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

Confusing Hand Of Liberalization

Here at home the Cotton Season has just come and gone; leaving not even one particularly keen on another season! It has been tears everywhere. Tears of anger and, of course, crocodile tears among Traditional Speciation Wisdom [TSW] keepers: those ‘we-told-you-so’ villagers that are somehow always right even with the benefit of hindsight!

Whatever is happening in the wider economy—disappearing forex and fuel shortage—in our villages we know that unless something is done quickly—because the rains are fast approaching—this season could spell yet another doom year for the simple maize harvest and worst for the vaunted "White Gold" Revolution in Malawi. And what with the tobacco ‘gold’ firmly in the dustbins of our national hope.

So what went wrong last season?

First no one took the official responsibility—ahead of the cotton planting season—to announce the government and/ or official per-kilo price. In this new age of "compartmentalized ‘perfect market’ operations" one learns to trust rumors, conjecture and anything with a pointing finger, we instead watched the sudden and feverish activities of urban sharks. They arrived in our villages in cars that rocked to booming sound in their car boots. Noise intrusion everywhere in our usually 'quiet' villages. They "bought out" hectares of communal land. Chiefs made a killing; snatching pieces of land—even future graveyard sites!—and selling them to these urbanites.

They were here “to grow cotton”—word went round. Not to be outdone, village sojourns brought back reports that they had seen a cotton ginnery along the Zalewa Road! As smallholder producers, we realized, somewhere-somehow, a good price was in the offing. How else could cotton urban sharks—men with manicured fingernails—suddenly enter into such a sweaty agricultural business?

In turn, unprecedented havoc followed everywhere. First to suffer was the communal maize growing season. Our usual field labor did a Houdini. They would never work for us, they announced; showing crispy MK500 from their new urbanite bosses. With that also rocketed farm wages. Even a kachasu-drunkard now had to nerve to tell you off.

Similarly—‘smelling’ the contents of the elephantiac, wallet-filled buttocks of those urbanites—chiefs offered and sold off our very own ‘fertilizer coupons’! Word had it: the ‘townies’ would perform a miracle. They would apply fertilizer to cotton. It had never been heard of until now! Indeed, silly and wanting-to-get-rich-quick the  urbanites took the coupons. Of course—in a round-about manner [a TSW will sell you anything in demand]—we eventually 'bought back' the unused fertilizer at “kam’phwanti” prices.

But, the crazies were still coming. Some clever urbanites—"to drive down labor cost to zero"—arrived armed with plastic bottles of technologically advanced "weed eradication" chemicals. Of course—where they eventually applied these 'weed killers'—the grass didn't die! It was because they had forgotten to bring along bottled water.

To save additional travel costs, they ordered: "Just use borehole water!'

But, our boreholes—dug during the ‘Multiparty Rule’—are shallow pits that are taking in more toilet waste than supplying safe drinking water. They are as salty as hell. We no longer need iodized salt around here. Indeed, nowadays, the quickest way to recognize your own clans-people and siblings is to check if they have developed two yellowed front teeth and/or are wearing a ring-wormed 'toga' on their heads!

The worst part, of course, was when the weed poison entered the food chain. A few of us died in the name of urban technology. The TSW quickly brought up the matter of ‘disappearing’ future graveyard sites while we dug graves for our prematurely departed.

Meanwhile certain cotton marketing sharks—mum as ever about the forward cotton price—charged an arm and a leg for their seed, spraying agents and kits. We received bills, bills, bills for their imported cotton seed that looked like "roasted maize".

"It's high quality! From Zimbabwe!" the urbanite seed sellers had boasted! Much of it did not even germinate. Eventually, we had to improvise—use raw cotton ginnery seed. Thus—with the first rains and bad seed—disaster was written all over the place.

Then, the good news arrived—albeit in a roundabout manner—the firmed price of cotton would be MK40:00 per kilo. "Bingu Himself had finally said so!". And so—to those of us born under Kamuzu's rule—this was a Presidential directive. It would never be contradicted by a living soul! Alas how backward we still are.

In the dark of the night cotton sharks produced handwritten notices: announcing the buying season. It would be a mere MK32:00 per kilogram. Daylight robbery!

Promptly, growers and TSW leaderships gathered. They decried the new offer—insisting to defy this and even go to 'see Bingu'. But signs were already everywhere. The presumed bumper maize season was not to be for everyone. The TSW blamed the 'weed killer' for 'chasing' insects and weavils into our maize fields.

Besides, whatever we had harvested still needed processing together with some protein-enriched relish to go with it. Naturally mind games became the norm. Decrying the "thieving" sharks by day, we sneaked a child—and a head load of cotton—to the nearest cotton buyer by twilight.

"Just ten kilos", we rationalized. "Yakuchigayo— Yandiwo!”

The net effect: this buying season has been a resounding failure. The urban sharks have been noticeable by their disappearing act: probably gone back to town to lick their wounds too!

At MK22:00 per kilo—last season—we sold our cotton in one lot. It wasn't much—but we had proudly pointed at some results of our sweat: a few iron sheet houses on the village horizon. But, this year: things are turning out to be kuthongo'lelana basi—dribs and drabs. And the money simply fritters away. The cement-floor jobs—in last year's iron sheet houses—are quickly being shelved.

Of course, there were some noticeable changes. For all his sweat, the man at the corner now has a red and white cell phone umbrella and table. In fact—for the umbrella man—it took some doing. Not that the public phone he got ever works: around here you need to climb a hill or tree to use the cell phone!

In the dark of the night—thanks to operating problems at the bus company in town—he traveled to a buyer—100 kilometers away—rumored to be taking the ‘gold’ at MK39:00 per kilo. Triumphantly and promptly, he returned the next day—[an overnight bus is always late in the evening but bang on time in the mornings]. He announced he had actually sold at MK42:00 per kilo! The "invisible hand of economics"! The stampede in that direction commenced and the late-running bus service made an unfair ‘killing’. But what is all this: daylight theft or stupidity of liberalization?

Meantime, we must find money for this year’s maize seed and fertilizer; because someone is already spreading the word around here that there will be even fewer ‘fertilizer coupons’ this year and the urban ‘thieves’ may just return to scoop them all!

E-e-i-sh! This cotton liberalization is a nightmare. It requires some surgical action. First it's creating havoc with communal land ownership. For a quick buck, village leaders are parceling away our land to absentee land owners. Signs are there: Hacienda Wars will soon be coming into our area. This is because the urbanites—even if they don’t return this year, they will still be hoping for another cotton price bonanza. Meantime, this will cause large chunks of land to lie furrow this year and not many TSWs are prepared to idly watch such waste of our traditional heritage.

Second is the need for an urgent return to ADMARC-ways. Give us a firm future-price before the rains and take the harvest off us in one-go.

"Bring back ADMARC" even the cynical TSW leadership argues. "Izi zothongo'leledwa chimanga chokhala chako zithe.”

Set up a Cotton Export Development Corporation [CEDC] in the next few weeks and you may, after all, just have the replacement of the doggone international tobacco trade!

While we feverishly work to sort out the "comments' problem, please feel free to contact the author at zivaiclaude@gmail.com