Thought Picnic: Seconds from rag-doll demise

Longing for short bridges

It could be a busy road and I rarely go jay-walking if I can help it. I would most likely walk up to the traffic lights or seek a zebra-crossing.

Even if I know I have right-of-way I would probably wait to see the whites of the eyes of approaching drivers of vehicles with an acknowledgement of my intent before I cross.

I still remember vividly crossing under the bridge of the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway in Lagos under the Isolo overpass where the pedestrian crossing added almost a kilometre to what was just a 150 metre perilous dash. All the builders of that bridge had to do was attach two staircases on either side of the expressway, but that kind of thinking would have been too radical. See A road runs through it.

Seconds from ragdoll demise

A few days before the War Against Indiscipline Corps instituted by the Buhari regime had caught me crossing “illegally” and I had to do a 20-minute frog-jump punishment amongst other culprits.

So, this morning, seeing I was in a rush and the corps members are not around, I made for the usual dash across a road that allows speeds well over 100 kilometres an hour, I heard shouts and screams, maybe warnings but was oblivious of the fact that they were meant for me as a vehicle whizzed past the front of me seconds before I became a ragdoll of an accident causality leading to a preventable fatality before I saw my twentieth year.

I do not think I realised my close shave with death until days or maybe weeks afterwards when the whole episode played back like a movie in slow-motion but a sixth sense, premonition or foreboding had taken hold that I never ever made that dash ever again.

Sight and right

One other handicap I did not realise I had was a lazy eye coupled with astigmatism which could have been corrected in childhood which meant I could not reasonably judge distance and approaching speed, it made me crap at tennis because I just never could judge where the ball would be, that knowledge now is an active determinant in how I cross roads.

So, as I got to this crossing a tall police van with all lights flashing but no sirens blaring drove up the wrong way and parked just in front of the traffic lights that pedestrians need to determine when to cross the road. Those lights even serve a greater importance to those who cannot make it across the road in a timely fashion in a city with the most impatient of drivers.

I waved and remonstrated to the policeman driver who wondered what my problem was, so I shouted out to him, “You are blocking the lights and the way for pedestrians to cross the road.” At first, he wanted to ignore my protest but I waved even more frantically to the lights on my side, the fact I wanted to cross and well my cane had a statement of its own too.

Insistence and persistence pays

He eventually got my message and moved his vehicle out of the illegally parked section he was in to another place where he would have also complied with parking laws. The police are there to facilitate upholding the law not break them with impunity, in my humble opinion.

Thanking him, I crossed the road thinking I had rediscovered that latent spark of that Akin I once knew would insist on things being just the way they were supposed to be. Maybe there is a chance that this rediscovery will permeate other parts of my expression that seem to be suffering from a loss of confidence, esteem and status – I really do need to find myself again.

Meanwhile, a letter arrived for my first appointment for therapy which I should have had from the moment I was diagnosed with cancer some 21 months ago – I have crazy ideas I still want to execute in whatever is left of my sometimes quite exciting life of experiences and somewhat bizarre tales.

Europe: No hiding place for Homo-nationalism

Minority is not inferiority

This represents a difficult subject and one of a very intimate nature that would well benefit from the kind of articulation I have brought to many issues that I have covered on my blog in the last 6 years.

I have been fortunate to have been born in Europe but had part of my development experience in Africa making me a product of the influence of all the cultures in which I have lived.

As a person of colour, one is in a minority but it does not then mean one should as well assume an inferiority complex. I have been blessed with a sense of awareness and being that has allowed me wade through the unfortunate scrapes with racism, snide belittlement and patronising conduct without being so negatively affected.

Comfortable in one’s skin

One somehow has a quality of assertiveness, if not wit where such encounters occur but not the legs to run when those situations have turned unnecessarily violent; in any case, I have refused to allow those experiences to take root and destroy the quality of self-esteem I believe I possess.

One place however where I have had some difficulty is where within a minority you then find vestiges of bigoted, intolerant, reprehensible behaviour, that just leaves you almost speechless, agitated and occasionally annoyed.

