Indigenous Population & Infrastructure Enhancement In Africa (Preferably Central - East Africa)

Indigenous people are distinct cultural societies and communities.  Most of the inhabitants of Africa are indigenous in the sense that they existed before colonization. Their identity and lifestyle are unique. These indigenous people face a lot of problems like lack of recognition, land alienation (resulting in conflict between them and the government) and marginalization. They lack access to education and health opportunities and are extremely poor. The indigenous population in Africa are mostly unemployed.

Most of the counties in Central-East Africa are still in their early stages of life. They are yet to transition from traditional agrarian to modern lifestyle. Most of these people are engaged in agriculture which indicates the low infrastructural advancement in the areas.  The internal regional conflict tensions in the Central and East Africa also posed difficulty in successfully implementing infrastructural development projects. East Africa is getting foreign direct investments currently.

National governments are willing to achieve an advancement in large scale infrastructural development to increase economic growth, increase employment opportunities and reduce resilience to foreign aid. Also, Africa receives loans and technical support from the African Development Bank as well as from the World Bank and interest from China. Such investments are mostly implemented in the rural areas that have remained aloof from the outside world.

National and International laws aren't followed or given any importance by the people living in such regions. Any kind of developmental work and entrance of outsiders can have a great impact on the indigenous population. These are historically rooted tensions in such areas which is the main reason for the developmental project failures. Unwelcoming and negative attitudes of the local population can make the investors change their ideas of investing in such areas to avoid any dangers.

With changing times, the importance of infrastructure grew unanimously. Enhancing infrastructure can support the indigenous growing population with the basic essential facilities, structures and services. The changing social, environment and economic systems demands the inclusiveness of indigenous population in gaining information with their insights for achieving resilience and sustainability. There should be a proper collaboration between various projects and indigenous communities in planning and designing of infrastructure. 

Governments and development banks unveiled ambitious plans for enhancing infrastructure. Seeing this many investors have started investing in infrastructure. This is also the case in Africa where mega- infrastructure projects have started to dominate the national and global development policy agendas. The National policy on science, technology and innovation holds a key to Rwanda's sustainable development in terms of economic and demographic growth. STI is also implicit in the priority given in the document to ICT’s energy and green innovation and in the proposal to create a climate change and environment Innovation Centre. There are five priorities given,  these are:

 

1. Investment in hard as well as soft infrastructure to meet the demand of energy in the private sector.
2. Increase in accessing public goods and resources by building international airports and also working on plans of establishing railway connections. Focus should also be given on exports and re-exports to Burundi and Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and major investment to be given on both hard and soft infrastructure to accelerate the growth in the tourism and community sectors. Expansion on the export works in manufacturing and agro- processing will also take place.
3. To strengthen the investment process by targeting large foreign investors in priority economic sectors, increasing the long-term services and strengthening the private sector by reforming taxation.
4. To facilitate and manage proper urbanization by promoting affordable housing facilities.
5.  To pursue a “green economy” and bring economic transformation prioritizing given urbanization and green innovation in public and private industry. A pilot green city is being launched by 2018 to test and promote a new approach to urbanization employing various technologies to create sustainable cities. 

Regional integration among the Central and East-African countries can favor infrastructural development. There is also the construction of the Ethiopia Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile illustrating the significance of intraregional dialogue. After its completion, it will be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa and the eight largest in the world. In terms of transport infrastructure, Africa lacks behind it too. It will be a major challenge to develop railway and road linkages to ports for creating a better connection with other countries with one another and contributing to the global economy. Fortunately, there are potential areas for investment in oil and mineral exploration in Chad, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda. Large Infrastructure projects have also started in Rwanda. 

Conclusion

Africa is facing a monumental task in prioritizing, accelerating and scaling up quality infrastructure enhancement. It can take several years or decades for an infrastructure project to go from idea to operation. Infrastructure in Africa (especially in Central and east Africa) is lagging behind. The reason is both financial as well as technical constraints. African must aim in solving internal conflicts and poverty reduction for overall human and infrastructural development. The marginalized section of the population must be made involved while planning for infrastructural development projects. Development that takes place without benefiting the indigenous population cannot be called a development.

 

The Art of Cancel Culture

 Celebrities are controversial, and the world is dark. Is cancel culture the correct way to deal with this?

#Thiscelebrityisoverparty or #cancelcultureisoverparty

Which one would you join?

Everyday, some of the other celebrities are cancelled on the internet. #Thiscelebrityisoverparty trends constantly on Twitter, with one or the other personality being cancelled each day.

