THE STORY WITHOUT IRONY

WHEN I was recently asked to speak about the movie at the University of the West Indies, I did not hesitate because of my fascination with the elusive, fierce creature this movie is named after.

The irony is that in South Africa, panthers or leopards are not black. But what is in the name?

The most prized asset in this

story is a technology called vibranium. Now what does it mean? The closest I can think of is vibration. Vibration information is an interesting technology which Africans have used to assess the integrity of clay pots.

But what is this vibranium technology of Wakanda, a fictitious African country in

Wakanda depends on one technology, the vibranium, and it is this technology that protects it from hostile forces. Any nation that depends on a single technology for its protection is in trouble. Many of our African countries have no technology to depend on.

As we reflect on this movie, let us think about how we are going to overthrow the concept that makes African countries consumers of technology rather than producers. This single story that, allegedly, will save us is an illusion. It is messianic and it only serves to distract us.

This messianic propensity drives us to questionable churches that make us drink petrol and eat snakes. It is fundamentally superstitious. We have to move our people from superstitious to scientific thinking.

The single story posture is a wider issue. In South Africa, the single story invented by the British public relations company Bell Pottinger, called white monopoly capital, occupies much of our political space.

The issue of equitable distribution of land, a derivative of monopoly capital, is an important issue that needs to be tackled. However, if it becomes the only story, we shall not be able to expand our economy sufficiently to tackle poverty, unemployment and inequality.

The expansion of our economy will require the creation and adoption of real technology, not the fictitious vibranium.

brings to the fore the issue of secrecy. If this vibranium was such an important technology, how come it was only limited to one nation? Our inability to document and diffuse knowledge still remains a big problem in Africa and the diaspora.

The movie was exciting for us because of two reasons.

First, it was because it had our dynamic language, isixhosa, and second, it featured our famous actor John Kani.

I found a feel-good movie. It gave us a false sense of reality that we are technologically advanced, which we are not. Many people came out of the movie theatres smiling rather than crying.

Wakanda was a country that never was. Vibranium is a figment of the imaginations of the scriptwriters of

Going forward, we need to work hard to ensure that we bring education into our community. We need to create technology, not dream about technologies that will never exist. We need to increase Africa and the diaspora trade.

All this will be possible only if we educate our people, and therefore “seek ye education first and the rest shall follow”.