You can purchase anything you desire if you possess wealth. You can even establish factories, import equipment and labor, but true self-reliance comes from manufacturing essential goods, developing production capabilities and nurturing skilled labor domestically. This stark contrast distinguishes between consumer nations, which exhaust their budgets and regress to square one, and developed, productive nations.

We need visionary leaders who comprehend the importance of manufacturing, development and scientific research. These pillars underpin the nation’s advancement and ensure the well-being of future generations. While both leaders and individuals acknowledge this truth, leaders often prioritize political equilibrium, strengthening ties with former colonial powers, while disregarding counsel from intellectuals and supporters.

Meanwhile, many individuals, particularly the youth, are ensnared by virtual luxuries, embracing idleness over labor. They tend to criticize abundantly yet produce sparingly, fixating on emulating the West in language, education and even leisure pursuits. This dysfunctional dynamic between leaders and citizens perpetuates a cycle of consumption, cloaked in the facade of civilization, without actually fostering it. Some advocate for a paradigm shift to avert descent into backwardness or becoming akin to banana republics, reliant on external resources, relinquishing control to foreign corporations and local tycoons who endanger our future.

While colonial powers ostensibly withdrew from colonized territories, they left behind vestiges in the form of corporations and businessmen who perpetuated consumption patterns to ensure continued import reliance. This new form of colonization, exemplified by resort companies in the Maldives, foreign mining firms in Chile, and the tobacco industry in the Philippines, maintains control over economies. Similar patterns exist in various guises, deterring manufacturing, development and research while perpetuating consumption. Eventually, we will confront this sobering reality, paid for dearly by future generations, albeit after it is too late.

[email protected]