Berlin: The price tag misery in Germany

A drift from purpose

Being exhausted from a number of unexplainable things resulting in lacking focus and losing my drive that I was not being as productive as I would have liked, I had to get away.

It is quite possible that having not yet taken an annual holiday in over a year, I have become lethargic and somewhat listless, the concern of what to do for my 50^th birthday in December is beginning to weigh on my mind too.

At this and I planned at the very last minute a weekend in Berlin where it is very possible all I will do is sleep in my hotel and get some rest whilst the world moves on, invariably, this will not help and it adds to my utter discomfiture.

No sleep for the determined

Yet, I still have some of that sharpness in my rather tired head, I have only just caught up on the sleep I lost for a whole night. Occupied by thoughts, I decided to fix my trusty Toshiba NB100 notebook. It runs an Intel Atom CPU and though it is specified to take just 1GB of RAM, at the point of sale, the shop manager replaced it with a 2GB module and it worked and that at no extra cost.

This was about 8 years ago, then it had Microsoft Windows XP which I upgraded to Microsoft Windows 7 and a few months ago I installed the Microsoft Windows 10 Preview which worked for a few days but the WiFi dongle that worked in the earlier version of Microsoft Windows conked out when I tried to update the drivers in Microsoft Windows 10 and with it an inability to boot up.

Nothing I did could fix the problem, even wiping the system and starting from scratch, so insomnia gave me the opportunity to start with the installation of Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional and the Microsoft Office 2013 Professional, it was slow, especially the Click-to-run aspect that took almost a day.

Not what it says on the price tag

Anyway, I arrived in Berlin and decided to get a German SIM card for my dual-SIM phone, I walked into the electronics shop, asked for a SIM card and was presented with one that gave me a number of call minutes, a Short Message Service (SMS) texts and 1GB of data.

The SIM envelope had €9.90 printed on it, but I was being charged €19.95, at least that was what was on the till. So, I asked then to explain how they arrived at €19.95, the shopkeeper said he knows, but he could not show me how the figures add up.

I guess this is an interesting difference I have found between the United Kingdom and German, in the former, the price tag attached to an item takes precedent, in the latter, the price displayed at the till takes precedent. I was having none of it.

I got a better deal

For instance, so what happens if you go shopping based on the price tags or on an advertised price and find that at the till you are paying more than what the price tags indicated? The whole reason for price tags is obviated if the price of goods you want to purchase remains a mystery. I can understand if you need to barter, but a shop that uses price tags on goods must always match that price with what eventually gets displayed at the till.

In my view, it was a raw deal, and maybe in jest or seriousness, the shop manager said I will remember them after our exchange and dispute, indeed, I will remember them for failing to prove to me how they came to the price they wanted to charge me, besides, as I told them, I will probably get a better deal in town.

I did, for the same price, I got 5GB data, but the Germans desperately need a Trade Descriptions Act something that takes the mystery of pricing away from the price tag being some guidance that might only be proven at the till where you are probably embarrassed to pay up, because that is the norm – one I will never subscribe to.

Opinion: Before the law, the veil is removed

Our open outlook

There are many reasons as a Western European I love living here even as a minority of many sorts. Despite the occasional negatives of racism, deprivation, inequality and much else, we as a people are probably still the most tolerant, accommodating, liberal and gregarious of all humanity.

That might be disputed but on the whole, we live and let live; very rarely do we impose our views on others and apart from populists and rabble-rousers for political gain, we are a peaceable people.

Garb and barb

However, over the last decade or so, our liberal democratic values of separation of religion and state to varying degrees have been challenged by the ingress of cultures, traditions, beliefs and attitudes that are not fundamentally what we might call our historical Western Judeo-Christian heritage – some have balked, but most have acquiesced, we make allowances, many allowances at that.

Recently, it has been about religious garb, the matter of coverings and modesty vary just as our interpretations of what constitutes those might differ depending on our beliefs and customs.

Germans for instance are not afraid of nudity, in fact, it is called, Freikörperkultur (FKK) which translates literally to Free Body Culture, it is a movement quite different from nudist sun-bathing and any other forms of public nudity, but that is a topic for another day. [Wikipedia]

To veil and to reveal

Yesterday, in the UK, we pussy-footed around the issue of the use of the full veil in relation to Islamic tradition when a lady appearing in court for a completely different issue of witness intimidation took us on a legal distraction as to whether she could appear in court fully veiled and never have the requirement to take it off. [BBC News]

The wisdom of judges must be commended when they give their opinions on these very sensitive issues, because in this case, the judge was accommodating of the lady to allow her wear her veil in court during the proceedings but that veil had to be removed when giving evidence.

