Kenyans - Why Our Versatility Is Best Harnessed Proactively Rather Than Reactively.

Once upon a time, there lived a man who owned the largest fleet of cargo trucks and had a profitable real estate portfolio in several cities. This man, made money even in his sleep as it kept flowing round the clock.

Mr. Pesa was a huge man. He was five feet tall and had a similar-sized waistline. Walking was such a huge task for him that the car was always brought to his doorstep. He lived a high life and often took his family out on exotic vacations and spoiled his kids with whatever it was that they wished for.

One day, Mr. Pesa was seen going to his office on foot. It was some five kilometres away from home. The man was flooded in his own sweat but seemed determined to walk on.

The rumour mills churned out one story after another. Some thought that the auctioneers were about to pounce and therefore Mr. Pesa was familiarising himself with the tough road ahead. Others opined that the man was fasting so that he could double his blessings.

The majority felt that his walking was akin to a frog hopping away fast during the day - something must have been coming after him.

As it finally turned out, Mr. Pesa was surely running for his dear life. The doctor had told him to avoid all the tasty foods and urgently begin to burn down the calories that now threatened his life. This, unlike anything else his money could buy, needed him to work just as hard for his life as he did for his business.

And soon enough, there was a regular crowd that kept him company over the five-kilometre walk to and from the office. It was a struggle at first but it became enjoyable as the months and years went by. He made friends with a whole bunch of poor but concerned folk. And as a businessman, he now had a better feel of things on the ground.

He discovered that his business handlers fleeced him whenever he had bought a building. The poor chaps by his side made him street smart and gave him a remorseful opportunity to set up a charitable course in return that got all these people economically active. Mr. Pesa moved from answering the question: "who are your drapers?" to: "who are your tailors?" From wearing curtainlike clothes, he now adorned decent suits and casual wear.

And because it was all done in the open, and painstakingly over a long period, there was no room for ailments related rumours. He could account for every inch lost.

But we must never leave things until the doctor steps in. Excesses always catch up with us when we do what we ought not to have done.

When I was growing up, the word "suluu" was synonymous with a carefree attitude, in fact, a very reckless approach to life. The other adjectives that fitted this description included "Fwafwa" which described both a careless and a reckless approach to life, and "sululuu" which sounded like a longer version of suluu and was used for emphasis.

More recently, across the border in Uganda, the term "fulufulu condition" was used by a guy interviewed on radio to describe a ramshackle that was involved in a road accident, despite being unroadworthy. This particular "fulufulu condition" depicts clearly for us the lengths to which people can go to stretch and test the law perhaps because life is so tough at that instant, but for them, the equation of life's possibilities must be kept balanced at all times, and by whatever means is at one's disposal.

This equation of life's possibilities has different balancing combinations for different people. For the guy with the car in a "fulufulu condition", competing for business on foot won't put bread on the table when those in the same race can string together five appointments across town in a single day using their cars. He is just giving himself an equal chance of making money fairly, more than it is an attempt to keep up with the Joneses.

The human spirit, in desperate times, amends the descriptions of reasonable approaches to coping with or overcoming a herculean moment. What was never an option in the largesse times gone by, is now the only option that can get one back on track. 'Shameful' is shamelessly switched for 'practical'. In short, your state in life determines for you the options available to navigate unfriendly terrains. The versatility of the human spirit makes the unthinkable path or the untouchable person a very practical possibility.

For the Chinese, if it lives and moves, it is edible. They are firmly at the top of the food chain. Here in Africa, people in snake-infested regions starve to death for lack of food. As with everything else, the definition of food is culturally determined. The Chinese have proactively embraced the versatility of the human race. The big question here is: "do we have in our culture, an attitude that embraces a versatile approach to a meaningful existence?"

That Africa lags behind the rest of the world is testament to the equation of the balance of life's possibilities taken very far into the negative zone. Several realities continue to disadvantage Africa. In a real sense, Africa's contribution to world trade is far much more than is officially recognised by all leading institutions. And on this front, Africa consciously contributes to its permanent walking with crutches because it repeatedly shoots itself on the stronger foot. We remain in the shadows because of crimes of commission and omission that come both ways.

How comes that the leading financial institutions in the world remain respected, yet their early histories show that they were catapulted to their pole positions by a forced and dehumanised black-slave labour?

