Module 1 Lecture Summaries

 

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Vision Statement
Values-based, “no excuse” leaders transforming their families, communities, organizations, nations and Africa to greater levels of performance and achievement

Mission Statement
To develop leaders of throughout Africa of responsibility, integrity, compassion, and excellence from both the private and public sectors that will LEAD their families, communities, organizations, nations and Africa to its greatest levels of success

Expected Outcomes – RICE

To develop leaders throughout Africa that will demonstrate:

  • Responsibility towards expected outcomes
  • Integrity in character
  • Compassion in outlook, and
  • Excellence and competence in performance

Targeted Spheres:

  1. Politics & Government
  2. Business/Economy
  3. Education
  4. Media (Print, Electronic, Audiovisual)
  5. Spiritual/Religious
  6. Family
  7. Entertainment and the Arts

TARGET AUDIENCE

  • Professionals
  • Business Establishments
  • Government Agencies
  • Academic Institutions
  • NGOs
  • Community Leaders
  • Others

TEACHING FORMAT

  • VALUES (or Principle) – BASED LECTURES
  • CASE STUDY BASED EXAMPLES
  • PROJECT DRIVEN: TRANSFORMATION – From The Third World to First
  • MOVIES

Module Themes
Module I: Making A Case For Paradigm Shift
Module II: Creating An Enabling Environment
Module III: Becoming A Transformational Leader
Module IV: Developing Soft Skills
Module V: Setting Up Infrastructural Systems

Module I – Making a Case For Paradigm Shift
Lecture 1: Introduction to INT
Lecture 2: Fifty years of African Independence – an Odyssey
Lecture 3: The Crisis of Leadership in Africa – Observations of Lee Kuan Yew
Lecture 4: Dreams from Nations’ Founding Fathers
Lecture 5: The Hunter and The Farmer Leadership Paradigms
Lecture 6: The Economic And Political Implications of The Hunter and The Farmer Leadership Paradigms
MOVIE: Evan Almighty
REQUIRED TEXTBOOK: The State of Africa /Buy the Future

Module 2 – Creating An Enabling Environment
Lecture 7: God’s Quality Management System
Lecture 8: The Singapore Story (1965 – 2000): The Role of Quality Management Standards
Lecture 9: The Good to Great Framework for National Development
Lecture 10: Packaging of Burdens as Vehicles for National Transformation
Lecture 11: INT Personal and Group Projects
Lecture 12: The National Development Plan – Uganda
MOVIE: Success Stories of Lee Kwan Yew
REQUIRED TEXTBOOK: Good to Great/From Third World to First

Modules 3: Becoming a Transformational Leader
Lecture 13: Transformational Vs Transactional Leaders
Lecture 14: The Family and Community Development
Lecture 15: Leadership Positioning: Understanding the Funnel of Success
Lecture 16: The Laws of Mentorship
Lecture 17: The Hedgehog Concept: The Role of Understanding in National Development
Lecture 18: Value Systems, Integrity, Work Ethic and Dignity of Labour
MOVIE: Mandela
REQUIRED TEXTBOOK: Good to Great

Modules 4: Developing Soft Skills
Lecture 19: Leadership Personalities and People Skills
Lecture 20: Delegation and People Involvement
Lecture 21: Conflict Management
Lecture 22: Facing Brutal Facts and the Stockdale Paradox
Lecture 23: Communication and Media
Lecture 24: The Rule of Law
MOVIE: Amazing Grace
REQUIRED TEXTBOOK: Good to Great

Modules 5: Infrastructural Systems
Lecture 25: Education and Human Resource Development
Lecture 26: Innovation, Research and Development
Lecture 27:Quality Financial Systems
Lecture 28: Physical Infrastructure and Access Gap
Lecture 29: The Elite and National Development
Lecture 30: Course Wrap up
MOVIE: Florence Nightingale
REQUIRED TEXTBOOK: Churchshift

Module 6: Project Presentations
Discussion Groups
Group 1: Politics & Governance
Group 2: Economic Development
Group 3: Education
Group 4: Media
Group 5: Social –Youth, Women, Health, etc
Group 6: Religious
Group 7: Celebration: Entertainment, Sports, Arts &Culture, Music, Drama, etc.

INT CENTERS IN AFRICA
INT Nigeria (NGA) March 2008
INT Uganda (UGA) November 2008
INT Kenya (KEN) July 2009
INT USA (USA) October 2009
INT South Africa (RSA) September 2010
INT Rwanda (RWA) November 2010

 

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[su_spoiler title=”LECTURE 2: FIFTY YEARS OF AFRICA INDEPENDENCE – AN ODYSSEY” style=”fancy”]

Presentation Outline

  1. Some historical facts leading up to the formation of the modern African nations
  2. Issues that worsened and hindered the synthesis of nationhood in African nations
  3. Africa’s score card for some of the Millennium Development Goals

Before 1948

There were four Independent African States:

  • Egypt
  • Ethiopia
  • Liberia (1847)
  • Union of South Africa (1910)

The rest were the preserve of European powers all confident about the importance of their imperial mission.
Imperialism in Europe

  • The Industrial Revolution in Europe created a need for both raw materials and foreign markets.
  • Africa, having the largest deposit of almost every mineral on the planet and 30,330,000 square kilometers of mainly uncolonized land provided a perfect solution to meet Europe’s need.
  • These facts led European countries to compete vigorously for Africa.

The Scramble for Africa

  • At the end of the 19th Century, after meetings in Berlin, Paris, London, and other capitals by European statesmen and diplomats in the scramble for Africa, European powers, finally staked claims to virtually the entire continent of Africa. Africa became balkanized.
  • With simple geometric and geographical instruments of straight lines, arcs, longitude and latitude, European negotiators arbitrarily carved up for themselves a new political map of Africa with their new territories. They did this with little or no regard for the myriads of traditional monarchies, chiefdoms, and other autonomous communities that already existed on the ground.

Berlin Conference – 1894

  • King Leopold II (Belgian) was able to convince France and Germany that common trade in Africa was in the best interests of all three countries.
  • On the initiative of Portugal, Otto von Bismarck, German Chancellor, called on representatives of Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden-Norway (union until 1905), the Ottoman Empire, and the United States to take part in the Berlin Conference to work out policy.
  • However, the United States did not actually participate in the conference

Berlin Conference General Act

The General Act fixed the following points:

  • The Free State of the Congo was confirmed as private property of the Congo Society. Thus the territory of today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo, some two million square kilometers, was made essentially the property of Leopold II (because of the terror regime established, it would eventually become a Belgian colony).
  • The Niger and Congo Rivers were made free for ship traffic.
  • An international prohibition of the slave trade was signed.
  • A Principle of Effectivity was introduced to stop powers setting up colonies in name only.
  • Any fresh act of taking possession of any portion of the African coast would have to be notified by the power taking possession, or assuming a protectorate, to the other signatory powers.
  • Africa was divided between the main powers of Europe.

