PART I – TO DEVELOP YOU DO NOT NEED TO THROW AWAY YOUR CULTURE

Does culture cause poverty? The short answer is a qualified no. It is the persistence of poverty that makes some of what we can call bad cultures persist.

Let me explain.

In some societies, in routine economic activities, culture is important but is not a limiting factor. Some economists have blamed culture as part of the reason for underdevelopment of African countries. One of these economists said the only reason why South Korea is in the clouds where it is now and Ghana and Zambia are where they are, is because of culture. Apparently, the South Koreans are thrifty, value savings, value investment, are hardworking, value education and are disciplined. Apparently, all these the Africans are not! However, there is a lot crappy thinking and even crappier conclusions in this argument, which are often just thinly veiled racist jibes.

One can argue that some elements of African culture are economically harmful, but this has more facets than a Rubic cube. Globalisation brings this in sharp focus. Everyone in the world is now chasing the same dollar. Globalisation is intensifying competition amongst societies in the attainment of good living standards. Competition is not necessarily a bad thing as it is one way that makes societies advance. Envy and comparison to other societies partly drive societal advancement.

However, it’s often a question of sometimes confusing cause and effect, the chicken and the egg question. Culture involves a lot of things. Religion is said to be one. In this regard Protestants countries are said be better off than Catholic countries as the former is said to have a work ethic that promotes wealth creation. So, the Northern European Countries are said to be richer than the Southern European countries due to this. The Muslim countries are said to be worse off than the Christian countries, because they stress too much emphasis on rewards in the afterlife. The countries with Confucianism that teaches self-control, hierarchical relations, and social and political order are said to be able to use these teachings positively or negatively depending on circumstances. The South Koreans, the Japanese, the Chinese, and the Jews seem to work and study harder than most. The Zambians in towns seem not to be hard-working, but that is not our culture. Go to any rural area in Zambia and see how hard people have to work in order to eat every day! It’s back breaking labour.

Anything that may impact negatively on a country’s economy needs to be either extirpated or at the very least mitigated. If some elements of culture are not edifying and are leading or could lead to Africa being disadvantaged in its bid to slither out of poverty, then those elements, need to be eradicated.

Most African cultures value hierarchical relationships to a detrimental degree. In Zambia, respect for authority and for age are at times to a degree that could be deemed as harmful. Too much deference to age, too much deference to leaders, and too little regard for the youth and womenfolk is something that Zambia as a society needs to re-look at. Without a doubt, leaders and elders need to be respected but not feared. Fear is a handicap. Any society that lives by the credo of instituting fear is still in the Dark Ages.

Africans often stick to ancient beliefs and practices so as not abandon their culture, as “a nation without culture is a lost nation”. To a degree, yes, there is some truth to this. If Africans became photocopies of Americans, Europeans, Japanese or Chinese in manner and behaviour, if not in appearance, then the society would encounter even graver difficulties. This is because building on someone else’s template leads to a weak foundation.

Nations that are moving the majority of their people out of abject poverty are not throwing away all their cultures and traditions. Neither should Africans.

But without a doubt, some things need to be jettisoned from the Africans’ cultural and traditional handbooks. However, there were many traditions and cultures that are wonderfully African and humane. These are still vital for the survival and sustainability of African societies.

With an eye to the future, African societies should work out on their own the best route of evolving and surviving the melting pot that is part of the inexorable globalisation scenario. What history teaches is that societies that do not evolve with the times, like animals that do not evolve and adapt, become extinct and are displayed in museums. In ages past, the prevalent obsequious cultural behaviour had evolved for a reason: to keep the African society together in the face of massive buffeting from environmental, climatic and social factors. Examples included factors like slavery, like tribal warfare, like depopulating disease outbreaks, like mothers-of-all-droughts, like denuding locust plagues, like man-eating lions, like marauding elephants, like witches, like…

But that was then, when conservatism was the norm, to minimise failure rather than take risks that could lead to better returns. Back then, culture and traditions and being African were likened to the treeness of a tree. Obsequiousness was right in the mix of cultural behaviour. But now, the scenario differs considerably from even a short one hundred years ago.

