We need to up our level as Africa

____________________

OPINION

By Simon Kaheru

One of the funniest cartoons out there from our continent is Kenya’s “FatBoyKenya Kapinto, where he goes: “My level is here...up here” and raises his hands to indicate where: “Level yangu hiko hapa juu!”

Then he goes, “Yako hiko (Yours is) Chini! Kwa Mchanga! (Down! In the dust!). (https://www.tiktok.com/@fatboykenya/ video/7343291519907941638).

The United States’ President Trump mimicked Kapinto this week talking about his Trade Tariffs being about Tanks instead of T-shirts and Takkies this week — that’s six t’s in a row, with ‘takkies’ being squeezed in as the appropriately South African replacement for sneakers (what Trump said).

In his pronouncement about this, President Trump said the US tariffs were less about getting light products manufactured on US soil and more about the heavier, more complicated and lucrative manufacturing.

The video clip I watched had him say in that interesting manner of delivery:

“We’re not looking to make sneakers and T-shirts and.. we wanna make military equipment, we wanna make big things... we wanna make...do the AI thing with the computers and the...many, many...many, many elements. I’m not looking to make T-shirts, to be honest; I’m not looking to make socks... we are looking to do chips, and computers and many other things...and tanks and chips... meaning ships...”

Mind you, he actually has a brand of sneakers called...of course: ‘Trump Sneakers’. They are made in the USA, but this is a digression.

The point is: the globally disruptive raising of tariffs against products from other countries is not just a casual trade war designed to shift all manufacturing into the US.

Some manufacturing can stay where it is, according to Trump’s latest statement.

It should give us both hope and direction. Hope that the US has some serious method in place to remain dominant on the world scene that we can learn something from them; Direction to what the rest of us should focus on.

Even looking at the list of countries now facing the generic 10% tariff and the balance of trade between them and the US, you can see that they should now simply turn their focus to those t-shirts and takkies.

Not that the US won’t be manufacturing them at all, no; they just won’t be focusing too much on them as a big picture, if Trump has his way.

The opportunity there for all these ‘small’ countries that are biting their finger nails about Trump’s policies is that we should focus all energies on manufacturing, the big boys won’t.

Yes — we are very many small countries and there is still China but...we’re here as well.

Even this conversation here, ironically focusing on the US, is to avert our eyes FROM them so we can look inward TO ourselves for our solutions.

Step One: Become as proud and arrogant as the US. And we shouldn’t be afraid to keep telling ourselves this, in spite of all the nonsense politicians around us and the general stupidity of the majority of our fellow Africans.

Americans decided long ago to declare themselves the greatest country in the world and even the most rubbish Americans believe that they are bigger and better than the rest of you.

Do the same.

Step Two: STOP consuming all that ‘Western’ media that creates anxiety in your African mind over what US tariffs are going to do to European and Asian economies.

All that kaboozi has almost nothing to do with us — those media houses and the commentators they are quoting are all talking about their circumstances and really pay zero attention to you, the African.

In fact, when it comes to t-shirts and takkies, your global position is on the retail end of used and second-hand clothing. Nothing else. Get your head out of that space.

Step Three: Ramp up production of all the things you can produce in your countries, on your continent. From the cotton we grow, since we are talking about t-shirts, to... everything.

Even now, you won’t see many African countries on the list of top cotton growers, so we cannot assume that big T’s pronouncement means we benefit automatically.

Even without paying much focus on that segment, they will still control it simply because we can’t. Take this Step Three seriously.

Step Four: Standardise and go for quality, because even if we do ramp up production, provided we have not taken care of Step One and created within us a sense of pride mixed with a good dose of arrogance, we will be mediocre.

Mediocrity is one of our biggest problems on this continent — hence the quality of most of what we do — reflected in our leadership across all spheres of society. Look around where you are seated for your own examples.

If we don’t learn how to set the right standards and produce quality that can command market share we will remain here where we are in the dust. “Kwa mchanga!”

Step Five: Integrate as the Continent of Africa, otherwise your quality products will never make it anywhere.

We are quite silly, to be honest, when we fail to understand that the UNITED States of America is such a power because it is a collection of states operating as a country.

We insist on being a country operating deliberately and childishly as a collection of states.

Fix that and we will see our wealth grow even quicker than the United States’ one did over a hundred years ago, even if we don’t go out and colonise any additional territories. We have more land, natural resources and people.

We even have the platforms already here — the East African Community, the Tri-Partite Free Trade Area between the EAC-COMESA SADC...and the AfCFTA.

We just need to Be Serious.

Step Six: Once we have made that money off our products on our massive African market and the export locations we can command, we need to re-invest it on the Continent so we can move to Step Seven even easier.

Step Seven: Become proud and become as arrogant as the US. We honestly can do this and keep the cycle going until one day we can be the ones to declare like Kapinto:

Our level is up here — HAPA JUU!

www.skaheru.com @skaheru