Danielle Levy

When we think of Africa, we think of child soldiers, war lords, famine, poverty, we don’t think of technological progress. Yet that is what’s happening in Nairobi, Kenya, an African version of California’s Silicon Valley. Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer recently visited and IBM recently chose Nairobi as its first African Research lab. Google, Intel, Microsoft and Vodafone are there too. It’s all due to Dr. Bitange Ndemo, who first began the project to compete with South Africa, and now sees the possibilities for the whole of Kenya, for the region and the continent. Since 2007 when he began, the country has gone from 6000 broadband connections to 6 million, from fewer than 3 million internet users to 18. Ndemo is trying to build the first country in Africa to adopt open source data, allowing the government and researchers to update necessary data almost instantly, instead of once in a decade. In a few years mobile phone penetration has gone from less than 25% to 85% partly because of cheap rates and to services like M-Pesa, through which users can pay for goods and services transferring money for one phone to another. About one third of Kenya’s population uses M-Pesa. It is so successful it is now taking off around the world. Perhaps soon we might well see M-Pesa ads on our local media

A new survey about racial attitudes conducted by researchers from three universities, Stanford, the University of Michigan and Chicago, reveals that they have not improved over the last four years. Slightly over half of all Americans, 51%, expressed attitudes against blacks. In 2008 the percentage was 48. The researchers asked questions to assess both explicit and implicit attitudes. When questions were asked looking for implicit attitudes, the percentage was even higher, 56%. In 2008 that figure had been 49%. The research was conducted online where more people are believed to answer more truthfully than when answering someone face to face, and while there was a higher percentage of republicans with negative attitudes towards blacks, democrats did not fare that much better. Tacitly, or maybe not so tacitly, many of these sentiments have been reflected in the presidential election. Paralleling this, the election is also underscoring that by a wide margin negative ads are effective. Another strand comes from the mega millions poured into the campaign from individuals and groups of either party who seek an outcome favorable to their interests, money that could go to scholarships, the arts, the hungry, youths at risk… When these three strands are seen together as important elements of electoral dynamics, one has to conclude we have a long way to go, a very long way, before we can learn to vote for the person best qualified to solve our problems as opposed to voting for one who mirrors our limitations and prejudices.

When several international clothing firms boycotted cotton from Uzbekistan as a protest against the child labor they were using, the government instead drafted ordinary citizens including medical personnel such as surgeons and nurses. Every year during cotton picking season they are to report to the given rural areas and have to meet their quota: pick 60 kilos (about 120 pounds) of cotton per day or be fined. Picking cotton is painful, difficult work but none is spared. People with illnesses like asthma are drafted, only pregnant women and those who are nursing can be exempted. News from Uzbekistan is hard to come by, but according to a BBC report, of the countries where forced labor is found, Uzbekistan is the only one where it is orchestrated by the government. International labor organizations have not been able to verify that children are indeed no longer involved. As a result of the boycott, fifteen is to be the cut off date but where there might be a need, many believe, some below that age have been enlisted. Although internationally Uzbek cotton only represents 4% of the total, it is 45% of their exports. It may be unimaginable in the 21st century, but government orchestrated forced labor is happening.