Tag Africa

Brian Kagoro Leave a comment

Those Closest to the River

Introduction:

There are many people living on the shores of lakes, rivers, and oceans who cannot swim. They are the sons and daughters of teachers who can barely read or write, and the descendants of clergy who have no faith. There are also those with employment contracts and work desks that do not work at all. When something is easily accessible or abundant, it is often taken for granted. Africa has an abundance of underground water, arable land, beautiful forests, precious wood, amazing rivers, lakes, and oceans, and let’s not forget clean air!

The Sun, Water, and Excessive Complacency

Despite having plenty of sunshine in Africa, our public sectors, lending institutions, and entrepreneurs have not invested much in solar energy and related product developments. We import solar panels from Italy, Sweden, China, and Canada. Why don’t we invest in our own continent?

Apart from baptisms and various spiritual or cultural rituals, subsistence fisherfolk, and locals washing their clothes, we have not made conscious efforts to develop sustainable local economies around our water bodies. We have also failed to accurately map the extent and limits of our transboundary water bodies and underground water supply. Our spirituality and cultural reawakening must also have economic prudence, otherwise we will impoverish ourselves with emotional spiritualism and unproductive culturalism. Spirituality and culture should always promote and nurture sustainable life and growth!

Those who live closest to Africa’s water wealth, such as rivers, oceans, lakes, streams, springs, etc., take water for granted. They do not build wells or drill boreholes, and they do not develop creative economies around rivers. Sadly, when severe droughts occur, these individuals are the most vulnerable and unprepared. It is their excessive complacency, lack of foresight, and lack of creativity that leads to their poverty and vulnerability. They are poor not because of scarcity, but because of complacency. They need to form cooperatives to manage water resources and build economies around them. Yes, historical and ongoing power imbalances contribute to their situation, but they must also take ownership of their lack of national wisdom, long-term thinking, and sustainability consciousness.

Infantile Preoccupations

Unpreparedness, wastefulness, and complacency are only a part of the African development challenge and mindset. The other part can be attributed to “infantile preoccupations.” Leaders in all sectors are often obsessed with immature consumption desires, similar to little children. Rather than investing in solar plants and water security infrastructure, leaders focus on building new multi-million dollar parliament buildings and stadiums. When knowledgeable individuals propose solutions for electricity, energy, health, education, and sanitation crises, petty government officials often demand hefty bribes to facilitate national solutions. Entire governing party officials establish systems to embezzle development funds for personal gain or election campaigns. This is childish stupidity! Infantile consumerism has become prevalent in African business, politics, religion, and civil society. If you, as a wealthy individual, want to help, why not invest in infrastructure, production sites, or places that enable people to create value, add value, or produce useful goods for their daily lives and for export?

 Walking Alone Amongst a Crowd

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  • Introduction: No One Can Drink Immodium for Your Running Tummy!

All pain is personally experienced even when collectively witnessed or shared. Impact is always differentiated and uneven. The same could be said of pressure and pleasure. The same act, thing or process that gives one the thrills also scares or bores another to death. 

Even if I gave you a step-by-step guide, how-to toolbox and the latest app on pain, pressure, and pleasure management, you still will experience your own it your own way. Neither riches, fame, good looks, religiosity, intelligence nor love can totally immunise all aspects of your life from inevitable pressures, pleasures and pains of being a living being. 

  • The Best-Selling Books Don’t Tell You Everything About Leadership Situations and Human Feelings 

There are countless Leadership manuals about good, supportive and healthy relationships( personal, political, social and economic). Any person that loves and accompanies their pregnant personal person into a labour ward in order to give birth does not themselves experience labour pains (plural). They witness the agony of birthing life and joy from close range. They may even shed a tear. But the most that they can do is to emphathise, hold their loved one’s hand, say some dumb(but soothing) anecdotal or cliché stuff.  

Presence and empathy does not, cannot and will not take away the pain nor do love gestures actually. They make inevitable pain bearable ! The Leadership journey is often very lonely and painful, even when you have crowds of people around you and sometimes cheering you on. As a leader your stock-in-trade is skillful judgment (the ability to decide upon consideration of evidence, and context), communication, connection and empathy. In Leadership, there are emotional , psychological and intellectual acres and kilometers where you just have to walk alone , to carry your own cross and own it . There are moments of adversity that will test your sanity , fortitude and resolve . In such moments you are paradoxically inadequate and enough at the same time; surrounded by a great team and alone ; visionary and doubtful ; wounded and raring to go. These are what I call ‘Sweet and Sour ,Chilli Sweet moments’

  • No Exemptions from Chilli-Sweet Situations and Feelings

Books on Empathetic, Situational, Performative, collaborative, servant, Level 5 or 20X Leadership often do not and cannot tell you how you will feel when doing or going through unavoidable leadership situations and processes that are chilli-sweet. You just have to experience it for yourself. Don’t be fooled, the fact that you experienced something similar before or elsewhere doesn’t make the present experience less painful, let alone less emotionally or mentally exhausting. You often get this feeling of pain, frustration, exhaustion and anger when you are empathetic and actually care about those that you lead, as well as the issues, situations or causes involved. Unfortunately my friends, good attitude or positive outlook does not exempt you at all from feeling these ‘Sweet and sour’ or chilli-sweet feelings . 

  • Hero, Villain and Fool – All-in-One ! 

Unpleasant or painful situations oftentimes generate woundedness and unpleasantness in people. When disruption or unpleasant things happen in any organisation, movement , family or community, folks need a scapegoat . As a leader you are the most convenient candidate or target ( it is a risk of the trade) . When folks are frustrated , you are to them ( justifiably or not) the proverbial fool at the top who is responsible for all that is bad and incapable of thinking things through . At this stage of leadership you forfeit your right to be heard , believed or presumed innocent until proven guilty. At worst, you maybe characterised as the mortal enemy of progress that must be fought or resisted at all costs . Wear your elephant skin during this period because many piercing words will be aimed at you . During this period be very wary of toxic positivity , that is dangerous escapism from the reality of the mess that you’re in . 