Indeed, anyone who takes the witness box should only be accorded privacy and the possible invisibility for their safety and privacy as we do with minors, however that cannot be extrapolated on religious grounds to prevent an essential instrument of recognition and expression critical to jury observation and assessment, court is beyond just the hearing of words in answer to questions and cross-examination.

The visage of safety

The primary mode of identification for the elimination of doubt and the building of communal trust is the face as far as Western Europe is concerned, if you must access the public space for the convenience of the majority, which implicitly includes safety and security, the face must be visible.

We are conditioned to believe that a covered face is indicative of an assumed criminality, and whilst a religiously modest and pious woman might well be the most law-abiding citizen around, having a veiled face introduces an unnecessary threat, redefining our conditioning whilst it also can be exploited to ulterior ends – it is an unnecessarily difficult accommodation that we have to tolerate.

Dressed to digress

Back to Germany, it was a case of whether a girl could be allowed to wear the modest burkini if she were forced to attend compulsory swimming classes and then the extended religiously-tinged demand of her parents to prevent her splashing around with scantily clad boys in the pool. [Wikipedia][Economist]

Whilst, the burkini is almost too much dress short of a wetsuit with the attendant issues that do not need much exegesis, it is quite an accommodation redolent of our liberal and tolerant disposition to many cultures different from ours, we find it acceptable enough to not only condone it but accept it as wholesome and fashionable for those who choose to don that garb of presumed modesty.

Freedom and entitlement

However, judges found this accommodation that first could not exempt the girl from co-educational swimming classes which is the norm, by stating that, “the basic right of religious freedom does not confer any entitlement to be spared from encountering, at school, the behaviour of third parties... [behaviour] which is widely observed in daily life, outside school, at certain seasons.”

This construct should become both precedent and fundamental, because once again, the judges have identified the community of daily life as an unavoidable space of interaction available to the general public in which as human beings we are by choice allowed to participate and we cannot exclusively curtail that environment for the convenience of the few.

Freedom and allowance

The basic right of religious freedom is sacrosanct, you can practice it as fervently and fanatically as you will, but if you do not want to encounter the public in the observance of your beliefs, then the best accommodation we can afford is for you to absent yourself from that setting as a matter of right and privilege if of the age to exercise such a prerogative.

However, as a minor in Germany, where you must attend school and participate in activities that make up part of the curriculum, no entitlement is reserved to create exemptions to the point that each consideration if that situation arises creates disorder and chaos.

Adapt or depart

The broader point without stating it is the cliché - when in Rome, do as Romans do, and if you so feel that you cannot do as Romans do, the Romans should not have to change or adapt their Roman ways to your requirements as an entitlement, else they will no more be identified by their Roman ways, nevertheless, you having arrived in Rome might well find ways to adapt to what Romans do or extricate yourself from Roman influence by being in a recluse or leaving Rome entirely.

Beyond this, we must be concerned about the influx of ideas beyond the need for safety and security in the public space that informs the regulation of the public space by granting specific entitlements to certain persons, groups or beliefs which will curtail the freedoms and liberties we as a majority have for the satisfaction and accommodation of others.

The blunter point in terms of these conflicts of religious adherence that challenge the freedoms we all enjoy is that the law is finding better ways to say; adapt to your current environment and circumstances or depart to where those beliefs you so espouse have unquestioned currency.

Thought Picnic: A sense of space

Riding is ingrained

When I visited Germany for the first time in November 1995, I went to visit an old friend of mine who had returned to Germany and was living in what was then a changing East Berlin.

The strangest thing we did was to get on bicycles at night and ride for hours considering I had not ridden a bike for at least 9 years and that was just for an evening, before which I was probably just a teenager when I did have a functioning bicycle.

A sense of space

I was amazed not so much about the buildings that looked grey or brown as if they were time capsules of sepia that reminded you of a bygone age but the sense of space, the public spaces as in roads, parks, public buildings and the grandiloquent monuments usually exemplified in statues dotted all around the place.

I formed a theory in my mind that the leadership of closed societies where expression is not free had perfected a form of social engineering where this sense of space appeared to offer a kind of freedom by repressing dissent but opening up spaces as if that availability of space is the substitute for openness of the mind.

A town boy in the country

Now, I have always been a city dweller most of my adult life to compensate for my inability to drive and sometimes to cater for my single status – the former makes sense because public transport has quite catered for my needs but the latter has simply confirmed a truism; you can both be alone and lonely even in a crowd.

