Our Love for Appearances is a Disease
This article
was run in the Monitor in July 2005.
Let’s start by paraphrasing an advert on fm-radio: “There
are things that say who you – what watch do wear? –
chronometer, Swiss. What car do you like? – four-by-four,
German of course! What shoes do you wear? Sneakers – American.
And what beer do you drink? – tusker malt lager, tusker”.
Now let’s hit the road: It is the dry season. A pretty
Ugandan babe smartly clad in office outfit is on her way to catch
a taxi to work. Suddenly, a sleek Pajero speeds past and leaves
her buried in a cloud of dust. She musters the vestiges of her
dignity and somehow manages to proceed with her head still held
high.
What connects the radio advert to the road incidence above? It
is Ugandans’ love for appearances at the expense of more
fundamental aspects that is caused by omnipresent egocentricity
and misplaced pride. Hence every individual Ugandan will strive
to have that hefty Pajero, that sleek mobile phone, or that rambunctious
radio and ignore the poverty that screams everywhere.
By being interested only in appearances we ignore the fundamental
aspects of acquiring the knowledge embedded in the items we crave
to consume as well as the general well-being of all Ugandans.
This individualistic fascination with the surface is the cause
of our development problems. Because we are not interested in
the knowledge behind the items, we fail to produce what we consume.
Going back to the radio advert, consuming something made in Switzerland,
Germany or
America is
cool. Ask Americans or Germans what Ugandan-made item they think
is cool, and they’ll, if you are lucky mention a 10 - 30
dollar wooden sculpture. Just how do we expect to sustain exchange
of 30 dollar sculptures for 60,000 dollar BMWs? It’s no
wonder that over 50% of our budget is donor funded. Then it is
stolen to fuel the import-driven consumption patterns of the rich
few. Ugandans will beg, borrow and steal to fulfil their craving
for seductively packaged imports that they have no clue how to
produce.
We can cite many more examples of consumption without production.
Take football: from the top corporate executive in Kampala to the border-border cyclist in
an upcountry town, being a fan of an English club – ManU,
Arsenal, Liverpool etc – is the true mark of a Ugandan football
lover. Yet, as a country, we have failed to produce a credible
football team at national or club level and package it in a way
that is appealing to the majority of Ugandans.
The same goes for car-racing: basically, car-racing is a competition
between technologies - Toyota,
Subaru, Mitsubishi etc. Of course the human element plays a part
but in the end, the driver of the vehicle with the best technological
innovations usually wins. That’s why recently in Formula
1, some teams opted to pull out of the race not because their
drivers were unfit, but rather because they did not trust the
Michelin tyres enough. Car-racing is, to the greatest extent,
a rivalry between technologies. It is therefore laughable that
Ugandans also purport to have competitive motor-rallies. These are just Ugandans without a clue how
to make even a tiny spare part for a car. What better example
of fascination with the façade than this charade dubbed motor-rallying?
Because we consume what we cannot produce, we should stop being
proud that Uganda
is developing. As you try to show people from developed countries
that Uganda is
not as badly off as they think, they on their part will always
hold you in unspoken disdain because they know you are incapable
of producing any of the things you flaunt as manifestations of
your self-claimed development.
Every piece of equipment, every consumption item has knowledge
embedded in it. As a country, we can’t claim to be developing
just because the minority consuming ostentatious items has increased
– especially when the money to acquire such items is largely
borrowed and stolen. True development does not aim at acquiring
consumption items with more borrowed money but instead focuses
on acquiring the knowledge embedded in the items. Because with
that knowledge, we can set about producing those items and so
stop the indignity of being eternal beggars. The mark of material
progress is not whether we can borrow and steal money to consume
glitzy items. Rather, the mark of material progress is the ability
to fabricate those glitzy items and to package them so that they
get to be associated with sophistication.
In seeking for egoistic appearances, we lose sight of the fact
that going-it-alone will in the end defeat the very purpose of
appearances. However good a house you build, it will always fail
to hit the mark of excellence so long as it is located in a slum.
Similarly, a lovely furniture piece in a squalid house can neither
be displayed nor be enjoyed to its best. In the same vein, a city
with splendid buildings amidst squalor cannot be nice to live
in and experience. As we build houses and ignore the common facilities
such as roads and public greenery, we are in effect condemning
ourselves to life in poor quality neighbourhoods.
However much you hold your nose up in an attempt to ignore the
poverty around, that poverty must still rub-off you somehow: the
ill-planned locality which is the context for your home life and
through which you must commute everyday, the pathetic beggars
on the street over whom you must jump as you move along Kampala
road, the unending line of poor relatives seeking for alms from
you, the ever-present danger of robberies caused by income inequalities
– are all realities that will persistently beleaguer your
life.
It would be cheaper and better for everyone if say – instead
of buying Pajeros, we redirected those same resources to better
roads with ample sidewalks where people can walk in dust-free
comfort to an efficient public transportation. With such facilities
many (including some of our delicate ministers) would opt for
smaller and cheaper cars while others would find it unnecessary
to have a personal car. Thus, instead of gobbling up stuff that
we cannot consume, we can attain a comfortable life by doing many
things ourselves: e.g. pave the streets, plant some trees and
flowers to beautify the city, provide green parks for children
to play and adults to relax etc.
Development is about easing life for all. Technology, which has
been the catalyst for modern-day progress, is essentially spurred
by the desire to reduce suffering, provide basics, and offer luxury:
Technology is about lessening the burden on man by minimising
the expenditure of his energy on menial tasks; it’s about
providing him with enough food and other basics for life; it is
about finding cures for the illnesses that afflict him so that
he leads a better and longer life; it’s about entertaining
him during his leisure time.
Technology essentially develops because it is always seeking
to make life better for everyone: That is the secret! Before understanding
the secret, we shall forever be left out of technology and hence
progress with the result that we shall always borrow and remain
peripheral consumers. The more a country aims to uplift the well-being
of every citizen, the more it’ll organise itself better
to improve technology and to create activity and hence jobs. By
doing the necessary work to uplift the well-being of everyone,
everyone gets to be employed. By together working for the general
good, we can build a country with pleasant towns and villages
that will be the perfect setting for healthy, well-groomed people
to go about the business of producing items for local consumption.
But ignoring the general good will make us content with individual
aggrandisement through consumption of imported items at the expense
of acquiring the technological knowledge to make those items.
That is the perfect recipe for a society comprised of a hierarchy
of beggars of whom only the few at the top enjoy a semblance of
dignified existence, which itself is precariously propped by foreign
aid.
To ignore the knowledge behind objects and be fascinated with
the surface is to be like your village cousin who thinks that
colourful necessarily equates smartness. So he turns up to pay
a visit wearing black trousers, a bright yellow shirt and a red
jacket. Being fascinated with the surface means you are not any
different from your colourful village relation. That is, you are
in the city and out of the village, but because you remain greatly
fascinated by appearances, the village is still in you.
Next time you sit in that air-conditioned 4WD and raise dust along
the bumpy city road punctuated by landmarks of garbage, do not feel
elevated by the contrasting blight of the surroundings. Rather,
be humble enough to admit that you are part and parcel of the slime
and that, in fact, the villager in you is a key contributor to the
general filth.
|
