Gerald .M Magembe
JF-Expert Member
- Jul 17, 2013
- 2,496
- 1,795
Why do we say a fish rots from the head down. I reiterate here – that no state, or civilisation in history has ever achieved greatness without a great elite. This includes global hegemonies like the United States, China, France, or the United Kingdom.
In contrast, the artificially invented – and imposed – Eurocentric African post-colonial state is a disaster. These humpty-dumpties yoyo between sterility and collapse. Tanzania has retarded to the “African norm.” Blame no one, but our putrid and bankrupt elite.
It gives no pleasure – in fact I am deeply pained – to pen this column. I say so because the collective failure, the malignancy, is our shared shame. It’s true that the white man gave us a poisoned chalice. He mutilated our souls and fed them to the proverbial devil. He planted culturally demonic chips in us. Every time we try to right the ship, the demon punches the self-destruct button, and puts us in reverse.
Despair hangs in the air as our elites devour and eat their young.
At the dawn of flag independence, the white man said that we couldn’t govern ourselves. We loudly protested and pulled out the race card. Then one by one African state after African state atrophied, or collapsed. The white man was right – and so were we. That’s because he had booby-trapped the state he gave us. Pick up a timed bomb and it will blow in your face. Our problem is that we didn’t detonate the bomb before picking it up. That’s what they’ve done in Singapore and Malaysia and are attempting to do in India, Brazil, and other emerging post-colonial states. In Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere tried it, but with arguably mixed results.
Under CCM, our national cancer if unchecked shall metastasize. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. Corruption indicates will infest our bone marrow. The national debt has exploded. Common decency has evaporated. Our school system is in the toilet. More than half our people are in a constant state of malnourishment. We are dying.
The state that’s supposed to take care of us – and our property – shouldn’t go rogue. The rich have gotten obscenely rich. The poor and destitute have ceased to elicit even pity from their compatriots. But the elite troops go to church and mosque every week and bows their heads – and raise their palms upwards – like faithful penitents. We must ask this – what devils are they praying to? Even more chilling, what are they beseeching the lord to give them?
I’ve watched many an African states go over the cliff. But I’ve always held out the hope that Tanzania is simply not nonsense on stilts. We can stop our country from collapsing into a heap. But this doesn’t happen by osmosis, or happenstance. Inter-elite calumny and moral bankruptcy aren’t a natural state.
In contrast, the artificially invented – and imposed – Eurocentric African post-colonial state is a disaster. These humpty-dumpties yoyo between sterility and collapse. Tanzania has retarded to the “African norm.” Blame no one, but our putrid and bankrupt elite.
It gives no pleasure – in fact I am deeply pained – to pen this column. I say so because the collective failure, the malignancy, is our shared shame. It’s true that the white man gave us a poisoned chalice. He mutilated our souls and fed them to the proverbial devil. He planted culturally demonic chips in us. Every time we try to right the ship, the demon punches the self-destruct button, and puts us in reverse.
Despair hangs in the air as our elites devour and eat their young.
At the dawn of flag independence, the white man said that we couldn’t govern ourselves. We loudly protested and pulled out the race card. Then one by one African state after African state atrophied, or collapsed. The white man was right – and so were we. That’s because he had booby-trapped the state he gave us. Pick up a timed bomb and it will blow in your face. Our problem is that we didn’t detonate the bomb before picking it up. That’s what they’ve done in Singapore and Malaysia and are attempting to do in India, Brazil, and other emerging post-colonial states. In Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere tried it, but with arguably mixed results.
Under CCM, our national cancer if unchecked shall metastasize. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. Corruption indicates will infest our bone marrow. The national debt has exploded. Common decency has evaporated. Our school system is in the toilet. More than half our people are in a constant state of malnourishment. We are dying.
The state that’s supposed to take care of us – and our property – shouldn’t go rogue. The rich have gotten obscenely rich. The poor and destitute have ceased to elicit even pity from their compatriots. But the elite troops go to church and mosque every week and bows their heads – and raise their palms upwards – like faithful penitents. We must ask this – what devils are they praying to? Even more chilling, what are they beseeching the lord to give them?
I’ve watched many an African states go over the cliff. But I’ve always held out the hope that Tanzania is simply not nonsense on stilts. We can stop our country from collapsing into a heap. But this doesn’t happen by osmosis, or happenstance. Inter-elite calumny and moral bankruptcy aren’t a natural state.