When I left Amsterdam for Almere and then a week in Breukelen is when I realised that space did exist in the Netherlands, lots of it, especially in Almere which had been planned out to such detail to have lakes, farms, bicycle paths, parks, greens and much else.

The conurbations could look busy but the layout in general seemed to make you want to breathe and feel that you could be at one with nature just outside your door.

Much space in France

Now, in France and just about 30 kilometres east of Paris at Bussy-Saint-Georges I also find this sense of space, it is obvious from the roads that seem to be long wide stretch into a vanishing point, real avenues and by that, I mean roads lined by trees and these roads are central main roads with less busy parallel roads that feed the offices and houses.

The love for space suggests that between 1999 and 2006 there was a year on year 30% increase in population  and not only have I noticed lots of Far-East Asian tourists at my hotel, there are quite a few restaurants and businesses run by them suggesting there is a sizeable population of that ethnicity here too.

Nature is given a chance to show up with parks and lakes dotted about that place, it is commuter-belt country, just 30 minutes by train into Paris and two train stops on before Paris Disneyland.

In all the time I have visited Paris, I have never really had a good look at the outskirts to see if there was life outside of Paris – there is and not every place is caught up in the stereotype of the restless and riotous banlieues.

I hope to upload pictures soon.

Nuptials in Raguhn

A journey to Raguhn

To the countryside of East-Germany just about 150 kilometres from Berlin to the South was the event for the day yesterday. Borne from the significance of blogging a friendship has developed for the good, in my view.

Raguhn is almost a non-descript town, if not village in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt and its Category 6 station was not open for rail traffic for 3 weeks of July and that meant looking for alternative means of getting there.

A train to Bitterfeld passing through Lutherstadt-Wittenberg – sounds familiar, that was the city where the Christian reformation movement started almost 500 years ago by Martin Luther, worth a visit on my next sojourn to Berlin, I would think - and then a 40-minute bus-ride.

Buses for trains

At Bitterfeld I met other fellow travellers to the wedding, one of whom was uncannily from Amsterdam and hardly a kilometre from where I live who flew in on the same flight from Amsterdam and was flying back on the same scheduled flight – one would have thought the bridegroom would have been mindful of what was more than a mere coincidence.

Unfortunately, when we got to Raguhn my mobilephone-based Google Maps failed to bring up any maps, that is becoming an issue and needs resolution, I have been to a few places with the hope that my mobile GPS would be of help, only to be disappointed.

Thankfully, my co-travellers had printed out the directions and one of whom was a doctoral student of architecture and well, his map-reading skills were evidently not leading us in the right direction until we got some help from a local gardener.

It is the countryside

When we retraced our steps, we needed to cross the railway line that was being upgraded, a sign was put up stopping pedestrians from crossing at that point but there was no pavement or sidewalk (American English) for us to ply – I felt that was dangerous but the rule-bound and recently liberated from Easterm German Communism workmen could not see the sense of our hop-scotch over the railway lines when we could be run over by vehicles that definitely had all right of way.

In the end, a bus came by, drove us up the temporarily abandoned Raguhn Station giving us the safety of a present pavement but no shorter distance to walk, disillusionment was about to set in with the all too familiar countryside fragrance of cattle dung.

We finally found the location, a road badly in need of serious upkeep, with potholes and undulations that could cripple the able if not careful and there we were a large expanse of land, more of a park than a garden, with a tennis court, swimming pool, a number of out-houses, sheds and more.

The ceremony begins

The countryside ideas of the bijoux gave way to the concept of space and lots of it, only if the wind would put on the brakes and the weather would move on for some sun to shine.

The introductions were numerous, relations, families, friends, acquaintances and more, I probably was the only one with the toddler daughter of the couple who hadn’t commenced a PhD programme – it was full of doctors but probably none that could administer basic first-aid services.

The couple then came out dressed in traditional Nigerian dress, the bride with a professional tied headwrap called gele in Yoruba and the ceremony or party began – no fuss or outrageous ostentation beyond sense of typical Nigerian parties but a sensible and well-organised series of events centred around food and entertainment.

Joy of parents expressed

There was a lot of that, the father of the bride, an accomplished choir master and violin virtuoso performed with a small orchestra a number of popular classical pieces and we started off with drinks and cakes.

The mother of the bride lead a few folk dances that were as entertaining as they were almost clownish too and then we had a Powerpoint presentation that gave us a story about the couple, their forebears and the expectations for the future.