SOME OF THE DEALS THAT WERE MADE:

  • Britain traded the North Sea island of Helogoland with Germans for Zanzibar, and parts of Northern Nigeria with French for fishing rights off Newfoundland;
    France exchanged parts of Cameroon with Germany in return for German recognition of the French protectorate over Morocco.
  • As the haggling over African territories continued, land and people were little more than pieces on a chessboard.
    “We have been giving away mountains and rivers and lakes to each other, only hindered by the small impediment that we never knew exactly where they were.”
    Lord Salisbury, British Prime Minister

A Reshuffle of Africa After World War 1

  • A reshuffle of territories occurred as a result of the First World War. German colonies were shared out among Britain, France, Belgium, and the Union of South Africa.
  • Tanganyika was handed over to Britain; South West Africa (Namibia) to South Africa; Rwanda-Burundi were passed to Belgium; Togoland and Cameroon were divided up between Britain and France.
  • To appreciate Italian support in WWI, Britain gave Italy Jubaland to form part of Italian Somaliland by moving Kenya border westwards.

By the time the Scramble for Africa was over:

  • 190 cultural groups had been divided up.
  • Many diverse and independent people groups with no common history, culture, language or religion, were amalgamated and enclosed as part of new territories.
  • In all some 10,000 African polities had been amalgamated into 40 European colonies and protectorates.
  • Thus were born the modern Africa states, a puzzle we are still trying to solve.

Examples:

  • Ghana: Asante, Akan, Ga, etc were amalgamated
  • Nigeria: Hausa, Fulani, Igbo, Yoruba, Edo, Ibibio, Efik, -containing as many as 250 ethno-linguistic groups
  • Belgian Congo: contained six thousand chiefdoms;
  • Uganda: Baganda, Banyoro, Acholi, Iteso, Langi etc
  • Kenya: Luo, Kikuyu, etc!
  • Zimbabwe: Ndebele and Shona
  • Nigeria, Chad, Sudan: Desert Muslims in north were merged with non-Muslims of the tropical forests to the south- throwing them into latent hostility.

All African Peoples Conference

In January 1958 Nkrumah brought together 300 representatives of political parties, trade unions, and student groups from across the continent with aim to coordinate the all African non-violent revolution called ALL AFRICAN PEOPLES CONFERENCE;

For a week, they were immersed in the revolutionary rhetoric and departed eager to engage their the colonial masters for the independence of their nations.

Key Participants were:

  • Kwame Nkrumah- host- PM of Ghana
  • Julius Nyerere- Tanganyika- Tanzania
  • Joshua Nkomo – Southern Rhodesia- Zimbabwe
  • Hasting Banda – Nyasaland-Malawi
  • Patrice Lumumba – Belgium Congo-DRC
  • Amika Cabral – Portuguese Guinea
  • Holden Roberto – Portuguese Angola
  • Tom Mboya – Kenya- Conference Chairman

RACE AND TRIBAL ISSUES IN POST INDEPENDENT AFRICA

There was a widespread belief that once African nations gained independence, the new states would focus on nation-building and economic development, hence, ethnic loyalties would wither away under the pressure of modernization.

Sir Abubaka Tafawa Balewa former Prime Minister, Nigeria said during 1959 debate for a motion for independence,“I am confident that when we have our own citizenship, our own national flag, our own national anthem, we shall find the flame of national unity burning bright and strong.”

Ahmed Sekou Toure in a 1959 Speech said,“In three or four years, no one will remember the tribal, ethnic or religious rivalries which, in the recent past, caused so much damage to our country and its population.”

African nationalist politicians started out proclaiming nationalistic objectives, selecting party candidates regardless of ethnic origin.

As the stakes grew higher with the approach of independence, ambitious politicians changed the basis for campaigning – they found they could win votes by appealing for ethnic support and, in return, promise them improved government services and new development projects in their ethnic regions.

The political arena became a platform upon which scarce resources are contested by different ethnic groups.

Politics has become no more than ethnic entrepreneurship- a route to power and wealth;
For voters, local representatives are ethnic patrons at the center of power, who could capture a share of the spoils and bring it back to their communities; they see national politics as their hope of getting a slice of government bounty;

Primary loyalty remained rooted in tribal identity; kinship, clan and ethnic considerations largely determine the way people voted; African politics have become, in essence, Kinship Corporations.

Law and Order in Colonial Government

Concerned about making their territories financially self-supporting, colonial administration was thus kept to a minimum and therefore:

  • Education was handed over to Christian missionaries
  • Economic activities were left to commercial companies, and
  • Government functions were limited to law and order, raising taxation, and providing infrastructure: roads, railways, etc.

CASE Number 1: DRC

  • When Belgian government announced a programme of political reform in DRC, in January 1959, more than fifty-three (53) political groups were officially registered by November 1959.
  • By January 1960, the number reached one hundred and twenty (120) political groups;
  • Almost every party sprang from tribal origins.
  • June 30, 1960: Congo gained Independence from Belgium;
  • July 4, 1960: Riot by soldiers;
  • July 11, 1960: Moise Tshombe declared Katanga Province independent;
  • September 14, 1960: Col Joseph Mobutu staged a coup;
  • January 17, 1961: Lumumba was murdered
  • Within a fortnight of independence, the Congo’s plight was critical: internal security had collapsed, the army had degenerated into rabble; the exodus of whites had left the administration bereft of expertise; Leopoldville (Kinshasa) was in turmoil; the secession of Katanga threatened to break the country apart; and Belgium was actively looking to for a way to oust Lumumba.

Data on DRC at Independence:

  • No Congolese had acquired any experience of government or parliamentary life
  • No national or provincial elections had ever been held
  • In the top ranks of civil service no more than three Congolese out of an established 1400 held posts and two were recent appointments
  • The sum of total university graduates was 30
  • The largest complement of trained manpower were priests – about 600 of them
  • No Congolese medical doctors, secondary school teachers, and army officers, etc.
  • Similar stories of tribal wars and strife played out in Nigeria, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Liberia, Algeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Chad, South Africa, Angola, Congo Brazzaville, Mozambique, etc!

The cost to Africa:

  • Millions of lives destroyed or displaced– including women and children
  • Over 50-100 years set back on economic and societal development
  • Poverty Reduction: Comparing Africa and the Rest of the World
  • In1990, China had 375 million people who lived on less than $1 a day; by 2015 the number will decrease to 16 million (about 95.7% reduction).
    India is expected to cut the number of poor people from 462 million in 1990 to 216 million in 2015 (46.8% reduction).
  • In Africa the number will increase from 227 million people 1990 to 340 million in 2015 (49.8% increase).