This new culture of cancelling people has become a source of debate, with people on each end feeling strongly about the subject.

What is cancel culture?

^[1]The practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure is called cancel culture.

This usually happens with celebrities, or people of power, with the view of coming out with a crime that was committed by this person and seeking justice from this situation. It takes the help of social media, a powerful and influential tool, to pressurize this person into being evaluated.

What cancel culture started as -

It started as a reform movement. Its end goal was to break the power structures and achieve justice in a society, where it didn’t often happen.

What it has become now -

A name and shame game. It has become a way of harassing people in the public domain, often resulting in a wave of bullying and death threats.

To understand this better, let’s observe this phenomenon from two points of view.

'Cancel Culture' is the new Social Justice

There exist power structures in an economy, which are very rigid and hard to break. It’s very difficult to call out a person of power and influence and expect them to go through the same trial and justice that regular people like you and me do. The intermediaries existing between regular people and these powerful people, never really let us call out these people for their actions and wrongdoings. This is where this culture comes into the scene.

For many, cancel culture is the new social justice. Holding someone accountable for their actions in front of the whole world, pressurizes that person to come out and accept their mistakes. This person will either be defending themselves and filing in the court or accepting their mistakes and apologizing for them. Either way, they’ll do it to save their reputation and career, which takes a solid hit, owing to the amount of power the audience has in a profession such as that of an actor, or a singer. When the public is displeased with you, it results in a lesser audience engaging with your art, which can be the death of one’s career.

When talking about social justice, cancel culture has been able to achieve considerable success. Take, for example, the incident of Louis C.K, a famous comedian who lost his job after being accused of sexual misconduct. ‘Call Me By Your Name’ actor Armie Hammer was shunned by the industry, replaced in movies, and cancelled by his sponsored brands when women raised their voices against his sexual and cannibalistic conduct.  Another fairly famous comedian called Chris D’Elia was called out for possession of child pornography and sexual misconduct by women when they were minors. Kevin Spacey was found guilty of sexual assault by an actor who was a minor at that time. Countless celebrities have been called out for their racist and homophobic statements.

What all these incidents resulted in was a wave of taking accountability followed by reforms to fix their mistakes. This not only made the perpetrators reflect but also gave so much power to the victims of these crimes. It is incredibly difficult to raise one’s voice against a powerful figure, but social media and the people on it have given the strength to these victims to come out and raise their voices.

This culture has become a new movement for justice. It is breaking the barriers of power structures in society by bringing the most influential of people on the stand of a public trial.

However, is this justice permanent or fleeting?

'Cancel Culture' is not the solution to a problem. It is a problem.

Cancel culture is used to call out bad behavior. The irony is, it was itself born out of a misogynistic reference. In the film New Jack City, the character of Nino Brown played by Wesley Snipes referred to his ex-girlfriend saying “Cancel that. I’ll buy another one” 

Cancel culture is very toxic in nature. It started from the value of breaking power structures and bringing justice to people around the world, but it has transformed into something completely else. People are now cancelled over the most minuscule of things. 

Let’s first talk about the public trials this cancel culture holds. This public trial is held by the public, with little to no knowledge of law or the incident itself. This public often jumps to a conclusion and directly labels the accused as ‘bad’ before even getting the gist of the incident. This jump to conclusion is detrimental to the life of the accused. 

This cancel culture has then turned into bullying, instead of actually holding this person accountable. Why bullying? The accused is then harassed, assaulted, stalked, shamed, and sent death threats, even before the court has actually deemed them a perpetrator. People bully this person to an extent where their mental health is permanently damaged, and harm is caused to their whole family. This burden of justice shouldn’t fall into the hands of the public but rather the court itself. This is what the downside of a public trial looks like.

Let us now talk about communication. When a person is cancelled, all communication is shut off. Cancelling a person is often more a monologue than a dialogue, where this person is shut off and “cancelled” even before they have got a chance to defend themselves. This cuts the dialogue aspect of the trial, that every accused deserves to have. To bully this person into submission without getting a chance to stand up for themselves is plain horror.

In the end, is justice really served? The end goal of this culture should be correcting wrong behavior. Instead, it has become a name and shame game of pulling your favorite celebrity down to ashes.

So what should be done?

First of all, this cancel culture should be named, accountability culture. The word cancel in itself is very toxic. The end goal of this movement should be for this person to come out, accept their mistakes and take accountability for their actions. To prove this by reforming their actions from that point in time, and not by bullying and harassing them into submission.

