Saturday, March 28, 2009

Wetin dey do them sef

HOPE

Growing up in a 3rd world country can either make you break you. You could become strong beyond all measure or you be stranded by omnipresent air of failure. It is all around you like a bad smell that won’t go away. It haunts you day and night. While you are still growing up and enjoying the protection of your parents you hear of it from Brothers, uncles and Aunts who have been plagued by it.

I am not sure what created this immense hope in me but that thing seems to be renewed daily. A couple of years back I watched a documentary on the lives of some street urchins in the war torn Rwanda. The documentary studied the kids for over a decade and as I watched, I could feel that thing in me drive them to survive. Despite the daily brushes with death these kids still chose to lead honest lives. They woke up each morning completely at a loss about how their next meal would come by but year in year out they survived. Sadly some of them died in their teens, the rest made it enough to have their own families but till today I still stand in awe of the tough spirit of the African.

I live in Nigeria, the country where the happiest people on earth are found. Halt that thought!, this is no beautiful paradise with idyllic beaches and Sunshine, well for the sunshine you are right , but perfect would not describe Nigeria in most positive ways. It is plain counter-intuitive to find joy in chaos and uncertainty but somehow the strength of the Nigerian is their hope and with that alone they survive the hardship which comes with every dawn, and even fair better than the rest of the world, they fair enough to be called the happiest people on earth . That something inside us reassures us through thick and thin, and it makes us face the morrow with confidence.

Hope! , this is one of the strengths and assurance of a beautiful future. The audacity of hope. Hope has been a driving force of change in the history of men. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, Mahatma Ghandi all these men have one thing in common, they dared to hope. The African shares this spirit along with them and this is the raw material we need for a Renaissance in Africa.

Preface for my coming book - RenaissanceAFRICA

PREFACE

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win…Mahatma Ghandi

It is called Brownian motion and it is the inevitable state of all matter without intelligence. However, once intelligence (potential difference) is applied to this matter it can power cities. Quite unfortunately, the efforts been made to revive the African continent over the years can be likened to this phenomenon. Africa’s history is littered with so many heroic ventures and awe inspiring innovations that have created what I call little pockets of Good. However the bad news is that this approach won’t work! .War isn’t won by small uncoordinated victories. There has to be a central intelligence coordinating, measuring and advising people in the front line based on changing realities and feedback. RenaissanceAfrica is a concerted effort to create a path to Africa’s recovery.

RenaissanceAfrica is joint memorandum signed by all on the way forward for Africa. When no one believes in a better future despair is a logical choice. As it is said Optimism is a political act which surmounts all powers that be. Though it may take time it will always come to an expected end. The Abolitionist movement which started in a print shop in the UK took almost half a century to materialize but in the end it did. The African Renaissance will take some time but once we can agree on a definite path we will get to an expected end. The most recent example of the power of a common vision is the Mont Fleur Scenarios which showed the South Africans the inevitable future, once they saw the reality of this they choose the best path and got to the expected end.

Write the Vision for the people make it plain and simple and you shall make believers’ of peasants and powerful weapons their plows. The bricklayer, hairdresser or farmer may look weak, unenlightened and unsophisticated but when he is in touch with one thing they have an absolute faith in, one fact that stands sure for them they become the unrelenting, recalcitrant proponents of a revolution.

This book is an invitation to all Africans to come together that we may determine the best advancement towards the future we desire.

If I had a minute with President Obama

At that point when my fantasy hijacks reality and affords me a minute with the leader of the free world. I will advise him to soft pedal a bit on the desire of America to sell democracy to the world.Democracy is evolutionary and it is somewhat inevitable that all Governments end up there. I'll be dole out my advice quickly before that handsome, smooth talking President wraps me up with his polished lines.

I'll advise him to change his mantra to this: PROSPERITY FOR ALL MANKIND, a position which will make him a home in the hearts of people across the world. Really, People don't care if they are governed by Monarchs or Tyrants, what is important to them his their welfare, so anyone who offers them that, offers them all.

Who wouldn't love a Nation or President who seeks to make all prosperous, this position will help President Obama win the Mindshare he needs to change the world.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

The Mathematics of a Depression

A depression is a downward spiral like a blackhole if you solve the equations that created that spiral the roots of the equation will definitely give you a parameter that can only generate a spiral. In english it means that you cannot solve a problem with the same parameters that created it - Bail out plan fails at this fundamental.The major reason the world economy is collapsing is partly because of a loss in consumer confidence thus the bailout plan which is an entirely economic solution is a root of the equation that created the problem in the first plan so by re-inserting that root in the equation we will only get a variant of the problem.Some roots of the equation which may break down the problem will be entrepreneurship( this exploits a potential difference in whatever direction to generate value), religion( I can't figure out how that works but Mahatma Ghandi proved it could).A problem cannot be solved at the level of thinking that created it.

Renaissance Africa



Blog Post test

Monday, March 23, 2009

Schools - The Technological leverage

‘QUALITATIVE BASIC EDUCATION WILL BE AVAILABLE TO ALL’

The Renaissance Schools will never teach the assimilation of facts to be later forgotten (waste of time) but it will teach the students how to learn, how to research, how to innovate and how to use the tools around them to reason and create value.

