I agree with the writer 100%, I have always wonder why do we buy fertilizers so expensive each and every year yet I believe it shouldn't be hard to come up with something, we import ferilizers for heavenly sake, isn't this made of cow shit?, I thought we had a university of agriculture and technology!

and this thread got me thinking how we are exploited in the name of 'helping us' mine metals & extracting oil

The piece may well be very true: But I am no longer hot and bothered by instigative speech/posts like these.

As a single man, usually there is little impact you can have only a country, let alone an entire continent, unless you are uniquely talented, like Mandela or Tutu. The best you can do, and its a good start, is vote in good leaders with vision and who can formulate and implement good policies.

Just 1900 and the African race did not know civilization as it is. The civilization with us is one of Caucasian invention. They have had thousands of years of a head start ...by 1930, all we had in Kenya for instance were vast plains and forests and we were not any wiser, but we were comfortable.
Now look at a picture of New York at around the same time
...The great fire of London destroyed 80,000 homes in the city borders ...this was in 1666!!! it is overly ambitious to imagine we can develop infrastructure to be at par with these guys after just 80 years.

Yes, we have many serious problems, terrible leaders who are myopic selfish and sometimes bloodthirsty (and I am talking about the whole African continent here) ,...but so did Europe and the rest of the West in the Iron Ages ...they had savagery by the bucket loads, atrocities like the Spanish inquisitions, Napoleon, Hitler, King Richard of England and his crusades..etc etc just open a history book. Now wazungus want everybody to believe that they have always had this rosy democracy with the institutions ...rubbish!

We shall get there at some point. There will be good governance, infrastructure and institutions; But first we must rid ourselves of our stupidity and elect leaders with brains in their heads. Kenya for example seems to be on this promising path, and that is good.

Sorry all for being speechy

@quicksand, I agree with you. As someone(Chiluba?) once said, Africa is trying in 100 years to achieve what Europe achieved in half a millennium.

But it strikes me that African countries ruled by mzungu for long were prosperous economically when compared with black and Arab ruled Africa. With an exception of Botswana, African countries that got independence in their 60s and 70s degenerated into civil war, corruption, hunger, dictatorships etc.

Could it be that the tenets of western civilization such as freedom, democracy, integrity, accountability and human rights were and still are alien to the African and thus he needs time to adjust?

We have a long way to go but I'm still hopeful we will make it. Kenya is definitely moving forward on many fronts but we still have some sad cases in the continent like the recent Mali coup which takes us back to the dark days of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Can you imagine a coup in say France or UK?

Who is an intellectual? Why is the solitary person diffident? In saying one is 'unique' have we really said anything meaningful?

The start surely, has to be a consciousness of a certain idea or set of ideas, a dialogue with another for the sake of creating a vision, a leader,and finally by understanding these ideas are the very essence of life.

What is a civillization? Surely it is not something we can get to. As far as the present civillization is concerned, 'we' are the 'underlings.' It is another civillization that is possible. But can an election alone create a civillization?

It is easy for one to ask whether the African has understood 'democracy . . .' but all these words are founded on a favorable economic system, and so the matter is whether we have the ability to create a favorable economic system.

Does the 'African intellectual' even exist? A Kenyan male educated at some top notch institution to 'Professor' status, is he the intellectual we are talking about?

Perhaps all this talk about lazy African intellectuals is yet another ploy to keep the African in perpetual slavery.