By Mwaba Phiri
I have to strongly differ with Dr Charles Ngoma’s assertion that imitation may be the shortest route to Zambia’s prosperity. To remarkably imitate an original requires a lot of work in itself, so there goes bust Dr Ngoma’s shortcut. The simple fact is that prosperity has to be toiled for. Half a century into independence, Africa has nothing to show for its imitations of the Western World nor of the Eastern world for that matter. We have been imitating our colonizers for hundreds of years and that has led us to where we are now; a begging under developed continent that always awaits hand-outs in the shape of famine relief, development aid, Structural adjustment programmes, professional expertise, etc. By now we should know that imitating a progressive person doesn’t make you progress.
Why it is impossible to progress via imitation is that by its nature imitation is superficial. You may pretend to be someone else but sooner or later your true self will want to come out and disturb the carbon copy. Thus we may pretend to be European by giving ourselves English names but that does not turn Michael Sata or Rupiah Banda into Winston Churchill. We may walk the dusty streets of Lusaka townships in Western styled suits but that doesn’t turn Kalingalinga into Windsor Castle. To be great we have to believe we are great the way we are and then improve upon that. As it is we want to be great the way the British are, the way the Americans are[pullquote].There is an overwhelming mindset that Western technology is difficult to grasp. This comes out of the inferiority complex handed down by colonialism that whites are superior. At the same time there is a belief that to be modern is to be Western; nothing else.( which belief is false). Therefore, those wanting to take a shortcut to being modern, look for simpler Western artefacts and mannerisms to imitate.[/pullquote]
What dictates progress is normally innovation. You can observe an act, scientific or social, and adapt it to suit your environment. Thus when the Japanese copied Western technology and subsequently bought the licences to now make cars like Toyota, they learnt the technology and with a few tweaks here and there they then made it their own. Japan had confronted modern Western technology in the early 1800s. Terrified by the war between China and Britain in the early 1830s the Japanese built western style guns to protect themselves. They did this without any help from foreigners. Once they had mastered how to build it the technology became theirs.
Once you possess this technology you will be able to repair it when it breaks down. If you are merely assembling Fiat cars in Livingstone you are unlikely to progress to thinking about how to avoid the snapping of the front wheel axle; a common fault among Zambian assembled Fiats. The point I am making here is that we never attempt to own the technology that we admire and import because we have an inferiority complex that we can never master it. Its not uncommon for African firms to ask for engineers from abroad when an imported machine breaks down.
Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, recites an instance when he went to a Kampala hospital and found hundreds of broken down trolleys in the backyard. Talking to staff he was told that the axes on the wheels were snapping and there was noone to repair these since they were made in England. The hospital administration was, in typical African style, now waiting for the government to order new trolleys from Europe. Museveni briefly scrutinised the broken down trolleys and realised that replacement wheels could easily be made in Kampala. He ordered that these trolleys be repaired locally and lo and behold! The hospital was again moving.
This shows the lack of innovation on the continent. When a Western made machine breaks down, Africans start waiting for another one to come from wherever they bought (begged for) the original. There is an overwhelming mindset that Western technology is difficult to grasp. This comes out of the inferiority complex handed down by colonialism that whites are superior. At the same time there is a belief that to be modern is to be Western; nothing else.( which belief is false). Therefore, those wanting to take a shortcut to being modern, look for simpler Western artefacts and mannerisms to imitate. Thus knowing just how difficult it is to emulate Rocket Science, we are very inclined to copying easy stuff such as Western behaviour, Western cosmetics, dress, names, accents, religion, bring it on; I mean everything Western by the truckload.
Humans by nature copy each other for progress’s sake but one should know what to copy and how to copy it. Humans need to copy what is progressive and leave out the inapposite and retrogressive elements. How do we do this? This is where political leadership steps in. It normally has the wherewithal to ideologically influence a whole nation, more so if it is a dictatorship as we had in the first 35 years of African independence. It is the political leadership that introduces education curricula to erase inferiority complexes and neo-colonial mindsets among its youth and general populace. This is quite difficult if the president is busy imitating American accents and fashions.
Dr Ngoma fails to inform his readership on the shortcomings of imitation. The simplistic manner in which he cites various historical imitations doesn’t help the Zambian, rather it runs the risk of reducing him to a proud follow fashion monkey. This perpetuates the inferiority complex because imitation has a side effect. It leaves upon the imitator an inferiority complex coming from the fact that he knows he is pretending to be of a perceived superior grouping. In other words imitation kills self-pride. People without self-pride will not progress. Just look at the great nations we have presently and tell me which one got where they are without self pride. The answer is none.
If Dr Ngoma describes imitation as an “insatiable appetite for the latest” we have a different argument there. The latest does not have to be what the colonial master produces. You can make your own latest. However when we have been brought up to think everything from the colonizer is what is modern (latest) and everything indigenous is archaic, it is difficult to carry our true selves into the modern world. With the kind of innovation (and self-pride) I have cited from the Japanese, we can go forward without degrading and losing ourselves.
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