As an international foreign correspondent and journalist of yesteryear I have lived and worked under all forms of government — from tyranny to Democracy — but in no case have I found legislated change to effectively help the grassroots people in any significant way.
I have experienced the Westminster system of population development, have been in colonies of different nations fighting for independence and in states where Apartheid racial separation applied.
I cannot, however, point to one example where “freedom” in all its forms has alone enabled the politically or socially disadvantaged to gain the full financial benefits of nationhood, self respect and personal responsibility purely through a change in a national law.
In all my years of experience in Africa and elsewhere, only a relatively small number of deprived people in any one African country have indeed managed to escape the manacles of poverty due to parliamentary legislative change.
In a nutshell, this is why the Western world is currently experiencing umpteen floods of legal and illegal migrants from Africa, determined to find a new economic freedom in Europe, Britain and elsewhere.
Although most African states and colonies gained various forms of independence in the 1960-1993 period, virtually all the poor of that era are by comparison still the poor of today — and in many cases even worse.
In spite of gaining national sovereignty, these tribal people have sadly found that legislated freedom for which they fought has only helped them minimally, if at all. Instead, they are now beginning to realise that their lives can only be improved by their own stoic efforts and their own sense of self responsibility.
When I worked between Cairo and Cape Town in the pre-independence years of yore, the general clamour by the grassroots people was for immediate legislated independence, or “Uhuru,” to assist them, as they hoped, to climb out of poverty, attain an education, find better employment opportunities and improved personal health.
According to United Nations agency statistics, poverty and ill health in the Independent Africa of today are still flourishing on the continent.
An estimated 23.6 million are still living in extreme poverty, malnutrition and hunger with the figure expected to rise to 492 million by 2030. Overall, over 50 per cent of Africa’s vast population currently head the list of the world’s most economically distressed citizens.
The well respected Institute for Security Study has also reported that Africa is continuing to lose the battle against poverty although the original clamour for freedom and sovereignty was aimed at obliterating this blight on its various tribal people.
The life expectancy of all African children born in poverty last year is expected to reach only 61 years for males and 64 for females compared with global statistics of 70 years at least for men and 75 for women from all other countries.
An increasing number of world experts on the continued and growing poverty in Africa are beginning to realise that the quest for tribal sovereignty and freedom has relatively little to do with the spread of this social contagion.
This was also the belief in the late 1960s of John Turner, a Canadian politician who later became Prime Minister of his country. At the time, I was asked to host this very astute parliamentarian on a research visit to Africa following my corresponding for the Toronto Telegram, and the other Canadian and international media interests I served.
With considerable experience of Canada’s indigenous folk, John Turner believed that passing laws to assist people to leave poverty behind had little effect in the long run, as the Trudeau (Senior) Canadian Government had discovered early in the piece.
Instead, he considered that the first secret to overcoming poverty was for affected people to build resilience within themselves and to grow their own foodstuffs without depending totally on local tribal district stores. It was then important for them to act as a community for the common good before seeking to educate themselves as much as possible.
Another considered suggestion based on his Canadian experience was to create tribal savings and loans co-operatives instead of relying on government social security cash handouts which only created poor impulse spending habits.
I also clearly remember interviewing a World Bank researcher whose organisation had estimated that over 25 per cent of the world’s most hungry people lived in modern Africa in spite of their countries’ new-found sovereignty and independence.
His catch cry was that true freedom was the individual’s ability to improve oneself and beat poverty through self-help and by learning personal responsibility instead of depending on cash aid from elsewhere.