The Renaissance Schools will teach Culture and explain why what is so. It will hold the family as sacred and further reinforce the African communal means of existence what the Yoruba Tribe in Nigeria refer to as ‘ Ajobi’ meaning that a children is born by all and trained by all. The Renaissance School will not teach a child not to litter the floor as a fact but it will show that child the consequences of littering the floor, how that little piece of paper on the floor acts as a motivation for another child to drop more litter and how all that builds up to an eye sore that Mrs Sodiya has to labor to clean every morning. Also likewise it will show how if a litter is picked up it reverses the process, all these are taught in cleverly designed documentary movies. These documentary movies are part of the curriculum available in all the cyber schools around the country.

The Teachers

The teachers will become Gate Keepers of the New Educational Order.

The teachers will become mangers of educational system while the Personal Computer becomes the teacher.

The teachers will become research partners giving back vital information on how the system needs to be improved.

The teachers will become consultants to the educational system endowing it with their wealth of experience in teaching and further training the new teachers (computers) on how to best deliver their knowledge.

Coming Soon the all the Media around you

“Life doesn’t consist of the number of breaths we take but their

number of breaths that take our breath away”

-Someone shortly before their last Breath

Background

These times are hard! Every day we are plagued with the dark realities of our world, stress has become the default setting for our lives. The Internet and Satellite TV are rapidly shrinking information stratosphere making bad news abundantly available. Today it takes so little to turn a great mood bad, it takes the flip of a switch or a key on a laptop. A Google search of the keyword news will produce thousand of results with less than .0001 of them uplifting in anyway. The reality of everyday life could be depressing with a global depression, genocide, terrorism and extreme poverty it is hard to live our daily lives without imbibing some of the ill mood around.

Thought become things. If this fact which has been re-affirmed by countless people is true then our daily feast on negativism could be the reason why our world seems so dark today. We are fed with ill news, our mind produces ill thoughts (pardon it, it can only work with the ingredients it’s given) then inevitably we produce an ill world. People who have walked away from this reality have produced tremendous results. Barbara De Angelis wrote in the book healing the heart of the world that, there’s always something blooming in the cold, dark times. Even in the midst of challenge and difficulty, we must look for signs of beauty and delight. Even in the midst of Turmoil, these are miracles. Even in the midst of desolation, there are MOMENTS of passion. Look for the daffodil.

Dean Ornish a physician consultant to President Clinton (1993-2000) once affirmed that he was not aware of any other factor in medicine – not diet, smoking, exercise, stress, genetics, drugs or surgery – that has greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness, or possibility of premature death than love and Intimacy. It is amazing however that the power of this simple medicine has been ignored out of ignorance.

Deep unto deeper,

Darkness thick and grimmer,

A spark lights a fire,

Thence darkness is parted,

In a fleeting moment,

Hope re-ignited,

the way back home is lighted,

A moment in time, my memory forever…

…..Moments change us

Introduction

Moments is an organized search for the Daffodils around us. Finally an organized front has emerged to promote Positivism, and engage the power of faith in healing our world. Moments is an initiative which will help people all over the world share their daily miracles, daily moments that took their breath away, giving hope to those who share their reality and spinning their minds in a new direction of possibilities.

As an ideas non-for-profit organization which is promoting Positivism, we are engaging a number of vehicles for propagation the news, stories, and Ideas . This will be achieved in partnership with various developmental partners and corporate bodies.

Roaming the streets of my mind

It could have been the news of Christiano Ronaldo’s Car wreck that precipitated the thought or maybe it has been some dysfunctionality of our society that had seeped into me but somehow these thoughts keep coming back. It should be an offense to be DRUNK. When a man is drunk he loses inhibition. How could a man without inhibition could be allowed to roam the streets? A man without inhibition= infinite possibilities good/bad…. Antecedents has shown that it’s hardly good! A civil society must enforce the punishment of irresponsibility. RESPONSIBILTY, that word is hardly understood, if it was, then why would the person responsible for another’s intoxication not be held responsible, what I am saying is that if Pharmacists know that drugs can kill in over dosage so should the pub, so if it is an offense for a Pharmacist so should it be for a Pub.

These weird people that never give up!

Growing up in a 3rd world country can either make you break you. You could become strong beyond all measure or you be stranded by omnipresent air of failure. It is all around you like a bad smell that won’t go away. It haunts you. While you are still growing up and enjoying the protection of your parents you hear of it from Brothers, uncles and Aunts who have been plagued by it.

I am not sure what created by immense hope in me but that thing seems to be renewed daily. A couple of years back I watched a documentary on the lives of some street urchins in the war torn Rwanda. The documentary studied the kids for over a decade and as I watched, I could feel that thing in me drive them to survive. Despite the daily brushes with death these kids still sort to lead honest lives. They woke up each morning completely at a loss about how their next meal would come and year in year out they survived. Sadly some of them died in their teens and the rest made it enough to have their own families but till today I still stand in awe of the tough spirit of the African.

I live in Nigeria, the country where the happiest people on earth are found. Halt that thought!, this is no beautiful paradise with idyllic beaches and Sunshine, well for the sunshine you are right , but perfect would not describe Nigeria in most positive ways. It is plain counter-intuitive to find joy in chaos and uncertainty but somehow the strength of the Nigerian is their hope and with that alone they survive the hardship which comes with every dawn, and even fair better than the rest of the world, they fair enough to be called the happiest people on earth . That something inside us reassures us through thick and thin, and it makes us face the morrow with confidence. We are the perfect recipe for a Renaissance.