AFRICA DAY...the journey continues

The destiny of a people depends on whether they decide to act on their environment and how they do go about doing it. Colonial era African thought leaders interacted with their black diaspora counterparts through many a meeting, debate and conference. They were united in the idea of a free and united Africa but differed on the methods to achieve those ends. As in an society, frequent debate leads to the emergence of a movement in the hearts and minds of a people and so it is that eventually, African thought leaders began to coalesce around a more concrete idea of African unity. Different societies evolve at different stages and the late 19th century gave rise to a growing Pan-African movement, in America and the Caribbean, through the likes of Martin Delaney, Alexander Crummel and arguably, the most influential of them all, W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. On the African continent, Kenneth Kaunda (still alive at the time of writing), Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure and Julius Nyerere and others were not only raising the same questions, but actively organising to liberate their countries from colonial rule.

They acted on their commitment by coming together from 32 countries on 22 to 25 May, 1963, to found the Organisation of African Unity. This for me represents the first important corner stone of Africa day. Having the courage of your convictions to actually step forward and create something. Africa was firmly in the grip of colonial powers and the wind of change could only sweep through the continent because these visionary thought leaders were able to inspire a new generation of Africans. The founding ideals of the OAU charter were clearly and simply laid out and these were to:

a) Promote unity and solidarity of the African states

b) Coordinate and intensify their cooperation and efforts to achieve a better life for the peoples of Africa,

c) Defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity and independence,

d) Eradicate all forms of colonialism from Africa, and

e) To promote international cooperation, having due regard to the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The eradication of colonialism from Africa and the heroic manner in which African leaders went about it is another reason for me to celebrate Africa day. How can anyone forget the wars of independence in Algeria, Kenya, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, to cite but a few? The settler may have been well entrenched, bristling with superior arms and supported by powerful colonial nations, notbaly France, England and Portugal but the Africans were united in the face of overwhelming power, economic destruction of fledgling economies and a vicious cold war that took no prisoners. I will never forget, for instance, the role that the frontline states played in the liberation of Southern African countries, one at a time in the face of racist rule, assassinations, bombings, biological warfare and economic sabotage. While some say Africa Day has no value, some of us remember how our freedom was won which, just by that act alone, gives tremendous value to Africa Day.

Post independence, many an African leader turned out to be a despot. I hasten to point out that the French Revolution did not immediately lead to liberty, equality and fraternity of French people. Nor did the Soviet Revolution. American Independence did not bring emancipation to black Americans for another 100 years! Someone wrote about Africa's big men. Well Europe's big men raced across the continent and slaughtered hundreds of millions. Between the two world wars alone, about 100 million perished. Man is the sum total of his experiences. Europe went through a bloody cycle of war and terror  for millions of its own people and yet emerged out of that war with a single minded purpose: to create a union that would lead to peace, security and prosperity for its people. Independent Africa is merely 63, hardly enough time for a tyrant to wither and die away with his colonial inspired idea of rule.

As we emerge out of a first and secound round of post independence leaders, the so called big men, Africa has settled on Agenda 2063, The Africa We want, in much the same way that pre-independence leaders had settled on nothing but full political independence. Agenda 2063 is another reason why Africa Day holds value and promise for me. The Africa Continental Free Trade Area has just recently gone in to force, a massive step forward for a continent that only a few decades ago was scornfully dismissed as the dark continent! We are well on our way to a customs union. Great societies are not built by the pampered who look for short term gain. They are crafted, first in the minds of giants who see beyond the horizon and dedicate themselves to that goal, knowing full well they might not see them achieved in their life time and then completed by those who believe. Our leaders gave us independence, young peasants fought for it, far from home, terrified and facing certain death every day and still they fought.

