Eswatini, mid-year report 2019

Mid-year report 2019: an insider's personal view

It's July 2019, and Eswatini resembles a boxer who has been hit with a succession of heavy punches, and is staggering unsteadily towards his corner, hoping to hear the bell that could save him.

Honestly, things are not looking good right now. Government says it is cash-strapped and needs to raise more from taxes; the few who have jobs and incomes are even more cash-strapped than government and wonder where they will find the money for taxes already levied. Almost everyone can tell you how desperate everybody is becoming.

At the same time, people are dying around us as they never did before: I don't just mean the big A but also cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and strokes; the cost of dying rivals the cost of living these days. Nurses are underpaid, medical supplies are reportedly non-existent, and the people talk of only going to the hospital to die. And this is in a country famous for its cannabis, which could be the cash crop (as medical marijuana) to save the nation--financially as well as improving the health of those living with HIV and cancer.

There's lots more that's failing of course, but what I want to do here is suggest a way forward; this is not a quick fix. The bottom line (to appropriately use a financial term) is that we need to kickstart the economy and rebuild community. And the best way to do that is to create entrepeneurs to grow the economy.

Ramaphosa, across the pond in SA, has spoken already about entrepeneurship being taught in schools, but that's not how entrepeneurs are created. Studies have shown that countries with lots of startups and entrepeneurs have readers, artists, and musicians. Without creative persons you won't get anywhere. That's also because all of the new jobs and careers of the future haven't been created yet, they can only be imagined. Obviously creative leaders are also needed.

So, let's start with education. Our schools are clearly failing to prepare our people for a post-school future. In the first place we are still educating for jobs that don't, and won't exist. Just this week, Deutsche Bank, one of the biggest banks in the world, announced it is cutting thousands of jobs because business has largely moved online; a recent study suggested that up to 51% of jobs at present available here in Africa will disappear due to automation and the Internet. Then, of course, there will be thousands of new jobs that haven't been invented yet. One of the ironies of our present situation is that Limkokwing's courses are a lot of what we seriously need right now, but few graduates from Limkokwing find suitable jobs after completing study.

Then there's still a prevalent 'white-collar' mindset that needs to be dismantled: we really do need people who are unafraid to get their hands dirty: not those guys and ladies with long fingernails that proclaim their owners don't do manual work. Sorry folks, but office jobs are disappearing because offices are disappearing; we can work from home these days. When you have a cellphone, and data in the cloud, why do you need an office? That's just unnecessary expense. Just as banks have been shutting doors and touting online banking, so the entire CBD of cities and towns will also shrink drastically.

Banking is an important sector to consider, actually for a variety of reasons: firstly, the banks have long been seen as a source of secure jobs for school leavers; obviously this is no longer true since banks are downsizing due to automation. But there's more. What of drivers in an era of driverless taxis? What of cashiers in cash-free shops and waiters in self-service restaurants? Cash-free shops? Yes, there are plenty. Amazon even has cash-free supermarkets now. Amazingly, ATMs are now over 50 years old but they needed big data and the Internet to really take off--we now have paypal, mobile money, and ... cryptocurrencies. Traditional banks are beginning to talk seriously about 'paper-free banking' which not only uses the cloud but also removes paper money and coins. This is not as far-fetched as it seems.

Think of it like this: a few years ago the municipality installed parking meters in the centre of town and people were coming up to me and saying, "Hey, we finally got first world status here at the car park!" Apparently people were excited by this innovation. I replied, "Yes, but what about school leavers who will no longer be able to get a job working at the car park?" In the same way, mobile money, ATMs and internet banking have removed the need for so many bank tellers, cashiers and physical business branches.

In fact, human societies underwent a seismic shift in 2006-2007, and the repercussions are still growing, rippling outwards from the innovations of that year. What happened in 2006-2007, you ask. Well, here's for starters:

1. iPhone
2. cloud data
3. facebook
4. twitter
5. git hub
6. youtube
7. Android
8. Kindle
9. Airbnb
10. AI
11. DNA sequencing
12. Intel achieved a major chip breakthrough
13. the Internet reached 1 billion users
14. increasing adoption of linux systems

Recognise any of these? You wouldn't have noticed most of them at the time, but we all know them now, some quite intimately. This is our brave new world.

