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A Keynote Address by Dr. Chika A. Onyeani
Author, "Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success
- A Spider Web Doctrine," Fellow of the New York Times Institute for Journalists, New York, USA, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning African Sun Times,
USA
At The Launching of "THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK 2005/2006" By The FINANCIAL MAIL, SOUTH AFRICA (A Publication Profiling The Top 50 Leaders of Industry and 500 of the Young Professional Black Heavy Hitters and Top Executives of Industry in South Africa)
At the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa
At 6:30 p.m. on October 6th, 2005 (Over 500 people in attendance).
Your Excellencies, Honored Guests, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen:
Good evening. I would have loved to greet you in an African language,
but I will stick with English because with us Africans everywhere, we
always have too many dialects. So, again, I say good evening. In an
occasion like this, the speaker is supposed to tell a joke to break the
ice, although I have been told it is really for the speaker's
nervousness. My joke here is that I don't have a joke to tell, except
if you consider this a joke. This joke concerns three
president-for-life African presidents, who were attending those
meetings they normally attend. After a day of patting one another on
the back about their achievements, three of them retired to one of the
huge expensive penthouses reserved for them. They started comparing
notes on how they loot the treasuries of their respective countries.
The first one said, "Well, here is what I do. At the end of the day I
ask the finance minister to collect all the hard currencies that came
into the country that day. I will ask them to put all the money in a
big basket. Then I will draw a huge circle on the ground. I will ask
them to throw the money up. Whatever falls within the circle, belongs
to me, and whatever falls outside the circle belongs to the people."
The other president said, "yes, yes, that's exactly how I do it, except
in my case I make a very small circle and whatever falls outside the
circle, belongs to me, and whatever falls within the circle belongs to
the people."
But the president, with his dark eye glasses and all kinds of epaulets
on his shoulder, of course we know who we are talking about, said to
the other presidents, pompously as usual, "You are all stupid, you
don't know how to do it." The other two presidents protested, "you
can't call us stupid, we are presidents just like you. Okay if you are
so wise, how do you do it differently?" "Well," he said, "the first
part of asking the finance minister to bring all the hard currencies is
also what I do. But here is how my method is a lot better than all
yours. When I ask them to throw the money up, I say to them whatever
remains up belongs to the people and whatever falls on the ground
belongs to me." Rather a sad joke, but how true indeed, when you
know the billions that this kind of individuals have siphoned off from
Africa and deposited in Swiss bank accounts, never to be found and
returned to us after their death. Here's even a better news to cheer
you up. According to press reports, the so-called debt relief for
Africa by the G8 countries is unravelling due to some European
countries' unhappiness with the deal, and we have discovered that there
was trickery in the accounting. Rather than the $20 billion per year
that was bandied about, we have come to learn that the actual amount is
less than $10 billion. But here's the kicker - $10 billion is laundered
annually from West Africa alone to European banks, and Nigeria accounts
for $7 billion of that amount. A Nigerian governor was recently
arrested by the London Metropolitan Police which allegedly found 1
million cash in his residence. You know what, instead of the citizens
of his state expressing outrage at the theft of their treasury, they
are rallying around the governor. Go figure. We get a pledge of $10
billion from the G8 countries, but quickly launder back $10 billion
just from one region in Africa. Amazing!!
Seriously, I am more than honored to be within this elite group of
achievers, and I must thank the organizers for giving me this
opportunity to be the speaker this evening. I am deeply humbled. When a
friend of mine, Dr. Joe Okpaku, I am sure you remember him as the
Keynote Speaker last year, called me one day out of the blue and said
to me, "Chika, why is it that everywhere I go all over the world, I
hear your name being mentioned, and moreover why are you following me
all over the place?" I said to him, "Joe, I haven't seen you for a
long time, so how could I be following you, except these days we seem
to meet at diplomatic events." "Well, everywhere I go, I hear about
"Capitalist Nigger," and now a very good friend of mine who you might
have met a long time ago, just called me and wants you to follow me to
be the Keynote Speaker of the Second Launching of the Little Black
Book." And that very good friend of Joe's is none other than the great
Ms. Rose Francis, an indefatigable lady of immense capacity and
accomplishment. I want you to join me in acknowledging Ms. Francis for
her accomplishments and for being responsible for my presence here
today. And I want to also acknowledge you the achievers who are
assembled here this evening because without you I wouldn't be here
either. (Please give yourselves a hand). And I want to thank the
officials of the Financial Mail for footing the bill and making it
possible for me to be here today. I say thank you all.
