POWERS OF SMALL IDEAS

     Ideas, seemingly small, are powerful, writes Okello Oculi

The first time I visited the State of Illinois in the United States of America was to be hosted by the Mayor of a small town known as ‘’PARIS’’.  His son was leaving home to travel to the State of New Mexico to start a home with his newly married wife. The name of the town was a surprise to me since the only PARIS we saw in the media was the capital of FRANCE. I was informed that as a predominantly immigrant country, its arrivals yearned to remember where they came from.

When my own migration ended at Stanford University, a struggle over naming places had flared up. The African-American community wanted to have the name of PALO ALTO changed to ‘’NAIROBI’’. This was the era of ‘’BLACK POWER’’ political movement. The European immigrants rose up in resistance against the importation of a piece of Africa – the capital of newly independent KENYA – brought to hug them. Kenya’s UHURU (independence) had been won by a highly publicised war for liberation known as ‘’MAU MAU’’. In PALO ALTO in faraway California, the struggle was over this historical echo.

As a member of a Committee chaired by Y.K.LULE, the ‘’Principal/Vice Chancelor) of Makerere College of the University of East Africa, this little politics of changing names erupted. Our team of student politicians led by AKIIKI MUJAJU, demanded changes in names of several halls of residence for students. Mr. NEW, a reformer in the history of England’s Civil Service, lost his position to KWAME NKRUMAH.

 A new dormitory being built for female students would pioneer the motherhood toga of ‘’AFRICA HALL’’. A new dormitory donated by the America Government was adorned with the politically cheeky name of ‘’LUMUMBA HALL’’. The assassination of PATRICE LUMUMBA, the first Prime Minister of newly independent Congo, was known to have been directed by America’s President Dwight Eisenhower.

We felt triumphant over the victory of the little war for decolonisation of our campus. It never occurred to me that the positive power of “Paris, Illinois’’ and the Palo Alto-Nairobi contest were at play here.

A train journey by Queen Elizabeth from her palace to a small village in her Kingdom was also a little idea in public affairs. When she arrived she was met by excited leading leaders of that village. The ‘’Mayor’’ was dressed in a quaint attire. The Queen inspected projects undertaken by the village government; achievements not covered in highbrow newspapers and broadcast media. This was key to the legitimacy of government in Her realm and for the popularity of the Monarchy.

In African politics, Leopold Sedar Senghor, a Christian from the small SERER ethnic group, built his support by Muslim religious leaders of the majority WOLOF people by sleeping under moonlight harmattan nights inside villages. He insured his stay in power against military coups incited by French troops through the big ideas of allowing French companies to control import and export trade, as well as, government contracts. But the little idea of sleeping under village moonlight to talk politics with villagers earned him votes in elections. 

A Chinese television documentary showed the little idea of thousands of people fabricating parts of industries and feeding fires in foundries. Those people felt and knew that they were literally building their country.

 Dr. John Bryant was thrilled by Mao Zedung directing 14 million people to jump into rivers to dig out SNAILS from river banks. The worm that breeds inside snails enters the human skin and travels to the liver. Its human host starts urinating blood and becomes emaciated. Mao was avoiding spending millions of foreign currencies to purchase chemical drugs for curing victims of Systosomiasis.

To end medical and agricultural damage by RATS, Chairman Mao directed Communist Party members to come to branch meetings with at least ONE TAIL borrowed from a RAT. This little idea saved CHINA from accumulating DEBTS for funds borrowed from traders known as ‘’DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS’’.

President Macky Sall told his potential successor, Mr BA, to give jobs to unemployed youths. In Zaria, Kaduna State, nearly two hundred youths constructed a new road by clearing bushes and digging up soil.  Drummers and singers cheered diggers whose bodies shone with sunlight on sweat.  Elders of the community knew that this little idea predated giant caterpillars and bulldozers brought by contractors who are paid billions of Naira.

In 2000 my former Gambian flat-mate at UW Madison hosted me in Maryland. His wife, a banker, drove off at 6.A.M. to park her car at an assembly site and joined a bus which took them to K Street near the World Bank.  She arrived at work free from traffic jam fatigue. The power of a little idea was at work here. 

Prof Oculi writes from Abuja