Accept your mistakes.

Take accountability and issue an apology.

Take corrective measures to reform your mistakes.

This is the ideal path of what this accountability culture should look like. We should also pay attention to the mental health of the accused. Instead of jumping to conclusions, let’s wait for the court to hold a trial or for the necessary investigation to take place and then form our opinions with all the facts and figures in place. The victim should be given power and protection. There shouldn’t exist victim-blaming of any sorts and people should feel comfortable in coming out.

Let’s all remember that we are humans. We make mistakes. To make a mistake is not as wrong as not taking accountability for it. What we need is a better society where justice is given to all, equally. Where justice is born out of facts and figures and not bullying and harassing people.

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^[1] Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “cancel culture,” accessed June 25, 2021, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cancel%20culture.

Not Sluts, Not Saints, Just Women (Feminism Is Not Anti-Male)

Is Feminism Pro-Women? Or is it Anti-Men? Is Feminism against Men having any rights? Is Feminism only about Women wanting to become better than Men?

True feminism is bringing women up, it’s not about putting men down! True feminism cares about both men and women equally and asks society to treat them the same.

Feminism simply asks society to give women the same rights, respect and privileges which men have always had.

John Legend & Sharen

Feminism has nothing to do with trash-talking Men or claiming Women are better than Men, there are plenty of men out there who proudly wear the badge of being a Feminist (John Legend, Harry Styles and Chris Martin being some famous examples!). 

Chris Martin

Yet, there exists a huge movement which has always been critical of Feminism, historically those opposed to Feminism were quite scared of Women voting or stepping out of their houses to work (or Women having more freedom in general!) but in the 21st century skeptics of feminism aren’t just concerned about women moving away from their traditional roles but many argue feminism would alienate men and deny men the respect they deserve.

Many argue that women have already been given rights and privileges and there isn’t any need for feminism anymore. A contrary and diametrically opposite movement has arisen which demands for men to be given more rights and respect instead of their female counterparts. Many Anti-Feminist Movements have caught on asking for women to ‘obey’ men and start becoming more ‘feminine’ (Yes, I’m talking about the 21st century here!)

 Let’s now ask a few simple questions and try to understand why Feminism isn’t Anti-Men:

 Can Women vote?

 A feminist would say yes, women should be able to vote, if men can be given the right to choose their leaders then why not women? A feminist however wouldn’t say men should be denied the right to vote and women alone should get the right to suffrage!

 Should women be paid the same wage as men for the same work?

 A feminist would say yes, simply because both men and women would have put equal effort into their work and they deserved to be paid the same, a feminist however wouldn’t say men should be paid lesser than women to reverse a historical wrong!

 Should Women have the same freedom as men?

A feminist would say yes, women should have the freedom to do what they choose to do– what they wear, where they go and so forth. A feminist however, wouldn’t say men shouldn’t have freedom and women alone should be free to choose what they want.

Should women be allowed to have careers?

A feminist would say yes to this. Women too have the ability to develop skills and should be allowed to put these to use, a Feminist however wouldn’t say men shouldn’t be allowed to work and women alone should be allowed to work or that Women work better than men and therefore women should work while men stay at home!

Should Women alone do all the housework?

A feminist would say no to this, men and women should be free to share the household work, a feminist however wouldn’t say men should do all the housework and men alone should be responsible for cleaning, washing, cooking and so on.

To sum the above five questions we raised, it’s quite clear that feminism stands for equality and empowering women to spread their wings, it’s a far cry from the meaning many of us have envisioned. Feminism doesn’t try clipping the wings of men nor is it a systematic campaign against men.

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I often get asked the question “Why are you a feminist, you’re a guy aren’t you?” While answering this I always try tp highlight the atrocities Women have faced over the years at the hands of society (many of these still happen unfortunately) and I can’t help mention that while these atrocities were going on, what if a few more Men stood up and raised their voices, wouldn’t society have woken up a little earlier? 

In the 21st century a time where casual sexism is on a high, it has become very important for me to always mention that I’m a feminist. I do this in solidarity with the millions of little girls who see their brothers go to school while they learn how to cook, I do this in solidarity with the thousands of Women who face discrimination at workplaces, I do this in solidarity with the women who aren’t given any respect, I do this in solidarity with the beautiful girl baby who was born happy, but she didn’t realize her birth was frowned upon. 

