Technology can help boost EA unity

To develop Africa, each individual citizen must wrestle the comfort in anonymity.

I was appalled by the coincidence in history records that hit me in less than 30 minutes of scanning through literature.

I bought Edward Paice’s book, “Tip and Run: The untold tragedy of the great war in Africa,” and encountered thousands of unknown Africans variously referred to as ‘loyal askari’ and ‘askari’.

An in-flight magazine which I read recently had great stories on the history of Lamu, Mombasa and Zanzibar but again the Africans remained nameless, recorded erroneously as watchers.

By allowing others to assume expertise on our predicament we remain but watchers.

We must rethink the way we position knowledge or science for that matter in order to unleash the data held deep in the heads of ‘watchers’ for more than 400 years.

Below, I discuss East Africa Community’s interest in science and technology.

In the quest to use science and technology as a strategic driver of East Africa Community integration, it is important to use history as a source of inspiration and guidance.

All the five EAC member countries, namely, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda are all creations of the gunpowder technology.

Superior technology from Portuguese, Arabs, Germans and the British made it easier for indigenous kingdoms to be conquered and dominated.

The fate of the region’s indigenous kingdoms is well illustrated in Jared Diamond’s book: Guns, Germs and Steel.

Jared describes a scene where an Inca Emperor, Atahullapa, with an army of over 80,000 strong men was confronted and defeated by Spaniard Pizzaro’s army of only 200 soldiers.

A clear illustration that it is not always numbers that count, but the ‘quality’ of the citizens.

One can point to several factors that led to the defeat of the Incas, the most outstanding one being the use of science (prescriptive practice that results in correct prediction or reliable predictable outcomes) and superior technology (usage and knowledge of tools, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organisation).

We should ask ourselves why Spaniards travelled to Cajamarca and not Inca’s to Spain and why it was the Portuguese, Arabs, Germans and British headed to East Africa and not the other way round.

Finding answers to these questions can help shed some light on why East Africans must elevate science and technology not only as strategic tool for integration but also a tool to prepare the region’s citizenry to confront local threats and global challenges.

Developments in Kenya in 2007/08, Uganda in the late 70s, Rwanda and Burundi in early 80s and recently Zanzibar point at the weakness of using technology to forge and impose nation states on people without taking into account the individual citizen’s input.

Nation states born out of use of technological tools by a few against many create a scientifically predictable outcome of resistance from the majority.

In other words, science and technology ought to be used to address the quest by the majority to effectively participate in the forging of nation states.

EAC states therefore should use science and technology to enhance citizen participation in endorsing the integration as opposed to imposing integration on the people.

Imposed integration will be no different to what colonialists did in creating the five nation states in the region.

Science and technology should not be used to suppress the fears and obstacles to East Africa Community integration.

Without informed participation by the citizenry, we remain but watchers.

Shikwati is the director, Inter Region Economic Network james@irenkenya.org