Occasionally though, you maybe equated to Santa Klaus , candy person or ice-cream supplier that brings gifts, sweetness and goodies. I hate to say this , crowds are fickle. Even Jesus Christ knew this. The same crowds that welcomed him on palm Sunday wanting to make him king as he rode a donkey into Jerusalem, were a few days later chanting “crucify him” as he bore his own cross .Remember dear leader that the very same people will instinctively place you in very different boxes or categories based on how they feel about the situation, a process , themselves, their colleagues or the organisation. So quit trying to play ice-cream man ,candy woman or Santa . Lead by ideas , purpose and conviction, have clarity about the kind of Leadership that your situation demands .

  • Survivors or Comrades Guilt 

Unless you are totally heartless, thoughtless, and bloodless , whatever touches your colleagues, peers and team is likely to also deeply move , pain ,and affect you (psychologically and emotionally). It is likely to affect you more if you cannot do anything to change the situation, process or outcome. This helplessness in the face of the other’s loss, or pain engenders sympathy and guilt. You are likely to feel that somehow you didn’t do enough , that you were not there for your team ,that you betrayed them by your inaction or let them down somehow. This Survivors guilt needs to be addressed and faced . Don’t deny it , hide from facing it , or pretend that you’re not feeling it. Whatever you do , please do not try to over compensate ! You will feel like crap, totally drained emotionally and isolated. 

  • Reflect (don’t deflect) in order to Move Forward 

When you begin to experience the effects of ‘Chilli-sweet’ survivors guilt , this is the best place to begin deep reflection , straregizing and innovating . Take a pause , find yourself in order to retrace your leadership path ! Get intellectual and emotional electrolytes for the rest of the journey . Reach out to and support your Comrades , Peers and Team knowing that too much time spent grieving or greeting may be lost time to your cause or finding alternatives . But not everyone will accept you or your offer for support. Accept and Own that too !

CONCLUSION : Wisdom of the Eldership 

In January 2000, I went to see Dr. Goodwill Shana about a thorny socio-political issue .At the time , I sought his , the late most affable Rev. Charles Chiriseri and Bishop Mutume’s counsel about how best to approach a highly sensitive and polarizing national process . There was drama everywhere and as you know people often become thorny when hurting. Dr. Shana – after exchanging pleasantries and hearing my cause- offered me a cup of tea (I am not a tea person at all). He then said as we sat down to a cup of tea : “All salt is salty and all sugar is sweet, but you and I have different taste buds. Food that you want to add salt to maybe too salty for me. And the sugar that you add may be too little or too much for someone else. Each tongue tastes salt or sugar for itself. But we are drinking tea together. This not just about preference, it may be a medical/ health issue”. 

Rev. Charles Chiriseri was an amazing asset to civil society in Zimbabwe and a fountain of wisdom. He had a unique laugh and was always empathetic. Given the innumerable incidents of toxicity and backstabbing amongst social actors ,he said to me ,”Brian, remember that the seeds for the destruction of anything born out of malice , rebellion , competition ,and deceit are contained in the very thing itself”. 

Bishop Mutume was a revered and infectiously humorous elderly Catholic sage residing in Mutare at the time. I travelled 3 hours to go and see him. As our tradition demands, when I arrived to see him, I went into elaborate greetings. At some stage he interrupted me and said , ” Kagoro, stop it, by the time you’re done with all this elaborate greeting and small talk, what you came here to solve will have worsened. Wavingeyi ? (what brings you this far my son)”.

Cut the ritual, get to the point and start doing what will move you from a pity-party, survivors guilt or a sense of inadequacy to transformative strategy. Remember though that your tastes or take on stuff may for good reason be very different from the next person. Whatever you do, avoid malice, it contains self-destruction seeds in itself !

IMMENSE TALENT, INSTABILITY AND GRAND DECEPTION OFTEN COHABIT

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Have you ever wondered why authenticity is often under valued, overlooked and overtaken by fakeness and cut-and-paste wokeness? Why being genuine, honest, thorough and truthful seems not to pay-off in social, political, economic, business, work, family, personal and spiritual relationships?
Here are my five (5) explanations:-

HUMANS ARE DRAWN TO FAKENESS, WOKENESS, MAGIC AND CELEBRITY !

It starts with all the fairy tales and magic you tell or let your children read in children’s books or watch in cartoons. By the time their consciousness fully forms, the receptacles for deception, self delusion, fanciful fantasies and magic are long solidified. For some you add romance novels, sci-fi fiction and comic books. Yes these stimulate imagination, and entertain, but they also set a subconscious foundation for adult logic, emotional make-up and life expectations! It all sinks into something or somewhere? Add to this human body, mind and soul all kinds of religious instruction and social myths and then teach them sciences ( i.e. physical and social) on top of the childhood magic, comics, cartoons, video games,and playstation base? It is a “gango”, mixed masala or wonderful mixed dish of okra dried fish, goat meat, cow heel and pepper 🌶.

This is why human beings love the gloss, the shine, instant gratification, mushy stuff, stuff that affirms their stupidity, comforts them in their errant ways, strokes their egos, lies to and lulls them into self-destruction or simply star appeal. Strip all pretense and euphemisms and say it like it is, we are drawn to what we have been socialised into and have embraced or become, not what we think we are or want to be known as ! Bad boys and girls, hideous characters, hypocrites, liars, users, whiners, egolomaniacs and you can go on and on !

We are drawn to magic, celebrity, star power, deception and romanticism. We love complexity, sophistication, finese, panache or that certain ‘something something’! We hopelessly poor at judging our own characters let alone other people’s!

There you have it , you now know why a lover left you, or your employee quit, or your employer dumped you for a fake or why your church members have moved enmasse to a less authentic alternative or why your album, books or movies are not selling as fast as the inauthentic ones.

ULTIMATELY, YOUR TRUE CHARACTER EATS UP PERSONAL SUCCESS, FALSE PR IMAGE AND BRAND

In the last 25 years I have seen fiery, eloquent, smart and popular personalities arise and take moments, movements, monuments, public imagination, media, arts and culture, academia, business sector, religious or faith sector – and even Nations by storm. As you may have guessed, very few have lasted! Ultimately their true character flaws and lack of genuine values fully devoured their success, public image, profile and personal brand!

