Are Zambians doing enough with the internet?

Its now just over 100 days since I entered the world of Zambian blogging. It has been an exciting and challenging period of meeting Zambians and most importantly exchanging ideas on the challenges facing the best nation on earth. Many thanks for those who regularly read the blog and find time to drop some ideas and kept the dialogue going. Your contributions continues to make my blogging a learning and addictive experience!

I guess the “100 days” anniversary of the blog provides an ideal opportunity to offer a few reflections on the state of Zambians' personal use of the internet, in particular in the area of blogging and the general exchange of information.

I have been particularly struck by how few Zambians are blogging on the net. Surprised because I would have thought with 10% of our educated elite abroad and with incredible access to the internet and abounding with new ideas, conversations will be aplenty. For a nation facing such huge challenges we are not doing our very best to discuss these issues at a deep level among ourselves and networking our ideas, with the view of influencing policy development. If Government is not listening, we are certainly not talking!

To make it worse, the majority of the few blogs that are discussing Zambian issues are mostly written by students on a “year out” in Zambia. It’s not uncommon to find a blog on “Ben in Zambia” or “Sarah in Kitwe”. There’s nothing wrong with these foreign students blogging, I just wish indigenous Zambians did not let western students define the image of Zambia to the world. We have let others project an image of Zambia to the world for us. This malaise has extended to “Zambian discussion forums” as well. It’s bad enough that there are few positive forums out there, what has puzzled me is that the most popular of them, Bwanji continues to project a poor image of Zambia to the world. On Bwanji Zambian students from around the globe converge to exchange profanity and ignore the trade of ideas.

This lack of trading in ideas is extremely disappointing. It is very important that Zambians at home and broad work hard to exchange ideas and get involved in the debate through blogs and positive forums. To my mind, the reason why some countries are so rich and others so poor is down to the area of "knowledge".

Economic historians have for some time been puzzled on why Portugal, so prosperous in the 15th century began to decline from thereafter. A lot of reasons can be put forward, but one common and unmistakable reason was the decline in the trade of ideas. In Francis Parry's 1670 observations, "the people are so little curious that no man knows more than what is merely necessary for him". Indeed the 18th Century visitor to Portugal, Mary Brearley remarked "the bulk of the people were disinclined to independence of thought and, in all but few instances, too much averse for intellectual activity to question what they have learned".

I fear the same can be said on why Zambia remains poor today. Zambians at home and abroad trade very little in ideas. We are not doing enough to step out of the confines of our daily preoccupation and use our individual gifts to extend Zambian intellectual thought and help those in Government to think differently. You don't have to be in academia or Government to do this - all of us have something meaningful to say! If you are into IT, have a blog on IT in Zambia, if you an economist, reflect on Zambian issues, if you are an artist, blog on Zambian art, if you are an historian, blog on Zambian history, and so forth. Through this intellectual exchange we will go on to build a better and new Zambia. Through this process, we can network and somehow help shape policy debate in Zambia.

As David Landes puts it “if the gains from trade in commodities are substantial, they are small compared to the trade in ideas". When all Zambians learn this principle, we will then begin to lift ourselves out of poverty! Zambians abroad constantly condemn Government for poor policies, but if our forums are full of profanity and we are weak on intellectual discussions online, are we really in position to criticise? If we aren't doing enough as individuals to think through issues via blogging and other things, can we really blame Government when the policy solutions appear inadequate?

My hope is that Zambians will now do more to start discussing positive ideas, stirring each other to progress, and most importantly networking. Zambia will only develop once knowledge sharing improves. In this vein I have listed some interesting Zambian blogs and forums that I have come across. We must do all we can to support them. If you are aware of other positive Zambia blogs and forums not listed below please let me know so I can add them to my directory. Let us keep the Zambian candle of positive dialogue going, for we are the guardians of our time.

Zambian blogs
http://www.maravi.blogspot.com/
http://manena20.blogspot.com/
http://zambianchronicle.com/
http://positivelyzambia.wordpress.com/
http://brendait.blogspot.com/
http://youngafricanleaders.blogspot.com/
http://www.minewatchzambia.com/blog.html
http://ipamanning.blogspot.com/

Zambian discussion forums
http://lusakatimes.com
http://www.truly-zambian.com/forums/phpBB2/index.php
http://groups.msn.com/ZambiaSossa
http://www.forums.zambia.co.zm/