Recent World Bank report describes a typical African today as an 18½ year old girl in the rural area. In Uganda it is a 15 year old girl in the rural area

China’s Interest in Africa is it a threat or opportunity?

Recommended Reading: DEAD AID by Dambisa Moyo.
Dambisa Moyo argues that we must face the myth that Aid actually works. Her message is that “Africa’s time is now”

 

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LEE KWAN YEW’S OBSERVATIONS ON POST INDEPENDENT AFRICAN LEADERS

Page 351, 1st Paragraph
In October 1965, Singapore was admitted as the 22nd member of the Commonwealth….it provided links to a network of governments whose institutions were similar and whose leaders and officials shared a common background.

They were all English-speaking governments, with British civil administrations practices and legal, judicial, and educational systems.

Conference of Commonwealth in Lagos Jan 11-12,1966

Page 351, 2nd Paragraph
Soon after we joined, the prime minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, called a conference of Commonwealth prime ministers for 11 January 1966 in Lagos, to discuss Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) [led by Ian Smith]. Rhodesia was then a self-governing colony with a white minority of 225,000 in control of 4 million black Africans. I decided to go.

Experiences in Nigeria

Page 352, 2nd Paragraph
We were greeted, inspected a guard of honor in turn, and then whisked into Lagos. It looked like a city under siege. Police and soldiers lined the route to the Federal Palace Hotel. Barbed wire and troops surrounded it. No leader left the hotel throughout the two-day conference.

Page 352, 3rd Paragraph
The night before the meeting, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, whom I had visited two years before, gave us a banquet in the hotel. Raja and I were seated opposite a hefty Nigerian, Chief Festus [Okotiebo], their finance minister. The conversation is still fresh in my mind. He was going to retire soon, he said. He had done enough for his country and now had to look after his business, a shoe factory. As finance minister, he had imposed a tax on imported shoes so that Nigeria could make shoes.

Page 352, 3rd Paragraph
Raja and I were incredulous. Chief Festus [Okotiebo] had a good appetite showed in his rotund figure, elegantly camouflaged in colourful Nigerian robes with gold ornamentation and a splendid cap. I went to bed that night convinced that they were a different people playing to a different set of rules.

Page 355, 1st Paragraph
When we left for our next stop, Accra, the capital of Ghana, there was more security along the route to the airport as tension had increased in Lagos in the four days since we arrived. Three days after we arrived in Accra, we were told by our hosts that there had been a bloody coup in Lagos. Prime Minister Abubakar had been assassinated and so had chief Festus. An Ibo army major from eastern Nigeria… led the coup…. The major said “he wanted to get rid of rotten and corrupt ministers and political parties.”

Experiences in Ghana

Page 355, 3rd Paragraph
Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s president did not rejoice at the news. He himself had had a narrow escape about two years before, just before I visited him in January 1964. By 1966, “Osagyefo” (Redeemer), as Nkrumah was called, had recovered enough of his bounce to give me dinner with some of his senior ministers and a bright young vice-chancellor of his university. This man, Abraham, was only about 30 years old, had taken a First in Classics at Oxford and was a fellow of All Soul’s College. Nkrumah was proud of him. I was impressed, but wondered why a country so dependent on agriculture should have its brightest and best do classics- Latin and Greek.

Page 355, 4th Paragraph
On our arrival at Accra, the person who came up to the aircraft to greet me was Krobo Edusei, the minister for presidential affairs. He had gained notoriety as a corrupt minister who had bought himself a golden bedstead, a story much publicized in the world press.
Nkrumah defused the scandal by restricting Krobo’s portfolio to looking after a government hospitality. On my second night in Accra, he took me to a nightclub in Accra. He proudly announced that he was the owner and that all VIPs would enjoy their evenings there.

Page 356, 1st Paragraph
I was the second guest to be entertained on a beautiful yacht that had been imported fully assembled from Miami. They told me it had been transported by rail and floated on the lake. Accompanying us on board were Krobo Edusei and Ghana’s minister for foreign affairs, Alex Quaison Sackey, a well-educated and well-spoken man.

Page 356, 1st Paragraph
When we were cruising on the lake, having cocktails and canapés on deck, Raja asked Krobo who had made his beautiful safari suit. Krobo replied, “My tailor shop in Kumasi. You must visit it one day and I will make a suit for you like mine.” He then spoke of his other activities. He used to be a 30 bob (US$4) a week postal clerk; now he had sons educated in Geneva, Switzerland. A man, he said, must have ambition.

Page 356, 1st Paragraph
Quaison Sackey, a sophisticate who had been president of the UN General Assembly, looked most unhappy and uncomfortable. He valiantly tried to steer the conversation away from Krobo, but Krobo was not to be deterred and we were regaled with hilarious tale after another.

Page 356, 2nd Paragraph
On month later, on 24 February, 1966, as Nkrumah was being welcomed with 21-gun salute in Beijing, China, an army coup took place in Accra. People danced in the streets as the army leaders arrested leading members of Nkrumah’s government. Alex Quaison Sackey and Krobo Edusei were with Nkrumah in Beijing. When they returned to Accra, they were put under house arrest. My fears about Ghana were not misplaced. Notwithstanding their rich cocoa plantations, gold mines, and High Volta dam, which could generate enormous amounts of power, Ghana’s economy sank into disrepair and has not recovered the early promise it held out at independence in 1957.

Page 356, 3rd Paragraph
The news I read saddened me. I never visited Ghana again. Two decades later, in the 1980s, Quaison Sackey saw me in Singapore. He had been arrested and released in one of the innumerable coups [in Ghana].

He wanted to purchase palm oil on credit from Singapore, on behalf of the Nigerian government, which promised to pay after they had held their elections. I said that was a private business deal he had to strike. He picked up a living by using his contacts with African leaders of neighbouring states. Ghana, he said, was in a mess.

Page 356, 3rd Paragraph
I asked after the bright young vice-chancellor, Abraham. Quaison Sackey reported that he had entered a monastery in California. I felt sad.
If their brightest and best gave up the fight and sought refuge in a monastery, not in Africa but in California, the road to recovery would be long and difficult.

Conclusions on Ghana & Nigeria

Page 356, 1st Paragraph
I wondered what would happen to these two countries. They were then the brightest hopes of Africa, the first two to get independence, Ghana in 1957, followed shortly by Nigeria [in 1960].

Conclusions on Africa’s Future

Page 356, 4th Paragraph
I was not optimistic about Africa. In less than 10 years after independence in 1957, Nigeria had had a coup and Ghana a failed coup.