Finally, of course, there is the simple fact that I am African, free to sit in my garden because some young person believed enough to fight, in spite of everything else. He and she fought for an idea. Everyone has their journey

I am a man of my people’s wanderings

I am born of the DNA of Lake Malawi in Nkhata bay

And the verdant valleys of Shurugwi in Zimbabwe

I carry the ebb and flow of the tide of fresh water shores

The love for the people of humble origins and soils oozes from every pore

I am a man of my people’s wanderings

The mining town of Chingola, proud as the cleanest city in Zambia

Going to watch Nchanga Rangers at the stadium with my father and siblings

My mother and aunts, a lineage of beauty Queens and youthful fantasia

Foreigners, yet embraced & loved as locals, African seedlings

I am a man of my people’s wanderings

In Lusaka, a new city and language and an awareness of war

The struggle for independence in Rhodesia fought by brothers in arms

Zimbabwean, Shona and Ndebele, united with South Africans and Namibians

And the long goal of liberation was not a bridge too far

I am a man of my people’s wanderings

In Harare, back home and looking for a fresh new start

To Bulawayo and college, I discovered tribalism and racism

Eyes opened to prejudice for the first time, I played no part

Determined to set my own mark, I straddled the schism

I am a man of my own wanderings

A sojourn in France and widening my philosophical horizons

From teaching to private sector, marrying and raising a family

From Bulawayo to Harare, politics and business and no go zones

Then on to South Africa for peace of mind and safety

My journey continues, Giving voice to my beliefs

Helping to play a small part to restore Zimbabwe

Whether we succeed or not, I do it because I believe

That Africa can only move forward when our people refuse to give way

I live for the people!

Be enough

Two nights ago, I watched Sky News journalist Stuart Ramsey travel to the Lombardy region of Italy. For starters, I have to say I admire war correspondents because of the incredible risks they take in going to peel back the horrors of war for us. To see Ramsay venture in to the Italian epicentre of the COVID 19 pandemic only reinforced my admiration for journalists. His report aired on SkyNews and you can see it here, https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-they-call-it-the-apocalypse-inside-italys-hardest-hit-hospital-11960597 , if you missed it. At one point in the report he speaks to an anesthetist and asks him how he is coping. The specialist responds by saying though they are doing their best and even though there are 100 of them there, "I feel I am not enough." That was sufficient to move me to think of putting something to blog as I asked myself the question, how can I be enough?

The next day, I watched Hala Gorani do a short report on a 99 year old World War II veteran who set out to raise ￡1000 to thank the doctors and nurses of the British National Health Service for taking care of him after his broke his hip. He proposed to do this by "simply" walking 100 laps in his 25 metre garden using his walker. To cut a long story short, the public respond with enthusiasm and he ended up raising, as of today, more than ￡13 million!

We do not have to do anything special to "be enough". I want to think of the school children out there who, because they are on holiday, are not using their tuck shop money. How about speaking to mummy and daddy and giving R10 of your tuck money to the Solidarity Fund South Africa?

There are many people whose jobs are threatened, who are going to struggle for food over the next few months because some will lose their jobs. I want to encourage parents to get their children involved in 'being enough' for South Africa and, perhaps, if the children give R10 each, the parents could match it for all their children?

Just a thought. I have given R500. Imagine if a million South African school children gave R10 each?

Be enough, in your own small way and support Solidarity Fund SA. If you are keen, here are the bank details:

Bank: Standard Bank

Branch Name: Sandton City

Account Name: Solidarity Fund

Account No: 023070021

Account Type: Current account

Branch Code: 051001

SWIFT Code: SBZAZAJJ

Am I my brother's keeper?

So, I have this friend. He is a big gregarious Ugandan guy who, despite supporting Arsenal, a team we all know is for softies, drinks like a bowser. I suspect he is on speaking terms with every bar man in Johannesburg much in the same way that Pele and Zidane were the only footballers, ever, on speaking terms with a football. I always tell him he is refreshingly African because his door is always open in the sense that I remember growing up. I find, us Zimbabweans are a little bit too British when we move to the suburbs. At the pub, he makes it a point to properly greet every person, by name, looking them in the eye, asking them how they are in his deep booming voice, "Mr Gumbo! How are you? How are they at home?" Most of us just say,"Howzit, gents!" 