Okay, that's the end of the niceties. Now, let's get down to the
serious business of why I have been asked to be here today, the topic
being : THE SPIDER WEB DOCTRINE: Engaging Young Black South Africans
with Employing the Psyche Necessary to Become Economic Warriors in the
New South Africa." But before I get to this, let me digress a little.
TRUTH, HONESTY AND FRANKNESS: Nobody Owes The Black Race Anything
One thing I must tell you right upfront is that you, the young people,
must never carry the baggage that my generation of Africans is trying
to unload on you. Normally, it is said that a son who learns and
resembles his father, is a good thing. But let me tell you that it
would be suicidal for you to do that, why, because my generation of
Africans has been a disgrace to the memory of a race that is the cradle
of humanity, a race that brought civilization to the world, a race in a
continent that possesses a greater percentage of the world's natural
resources. If you see us coming, please I plead, take the other way.
In a Keynote Address I gave at Morgan State University, one of the
premier black universities in the U.S., the theme of my discussion was
Truth, Honesty and Frankness, with the sub-title "Nobody Owes Blacks
Anything." And with another article I wrote, titled "BLACK RACE IN
THE 21ST CENTURY - THE IMPERATIVE OF TRUTH," I charged that in this
21st century, it was time that the Black race started being truthful,
honest and frank with itself. We should stop all these lies we tell
ourselves, we should stop hiding the truth, and we should stop blaming
others for what is happening to the Black Race. What we should be about
is accepting responsibility for our actions; we should be about playing
the same games that others are playing and becoming very successful.
We should be about being intelligent on how we make decisions where to
spend our hard-earned money. The truth is about no more playing the
blame game, and the victim-mentality game. In this 21st century, we
have to accept the truth of our situation, and nothing but the truth,
so help us God.
Where I come from in Igboland, Nigeria, we have a saying that "when a
child grows up, and he is able to wash his hands, he should sit at the
same table and eat with his elders." The Black race has grown up, we
have washed our hands, but the question is why are we not sitting at
the same table to eat with our elders, in this case, why are we not
sitting at the same table with other races to eat from the same table,
why are we still eating from the floor?
Again, we have another saying that "you don't need a mirror to look at
what you are wearing on your wrist." You see, you can look at your
wrist and see clearly what you are wearing. You don't need a mirror to
tell you what time it is or to know what kind of jewelry you are
wearing. But unfortunately, we as a people, the Black race, prefer to
look at what we are wearing on our wrist with a mirror. Just try it,
and you will see why we have a very distorted image of our situation.
We are afraid of looking at the truth. We prefer the fuzzy image. We
know the truth, but we don't want to talk about it. Yes, we say to
ourselves, we should not wash our dirty linen in the public; we should
not talk about the truth of our situation, because white people are
going to seize that as a weapon against us. We believe that they would
say, you see even the Blacks themselves are saying what we have been
saying all along. "They are lazy, they are non-productive, they can't
govern themselves, they are unruly, etc., etc." Well, let me tell you
the facts of life. That era of our not looking at the truth in the face
is dead, and gone.
This is the 21st century, and luckily for us there is genre of black
writers and leaders who believe, just like the Jews and others, that we
must begin to wash our so-called dirty linen in the public, otherwise
the wound would continue to fester, attracting more maggots.
As I implored you, when you see a member of my generation coming your
way, take the other side of the street. (Not with me though). You don't
want to be infected by the same disease which we have been suffering
from in the last 48 years, since the first African nation gained
independence from our colonial masters. You need to start with a clean
slate. If I start to enumerate the diseases, we would not get out of
here for another 48 hours.
