Do you know that in the sixties, Japanese products were the very prototype of poor quality? Because the Japanese were then trying to imitate American products and they still couldn't. But by dint of always putting the work back on the job, they ended up overtaking those they wanted to imitate.
The same was true for South Korea. When I went there about ten years ago, I was told that after the war that divided the peninsula into two states, South Korea was so poor that people ate there roots. Remember that Korea had been very harshly colonized by Japan and until now, this story represents a serious dispute between the two countries. But when Korea was liberated after the Second World War, it had only one ambition: to reach, if not exceed, the level of its former colonizer. And it succeeded. Today all high technology comes to us from South Korea.
Not so long ago, we spoke of "chinetoc" to make fun of products made in China. I remember this Chinese ambassador to Ivory Coast who called me to protest each time the word "chinetoc" was written in Fraternité Matin, even as a joke. He refused to associate the name of his country with poor quality. And he wasn't wrong. Today, no one speaks of “chinetoc” anymore, except in the past tense. We all see the quality of the products that China now offers us.
So what happened with Japan, China, South Korea? They did like a child who wants to walk. He gets up, falls, gets up, falls again, then gets more and more confident and finally manages to walk properly. They produced products whose quality left something to be desired. We made fun of them. They corrected themselves, they improved, and they exceeded their models.
About 40 years ago, in our country, an all-terrain vehicle was made called "Bandaman". It was rather basic as a vehicle, but quite solid and was excellent on the tracks. What has it become? One would have expected that today it would have been improved to make it a sophisticated vehicle. But it disappeared. We stopped producing it, and today we don't even know how to make a bicycle or a child's toy in the shape of a car. Instead of evolving, we have on the contrary regressed. We are big consumers of manufactured products and those who have money like very high quality products. But no Ivorian industrialist has ever tried to manufacture a car, a bicycle, a motorcycle, a pen, a glove, a bicycle tire or a condom, since we are a big producer of rubber... research and industrialization, all of Black Africa has totally given up. We expect other peoples, namely Europeans, Americans, Asians or Arabs to come and do it for us. Or rather, that they go and do it at home to come and sell it to us at a very high price. In
South Africa and North Africa, industrialization efforts are being made. Moreover, it is companies from these countries that increasingly come to build our roads, our bridges, exploit our minerals, etc.
What if we decided this year 2023 to start changing a little? What if we started trying to mine our resources ourselves in a way that was a little more modern than gold panning? What if we started making our consumer products? They will certainly not be of good quality at first, and it will take many years for us to reach the level of other countries. What is certain is that we will never reach this level if we never try. The others are where they are because they tried. They weren't afraid to fail and start over.
Africans, let's try to believe a little in ourselves. Let's convince ourselves that every time we tap into our own genius, we achieve wonders. Yes, let's try.
By Venance Konan
*This article has been translated from French into English by Marcus Boni Teiga