My friend is big on family and he makes a mean goat meat braai and, the good news is, he has four children. This means, at the very least, four times a year you get to go and have some very very good goat meat at his house, accompanied by the excellent East African meals that his wife serves up.

I suspect many of the guys, in the pub, have privately benefited from his advice, medical and otherwise in times of stress and I guess his bedside manner in the hospitals where he does is rounds, is excellent. He has been there for all of us and this is why I am writing because my friend is a surgeon. We call him Doc. He prefers that we call him Solomon.

I recently saw a clip on twitter of a Saudi Doctor arriving home and his little son running to him, only for the father to say "stay back!...." before breaking down in tears at the strain of it all. I thought of my friend and wondered how he was coping. Can you imagine the pressure of driving to a hospital as a professional every day worrying about your patients in this age of coronavirus, Ebola, influenza and H1N1,then returning home as a parent worrying about your family and the risk you may pose to them? I happen to know that in times of crisis, as for the army, all leave is cancelled for medical personnel. They are looking after us. Who is looking out for them? Across Europe and India, millions are gathering at their balconies, in front of the porches to publicly and symbolically applaud our brave heroes at the coal face of the effort against COVID 19. There's really very little we can do, thereafter.

I decided to send him a message and say how grateful we are and that I am thinking of him and his family. If you have a friend in the medical field, perhaps give some thought to what they might be going through and give them a call or send them a message to say, thank you for your efforts. It is a small gesture but it is one nevertheless. I received a video after the message from someone else. It was that of an ambulance team in a hospital corridor, waving their arms and singing to doctors on the other side, behind a glass door. They are singing along to that incredible anthem, "You never walk alone". 10 000 dead and counting in Italy alone is beyond mere statistics. It bring home the stark reality of what we are facing and what my friend Solomon is facing at the hospital and in the car on the way home where his children are waiting to rush to the door in welcome. The bloke is an Arsenal fan, but he is a hero, along with all other medical personnel from Wuhan to Washington, Soweto to Stockholm and I salute him. Doctors and nurses are also human. Give them a call and a word of support, anything to say we see you, we love you and we stand with you.

For Doc, a whisky awaits at the end of this all and I know my mates from the pub will join us and the wives will approve. YNWA

Aye Africa

For five years in a row, my wife and I have hosted Africa Day at home. It is an occasion that a lot of our friends and relatives look forward to. The concept is simple: We invite our friends from all over the world to cook a traditional dish, dress up in traditional clothes and join us in a bring-and-share with dancing to African music from afternoon and long in to the night.  We skipped last year and were set to do it again this year, but with COVID 19 humbling us all, we may very well have to cancel. Maybe we will do an online one?

The reason I bring this up is, I learned late morning yesterday, about the death of icon Manu Dibango. Those of you who are my age and love African music will know him well. He was a giant of African music and one of my favourite tracks from him is the title of this post: Aye Africa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31XSLHQa6Ro  It was part of the playlist on more than one Africa Day party at our house. Now he is gone, a giant African tree felled by a lethal disease with a little name; COVID 19. Dibango asks an important question, in French, the song, “Independence where are you?”

 How do we honour him? How do we take the manner of his demise and use it to amplify his question?

In my first post since COVID 19 began to wreak havoc, I chided those African people who were spreading the myth that the coronavirus did not attack black Africans. Ignorance is bad, a weakness. A little knowledge stated confidently is dangerous. How do we affirm independence of thought?

Since I am in French mode, when I was a student there in 1990, I heard the French musician Maxime Le Forrestier’ backing vocalists cry “Give me the hope that will believe so” in response to his rhetorical question, “Are people born equal in rights, are they born the same or not?” in the song Né quelque part https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DagKAzSk9Z8  literally, “being born somewhere”. In other words, you don’t choose where you are born.  COVID 19 has shown us that is certainly the case in death.