I thought their tribal loyalties were stronger than their sense of common nationhood. This was especially so in Nigeria, where there was a deep cleavage between the Muslim Hausa northerners and the Christian and pagan southerners.

Analysis of African Leadership Challenges

Page 358, 1st Paragraph
At the meeting, in January 1969, also in London, Wilson as chairman asked me to open the discussion on Commonwealth cooperation. I prefaced my remarks with criticism of the niggardly [ungenerous] Western help for developing countries, then went on to explain the deeper reasons for their failure.

To rally their people in their quest for freedom, the first-generation anti-colonial nationalist leaders had held out visions of prosperity [through rhetoric] that they could not realize [in functionality].

Page 358, 1st Paragraph
A population explosion had increased the burden on resources. Inter-ethnic peace, which had been enforced by the colonial overlord, was difficult to maintain after independence with power in the hands of an ethnic majority.

The elite who had commanded popular support before independence had to demonstrate their continuing legitimacy, and in competing against other parties, they had been unable to resist the temptation of appeals to ethnic, linguistic, and religious loyalties.

The countries suffered as their ethnic minorities…were squeezed out by rioting or legislation.

Page 358, 1st Paragraph
The layer of trained people were too thin and new states reverted back to become soft societies without the firm hand of an overlord and a strong framework of administration.

Corruption set in and became a way of life. Military coups made things worse. But most of all, most governments had favoured economic planning and control [socialism] which stifled free enterprise.

Page 358, 1st Paragraph
[Harold] Wilson had proposed to alternate the biennial conference between London and a Commonwealth country. He was keen to hold the next one in Singapore. The other leaders agreed.

I was happy to host it. It would be good for Singapore to have world attention focused on it.

With two years to prepare, it could be an occasion for Singapore to gain recognition as an oasis of efficiency and rationality in the Third World.

Page 359, 2nd Paragraph
Our common wealth guests arrived in January 1971 to clean and green Singapore with friendly, warm, efficient, and courteous service….Ted Heath [new British Prime Minister] had announced soon after he became prime minister that Britain would resume arms sales to South Africa which had been suspended by the Labour government.

This provoked a fierce reaction from black African leaders, many of whom threatened to break up the commonwealth if Britain persisted….Heath was not comfortable in that Third World multiracial setting. It was his first experience of such a setting.

Page 360, 2nd Paragraph
Julius Nyerere, president of Tanzania, pitched his argument on a high moral plane, that South Africa was out of the Commonwealth because its ideology was inconsistent with a multiracial Commonwealth. He asked “earnestly” that Britain should not help South Africa and force African countries to react.

His was unexpectedly brief. He had sized up Heath and decided it was not best to preach to him. Nyerere was the African leader I most admired. He struck me as honest and sincere. He handed over power to a successor in a constitutional manner and Tanzania never descended into the chaos of Uganda.

Page 360, 3rd Paragraph
President Hastings Banda of Malawi, said [that] no African leader was going to leave and wreck the commonwealth. Force would not succeed; the freedom fighters had tried since 1964 and achieved nothing. In place of force, isolations, and boycott, he called for contact and dialogue between the blacks and whites.

African leaders displayed open contempt for him, but he appeared completely unmoved. I tried to check his rhetorical exuberance but once in full flow he was not to be stopped.

Page 360, 3rd Paragraph
President Hastings Banda of Malawi was quite a character, with his sunglasses even indoors and at night, and his buxom young African lady companion.

He looked old but spoke with vigor, waving his fly whisk to emphasize his points. But he might as well have waved a red flag at angry bulls. I was not sure whether Heath was embarrassed or delighted.

Page 361, 1st Paragraph
A dramatic intervention was provided by President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia. He warned that Britain’s national interest lay not only in South Africa or the Indian Ocean, but in many parts of Africa.

As he recounted cruelties Africans had suffered at the hands of white settlers, he suddenly sobbed and pressed his eyes with a white handkerchief held at one corner by his fingers. Those who saw this for the first time found it a moving experience.

But he was to repeat it frequently, at almost every Commonwealth meeting whenever the subject of white domination over Africans came up. It became a familiar music hall act.

Page 361, 2nd Paragraph
Uganda’s President Milton Obote, was different from Kaunda or Nyerere. There was deep hatred and venom when he spoke on Rhodesia, Namibia, and South Africa. I felt something sinister in his expression and glint in his eyes.

During a conference break, Obote was told that General Idi Amin had taken over his country in a coup. He looked dejected. His predicament underlined the precariousness of so many African governments.

Page 362, 1st Paragraph
All speakers from Africa had the satisfaction of being heard; no leader was stopped from saying his piece meant for home consumption. When discussions resumed a few hours later “on the security of the Indian Ocean,” the African leaders were all absent and the work was soon done

….At the end of the meeting, after all the histrionics, the secretary-general got the Third World leaders to understand that the guts of the Commonwealth were in economic, social, and cultural cooperation, and that depended on funding mainly from the developed old Commonwealth- Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Page 363, 1st Paragraph
Commonwealth cooperation would end if the donors found the cost-benefit ratio unfavourable. With tact and skill, [Arnold] Smith persuaded the Africans and Asians not to push issues to the breaking point….

Sonny Ramphal, the Guyanan foreign minister who took over from Smith in 1975 [as the secretary-general], showed even greater skill in letting the Third World leaders have their rhetoric while he kept the road show going by making sure the cost-benefit equation kept the donors engaged.

Page 363, 2nd Paragraph
At Ottawa in 1973, …I [met] Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the hero who had opposed Pakistan and led East Pakistan to independence as Bangladesh. He arrived in style at Ottawa in his aircraft. When I landed, I saw a parked Boeing 707 with “Bangladesh” emblazoned on it. When I left, it was still standing on the same spot, idle for eight days, getting obsolescent without earning anything.

As I left the hotel for the airport, two huge vans were being loaded with packages for the Bangladeshi aircraft. At the conference, Mujibur Rahman had made a pitch for aid to his country.

Page 363, 2nd Paragraph
The fashion of the time was for leaders of the bigger Third World countries to travel in their own aircraft. All leaders were equal at the conference table, but those from heavyweight countries showed that they were more equal by arriving in big private jets….

Those African presidents whose countries were then better off, like Kenya and Nigeria, also had special aircraft. I wondered why they did not set out to impress the world that they were poor and in dire need of assistance. Our permanent representative at the UN in New York explained that the poorer the country, the bigger the Cadillacs they hired for their leaders.

Page 364, 1st Paragraph
So I made a virtue of arriving by ordinary commercial aircraft, and thus helped preserve Singapore’s Third World status for many years.

However, by the mid-1990’s, the World Bank refused to heed our pleas not to reclassify us as a “High Income Developing Country,” giving no Brownie points for my frugal travel habits. We lost all the concessions that were given to developing countries.