I wish to be totally sincere with you here. I have been told that I
shouldn't be expressing disappointment at my people for having one
mind-set, complaining and whining all the time about who did this and
that to them; we complain and complain ad infinitum ad nauseum. We
believe the world owes us something. Well, I am sorry to say that that
is a delusional mind-set. Nobody owes us anything. Nobody is willing to
give us wht they have, on the excuse that we want it. If you want
something, you have to go out and get it. You cannot continue to beg
for manna to fall from heaven, my brothers and sisters. You know what -
manna never falls from heaven.
We trust the whiteman to have the compassion to know that he has done
wrong by us, and should correct those wrongs. In fact, this reminds me
of the story of the snake that said it couldn't swim. Can you imagine?
At the edge of the stream, the snake moved around and around until it
saw a man crossing the stream. The snake said to him, "Please could you
help carry me across the stream, I can't swim." The man replied, "No I
can't because you will bite me and I will die." After a lot of begging
by the snake, the man relented and picked up the snake and put it in
his pocket. Immediately he crossed the stream, the snake bit him. As
the man expressed surprise and protested that the snake had reneged on
his promise, the snake bit him again. As the man sat dying, he asked
the snake why he had bit him and then bit him a second time. The snake
replied, "the first time is for knowing that I am a snake and yet, you
still agreed to carry me. And I bit you the second time for your sheer
stupidity." When you think about slavery, colonialism and racism,
doesn't these remind you of the relationship between black and white?
THE SPIDER WEB ECONOMIC DOCTRINE
I want to warn from the onset of this part of the discourse that what I
am saying here should not be construed as an invitation for xenophobic
feelings towards the achievements of the groups I have mentioned here.
Instead, I want us to learn from their experiences. I am not saying
this for the people to become objects of hatred, but rather of
admiration. And these are the groups of people who don't believe in
manna falling from heaven - and those people are the Indians and the
Chinese, in fact the Asian people as a whole. Let me tell you what
would happen today if an Indian from the Asian continent were to arrive
in America - for example, let's assume he flies into the John F.
Kennedy International Airport in New York. This man doesn't know a
thing about America. He can't even speak English well. You know what
would happen?
Well, right at the airport, he could start work immediately, without
even coming out from the airport. How you may ask? Legitimate question.
I am sure most of you have traveled outside South Africa. When you go
to any international airport these days, you notice a lot of newsstands
- mostly called Hudson News. Some times, there are several in one
airport; in fact, there are some airports where you have more than ten
of these Hudson newsstands - they not only sell newspapers, magazines,
books, but also candies, water, coke, and other artifacts that are
convenient for the traveler. To answer the question as to how he could
arrive at JFK International Airport, and without even stepping outside
the airport, start work, is due to the fact that these
multi-international news group is owned by Indians. He doesn't have to
understand English, but he must know how to count the money and give
people change. He doesn't need to verbally interact with the customers.
They pick up whatever they want and bring it back to him for payment,
or he could work at the backroom, replenishing goods that have been
depleted.
Here is how it gets even more interesting. If the new arrival doesn't
fancy doing this type of work, he could leave the airport and stop at
the first gas (petrol) station outside the airport terminals. He could
immediately start there as well, pumping gas. The only requirerement
for the new arrival is the ability to count money and make change.
Again, he could do this because the Indians own the gas station. But
the man hates gas station, he hates the smell of gas (petrol). So, he
asks one of the Indian taxi drivers to take him to the city.
He could ask the driver to take him to one of the motels (small
hotels). There he could go behind the counter and start checking people
in, if he could speak a modicum of English. Or he could be put into
cleaning the rooms and changing the beds, or he could just be asked to
wash the dirty linens.
These are not the only opportunities open to this recent arrival in
America. If he could drive, he would be put immediately either driving
one of the thousands of medallion owned taxis owned by Indians; or the
limousine services, or he could just work in the offices of these
companies. We are not even talking of the thousands of stores owned by
Indians across the United States.
