How the world is changing

China shopping

The Economist published two leaders this week that got me thinking about how the world has changed and how inexorably many have failed to adapt to the change or make the kind of adjustments necessary to embrace change and become more relevant in the future.

In the leader China buys up the world [1], one innocuous statistic showed up which was Chinese firms only own just 6% of global investment in international business. One thing we must not fail to realise is that it is growing and it belies a failing of the capitalist model in the West where somewhat Communist finance is propping up or buying up businesses that were once the mainstays of democracies.

The debate between big and small government that exercises the West is moot much as the idea of state controlled enterprises being inefficient, lethargic and unprofitable. The Chinese are doing something we could well learn and use.

A timeline of decline

Even more arresting is the decline of other economic powers; for in 1914 and 1967, both Britain and America held about 50% of global investment respectively and those years were their peak years.

1914 announced the start of the World War I and there is no telling the cost that was to Britain and consequently World War II just a quarter of a century after. By the 1970s, Britain was not working and seemingly in terminal decline, and though there have been recoveries we find ourselves in another trough exemplified by swingeing cuts which no one is sure would bring recovery talk less of ascendancy.

It would be simplistic to suggest that our governments and representation have helped this decline take root, but blame cannot be too far from their door in the economic mistakes and atrocious policies that have defined each ideological standpoint to the detriment of the lifeblood of the each country’s progress.

Well beyond the World Wars

In 1914 that great African country Nigeria was created and it stands as the most populous black African country by far as well as its second largest economy. With its oil resources first discovered in 1937 there has been promise and prospect but very little to show for what it has.

The second leader in the Economist was about reforming the United Nations with the title Thinking the UNthinkable [2]. There is a strong case for redefining the structure of the Security Council and managing the influence of the permanent members whose status derives from having won the Second World War.

I have my doubts about how France won but that would be stoking the embers of discord. What we have now is the defeated foe of 1945 that is now a strong ally, Germany with an economy much greater than that of France and Britain; one must not forget Japan is a contender too having gone shopping like China only two decades ago.

How times have changed

In effect, 2010 is no more 1945, the fulcrum of power has shifted with the emergence of big democracies, economies and other powers making India, Brazil, Japan, Germany, South Africa and even Nigeria viable permanent members of the UN Security Council.

The growing influence of Islam in global affairs puts both Turkey and Indonesia into consideration too, making the UN Security Council more representative of the shift in power and of the times.

With this change there is probably a case for Britain and France giving up their seats for a European representative but the politics of the UN might not allow for widening of the permanent membership of the Security Council with equal status for all members and the loss of veto power.

Nigeria’s disqualification

The case for Nigeria strong as it may seem on promise is weakened by the notion that it is too anarchic a country compared to South Africa.

This damning assessment is in no way unfair, it simply crystallises our representation, our politics, our economic prospects and sadly our future.

This kind of view can only change when those we elect to represent us lift they game and play it right, all eyes are on Nigeria for 2011 but because of our failings South Africa might well take the spoils.

[1] Chinese acquisitions: China buys up the world | The Economist

[2] United Nations: Thinking the UNthinkable | The Economist

White and African and belonging too

My Economist

This morning, I picked up a tweet from the Economist, somehow, I seem to go through the weekly newspaper online long before I have physically flipped the pages of my print edition.

Suffice it to say, I am usually behind on catching up with the topics covered, it had to have been a case of prescience that I took out a two-year subscription in January 2009 to end somewhere in May 2011 without realizing I would experience a brief famine of opportunity and means not long afterwards.

The tweet - @TheEconomist: The short sad life of whites in Africa http://econ.st/9Aj5GZ - To which I added the comment - A story that also must be heard and seen.

Africans – black & white

Considering how Black Africans have “suffered” at one time under whites, one might tend to not consider the plight of presumably white Africans – but without too much controversy, it is arguable that independent sovereign black Africans are suffering badly under their own African leaders.

This is not to stir up any controversy but to assert the fact that there are white Africans who have claim and affinity to Africa than some of us who are African by reason of race, birth, custom or residence.

Putting aside the squabbles of land and resources, in a world where documentary evidence might well count for eligibility and entitlement, some whites in some African lands might be able to verifiably trace their lineage back many more generations than our black oral histories can muster – I fortunately, had a great grandmother into my 20s, she had a narrative that allowed a plot back of 6 generations from mine.

More African than I

The other day, some 15 years ago in an office in Kingston-upon-Thames, South-West of London, I heard my name called with a Yoruba perfect accent, the “N” is a bit nasalised but rarely emulated by non-Nigerians.

