that she was not hurriedly buried to impede proper investigation. This led to her husband being charged and is awaiting trial for murder,” Bose explained.

Prioritising the wellbeing of women is an important component of development, Bose said. “We cannot talk about real development when our women, young and old alike are butchered to death.”

Although a Joint Busan Action Plan on Gender Equality and Development is one of the outcomes of the conference, it is considered to be limited.

“There are three components in this document: education, employment and entrepreneurship, which we do acknowledge is a significant step forward,” says Lappin.

“It is nonetheless limited in the sense that it only looks into two outcomes: increasing the number of women in the labour force as well as improving their chances to access microfinance.

“There is no mention of, for instance, women’s labour rights. If we are to get more women into the workforce, then there are some practical needs to be put in place,” Lappin said.

Indeed, women are often at a crossroads between human production and economic production and when these two roles conflict, then they have to give up the economic venture to be able to look after the human resource.

It was expected that Busan will show a real commitment to women’s human rights as part of development effectiveness.

However, Lappin says, “the fact that the Busan declaration is titled the Outcome Document on Development Cooperation offers little if any hope of a strong link between human and economic development.”

Bose says that “Omozojie’s untimely death is just the tip of the iceberg.

“There is still a great degree and extent of GBV across Africa. Yet, Busan offered no real commitment to champion women’s human rights as a development agenda. Instead, there was a strong focus to ensure that effective aid transforms poor countries into middle income nations.”

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Women’s Education in Africa

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 Image Source: rachaelspires

Some of us know someone who couldn’t complete her education for financial reasons. We all know one or more families or the other struggling in poverty. Female education in Africa is suffering due to reasons like poverty or the need not to educate women because of the belief she will be married off and so should not be educated.

African women need encouragement and inspiration to keep going strong despite what could be going on around them. We have either heard of or experienced gender inequality especially in Africa, sometimes we are passed over at work for a man when it comes to promotion. We are sometimes paid less than our male counterparts for the same position, even with better qualification. Though all these issues are reducing, there is a significant amount of women and girls who are still struggling with poverty issues and lack of opportunities to show their potentials.

All hope is not lost as this article MALAWI: Women’s Education The Path to The Presidency points out. Like everything in life, it takes hard work for great achievements. We hope that WAAW Foundation will give girls who are willing and able to do the hard work the opportunities and the information they need to succeed and soar higher than they ever imagined.

In the article above, the Vice President of Malawi Joyce Banda recalls how her childhood friend was always at the top of the class and how hard work paid off for her. This is not a fairytale, this is the reality of the african woman and we are the ones that can help them break off from the shackles of poverty.

Join WAAW Foundation and be an inspiration or create an opportunity for one girl at a time.

Ebele Agu is a volunteer CIO for WAAW Foundation, she is a teacher and a blogger with two adorable boys, read her musings at Life Experiences.

 

 

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Education in Africa

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Image Source: Clay Jar

How many of us Africans, know the statistics of what is plaguing education in Africa? The more I learn, the more I realize that I am one of the privileged few who do not belong to the following statistics:

Education participation rates in many African countries are low and schools often lack many basic facilities. African universities suffer from overcrowding and staff being lured away to Western countries by higher pay and better conditions.

According to UNESCO, in 2000, 52% of children were enrolled in primary school, the lowest enrollment rate of any region. Two-thirds of African children about 40 million of them not receiving any schooling are girls. As at 2005, USAID Center reports that 40% of school-age children in Africa do not attend primary school and there are still
46 million school-age African children who have never stepped into a classroom.
Lack of proper school facilities and unequal opportunities are the main reason for the low education rates in Africa. Those who receive good education move either to big cities or overseas for greener pastures. Emigration has led to brain drain in the continent.

Corruption in education is a growing concern. The three major areas are:

  1. Illegal collection of fees – most parents are forced to pay for primary education even though it is meant to be free.
  2. Embezzlement of school funds: most schools have no financial information available.
  3. Power abuse – incompetent management is a major problem and many schools are plagued with teacher absenteeism.

Women’s education is sometimes corrupted by sexual violence. A positive correlation exists between the enrollment of girls in primary school and the gross national product and increase of life expectancy. In 2000, 93.4 million women in Sub-Saharan Africa were illiterate. There are many reasons however for which girls’ education is not available for many; cultural reasons are some of them. For example, some believe that a women’s education will get in the way of her duties as a wife and a mother. In some places in Africa where women marry at age 12 or 13, education is considered a hindrance to a young woman’s development.

Most of us know that we have a huge problem in Africa and some of us have decided not to make it our business. There are so many NGOs and organizations out there who are working to reduce these statistics. Do we have to leave it to them? What can each of us do in our community to elevate the life of a person? What can we do to ensure a person’s dream does not die? What can we do to let another person realize that the world is not against him or her?

Join us, join WAAW Foundation and make an african girl’s life better.

The above statistics were culled from Wikipedia. To learn more, visit Education in Africa.

Ebele Agu is the Chief Information Officer for WAAW Foundation, a teacher and blogs about living on Life Experiences. 

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You Lazy (Intellectual) African Scum!

