Gerald .M Magembe
JF-Expert Member
- Jul 17, 2013
- 2,495
- 1,803
First, I believe Tanzania lacks a purposeful elite. I don’t mean that the Tanzanian elite doesn’t have a purpose for its existence.
Like elites everywhere, Tanzania’s top dogs are interested in their own self-preservation. Nothing wrong with that. Except self-preservation isn’t a national interest, or a noble purpose.
No people, state, country, or civilisation has ever become great without a great and purposeful elite.
A purposeful elite defines the national interest and then forges the people’s zeitgeist to that end. There has to be convergence between the interests of the elite and those of the nation. Dissonance and divergence between the two creates infertility in all aspects of national life.
National elites study and understand the history of great civilisations. It’s through such study and reflection that elites create consensus on the purpose for the existence of the state.
This requires deliberate investment in think-tanks, universities, and secret government programmes designed to foster high-minded agendas. It may even involve the creation of national syndicates beyond the visible eye.
Take China, for example. The People’s Republic didn’t just spring from nowhere to become a global behemoth. Another example is Israel.
How a tiny country surrounded by states seeking its annihilation has dominated the Middle East is an object lesson about a purposeful elite.
And of course, I can’t forget strongman Lee Kwan Yew’s Singapore.
Do our elites care to study the history of great powers? the most purposeful elites try to know everything about their people.
This knowledge has a purpose. It’s to digest and categorise a nation’s — a people’s — strengths and weaknesses. Especially important to understand is a nation’s weaknesses.
That’s because a state can’t become great unless it eliminates, or cuts down, on its weaknesses. Here, one must study the cultural attributes of the people.
Do they have a work ethic? Are they competitive? Do they like organisation? What types of authority and order do they respond to?
What are the nation’s weaknesses — bad weather, tough topography, small population, or an unschooled population?
You then build national projects to exploit your strengths and limit the weaknesses. Add the former and subtract the latter.
We are dumb copies of the European. My view is that cultural mental slavery has uprooted Tanzanians and suspended them into an unethical orbit.
We are moral dwarfs. We have been engineered by others for their benefits. That’s why we do not know how to act in our national interest.
That’s why we cannibalise each other because we only know how to act in the personal interest.
This phenomenon isn’t dissimilar from the pedagogy of the oppressed.
The Elites must wake up, our Nation needs us more today than before.
Like elites everywhere, Tanzania’s top dogs are interested in their own self-preservation. Nothing wrong with that. Except self-preservation isn’t a national interest, or a noble purpose.
No people, state, country, or civilisation has ever become great without a great and purposeful elite.
A purposeful elite defines the national interest and then forges the people’s zeitgeist to that end. There has to be convergence between the interests of the elite and those of the nation. Dissonance and divergence between the two creates infertility in all aspects of national life.
National elites study and understand the history of great civilisations. It’s through such study and reflection that elites create consensus on the purpose for the existence of the state.
This requires deliberate investment in think-tanks, universities, and secret government programmes designed to foster high-minded agendas. It may even involve the creation of national syndicates beyond the visible eye.
Take China, for example. The People’s Republic didn’t just spring from nowhere to become a global behemoth. Another example is Israel.
How a tiny country surrounded by states seeking its annihilation has dominated the Middle East is an object lesson about a purposeful elite.
And of course, I can’t forget strongman Lee Kwan Yew’s Singapore.
Do our elites care to study the history of great powers? the most purposeful elites try to know everything about their people.
This knowledge has a purpose. It’s to digest and categorise a nation’s — a people’s — strengths and weaknesses. Especially important to understand is a nation’s weaknesses.
That’s because a state can’t become great unless it eliminates, or cuts down, on its weaknesses. Here, one must study the cultural attributes of the people.
Do they have a work ethic? Are they competitive? Do they like organisation? What types of authority and order do they respond to?
What are the nation’s weaknesses — bad weather, tough topography, small population, or an unschooled population?
You then build national projects to exploit your strengths and limit the weaknesses. Add the former and subtract the latter.
We are dumb copies of the European. My view is that cultural mental slavery has uprooted Tanzanians and suspended them into an unethical orbit.
We are moral dwarfs. We have been engineered by others for their benefits. That’s why we do not know how to act in our national interest.
That’s why we cannibalise each other because we only know how to act in the personal interest.
This phenomenon isn’t dissimilar from the pedagogy of the oppressed.
The Elites must wake up, our Nation needs us more today than before.
