Land versus Knowledge, Vintage versus Classic the dilemma!

We formed the cradle of civilization and education until someone told us that our education was not good enough. Off they went with our system of education improved it a bit and came back to us with a “refined” type. This we embraced with all our might but not before the same people had given us yet another type of education coated in religion, yes with a “colorful” person being the center of that new faith. Their agenda was not totally without fault as they preached and at the same time plundered our resources. When we were so full of their “mis-education” and had “grown restless” and wise enough, we decided to take their yoke from our necks. Hence the independence of Africa and yes our beloved Zimbabwe. The process was without its deep rooted effects as the aggrieved developed a deep mistrust for the perpetrator and all things (from his backyard) western.

When a mother and father are fighting over who is better in handling the household purse, it is the children who suffer. The children are left in a situation as to how to respond to the threat of existence which fortunately or unfortunately is not of their making. In that case do you, as a child, speak out or forever hold your peace and hope that reason will prevail? Do not forget to remember that your comment might lead to either parent thinking that you have sided with the other parent to your demise. With this challenge, I choose to remember to forget and yet silently speak yet open not my mouth lest I expose my lack of wisdom as I fail to give answers to countless questions that might be thrown my way.

The good book says “my people perish because of lack of knowledge” but why KNOWLEDGE and not any other thing like the US Dollar or the powerful Cypriotic Pound or maybe the emerging Euro? Surely had it been so important to have resources GOD would have known and named such resource for the benefit of all and sundry and then the real scramble and partition would begin. Yet resource, HE named, but not in the name and form we are as yet comfortable with. That resource, embrace it or not is what rules the world and what makes others masters over their weaker brothers. If there is anything we should blame anybody for it is for our mistrust of everything that comes from our brother who was once found wanting of sleeping in the same bed as our father’s youngest wife. How can anything good come from someone who once was my hero and would protect me from all things evil but has committed so grave a sin that not even GOD can forgive his transgression against our father’s marriage bed. If anything good is to come from this brother, we would rather first take it through some meticulous verification until we half heartedly embrace it before we are drowned in our disbelief and time deals us a bad card as the idea can no longer fit in time at the time of application or implementation.

A couple of years ago, a young American man, a college dropout to be precise embarked on a life and world changing journey which led to the creation of one of the most powerful organizations on earth. Microsoft Corporation was birthed and then the games began. It is my simple premonition that more than 95% of desktop computers in Africa and the world use a Microsoft product in one way or the other. Another world event was the formation of the internet or the network of networks which culminated from a military research but has grown to be the axis on which the information age revolves around. More recently and coincidentally or otherwise, from two young men emerged yet another world shaker in the form of Google the world renowned search engine.

A few days ago the world, perhaps the rest of the world but not Africa was awash with news that Google had posted a first quarter profit of US$1,42 billion. If you still don’t get where I am going, keep reading because this is the part that thick soup is made of. Our annual budget projection as a country was around US$1,9 billion before being reduced to somewhere around US$1,2 billion for good measure, please take no offence in comparing that with the first quarter profit of one ICT organization operating through borders and space. Do not forget to remember that www.google.co.zw is now up and running from which building or part of Africa or Zimbabwe I shan’t tell. I’m not too sure if our annual sales of agricultural produce would add to US$5.68 billion the rains and irrigation being kind on us. The fast and furious conclusion that one would arrive at is that land and yes Agriculture is a useless venture, but don’t go too fast you might just get caught over speeding. We have to find ways sooner rather than later of how to make the most out of less implements, labour and costs. That ladies and gentlemen is KNOWLEDGE. With the land and knowledge we can only be unstoppable. The world is fast becoming smaller and smaller especially with the advent of Internet workable technologies such as Video conferencing, Voice over Internet Protocol, electronic mail (e-mail) and the like.