As I attended the Berlin Christopher Street Day [1] (CSD) celebrations, whilst I got wind of the event beforehand, I did not stay to witness it because I was quite exhausted and wanted to return to my hotel to rest.

Distancing from Homo-nationalism

Judith Butler [2], a renowned philosopher was being honoured with the ZivilCourage prize by the Berlin CSD, she was present but in the speech that they thought would be an acceptance speech, she declined the award castigating the pall of homo-nationalism that had become integral to the LGBT [3] movement in Germany and Europe to the exclusion of the recognition of the work, activities and plight of LGBT minorities.

It was a bold and brave stance to take [4] though the Berlin CSD organisers refused to engage or address the issues she raised and exhorted everyone to party on regardless.

A debate must ensue beyond the stereotypes that suppose that immigrants from the Global South are generally homophobic, intolerant, isolationist and illiberal in what has become a racist complicity perpetrated by organisations that are supposed to know better with their history of struggles for recognition, rights, fairness and justice.

A minority ignoring their minorities

The fact is we find such attitudes too amongst right-wing elements of Western societies and their fundamentalist counterparts around the world who abuse the purpose of religion to alienate, castigate, bastardise and condemn others in their quest for some sort of communal purity.

In the process, we forget that even amongst the indigenes of the Global South are people very much like us who suffer persecution in their homelands, rejection from their communities and in some cases serious violence amongst us in the West as their so-called loved ones portend to restore honour to their flawed ideals of perfection by eliminating what they consider as different or in the extreme abominable.

It is a shame that the seemingly emancipated networks of support created by organisations like the CSD cater mainly for their own without giving recognition to the activities, travails or issues that similar organisations catering for minorities try to address.

You come out to their public activities and might well assume that all minorities are heterosexual apart from the token few that dot the landscape only for their brazenness and boldness.

Killed for her sexuality

I am therefore pleased that not only has Judith Butler shed light on a subject many do not want to address, Angela Davis [5] has added her voice [6] to the matter.

What is interesting on the whole is that this situation is not limited to Berlin or Germany. In October 2009, an 18-year old Belgo-Moroccan girl, Layla Hachichi [7], was brutally murdered by her parents in an exorcism ritual which on examination was to rid the girl of her lesbianism.

The parents for all sorts of absurd reasons with the fact that they live in the West have surely not been able to understand the society they reside in. Whilst they might not have been able to accept the idea of their daughter’s homosexuality, the heinous crime of murder described in ways that make mediaeval torture tame is completely unforgiveable.

A silence so despicable

The sadder aspect of this is that it took almost six months for the Belgian umbrella LGBT organisation, Çavaria [8], to comment on the matter with the excuse that they did not have enough detail on the matter.

When an organisation like Çavaria is afraid to speak up for one of their own who just happens to be of immigrant stock for the fear of hurting the sensibilities of the community that has committed such atrocious crimes against a person for their sexuality, you begin to wonder if those organisation are from hence worthy of existence having failed to speak up for the voiceless, the helpless, the incapable and the unfortunate.

To redeem themselves they have assumed the stance of amicus curiae in the case giving them access to all facts of the case seeking justice for the girl. Though one must state that the facts leading to the murder of the girl had appeared in more than 60 articles, the excuse is flimsy at best.

No hiding place for Homo-nationalism

With Judith Butler, Angela Davis and many other commentators giving voice to this travesty, LGBT organisations would no longer have a hiding place when they are derelict in their responsibilities to all their constituency; obvious members, the oppressed, the ostracised or the afraid - that includes minorities in the West and those that suffer under unspeakable sanction in faraway lands.

Any LGBT gathering that fails to accommodate the minorities as part and parcel of the whole representation of the LGBT community at home first and abroad would cast the organisers as hypocritical and devoid of values, seriously unworthy of the social justice mantle they claim to have and detriment to any further struggle for rights and fairness as they will be open to justifiable criticism and derision. They have no hiding place anymore.