The mistake most Africans are making, is that of transferring the same deference and awe they had for traditional leaders to political leaders. Zambians should not ascribe to this as citizens employ political leaders. Therefore, the politicians are supposed to be accountable to the people. Traditional leadership, on the other hand, is inherited as a birthright. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the system, people see the traditional type of leadership as being imbued with approval from a higher power. Thus, traditional leaders in African countries are viewed with an aura of awe. Partly, this is because one cannot wake up on a given day and whip the masses into a hysteria of hero worship in order to get elected as a paramount chief!

It has also become manifestly clear that over the decades, the agenda of the two types of leadership are radically different. In many African countries, traditional leaders lost political power to politicians after the colonialists left. At the local level, especially in rural areas, traditional leaders still hold sway. Traditional leaders usually live in their communities for life, whereas politicians have a limited lifespan in power and often follow city lights. As a result, politicians try to ‘eat’ as much as possible in that time.

With all these considerations, I believe that too much respect, bordering on fear for political leaders in an emerging democracy is counterproductive. In this scenario, the tendency is for political leaders to take advantage and act in their own interest rather than in the interest of the country.

 

 

 

PART II – CULTURE AND POWER DISTANCE INDEX (PDI)

In Africa, those in authority often openly demonstrate their rank, and totalitarianism is the norm. In addition, most people are cowed by those in authority. There’s a story about a South Korean Jetliner. The plane, with one hundred people, crashed because the co-pilot was too polite in informing the pilot about the mountain they were headed into. By the time the co-pilot managed to go through all the protocols and pleasantries of addressing his captain, it was too late, and the mountain was upon them. In this incident, these people died because of a culture that practised too much deference. I can think of many instances when Zambians have behaved exactly like that South Korean co-pilot. The country has, metaphorically, slammed into mountains many times, with attendant real-life casualties.

There’s a concept called the Power Distance Index (PDI). This concept examines the extent to which the less powerful members of organisations and institutions (like the family) accept and respect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society’s level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders. This kind of relationship between leaders and the people they lead can sometimes lead to pernicious outcomes like the plane crash alluded to above.

Countries like South Korea and Zambia have high Power Distance Indices. The high Power Distance Index (PDI) score for Zambia is due in part to its traditions and cultures but also because of the colonial experience. This, despite the globalised world, is not necessarily a bad thing, as countries like Japan and South Korea also have relatively high PDI scores.

It would seem, therefore, that having a high PDI score is a non sequitur to climbing up the developmental ladder. This means that a high PDI score does not necessarily lead to underdevelopment, and so there must be other factors at play. PDI is, however, one phenomenon worth looking at as African countries seek ways to improve the lot of the ordinary citizen and avoid a bad case of psychological eunuchism. Psychological eunuchism is a phenomenon that results from the way people behave towards their leaders in society and from the way some leaders behave towards those they rule over. The most typical case cited for this phenomenon is that of Rwanda and the genocide of 1994, in which people allowed themselves to be turned into murderers, instead of saying: “NO

To some extent, culture, seems to be a red herring when you are dealing with the question of development on the national stage. In a community, it may still be operational. For example, is Zambia partly poor because of the extended family culture? How significant can this “tax” be in retarding development? I could not find any study that has quantified the effect of this on an economy. But the fact is that these extended family commitments are the cement that has kept most African societies intact for centuries. It also helps, in that Diaspora funds measured in billions of dollars are remitted to Africa because of the same apparently bad culture of Africans being too generous and helping extended family members.

What is true is that as societies get richer and get better living standards, the bad cultures that seem to slow progress get jettisoned, thrown away. Research seems to indicate that culture is not critical in development, and other things are. It’s those other things that need to be identified. In addition, when things gel, and a tipping point is reached, culture very quickly adapts.