Does it have to take a celebrity to die to give us independence of thought from peer driven misinformation? In my home country, Zimbabwe, a popular young man who ran a popular social media news bulletin died the day before Manu Dibango. He was the son of a, well known and  equally charismatic, father who at one time in his life was in to radio and television. Suddenly, every one sat up and paid attention to the reality of coronavirus. It was the first coronavirus related death recorded in Zimbabwe but sometimes statistics are not enough to jolt people in to action, especially behaviour change. I saw a lamentable clip of passengers on a bus in Zimbabwe asking for a Chinese man to get off the bus. This is scary xenophobic  behaviour that brings to mind the mind boggling days when gays were accused of spreading AIDS. It appears we do not learn from history because we forget easily or should I, like Emile Zola, accuse the Zimbabwean people of too readily looking for a scapegoat as a way to deal with all our troubles?

D JJean-Jacques Muyembe is a name not known to many and yet his independence of thought and refusal to accept the status quo led him to discover Ebola, https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/11/04/774863495/this-congolese-doctor-discovered-ebola-but-never-got-credit-for-it-until-now  and not only that, but in a further demonstration of independence of thought, to find a cure as well! https://face2faceafrica.com/article/ebola-now-curable-thanks-to-congolese-doctor-behind-treatment-that-cures-symptoms-in-just-an-hour

Independence, where are you?

The point is, in this fast paced world of social media and the pervasive fear of missing out, too many people are quick to believe rumour and fake news.  We have too many Bolsonaros and not enough Dr Muyembes.

Manu Dibango was so good at his music that the King of Pop sampled his music without permission https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/feb/04/rihanna-michael-jackson-manu-dibango But he was no slouch either, and he had the freedom and presence of mind to sue and get a settlement out of court.  

We are before the court of life and death and expert testimony against the coronavirus will help us stay alive, while ignorance fuelled by bad advice from poor excitable lawyers will lead us to a death sentence. In a time such as this, you need to stand your ground, show your independence of thought and refuse to countenance the spread of fear, ignorance or toxic beliefs. As I keep saying, lead where you are and correctly inform your family. Read for yourself because if you are reading this, on your phone or laptop, you probably have access to information.

Your independence will save others. Use it to inform, inspire to action and light that candle instead of cursing the darkness.

Albert Gumbo

25 March 2020

A time for solidarity

So, I belong to a football fan club and the last two seasons have a been a heady whirlwind of sweeping all before us to within one point of winning the league, actually lifting the Champions league, the Super Cup, Club World Cup, a 42 match unbeaten run and, now, poised to win the premiership title for the first time in 30 years.  All of this has been in the company of a raucous, joyful, singing crowd of a pub family, at, yes you guessed it, the Liverpool Fan Club, Johannesburg North meeting every match day at what I call the number one pub in the country, Off The Grid aka OTG.

In my last post, I spoke about a disease with a small name, COVID 19, which has humbled mankind in to shutting down his cities, towns and villages, literally confining him to his home. Today, I want to evoke a big word, solidarity.

A story is told about how Liverpool fans, further afield in Liverpool city itself, discovered a couple of immigrants hidden under their coach when they returned from a Champions League fixture and the warm response they gave the pair. https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpool-fans-respond-brilliantly-finding-15483024 Their reaction to the discovery embodies what Liverpool fans and Liverpool City are known for: Solidarity. Why am I telling you this? You see, at OTG the waiters also dress in Liverpool shirts, the owners are on board and the entire place is permanently draped in Liverpool colours.  It is our home. Those waiters are paid on tips and you can imagine the loss of income as government instituted new, and earlier, closing times for pubs and restaurants as well as limiting the number of customers who can go in to a pub at a time.  I checked on the owner to see how business was going and she indicated a drastic drop in business before adding, their major concern was the staff. Upon hearing this, I took it upon myself last week to go and buy 10 packets of rice and quietly handed them over the management so that each waiter could, at least, have a couple of weeks’ or a month’s worth of rice depending on family size. I figured there could be no harm in drinking a few beers less that week and make better use of my limited funds than to have the beers and only give a 10% tip to one waiter.