Sources

[1] Christopher Street Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Judith Butler - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] LGBT - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] Judith Butler turns down civil courage award from Berlin Pride: ‘I must distance myself from racist complicity’ Loomnie

[5] Angela Davis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[6] Angela Davis on Judith Butler’s refusal of the CSD Civil Courage Prize

[7] Gay News ® : Letter from Brussels - Thousand and One Nights

[8] Çavaria | opkomen voor holebi's en transgenders

[9] News in brief | Flanders Today Published November 2009

Another Belgian Waffle

Listless and restless

I found myself in Belgium this weekend having promised myself on Friday that I would stay in the Netherlands and try to be like a resident.

In my restlessness, I had to get out of the house before I ended up spending the whole weekend cooped up like an offending prisoner in solitary confinement.

In the end, I did nothing, I stayed in Antwerp overnight without doing much but catching much needed sleep in my hotel room, as if I cannot get that kind of sleep at home.

Service and pique

I checked out early and headed for Brussels where this time I had a friendly tiller clerk at the ticket office administer to my needs. The last time I was there, I was buffeted by a pig-ignorant buffoon who I expressly told I want a 1^st Class return to Brussels and I ended up with a 2^nd Class ticket.

When I returned to change the ticket, he said, I never told him I wanted a 1^st Class ticket as well as refusing to speak in English – I was almost incensed with rage then I decided there was no point giving him the pleasure of annoying me.

Lockers open for pissing

When I got to Brussels Central Station, I can report that they have adjusted the self-service luggage lockers to take round figures of coinage rather than the €3.10 or €3.60 which I reported in April 2006.

Progress, I would say that I walked into town to be deliberately underwhelmed once again by the great pissing attraction of Manneken Pis, bedecked in one of his changing costumes and urinating through an opening in his clothes.

Lately cancelled and out-of-date

That feeling of things working in Brussels was soon dashed as I waited to get on the train to Amsterdam which was to leave at 17:19 – in fact, I was surprised that it was not displayed as running late, it is usually late.

Suffice it to say that after 8 trains left the platform I was to get the train from that the estimated 15 minute lateness, the notice board finally conceded that it could not determine when the train, one station away in Brussels Zuid where it starts the journey would arrive – a journey of 7 minutes at most.

In the end, we all decided the train was cancelled and no one had the courtesy to tell us that was the case.

Shopping for some snack, I took a bag of luxury madeleines off the shelf and had the urge to check the expiry dates, all four bags had expired, one was even almost 3 weeks out of date - I took all 4 bags to the till and told the assistant; these should not be on the shelves - I was tempted to go back and check 30 minutes later to see if they had returned to the shelves.

I love England for the fact that shops can be closed by health and safety officers for selling perishables that are out-of-date. I see too many of these infringements in supermarkets in the Netherlands too, it appears they do not take these things seriously at all.

Bunched up train crowds

At 18:19, the next scheduled train arrived just a minute late and we got on. Before we left Belgium there was only standing room the 1^st Class carriages, still some people had the gall to put part of their luggage on seats.

It was interesting to see from the crowd of about 15 people who could have demanded those seats, very few are that assertive. I found that really strange, there was a point where I felt I should ask the people to offer those seats to others.

The conductors walking through the trains should have felt duty bound to ensure those standing could sit where luggage occupied seats, but they did nothing.

For a crowded coach, it was a bit peaceful and those who had their phones going off recklessly got looks that made them behave.

In the snippet of time which was my experience – maybe Brussels doesn’t really work just yet, but things are improving.

Are you Belgian-Suspect?

Not the kind of news to hear

Being a regular visitor to Antwerp, I was quite surprised that I missed a rather harrowing but evident piece of news about the murders of 2 people and one left seriously injured [1].

It transpired that the perpetrator had bunked off boarding school (privilege) being on the verge of being suspended for smoking and drinking the day before.

The young man had been planning to commit an act of terminal self-harm but felt he would even serve society better if just before he committed the ultimate, he randomly kills a few immigrants who he referred to in the most derogatory terms.

If I were to dabble into profiling, we are given the impression that a person who in Europe has the privilege of a boarding school education, has the best opportunities for education, can be assertive, self-assured, confident and probably get by on his own cognisance, something ordinary people would probably need a police check and references for.

Classed as Belgian-suspect

So, he bunks off school and walks into a shop and buys a gun, gets the ammunition and declares open season on fellow human-beings who have the unfortunate distinction of having an appearance that is Belgian-suspect.