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Courtesy of : http://mindofmalaka.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/you-lazy-intellectual-african-scum/

Posted on January 18, 2012 | 473 Comments

They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished.In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”

Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come. When I first discovered I was going to spend my New Year’s Eve next to him on a non-stop JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to Boston I was angst-ridden. I associate marble-shaven Caucasians with iconoclastic skin-heads, most of who are racist.

“My name is Walter,” he extended his hand as soon as I settled in my seat.

I told him mine with a precautious smile.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Zambia.”

“Zambia!” he exclaimed, “Kaunda’s country.”

“Yes,” I said, “Now Sata’s.” “But of course,” he responded. “You just elected King Cobra as your president.”

My face lit up at the mention of Sata’s moniker. Walter smiled, and in those cold eyes I saw an amenable fellow, one of those American highbrows who shuttle between Africa and the U.S.

“I spent three years in Zambia in the 1980s,” he continued. “I wined and dined with Luke Mwananshiku, Willa Mungomba, Dr. Siteke Mwale, and many other highly intelligent Zambians.” He lowered his voice. “I was part of the IMF group that came to rip you guys off.” He smirked. “Your government put me in a million dollar mansion overlooking a shanty called Kalingalinga. From my patio I saw it all—the rich and the poor, the ailing, the dead, and the healthy.”

“Are you still with the IMF?” I asked.

“I have since moved to yet another group with similar intentions. In the next few months my colleagues and I will be in Lusaka to hypnotize the cobra. I work for the broker that has acquired a chunk of your debt. Your government owes not the World Bank, but us millions of dollars. We’ll be in Lusaka to offer your president a couple of millions and fly back with a check twenty times greater.”

“No, you won’t,” I said. “King Cobra is incorruptible. He is …”

He was laughing. “Says who? Give me an African president, just one, who has not fallen for the carrot and stick.”

Quett Masire’s name popped up. “Oh, him, well, we never got to him because he turned down the IMF and the World Bank. It was perhaps the smartest thing for him to do.”

At midnight we were airborne. The captain wished us a happy 2012 and urged us to watch the fireworks across Los Angeles. “Isn’t that beautiful,” Walter said looking down. From my middle seat, I took a glance and nodded admirably.

“That’s a white man’s country,” he said. “We came here on Mayflower and turned Indian land into a paradise and now the most powerful nation on earth. We discovered the bulb, and built this aircraft to fly us to pleasure resorts like Lake Zambia.”

I grinned. “There is no Lake Zambia.”

He curled his lips into a smug smile. “That’s what we call your country. You guys are as stagnant as the water in the lake. We come in with our large boats and fish your minerals and your wildlife and leave morsels—crumbs. That’s your staple food, crumbs. That corn-meal you eat, that’s crumbs, the small Tilapia fish you call Kapenta is crumbs. We the Bwanas (whites) take the cat fish. I am the Bwana and you are the Muntu. I get what I want and you get what you deserve, crumbs. That’s what lazy people get—Zambians, Africans, the entire Third World.”

The smile vanished from my face.

“I see you are getting pissed off,” Walter said and lowered his voice. “You are thinking this Bwana is a racist. That’s how most Zambians respond when I tell them the truth. They go ballistic. Okay. Let’s for a moment put our skin pigmentations, this black and white crap, aside. Tell me, my friend, what is the difference between you and me?” “There’s no difference.”

“Absolutely none,” he exclaimed. “Scientists in the Human Genome Project have proved that. It took them thirteen years to determine the complete sequence of the three billion DNA subunits. After they were all done it was clear that 99.9% nucleotide bases were exactly the same in you and me. We are the same people. All white, Asian, Latino, and black people on this aircraft are the same.”

I gladly nodded.

“And yet I feel superior,” he smiled fatalistically. “Every white person on this plane feels superior to a black person. The white guy who picks up garbage, the homeless white trash on drugs, feels superior to you no matter his status or education. I can pick up a nincompoop from the New York streets, clean him up, and take him to Lusaka and you all be crowding around him chanting muzungu, muzungu and yet he’s a riffraff. Tell me why my angry friend.” For a moment I was wordless.

“Please don’t blame it on slavery like the African Americans do, or colonialism, or some psychological impact or some kind of stigmatization. And don’t give me the brainwash poppycock. Give me a better answer.” I was thinking.

He continued. “Excuse what I am about to say. Please do not take offense.” I felt a slap of blood rush to my head and prepared for the worst.

“You my friend flying with me and all your kind are lazy,” he said. “When you rest your head on the pillow you don’t dream big. You and other so-called African intellectuals are damn lazy, each one of you. It is you, and not those poor starving people, who is the reason Africa is in such a deplorable state.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” I protested.

He was implacable. “Oh yes it is and I will say it again, you are lazy. Poor and uneducated Africans are the most hardworking people on earth. I saw them in the Lusaka markets and on the street selling merchandise. I saw them in villages toiling away. I saw women on Kafue Road crushing stones for sell and I wept. I said to myself where are the Zambian intellectuals? Are the Zambian engineers so imperceptive they cannot invent a simple stone crusher, or a simple water filter to purify well water for those poor villagers? Are you telling me that after thirty-seven years of independence your university school of engineering has not produced a scientist or an engineer who can make simple small machines for mass use? What is the school there for?”