Page 364, 1st Paragraph
At Kingston, Jamaica, in April 1975, Prime Minister Michael Manley, a light-skinned West Indian, presided with panache and spoke with great eloquence. But I found his views quixotic [idealistic, impracticable] . He advocated “redistribution of the world’s wealth”.…

Theirs was a relaxed culture. The people were full of song and dance, spoke eloquently, danced vigorously, and drank copiously. Hard work they had left behind with slavery.

Page 365, 2nd Paragraph
In 1979, I made my third trip to Lusaka [Zambia]. The first, in 1964, was during my African tour of 17 capitals, and the second in 1970, was for the Non-Aligned Summit. Since 1970, Zambia’s economy had declined. We were entertained at State House, where I had stayed in 1964 as the house guest of the last governor.

It had lost its bloom….The conference hall and chalets had not been much used since 1970 and it showed; but had just been refurbished and furnished at great expense, with furniture flown in from Spain.

Page 365, 3rd Paragraph
The catering at the chalet where we stayed was a disaster. They had trained young students as cooks. Our cook’s total repertoire was bacon and eggs or just soft-boiled eggs for breakfast, steak for lunch, and steak for dinner. There was plenty of liquor and wines, far more than we needed.

Everything was in short supply. The shops were empty….Prime Minister Kenneth Kaunda’s major preoccupation was politics, black versus white politics, not the economics.

Lee Kuan Yew’s Summary on Post-Independence African Leaders

Africa leaders:

  • Are high on rhetoric but shallow on administration and execution;
  • Lack sound, strategic balance between politics and economic development;
  • Could hardly distinguish personal from public duties and responsibilities;
  • Low moral standards in conduct and performance;
  • Poor social skills to mobilize across ethnic/tribal boundaries- often evoke tribal differences to gain or maintain power;
  • Lack pragmatism in decision making.

 

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Session objective is to answer:

  1. How and why are nations born?
  2. Origins of the burdens of Founding Fathers?
  3. What is the process of the birth of a nation?
  4. What must nations do to fulfill purpose?

God’s Purpose for Nations

  • Nations are not here by accident
  • Nations have destinies and purposes in God’s scheme of things
  • People of different nations are gifted in order to fulfill such destinies and purposes and someday will account to God for potentials given to them
  • We must take responsibility for our national mandates in God

In 2004, Pastor Sunday Adelaja of Embassy of God Church in Kiev, Ukraine went on national

Ukrainian Television and proclaimed:

“If Ukrainians will not take responsibility for their nation, then I take responsibility to change it for God.”

God’s Plan For Nations

Acts 17:26-28 (NLT)
26From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand which should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.
27″His purpose in all of this was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him–though he is not far from any one of us. 28For in him we live and move and exist.

Genesis 8:18,19
So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark.

Origin of Lands, Languages, Nations

Genesis 10:1-4
Now this is the genealogy of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.

Genesis 10:5
From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.

Come, Let Us Build Ourselves

Genesis 11:1- 3
Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a palm in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.
Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had bricks for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar.

Genesis 11:5-7
But the Lord came down to see the city, and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they began to do; now nothing that they purpose to do will be withheld from them. “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one’s speech.”

Genesis 11:8,9
So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

God Raises a Model Nation

Exodus 3:9,10
“Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

Nations are like sons

Exodus 4:22,23
Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord:
“Israel is My son, My Firstborn. So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me. But if you refuse to let hum go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn.”

Israel: God’s First Born Son

  • If Israel was not the first nation on earth, why is she called the first born?
  • It was because she was the first nation God revealed Himself to and gave His laws and principles for nationhood
  • Even when in backsliding and exile, the Jews have tended to do well wherever they have gone because their cultural practices and mind-sets are God given
  • If Israel is called firstborn, then it implies that God has and is waiting for other nation sons to be born
  • In God’s eyes, nations too are sons
  • Nations have special callings and identity in God just as individuals do
  • Israel was delivered from the yoke of Egypt, hence other children nations must be delivered and nurtured to maturity
  • Each generation must take responsibility for the deliverance of their nations from the bondage of Egypt to maturity.

How, When and Why

  • Nations are first born in the spirit,
  • God starts building nations from families;
  • When the season comes, He raises a man and lays the burden on him;
  • At the fullness of time, nations are born to fulfil God given purposes;
  • Every 100 years –10 years now new map of the world redrawn because nations rise and fall;

The Birth of Nations is as follows: (Israel as a prototype)

  • Yearning for Liberty
  • A Call to Nationhood
  • Discovery of Purpose
  • Institution of Law and Order
  • Conceiving of National Vision
  1. The Yearning For Liberty
  • Israel became a nation through brutal slavery
  • Oppression drove them to desire and cry out for freedom
  • There was a cry for liberty – desire to be free
  • Moses brought a unifying call to all the 12 tribes, not just Levi
  • There was a fight for freedom in which God was actively involved
  1. The Call to Nationhood
  • There was also a celebration of freedom
  • There was a wilderness ahead though
  • The experiences the Israelites went through galvanized the sense of nationhood:
    • Shared history
    • Shared values
    • Shared vision
    • Shared identity
  • Oppression too though more benign drove African nations to agitate for independence
  • The call to nationhood often comes through leaders who are responding to the cry from the populace
  1. Discovery of Purpose

Exodus 19:5,6
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.

And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.

  • Every nation has a purpose
  • God will often communicate this to the leaders
  • The leaders must find a way to communicate this to the people
  • Just like individuals, nations find fulfillment when they walk in their purpose
  1. Institution of Law and Order
  • The first thing God did was to give them laws
  • There was a transition from Moses to the rule of law and institutions
  • God’s laws were detailed and thorough
  • They were robustly enforced without fear or favour – no one was above the law.
  • They broke the laws of the oppressor to be free but now you must keep the law in your own country!

God’s country – Israel

  • They could not be a nation without law and order
  • God was tough! An eye for an eye, an ear for an ear
  • Even secret sins were found out! Many were stoned to death
  • Even vacation (sabbath) was enforced otherwise you were put to death!
  • Leviticus was written on Sinai; it had laws on everything

God’s Laws covered the following:

  • Worship
  • Property rights
  • Enterprise
  • Construction
  • Health
  • Dressing
  • Environment
  • Sexuality
  • Agriculture
  • Food
  • Celebration
  • Even toilet habits

Initially God provided social services and subsidies:

  • Free electricity
  • Free water
  • Free air conditioning
  • Free food

There were laws to take care of the vulnerable: widows, orphans, the destitute.

