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Thus Sayest Gen. Collin Powell with my Commentaries

Gen Collin Powell
Gen Collin Powell

Over the Christmas break, I was reading a newspaper article which passively made mention of Gen. Collin Powell, the former US Secretary of State. I instantly decided to do article on this great African American leader. The result is this article. I collected some of the most powerful quotes by Gen. Powell and added my personal commentary to each of them. I hope you find them helpful.

Mr. Powell’s words are in bold italics followed by mine.

  • Quote 1.  “Command is lonely.” Being at the top is not always as fun as it seem. I can really be lonely at the top.
  • Quote 2. “The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.” In simple terms, we’ve got to realize that the folks close to the problems are often in the best position to see the solutions.  The leader’s roles should be the empowering of the people to see their own solutions.
  • Quote 3. “Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.” A leader must take a stance and make the tough call. Trying to make everybody happy is not leadership because the right decisions aren’t always the popular ones.
  • Quote 4. “Don’t be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.” Challenge the status quo. You have every right to do that. Question the conventional wisdom and ask why not the other way.
  • Quote 5. “Keep looking below surface appearances.  Don’t shrink from doing so just because you might not like what you find.” The problem won’t solve itself. Assuming it doesn’t exist won’t get rid of it. You’ve got to face it as it today or you’ll have to face it tomorrow. The details may be terrifying and even hurt, but don’t burry it in the sand.
  • Quote 6. “Organization doesn’t really accomplish anything.  Plans don’t accomplish anything either.  Theories of management don’t much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved.  Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.” At the end of it all, you have to bet on people, not strategies or plans.  Value the people around you as the best asserts, not the PowerPoint slides and bulleted points.
  • Quote 7.  “Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.” It’s all about accomplishments or results to show. Titles don’t count much.
  • Quote 8.  “Fit no stereotypes.  Don’t chase the latest management fads. Employ the right tools and principles for the job, and don’t be rigid in your approach.   If you are not getting the results you need, change the approach.
  • Quote 9. “Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” Surround yourself with people who think the world will crash tomorrow and friends who never see any possibility.  That’s exactly how you will also think and you won’t accomplish anything
  • Quote 10. “Never let your ego gets so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.” Don’t see yourself as your title or position and don’t get too caught up in it.
  • Quote 11. “Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.” As Tunde said, why not use electricity instead of megawatt if your people will understand electricity and not the other? A leader’s role is to communicate to get everybody on the same page.
  • Quote 12. “Have fun in your command.  Don’t always run at a breakneck pace.  Take leave when you’ve earned it: Spend time with your families.  There is life after everything. Love to live. Do not shun your human side.  Enjoy every opportunity you get and value human relationships.
  • Quote 13. “The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. If people aren’t bringing their problems to you any longer, do not assume they do not have problems. It’s likely they have lost confidence in your ability to help them solve their problems.
  • Quote 14. “Don’t be buffaloed by experts and elites.  Experts often possess more data than judgment.  Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world. What appears to be the right theory does not always end up being the one that works in practice. Respect the opinion of others but at the end of it all, pay attention to your own instincts, and judgments.
  • Quote 15. You can’t just have slogans; you can’t just have catchy phrases. You have to have an agenda. Slogans and catchy phrases don’t produce the results. You need specific, measurable, achievable, time-based goals.
  • Bonus. “You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.”
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There’s A Lot More To Africa Than Famine And War

Clement Afforo

Recently I was flipping between several of the major TV news networks who were reporting a variety of stories about Africa. All were focusing exclusively on war and famine.

Come to think of it, that’s about all you ever see the major networks say about Africa. They rarely if ever report on African sporting events, positive government activities, or even normal African life.

Anyone who thinks about this predicament for even a moment would realize Africa is a huge continent made up of a wide variety of countries, regions, and peoples. Africa is about as diverse a place as you could ever imagine. While some areas are sadly embroiled in horrific problems, other regions are peaceful, pleasant, and offer their citizens a very rich life.

One thing most Americans never have the opportunity to learn about is Africa’s wide offering of quality TV programs. Watching African TV can be a real eye-opener. They include soaps and dramatic series, side-splitting comedies, and a wide range of news and sports coverage.

Realize that these programs reflect the values, sensibilities, and every day experiences of people who live in Africa. If you have little experience with African culture, watching these programs can really teach you about this fascinating part of the world. You’ll gain insights into a side of the world you may not have known existed.

Thanks largely to a growing number of African immigrants in the United States who want to see the programs they watched in Africa, African-produced programs are finding their way to cable TV channels here. On any given evening you can watch popular series like “Things We Do For Love,” “Sun City,” and the hit comedy “Taxi Driver.”