To suggest that we must invest heavily in traditional schooling is pointless; to chase only an IT education is reactionary, a knee-jerk reaction to what is already here. What we need to do is to start talking and create a present that can ensure survival in the future. We must not blindly rush in where fools are afraid to tread and not all be gung-ho for a situation that cannot work for us. In particular, we must remember to build community into all our equations and machinations because the bottom line is that we are all people and need each other. Truly, we must value each other as unique resources. The promise and potential of a nation (as a wider community) is its people.

Whatsapp listens. Now we have the old text statuses and the new snapchat ones.

 In a recent blogpost I mentioned that the new whatsapp statuses were hugely unpopular here in southern Africa and that the change was an attempt by facebook (whatsapp's owner) to replicate snapchat (which facebook failed to buy). I then--as I'm sure did thousands of others--complained to whatsapp about the change through their beta app.



Well, now we have the old text statuses back as well as the new snapchat ones. if you go to your own Settings you can set your own text status just as before; and if you check your friends' View Contact you can see their status under the heading About and phone number. According to reports the company says that Android updates that reflect the statuses change will roll out next week; Apple updates will follow after that.

Heads & Tails (1.2)

Facebook has now embraced the Tor network

HUMAN LIFE is full of ironies. A friend of mine, who lives in Europe, is terrified of identity theft and religiously shreds his snail mail and deletes his email. Another friend, this time in the states, is angry at his government's Big Brother approach to citizen management. He's especially upset by the NSA's mass-monitoring of electronic communications. But of course it's a world-wide phenomenon: under the umbrella of 'anti-terrorism', governments everywhere have been inventing ways to spy on people, and been trying to control what a person can or can't do on the once-freer Internet. As an unexpected result, we are being collectively taught to think like activists and hackers.

Now private networks and the murky dark corners of the web are beginning to appeal to us all -- those of us with dark hearts and also those of us who breathe in the light.

The TOR network is not new (it already has around 2.5 million daily users) but it has been gaining popularity for a while, especially because of governmental attention paid to wikileaks, sharing sites, and the emerging acceptance of bitcoin. This morning TOR became famous (or infamous) because of the news that Facebook has embraced it.

TOR is an anonymising platform, one designed to protect you whenever you go online. Your name and details can be hidden, as well as your address and location. By address I mean not only where in the world you are, but also the mac address of your machine.

The accommodation by Facebook would seem at first to be odd, since surely the whole purpose of using social media is to be social; but there is of course a difference between social and sociable.

If you're interested in trying out the TOR browser, I suggest you download and install a complete OS that sets it all up for you: Tails. [This is why this article is named Heads and Tails (1.2); Heads is Facebook and Tails is... duh...]

Tails and the new Facebook portal work fine together. Tails is a live OS: it's designed to run from a flash drive and when you go offline it removes all traces of your online activity. Tails can be found here.

The Net Generation (2)

The new generation, the Net generation, aren't up on national Cultural Literacy because traditional culture doesn't really interest them. If you ask them to name Swaziland's current Cabinet, for example, they mostly have no idea; nor do they know who signed the American Declaration of Independence or who Genghis Khan was. They know who Gaddafi is, but not because they know about Libya--most couldn't find the country even on a map. They know about Gaddafi because he's rich, famous, and in the headlines now. This generation truly lives in an electronic, networked, Global Village. They can complete an Eminem quote, but not one by Churchill; they know what Rihanna's latest hairstyle is but can't tell you about Renoir; they know Trump makes money but not how. They think connectedly, not individually; globally, not locally. But contrary to doomsaying opinion they haven't lost their way; they have a genuine sense of identity, but it's collective rather than individual; international, rather than national; it's immediate rather than considered-- connected via Facebook and Mxit and the Net rather than by landlines, PCs or snail mail. And the old conundrum expressed in Pilate's (who's he?) question, What is truth? is more pertinent than ever, for what now is the difference between gossip and information, between genuine and false? All of it is viral. Is it true because it's in a book? Or because it's on the web? Or simply because so many are saying it?