I turned around and was startled to see the lovely white girl who had a deeper Nigerian accent than I could ever attempt to jest with who was born in Nigeria, spoke Yoruba fluently – she said proudly, she was Nigerian by birth just as I would have said I was English – beyond the many white schoolmates I had in primary school who were Nigerian it was nice to recognise the kinship across races.

Then again, I remember another instance where a white colleague said he was more African than the 4 other black Britons of Nigerian heritage – I promptly concurred whilst the others took umbrage, considering hardly any of them could speak an African language nor had they experienced much of anything Nigerian in their lives.

Well, he was born in Kenya, he had lived in at least 3 African countries, visited 9 in addition to that, spoke Swahili, managed a bit of passable Yoruba and Hausa and bantered with corrupt African terms that made me almost too colonial to appreciate – I was beaten on that track, he was more African, period.

Loving Africa by choice

Going back to the Economist story, it is not the first time that the presumed Messianic white person has tried to do something in Africa and come to grieve at the hands of the natives – to excite passions flippantly – just as Dian Fossey comes to mind, she chose to make Africa home in the course of her research.

Another in the commendable class is Susan Wenger who became the custodian of the animist grottos of Osun in Nigeria, being one who for all intents and purposes has helped maintain those customs against the onslaught of religions that portend to declare our traditions inherently evil.

They belong as we do

We have to accept that we have ordinary white Africans who are just like you and I, who have every right to freedoms, justice, due process and consideration, just as we who proclaim for those of the black race in Africa.

They should not only be looked at in terms of colonialism, land-grabs or foils for feigned liberation struggles masking rotten leadership and corrupt – they also belong in Africa and like everyone would fight for their little piece of Africa than gives them a history and heritage.

In the end, it does not matter what colour you are or if you are in a minority, if you have a claim to be African, as anyone elsewhere might well have a claim to be who they aver they are, then you are welcome as an African brother and fellow citizen of our amazing global village.

Sources

Dian Fossey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Susan Wenger, Adunni Orisa, Dies at 83

Susan Wenger, Adunni Orisa, Dies at 83 - Worldnews.com - Videos

Scanning Starbucks' Napkins

The name sells coffee

As I changed trains on Sunday, I had a 30 minute stopover at Duisburg and decided to get a coffee.

Of all the coffee shops in the station, I had seen a Starbucks Coffee sign on the platform which was 70 metres away – I was willing to drag my baggage and self all the way to the global giant in a German city railway station.

Not so much for the coffee but for the fact that they do muffins – the muffins are not perfect, there are times I have looked at the muffins and thought I was in some biohazard laboratory with fungal spores cultivated on the surface of the muffins.

But ignore the eyes and mind, go for the taste and all will be well. I hate chocolate in my muffins, in fact, I only do blueberry muffins and when hard pressed vanilla or banana.

I’ve been silly

Too many choices of coffee and as I remembered the Undercover Economist, I realised I had been fleeced the moment I walked into the café, I was suckered and the fool in me was about to be parted from my money.

I ordered a Caffe Mocha Grande from the wall menu which according to Page 35 of my copy of the Undercover Economist with embellishments translates to - I want a cappuccino, mix that with hot chocolate; I feel special - and then make that big by adding water and milk; I feel greedy - and top it with whipped cream; I feel piggily gluttonous. Then charge me over twice the price of a regular coffee.

Did I also get a lemon cake too? My waistline is getting strained already.

I settled in a corner to down my coffee, muffin and cake and as I wiped my mouth of the crumbs, I noticed my napkin had one of those green messages that is supposed to make you feel concerned whilst delivering nothing in reality.

Annoying napkin

The napkin was made from 100% recycled fibres using a bleach-free process, one can be glad for that but the other messages took away from my satisfaction with the snack.

I could not say if it was the More plants, More planet. STARBUCKS COFFEE or the Less napkins, More plants, More planet that annoyed me more as a message that was a non-message; though if contrived enough, it could mean we all depart for the moon.

Similar to the message to save the trees as the paper is friction and pressure heated to bind the toner as you stand by the laser printer ready to pick up your essential printouts.

The trees have already been felled, that is why it is already paper in the laser printer – For crying out loud.

So, here I was in Duisburg, Germany using recycled paper to wipe my mouth and then noticing that the napkin was manufactured in the Netherlands; it would had have to be transported from somewhere in the Netherlands – so much for recycling and the carbon footprint of transportation.

Less Schmaltz, More muffin, More Coffee – I say.