Recently, the African TV Network I founded several years ago announced plans to expand program offerings to cable channels in the Baltimore and Washington DC areas. This will make African programming available to large audiences of African immigrants, African-Americans, Caribean communities, and others who are eager to have access to these programs.

As with any new TV programming that appeals to a previously neglected audience, African programming lets advertisers reach a very large and active viewing audience that was not available before with standard TV programming. African programming is a win-win for both viewers and businesses.

Clement Afforo is founder of the African TV Network, now supplying African programs to the Baltimore and Washington DC areas. For more information on programs and advertising opportunities, see the site http://www.africantvnetwork.com.
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The fight against HIV/AIDS needs a pragmatic approach (update)

K. Amponsah-Manager

On December 14 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN agency which over ten years ago started a campaign to cut the number of malaria cases and deaths in half by 2010, reported that Malaria is fast declining in countries where it had been endemic. The report was surprisingly optimistic that we could have a malaria-free world by 2015!

The progress on the malaria front did not come by wishful thinking; it was the result of pragmatic efforts on the part of governments and various organizations. In the past three years alone, 578 million people at risk of malaria have been provided with insecticide-treated mosquito nets. Another 75 million have benefited from indoor residual spraying, the report said.

While such a report gladdens our hearts, it should also remind us of the twin brother HIV/AIDS.

 

Significant efforts have been expended in combating the spread of HIV with some results to show already. However, it is believed that what has been achieved is minimal compared to what is possible if the energy already spent was used to do the right thing most of the time.

There is the popular notion that HIV is caused by people doing stupid things, and some even think it is a curse for our disobedience of natural laws. Surely, there are some who are living with the virus as a result of doing stupid things, but that is just part of the story. In any case, such perception does nothing to save the millions who continue to contract the virus each year. Some of them are our brothers, sisters, uncles, and our teachers.

Rather than perpetuating the stigma associated with AIDS, I will suggest it is time we spend that energy to discuss how to curtail the rate of spread of the killer and save lives of mothers, fathers, and infants, some of whom have to live with the parasite for no fault of theirs.

There are practical ways that work and those are what we need to focus on. I’ll mention only two here for the sake of space.

Case 1: Sharing needles by drug users: The consequences of the use of illicit drugs on the health of our citizens and the effect it has on our economies and health care system are well known. The practice can therefore never be condoned or encouraged

But the reality is that people will continue to abuse drugs. Several studies have established that the sharing of needles by drug users is a significant avenue for contracting the HIV.

The approach here has to be two fold. The first is a continued education on the consequences of sharing needles which I believe is already well known. The second I think should be an effort on the parts of governments and foundations to consider providing accessible avenues by which the addicts can obtain clean needled when the lust for the substance is uncontrollable. They will continue to use the drugs anyway, but why should we look on while such acts continue to overburden the already stressed health and economic structures and continue to add to the AIDS statistics.

Case 2: Laboratory and epidemiologic studies have shown that even though condoms are not 100% HIV/AIDS-proof, the use of condoms in sexual intercourse reduces the risks of HIV infection significantly. We would wish that people will abstain from sex until they’re in a committed relationship, but the reality is that this approach will not work for all. The truth is that HIV is acquired by having unprotected sex with someone carrying the virus, and not just by having sex.

The massive campaign to encourage the provision and use of mosquito nets is yielding results with the possibility that we could have a world without malaria in less than a decade. It’s time to do same for AIDS.

The campaign to encourage people to stay away from sex until marriage or until they’re in a committed relationship should continue. However, this weapon will work for only a fraction of the population. It is time to be practical and tell people in a plain language that if you cannot abstain, then they should simply cover it.

 

Even though, it may be appear rather radical, I may suggest that Governments, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and foundations working on HIV/AIDS in Africa should consider making condoms (both male and female condoms) available for free to prostitutes (at least, until a solution is found to the problem of prostitution).

Given the choice, I’ll rather opt to use our scarce national resources to do that which will produce tangible and measurable results.

To the toddler taking care of a sick single HIV/AIDS parent, the issue here is not just statistics, it is life.

Let us learn from the anti-malaria campaign.

You may also like this ‘Why African women are embracing the female condom’

(To learn more on Condoms and HIV, click here)

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THE OBAMA IN YOU

As the preliminaries for the 2012 US presidential election approaches and with several presidential elections taking place in Africa next year, it is a worthwhile engagement to examine the first African leader of the United States in relation to the great potentials of Africans in general. For it is still the case that Barack Obama emerging as the President of the United States of America in 2009, remains, to a large extent, a ‘mystery in disguise’ to millions of people – particularly black people in general regardless of our nationality, location, religion, interests or status in life.

Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States of America

An article in the Economist described the Obama phenomenon as ”GLOBAMAISATION’‘. According to the author, Tunde Oseni, ‘‘Globamaisation is both an idea and a process. As an idea, it refers to a set of principles that in a developed and deepened democracy, like the United States, the lines between politics, culture, color, creed and history are happily collapsing. As a process, ‘‘Globamaisation’ is the beginning of a new dawn whereby techno-democratic forces will drive silent revolutions across the globe.’’

An inference from the concept on Obama above clearly indicates that the world is gradually moving towards a position where individuals with potent capacity and will power can actualize their dreams and aspirations in life regardless of race, skin color, language and other relevant factors. Obama, in his book, THE AUDACITY OF HOPE, fervently addresses issues of his life. Despite all the challenges and difficulties he encountered while growing up; Obama believed that the fruit of the years of struggle laid in making his dreams come true. That is the reason why Obama, in a ‘deepened democratic’ system as the U.S, won the prestigious position of Presidency.

That this is a spectacular achievement derived largely from sheer determination need not be mentioned. What needs to be considered is whether the platform that was provided for him can be replicated elsewhere, particularly Africa. The first thing to say is that Obama’s intellectual potential indicates that Africans are as equally gifted as any other race and that humans in general, regardless of race or creed, have incredible reasoning ability. The significant difference between continents, countries and cities, however, contribute in enhancing this attribute. This question of nurture over nature applies deeply in Africa as many factors such as corruption and all elements of avarice negatively impact on people – particularly young children and adults. The depletion of resources through greed and the consequent mountainous struggle to attain a better life, particularly in comparison to what similar struggle can deliver in Western countries; have resulted in many not believing in the African continent or themselves.

My view is that Obama has successfully set the pace for Africans to aspire to positions which decades and centuries ago were never believed to be achieved by Blacks. However, if African governments can eradicate corruption, attempt to invest consistently in world class education systems, infrastructures and healthcare provision, they will reduce the present gap between ‘‘nurture and nature’’ in the development of human capabilities and provide the platform for unborn Africans to compete successfully on the global stage. That is when the Obama in all Africans can be seen in all spheres of life all over the world.
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Making It Slowly but Surely

Success is a marathon, not a sprint. But many of today’s youth do not know this, or they know but not make it a maxim in running their life race. If we take things easy, and act as purposely and positively as we can, success will surely come our way.

There are rules for success, and one of them is: ‘Never rush’. If you look around you, you will discover that those who have made it to the top are not only those who inherit wealth, fame or name. Yes, wealth, fame, and popular name can open door of opportunities for some folks, but the lack of them, ab initio, does not lock such doors and windows of opportunities either.

If you want to make it in life, as we all make efforts to achieve greater potentials and accumulate better aspirations of life, the rule , ‘never rush’, applies. What do you want to make in life: intellectual progress or social mobility? The best and possibly easiest way to make it in life is to make it slowly but surely.

With this recommendation, I am not saying we should be lackadaisical about life, or that we should sleep off all the twenty-fours and expect miracles to come, what I am saying is that we should organise ourselves, and see our dreams come true one by one.

Remember the scriptural axiom that the battle is neither for the strong nor the race for the swift, but that time and chance happen to them all. In the year 2006, I gave a speech at the orientation event organised by the Student Leadership Development Programme, SLDP, at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. The coordinator of that novel student programme, who read my modest citation on that day, is today the Chief Economic Adviser to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I am talking about

Prof (Mrs) Precious Kassey Garba, a woman of substance; respectful, respected, and respectable scholar and teacher.

Prof. Garba always told us to believe in ourselves, and that no matter how big a challenge could be, determination can melt it. At the event mentioned above, I spoke about why and how the youth can take their destiny in their own hands. I said  the youth should always plan their time and time their plan. I said the youth should always choose their friends and make library one of their friends. I reminded the youth about what Prof Adedoyin Soyibo used to tell us, that when you add value to yourself, the distance from your success is reduced by miles. We can make it slowly but surely. Nothing is worth-worrying or worth-rushing about in life.

The biggest god most people worship is money. Money is good but money is not god. How you get is more important. Remember Napoleon Hill, who wrote in Think and Grow Rich that ‘Quick riches are more dangerous than poverty’. What we need most of the time is organised planning, faith, hope, and action, and slowly but surely we shall make it.

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Understanding the AIDS Epidemic in Africa


Wendy Cross

Another World AIDS Day has come and gone. This day serves as a call to action to remember the millions of people in communities all around the world that are affected by HIV and AIDS.

However, AIDS weighs on my mind far more than once a year. It wasn’t until four years ago that I even knew a person who had been impacted by AIDS. I had heard all of the statistics. I knew the severity of the pandemic, especially in counties such as Swaziland and South Africa with some of the highest prevalence rates in the world.