The world seems to be changing and quickly so with our brothers from the southern part of our borders having caught on to the spirit of that progression. A brother to a close friend of mine who happens to be a Water Engineer visited an irrigation based farm down south where he was ushered into a control room manned by several computers and pieces of technology controlling the farm. So precise was the irrigation system that there were no random sprinklers riotously watering all over the place but mission specific computer controlled sprinklers watering directly with needle precision on top of each plant. Now picture that, not even a drop of precious water wasted due to the convergence of ICT and Agriculture. That is KNOWLEDGE in operation. We need as a matter of urgency to converge and create a Continental and National agenda focusing on the application and preservation of our KNOWLEDGE systems with ICTs being a rallying point. How else can we preserve information from one generation to the next? We need to face our fears and relinquish our doubts. How can we stand by when our mothers and sisters are being raped and our children give themselves back into slavery? We are so hardened by work that we are hard workers first and anything else later. How else can we explain the fact that we have not embraced ICTs in their entirety yet. The argument should NEVER be whether we need an ICT Ministry that stands alone but maybe who heads such Ministry this party or that party. The work to be done in such Ministry is of paramount importance and should never be ignored if we are to raise ourselves back to the level where if we raise our hand we will be counted. Don’t you realize that the first shall be the last and the time surely has come for us to raise our flag high and be counted through the proper use of KNOWLEDGE? Do you think that it is a mistake that Zimbabweans are among the most educated breed of people in the world? It is for such a time and cause as this that we have to become the bread basket of Africa again but not with hoes and ploughshares but by harnessing Information and Communication Technologies that will do away with the ills of unproductivity such as redundancy and repetition. We need to create databases in every sphere of KNOWLEDGE such that information is not lost and forgotten through the passage of time or hidden in some books with tattered covers but on central repositories for all to access, thus ensuring that generations to come will also benefit from our KNOWLEDGE. Imagine how much cultural value and largess we lost by way of trusting The Word of Mouth as a method of data and information interchange from one generation to the other. Imagine how much time and effort goes to waste by our various students who commute to school day in day out and what benefits would accrue from Virtual schools where a class would be held on internet as though the participants where in one room. Imagine if board meetings would be held via video conferencing yes occurring in real time, how much meeting costs would be eliminated and how that would impact on productivity. Imagine a farmer in the middle of a green farm connecting onto a web site obviously with other gadgets and getting feedback on the quality of the crop and the soil ph and how to improve certain aspects of the farming process being given. Imagine a miner getting feedback from a mining repository of the quality of soil and minerals there present and how long it will take to deplete the mineral deposits at a certain rate of extraction and the like. That is exactly what ICTs can achieve for us they are not doers but enablers of the action. Imagine how you would compete with a person with such technical KNOWLEDGE and resources for the global market. I hear you scream unfair, unfair, unfair. Another argument has been presented, that of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), how will an African farmer, exclude South Africa, compete for the international market if it takes him 6 weeks to organically or naturally mature a chicken and it takes another farmer say 7 days with the use of GMO technologies? What becomes of the costs involved for the difference in maturing period and the ensuing difference in selling price? Aren’t we better focusing on how to counter the side effects if any of consuming GMO products through Research and Development enabled by ICTs rather than fighting a bigger evil than ourselves? The argument for ICTs is much bigger than what we can say to oppose and fight them. Do not forget to remember that progress has nothing to do with speed but direction, let us rethink our direction and focus once and for all not on our small picture which might not transcend borders but on Africa at large and the WORLD in general, THE WORLD OF ICT.

On vintage versus classic I wonder how I can convince my father to see that there are things in our culture, things that we have done for zions of years that we need to do differently with less effort. I weep sore for him and pray to GOD for him everyday that he will capture my spirit that I wish him no harm but that GOD would keep him in perfect health that he may continue to sit my children on his lap and give them golden wisdom, but also realize that I am now a man in his season and am a child no longer. I pray that GOD will open his eyes once more to show him that I pledge true and unwavering allegiance to him and his ideals and would never speak against him not in public let alone when I am solo in the shower or the toilet. I plead that my father would understand that every time he has spoken I have bowed my ear down to the dust of the ground and caught his spirit that never again will I allow the cows from the neighbor’s kraal to stray into our garden lest we go a hungering when they have devoured the crop. I wish that my father would give me an opportunity to also speak at the village court when he in turn is given a chance to speak by the elders that I may also open my mouth to utter one or two words of wisdom that I have gotten from him over the years. More than anything my desire is never to outshine my father but to adequately represent him at all costs given any chance to do so and elevate him by my actions for the words I will speak will not be mine but my father’s for if it were not for him I would be a vagary still under the command of a “pikaniny boss” with all the education I would have harnessed being of how to figure out the sweetest African chewing gum (dohwe) down in Chivi kuMasvingo.

“Wherefore seeing we also are encompassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” Hebrews 12 verse 1.