Dr. Kofi Dankyi Beeko
20 August 2008
opinion
I was a teenager, when an Englishman teaching Science at our school, in Ghana, mentioned a 16th century English Philosopher whose name was Francis Bacon. That day, the topic was not in science, which the English teacher had taken the job to do.
He liked talking about philosophical ideas. He would devote some of his hours in talking to us, of things other than Chemistry, which he was employed to teach.
The day in question, he talked of "friendship". He quoted Francis Bacon; " .those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts " I have tried until today, and I am not sure, if I have fully understood what the Philosopher meant.
Whilst in Europe for a long haul, I tried to gather what I could, about Francis Bacon. In the process, I could lay my hands on what was said to be his last book, "The New Atlantis." As I started reading it, I thought Bacon had plagiarized Sir Thomas More's "Utopia". Not so!
In a per chance encounter with a foreigner who has been around doing business in the health care sector in Ghana since almost a decade, with satisfactory success, he told me, almost tearfully, that "it is easier doing business in Hong Kong than in Ghana."
I was confused. "If that was the case, how come all of you are rushing here, away from Hong Kong ", I asked him. "You don't understand", he continued. "We are in the third premises since seven years. Every year, the owner of the building comes, and he wants more money from us. We pay, but he is not satisfied. It makes everything so uncertain." "Could you let me understand?' I asked him, wearing a sheepish face. Almost. "You see", he continued, "in Hong Kong, you pay just three months rent in advance, and then the regular monthly rent. If you intend leaving at anytime, and you have smeared the walls, or caused some more serious damage, the three months rent covers it, or you pay any additional costs. If that is not the case, you get your deposit back.
In Hong Kong , you enter a fully furnished office, except you want to change something yourself." Complaints coming from tenants, even the local ones, are disparaging, to say the least. "The rent from one year to three, or five years advance that is collected from you hardly gives the satisfaction you expect," It deprives you of working capital. You would have thought your landlord would share the joy of your success with you. No! You fail to understand what he/she wants. At any rate, your interest and his don't seem to be on the same side of the algebra.
In one Korean lady's view, the attraction you hear of before coming over evaporates very rapidly. Because urban roads are that poorly developed, everybody desires to cluster along the few centrally placed roads. "In Seoul , S. Korea , you want your Restaurant placed some twenty kilometers away from town-center.
And your customers are grateful for the fresh air, and lower prices, because you pay small tenancy," says an oriental hospitality businesswoman. If our customers are complaining, we better listen.
Competition is keen and plenty globally. It will not be long, and King Abdullah's Economic Cities, four of them in a liberalized Saudi Arabia will join the race, in which there is Dubai, and there is Beirut, and a Middle East on the whole, where peace might "come and stay" with Israel, with a historical background that Europeans, Americans and the Chinese attend the University, to study.
In the New Atlantis, Francis Bacon tells his readers that, intelligent application of scientific research could make the European populations prosperous and happy, like those living on his mythical island. It has come to pass.
Even though Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, and John Calvin, 1509-1564, was not contemporaries in the true sense of the word, (they did not share intellectual activities in the adult phases of their lives), both must have influenced the rise of Europeans into prosperity.
We may follow suit, and do what today, might draw the rest of the world to us. There should be no complacency, on our side.
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