How racism kills Africa's plants
L. MUTHONI WANYEKI
The Germans know how to build cars. When the organisation I used to work for was getting a new office car, our choice - from the make to the colour - was primarily dictated by concerns about carjacking. A year later I was involved in a head-on collision, following which the car rolled. The car, a new Volkswagen Jetta, was written-off.
But I, amazingly, emerged unscathed thanks to its airbag and seatbelt. So I became a fervent advocate of German technology in a different sense than originally anticipated. A car bought for security from a carjacking perspective had provided safety in another way - and saved my life. Thus my emotional attachment to VW.
And my disappointment and irritation with the name it has chosen for its sports utility vehicle. How on earth did it decide that the name of a whole group of people is an appropriate name for a make of cars?
In the same tired old manner in which so many aspects of Africa are exoticised and romanticised - and then commercially exploited - the Touareg are now cars. The name, of course, is not-so-subliminally meant to evoke images of valiant crossings of the Sahara, with little or no water on hand.
I am sure the Masaai here, whose images are now used to sell almost anything to do with Kenya and East Africa, will empathise. If I were a Touareg, I would be lodging a claim to block to the use of the name. Or, at least, claiming a share of the profits from Touareg sales from VW.
It seems a frivolous point to make. But it is not. I had the privilege of hearing Awegechew Teshome, an Ethiopian scientist, speak to a gathering last week about the same issues - but in relation to Africa's plant genetic resources. He talked about the diversity of Africa's traditional food production systems, and the simplistic attempts to overlay large-scale, "modern" food production on them. Not all of Africa's ecosystems - on which the traditional systems were painstakingly built over time - take to synthetic inputs such as mass-produced fertilisers, chemicals and so on. Nor can they support mechanisation, particularly in the drylands.
Reference: http://www.nationmedia.com/eastafrican/09102006/Opinion/Opinion091020063.htm
The Germans know how to build cars. When the organisation I used to work for was getting a new office car, our choice - from the make to the colour - was primarily dictated by concerns about carjacking. A year later I was involved in a head-on collision, following which the car rolled. The car, a new Volkswagen Jetta, was written-off.
But I, amazingly, emerged unscathed thanks to its airbag and seatbelt. So I became a fervent advocate of German technology in a different sense than originally anticipated. A car bought for security from a carjacking perspective had provided safety in another way - and saved my life. Thus my emotional attachment to VW.
And my disappointment and irritation with the name it has chosen for its sports utility vehicle. How on earth did it decide that the name of a whole group of people is an appropriate name for a make of cars?
In the same tired old manner in which so many aspects of Africa are exoticised and romanticised - and then commercially exploited - the Touareg are now cars. The name, of course, is not-so-subliminally meant to evoke images of valiant crossings of the Sahara, with little or no water on hand.
I am sure the Masaai here, whose images are now used to sell almost anything to do with Kenya and East Africa, will empathise. If I were a Touareg, I would be lodging a claim to block to the use of the name. Or, at least, claiming a share of the profits from Touareg sales from VW.
It seems a frivolous point to make. But it is not. I had the privilege of hearing Awegechew Teshome, an Ethiopian scientist, speak to a gathering last week about the same issues - but in relation to Africa's plant genetic resources. He talked about the diversity of Africa's traditional food production systems, and the simplistic attempts to overlay large-scale, "modern" food production on them. Not all of Africa's ecosystems - on which the traditional systems were painstakingly built over time - take to synthetic inputs such as mass-produced fertilisers, chemicals and so on. Nor can they support mechanisation, particularly in the drylands.
Reference: http://www.nationmedia.com/eastafrican/09102006/Opinion/Opinion091020063.htm
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