Yee-hah!
At last someone has taken notice; and it’s none other than Mr Robert Kiyosaki, he of the ultimate capitalist bible, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. The property tycoon and real estate mogul has sent an invitation in my name. Count me in!
This particular missive is addressed with my very own website (apparently they can do that!) and a very personal method; David, it reads, “no matter what happens….your financial crisis could come to an end”
Hallelujah!
I have become fascinated in past two years by what I can only term capitalist literature. I am currently reading Warren Buffett’s biography. And Mr Buffett makes money like he is picking leaves. He makes money as a full-time pastime – a maths genius who has constructed the ultimate money-making machine – find a company that is struggling, buy it, and build it up.
I am also reading Trump’s money making ideas and philosophies. Rambuctious and loud, bordering on the obnoxious, Donald Trump is one of my favourite guys. On a recent trip to New York I made sure to glimpse his various towers, like a pilgrim to the temple of the god Mormon, even if it was from a tour bus. It turns out that everyone in New York hates him; or maybe they are just envious of his success and can’t bring themselves to love him.
I am sure my grade 7 teacher, one Mr LT Zungunde must be shaking his head in disbelief and consternation. It was he who indoctrinated our pre-teen minds with communist nonsense. In those days we would walk to Queensway, the road leading from Harare International Airport into the city and line up to wave “revolutionary and warm greetings” to visiting heads of states – KK (Kenneth Kaunda), Mwalimu Nyerere and, Mr Zungunde’s favourite, Comrade Samora Machel. In all fairness we also went to greet Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and she sat there in her cavalcade under Zimbabwe sun, her radiating royalty in the open topped vintage Rolls Royce (the very one that takes Robert Mugabe to the official opening of parliament where he invariably rails against all things British, except the royal family).
So, the morning after Samora Machel’s death in a suspicious plane crash, Mr LT Zungunde came to class very angry and aggrieved. After a whole morning of hearing him harangue and condemn the apparent “perptrators” of this “heinous and cowardly act” which had “prematurely and tragically” ended the life of “one of Africa’s greatest revolutionary sons” we were ready to take up arms against the “apartheid regime”, South Africa. I sometimes remember those times when I see the ingratitude that South Africans show to Zimbabweans. Yes, we also fought for their freedom, even if it was in the classroom (but that is another story for another time).
Mr Sharples was Scottish and he kind of just appeared at the school one time – almost from nowhere – a gangly silver-haired white man with an easy smile. Later on we understood that he was Nasho’s “father”. He had adopted Nasho and his brothers after their father, Mr Sharples’ gardener died, and he lived with them in his own house like his own children. Mr Sharples had had his own children but he was estranged from his wife. Mt Sharples, tall and slender and with an easy toothy grin was also a keen golfer who mentored and coached Nasho Kamungeremu to the Zimbabwe Junior Open championship and beyond. In time, and for about four years, he was to be “father’ too, paying my way through secondary school in my father’s absence.
He must be chuckling in his grave, Peter Sharples, at my apparent conversion to his capitalist way of thinking. He once asked me that if everyone is equal and paid the same (like in the communist state that I was a disciple of), what would be the incentive for people to work. I didn’t understand that question but I blurted out an answer that convinced me…
Mr Sharples was a counter-poise to Mr LT Zungunde’s revolutionary zeal, and thank God for that. He probably thinks that it was all that counter-revolutionary propaganda that saved me and has me bowing at Rich Dad’s knees, but actually it’s just reality that has bitten me, and the poverty that has me beaten! A little more money never hurt anyone.
And a lot of money will probably save the world. Warren Buffett, the wealthiest self-made millionaire (nay, billionaire) in the world teamed up with Bill Gates to launch the Giving Pledge, a campaign to convince fellow billionaires to give half of their wealth away. In the US there are 403 of those super-rich persons. Already Buffett, a key funder in the Bill and Melinda Gates (BMG) Foundation, has previously said that his is to give away 99% of his wealth before he dies; he is making a difference in many ways. The Gates Foundation gives money to education, health, the arts and every aspect of life you can think of both in the US and across the developing world. The recently announced breakthrough in the anti-HIV microbicide owes it’s success in part due to funding from these philanthropists.
And this is my new ideology – no more of that comrade stuff – I now believe in philanthropic capitalism. It seems to be that the fallacy that it takes a village to the change the world, an African truism we are told, is perhaps incomplete. Rather, it takes one man, or one woman, one individual with a singular vision (and bagful of money) to save the village first before it can save the world.
So…Mr Kiyosaki, sir how can I can I be a rich papa..?