Let me give you this statistics, according to the New York Times,
Washington Post, Forbes, Fortune, Time and Newsweek magazines, because
all of them have done research on the success phenomenon of the Indian
community in America: 78% of all motels in America are owned by
Indians; 68% of all gas stations are owned by Indians; 12% of four star
hotels are owned by Indians.
Professionally, at one point the former President Bill Clinton of the
U.S., expressed surprise that Indians controlled 700 companies in
Silicon Valley, that's the computer maven of the world. Financially,
one of the largest equity funds and the largest venture capital funds
in the world are both managed by Indians. At this time, Americans are
crying about outsourcing of professional jobs - to where - of course to
India. India generates about $30 billion in income from this
outsourcing of jobs from America, because their entrepreneurs have
returned to India to set up companies to compete directly with America,
offering better services at much lower costs.
How did this Indian miracle occur? Well, it started in New York City
with the purchase of one newspaper newsstand, and before you knew it,
they had bought up most of the newsstands in New York City, remaining
the biggest the Hudson News owned by a Jewish family. The Indians
bought out the Jewish family. From there, they laid their next conquest
to the taxi and limousine business also in New York. Mind you, the cost
of a medallion now in New York City is more than $300,000 and the
Indians own more than 80% of the taxi and limousine service in New York
City. It is from there that they expanded into the motel, gas station
and other businesses, which don't depend on peoples' emotions but are
basic necessities.
According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are 1.8 million Indians in
America, while on the other hand, there are 2.9 million Africans,
excluding North Africans since they are counted as whites. According to
the same Census, the African immigrant group is the most educated
group, with 43.8% finishing college, as against their Asian counterpart
of 42.5%. In advanced degrees, Africans even do better with 8.2% as
against 6.8% for Asians. When it comes to income, the average income
for an American family is $46,000, for the Asian $56,000 and for the
African $45,000.
You can look at this statistics, and ask what is the problem? It seems
Africans are doing as well as or even better than most Americans. That
is not the question you should be asking, the question you should be
asking is why is that the Indians have control of the motel, airport
stores, gas station, taxi and limousine services, businesses. That is
the question you should be asking.
My answer is what I have come to christine the Spider Web Economic
Doctrine of the Asians in general, and the Indians in particular. You
see, after I discovered the data of what is going on, it is an ongoing
phenomenon, I have no doubt even here in South Africa, I decided to
carry out more studies of the Indian community. What I discovered led
me to christine their huge economic a miracle, but a miracle with a
difference, which could only be explained by the way the Indians
interact with one another. Their way of life is akin to a spider web
mentality. What do I mean by this?
Well, we all know what a spider web is. It weaves its yarns, and
waiting for that lone fly to come across its web. The unfortunate lone
fly goes into the web and we know what happens after that - the fly is
unable to extricate itself out of that web. The spider grabs it and
eats it. When you expand this to economic theory, you begin to
understand why the Indians have become one of the most successful
groups everywhere they have settled throughout the world, Britain,
United States or any other part of the world. Let me show you how the
spider web theory relates to the Indian economic miracle.
Expounding on the spider web doctrine, when an dollar, but in this case
since we are in South Africa, when a rand comes into an Indian
community, just as in the web, the community traps the dollar, and
doesn't allow that dollar to leave their community, they devour it
within themselves. Now, we know in economic terms what a dollar or rand
is worth when it comes into a community. Through the process of what
economists call the multiplier effect, this dollar or rand eventually
becomes $8.00 or R8.00 if you may, which will have the same effect when
another community loses a dollar or rand, it is actually losing $8 or
R8.
Of course, other communities practice what the Indians practice, except
they have perfected the spider web economic doctrine to a greater
degree. When that dollar comes into their community, rather than going
outside to spend the money to buy from other communities, the Indians
spend their money buying from themselves. The money circulates within
their community, because they patronize one another. An Indian would
travel more than a hundred miles so that he/she could buy from another
Indian. Just imagine where you continue to take from others, without
giving back to them in any form or shape?
