Yesterday's Commnetarati

In spite of the usual saying that yesterdays newspaper is only good for wrapping today's fish & chips (or Boli & Suya in my case), I gleaned some interesting thoughts from 3 of the commentarati heavies that appeared in yesterday's papers. I've considered them worthy of sharing today beacuase they are sure worth a lot more than holding my chips and suya!

Ali Mazrui (East African Standard): African development, Islam and Afrindian experience
"While I do think cultural factors are profoundly relevant for development, I have been advising African policymakers and educators that it does not follow that more Western culture in Africa will mean more development. A combination of Western technique with indigenous culture is the secret of dramatic modernisation and development. Higher cultural westernisation in the Third World has not necessarily meant higher economic and developmental returns."

Thomas Friedman (New York Times): Who Will Tell the People?
"If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.
How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including Americans."

Shashi Tharoor (Times of India): Were the doomsayers right after all?
"This has finally begun to stir the consciences of the world's politicians. Finance minister Chidambaram has called environmentally-justified crop-substitution a "crime against humanity". Outgoing Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi recently declared that "something must be done to ensure [that] both the United States and Europe stop producing fuel in competition with food". Prodi was blunt about the political motivations for such heartless policies: "People can no longer be allowed to starve to death in Africa simply because some people in the United States or the European Union consider that the votes of farmers or landowners are worth more than the survival of millions of men and women." "

Fred Khumalo (Sunday Times, SA): All grist to the mill of Obama-bashers
"The US has got much to offer the world, and that excludes war.
That’s all Obama tried to convey in that memorable speech of his. It’s a message which, like Martin Luther King jnr’s “I have a dream” speech, will unfortunately not be appreciated today. But future generations will pay it the respect it deserves, by which time much damage would have been done by political administrations with an oil-and-conquest mentality."

Gary K. Busch - nigeriavillagesquare.com: When a Drum Begins to Play a Higher Pitch, It's About to Break

"Tsvangirai and Biti announced, to the horror of the security chiefs in the Army and the Police, that the MDC would give back the farms which had been taken from their owners by ZANU-PF. Irrespective of the merits and morality of such an action a precipitate dislodging of the current occupiers would present the authorities with a security nightmare they knew they couldn’t control.. It was a recipe for conflict which no one could control. The security forces were alarmed. Even worse, when the issue of a transition to a possible new MDC government arose at the meeting in Lusaka, the MDC leadership told the African presidents that there were British Special Forces standing by at a ‘secret airbase’ in Botswana run by the Americans who would come in, arrest the Zimbabwe security chiefs, and take over internal security until order was re-established."