Facebook threat to Mxit

I've noticed a new trend among Facebook users that in time could reduce Mxit's dominance in the message market. Many users are now using Facebook's email facility as a replacement for regular sms. The reasons I think are twofold: 1, almost everyone is on Facebook now, so no need to organise a Mxit account; & 2, using o.facebook means that a Facebook message is now only around 1cent in cost - ie, as inexpensive as Mxit.

posted from Bloggeroid

Caffeine @ work

Well, there it is. I checked my Facebook page and a window popped up asking me if I wanted to link my profile to 'things I was interested in'. What the ? I thought. Then I looked at the list-- yes, these are my areas of interest; they have obviously been culled from my blogs over the years. I was amazed: there were things there I had completely forgotten about (I have been blogging for a long time).

Rocking in the not-yet free world

In another Swazi-MTN skim (a skim is a scam perpetuated solely for the purpose of making money) we discover that 'Free Access' means that you still pay for it. On your mobile, log on to FB through O.facebook.com [not m.facebook.com]. You should see, up at the top left, 'Free Access by MTN'. Then logout/exit and discover that you have been charged anyway. :-(( No wonder Swazi-MTN is doing all it can to retain its monopoly. Repeat after me: 'Monopolies are bad things...monopolies are bad things...' etc. Then bang your head against the nearest wall.

Mobile Facebook--a cheaper option

Hm. Interesting. Yesterday I fired up Opera mini on my Nokia N73 and entered O.facebook.com in the address bar; I was redirected to m.o.facebook.com, which loaded quickly and looks good. I then checked a few notifications and logged out.
The whole logging on and checking cost me 11 cents.
Apparently, one reason for the new O.facebook.com service is for mobile users to save money (and therefore increase Facebook traffic and continue the move towards world dominance) and this does seem to be the case. Previously, logging on to m.facebook.com would cost 27 cents, so 11 cents is a 50% saving. However, this is still more expensive than mxit's 06 cents. Mxit though is a clever java app with a very small footprint, so I suppose it will always be a better chatting option than Facebook, but the two together is still my choice for keeping up with friends.

O.facebook.com/fb.me

Facebook has launched a new mobile site: O.facebook.com, though probably it won't be available here (in SD) just yet. They've also begun shortening 'facebook.com' to 'fb.me' (this is URL shortening: it helps with addresses and searches etc). Try it out. Type 'fb.me' into your browser's address bar.

Facebook Ghosts

This morning, when I fired up Facebook, I was presented with a selection of my friends... and this pic was amongst them. I remember persuading Tiffany to try FB, and she did, although for a while I was her only friend listed there. Eventually she went on to add a lot of others, which was great. Now, of course, it's a ghost site, with that beautiful smile fixed there forever. A lot of us have added our farewells, but we know she won't ever be signing in to read them or to close down her pages. I wonder how many other ghost sites are out there.

Facebook, the new-age helpline

Have you noticed (I'm sure you have) that it's not only possible but encouraged to comment on and approve of people's status updates on Facebook? This even applies to your own updates: I saw an update from one of my friends complaining that another friend liked her own update; there is nothing wrong with that, for status updates are our new self-therapy, aren't they? Facebook has become the new-age self-help portal that everyone was secretly longing for. On the one hand they give us all a chance to claim our own 'seventeen minutes of fame'; on the other hand they offer us the opportunity to feel that we are genuinely useful. We side with a hurting friend: 'Hey girl, don't give up. He's just a stupid guy who doesn't recognise your worth.' And we offer nuggets of enlightened living: 'This is a day for all of us to shine.'

Sure, there are still some people who update their latest whinges and binges but these are getting to be the minority and the least popular. It's easy to see why: our bookshops are stacked with 'inspirational' titles and our fave websites are those offering brighter futures, so community and self-help have become a new way of life. Social networking sites hook into deep and real human needs; Facebook has become theever-changing, always accessible new-age helpline.

It seems...

è Buddha was right about è pervasiveness of human suffering: on facebook right now one of my frendz is missing her cellphone, anotha hates life & a third has had all her stuff stolen. Is 2day a particularly bad day, or... hey 2day is a Sunday~ if religions r so gd 4 us why r people still hurting so much?