A.O.B. Thursday, 18nd Aug 2022

upepo

upepo

Elder Lister
Around Africa, it is fascinating how countries seem to face surprisingly similar weaknesses. Is it that the governance structures inherited from the colonials had inherent systemic weaknesses that people never bothered to check? Here is the Zambian President complaining about various challenges that would apply anywhere else on the continent, and especially Kenya.

 
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upepo said:
Around Africa, it is fascinating how countries seem to face surprisingly similar weaknesses. Is it that the governance structures inherited from the colonials had inherent systemic weaknesses that people never bothered to check? Here is the Zambian President complaining about various challenges that would apply anywhere else on the continent, and especially Kenya.

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The borders of African countries were drawn arbitrarily by the colonialists, throwing disparate people's/nations with nothing in common together. The Turkana are as different to the Embu as the Japanese are to Spanish. The Luo are as different to the Somali as the Inca are to the Russians.

Worse, the Beberus adopted an active divide-and-rule approach. So in Kenya for example the Kambas were designated 'loyal' and tonnes of them were recruited into the colonial police and army, and the Gikuyu's were labelled unreliable thieves. Guess who were used to fight the Mau Mau (clue, who led the army until 1984?). Today, those two very-closely related communities still view each other with suspicion.

The mistake we keep making is assuming that because we as Africans have a dark skin eti we are the same. Don't Eskimos, the Chinese, Japanese, Germans, Russians etc etc also have the same 'white' skin? Are they the same?
 
Field Marshal said:
The borders of African countries were drawn arbitrarily by the colonialists, throwing disparate people's/nations with nothing in common together. The Turkana are as different to the Embu as the Japanese are to Spanish. The Luo are as different to the Somali as the Inca are to the Russians.

Worse, the Beberus adopted an active divide-and-rule approach. So in Kenya for example the Kambas were designated 'loyal' and tonnes of them were recruited into the colonial police and army, and the Gikuyu's were labelled unreliable thieves. Guess who were used to fight the Mau Mau (clue, who led the army until 1984?). Today, those two very-closely related communities still view each other with suspicion.

The mistake we keep making is assuming that because we as Africans have a dark skin eti we are the same. Don't Eskimos, the Chinese, Japanese, Germans, Russians etc etc also have the same 'white' skin? Are they the same?
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In the larger scheme of things, shared genetics, origins, geography, and cultures is what creates similarities that are hard to ignore. The Turkana and Embu, or the Luo and Somali, share more in common than what any one of them would share with, say, the Japanese. The effects of these linkages still manifest, even though they may have taken place a few thousand years ago.That Turkana and Embu belonged to the group back in the green Sahara some ten thousand years ago. That Luo and Somali were neighbors just two thousand years ago, with lots of exchanges between them. I will not dwell on the modern-day realities, which have halted, and sometimes reversed, the drifting apart of communities. Without the intervention of modernity, perhaps languages such as Kamba and Kikuyu would be as far apart as, say, Kikuyu and Kibukusu.
 
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