It's complicated

In this region, scenes around school premises are similar.

At the 10 o’clock break, learners are permitted to go outside the school premises where they find women selling food, primarily fat cakes and sweets.

Eighty percent of these women invariably sell the same goods.

The learners have to choose whose products they will purchase.

Chances are that the decision will be based on which of these women live near an individual learner’s household or is known by the parents of a learner.

This is how we solved this dilemma during our school days in the 1980s.

To be sure, I must mention that the same practice remains in place today if what I saw in Sibinda recently is a general practice in the region.

To modern eyes, this may be viewed as a lack of innovation on the part of the locals.

But what is often missed from this interpretation is that in the African collective consciousness, the idea of competition is unpopular.

The community thrives or dies together.

Before the Marxist slogan of "united we stand, divided we fall" was popularised in Africa, it was already being practiced in the daily experiences of the African people.

Every household produces maize; every farm farms with cattle and goats.

If you visit cuca shops, the products sold are almost identical.

They prosper and suffer together.

When the drought comes, everyone groans and mourns together.

In this society, this doesn’t register, in any form or manner, as a lack of innovation.

The selling of fat cakes to learners by several women takes the same form.

As such, those seeking to integrate Africans into the modern economy must be able to analyse, understand and integrate this economic outlook into the design of their approach.

So strong is this African economic arrangement that those managing local institutions of modernity apply the same approaches.

Think of the trade fairs that are organised by several municipalities.

By the early 2000s, the Ongwediva trade fair was the most famous one. A few years later, every local authority organised a trade fair.

Some of them even take place in the same month, if not days.

Others find this difficult because it makes deciding which trade show to budget for and attend difficult.

As they engage with this 'problem', they seem to have forgotten the dilemma they faced at primary school and how they overcame it.

Yes, there may be similar events taking place in each town, but think of this; what do the traders and exhibitors of products at these similar trade fairs think of this trade fair and the opportunity it creates? Are they concerned about the other trade fairs that are taking place at the same time in neighbouring towns?

Assuming that the town council shifts the trade fair to another date, does this guarantee the attendance of people from other towns?

It’s complicated!

Taking it further, while this African arrangement is frowned upon by others, one wonders what the opinions of Namibia Breweries and the beverage companies are.

Many cuca shops are situated next to each other and sell the same product, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

They serve their loyal customers, and it constitutes a profitable market for them.

Consider the statistics that show that the Zambezi Region is one of the highest regions in terms of beer consumption in the country.

It is clear that for the breweries, what can be seen as a lack of innovation profits them.

It's complicated.

It is the circumstances and the local realities that must determine the economic approach.

Imagine a young person from Makanga village buying a sedan vehicle just to be different, and as a form of innovation, because all his peers have bought 4x4 bakkies.

His sedan would not reach the village.

His journey to innovation would be one of foolishness.

It’s complicated.

When ‘motivational speakers’ tell our children to be different, we must ask them not only to identify what they see as a lack of innovation, but also the context of how this difference can be executed and how it works in real life.

This doesn’t mean that there is no room or need to be different.

There are individuals who have made a difference by being different.

The cautionary tale is that the generalisation of our society as a "monkey see, monkey do" society, is sometimes an oversimplification of things. It’s complicated!

Muthoni waKongola is a native of Kongola in the Zambezi Region primarily concerned with analysing society and offering ideas for a better Namibia. She is reachable at [email protected] or @wakongola on Twitter.