A lot of times people make fun of the Indians, oh, they live five to
ten in a room; they wear ill-fitted suits made in India; their women
only wear sarees; they eat only their curried food, and speak English
shaking their heads. But you know what, the suits, shirts, ties, shoes,
they wear are all made in India; the sarees are of course made in
India; by eating their own "curried food," they don't have to spend
their hard-earned dollar eating other peoples' foods. Listen, left to
Indians, McDonalds would not be the behemoth it is today. They even
make their own cars, and have nuclear capability. So what, I ask, so
what?
Compared to us, what do you get? We are basically a consumer race. In
my book, "Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success," which most people
said they have read, I charged that the "Negroid Race, as naturally
endowed as any other, is culpably a non-productive race. The Black Race
is a consumer race and depends on other communities for its culture,
its language, its feeding, and its clothing. Despite enormous natural
resources, Blacks are economic slaves because they lack the
'devil-may-care' attitude and the 'killer-instinct' of the Caucasian,
as well as the spider web economic mentality of the Asian." I have
been accused of depicting Africans as, "non-productive, lazy,
unintelligent, slaves, Neanderthals, zombies, intellectually dishonest,
beggars, undisciplined, dumb-assed idiots, genetically unable to take
care of themselves, etc" I say for those the shoes fit let them wear
them, I make no apologies. And I have also been accused of being angry
- if you know what is going on within the Black Race, I ask you, why
wouldn't you be angry?
Yes, why wouldn't you be angry when you know that before a dollar comes
into our community, we have already spent it? I am sure you would say,
"Man, you are talking about blacks in America. Things are different
there." I say is that so? Let me see, the last time I checked the
annual income of Black America would be the 7th largest in the world at
$850 billion, edging out even Canada. But only $50 billion comes back
to the Black community as revenue. On the other hand, Africa possesses
the largest percentage of the world's natural resources, but Africa is
the poorest continent in the world. Despite the so-called debt-relief,
Africa still owes more than $300 billion because we continue to have
leaders who are more interested in grandiose living than in employing
our resources for the benefit of our people. There is the perception on
the part of Africans that they are better and superior to African
Americans, while African-Americans think they are better with all the
wars, diseases, especially the pandemic of HIV/AIDS going on in Africa.
I say to you that is utter nonsense, both groups possess the same
mind-set, give me, give me; blame, blame, blame others for our
failures. I don't want to even go here, it is entirely another topic of
discussion.
SUCCEEDING THROUGH THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THE SPIDER WEB ECONOMIC
DOCTRINE
Through the application of the Spider Web Economic Doctrine, you need
to make informed decisions as to how you spend your hard earned money.
As I said before, I am not an advocate of separateness, but an advocate
of reciprocity. One society can't leave its mouth wide open for us to
dump all our earnings into their society, and then close their mouth
and say let's not do likewise to these people who patronize us. No, it
shouldn't continue to be like that. This is why in the United States, I
am very critical of how the Chinese community comes into the black
community, open their restaurants, never employs one black even to do
some cleaning for them, never knows anything about the community other
than where their business is located, and never patronizes the
community. And since we as Black people enjoy eating Chinese food and
spend about $40 million a day doing that, it means we are spending
about $15 billion a year and employing the economic multiplier effect,
we are actually pouring in about $120 billion into the Chinese economy.
Africans like good things, in fact, they like the best, especially if
it is expensive, which we equate with quality. We should emulate the
Indians by trapping the money that comes into our community. One of the
effects of racism has been this notion that whatever is Black is
inferior, and it has been ingrained in our psyche, so that when we go
out there, we avoid black businesses. Due to years of racism, we feel
more than honored if white establishments allow us to shop in their
stores. But if Blacks wouldn't patronize your business because they
know it is owned by an Black individual, then hire a white, an Indian,
an Arab, it doesn't matter - what you don't want is failure because you
are trying to be a goody-shoes businessman for your people, and then
you fail and everybody laughs and pats you at the back because you are
down to their level again.