There has always been a trend over the years (which has caught fire in recent times) where any issue concerning Women is always rebutted by an issue faced by a man. Don’t get me wrong here, men do face a large platter of issues including sexual assaults which require urgent attention as well, however, to say that simply because men face issues as well, the issues women face isn’t serious enough is quite wrong. Let’s be honest here, if someone is trying to bring out these issues only when we discuss about women and feminism, they don’t really care about men and the issues they face, they care more about putting an end to feminism. One cannot override issues women face by using the phrase ‘what about’. If someone genuinely cared about men’s issues, these issues would have been raised by them at all forums and at all times, not particularly only when issues faced by women are being discussed.

It’s about time we all stood up for gender equality, it’s about time we make workplaces safe for women. But most of all it’s about time we raised our sons and our daughters to be proud feminists, because feminism has never been nor will it ever be 'Anti-Men.'

This post has been written in honour of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian feminist and author.

 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Her writings have deeply influenced my idea of feminism. She has taught me to become a fighter for women and the issues they face and has made me realize it’s not just women who have to be feminists. I will end this post with a small quote of hers:

“We teach girls shame. “Close your legs. Cover yourself.” We make them feel as though being born female they’re already guilty of something. And so, girls grow up to be Women who cannot say they have desire. They grow up to be Women who silence themselves. They grow up to be Women who cannot say what they truly think. And they grow up — and this is the worst thing we do to girls — they grow up to be Women who have turned pretense into an art form.”

The Games Of Power [PART 4] The Queen Is Dead. Long Live the Queen?

QUEEN Elizabeth, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch and the nation’s figurehead for seven decades, died at her home in Scotland aged 96 yesterday. Elizabeth’s eldest son Charles, 73, automatically becomes king of the United Kingdom and the head of state of 14 other realms including Australia, Canada and New Zealand. His wife, Camilla becomes Queen Consort.

Charles and Camilla

Whatever name we give it, we shall always find in human beings this great line of activity – this struggle to rise from an inferior to a superior position, from defeat to victory, from below to above. True enough: rising “from below to above” is so universal an ambition that it is almost pointless to discuss the morality, or even the common sense of such a desire. Thus, it is easy enough to understand why we need power – without it, we are merely cogs in a meaningless machine.

Charles and Camilla

Queen Elizabeth II, who was also the world’s oldest and longest-serving head of state, came to the throne following the death of her father, King George VI on February 6, 1952, when she was just 25 years old. 

Queen Elizabeth II

She was crowned in June the following year. Elizabeth became monarch at a time when Britain still retained much of it old empire. It was still emerging from the ravages of World War II, with food rationing still in force and class and privilege still dominant in society. “She has managed to modernize and evolve the monarchy like no other.” Her grandson Prince William, who is now heir to the throne, said in 2012 documentary.

Her long reign meant she repeatedly broke records for British rulers. When she surpassed the more than 63 years her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria spent on the throne; her marriage to Prince Phillip lasted 73 years, until his death in April 2021. She never gave a media interview and critics said she came across as distant and aloof. Her death marks an end of era. 

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The master players seek power itself, knowing that power can be used to obtain money, sex, security or fame. None of these alone constitutes power; but power can produce them all. We tend to or easily forget that the world is still competitive. Common fallacies we come to learn as we live in this modern-day world. We all better or worse at some things. You want to highlight the dimensions on which you are doing the best. And certainly, be vigilant as situations change. Don’t expect fairness or gratitude. And organizations for the most part don’t exhibit gratitude. You can see this in the venture capital community. Where people have made for other people billions of dollars but how often do you see these organizations express gratitude towards the people who have made the organization billions. 

When you begin to recognize Power, you too can start to play Power games within your own smaller circles. And with practice it gives you an added advantage even at your place of work.

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As you and I both know, there is all kinds of different “work” – take for example, sex work. The human preoccupation with sex is nothing new – but the internet has made it so much easier to explore and exploit every shade of desire. The Online Porn Industry makes billions of dollars in profit every year, but the big winners are Corporate Players, not the women and men performing the sex acts. Stephen Sackur interviewed Mia Khalifa on BBC – HARDtalk, on the 9th of September 2019, under the theme “Porn is Not Reality.” She was a porn actress, garnering worldwide notoriety when she appeared in a sex video wearing the Islamic hijab. After years of threats and insecurity, she spoke out. Link Here: [https://youtu.be/i2qplvJ6SLs]. What does her story tell us about the Porn Industry and 21st Power Century Culture? 

And if you thought the Porn Industry was a multimillion-dollar Industry, check the stats again after the hit of the global pandemic – Covid 19; When the whole world was forced to stay and work from home, with very few exceptions to go out.