This donation was going to remain private until the President, last night, announced a countrywide lockdown from midnight Thursday this week. As part of the measures, the President announced to cushion the effects on the economy and mindful of the fact that South Africa vies with Brazil for the status of most unequal society in the world, the President also announced the creation of a solidarity fund designed to help the most vulnerable. This is what I really want to talk about but before I go there….

Such is the nature of Liverpool fans, including in our club, that an hour before midnight last night, one of the members sent a message to the whatsapp group of supporters. The message read, “We should all make the effort to give a food hamper to our local car guards and vendors over the next few days. It’s going to be a really tough 3 weeks for them”. This is Liverpool fans at their best!

Back to the solidarity fund: I know we are all hard pressed in these times of austerity, uncertainty and panic buying (something I strongly discourage to anyone who will listen). Perhaps, however, we could apply my formula. This appeal is going out to all pub crawlers. Drinking at home, probably means you will drink a few pints less (because a frowning missus plus no peer pressure J) and for some that I know, a whole lot of pints less! You do not have to give everything. How about taking the savings from two weekends’ worth of match fixtures and donating that to the solidarity fund announced by the President? You would have spent the money on expanding your waist line anyway right? If this simple logic appeals to you, I suggest you contribute to:

Standard bank current account 023070021, Sandton branch, account name Solidarity Fund or vitis the website https://www.solidarityfund.co.za/

Every amount counts and we can join hands in helping to lighten the load in these anxious times. I am challenging every member of LFCJhbNorth to put in R100 each (or more) because sometimes, it is simply about making the time to do the transaction, not because we don’t have the money. I also want to challenge every Liverpool Fan Club in South Africa to do the same. I dare Manchester united Fans to come to the party.

I am not done yet.

A friend of mine, a young businessman who unfortunately supports Manchester United, had a brain wave last night after President Ramaphosa’s speech and he set up a Go Fund Me page to support Zimbabwe. Part of his message to our Whatsapp group read, “Is it not a good idea that we in the diaspora come together, raise funds and buy equipment for Wlkins Hospital….This situation transcends all divides, racial, tribal, political if you call Zimbabwe home. I think we need to act before we lose the people we work so hard to support.”

So this is my second challenge. To all Zimbabweans in the diaspora (especially those at LFCJhbNorth) who read this and my South African friends, if this appeals to you, please visit https://gogetfunding.com/zim-diaspora-coronavirus-initiative/ and give what you can. If former  Manchester United players Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs can offer their hotels for coronavirus relief https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/coronavirus-gary-neville-hotel-ryan-giggs-manchester-nhs-hospital-staff-paid-leave-a9409961.html surely, we too can offer some small gesture within our means to help stop the virus from overwhelming Zimbabwe, no?

The first guest speech I ever gave in South Africa was to a graduation ceremony of the African Women Chartered Accountants, in March 2008, having been invited by AWCA President at the time, Sindi Koyana Mabaso. She had heard me speak at an Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimabwe conference in Victoria Falls, where she, too, was a guest speaker. As the guest, I sat with some very powerful ladies at the main table, among them Wendy Luhabe. The conversation was intelligent, stimulating and inspiring. One of the ladies, a formidable woman if I ever met one, Gloria Serobe, is chairing the Solidarity Fund. I can safely say, your donation is in good hands.

Back in the day, I used to watch Gillette World Sport Special and the intro would go something like “Welcome to Gillette World Special where you experience the thrilling taste of victory and the shattering reality of defeat”. We are all in competition for titles and trophies and I, for one, prefer the sweet taste of a win. Solidarity is one trophy that we can all share victory in because in doing so, we are lighting a candle instead of cursing the darkness.

#LeadWhereYouAre

Thuma Mina

The slow live intro for the hit song starts with the piano and a hint of a flute in the background for about ten seconds before Hugh’s saxophone joins in and this melody transports you for a good three minutes and thirty seconds as you sway, gently, fully immersed in to flow. Hugh Masekela is at work. The background harmonies start before Bra Hugh’s raspy voice belts out a cry, “I wanna be there when the people start to turn it around!” By the time the drum and bass kick in at four minutes twenty seven seconds, you are in church and ready to go to war against poverty and disease.