We must organize cooperative clubs, which we call "ISISUS", where a
group of like-minded individuals contribute a certain amount of money
on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Let's assume that there are 20
people in a club, and they contribute $500.00 or R500 a month - that
amounts to $10,000 that will be given to one individual, which that
individual could earmark for starting a business, putting down on the
purchase of house, but certainly not to buy a luxurious car. That's the
method the Koreans in America employed to control more than 75% of the
produce market. Initially, they were denied credits by banks, but now
they not only own their own banks, but own chunks of prime real estate.
We must set up manufacturing facilities, even if it is just to
manufacture candles. You would be quite surprised that in many African
countries, candle is very much a part of their import from countries
like Taiwan. Indians make the clothes they wear, the television they
watch, the wristwatch they wear, the shoes they wear, in fact India is
more or less a self-contained society, a self-contained society which
is able to satisfy the needs of its people, but have more than enough
to export.
We must set up business center services capable of competing for the
industrialised world's back office businesses as the Indians have done,
and I am happy to say that Ghanaians are now doing.
Our motto, no matter how we have to say it, is "patronize black
businesses, stupid!" And as I said on page 20 of "Capitalist Nigger,"
"It is better to die in the sustained effort to reach your goals, than
to die from fear of not even venturing."
CONCLUSION
I will start this conclusion with a quote from a speech that President,
then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki gave on August 13, 1998, titled, "The
African Renaissance," in which he said as follows: "Africa cannot
renew herself where its upper echelons are a mere parasite on the rest
of society, enjoying a self-endowed mandate to use their political
power and define the uses of such power such that its exercise ensures
that our continent reproduces itself as the periphery of the world
economy, poor, underdeveloped and incapable of development. The African
Renaiissance demands that we purge ourselves of the parasites and
maintain a permanent vigilance against the danger of the entrenchment
in African society of this rapacious stratum with its social morality
according to which everything in society must be organised materially
to benefit the few." A very poignant observation, indeed.
There is absolutely no doubt that you represent the upper echelons of
society, and you surely don't want to be parasitic on that society.
Your aim should be how to accentuate the power of the Spider Web
Economic Doctrine to mirror the super-success of the Indians, and
catapult the African economy to the next level.
It might not be politically correct for me to say this. But I am not
known as politically correct most of the time. I hated apartheid with a
passion and still loathe racism. The white people in this country
committed atrocities far beyond anyone's imaginations. But if the truth
must be told, and as I have warned you before, this is the 21st
century, it is time that we started telling ourselves the truth no
matter how bitter that truth maybe, if the truth must be told the
whites also did some good things. They built an infrastructure far in
advance of any existing in any African country, well might be as well
as Egypt's. They put in place an infrastructure which has now enabled
South African businesses to become major players in other African
countries. Of course, we know why they did that, don't we? I don't have
to spell it for you. Truth be told, as recently as five years ago, it
was impossible to complete phone calls to Nigeria from the U.S. without
waiting for God knows how long. Now, everybody has cell phones, and I
am not saying that without South Africa it wouldn't have happened, but
nevertheless it happened through the aggressive pursuit of business
expansion from the phone companies in South Africa.
Therefore, I must seriously warn you that you shouldn't expect to be
handed everything on a platter of gold, just because of what you have
suffered throughout the apartheid era. It is this type of behavior by
other Africans after independence which has led to the total decay and
abandonment of any modicum of infrastructure that the colonial masters
had left, and rather than building upon what they left instead we let
them rut, and spending incredible amounts of money buying new
equipments only to let them go without maintenance. Fortunately for
South Africa, the whites are still here with you. I am not an advocate
of separatism, that's not what "Capitalist Nigger" is all about. It is
about competing with the best in the world head to head, emulating
them, seeing what has made them such a success and copying it for our
own benefits. I am sorry to say that I disagree with those who say
there is an African way of doing business, and then the world's way. We
are part of the human family called the world - we live in a globalized
world.
The problem of the Black Race is we think the world owes us something
because of the horrible infliction of slavery, colonialism and the
continuance of racism. I say we should objectively acknowledge these
things, but let them not be a mantra for our continuing failures. I
will be disappointed if you think because of previous wrongs committed
under apartheid, you should not work up a sweat, you are totally
mistaken. You owe it to this society to roll up your sleeves and climb
that Mt. Kilimanjaro, and even if you fall and break your bones, have
them repaired and try again. It is about the survival of the fittest.
