The future

We are all waiting for it, the later time, the better place; when our hopes and dreams finally materialize. Some have attempted to use time machines to see what lies ahead. Some believe that we will be what we are destined to be. Some say our lives are pre-written, we are simply living out a plan that is set in stone, every success, every failure, every bump on the road, written like a mystery book, revealed to us the moment we live it. We are on a constant journey through time to arrive to this destination, THE FUTURE. A distant now that outlives tomorrow; we don’t know when we arrive, and we never truly stay.

What is our future really like? My father once said to me, the future is not a sure time period. It is not something you find, waiting for you as you grow, live, or time travel. The future is something you create, today. So what we do now, in this time and space, is in essence our future. We have our history to learn from, and our now to act in order to take us to our intended destination. Although the future is unknown, it is predictable, depending on what we are doing now.

At the moment, our beautiful country is in the process of re-writing the constitution, the one document that will create a country we wish to have. For the past few months, the special parliament members held the future of this nation on the tips of their tongues. The entire show made me question what our future will be like. It really made me think, and somehow arrive to some unbelievable conclusions. The future of Tanzania could be America, China, or the past, and before you write me off as a maniac, here is why.

OUR POLITICS: We are a nation of five year plans. Sovereignty is survival of the fittest, but while superpowers plan world domination, better education, latest technology, military strengthening, stronger foreign policy, we aimlessly squander national assets; time, money, people, and natural resources for immediate political and personal gain. Better imported cars, better beachside bungalows, imported furniture, foreign designer labels, Real housewives or Kardashian style.

First we plan how to get in the game. Vision-less President Wannabes and future members of parliament. Then we play the game, make the most out of our terms, and just when we should have enough, our kids suddenly graduate from high school and are in need of imported education, so we need that one more term to pay for their college tuition.

Unless the future is in five years, we really aren’t ready for it. Naturally we will end up fitting into someone else’s plans. What has China planned for Africa? We better make fast friends, I mean we have what they need, and so let them build some roads so we can fulfil those election promises and get re-elected. Our future becomes China. When president Obama announces his plans for Africa, Power Africa, as a way to provide jobs for Americans, we hear how that would fall into our “I will bring electricity to this village 2005 election promise”, but we need that one more term, so our future is suddenly America. Our future is MDG’s, whatever IMF conditions say, our future is really not ours. And even as we sit in our glorified NEW CONSTITUTION PARLIAMENT, personal gain, political party gain, some stupid agendas run as we compose the most important document that will define the FUTURE of our nation, and we somehow manage to reduce it into a five year plan.

And while we are supposed to learn from our history, modern day Chief Mangungos are born. We call them “mafisadi” and do nothing to them. As they sell our country to the highest bidder, we just watch. So our future becomes just like our PAST, only stupider. Slavery and Colonialism without chains. Treaties of eternal friendship re-written.

POP CULTURE: Our culture is now defined by television. Whatever happened to those colorful fabrics woven to suit our taste, the poetry, the prose, the riddles and the drums, the sounds of the Bantu tongue? I am at fault here too, I am writing this in English; our future is definitely not Swahili. It is Hollywood, BET, sagging, fashion week, and MTV. Our future is like the Christmas tree. While our recent musical past is Congolese, our future is Nigerian. We go through waves of cultural borrowing; our wedding dance is kwaito in the electric slide steps. The bleached color of our skins, the Brazilian weaves, chemically relaxed hair, or blonde dreadlocks.

We are a mix of many things. Time and time we have interacted with cultures that have influenced ours and that we have influenced as well. We don’t have to live in a bubble, but we shouldn’t let our own culture die, no matter who we interact with. We should stand out and not blend in. This doesn’t happen by chance, it has to be planned and executed now for it to be part of the future. It should be part of school programs and family traditions. But we leave it to television, “ving’amuzi”, to decode what should have been a culture shock and make it mainstream. Each culture is unique and beautiful, and it is that difference that makes the world so beautiful. We don’t have to melt in whatever country popular culture pot. I love all the dimensions that make Tanzania beautiful, the Bantu, Swahili, Chagga, Makonde, Ngoni, and all the tribes, Gujarati, Arab, Shirazi, Wazungu-wabongo, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Rasta, no religion, no tribe and the undecided. I know we all somehow look at the Masaai warriors pictures and feel a deep connection to home. And whatever our background, we know when we look at the flag, that the blue is water, the yellow is natural resources, the green is natural vegetation, and that black is US, the people. We have so much to offer to the world, and so much to learn from one another. We have a culture so rich, so beautiful, and so diverse. How can we let that fade away?

As my father said, the future is not a time or place we will find. We need to start creating it now. If we stuff our present with junk food, our future will be obese. Be it our nation, our communities, our families, or our individual lives, we will not magically arrive to that better destination without planning and working for it. A very wise teacher once told me, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”. Without a vision, a glimpse of the future we would like for our children and the children of their grandchildren, we are bound to plant the wrong seed. There is a Swahili saying that says “hata mbuyu ulianza kama mchicha”, meaning even the biggest tree was once a small plant, but however you translate this in English, the future truly depends on the seed you plant. A few years down the line, you may not know for sure if yours will be a big tree but as long as you know you planted the right seeds and continue to nurture it, one day it will become that big tree. If you plant “mchicha”, a mere vegetable, it doesn’t matter how much nurturing you do, it will not become a baobab tree. The question to us all at this crucial time, as we make shifts in our economy, as we become part of a global culture, as we write our new constitution, as we get ready for 2015 elections, as we live each day, is, what seed are we planting now, for the future?