The role of the family, state and government in a capitalist Africa

By Goli BandaI would first of all like to render great admiration and gratitude to the many African governments, including the Namibian government, that have taken the time to grant their citizens the opportunity to go to school under government funding, as well as the many other non-governmental organisations across Africa rising to tap the skills of young people. It takes a scholar who watched a mother’s efforts of ensuring her children made it to the other side of a modernised busy road proving futile, to reckon and put in writing the benevolence, consideration and necessary action of the man crossing from the opposite side of the road and herding back again aiding the children to the other side as soon as he realised the mother’s helplessness. Family was an important unit of aid before the formation of a state, but however, the coming of the state and government and their adoption towards the end of colonialism in Africa, meant an added advantage intended to serve the welfare of the people by taking over the roles of communities and aiding the family. Just as espoused by the philosophers of the social contract theory consisting of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. Not only did Africa adopt the state but also capitalism, which saw the move from monarch and communism, to democracy and capitalism, that had both proven inevitable as a result of Western hegemony. Linking these adoptions with the role of the family indicated adjustments from determining a man by how he treats his brothers and sisters (Ubuntu) to his position in the social hierarchy. The family then was the ignorant unit and unaware of what this reform meant, thus it became the duty of the state and government to provide the necessary education in order to eradicate unawareness and to broaden understanding which would in turn beget a society that knows the paradigms of capitalism and contribute to national interest. The reason why Africa is poor is not because of culture, but that we have involuntarily worked to get rid of our culture more than we have trained the African child to invent, posses, influence, dominate and own his little awareness of capitalism.We have signed more bilateral and trade agreements today with the West to invest in our continent than we have taken the time to grow and stimulate the local mind. I have learnt one thing as an African child who is still growing and has only seen the development of the West on paper and the media; this is that we will struggle as Africa and as a people to rise and maintain the pace of the West if we do not have our own skills to produce and invent things. African countries struggle because they have adopted capitalism but not lived by its demands and paradigms. It is like knowing you have a book but not the content. We have misunderstood the terminology that is why we are satisfied with money and not owning the means of production. This is the reason why Africa has the largest percentage of proletariats and lowest percentage of bourgeoisies, and why earning for now is more important than gaining for a lifetime.Entrepreneurship and science and technology have proven vital elements of national GDP and globalisation in the developed countries. In Africa’s case, though “Chika Onyeani” brought to book the questions and outraising of the intelligence of Africans by Caucasians and the Japanese. I have seen the dream of an African child to invent something or become a profound entrepreneur diminish, as a result of not having been accepted in the specific faculty because he failed to memorise a Western idea even after the family believed in the child. I have seen them diminish as a result of both family and governments not having believed in the child and a western man buying it from him and then calling it his own. I have seen it diminish because family wanted him to do something that is considered a well-paying job. “Chika Onyeani”. ‘Capitalist Nigger’ challenges the individual’s to fight for a dream come-true, but I espouse for family, state and intellectual attention to support the young seeds, for a child does not know the world is a jungle, not until you teach him. That way will he prepare his fists for a battle knowledge in his liking creativity, but if you measure his intelligence based on memory of a theory or well-known procedure and not own understanding or what new knowledge he bears forth, let him think his way through freely. Africa’s intellectuals that would contribute much in change, continue to go in the brain drain because the family, education, state and government are unhealthy in aiding, believing, explaining and instilling optimism in Africa’s social, economic, environment and politics. Thus, if Africa fails to encourage young skills now the future globalisation will mean our loss in intellectual prosperity and the transfer of labour and we will struggle to compete with the coming skills. Whenever there is a problem in a community; question the family. Whenever there is a problem in society; question the state, and whenever there is a problem in a nation question the government as an acountable unit and overseer of them all. There is an extraordinary interaction between and among these units in raising a generation, how much the family contributes is manifested in the community, how much a state contributes is right in society and how much a state government contributes is manifested in the nation and stereotype it has. If the family is ineffective the state will find it hard to penetrate and in turn grave difficult for the government which has emerged as a blame for almost everything and anything, one unit poisons itself but does not die alone, when one unit eats good it does not benefit alone. The problem society faces is as a result of a unit before it, the African child is the future leader and he needs training so he becomes a major contributor to his nation. Congratulations to Makerere University for being the first institution in a country, in Africa, to develop a motor vehicle, it is however, inevitable that the family, state and government played a role in making the dream come to reality.*Goli Banda is a third-year student studying towards a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Political Science and Sociology at the University of Namibia.

The role of the family, state and government in a capitalist Africa

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-01

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The role of the family, state and government in a capitalist Africa

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-01

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