Africa Dreams Big Without Proper Solutions

Sibusiso Khasa



Diverse thoughts might help Africa find
the right solutions.
Photo: http://www.students.emory.edu/

 Famous rappers often insinuate that people who fail to succeed get in those positions because of the choices they would have made.

“Not so many people stood up against the system called life,” are words of American rapper Kid Cudi on his Cudder Anthem In My Dreams.

In the song Dreamer, South African rapper states that people would rather be the worst than the best where he comes from. It has forced me to question whether this could be a part of the reasons most Africans are living below poverty lines or “proverbial breadlines”.

An individual who views the situation facing Africans from a liberal frame of reference might have the belief that apathy, ignorance and laziness are the reasons most Africans are penurious and take epochs such as slavery, colonialisms and apartheid as excuses. While people like Timberlake (1986: 5) describe poverty as “the biggest disaster to strike planet earth since World War II devastated Europe”

Taking the statement made by Timberlake one would argue that slavery and colonialisms played an enormous role in creating the Africa we know and live in today. The reason would be that the two “evil doctrines” tied Africans to the Europeans socially and economically and made them depend on the “evil minds” from the west. As World War II devastated Europe, Africans were not left out, poverty deteriorated in Africa since they were depending on the west as they are now.

As ties still continue today under the banner of Globalisation which is part of post modernism, some argue that this is the continuation of the western domination of Africa and view agreements signed by African leaders with bodies like the European Union (EU) as hegemony being reworked. One may argue that Zimbabwe is an epitome, of the fact that Africa “cannot do much” without the input of the west.
President Jacob Zuma seems to agree with them as he was quoted saying, “lifting of sanctions would give a chance to the efforts we are making there and empower the Southern African Development Community to do more on Zimbabwe,” during his visit to the European Parliament in Brussels on 29 September 2010.

But there is a big emerging eastern super power operating on the African continent and threatening the west. China offers a weaker currency, cheaper products and cheap labour. Their domination has forced the Americans to demand a policy that will compel China to allow its currency to strengthen. Since a weaker currency means more export and a stronger one implies more imports (Stronger currency makes it easy for a country to buy goods) South Africa is left perplexed as the Rand gains more strength.

There is an ongoing debate in this country on whether we should allow our currency to strengthen at it has reached levels that are below 7 Rand to the dollar. Some, like trade union COSATU, are against this saying it might result in job cuts.

The debate of African prosperity is bigger than that of the strength of the South African currecy and the solution for the future of this continent can

If we dwell on the past and spend hours, days, months and years trying to find the root causes of Africa’s current state then we might waste valuable time that could be used to make the continent thrive. This is the time our minds led us to seek better solutions or strategies that will help us alleviate poverty, because reality is that we dream too big when we talk of eradicating it.