I held my breath.

“Do you know where I found your intellectuals? They were in bars quaffing. They were at the Lusaka Golf Club, Lusaka Central Club, Lusaka Playhouse, and Lusaka Flying Club. I saw with my own eyes a bunch of alcoholic graduates. Zambian intellectuals work from eight to five and spend the evening drinking. We don’t. We reserve the evening for brainstorming.”

He looked me in the eye.

“And you’re flying to Boston and all of you Zambians in the Diaspora are just as lazy and apathetic to your country. You don’t care about your country and yet your very own parents, brothers and sisters are in Mtendere, Chawama, and in villages, all of them living in squalor. Many have died or are dying of neglect by you. They are dying of AIDS because you cannot come up with your own cure. You are here calling yourselves graduates, researchers and scientists and are fast at articulating your credentials once asked—oh, I have a PhD in this and that—PhD my foot!”

I was deflated.

“Wake up you all!” he exclaimed, attracting the attention of nearby passengers. “You should be busy lifting ideas, formulae, recipes, and diagrams from American manufacturing factories and sending them to your own factories. All those research findings and dissertation papers you compile should be your country’s treasure. Why do you think the Asians are a force to reckon with? They stole our ideas and turned them into their own. Look at Japan, China, India, just look at them.”

He paused. “The Bwana has spoken,” he said and grinned. “As long as you are dependent on my plane, I shall feel superior and you my friend shall remain inferior, how about that? The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, even Latinos are a notch better. You Africans are at the bottom of the totem pole.”

He tempered his voice. “Get over this white skin syndrome and begin to feel confident. Become innovative and make your own stuff for god’s sake.”

At 8 a.m. the plane touched down at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Walter reached for my hand.

“I know I was too strong, but I don’t give it a damn. I have been to Zambia and have seen too much poverty.” He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something. “Here, read this. It was written by a friend.”

He had written only the title: “Lords of Poverty.”

Thunderstruck, I had a sinking feeling. I watched Walter walk through the airport doors to a waiting car. He had left a huge dust devil twirling in my mind, stirring up sad memories of home. I could see Zambia’s literati—the cognoscente, intelligentsia, academics, highbrows, and scholars in the places he had mentioned guzzling and talking irrelevancies. I remembered some who have since passed—how they got the highest grades in mathematics and the sciences and attained the highest education on the planet. They had been to Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), only to leave us with not a single invention or discovery. I knew some by name and drunk with them at the Lusaka Playhouse and Central Sports.

Walter is right. It is true that since independence we have failed to nurture creativity and collective orientations. We as a nation lack a workhorse mentality and behave like 13 million civil servants dependent on a government pay cheque. We believe that development is generated 8-to-5 behind a desk wearing a tie with our degrees hanging on the wall. Such a working environment does not offer the opportunity for fellowship, the excitement of competition, and the spectacle of innovative rituals.

But the intelligentsia is not solely, or even mainly, to blame. The larger failure is due to political circumstances over which they have had little control. The past governments failed to create an environment of possibility that fosters camaraderie, rewards innovative ideas and encourages resilience. KK, Chiluba, Mwanawasa, and Banda embraced orthodox ideas and therefore failed to offer many opportunities for drawing outside the line.

I believe King Cobra’s reset has been cast in the same faculties as those of his predecessors. If today I told him that we can build our own car, he would throw me out.

“Naupena? Fuma apa.” (Are you mad? Get out of here)

Knowing well that King Cobra will not embody innovation at Walter’s level let’s begin to look for a technologically active-positive leader who can succeed him after a term or two. That way we can make our own stone crushers, water filters, water pumps, razor blades, and harvesters. Let’s dream big and make tractors, cars, and planes, or, like Walter said, forever remain inferior.

A fundamental transformation of our country from what is essentially non-innovative to a strategic superior African country requires a bold risk-taking educated leader with a triumphalist attitude and we have one in YOU. Don’t be highly strung and feel insulted by Walter.

Take a moment and think about our country. Our journey from 1964 has been marked by tears. It has been an emotionally overwhelming experience. Each one of us has lost a loved one to poverty, hunger, and disease. The number of graves is catching up with the population. It’s time to change our political culture. It’s time for Zambian intellectuals to cultivate an active-positive progressive movement that will change our lives forever. Don’t be afraid or dispirited, rise to the challenge and salvage the remaining few of your beloved ones.

Author: Field Ruwe is a US-based Zambian media practitioner and author. He is a PhD candidate with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism, and an M.A. in History.
Originally posted at http://mindofmalaka.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/you-lazy-intellectual-african-scum/

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Welcome to our brand new WAAW Blog. Here, we hope to build a community of African women discussing issues about Africa.

What happens to an African girls education when she gets married at an early age? What factors contribute to helping teenage mothers return to school and succeed? Is female circumcision still in practice today in Africa? How can science and technology help move Africa forward?

We will be blogging about these and similar issues here in coming weeks. Please join us on this blog and make a comment on issues that are of interest to you!

Thanks!

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