Belgian-suspect? Indeed, but that is part of the wave of right-wing populism that I have tried to ignore not only in Belgium, but in France and recently in the UK when the British National Party took a few seats in the local government elections.

The whole principle and premise that a certain group of people indigenously belong somewhere and they are being deprived of their rights because immigrants, foreigners or citizens of foreign progeny are getting priority in jobs, welfare and other “so-called” benefits.

This tripe, as ideology gets fed to the populace and finds resonance; that the broad church of democracy can allow sinners against liberty and tolerance to worship at the altar of universal franchise.

Caught in the stomach

The young man in event got shot in the stomach by a police marksman but not before he had shot and grievously wounded a Turkish woman, then killed an au-pair black woman with her ward, a 2-year old Caucasian child.

In his words, she was in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

That is what bothers me, any up-bringing, education, experience or tutelage that allows for a situation where a 2-year old cannot walk safe in the streets is in need of obliteration at source.

Where be the faults?

His aunt is a Member of Parliament representative of the Flemish Interest Party which was birthed at the demise of the similarly extreme right Flemish Block that the parliament proscribed a few years ago.

His father was a founding a member of the Flemish Block, and though the party spokespeople deny the young man is a member of their party, there are enough role models to influence, if not indoctrinate the child in abhorrent ideology.

The young man intimated to friends that he would commit terminal self-harm and take 10 immigrants with him and privileged few did nothing with that information thinking it was an empty threat.

The head of the school came across a suicide note and did not cotton on the possible gravity of the situation; rather school discipline through a suspension would have made the problem go away. Whatever acts he then committed would have absolved the school from culpability.

I have my doubts about that being the best kind of school to send impressionable people, if students can be subject to opprobrium and authorities can be in such dereliction of duty and responsibility.

A matrix of skinhead amity

Then he walks into what might be a gun store and gets a high-calibre rifle, no questions asked, and then walks up a street in Antwerp seeking his quarry dressed like a character out of the Matrix.

Surreal as this may seem, there does not seem to be one intelligent initiative from all these people who could have affected and avoided the situation

+ Parents associated with fear-purveying anti-immigrant movements;

+ Schoolmates learning to be farm-hands in a boarding school but having no sense of the consequence that can be adduced from information they are privy to;

+ School authorities who think a suicide note is better dealt with by suspension or expulsion;

+ A gun shop owner in dalliance with the money, ignoring the common-sense need to ascertain, verify, enquire and consequently deny.

They know not the effects of their rhetoric

Auntie then speaks, he grew up in an atmosphere of anti-violence – I think NOT!

The rhetoric of the extreme-right is anything but the gospel of peace to all mankind; that atmosphere is enough to create the self-loathing to commit suicide and the warped sense of duty to society leading to killing innocent immigrants.

Where the party has rejected the young man, having been caught; there are others who in their clandestine ceremonies who would be offering the proverbial pat on the back for speaking up for the working man of Dutch-speaking Belgium.

References

[1] Woman, child murdered in 'racist' Antwerp shooting

[2] 'Teen killer' deliberately targeted random foreigners

[3] Racist shooting rampage shocks Antwerp

General information about the school, translated from Flemish.

The boarding school - Vrij Agro- en Biotechnisch Instituut – (Free Agricultural and Biotechnical Institute)

A school with a past and a future

The school was established in 1922, and has more than 7000 alumni. A modern infrastructure guarantees a safe future.

A school with a heart

The VABI offers a student-centred educational curriculum offering practical tuition beyond just knowledge transfer.

A school in a “green lung” (Green in the context of environment)

The VABI is situated in splendid green surroundings within the grounds of a small seminary.

The boarding school has a totally new kitchen and a restaurant that caters for healthy meals, with accommodation adapted for study and entertainment.

Most students graduate to further education in various related fields in university.

Our diploma offers great opportunities for employment and other career enhancing prospects.

World-stage village politics

Taking yourself off the social map

Gaining independence from the 4th of October 1830, this country struts the world-stage in many significant areas.

Initiated through their monarch the Scramble for the Partition of Africa; an historical term dignifying the 19th Century Europeans with the poise exhibited in carving up Africa.