GREAT TALENT AND INSTABILITY ARE OFTEN LIKE SIAMESE TWINS

As always, there are some averagely talented folks of average intelligence and average looks that carry this “Wanted Boy or Wanted Girl syndrome”. Some even torment society and social media with all sorts of self-promotional posts and images. You know what, if you have to over market or advertise something, maybe it ain’t good enough. I am not talking about these types of blood and sweat hustlers for love and attention. Although it is worth noting that they too deceive through effort and toil !

My focus is on my experience observing for over two decades, folks that are or were insanely talented, good looking, brainy, eloquent, creative, attractive and etcetera. Some were fiercely competitive and insecure bordering on malice. Others were inexorably narcissistic bordering on self-worship. And yet others were compulsive liars and social fraudsters or political conman. Very colorful, shiny, audacious, always pulling everyone else down. Granted amongst these immensely talented folks, there were a few who are – or were – embarrassingly humble. Corporate, Church, Mosques and political culture gave these individuals words of angelic humility that never seemed to filter through to their true characters and personalities. The distance between what they say and what they actually do ( other than for the Cameras and public applause) is like that between earth and the moon. Integrity is zero or minus something. Sadly though, their lieutenants, lovers, fans, followers, family, handlers and friends always cover-up for them. This constant social, political, economic or spiritual diaper changes by the faithful and loyal does not help to change them for the better! In the end, they fall, die or implode still insanely talented and yet unbelievably unstable!

EASILY BELIEVABLE SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL FRAUDSTERS/CONMAN – Yet Abandoned and Neglected !

You can almost- in part- explain your heartbreaks, disappointments, business losses, spiritual fatigue, social exhaustion political aparthy and family burn-out by reference to one or two social, economic or political conman/fraudsters.

The common trend amongst all these social, economic and political fraudsters/conman is that they were insanely talented and easily believable. You see my friend, instability, deception and talent often cohabit ! But also common amongst these is the fact that they all sadly have a very pitiable end. Their true characters eat their brand and sometimes totally destroy them physically and emotionally. These men and eonen seem to have it all, to be desired and adored by everyone and yet have long lost their souls and the peace in Self. Publicly loved but rejected by self. Publicly contented and yet psychologically and emotionally tormented. Celebrities are unbelievably fragile, insecure and lonely. It is not drugs , alcohol or crime that destroys them – it is neglect of their cry for help by a world that constantly searches for human gods, magic, wokeness and magic !

AFRAID AND FEARFUL SOULS :Mediocrity and insecurity often cherishes exclusive limelight

You can judge any man or woman’s character by how they handle failure, rejection, exclusion, exhaustion and obscurity. Rather, by how they relate to superior talent, skill, experience or knowledge or indifference. Mediocrity and insecurity often cherishes exclusive limelight.

When anything or anyone else appears who shows any form of talent, skill or seems to draw public admiration, the instinctive or default position of mediocrity is four-fold :-

Conscript or align with, so that the glory is shared ‘the he or she is my pip’s ‘ mythology

Compete and outwit the new or old competition ‘the I am the best of the best delusion’

Decampaign, malign, eliminate and smear the competition ‘the I am good and he or she is toxic deception’

Accuse the competition of copying you or stealing your ideas etc ‘the I am the only bank of social, economic and political ideas delusion’

Ultimately, even after reading this long post you still have to choose who to love, to be with, to employ, to befriend, to appoint, to vote for, to read, to follow and I bet you ; you would rather have magic and wokeness any day, no matter how fraudulent and deceptive right?

Conclusion of the whole matter is that you are the real problem my friend, you !

The path to Leadership or Success

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There is no linear, painless, tests less, path to leadership or success.



There is a lot of microwaved truth-sounding, money-making, profile-building and hyper Individualistic stuff about success and leadership out there. Its disciples are growing by the minute as the world searches for short-cuts to Elitism, Status and Leisure!

Let me save you the pain by just assuring you that reality doesn’t and will not consult your motivational speaker or favourite book. Depending on who you’re leading and where they are situated in life, you will soon discover that they most likely do not conform to your neat book typologies and formulas. People are people and spectacularly unique. Deal with who or what you have and don’t be detained in the brilliant books that you have read or their formula

HISTORY OF PAIN : The Limits of Memory and Imagination

But as you all know, History & Her-Story is pregnant with memories of greatness (real or imagined) as well as hurt, grievance and injustice. The opportunity to live your future on the basis of yesterday’s memories is an everyday struggle. Today we create memories for the future. What are they? The tendency to create unidirectional constructs of good and bad, success and failure, oppression, discrimination and dispossession are endless. We barely look our own oppressive, exclusionary and discriminatory tendencies in the eye. Injustice is only real and legitimate to us if done against us or our friends. But even the meaning of “US” is limited and narrow . Hence class, ethnicity, sexism, caste and colorism.

MYTH OF LINEAR PATHS & FORMULA

You will never walk to your future in a straight line. If you fly there will be layovers and alternative routes . If you drive there will be traffic jams, road diversions and roadblocks. If you walk, the road will wind some, become hilly, cross rivers and broken bridges.

Leadership is not all glory and gloss. There is pain, loneliness, uncertainty, resistance, irrationality, betrayal and disappointment by others and by yourself. You cannot escape this even if you prayed 24/7, did Yoga and followed 100% the myths, examples or formula contained in religious, motivational and Leadership Books’ steps to success

SWEETNESS AND EMPATHY will not take away the MESSINESS of REALITY

You must understand from the onset – or wherever you might be situated in your leadership journey that your being as sweet as chocolate or candy does not change the fact that all leadership(and yours too) is refined in a crucible (a place of great pressure, heat, testing and trial). Your being thorough, methodical, empathetic and inclusive will not remove the inescapable messiness of reality and the realness of people and their issues, prejudices, biases, assumptions and personalities.

THE LEADERSHIP JOURNEY IS AS PERSONAL AS ARE SCHOOL EXAMINATIONS AND MEDICAL TESTS/TREATMENT

The same way that no-one else, no matter how much they loved and adored you – could sit for your school and university exams for you or take your injections… nobody can take your Leadership tests, trials, persecution and tribulations for you. You can be very close to the owner of the company or the boss of bosses, but they too have their very personal tests, trials and tribulations of Leadership. Your closeness to power doesn’t insulate you from having to go through your go throughs of the leadership journey. Even if the University Principal were your mother and the doctor your father or lover, that doesn’t exempt you from having to sit for and pass exams or do required medical tests. No relationship, connection, quality or character can exempt you from going through the leadership journey and its pains and joys

Prepare yourselves thoroughly for the pain and joy that comes before glory !

