Southerners, knowledge is power!
By Isaiah Abraham
August 27, 2010 — The much awaited referenda for self determination for the people of Southern Sudan on January 9, 2011 have sharpened the thinking of our people’s government in Juba. They aren’t sleeping since chances for the birth of a new nation in the horn of Africa are indeed high. Last week we have heard a team of serious men/women attending a workshop in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi on how to improve and jump start agricultural services. The focus of that workshop was about everything agriculture, but specifically the aim is to reduce dependency on food stuff coming in to the region from neighboring countries by empowering local farmers to produce more. A nation that never feeds her populace can’t independence, I think this is what they came to conclude. Food security surely is key to economic and political growth/development. One can’t help but lauds the efforts made by our government to prepare itself before the curtain comes down in February next year.
But the essence of things there and here is knowledge. We have inherited a worrying education culture where college graduates are given preferential leverage over others as if university is the only best place to acquire knowledge or make a difference in life. The truth is that college isn’t enough on its own to produce productive knowledge unless a nation ends up becoming color jobs nations with theorists overseeing practical happenings. Southern Sudanese children are being oriented that college is the end result of education; this could be true but not the whole truth, not even a half. The story is different if we take the background of renowned world inventors. My brother Luke Dak Kuth in his wise usual writings once cited some who make a difference in the world they lived; among them is a software developer William Gates III (Bill Gates), and I must include a Mexican Carlos Slim Helu for telecom expansion there (Mexico), investment gurus like Warrant Buffett and Michael Bloomberg (USA) and Ingvar Kamprad from Sweden, are a few of such brains.
In 1968, a gentleman called Leonard Read wrote a short, readable and very influential essay. It was called I, Pencil. Its premise was very simple. Pick up a pencil from your desk, and ask yourself the following questions: could I, individually make this simple implement from scratch? I hope you came to the correct answer: that you can’t. Your intelligence will not help you; you can’t individually make something as simple as a pencil.
Pencil exists because millions of people from across the globe got involved in its production. Some felled the specification that form the wood, others ran the timber factory that used machinery to produce wood of a specific size. Different people ran the electrical power company that distributed power to the timber factory. Yet others started and ran the pencil company that combined the wood with graphite mined elsewhere and painted the pencil with lacquers obtained from others; and yet another group of people marketed and distributed that pencil so that it finally came to you. Imagine the work that goes into producing a computer, an aeroplane, a medical instrument. The point is simplicity itself: pencils are still made in their billions. They are not planned by any one person, their production is not coordinated throughout a supply chain by any one authority. Pencils come together because they are needed and because human ingenuity and knowledge combines to produce them.
It is the same for any production service. Even bottle water we take everyday, someone somewhere has the knowledge that makes it a reality, but what if we make our own based on their knowledge? What is needed to produce them is not all the natural resources or technical skills present in one place, but combination of both. What is necessary is sufficient human knowledge to create a market that delivers all the necessary components at the right time. That is what our nation really wants to light itself up the human ingenuity and connectivity that allows it to make a bottled water, pencil, laptops, fruit juice, wines, banking products etc. The process leading to the production of pencil wasn’t done and completed in the University, perhaps there was little contribution from the university but not all. We have a fertile ground to invent and make things work for our good if choose to do so. We can even pick stories from others such as the Singaporeans and Taiwanese. How did they make it. They started late and move quickly to assert their place in the world.
The land called Southern Sudan have a lot of potentials unless we tap them earlier enough for the good of our people, we will still be in the category of developing country for ever. The challenge lies not only with leadership but individuals as well. Our policy makers are there because we exist, and if we start to invent what is best for us, they will make atmosphere better for you and for me to invest something. There is a need hence for someone to acquire knowledge (on certain areas you could do best) from somewhere, and that knowledge is everywhere around you . The technical areas are best places we should pay much attention. We had before war some areas in Tonj, Torit, Wau, Yambio and Malakal; these places need revamping. Our brothers from Uganda and Kenya also have skills we could borrow. Why not benefit from them? If we could allow them to open up as many vocational training centers as we can afford, then that will go a long way to help our people in the long.
We have too many young people wasting away in the bars owned by Ugandans and Ethiopians in our big cities; the large section of our youth that sit idly doing nothing under trees, playing domino and one wonders what this people think they are doing there. Playing cards seven days a week is too bad a beginning. Some time back I wrote why didn’t this young man go to till the land, go to classes, read or write books, among other duties. We have no reason to shout against our leaders when we aren’t making efforts by our own to improve our own status of living. Office employement we all aspire to be, has eroded our creativity to employ ourselves through our own inventions. You can even be an employed person and still do something for your own. It starts with you then to the nation. In Leer County I was impressed when little children make use of their time after classes. Let’s create wealth for ourselves; no one will do that for us. If we embrace knowledge and start to pick learning, we will move quickly like others with whom we share similar history.
Hard work pays as they say, but if we think the best thing to do is to wait for something someone did, we will end up becoming a grueling and begging nation running after kawajat year in year out for assistances. Its not about resources alone but about knowledge. Lack of knowledge for something can deprive our nation the beauty of this world. A knowledgeable and exposed society can drive us forward. We can forever blamed Arabs. Problems could be us; they have tried their best to change the face of their desert land to what it is now.
Our government should open up for everyone who needs to learn. Some institutions unfortunately aren’t keen on capacity building projects for their staff. They should allow their staff for further courses and more training. Skilled human resource is what we badly need in our situation. Big titles alone can’t help us liberate ourselves from poverty and ignorance. We have enough of these from time to time when we have our government. Let’s get to serious business of learning how small and big things are done from others. Others have changed millions lives for the better, and its upon us to do the same or be a laughing stock by others. People must soil their hands for what is best for their people; our young engineers are even running away from some specific civil engineering work to avoid being on the road construction sites, to what will keep their neck tie clean. If we mean living a life we must change our rotten behavior and start to work, work and work!
Isaiah Abraham lives in Juba; he’s on [email protected].