By George Ayittey, Special to CNN
CNN Editor’s note: George Ayittey is a Ghanaian economist and the author of several books on Africa, including “Africa Unchained” and the forthcoming “Defeating Dictators in Africa and Around The World.” In 2008, Ayittey was listed by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the “Top 100 Public Intellectuals” of our time. He writes for Africa 50, CNN’s special coverage looking at 17 African nations marking 50 years of independence this year.

(CNN) — Currently, Africa — a continent immensely rich with mineral resources and yet mired in poverty — suffers from a catastrophic leadership failure or monumental deficit of leadership.

Since 1960, there have been 210 African heads of state, but just try to find 10 — just 10 — good ones among them. Names like Mandela, Nkrumah, Nyerere easily come to mind but then rapidly fall off.

But there is hope in what I call the “Cheetah Generation.”

The Cheetah Generation refers to the new and angry generation of young African graduates and professionals, who look at African issues and problems from a totally different and unique perspective.

They are dynamic, intellectually agile, and pragmatic. They may be the “restless generation” but they are Africa’s new hope. They brook no nonsense about corruption, inefficiency, ineptitude, incompetence, or buffoonery.

They understand and stress transparency, accountability, human rights, and good governance. They also know that many of their current leaders are hopelessly corrupt and that their governments are contumaciously dysfunctional and commit flagitious human rights violations.

The Cheetahs do not look for excuses for government failure by wailing over the legacies of the slave trade, Western colonialism, imperialism, the World Bank or an unjust international economic system.

To the Cheetahs, this “colonialism-imperialism” paradigm, in which every African problem is analyzed, is obsolete and kaput. Unencumbered by the old shibboleths, Cheetahs can analyze issues with remarkable clarity and objectivity.

The outlook and perspectives of the Cheetahs are refreshingly different from those of many African leaders, intellectuals, or elites, whose mental faculties are so foggy and their reasoning or logic so befuddled that they cannot distinguish between right and wrong. They blame everybody else for Africa’s problems except themselves.

This is the “Hippo Generation,” intellectually astigmatic and stuck in their muddy colonialist pedagogical patch. They can see with eagle-eyed clarity the injustices perpetrated by whites against blacks, but they are hopelessly blind to the more heinous injustices they perpetrate against their own black people.

The Hippos are of the 1960s-era mentality — stodgy, pudgy, and wedded to the old “colonialism-imperialism” paradigm with an abiding faith in the potency of the state.

They lack vision — hippos are near-sighted — and sit tight in their air-conditioned government offices, comfortable in their belief that the state can solve all of Africa’s problems. All the state needs is more power and more foreign aid. And they would ferociously defend their territory since that is what provides them with their wealth. (Hippos kill more people in Africa than any other animal.)

They care less if the whole country collapses around them, but are content as long as their pond is secure.

The Cheetahs are not so intellectually astigmatic. Whereas the Hippos constantly see problems, the Cheetahs see business opportunities. The Cheetah generation has no qualms about getting their hands “dirty.” Africa’s salvation rests on the back of the Cheetah generation.

I have identified several Cheetahs — both men and women — in many African countries: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Togo, Zambia and even Somalia.

They are operating in many fields: agriculture, informal sector, IT technology, manufacturing and even in government.

But now is not the time for the Cheetahs to take over. They will be ripped up by the ornery and nasty Hippos. Rather, they should build up on their skills, strength and accumulate knowledge and wealth — in the private sector — while methodically draining the swamp of the Hippos.

Soon, they will find themselves “homeless” and then the Cheetahs can take over.

[CNN]

By John Njovu

Lately, Lusaka has been enjoying a spate of music shows by international musicians. Most of them have been musicians who play the pub popular types of dance music. Scantily dressed young women, gyrating waists and behinds, and open belly wriggling flash in your minds. Pictures you would not want your children to be in. The music is high volume and fast paced. I guess we Africans are physical and even in the churches; we have thrown away the Latin and Germanic hymns for the modern Afro-rhumba and Euro-pop gospel. Probably sex is on our minds not much different from our ancestors vigorously raking out a foot behind and imitating the mating moves of a rooster during those bright moon nights. That was music and dances when a Mbalule (lead) drum would sharply portray what is done in the dark. That Afro traditional rhythmic beat has cropped up into modern music. I watched a surprising European type of ballet in Niamey by a Maghreb dance troupe at one time and could swear that the drumming was Nsenga from the eastern province of Zambia. A Ghanaian friend explained that the drumming was common with Bantus on the Eastern side of Ghana and West of Niger. The ballet style was copied though from the French. [pullquote]I guess we Africans are physical and even in the churches; we have thrown away the Latin and Germanic hymns for the modern Afro-rhumba and Euro-pop gospel. Probably sex is on our minds not much different from our ancestors vigorously raking out a foot behind and imitating the mating moves of a rooster during those bright moon nights[/pullquote]

Could it also be that the stresses of trying to cross into another day, for most of us in Zambia or Africa, probably justify our listening and dancing to music that we shake, gyrate, wriggle and sweat to, to wriggle out the stresses?

The subdued genres of music concentrating on dynamics of sounds, harmony and melody may therefore, generally, not appeal to most of us.

Therefore, it was a rare treat for those who love baroque and classical music to be entertained by the Pegasos Ensemble. This is a group of four accomplished musicians led by Theo Bross who plays the violoncello (cello). The others are Jennie McMullen who plays piano and is a soprano singer. Julia Galic is a violinist. Christa Jardine plays the viola. The violin, viola, cello, double bass and Octobass belong to the violin family (the viola da braccio family) of musical instruments. These are played using a bow drawn over the strings. A finger of the free hand plucks and hammers on the strings to produce a range of pitches.

The ensemble was formed in 1991. They performed at Gerritz Restaurant in Rhodes Park on Sunday 15th August. It was their second time in Zambia. They were in Zambia thanks to the Goethe Institute and German Embassy.

The ensemble showed their mastery of musical instruments; Jennie’s magic fingers on the piano, sweet fiddling Julia and Christa and audience humoring Theo on their string instruments. Their repertoire was rich and conveyed in me flashes of colours and scenes of 1500s to 2000s. I was ported through the ensemble’s musical window into enchanted castles of big banquets and bejeweled and overdressed royalty, snow blanketed villages, mushroom littered forests and rivers of mermaids of old Europe. The wonderful pieces of Jean Marie Lecrair, Franz Shubert and Antonio Vivaldi were played so marvelously that old Europe came alive in the yard of Gerritz.

In my mind eyes I galloped through the palaces of Victorian families of Europe through Slavic states, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy and Spain. I saw and heard Gypsy fanfare and horseplay come galloping through Gerritz Restaurant as the ensemble played Czardas by Vittorio Monti. I saw Blondie hair flying low in a three star Germanic coupe on an American highway as Leonard Bernstein’s pieces were tweaked and sprayed into the air. I stopped in Spain to see slender and tall women in long skirts dance and see bull fights as I stepped out of the musical window of the ensemble as Manuel de Falla’s pieces came alive. Though missing Andalusian flamenco guitars, the string instruments brought the dances of Spain into Rhodes Park.

One wished the recital could go on and on. However, all things good have an end. We can only wish that the ensemble will return again to Lusaka one day. I also wish that some of our own from the Lusaka Music Society would enchant us as well during the next visit of the ensemble.