We are now ELDERS

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COVID-19, Cancer, HIV/Aids, Old Age, accidents and the cruel hand of death constantly interrupt the perfect plans of life, love, joy and happiness! Death – as our Ancestors say – is never satisfied. It takes indiscriminately from infant to octogenarian, rich and poor, beautiful and wise along with the evil, ugly and foolish!

We Have Lost Treasure

Over the last 8 years we have lost many icons and loved ones. We didn’t fully write their stories nor celebrate them enough. We like auto mons, kept moving not sure where we were headed to, but we feared the very possibility of stopping to fully reflect on our losses. All fields of Human endeavour are hemorrhaging: Arts and culture, science and tech, engineers, doctors ,nurses, teachers, lawyers, social scientists , entrepreneurs, faith and traditional leaders, beauty queens and politicians – all gone for good!

Where are they going to and why in such a hurry and in such big numbers? Will we ever see them again? Was their work on earth fully accomplished? We didn’t get to write their heroic stories in their own words before they left us. They didn’t bid us farewell? We never thought that they would leave. We hoped that they would live in perpetuity. Reality only dawned on us each time we had to pen the acronyms of resignation #MHSRIP #RIP. Maybe they are resting, but are we? If they have gone to a happier place, have they left us in a mess with neither social, cultural, economic, political nor spiritual compass (GPS) ? Still, we didn’t have the hand-over dialogues and they too didn’t write? They left us to figure stuff out!

Our Heroes and Icons

This morning when I heard that another Icon had passed on or passed away, my sister said to me “another library has been destroyed” before we downloaded its contents in full. Well, our icons didn’t die empty and we did not remain full either.

When our heroes and heroines – our icons are interpreted by others who don’t understand fully the local context, nuances, humour, expressions, customs, traditions and rituals a lot is lost, distorted or simply unrecognisable in their stories.

You see eghhhh, every one that tells a story does so from their class and cultural vantage point. So our heroes are interpreted to us by others and it is the only version that we have of who they are and by implication, who we are?

We Didn’t Learn, Show us the Way!

We didn’t learn our totems in full. We cannot remember our genealogies either?We didn’t learn our own languages nor do we remember our Proverbs/ wise sayings ?We have no clue about our healing herbs nor the poisonous ones ? We live in concrete jungles full of fumes and far away from the bones and landmarks of our forebears. We are alienated from our very beings, our identity, our culture and we lack native Intelligence. Alas ! We’re now the Elders!

Our Own Elders are gone. Gone are the logistic Ian’s, the Masters of Ceremonies at all family events. Those that solved insoluble family disputes, the unifiers, the peace-builders, the glue that held us intact, the holders of ancient knowledge and wisdom are gone. They are gone, emptied from all our Nations, our neighborhoods, places of worship, the planting fields, the forests, lakes, oceans and other work spaces. In our families, clans and villages the Elders have fallen by the dozens. The iconic professors, Story Tellers, wise sages, medicine men and women, grand Dads and Grand Mothers, aunties and uncles, fathers and mothers too! We, the children, are now the Elders! Who will show us the ways of our people? What do we know in order to show the next generation? We read the books but we never learnt the art of what it means to be ourselves!

We Mastered the Ways of Others , Not Our Own ?

We were busy living on social medium and the urban vibe, the white man’s way, the modern way. We all hardly learned how to do our ways. The Elders always did it on our behalf. No, we didn’t learn anything about how our people process culturally and in terms our customs important events such as birth, traditional weddings, death or anything about our traditional food systems. We saw and heard but understood not. We are now the Elders. What will we teach the next generation? We know nothing and yet we are highly educated and well-spoken ?

Foreign Love and Romance

We express love, pain, joy and surprise not just in a foreign language but using foreign symbols, gestures & expressions ? We believed the lie that our people had no history, culture, science, philosophy nor sense of love and romance ?

COLONIAL ERASURE and Post-Colonial Imaginaries of Law and Society

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You can only aspire for what you can construct as a clear mental picture (vision).

If the mental picture that you aspire to is merely about being an acceptable carbon copy of someone else ( i.e. another person, culture, nation, civilization, race, etc) then you are deep in mental slavery.

If what you know only empowers you to mimic someone else or another culture or race, then you are a victim of knowledge autocracy or knowledge imperialism. Who you really are, could be and should be has been totally erased. Such erasure starts with erasure of memory or history


You do not need to be a lawyer in order to understand that there is something ridiculous with African judges wearing white wigs and red gowns in our sweltering heat or lawyers wearing black gowns , white wigs and gebou(bibs). We inherited this from the colonial era and much more insidious and harmful ideologies about being, becoming and belonging at law.

Our Constitutions are mostly authored from the following assumptions, perspectives and principles :

1. African customary law shall apply in narrow family settings and with regards to the determination of traditional leadership only to the extent that it is not repugnant to general law ( read into this European or Western Law)

2. In other words, African customary law and culture doesn’t apply to issues of property; commerce, technology, education, health and almost every other important aspect of your life. Why ? Because natives were deemed to have no philosophy, no culture really and no values such as would distinguish them from mere brutish animals

3. Such that even when determining land ownership in Zimbabwe in 1918, British Privy Council was of the opinion that “the native has no concept of ownership” . Hence the Chimurenga war mantra that the Liberator was a “Son or Daughter of the Soil” …inseparable from the Land.

The idea that the land – all land – belonged to the colonial State and by parity of reasoning the white minority that presided over the State was made even more ridiculous by the view that mining claims superceded even land ownership by title deed. The mining interests of the colonial elite essentially led to a law that empowered the pillaging mining oligarchy to evict whole villages in order assert their right to dig for minerals. Questions of free prior and informed consent and mutual benefit are very recent developments.

Today we see whole villages and conservancy being pillaged by foreign prospectors protected by State Elites ( albeit Black Elites). What is tragic though is how liberating a country from colonial rule without concurrent decolonization of the law leads essentially to continuation of colonial governance and outcomes long after the white colonialists are gone. If you don’t change the structure, culture and mindset of the judiciary and lawyers you will efficiently echo an Empire long gone! Political and economic scavenging elites will decimate communities and ecology in search of El Dorado!

