Cheetah vs. Hippo – Whose side are you on?
As a fellow African, I’ve always been disappointed and saddened by the contemporary state of the African continent. You have civil unrest popping up in once place, which finally gets some attention, and eventually gets subdued. Then a couple of months go by, and we see the same repetition again elsewhere within the same continent.
I’ve always wondered WHY? Why do we end up being the ones that are always behind, as the rest of the world goes by flying? People always talk about how much aid nations are giving and they simply leave it at that. But seldom do they talk about WHO that aid goes to. No, not who as in the poor farmers, or the displaced people from war-torn regions, but WHO as in who manages this allocation of funds, and HOW MUCH of the funds actually reach their intended, or better yet advertised individuals?
I’ve always seen the corruption in the African state while growing up. A state where you need to bribe this guy and that guy and the other guy to just simply let you get by with your life. And yes, one could argue that there’s simply no better way for the people asking for bribes to get by on their own right. However, the corrupt people in my discussion are not the poor policemen that stopped you for supposedly not staying in your lane while you were driving, or the poor paper pushers that need to fix an error in some document for you. No, the people of this discussion are a lot more powerful than that, and I recently came across this excellent talk which I think gives one of the best discussions on the main characters that I am referring to. Enjoy.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnepHUYFqgg]
With the noticeable rise in grass-roots movements in which groups of people decide to take matters into their own hands to make a difference, one could argue that a strong impact can be made. A lot of grass-roots based organizations are indeed leading the charge in empowering the victims that George Ayittey is referring to. There is indeed plenty of hope in some parts. However, let’s make sure the hope we bring as caring citizens becomes sustainable.
From my observations, these victims lead their lives worrying about how they will get by TODAY. We worry about how we will do when we get out of school years from now, or when we move up in our careers later down the road. When we manage to change and sustain their scope on life to a TOMORROW, that’s when we’ll all truly succeed.