But the severity of the disease and the broader impact on life in affected communities was beyond my comprehension. That was until 2006, when I traded in my comfortable Los Angeles existence working in TV commercial production for a one-year volunteer stint in a rural South African village. My new home at NextAid’s Community Center construction site was located in the rural township of Dennilton, Mpumalanga Province.

During my first year of living there, Dennilton had an estimated 30 percent HIV prevalence rate. This number, while astounding, still didn’t fully resonate with me until I was able to hear the stories of the locals who were shouldering the burden of a village ravaged by the disease.

NextAid’s pilot project in South Africa, where I was volunteering, was intended to provide a home to children and youth who had been orphaned by AIDS. While I was familiar with the term “AIDS Orphan”, the gravity of these children’s reality was not really fathomable to me until I found myself living among ten or so children who had lost one or both parents to “the disease”.

One heartbreaking story after another is the reality of life in Dennilton during the time of AIDS. One boy, at age 11, had to take his mother to the hospital in a wheelbarrow where she later died. Ambulances and even regular cars are beyond the reach of most. A family of young teenage girls were living as a “child-headed household” in order to care for their younger siblings.

Among these countless stories, one can’t help but wonder why? Why here? Why still? It wasn’t for lack of awareness about the disease. Upon driving into the town of Dennilton, you are bombarded by a series of odd roadside billboards. Each of these signs promotes HIV prevention through some quirky slogan and graphic. Dennilton had an advantage over many rural South African communities in that it had a government hospital as well as a non-profit community clinic focused on treating HIV/AIDS. This clinic was privately funded by Dutch donors and received U.S. government PEPFAR funding. Several community-based organizations, including NextAid’s local partner in the community center project, were active in addressing various aspects of the disease such as home-based care or school and church-based prevention campaigns.

As my year in South Africa went on, I asked a lot of questions in my attempt to understand why AIDS was so pervasive. I remember one of the first things that struck me about Dennilton was that there were more coffin shops than food markets in the town. Death was a booming business and in this town — it is easier to buy a tombstone for a family member than to shop for nutritious and life-sustaining food.

Many of these examples reflect a system that promotes short-term, welfare-based solutions to a much bigger problem. I don’t claim to have all the solutions, but I do know that if girls and boys received quality education and knew that there would be opportunities for decent jobs in their adult futures; and if women felt empowered to stand up to men; and if there were more ways for people to access nutritious food and be economically self-sufficient, we would be a lot further in tackling the AIDS pandemic in a holistic and sustainable way.

But no singular approach is sufficient for the magnitude of this disease. Without simultaneously working to uplift the community with empowering opportunities such as education, income-generation, and sustainable agriculture, all the billions of dollars from government and private donor funds will not be as effective as they need to be.

Decades from now, maybe and hopefully, AIDS will be an obsolete topic. But if we don’t focus our efforts now on addressing root causes such as poverty and lack of education that are risk indicators for HIV/AIDS in developing countries (and in the U.S.), there will likely be another disease that will disproportionately affect the most disadvantaged populations.

It’s not too late to do something this year. NextAid commemorates World AIDS Day all month long throughout December with a series of fundraising and awareness raising music events and an online campaign on Twitter and Facebook. For more information go to www.nextaid.org/wad2010 .

Wendy Cross is the Program Director for NextAid, a Los Angeles-based NGO
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Clooney, Google, UN Team Up To Watch Sudan Border

Matthew Lee

A group founded by American actor George Clooney said Tuesday it has teamed up with Google, a U.N. agency and anti-genocide organizations to launch satellite surveillance of the border between north and south Sudan to try to prevent a new civil war after the south votes in a secession referendum next month.

Clooney’s Not On Our Watch is funding the start-up phase Satellite Sentinel Project that will collect real-time satellite imagery and combine it with field analysis from the Enough Project and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, organizers said.

The data will point out movements of troops, civilians and other signs of impending conflict. The U.N. Operational Satellite Applications Program and Google will then publish the findings online.

“We want to let potential perpetrators of genocide and other war crimes know that we’re watching, the world is watching,” Clooney said in a statement. “War criminals thrive in the dark. It’s a lot harder to commit mass atrocities in the glare of the media spotlight.”

The groups hope that early warnings will reduce the risk of violence.

Southern Sudan’s looming Jan. 9 independence referendum has raised fears of renewed north-south civil war. The vote is the result of a 2005 peace deal that ended a 21-year conflict that claimed the lives of two million people and left twice as many displaced.

Organizers said the Satellite Sentinel Project will be available online Wednesday at . http://www.satsentinel.org