Importance of Law and Order

  • It is the foundation of growth: law abiding countries grow
  • Singapore: spitting, drugs
  • Switzerland: littering
  • One of our greatest failures; there is pervasive lawlessness
    • Traffic
    • Building regulations

African countries need to set up laws enforce them robustly and get out of the way of the people

  1. Conceiving of National Vision
  • God painted a picture of a land flowing with milk and honey: Deut 8
  • The milk and honey did not flow though; everything grew.
  • They had to create the milk and the honey.
  • No more miracles; no more hand outs; no more free services
  • FROM NOW ON WORK; PLANT AND HARVEST, NO MORE FOOD FROM THE SKIES
  • In the land of Canaan Israel finally became a nation.
  • THEY TOOK RESPONSIBILITY
  • Miracles are emergency interventions
  • Miracles must be preached with process as well.

There is a big difference between collecting manna every morning and planning for planting and harvest

God’s Objectives for Creating Nations

Isaiah 32:15-17
The Peace of God’s Reign
15 Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, And the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, And the fruitful field is counted as a forest. 16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, And righteousness remain in the fruitful field. 17 The work of righteousness will be peace, And the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever.

Isaiah 32:18-20
The Peace of God’s Reign
18 My people will dwell in a peaceful habitation, In secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places,19 Though hail comes down on the forest, And the city is brought low in humiliation. 20 Blessed are you who sow beside all waters, Who send out freely the feet of the ox and the donkey.

The Future of a Nation

  • The quality of a nation depends on the moral character of their people and the principles upon which they built their lives. This truth has been proven throughout the history of humanity. Israel, Babylon, Persia and the Roman Empire are illustrations of this truth.
  • African countries would never be great or be truly developed until the Africans decides to champion a moral crusade that will establish in every strata of the society the principles and virtues of integrity and righteousness.
  • Some things are more important than life and these things are: values, principles, character, dignity etc.
  • Money and mineral resources are not true measure of real wealth. The real wealth of a nation is the moral fabric and the value system of her people – as revealed in the streets of their market places.
  • Men and nations are not great by the virtue of their wealth, but by the wealth of their virtues. (e.g. Switzerland, Sweden as against Africa, Uganda etc.)
  • Whatever dictates your value is your God – money or God’s standards.
  • The virtues of character, behavioral patterns and moral systems determine how great the nation and its people are going to become.
  • The societal value system are thought and reinforced at three places: The Family, Religious Institutions, and the existing Educational systems.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

  • God creates nations according to His own purpose, plans and agenda.
  • When Nations fulfill these God-given purposes and destinies, they flourish, prosper and are blessed for generations to come.
  • However, when nations refuse to recognize their days of visitation, they perish and are uprooted from the surface of the earth. (Deut 32:7,8)

CHALLENGES AFRICA FACES

  • Information and Knowledge coming out of religious and academic institutions reveals that we on the whole do not understand our role in nation building
  • Leadership: lack of servant leaders (nurturers) & therefore no defined direction
  • Faulty Foundations: Wrong value systems and mindset
  • A lack of understanding & application of the principles of nation building
  • Inability to apply leadership principles and quality management practices in business and in government.

Rediscovering Purpose for Nations

Deut 32:7,8
7 Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.
8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of men, He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the Israelites.

Inferences from Deut 32:5-8

  • God gave to every nation their LAND as their inheritance – every peoples’ group should have a LAND
  • Every nations’ LAND are as unique to them as their people are; because the uniqueness of every LAND produces, formulates, and defines her people
  • Every nation is supposed to develop the full potential of their LAND
  • How a nation sees her LAND determines her future: opportunity and potentials vs. problems and challenges

Ask Your Fathers… & Elders

The burdens, intents, cries and yearning desires, and deliberations of nations’ founding fathers are typically articulated in historical documents such as:

  • Declaration of Independence
  • The Constitution
  • The National Anthem
  • The National Coat of Arm
  • The National Flag
  • The National Pledge
  • The National Motto

UGANDA’S NATIONAL FLAG

  • Adopted on 9 October 1962, the date that Uganda became independent from the United Kingdom.
  • It consists of six equal horizontal bands of black (top), yellow, red, black, yellow, and red
  • A white disc is superimposed at the centre and depicts the national symbol, a Grey Crowned Crane facing the hoist side.
  • The raised leg symbolizes that Uganda is not stationary but moving forward.

The three colours are representative of:

  • African peoples (black)
  • Africa’s sunshine (yellow)
  • African brotherhood (red being the colour of blood, through which all Africans are connected)
  • The Grey Crowned Crane is fabled for its gentle nature and was also the military badge of Ugandan soldiers during British rule.
  • The flag was designed by the Ugandan Minister of Justice, Mr. Grace Ibingira.

UGANDA’S COAT OF ARMS

  • The coat of arms of Uganda is centered on a shield and spears on a green mound.
  • The shield and spears represent the willingness of the Ugandan people to defend their country.
  • There are three images on the shield: those on top represent the waves of Lake Victoria
  • The sun in the centre represents the many days of brilliant sunshine Uganda enjoys
  • The traditional drum at the bottom is symbolic of dancing, and the summoning of people to meetings and ceremony.
  • The shield is flanked on the right by a Crested Crane (Balearica regulorum gibbericeps), a subspecies of the Grey-crowned Crane and the national bird of Uganda.
  • On the left is the Ugandan Kob (Kobus kob thomasi), a species of Kob that here represents abundant wildlife.
  • The shield stands on a green mound, representing fertile land, and directly above a representation of the River Nile.
  • Two main cash crops, coffee and cotton, flank the river.
  • At the bottom is the national motto: “For God and My Country” reflects upon Uganda as a nation of people who fear God and love their country.

UGANDAN NATIONAL ANTHEM

Stanza 1

Oh Uganda may God uphold thee,
We lay our future in thy hand,
United free for liberty
Together we’ll always stand.

Stanza 2

Oh Uganda the land of freedom,
Our love and labour we give,
And with neighbours all,
At our country’s call
In peace and friendship we’ll live.

Stanza 3

Oh Uganda! the land that feeds us,
By sun and fertile soil grown,
For our own dear land,
We shall always stand,
The pearl of Africa’s Crown.

