The road to paradise: What we can learn from actress Lupita and Yego

Julius Yego competes in the men's javelin throw final at the 2013 IAAF World Championships at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on August 17, 2013. FILE PHOTO | FRANCK FIFE |  AFP

In Summary

• Yego’s story is important in Africa because it suggests that we can escape the dead hand of our governments and unimaginative institutions to build successful societies and economies.
• A review of the initiative noted that potentially it had the ability to turn writing and publishing on its head because people actually do buy books the way they buy meat at the butcher’s shop
• While our places in its food chain might not have changed much, it has allowed a few people like Lupita and Yego to rise beyond the limited opportunities provided by their motherland, but still impact it.

By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
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There is too much bad news around, so let us look for a bright spot. One came two weeks ago when Kenya’s Julius Yego, who is Commonwealth and African javelin champion, set a new continental milestone in the sport.

Yego set a new African and IAAF Diamond record with a 91.39m throw in Birmingham. Those who follow these things will know that the throw was also the best in the world since 2006. Yego’s feats usually make the headlines partly because of how he learnt to throw the “spear”.

Known as “The YouTube” man, Yego self-taught and polished his skills using the giant video channel.

We do not usually think about it, but Yego has done something that is both truly revolutionary and subversive.

By training on the internet, as it were, he broke free of the authority of the coach, thus showing us that we can thrive without relying on the traditional Establishment.

In an analogue world, without the internet and a warm-bodied javelin coach, Yego might well have been condemned to raising goats for the rest of his life in his native Nandi. Instead, he is now a star on global sports TV.

IMPORTANT STORY

Yego’s story is important in Africa because it suggests that we can escape the dead hand of our governments and unimaginative institutions to build successful societies and economies.

We saw it when M-Pesa (and later M-Shwari) opened doors for millions to escape the tyranny of banks. For a century, it had been difficult to imagine that we could make financial transactions and do business without walking into a grey building to grovel before a bank manager.

And, in another example, anyone who has ever published a book with an African publisher will know that you cannot feed your children — let alone yourself — on book dues.

My very first book with a Ugandan publisher did reasonably well. The publisher used the proceeds to give himself a treat.

I did not get a single penny. If I did not have a separate journalism job, I might have gone hungry.

Now Amazon has come along with a crazy but potentially very lucrative idea. In short, writers can publish their books directly on Amazon and be paid, not for the book but for pages read.

Lupita Nyong’o on the red carpet ahead of the opening ceremony of the 68th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southeastern France, on May 13, 2015. PHOTO | VALERY HACHE |

AFP

BUYING BOOKS

A review of the initiative noted that potentially it had the ability to turn writing and publishing on its head because people actually do buy books the way they buy meat at the butcher’s shop. If they are paying, say Sh1,500 for a book, they are more likely to buy a book of 500 pages weighing, say, one kilogramme, than a book — even if its better — of 100 pages weighing 200 grammes.

Having bought the fatter book, though, they are less likely to read it.

Now, writers will make more money the more pages are read, so every page of the book has to be interesting enough, but it cannot be too short because you would not make enough money, but not too long either because no one will go to the end and that will be wasted effort.

So right there, story-telling and intellectual reproduction have been freed from conventions and the publishing mafia.

And then, Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o spent several weeks in Uganda recently. She was acting in a film, Queen of Katwe, about Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesa.

BIG VILLAGE

It is a Disney film directed by Mira Nair. Nair is a Hollywood director of Indian descent married to a Ugandan academic. You get the drift: a Kenyan actor in an American film of a Ugandan story by an Indian-born director married to a Ugandan…

The point is that the world is finally one big village or big city, depending on how you look at it.

While our places in its food chain might not have changed much, it has allowed a few people like Lupita and Yego to rise beyond the limited opportunities provided by their motherland, but still impact it.

So there are some lessons about everything in there, from how we push for democracy to how we inspire each other in our world today.

We can get our hands dirty by becoming involved in protests, fighting for reforms in the back streets, and working directly with communities. But also, we can go away and have nothing to do with our institutions and even governments. Change, progress, and profit are as likely to come from that too.

The author is editor of Mail & Guardian Africa. Twitter@cobbo3