National Algorithms Make Chaos-Thriving Leadership possible

Picture this: in 2007—very much unemployed and, I might add, reasonably hungry—I eventually got invited into an office of a very powerful national citizen. Whereupon—because I am a ‘diagrams man’—I pulled out a colorful diagram showing the following terms or clichés [choose what you like]: ‘backfill economics’, ‘national algorithm’, ‘national informatics’ etc. This suggests I am also a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ or verbiage buff; good at combining words just to confuse those that ought not to be confused; especially at their most ‘successful idle times’ [There! I have done it again!]

At that moment—hardly deigning to touch the diagram placed before him—the big Kahuna perceptively picked on ‘backfill’ and said:

‘You mean all the success stories around us are about filling up holes previously dug by others?’

Having not thought along those specific terms—and probably desperate for a job from such daunting office surroundings—I agreed to his assessment. Whence, I have, ever since, applied exactly his observation sense; repeatedly asking whoever cares to listen:

‘”What else”—the holes are now fully buried?’

But, I also noticed how he astutely skirted around ‘informatics’—one of my favorites. I am originally a private sector manager; specifically a Business Process Re-engineer [a foreign fad I picked up while in enforced exile]. It doesn't work in this country where there are ‘life’ CEOs and thought on performance, industrial competence and national transformation are not part of an average CEO’s job description. Nevertheless, BRP taught me to insist on systems that generate at least some weekly ‘information’ that then enables one to make conscise business decisions. Typically, the big Kahuna in this amorphously decentralized anachronisms [did I just do it again?] conveniently ignored this part of the diagram.

When we got to ‘Algorithms’ he promptly called the meeting to an end! He had another appointment. He would, however, ‘come back to me’. Yet, this was the key factor—the tool that has made for successful and/or failed nation state systems; especially in Africa. He really should have taken time out to hear me.

So, belatedly—this is now 2011 and the NGOs are out on vigils—let me ask you: what is National Algorithm?

D.C. Dennett said: it is the critical ingredient in defining the purposive developmental hustle and bustle that moves a nation state through successive and successful stages of social and economic development; leading to its ultimate survival and/or strategic independence [please take some of these mouthfuls as ‘felt’ because I shall be dealing with them in later blogs].
Yet a National Algorithm [if you get to the point of being interested in it] tends to be a highly illusive animal capable of being perceived only through its factual and demonstrable shifts over time and space. Given two systems—one with a National Algorithm and another without [but this latter one having even better developmental artifacts]—chances are the former may somehow transform in much better ways than the other. Hence my observation elsewhere that future progress in Africa will be about ‘brainpower’, not 'brutepower' and definitely not as a result of ‘extractable accidents of geography’. So what is this intangible thing and why has many in political power—especially in Africa and most especially in this new ten-year window ‘democratic Africa'—ignored or failed to install it into their political processes?

By elimination, ‘national’ is a simple derivative term from 'nation state'. On the other hand, an ‘algorithm’ is a logical process used to yield results whenever it is ‘run’ [like a computer program]. Algorithms have been in use since 835 AD. They derive their name from the work of an Arab fellow called Muusa al-Khowarizm [see how the English are good at plagiarizing concepts from local geniuses?!] Back then Muusa ‘published’ certain arithmetic procedures for general application. Over time algorithms have become simple, foolproof and mechanical procedures such as long divisions or balancing one’s bank account [D.C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Penguin, London, 1995, p.48].

Therefore—and I wish that ‘perceptive’ Kahuna had listened to this favor—National Algorithms are about ‘long or short arithmetical divisions of balancing a nation’s bank accounts’! Basically, algorithms have three features or principles.
The first principle is that of ‘substrate neutrality’; that is the content of a subject does not matter very much to the functionality of an algorithm. The second principle is that of the underlying mindlessness of the algorithm itself; that is each constituent step of an algorithmic procedure and/or transition between steps must be utterly simple even though the overall procedure is brilliant. Brilliant politicians—I am definitely not one of those!—talk in simple language! In other words, procedures should be dead simple; enough to be performed by an idiot or a mechanical device. The third principle is that algorithms have guaranteed results.

There is no better way to describe a National Algorithm than the amazing motivation that makes an ant colony tick. When do ants sleep? When do they eat? Indeed, why do they bother to work so hard? Yet, at first sight, an ant colony seems sophisticatedly complicated. But, experts have broken it all down to four basic “iffy” algorithmic commands that guide the ants’ search for food and thus the unending continuity of their species.

These are—built into the genetic framework of each ant—first: if you find food take it to the nest; while marking the trail with pheromones. Second: if you cross two trails—one with and another with no food—follow the trail leading to food. Third: if you return to the nest, deposit food and wander back up the food trail. Fourth: if above does not apply wander at random until you find food! Of course, I have watched ants do their thing and I find this algorithm has a few missing bits. For instance, why do ants march on the wrong side of the trail and why do they bump into each other like that? A bit of order could have really had us soiled over in anthills!

It is easy, though, to instinctively denounce the denigrating simplicity contained in the above ant algorithm. But, if critically analyzed it soon emerges that it is actually more sophisticated than the jumbled or missing message currently informing the so called endeavor at African economic independence. The short prognosis is that African development is based on stupid laziness i.e. missing national algorithms!

On the other hand, the rule in the ant colony is quite robust and fits in nicely with the needs for African competitiveness. It embodies the belief that a system should become self-regenerative in terms of ability to continually refocus itself on the primary goal of its existence. Are we doing that right now?