Values From Ugandan National Anthem
Oh Ugandans:

  • May God uphold thee;
  • Lay your future in your nation- your purpose is inextricably bound with her future!
  • Unite in freedom and liberty for all;
  • Stand together- calling all to be neighbours living in peace and friendship;
  • Serve with love and labour (diligence);
  • Develop your land to feed in plenty- endowed with sun and fertile land;
  • Stand always for your dear LAND;
  • You will become the Pearl in Africa’s Crown

WHAT TIME IS IT FOR UGANDA

  • Time is not on the side of Uganda, either we are going to recognize the time of our visitation and maximize it or we are going to suffer the same fate as many other nations before us.
  • For us to be relevant as a nation, we must know the purpose of the God, before we can successfully pursue its fulfillment

When a nation misses their time of visitation:

Luke 19:41-44
Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

IMPORTANT TO NOTE

  • God creates nations according to His own purpose, plans, and agenda;
  • When nations fulfill these purposes and destinies in God, they flourish;
  • When nations refuse to recognize their days of visitation, they perish and are uprooted from the surface of the earth;
  • Hence, every 100 years the world map has to be redrawn to account for newly created and destroyed nations

SUMMARY

  • From one man, Adam, God created nations;
  • God gives every nation its land and languages;
  • Nations are created to serve God and to be called sons;
  • When the season and times are ripe for a nation to manifest, God raises a man;
  • God’s purpose are often imbedded in independent documents.
  • From Adam and, eventually, Noah God created all nations with different ethnic groups and languages to inhabit all the earth;
  • God set their times for their manifestation and the boundaries of their LAND as their inheritance;
  • God desires that ALL nations should seek Him and find Him, for in Him they live and move and have their being (purpose of creation);
  • Nations that fail to fulfill purpose by serving their selfish interests and/or worship other gods eventually enter into a time of judgment

 

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[su_spoiler title=”LECTURE 5:

THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE HUNTER AND FARMER LEADERSHIP PARADIGMS” style=”fancy”]

Objectives

  1. We shall be able to identify our own behavioural patterns, our family, nation, company, organisation, community patterns.
  2. We understand why we are where we are, in our lives, why our family is where it is, and why our country is where it is.

Introduction

  • We develop different value systems and make different choices about our destinies.
  • Esau and Jacob represent two different ways for achieving personal or organisational development.

Paradigms

  • Our values, beliefs, assumptions, shape the way we relate to other people and the way we make decisions.
  • If our paradigms – our beliefs, values, are faulty, the person also turns out faulty.
  • Where you sit and what you sit in determines what you see, p.12
  • If you sit in the seat of scarcity, you see only scarcity.
  • If you sit with Esau, you see Esau perspective.

Gen 25:19-34 – The birth of Esau and Jacob.

  • Esau was a skilful hunter, a field man and Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents.
  • God used the struggle between Esau and Jacob in the womb to dramatize the antagonism of two different world views growing within Rebecca’s womb. That struggle still continues today, the Esau way and the Jacob way.
  • The future is either bought or sold by the choices of today; and the choices of today are influenced by the paradigm you operate.
  • The Esau paradigm sacrifices the future for the present, sells the future to buy the present.
  • The Jacob paradigm harnesses the resources of the present in order to acquire the opportunities and potential of the future

Comparison Hunter and Farmers

  • Hunters : chasers, locate the prey, pursue, so must be a good runner, kills – so survives on what he has killed; gatherers, so must bring in what he has gathered; one animal at a time, do not rear or husband the animals they need, consumers, have a lot of activity, but do they produce?
  • Farmers: nurture, cultivator, renews environment, investor, producer, has time to cultivate and produce a good and profitable product.
  • Contemplative One people shall be stronger than the other. Who is stronger? Esau or Jacob; the hunter or the farmer
  • The hunter was hungry, the tent man was eating. The Jacob and Esau paradigm reflects the conditions of people today.
  • The Jacobs stay in their tents to process what they have and always have enough to eat and to negotiate for better conditions.
  • A hunter thinks the animal is always there, takes things for granted. A famer looks at the weather, predicts, prepares, plans, finds alternatives.
  • The Esau’s treasure is far away, in the bush, he has to go out there in the forest to find a catch, while his father waits at home for a meal!
  • The Jacob’s treasure is in the backyard, very close by.
  • The Esau’s of today rely on old technology, time wasting, ineffective, (use of a hoe instead of a combine harvester). They do some routine things, never ask or give critical suggestions, and alternatives, the old is better.
  • The Jacob’s value systems find ways of saving time.
  • While Esau is running after the animal in the forest, Jacob is in the backyard selecting the best he has reared.

Esau And Jacob At The Negotiating Table

Gen 25:31-34
But Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright as of this day.” And Esau said, “Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?”

Principles:

  • Never negotiate on an empty stomach. Every negotiation is a give and take.
  • If you are on empty stomach, what do you give? You take in everything on the table!
  • Esau and Jacob Negotiate
  • Esau devaluated his future to the worth of Jacob’s stew in the present
  • Jacob appraised his stew to the worth of Esau’s birthright in the future!
  • Buy the future, use the present to obtain what you don’t have in the future.
  • Ponder and discuss: what have you (or your nation) exchanged in the present for the future?

The Esau Way Is a Profane Way

Hebrew 12:16-17
“…lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.”

  • The verse describes Esau as a fornicator and a profane person
  • A fornicator is one who takes that which is precious and sells it cheaply
  • A profane person takes that which is noble and honorable and dishonors it
  • The Esau way does not add value to what they have, rather they operate in ways that devalue what they have

Did Esau think of the future?
The future belongs to those who use their minds and resources to design their future.

Why Esau Failed

  • He negotiated on an empty stomach
  • He negotiated when he was tired and weary
  • He did not call time out for assistance
  • He did not value what he had
  • He exaggerated his need for food
  • He did not counter offer
  • He did not seek advice – not even his father!
  • He gave little thought to the future- was not proactive!

Why Jacob Succeeded

  • He negotiated on a full stomach
  • He negotiated when he was rested and at alert
  • He used the expertise of his mother in making food to his father’s taste
  • He valued the future more than the stew
  • He exaggerated the value of the stew minimized the value of the birthright
  • He demanded for a signed contract through oath
  • He gave more thought to the future than to the present- was proactive

Application
Ponder and discuss:
How can this apply to our nations? What can we do as a nation to act the Jacob way?

The future of a nation does not only reside in the traditions that kept them through their past struggles but more than anything else, in the ability of the people to use the principles of those traditions to create a new world they do not see. Mensa Otabil:

  • Today’s success is seeing the future, and buys it now.
  • Use today’s resources to negotiate the future.
  • At national level… how can we create a new world we do not see with physical eyes but forward looking eyes?

At personal level…

  • You see many of us have some Esau tendencies in us. We take too much for granted and trust rather naively that, people are thinking of our best interest when they deal with us.
  • Many of us sell the bridge before we have crossed, then when we reach, we are stranded.

ESAU SOBERS UP – What Did Esau Learn?