Let me use this story to tell you why it is necessary that we become
more open to the idea of washing our dirty linens in the public,
because of the importance of communications. "A man came home one day,
and his wife had prepared a good food for him. After eating, he was
more than satisfied. He turned around and asked his wife, "my dear what
did you use in preparing the stew." And the wife replied mushroom.
"Well," said the husband, "I was going to take my business associates
to dinner at a restaurant, but I think I will just invite them home, if
you could duplicate the same kind of stew you made today.? ?oAll it
takes is more money," said the wife. The husband handed a bunch of
Naira to the wife, and she went to the same market, and bought up all
the mushroom in that market. On the day of the dinner, she prepared
exactly the same kind of stew with the same kind of ingredients,
including of course, the mushroom. When the guests arrived with their
wives and food was served, the wives started talking amongst
themselves, and asked the hostess what she put in the stew, and she
replied mushroom. Well you would have thought a man had died
immediately because the whole place became very quiet. As you all know
there are some mushrooms that are quite lethally poisonous, and nobody
was willing to be the first to try the food. Even the host husband
suddenly became suspicious himself. Here they were all watching this
inviting repast, and didn't know how to start. Suddenly, the couple's
dog wandered in. It suddenly dawned on them here is a beast we could
try this stew on. They scooped up a large proportion of the stew into a
plate and put it in front of the dog which quickly devoured it. After
30 minutes, nothing happened to the dog.
The guests quickly pounced on the food, and began washing it down with
all kinds of drinks. Forty-five minutes elapsed when the hostess's maid
walked in, and whispered something to the hostess. The hostess
whispered to her husband, and the husband immediately collapsed.
Everybody jumped up and wanted to know what had happened, and the
hostess murmured "the dog is dead." There was a pandemonium, the guests
tore out of the house, and into their mercedes, lexus, jaguars, and
some found palm kernel oil and drank it to blunt the effect of the
"poison", before running out.
However, one man decided to sit and wait and observe how he was going
to die, whether he would shake first, whatever happened he wanted to
know it. After more than 30 minutes, nothing happened to him. He then
called the maid, because even the host and hostess had also left. He
asked the maid, how did the dog die? The maid answered, "Oh, sir, the
dog was crossing the street, and a car hit him." The man became very
angry, and shouted at the maid, "You are stupid, why didn't you tell
us, stupid girl?" And the maid replied, "Nobody asked me." Yes that
is what happens when we don't communicate and that is why it is
necessary we begin this debate about the Black Race.
Again, I want to thank the organizers of this high caliber event. I
feel extremely honored, in fact more than honored, to be in the
presence of the future leaders, probably, future magnates of Africa.
All the pleasure has been mine, but I hope yours too. Again, join me in
thanking the indomitable Rose Francis and her partners at the Financial
Mail.
If you are as outraged as I am, then I must quote President Mbeki again
with these words, "Surely there must be politicians and business
people, youth and women activists, trade unionists, religious leaders,
artists and professionals from the Cape to Cairo, from Madagascar to
Cape Verde, who are sufficiently enraged by Africa's condition in the
world to want to join the mass crusade for Africa's renewal. It is to
these that we say, without equivocation, that to be a true African is
to be a rebel in the cause of the African Renaissance, whose success in
the new century and millennium is one of the great historic challenges
of our our time."
Thank you all, stay blessed.
(Lots of applause and laughter accompanied Onyeani's speech).
Professor Hellicy Ngambi, DBL (Unisa, RSA), MBA (BSU, USA), MSM (USF,
USA), BA (UNZA, Zambia), ITP (LBS, UK), CIM (UK), Executive Director &
CEO (Interim), Graduate South of Business Leadership, University of
South Africa, wrote and read a critique of Dr. Onyeani's speech. Her
critique to be published when provided by email).
October
2005
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