HISTORY PROVES ALL OF US FOOLISH
We cannot undo the harm done through constitutional, judicial and legal forms, including legal education without pressing the reset button.

If you consider the Chinese, Indian and African civilisations, they were far more advanced in their imagination of law , society and justice than the Euro-American systems that they have become absolutely dependent upon.

For instance, In the early thirteenth century, following a major military victory, the founder of the Mandingo Empire and the assembly of his wise men proclaimed in Kurukan Fuga the new Manden Charter, named after the territory situated above the upper Niger River basin, between present-day Guinea and Mali.

The Manden Charter, is one of the oldest constitutions in the world. It contains a preamble of seven chapters dealing with the following: social peace in diversity, the inviolability of the human being, education, the integrity of the motherland, food security, the abolition of slavery by razzia (or raid), and freedom of expression and trade.

Long after the Empire disappeared, the words of the Charter and the rituals associated with it are still transmitted orally within the Malinke clans. To keep the tradition alive, commemorative annual ceremonies of the historic assembly are organized in the village of Kangaba (adjacent to the vast clearing of Kurukan Fuga, which now lies in Mali, (close to the Guinean border). The ceremonies are backed by the local and national authorities of Mali and, in particular, the traditional authorities, who see it as a source of law and as promoting a message of love, peace and fraternity, which has survived through the ages. The Manden Charter continues to underlie the basis of the values and identity of the populations concerned.

At Great Zimbabwe and Mapungubgwe you will find similar renditions of law (the unwritten but well codified and practiced constitutions) that were key to social harmony, cohesion and prosperity. Our kingdoms and nations traded and inter-married thus borrowing practices from each other. If you travel from Southern Africa to Timbuktu via Lamu/Mombasa, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ghana and Nigeria you will naturally notice many similarities (universal practices). Our humanities and social sciences guru’s must help us codify and modernise this inert universality. Why not? After all, are we not forced to or happily practice/apply Roman-Dutch common law (read customary law) with touches of German, English and French customary practices in independent Africa?

If we continue to imagine law and justice in Roman-Dutch, German, French colonial images, then decolonization is far from being accomplished. The wigs, gowns and etcetera are mere expressions of deeply internalised coloniality! We need the courage to re-imagine.

The fact that we had and have practices of conflict resolution and conceptions of justice that are restorative in our own cultures and we have despite 60 years of independence not sought to find universal meaning out of these shows that our imagination is deeply damaged by this internalised coloniality! We are proved foolish by history.

CULTURE, CHANGE & TOXICITY

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  • All CHANGE is CULTURE

In any society, organisation or family, if you don’t understand the cultures and customs, you will struggle to understand the basis of the relationships. Equally so, if you do not consciously change existing toxic cultures you tend to reproduce the same toxic relationships even if the leadership or staff change. Environment conditions the atmosphere and ambiance in any organisation.

Continue reading “CULTURE, CHANGE & TOXICITY” →

It is Simple: Home-Grown & Authentic lasts longer than Cheap Imports

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Beware of glorified fakeness or lack of authenticity in your life. Be very careful not to mistake labels for quality or public relations for Bible truth. Even more importantly, don’t substitute personal growth with quick fame, microwaved credentials, titles and top line knowledge. Don’t embrace the fantasy of false equivalence or mistake proximity to power for equivalence!

SUCCESS IS A CONDITION not a position or possession!
Do not mistake success as the source of happiness until you’re so desperate to succeed by fair or foul means. You will be a very bitter – and not better – successful version of yourself. First value yourself, value truth, value authenticity and value what you are. Life did not put you in Africa so that you aspire for intellectual, cultural, economic and spiritual slavery to Europe and America. Desire wholeness and healing from a sense of inadequacy, inferiority and self-destructive doubt!

EXCUSE YOURSELF and EXCUSE US!
The fact that you have or hold the same qualifications or title as somebody else does not make you equivalent at all. Let me repeat, being on the same panel as global corporate, government, faith or civil society leaders or rock star Professors does not make you equivalent to them. Zoom appearance and Selfie doesn’t amount to equivalency. Excuse us, we know what you are capable of as well as what you are not. Excuse yourself, you know that short cuts don’t always amount to completion of great journeys, right ?

CRUCIBLES OF LIFE

Please stop making up theories about how life, leadership and success works after only a few tears and years. Don’t profess expertise before your qualifications, skills and experience have been through the crucibles of life, work, adversity and failure and come out on the other end still totally aligned, intact and credible. You think you know something because you have had one great post, a lucky break or brilliant student’s promo? Life is full of greater geniuses and dreamers who failed. Be constant and consistent for the next decade or two.

Repeat this skill, expertise and experience in different organisations, positions, contexts and countries with the same or greater measure of success. Then come back here and talk shop about great success, leadership or life principles! For now, sit down and learn from both your books and real life. Otherwise your book theories and life in a decade from now will be so far apart like Earth & Mars or Like an Anti-corruption activist who becomes a politician and cabinet minister or an Opposition Leader that joins the ruling party as an official without portfolio or purpose!

CLONES & CLOWNS
Don’t use clichés, quotes and platitudes from books that you have read, videos or movies watched as the only basis of your understanding of Life, leadership, success and happiness. Remember that as good as all those leadership stories and case studies that you are relying on are; the people involved were not dealing with the same people or cultural, social, spiritual, political and economic context as yours. When you apply the lessons they offer, make relevant contextual adjustments, differentiation, domestication and distinction. Even the world’s major religions adjusted when they got to Africa.

Don’t be a ridiculous educated or smart clone! You read a book from America or Europe about how to campaign, raise money for social causes, empower people, dress, talk, behave or negotiate for success and you want to apply it to our mothers, fathers, youth, politicians, traditional leadership, religious or cultural context without any adjustments at all? Who bewitched you? Why do you think that you can use an American or European leadership fantasy, experience, experiment or expertise to produce authentically African organisations, experiences and outcomes?

