This is in response to your editorial, "Uganda could learn from China's order" (Daily Monitor, August 25). Learning from China is a good idea. However, your editorial does not put the subject in a historical perspective. Uganda, and in fact, the whole of Africa, may learn from China but cannot emulate it just yet.

Your editorial gives the impression you want us to emulate China. This advice is erroneous. I always fail to understand why we Africans continue to misunderstand the nature of development. When people see what China is doing in the field of industrialisation, education and science, they think a kind of industrial revolution has just taken place in that country. A revolution in industry started in China two centuries ago. It is just that China, for a long time, remained insular and became even more insular after the communist revolution in 1949. When it decided to open up, we are now seeing it.

Can Uganda, and by extension Africa, emulate China any time soon? No! Forget it! Let us start with 1920. What was China like in 1920 in terms of economic development? China had over two million industrial workers employed in railways, mining, marine transport, textiles and ship building leave alone those employed in the service sector. Many of these industries were owned by Japanese companies but many were also owned and managed by the Chinese. China also had a functioning Stock Exchange in Shanghai. There was a large network of railways in China, the longest was one between Peking and Hankow and one from Shanghai to Hong Kong.

Let us now look at what Uganda was like in 1920. Uganda, which was then a British Protectorate, had just opened its first primary school at Budo. Need I say more? China has a ship building industry, Uganda is opening its first primary school! How then can Uganda emulate China? Even President Museveni himself continues to make such analytical errors, when he urges us to look like Malaysia in terms of economic infrastructure. Yet, economic development in Malaysia was not spearheaded by indigenous Malay people, but by a Chinese industrial class which migrated south into south-east Asia even before European colonisation.

While Uganda should attempt to advance in a similar direction, it cannot emulate China yet. Uganda does not yet have what it takes. It lacks what I should call social capacity for lack of a better word. This includes lack of technology, lack of organisation, discipline and even social cohesion. Ugandans largely remain uneducated. In fact, one can argue that Africa is in some respects in decline economically. Look at its economic infrastructure. Look at African railways. The famous Benguela Railway which connected Copper Mines of Ndola and Kolowezi to the coast. It is now dead. Mombasa-Kampala Railway. It is dead, Lagos-Kano Railway is virtually dead. Steel Mill built by Russia in Nigeria. It is dead. Can a large country or continent develop without railways?

In your editorial, you referred to agricultural development bank and again gave China as an example. You pointed out that the state in China decided to increase capitalisation of the agricultural bank in the Initial Public Offer, which brought in $22.1 billion. I am not so sure that an African country can manage an agricultural bank.

You may start one, but you will soon end up with Uganda's Entandikwa fiasco. People will say the success of the bank in China is due to central planning inherent in the Communist system. I would disagree. Taiwan which is not Communist can run such a bank. What South Korea can so, North Korea can do. The social system has little relevance in this context. What matters is the maturity of a country's social fabric.

We will first of all have to uplift Africa's low level of culture before an industrial base is created to spearhead a movement you see in Asia. You need decades or even a century to do so. A society at a low level of culture is one that is unable to appreciate value-based beliefs or religion. In spite of the fact that colonisation tried to impart Christianity's civilising value-based ideas, most Africans have now turned their back to modern religions and gone back to Paganisms. You can see it everywhere. Pagans believe in many gods; these may be in the form of objects, rocks or animals. There is no code of values in Paganism. What you have is practice in witchcraft which is the expression of the lowest level of primitivity. Yet, there is, here in Uganda, a law against witchcraft and instead of arresting and prosecuting witchdoctors, the Inspector General of Police is willing to meet them as "traditional healers". He should send them to primary schools first.

It is only in Africa or perhaps some other small areas of Asia or Latin America where educated elite, even doctors or physics teachers in universities believe in witchcraft. Witchcraft militates against logical thought, abstract ideas or scientific inquiry. Peasants constitute an inert society and Africa is full of them. This is not to say that China does not have them, but there, they have been exposed to a long period of political and social organisation so much that they are now qualitatively more developmental.

The picture we have in Africa is a false one. The signs of modernity you see in Africa, the cities, large crowds in churches, parliaments etc, are mere facades. If Africa wants to progress, she should first understand herself to better what it is able to do at its level of development and yes, learn from those ahead of it. But we should not deceive ourselves that we can short-circuit the process of development. There is no precedent in history where a country has done it.

Mr Kahoza is a former Auditor General