Why would the richest countries have the biggest gold reserves without having obtained them fairly, yet they have no gold deposits in their soils? Again, by forced acquisition.

And why do endless queues of trucks full of all manner of mineral ores head for the port of Durban from a helpless Congo every day that the world exists?

And from their trade with Africa, and if at all fairly conducted, why is transfer-pricing blindly sanitised in the books of revered conglomerates in first world capitals annually, and with such magnitudes that cloud our true contribution?

The Asian world was not spared of the caucasian brutality either. The atrocities meted out on them were just as dehumanising as those applied to Africa. But today, collectively, the Asians are a better lot and ahead of Africans in many ways simply because of their proactive versatility.

As much as the colonialists and other invaders broke into their way of life, they never broke the Asian spirit and least of all, their culture. By and large, Asia emerged culturally intact at independence. They continue to demonstrate positive versatility by embracing foreign ways that enhance trade whilst strongly adhering to their cultural virtues.

Africa remains precariously fragmented and a certified fertile catchment area open for exploitation by all the people from countries that jealously preserve and use their pervasive cultures in all aspects of life. Our acceptance of foreign names reflects how deeply invaded we are culturally, and it doesn't help either that when our good command of our prefered European language cannot verbally give us away to our tribal origins, we try even harder to hide our true identities from fellow Africans - with names such Andrew Peters, Geoffrey Mathews and Mary McAgwings, for fear of falling victim to negative ethnicity. We are already divided and taken even before we face a united world.

What does not help Africa further, is its collective concept of time. In the West and elsewhere, time is what is planned before the events unfold and people work proactively from a predetermined plan. Diaries are a useful tool in the West.

In Africa, time is immaterial until it is experienced. The clock only ticks away once certain events occur. For instance, a wedding ceremony invitation extended to Westerners and Africans alike right here on the continent, manifests contrastingly on the actual day. The Westerner will be in church at 10:30 a.m. for the 11:00 a.m. commencement of the service as indicated in the card. But the bride will arrive late because back where she spent her final spinster night, she won't be released until the in-laws gift the girl's grandmother and relatives with clothing and refreshments or any other seemingly spontaneous demands. If not readily available, they must be purchased. They must first experience the wedding day in their own special way before the rest of the guests at the church and reception have their turn. So the clock may start ticking away at 10:55 a.m. at a place that is thirty minutes away from the church. Our concept of time is reactive in a world that rewards proactive fellas.

So all isn't lost. Just like Mr. Pesa, we can make amends albeit reactively in the interim - and more proactively on new items once we are out of the woods. Our versatility has room for much-needed changes.

Let us stop confusing the attitude needed during times of mandatory change with brainwashing. The former takes you forward while the latter serves to keep you backwards and heavily dependent on your exploiters.

It is known that in times of change, it is never the strongest that survive but those that are the most adaptable to the situation that always emerge stronger. It is high time that we rode on the momentum created by the stronger economies. They have an appetite for our resources and we must have the determination to renegotiate the rules of engagement. The only thing on the way of this possibility is the quality and mannerisms of a leadership that readily bends over at our great expense.

Where we lack the versatility that can be carried through a selfless leadership, we must have the united resolve to elect good leaders. Nothing comes easy. Mr. Pesa walked for four years to get trim and healthy.

But we also know that it won't be overnight. Collectively, Africa is a very steep mountain of problems to climb and is still a work-in-progress situation. Not everyone has the wherewithal nor the presence of mind at one go to steer Africa away from its troubles. So someone must set the tempo and become the leading light that Africa can warm up to. That homegrown panacean must now emerge. China did it in a way that only it best understands. We cannot mimic them blindly for our dynamics are different.

Japan did it much earlier and South Korea caught on too, Singapore, Taiwan, India, et al, succeeded and are now tagging along the rest of Asia. Can they be our tag boat? Absolutely not but they can be the catalyst. They successfully rode on the momentum created by Western economies, localised the operationalisation and took on the world with gusto. We are lucky to have the West and East as our sources of momentum, but only if we deliberately move to the proactive side of the versatility continuum. Let us be ahead of the cock and wait no more for it to crow lest things continue to dawn on us.