Listen, your parents and grandparents were forced to learn Shakespeare, Chaucer and Dickens, where are they now ? Even they had the commonsense to reject becoming good English-speaking or French-speaking paupers tormented by a sense of false civility! Stop it! Emancipate yourself from this mental, cultural, spiritual, and social slavery!

Colonialism and coloniality will always produce spectacular shortcomings. If you don’t adjust your constant reference to American Corporate, political, civic or spiritual experience as the platinum standard of life , You will reproduce the same absurdities of super rich or powerful minorities driven by super profits with very little humanity : the same racist, white supremacy, poverty and inequality.

Black folks that think that they cannot succeed without worshipping whiteness, Europeanness or Americanness. Folks that see success based on their similarity to, acceptance by and/or acceptability to European or American supremacists .or even just accents – are just Clowns.
Accent is not substance! Colonial embrace is neither legitimacy, authenticity nor success. It is mere utility. You are a usable native! Have the accents if you wish, but please also get some commonsense and wisdom whilst you are at it!



BE AUTHENTIC!
Stop admiring dysfunction. If you can’t, please don’t turn it into an article of Faith or Bible of leadership and success. Learn to question some things and think critically! Otherwise, you will turn folks or your organisation into an intellectually, contextually and culturally disconnected shoddy version of the American or European ones . Abeg ,even if the people you lead get the Euro-American accents and de-contextualised jokes right , they will never be European or American.

Try being authentic. You’re here in Africa in order to promote, produce and practice an authentic homegrown global expertise and experience

WHAT STAYING IN A JOB TOO LONG SAYS ABOUT YOU

Brian Kagoro 1 Comment

Staying in a job too long is not a measure of Stability, Independence, Performance or Loyalty. Here is why:



STAGNANT BRILLIANCE

Several things happen if you work for the same organisation , person or system for too long. You stop growing and become conservative, cynical, entitled, highly political or embittered. You become emotionally, psychologically, physically, socially and spiritually mortgaged! You feel tied to & inseparable from it You can become- quite easily- like the following:-



INSECURITIES DISGUISED AS LOYALTY

If you have been too long in the same job or organisation, it most probably because :-


• A gold fish in a small or stagnant big pond that thinks it is biggest & baddest fish on earth. A village celebrity who uses the same tired tricks , sings the same song the same way or dances the same style or beats the same drum with no variation at all or the village comedian who tells the same jokes for decades and even laughs at his own dry jokes before everyone else does!

• A history magazine with all past references and very little or no future or simply a broken chair or squeaky door hinge or noisy bed

•A dud lacking in innovation and creativity in exchange for stability, security & political correctness

•You’re insecure, too comfortable, enjoying it or you’re plain mediocre & boring

•You hate change, the company owners or job is using you or you’re using the job/company to do other things totally unrelated or as launchpad. You could also be simply using it to pay the mortgage, take your children through school or maintain your preferred “soft life”. You are fooling yourself, you are like one of the old paintings, carpets or furniture the company will not replace to save costs.

• You are a control freak and prefer to remain in a place where you can use Longevity to manipulate people, processes and outcomes.



It is not really the other person, approach, idea or process that you are fighting, it is you and your innermost fears and deep insecurities. Why are you afraid that more adventurous, entrepreneurial and innovative folks will make mistakes as part of growing or creating the new? What if they succeed?

I am not advocating for an absolute absence of guidance. Rather I am calling for flexible facilitation! Listen, creatives will mess with your heart and head, they will give you headaches. They things appear too experimental and too look like sure bets from the onset. Bear with them! Risk taking is your reward and not necessarily the outcome!

You also resist any changes to what you have laboured to build for many years because you do not believe that anyone else can improve on it. You subconsciously always return to default settings or even safe settings. Tragically, even new and plenty young people are like this. It is not just age and Longevity, it is mindset, personality and character. Narcissists and control freaks come in all sexes, ages, races, cultures and sizes.

FALSE STANDARD BEARER

Whether in political parties , private sector, NGOs, churches, mosques or government long servers are both institutional memory and also potential detention centres of progress. They arrest development, innovation and transformation. You see, they can help new folks avoid making a litany of mistakes or be so conservative that nothing at all functions except done according to some old formulaic way. It is always a fine balance between being the safe pair of experienced hands and the rigid hands of stagnated bureaucracy and rote control. You the old guard can and often frustrates innovative youth and youth totally disregard the tried and tested wisdom both with the same consequences for the organisation.

Here is the golden lesson: If you stay too long in an organisation, job or position, you will subconsciously:-

Fight against anything new person, ideas or changes. You will resist anything that is fresh, out of the box thinking or different. It is like me and colours. For many years everything that I owned had to be dark, mostly navy blue, black or grey and every once in a while a dark brown. My shoes were all black. I am glad that I changed quickly.

Check yourself and some of the doctrinal nonsense that you impose on other people. Relax, life is not all rock and metal, often it is soul and flexible!

YOU CANNOT FAKE LEADERSHIP, INTELLIGENCE , LOYALTY or RELATIONSHIPS. Here are the reasons Why!

Brian Kagoro Leave a comment

ENSKILL YOUR CONFIDENCE
Often those people with the most to share or that are always overflowing with ideas also have the most to learn. Great confidence can cover up an ocean of ignorance, naivety, shallowness and incapacity. If you’re wise, create ample room to learn as you teach and to receive as you give!

AVOID MICROWAVE JUDGMENT!
Foolish folks get accolades from reaching quick judgments about situations, people and organisations based on anecdotes and talebearers fantasies or prejudices. In countries where literacy, numeracy and eloquence are worshipped, these attributes are often mistaken for leadership qualities. There are many highly educated embiciles and extremely eloquent morons

Wise folks weigh matters, test spirits, study characters and carefully analyze issues first. They don’t follow every wind of opinion!

MONEY is Essential BUT It isn’t EVERYTHING
If anything, COVID-19 has aptly demonstrated, it is that you can die from it with all the money and fame in the world. For many political heavy weights, celebrities and rich folks, money has answered many things except preserving their lives from COVID-19 scourge. But, you cannot buy life!
This season wonderfully demonstrates to each one of us that our most meaningful contributions in life may actually cost no money at all. Just you being genuine, open, attentive or vulnerable with someone. The ideas of “ROCK MAN”, “IRON LADY”, “SUPERWOMAN or SUPER HERO” that is ever strong, always perfect, ever conquering and never wrong are highways to grand deception, heartbreak and spectacular failure!