Well, humanity is well and truly at war against disease right now. Despite the efforts of some at branding this disease, it does not carry a passport, does not respect borders, continents, race or social class. It is shutting down societies, wealthy and poor, forcing man to genuflect before it. As the supremely talented Prince once sang about another pandemic, it is a disease with a small name, except this time it is one letter and two digits longer: COVID 19.

It sounds like a new release of a video game doesn’t it? Except, the time for taking life for granted is not now. COVID 19 is not playing and neither should we. From all over the world, balconies in Italy, Spain and India, there have been moving scenes of homebound residents applauding the work of medical personnel at 8pm every night. A very public gesture of solidarity from those whose job compels them to say “Thuma Mina – Send Me”, those who despite their fatigue and the dangers they face are soldiering on, saving lives, losing some, losing many, but in the face of the onslaught of COVID 19 remaining in the trenches on the battlefield. Because they can. Because we can.

On other balconies, it is the banging of pots in protest and disgust at a leadership that calls the COVID 19 crisis “a fantasy”, mad men who strip the earth of our forests, who do not believe in science but are driven and intoxicated by dangerous beliefs that would take society backwards. They are there, in the highest seats of power, demagogues from bygone eras who have returned to the foe in a public and shameless way. They are joined in their mind numbing beliefs by those who attribute the origin of the virus to “demons”, charlatans dressed in pastors’ clothing leading unsuspecting sheep astray. It is time the sheep woke up and said, “Thuma Mina- Send Me to preach the truth”, the truth that this little virus is not so little that it can’t fell an entire congregation. The sheep must turn against the wayward shepherd and pull away from the cliff’s edge before they are consumed by his insatiable greed and ego. As Bob Marley wailed years ago, “We’ve been taken for granted much too long…Rebel!” This virus thrives on ignorance and lack of information.

The world is looking for leadership at a global, regional, national, societal, social circle and family level. It is time for evidence based thinking to come to the fore, for prayer to shrink from congregation to personal prayer room. God will hear you whether you shout or whisper in prayer for the doctors, nurses, military, political and community leaders to exercise common sense leadership.  I live in a place where two streams meet, that country life in the city and yet, unfortunately, that idyllic picture is shattered on many a Sunday morning by a group that travels far to gather by the flowing waters (not of Babylon) to loudly beseech their God for all manner of things. Is it not written though, “When you pray, go in to your inner room and your father who is unseen and he will hear you?” That was a self-indulgent digression.

The point is, let science do its work in the hospitals, let prayer and meditation do its work in raising the spirits of the masses. Marley again, “some people have hopes and dreams, some people have ways and means”. Let the ways and means be your personal leadership as adherents and advocates of the Thuma Mina doctrine and for those that are religiously inclined, let truth, not the whims of a self-serving prophet, be your guiding principle. It is all-hands-on-deck time.

An article on CNN observes, “There’s something about pandemics that cause panicked people to empty their minds along with supermarket shelves”.  https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/22/world/doomsday-prophets-coronavirus-blake/index.html

Stand up and lead where you are. Do not add to the panic buying pandemic. Observe social distancing where you may go, and only because you have to go there. Do not spread fake news, but by all means educate those that need it. Just as there’s an equilibrium in nature, a yin yang that must be observed, there must be one in human society, capitalism or not. We panic at our peril. Despite your fears, encourage all to maintain the balance in supply of goods and services, buying only what you need for the month ahead, consuming only what you need and helping the supply side to cope. Easier said than done, but in doing so, you will be helping to light a candle, instead of cursing, nay bringing on the darkness of chaos.

You matter

My wife’s grandmother comes from that generation that always asks what the surname of a person is, to try and ascertain whether they are a potential relative or not. Somehow, she manages to find some connection and before you know it, you are distant cousins because someone crossed a river decades ago and was adventurous, brave and naughty enough to leave behind a deposit of their DNA. My wife’s grandmother is now 97. One of the recurring themes in Gogo uNaNo’s stories that go way back is “so and so died of influenza” and she would of course be referring back to the so called Spanish Flu of 1918. The reason it spread so quickly in Africa, was returning service men, unsung African heroes who fought the war and were given bicycles and wrist watches as a token for their services, as opposed to land for former white servicemen. In fact, there’s a whole place called Burma Valley in the beautiful Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe where former white soldiers who served in Burma, now Myanmar, were settled as thanks for serving Queen and country. But I digress.