  • To put value on what he had previously taken for granted
  • To value little things
  • Not to take no for an answer
  • To persist till he found something to work with
  • That he could start small and grow big
  • That what he devalued, others will value
  • That bad choices have bad consequences

Esau Hates Jacob

Genesis 27:41
So Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him, and Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”

  • Esau thought the best way to take care of the problem is through anger and murder! As long as Esau pursue a life of violent vendetta, he would continue to serve Jacob by default!
  • There are persons, peoples, nations that believe that the only avenue available for them to have a fair share of the world’s treasure is to resort to violence
  • They feel cheated by the world and so resort to violence as a pay-check to whoever is supposed to be the cause of their poverty
  • Our prisons are filled with people who believed they could solve the problems of society through angry and explosive outbursts.

Paradigm Shift: When Esau Becomes Jacob

Gen 27: 39-40
“And it shall come to pass, when you become restless, that you shall break his yoke from your neck”

  • Those prophetic pronouncements do not immediately appear to be a blessing, yet they are! Restlessness of Esau is the key to unlock the shackles of subservience and gain dominion over his life and to his transformation to a free man.

POSITIVE RESTLESSNESS:

  • Pushes one to go beyond our limitations.
  • Breaks the spirit of apathy to those things that keep us constantly weakened and disadvantaged as we negotiate our options in life
  • Leads to a struggle against unacceptable but prevailing factors- status quo
  • Makes one question one’s current tradition and native knowledge.
  • Allows one the opportunity to stand outside of one’s painful experiences to separate the real causes from the symptoms so that there will be real healing

Paradigm Shift: When Esau Becomes Jacob

  • For Esau, the unlearning of old habits and the re-learning of new habits that lead to a more productive lifestyle began after he realized that he had lost the birthright
  • There are those who begin life as Jacobs and later become trapped by the instant -gratification lifestyle of Esau
  • There are also others who start out on a very self-destructive Esau path, but later experience a U-turn in their lives and start living in a Jacob paradigm

The Old System Will Serve The Younger

Genesis 25:23
And the Lord said to her: “Two nations [with two different developmental paradigms] are in your womb, [these ] two [types of] peoples shall be separated from your body,
One people [those with superior paradigm] shall be stronger than the other [with inferior paradigm], the elder [old system] shall serve the younger [modern system].”

  • What value do you place on what you have?
  • Sometimes who you look like today can contradict who you are going to become in the future.
  • So do not act as if this is your last stop.
  • You are in transition, moving to greater things, so be careful about the value you place on yourself today. And God is in control!

 

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[su_spoiler title=”LECTURE 6: GLOBAL TRENDS ” style=”fancy”]

Theme: The Leadership Mandate in a Fast Changing World

OUTLINE

  1. Leadership in relation to time
  2. Summarise the Global Trends Report 2008
  3. Highlight the growing importance of global leadership

Leadership and Time
Leadership is learning from the past, preparing for the future and, managing the present in light of the past and future
James Magara

  • Traditional leaders have their eyes on the past and keep seeking to get back to the good old days
  • Conservative leaders have their eyes on the present and seek to maintain the status quo
  • Strategic leaders have their eyes on the future and their hands feeling the pulse of the future
    In a fast changing world…

“We must adapt to changing times while holding on to unchanging values”
Former US President Jimmy Carter

Global Trends 2025

  • Prepared by CIA and National Intelligence Council, USA 2008 and made public last year
  • Electronic version can be viewed at www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html.

Who was involved in the Global Trends Study?

  • National Intelligence Council – USA
  • CIA
  • Non-USG experts from the United States and abroad
  • Participants via the Internet
  • Series of discussion sessions across the US and in several other countries
  • intellectual input from hundreds of sharp minds
  • Most collaborative report of the 4 yet produced

The report tackles 7 key global Issues

  1. Shift in World Power
  2. Shift in National Wealth
  3. Population Trends
  4. Potential for Conflict Escalation
  5. Climatic Change
  6. Role of Multilateral Institutions (UN,IMF…)
  7. Role of Non-governmental Organizations
  8. Shift in World Power – From Bipolar to Unipolar to Multipolar System
  • USA will remain powerful but its power will decline
  • Old Players will still be present: USA, Europe, Russia
  • New Players: China, India, Brazil
  1. Wealth of Nations
  • Shift in Wealth from West to East
  • Continued demand for oil and gas, economically empowering nations like Russia, Iran, and now Israel (and Uganda plus many parts of Africa)
  • Possible energy transition away from oil and gas to energy storage, bio-fuels, and clean coal
  • Sub Saharan Africa
  1. Population Trends
  • World Population, currently estimated at 6.9 billion, will increase by 1.2 billion to 8.1 billion
  • About 40% of that increase will come from Africa
  • Less than 3 percent of the growth will occur in the West
  • Older population = less productivity and lower growth rates
    • Population Growth will put pressure on energy, food, and water resources;
    • Demand for food will increase by 50% by 2030, but climate change will create food scarcity.

Land grabbing
New Scramble for African land

  • Hedge funds and other foreign firms had acquired large swathes of African land, often without proper contracts
  • Displacing millions of small farmers.
  • Foreign firms farm the land to consolidate their hold over global food markets, the report said.

For more information, visit http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/

  1. Potential for Conflict Escalation
  • Shrinking USA power
  • Increased conflict in the Middle East
  • Media wars
  1. Climatic Change
  • Global warming will drastically affect the weather pattern
  • Will lead to drought, and food scarcity
  • Water will become very scarce – source of conflicts and wars
  • Urban overpopulation- infrastructural implications: water, health, food, housing, transportation, education, and jobs

A Growing Role for Religion
“Religion based networks … may play a more powerful role than secular transnational groupings in exerting influence and shaping outcomes in the period out to 2025. Indeed, we could be entering a new age of clerical leadership in which religious leaders become major power brokers in resolving future international disputes and conflicts”

Some specific names used
Later in the document we see an interesting conclusion from the authors:
“Rich rewards in power and influence already fall to those religious entrepreneurs and televangelists who span the two hemispheres, the Global South and North Amir Khalede for Muslims and Matthew Ashimolowo or Sunday Adelaja for Christians.”

A World of Networks
“In response to likely deficits in global governance, networks will form among states and non-state actors focused on specific issues. These networks will operate to pursue convergent goals and interests, including a genuine intent to solve problems, business self-interest, moral grounds, and the desire of international organizations and NGOs to be relevant to the problems facing a changing world”

“Within the Christian tradition, the emergence of whole new patterns of authority and leadership across the Global South entails autonomous ministers and religious entrepreneurs, whose activities reap high status and great wealth. Before 2025, some evangelists and megachurch preachers probably will seek to become the leaders of nations, especially if those countries have been economically devastated during a global downturn”

Global Trends 2025:

  • Leadership Will Be Key
  • Statesmen versus Politicians
  • A politician makes decisions with his eye on the next elections while a statesman makes decisions with his eye on the next generation.

Which one will you be?

 

 

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