You are human, strong maybe but you’re flesh and blood (mortal) with spiritual attributes but you live in a body that gets tired, sickly and sometimes cries out for a break (i.e. physically, emotionally, psychologically, financially etc)

SELFISH folks exploit SELFLESS Ones!
There are human beings (young or old, male or female) that are so selfless (ethical, professional, trustworthy and loyal too) that they will risk everything for people or organisations that they believe in or causes dearest to their hearts. And yet there are also human beings so supremely selfish that thrive by or make a business out of exploiting such selflessness, genuineness and goodness. Stop counting what you have done for people and start objectively appreciating the many things that other people have done for you. The risks and sacrifices that others have made for your success, that same success that you want to reduce solely to your individual efforts! Retell your Story and fill in the missing pages of what other people (great and small, known and unkown) have contributed! You cannot show gratitude for and to the people you refuse to acknowledge!

Whispering scatterers!
In every manner and form of organisation there are folks that thrive by whispering & scattering. Instead of creating solutions or producing results their sole preoccupation is discrediting or scattering great things or efforts made by others. Beware the whispering scatterers! There are there even in your family, church, mosque or sports bar too! There are there in every gender, class, race and ethnicit. Scatterers!

If You Disrespect and Disregard Standards & Values procedures and rules keep mission and vision on track. If they are too rigid, they Stiffle innovation and growth by creating an unimaginative bureaucracy. BUT if you throw them away then you are at the mercy of instinct, avarice, greed and malice. Nothing is so sacred in any organisation that rules, procedures & values have to be constantly waived, manipulated or undermined to achieve the interests, convenience or desires of one person or a clique. Organisational standards, rules , procedures and values apply to all. If you make some individual more equal than others you will suffer from the human-god or part human part animal leadership syndrome unmitigated tyranny or infallible-head disease! It won’t take long for sychophancy, mediocrity and division to become the core features of your organisation!

LEADERSHIP isn’t about GRUDGE settlement.
Some of your best middle managers and leaders are eccentric, awkward or constantly questioning individuals. They don’t always make you feel comfortable or happy, but they bring phenomenal results.
If you allow questions of leadership to be settled through vindictiveness, populism , sychophancy, homeboyism and clientalism without reference to performance, ideological clarity or capacity to think strategically then you are much easier to divide & conquer. Your mediocrity as a leadership is proportional to the quality of and measured by the diversity & creativity of the team around you. The less diversity & creativity, the more mediocre!

CONFIDENCE isn’t about NUMBERS

Feel as confident in and about yourself, your values, ideas, dreams, vision, mission, beliefs & strategy whether there is a cheering crowd following, there are haters shouting & screaming or you are simply walking alone in the jungles or wildernesses of Life.
If you measure your own satisfaction and success through numbers only, then you are deceived. The most transformative decisions that you will ever make will most likely not have a great number of supporters . Your most successful entrepreneurial endeavour might not be an overnight success. Your most powerful song, book, poem, article or sermon might not be in front of crowds! Succeed with or without crowds and relish it!

DON’T Know Everything & Everyone

Do not be an authority on everything and everyone. Do not seek to know everything or everyone or to be known by them. If you can afford to, avoid serial name-dropping or assuming that you know every person you took a selfie with or are in a WhatsApp group with. Your desire to know or associate with great, famous or wealthy people (Oh good-looking ones too) will land you in the company of thieves, murderers, liars , traffickers and abusers. Success by association isn’t Networking 101 – It is faking it and hoping that you will make it! Distinguish between the two. You cannot as an adult go around telling stories about Selfie or WhatsApp group friends and their success as though you have shares in it. Please grow up and try to do so very quickly! You cannot succeed by Selfie or WhatsApp Social Osmosis.

Thank you for reading, enjoy the rest of your day, week or Year.

FATHERHOOD (being FATHER or a FATHER)

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FATHERHOOD is the most culturally, socially, politically, and spiritually abused and weaponised concept, status and power in the world, but especially in Africa.

It doesn’t matter where you turn everywhere and everyone wants to impose FATHERHOOD or FATHERSHIP on the world around them. Father – Tata – Papa- Baba often used as a term of endearment, honour and respect is now a weapon of oppression, abuse and primitive extraction of personal benefits and power. I call this process or concept FATHERISATION (Fatherism), ‘Paparization’, Babarization or Tatarization of faith, politics, business and society !

But before we discuss the negative consequences of Babarisation, Paparisation or Tatarisation (Fatherism), what is FATHERHOOD? Here is my take :-

HAPPY Belated Father’s day to all my Comrades & brothers across Africa. Fatherhood is lifelong opportunities to put others’ needs before your own, care for another’s physical, spiritual, financial, intellectual & emotional well-being, and practice true unconditional love.

FATHERHOOD creates a deliberate balance between material, emotional, intellectual, ethical, physical& spiritual nourishment that in-turn creates a space, place, freedom & support for children to grow in their interests, choices, values, ideas, faith & character.

FATHERHOOD is Responsible Stewardship & Service to your children. It means service by helping your kids nurture their nature. Ensuring that your actions are helping & not hindering them. Fatherhood – being in service and influencing children- requires skills & patience. You learn fatherhood through observation, studying and doing. Don’t observe the wrong things or read the wrong templates because you will end up practicing the wrong things. If you already are practicing destructive fatherhood, course correct fast! The consequences will haunt you for life. If you hurt or super spoil your kids now, you will have a lifetime of regret and consequences to deal with!.

FATHERHOOD is about setting an example through your own actions, words & thoughts of responsible, compassionate, respectful & productive malehood to your sons & daughters. First as a role model. Hopefully a reliable & trustworthy friend to them when they’re older. You need to maintain balance. Even God says “those whom I Love , I discipline”. Discipline without love is aimless punishment and love without discipline is concealed hatred !

FATHERHOOD is a free – and often forfeited – lifelong graduate Masterclass to learn skills and develop attributes through lessons that are not offered anywhere else in the world. You learn from your children (biological, adopted or co-opted) even as you nurture, guard, guide and inspire them!