This country now offers its capital city as the headquarters to a number of world and European organisations, a bilingual little-Stan with a big voice and presence, welcome to Belgium.

Village politics

This piece of news or rather gossip may not have made front covers but it made such interesting reading that one had to comment on the underlying issues that create such a farce.

The punch line goes "It's sad that because of village politics, the country gets ridiculed". How two senior diplomats with 37 years of combined experience could resort to this sort of petty tyranny is unfortunate but signals an opportunity for change before it gets out of hand.

Nadine Goertz reports in the New Year's print edition of Wall Street Journal Europe with the by-line "Tiff Between Belgian Diplomats Leaves Party Guests a Bit Frosted"

Diplomatic squabbles

The Kingdom of the Belgians has two top diplomats in the United States, the UN Ambassador Jean De Ruyt and the Consul General Stephane De Loecker.

It so happens that the ambassador was once the CG's boss at the UN with both of them having 20 and 17 years respectively in the Belgian diplomatic corps.

By circumstance, when the former Consul General left her post in October 2002, the ambassador who lived in an apartment near the UN moved into the more spacious Fifth Avenue location in December 2002.

This location happened to be the swanky location where the Belgians entertained important guests as is customary for its status.

Conflicting receptions

On instruction of the Belgian Foreign Ministry, the current CG was advised to organise a reception for the 15th of November commemorating the King's Day held annually in honour of the king.

Therefore, invitations went out concerning that event to the business, political, important and good friends of Belgium, and 75 in all.

As it transpired, the office of the Ambassador tried in vain to rescind all those invitations without offering an alternative venue.

On the night, being the first cold night of the winter the guests who did not receive the cancellation notice were stood at the locked gates of the venue. The doorman sticking out his head announced, "No party is going on".

Not a party to attend

Typical of what might be announced to one if trying to gatecrash a private party in some rundown location, but not when invited to a grand occasion like the Belgian King's Day in Upper East side New York offering impressive views of the Central Park from large windows.

Anyway, the guests received a letter of apology at the gates and the representatives who were summoned by the Foreign Minister to explain this debacle have since returned to their posts.

One is surprised that the real and underlying issue has not been addressed. A case of petty tyrants who having represented their country for so long, have evolved beyond understanding the privilege of representation into an embarrassment.

No scruples should have been pulled in serving them their golden parachutes and allow others who would pride themselves more in serving the country selflessly to mend the fences in this regard.

Egg on faces

The CG even had the integrity and dignity to offer his resignation, however, one's view is the Belgians are worthy of better.

We see the poise and dignity of Justine Henin-Hardenne, Kim Clijsters and Xavier Malisse, who as individual lawn tennis sports personalities have done a lot representing their country that these diplomatic dinosaurs seem ready for fossilisation.

One has liberally quoted from Nadine Goertz's news piece, and there might be a lot more to this story than we both have access to. However, the King's Day should have been celebrated and the guests feted by both representatives at the customary venue.

It also transpires that it is in the office of the CG to invite guests to such an event, so for the ambassador to attempt rescinding the invitations was at worst cack-handed and uncivil.

Failing the first test

Whenever the differences were between the ambassador and the CG, even though the ambassador's residence is used to host these parties, which he would well be aware of, they should not have been played out on an important diplomatic occasion as this.

In fact, with 37 years between them, they had failed the first test of diplomacy or rather tact, which by the Merriman-Webster dictionary definition is - a keen sense of what to do or say in order to maintain good relations with others or avoid offence.

If on such a small issue they have not acquitted themselves well, they cannot handle the bigger issues of world stage politics with the panache that equates the status of Belgium.

Back to Diplomacy 101

Having served as ambassadors to Poland, NATO, Ethiopia and some other African countries between them, this one misdemeanour is too great a faux pas in these times of delicate diplomatic relations with the United States and on the issues of NATO to go without a re-schooling on what diplomacy is all about.

They have served and they should now go. It is unlikely; the renown of Belgian parties in New York would have recovered sufficiently for the same guests to grace the next King's Day celebration.

The representatives have taken Belgium off the social calendar.