The deadly post world war 1 flu of 1918 spread because there was not enough information travelling fast enough, or at least faster than the infected, to stop them at the harbour or railway station, quarantine them and potentially save lives. About 300 000 South Africans died within six weeks. Writing in the Central African Journal of Medicine in July 1973, I.R. Phimister of the University of Rhodesia wrote “the first cases of epidemic influenza in Southern Rhodesia occurred amongst the railway staff in Bulawayo about the 9th October, 1918, the disease having appeared in epidemic form in South Africa in the middle of the previous month. -Bulawayo itself -was rapidly infected and -from there the epidemic spread equally swiftly to- Que Que, U-mvuma and Salisbury, before engulfing the remaining towns and -districts along 'the railway lines. The spread of infection was apparently governed by “the density of the population in any particular centre and the mode of communication with other -infected places”. The virus spread faster than information and education about it.

 Today, that is not the case.

Love yourself enough to matter. We live in an age where every single person I know either has a smart phone, belongs to a whatsapp group or both. In other words, we live at a time when we all have access to information and I am suitably convinced that all have heard about the novel coronavirus, but are we listening?

CNN reported that in South Korea, part of the reason for the rapid spread of the coronavirus was entrenched beliefs that do not make time or space for new information https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/26/asia/shincheonji-south-korea-hnk-intl/index.html In this case, the entrenched beliefs or practices were religious, but they might as well have been the habits of football fans denied access to their friends to watch their favourite sport together in camaraderie, it could have been the nonsensical “it does not affect blacks” idea that has been circulating in many African social circles or simply, the “it-wont-affect-me” attitude that educated, uneducated or ill-informed people have. Whatever the reason, the outcome is potentially deadly. Not being religious, I don’t want to quote any religious text but it would appear, the saying “fools die for want to wisdom” is particularly apt here.

Steven Covey in his time management matrix talks about things that urgent and important, like a phone call from the police saying they have your son in custody (my example) as things that “act upon you”. He also points out the things that are “not urgent, but important” like quality time with your son to prevent potentially errant behaviour that leads to that police phone call (again my example) as quadrant 2 aspects of our lives that deserve more of our attention than the fire-fighting quadrant 1. Covey says, “life is meant to be acted upon”.

Back to your phone and social media:

·         Inform yourself: There are enough rumours flying around for you to be curious enough to say, let me check for myself. Your best source is to google WHO information and guidelines. If you don’t have access to connectivity, ask one of your relatives or friends on your whatsapp group to send you information from that source alone

·         Regulate yourself: One you are aware of the guidelines, practise them. I will not repeat them here. The purpose of this piece is to shift thinking so that we can act upon what we need to do

·         Educate others: A common irritating but suddenly useful saying on social media is “If you know, you know”. Well, take that knowledge and spread it far and wide. Your relatives are far more open to being persuaded by you than by politicians they may distrust from years of abuse or a system they no longer have faith in. What is a nation to think when the fourth most powerful politician in the country ascribes a virus outbreak to God's wrath on Western countries? This is what makes people vulnerable to charlatans posing as prophets with even more deadly advice than mistrusted politicians.

So there it is. If you have connectivity, have a look at some of the simplest behavioural changes in ordinary people like France here https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/17/france-at-war-how-parisians-are-coping-with-life-under-lockdown There are many little details to think about, such as standing a metre apart, and change. Africans, like Italians, are warm people who hug, hold hands, and gather in groups easily. The Italians have been forced to stop some cultural habits. Start changing your behaviour today. It might just help save your life and that of others. We are all in this one together. It is a societal matter.

“Light a candle, instead of cursing the darkness.”