By Dr Theo-Ben Gurirab
I KNOW Kishore Mahbubani as a dear friend and inspiring intellectual brain trust with global outreach, especially targeting his robust ideas towards the Third World. Kishore is a worldly Singaporean internationalist and daring scholar in the field of Third World politics and social development and who embraces technology to end backwardness and reliance on foreign aid – that dull human spirit of self-reliance. This dear friend of mine wrote a book and got it published in 1990. He signed a copy for me in New York as “My Good Friend” saying that about me. Now I am writing about him and conveying my heartfelt condolences to him and his family and indeed to the government and the entire people of Singapore on the passing of their nation’s founder and principal architect of Singapore’s rapid and sustained transformation “From Third World To First”.
Lee Kaun Yew passed away on Monday 23 March 2015. Kishore Mahbubani’s book has a title that is, “Can Asians Think?” Lee Kaun Yew had shown roaring and majestic evidence of that by turning Singapore from a state of object poverty and hunger for generations into today’s First World and incomparable success story that shows with verifiable and abundant evidence on the ground that indeed Asians can think but more than that, they believe in hard work, self-confidence and human solidarity. I have often dreamt and written wondering why Africans cannot think or “did it” like their Asian schoolmates and fellow victims of colonialism, racism and exploitation? We tend to echo their style of timebound vision projection but without meeting critical benchmarks and poverty reduction strategies going forward. Why can we also “not did it”? Not words or promises but mindset and particularly sustainable action is the living legacy of that tall man of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew who has now with smiling face, jubilant heart, bright eyes and proud bearing taken his sojourn to that country bourn from which no traveller returns! That journey which awaits us all to see the face of our Maker.
But Kishore Mahbubani and his coterie of Singaporean eggheads are at home and spread worldwide including in Africa to continue spreading the world vision and the operational ideals the Source (Lee Kaun Yew) left for the world at large to emulate. Today’s Singapore is both economic, wealth creation and sustainable success story, not growth but distribution is the issue. The master has departed smiling all the way but his legacy has yet to reach Africa!
I will close this missive with Kishore Mahbubani and his leading question which is embedded with a roadmap inspired by strategic thinking, daring and time bound implementation schedule for the Third World. An admirer has said of Lee Yuan Yew: “This is a personal history of a man who, almost single-handedly, built a great nation from a small island…this is the First textbook in the world on how to build a nation”.
In 1990, the year of Namibia’s independence and in 2015 the year we are celebrating a quarter of a century, I have been rethinking Vision 2030 and re-reading Kishore Mahbubani’s “The Ten Commandments” of 1990 for Developing Countries”. They are:
• Thou shalt blame only thyself for thine failures in development. Blaming imperialism, colonialism and neo-imperialism is a convenient excuse to avoid self-examination.
• Thou shalt acknowledge that corruption is the single most important cause for failures in development. Developed countries are not free from corruption, but with their affluence they can afford to indulge in savings and loan scandals.
• Thou shalt not subsidise any products. Nor punish the farmer to favour the city dweller. High prices are the only effective signal to increase production. If there are food riots, thou shalt resign from office.
• Thou shalt abandon state control for free markets. Thou shalt have faith in thine own population. An alive and productive population naturally causes development.
• Thou shalt borrow no more. Thou shalt get foreign investment that pays for itself. Thou shalt build only the infrastructure that is needed and create no white elephants nor railways that end in deserts. Thou shalt accept no aid that is intended only to subsidise ailing industries in developed countries.
• Thou shalt not reinvent the wheel. Millions of people have gone through the path of development. Take the well-travelled roads. Be not prisoners of dead ideologies.
• Thou shalt scrub the ideas of Karl Marx out of thine minds and replace them with the ideas of Adam Smith. The Germans have made their choice. Thou shalt follow suit.
• Thou shalt be humble when developing and not lecture the developed world on their sins. They listened politely in the 1960’s and 1970’s. They no longer will in the 1990’s.
• Thou shalt abandon all North-South forums, which only encourage hypocritical speeches and token gestures. Thou shalt remember that the countries that have received the greatest amount of aid per capita have failed most spectacularly in development. Thou shalt throw out all theories of development.
• Thou shalt not abandon hope. People are the same the world over. What Europe achieved yesterday, the developing world will achieve tomorrow. It can be done.
Thinking through history and empowering the people, Namibia can and must become a winner nation.