Indeed, doesn’t the ant colony principle above remind you of the typical behavior of a certain ‘Superpower’; with its bands of lone sheriffs instilling national discipline [self-regeneration in the physical sense] across the system? Ants do that too. Once I watched a band of soldier ants hunt an renegade ant that had ‘mistakenly’ picked food from a chemically-treated food source. The soldiers took ‘him’ in for a court marshal, dismembered him and each soldier took each body part out of the nest and—just so he would never reassemble again and bring future adulterated food into the nest—they dumped his body parts in the four directions of the compass. What justice! But unsaid here is the self-discipline, self-management role of each ant—being able to individually judge and decide what is best of the greater good of the whole species. That ‘mistaken’ ant had failed in its duty and paid the ultimate ‘disassemblement’ price.

More critically, doesn’t it worry you that our nation state—probably ‘”Too” Warm the heart of Africa’’—lacks the knack to internalize such basics? Doesn’t it worry you that once upon a time—when Mugabe [using his own confused definition of national algorithm] got busy chasing away white tobacco farmers—a Malawian leader of the day—instead of grabbing the tobacco market that Mugabe was freely ‘offering’—actually went across to pat Mugabe on the back? For a job well done: 'getting rid of these white settlers'. Back then we called Mugabe's coup de grace ‘uMunthu/ chiMalawi’. But today we are stuck with tobacco that is not selling as well as it should. Of course, what we did not realize then—because we lacked a well developed national algorithm to smell out mischef against us—was, in his hunger for power and despite his Malawian origins, Mugabe had actually unleashed his brutal Shona military commanders onto the three-million odd Zimbabwe-Malawians living in that country. The bulk of these were the white farm-based laborers and had been ‘busy voting for Tsvangirayi and his white stoogies’! But imagine the alternatives with such a labor force, white capital and global tobacco markets. Would Malawi have not been whistling all the way to the bank! The Mozambicans saw what we our underdeveloped national algorithm ignored! They took in the ‘persecuted’ white farmers and the surplus machona labor. As they say 'the rest is history!'

We lost on several algorithmic counts. First, it was the unity of the Malawian nest that got decimated. Ants fight to the last man to protect their own! Second, we lost on the cohesiveness of an algorithm that could have made Malawi economically stronger. The failure to provide machona Malawians with an alternative, prosperous and secure destination is a price [some call it lost opportunity] we are going to pay eternally. The American Algorithm is very resolute on this count. It protects its own human stock wherever it is throughout the world.
So how can Malawi fashion a cross-border and/ or global national algorithm? And if we are to become the genuine ‘exporter nation’ we are so desirous of, we need it. The billion kwacha question is: do national algorithms just happen or they have to be developed and instilled into the psyche of a people? I say it is the responsibility of a genuine national 'trend-bending', 'trend-bursting', 'chaos-thriving' leadership to develop a National Algorithm. It is such a leadership’s task to horn a national algorithm to such sophistication that it becomes the impersonal, unreflective, robotic, mindless national genetic machinery responsible for the ultimate basis of all forms of [national] industry and/ or agency, national meaning and consciousness… [D.C. Dennett: 1995: 203]. Anything else—skin deep endeavors at creating mass support and even hysteria—is bound to fail.

Kamuzu tried and failed in his 'national algorithm experiment'. He confused his meaningless slogans—Unity, Loyalty, Obedience and Discipline [ULOD]—for a National Algorithm or the makings of one. Granted he had the foursome rhythm correct but—using the ant-colony choreograph—how does ‘unity’ dovetail into ‘loyalty’ or ‘obedience’ into ‘discipline’? Is 'unity' an automatic requirement to 'discipline'? Ever heard of disorderly 'discipline' or 'organized chaos'?
By the way it’s not a rule of thumb that a National Algorithm should always be a four-part system. But it makes great sense to mimic nature that brings in the hindsight of millions of years to narrow down workable processes!

Critically, Kamuzu’s ULOD failed because it was a set of draconic commands; not ‘impersonalized sub-molecular’ calls to national self-application and preservation. For example, spying on your neighbor is more of social division [disunity] and less of mechanistic impersonalization towards 'speciation'. Besides, as the local saying goes: 'munthu ndianthu', 'loyalty and discipline' must go to the species; not the leader of the species. Kamuzu's demand for 'obedience' without encouraging greater internalization of the primary logic of the national industry he sought led to confusion of purpose and less national cohesion; especially when some of his decisions went against the grain of the leap of faith he sought.
All the more reason that as ULOD wore thin Kamuzu increasingly turned to using, first, wallet power, then bottom power and later brute force to sustain his unrealistic ‘Import Substitution-cum-self-sufficiency’ model that ultimately revealed itself as his ‘life-pension-guaranteeing' strategy.

Is it my job to reveal the personal approach to a National Algorithm? I supposed I must when my time comes. The proviso for anyone, though—especially in these ticking-off democratic times—is for one to start early and inculcate his own version onto his supporters and then roll it out to the rest of the nation. It is a process; not an event. Yet, it is clear that national algorithms have a shelf life; especially if they are not properly defined, marketed and embraced. Petty algorithms and/ or one-off agendas tend to be ephemeral and likely to boomerang as time goes on.

The resilience and beauty of the American algorithm—looking and sounding very much like that of the ant colony—is that it addresses itself to the primordial spirit of any human being. No wonder many will beg, steal, borrow or even kill for a Green Card! The question to answer in developing a national algorithm is: what guaranteed results does the algorithm promise its users and beneficiaries?

That is a starting point for anyone wanting to go down this political route and desires that, one day, his face is put back onto the Malawian national currency as a true hero!

The author can also be contacted on zivaiclaude@gmail.com