FATHERHOOD is LEGACY Building and Preservation. Each of our families is made up of centuries of LEGACY built into a complex tapestry. FATHERHOOD is also, therefore, about living up to that legacy (good or bad). It may also be about creating a NEW LEGACY and broadening parameters of imagination, experience, vision & achievement. It should be about breaking old bad or negative cycles in families, including inter-generational poverty often passed on from one generation to the next.

FATHERHOOD is the bold practice of LOVE. It requires the older to become a student of the younger whom they are nurturing and mentoring. Fatherhood is the ultimate challenge, risk, fear, meaning& the ultimate pleasure in life of any man. Be patient and focused. Your child is your responsibility no matter how much you loathe, despise or regret ever meeting the co-parent. You cannot hate a part of you and be stupid enough to blame this on the Co-parent .

      The circumstances under which your seed became a human don’t matter nor do they diminish your responsibility and accountability one bit. Fatherhood is not a moral position, it is an irrefutable responsibility for, to, through and over your children

      FATHERHOOD is not the Liberal or indisciplined donation of Sperm (consciously or subconsciously) and then being forced to maintain the consequences of your donation or you running away from the responsibility over your seed. MEN; let us be accountable, responsible before & after & not just selfish.

      FATHERHOOD is a key relationship cog to building healthy societies. Its pervasive dysfunction explains why we struggle to fix government, development, and our value systems. You cannot fail to take care of children you sired and then want to defend the interests of “CITIZENS” as a businessman, artist, activist, academic, faith leader, Traditional leader, politicia etc. Who are the “CITIZENS” if not folks raised well or badly by their parents? Folks abandoned, rejected, abused or truly loved and mentored by their fathers? We are trying to fix in the nation what we are destroying each day in every home through irresponsible FATHERHOOD, Fatherism, Paparisation, Babarisation or Tatarization of society. Malehood without an ounce of responsibility or even accountability.

      Brothers, Comrades, Friends : Charity begins at home. Let us change our ways !

      KNOW WHAT WORK IS and ISN’T!

      Brian Kagoro Leave a comment


      Years back I read somewhere that “WORK” is “LOVE” made visible! It really isn’t about how much you are paid or valued or promoted, although these are very important incentives. I really believe in decent pay for decent work, but at some stage the penny must drop for you. Decent is not the same as wealthy nor is it sufficiently comfortable!

      Work is passionate or enjoyable service and not just the “Unfortunate thing or profession” that you were trained to do! In fact, even if you were not formally trained for it, you can build “MASTERY” in it! Here is the scary bit though, most work cannot meet your vision and version of a comfortable life, Let alone cashflow or cash flood expectations!

      You cannot become wealthy by working overtime for someone else! Stop trying to squeeze water out of an iron bar or rock!

      Let me repeat for the umpteenth time and for the benefit of those who hear things only when they have been repeated several times:

      Work, a job or employment is not a war zone where you go to do mortal combat, professional wrestling, taekondo or Kung fu with workmates and bosses. It is not a grudge match. Your job is not to grieve, belittle, outshine or win over anyone of your colleagues. It is to collaborate , co-create and mutually empower each other as a TEAM.

      A job isn’t a beauty contest either where you must always be the best looking, most made up and etcetera. What is the point of amassing crowns in someone else’s castle? Get or build your own!

      A job isn’t a monogamous marriage run on “till death do us part” principle. Don’t die for a job or in a job, it is not your company and don’t start feeling entitled; you’re not a shareholder! You’re a contract worker O! And contracts do sadly come to an end.

      Work or a job is not a life jail sentence to which you have been condemned without the option of parole. It can easily become draining hard labour and a thankless waste of precious youth or middle age time! If you’re in your 30s, 40s or 50s then you’re in the danger zone and soon you might just be a bitter retiree who never fully explored their options beyond that one painful or exhausting work experience. You never know what you can truly and fully do professionally until you explore!

      NB. The above is as true for jobs as it is for any membership in any organisation or any relationship. What doesn’t or hasn’t grown you will most likely stagnate, retard or kill you in more ways than one. The problem is not the organisation, relationships or job, It is YOU! If you’re not cactus or succulents you will never grow to your full potential in desert sand or rocky soils. Certain crops or flowers require certain climates, soil types, moisture or sunlight to grow. What kind of plant are you and what are your growth – not comfort or preference – imperatives?

      SHUT UP or PUT UP!
      If you won’t quit your job , relationship, friendship or organisation, then please SHUT or PUT UP! Don’t spread toxicity by describing your unhappiness that you are unwilling to solve everyday and to everyone.

      DO IT FOR YOU!
      Have you ever worked somewhere or for someone or been in something for so long that you begin to think and behave like a co-owner? YES, there is a very thin line between ‘Responsible Stewardship’ and subconscious ‘Entitlement’.

      If work or a job starts destroying you emotionally and physically or causing you mental health issues: Quit! One day you will be fired & what you’re fighting so hard to keep will be taken away. Don’t ever fear leaving a job or starting a new one. Do it for you.

      EXCUSES, STORIES, EXCUZES!

      Please never give the lame excuse of mortgage, children’s school fees or personal obligations as an explanation for staying in a toxic work environment or with an abusive or even just manipulative Boss. Look in the mirror & see the only excuse with all its fears.

      Please spare us that garbage about not finishing something that you started many years ago or recently at work as your excuse for not leaving. Who do you think you are? If you die or become incapacitated do you think the company will shut down? Get real O!

      Be careful about an unbalanced or infantile notion of loyalty. Some people are so genuine, naive or simply nervous that they cannot and will not quit jobs because “when I was nothing, these guys took me in, took care of me, taught me everything that I know and always treated me like family.”

      Good for them and good for you! Listen, loyalty is not physical presence, it is conscious value of something or someone. Even the most loyal daughter or son does leave home to stay on their own, to establish their own home, to get married or to pursue their own dreams! Don’t burn bridges when you leave, but leave if you have to! In my experience, the only child that never leaves their parents home may have issues or the parents have issues! Don’t be a drama queen when you intend to leave and don’t do snakes, ladders and dice games. Be open, courteous, grateful, assertive and transparent!

      BUT leave. SHOW growth and retain GRATITUDE. Remember: Loyalty is seen in service and not bandage of servitude!