Soko's Must-Read Pick

• Begged water does not quench thirst---Probably a Kiganda saying
R Dowden, Africa

• Then most damaging effect of colonialism was psychological: Africans have been so deeply scarred by white imperialism that they had lost their pride, their self-respect.---Until they stoop up, proud of being black and African, they would always be or make themselves victims.
Frantz Fannon in R Dowden, Africa

• In the end, the greatest impact of European imperialism in Africa may have been neither political nor economic. It may have been psychological: the destruction of the African self-belief
RD, Africa

• Some African empires in pre-colonial times had elements of totalitarian dictatorship. In the Zulu empire in Southern Africa, the Ashanti in West Africa and the Buganda Kingdom, the kings were virtual gods. But these empires were the exceptions rather than the rule. Most pre-colonial political systems contained strong democratic elements.
---------Although few African societies were pure democracies, some, like the Igbo of Nigeria, and the Acholi in Uganda, were almost egalitarian, at least among men.
R. Dowden, Africa, Pg. 71

• We imagine corruption to be like a tick on a dog. There are some places in Africa where the tick is bigger than the dog.
John Robertson in RD’s Africa
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Richard Dowden’s Africa is written for his fellow westerners who have little clues about the realities of Africa. Having not travelled far and wide in Africa, many Africans could learn from some pointers and nuggets of insights. Moreover, Chinua Achebe endorsed the book.

Mr. Dowden first came to Africa as a teacher in Buganda. Thereafter, he became a journalist and travelled widely throughout the Black Continent. Here is a sample of some pointers and questions that one might not have thought of or asked:

• Why is Somalia so dysfunctional despite having one language and one Sunni Moslem religion? Even more intriguing, in the milieu of chaos, they can build cellular networks that allow money transfers outside the common western networks many of us are familiar with? Why and how do they do it?

• Who are the Angolans (other than being MPLAs) that Savimbi fought? How were western oil companies able to operate during the Cold War when the MPLA was a communist outfit propped militarily by Cuba?

• What happened to Nkomo and the Ndebele after Mugabe’s Gukurahundi?

• Did you know that Southern Sudan could have become a French territory had the French not blinked at Fashoda?

• Why did Mbeki, a highly educated man, fail and was toppled by a street-smart hoodlum? So much about our preoccupation with mere book education.

• So, you thought Africans, even in the Diaspora, are so distrustful of one another that they are unable to do anything substantial. Find out about a Senegalese group with an amazing world-wide network.

• Did you know that there is an emerging crop of African managers who are as disciplined, ethical and sophisticated as any in New York, London or Tokyo?
Etc, etc, etc.