A barbecue with more entertainment closed the evening with music from a university band and discussions between the bride’s mother and the groom’s aunts through an interpreter – interesting questions, more interesting answers and well multi-cultural unions are just things opportunities for a wonderful learning experience between the relations of the couple.

Wishes and departures

We were given helium-filled balloons and cards on which to write wishes for the newly married couple, the views varied between the stridently religious and the generally pragmatic but in all most balloons lifted off with the best of wishes and goodwill from all.

The quest to return to Berlin began with wondering how and where to get a bus for the connection to Dessau, a stopover and a journey set to last almost 3 hours. Eventually, a family offered me a lift to the West of Berlin, Spandau, it was then that I realised how far out of Berlin we were.

I got back to my hotel by 23:30 hours, that was just about the time I would have had to catch a train from Dessau for a 2 hour journey to Berlin – a wonderful, pleasant and beautiful day out and my very best wishes for a long life together of happiness, joy, love, health, wealth and prosperity for the couple and all their children, starting with the first.

Raguhn? Well, I know where it is now.

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

Nigeria: A conversation with Madam Hollandais

A chance meeting and much more

Not that I noticed her at first when she moved to the table beside mine on the train to Frankfurt for the comfort of using her laptop and the conductor came round to check our tickets.

She lives in Africa but has a German address, she said to the conductor to my hearing, and well, a conversation ensued almost immediately, she first thought I was probably Kikuyu, she had lived in Kenya; my apparel did not belie the stereotype of other places, but when I said I was from Nigeria, she boldly asked where from and responded that I would be Yoruba.

In fact, she is a resident of Abuja, the Nigerian administrative capital and she would pass for the atypical but knowledgeable and sincere white African in my book with all the accolades that entails.

The blouse was Vlisco Hollandais over which was a dark jacket with another colourful Vlisco Hollandais pocket square, I was in conversation with Madam Hollandais as she is known in Nigerian circles.

We parted ways in Cologne but I do not think this would be the last of our conversations.

[Edited, redacted and amended 14th June 2010.]

Save the children - From their parents?

Burnt child

First in Austria, one cannot begin to imagine that Josef Fritzl probably conducted a few abortions on his daughter before he decided the products of their incestuous liaisons should come to term as children.

It is sickening that on the death of one of the children, rather than dignify the child with either a proper burial or a cremation, he dumped the child in an incinerator and that was the end of the matter.

Stabbed children

And so in Scotland we read of the discovery of two dead boys in a car near a beauty spot just north of Glasgow. It transpired that the boys aged 2 and 6 were stabbed, apparently by their father estranged from their mother and seemingly had not been successful in killing himself.

It really beggars belief that a relationship which at one time was the joy of all involved that it lead to the birth of those beautiful people could have soured so much as to damage all involved to this extent.

A lot must be to blame for this event, the father, the mother and their inability to keep the relationship going for whatever reasons and the system that accords rights of custody and visitation with scant regard for the emotional strain it can place on parties involved.

The children who were supposed to be at the centre of the matter of care and concern who supposedly would have received the best result of a separation have now become the unfortunate victims of a situation I naively cannot properly understand.

Frozen babies

Then in Germany, a teenage son goes down into the cellar to see if he can find a pizza in the freezer and ends up finding 3 bodies of babies in the freezer that could date back 20 years.

You begin to wonder if those were his brothers and why he decided a pizza would be in that freezer of all the other freezers that might have been on that house from which he might have retrieved a pizza before. The tale reveals all.

His mother seems to be the culprit, this is all looking insane.

Neglected children

Portugal must have had its share of being the place not to take your children on holiday after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann just over a year ago.

But I could not believe my ears when I read that a couple – parents with young children age 1, 2 and 6 – had drunk themselves to a holiday stupor that they collapsed with the result of their children being put into care for a night.

If we have to save the children from their parents, what safety do children have in this world? I do wonder.

Nigeria: Ambassadors, be honoured to serve or get lost

The smart tortoise

One can conclude that we would not see grand strides and breath-taking leaps of progress from the government of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, it is however nothing to worry about.

The President’s abilities and style of government appears understated, but as the fable informs us, being a fast hare does not win you the race; the smart but slow tortoise could sometimes be better prepared and poised not to teach the hare about running but about winning races.

Some bloggers have labelled the President slow and sleepy; one would contend it is an unfair assessment of the man.

Looking at the many little decisions the President makes about issues, you end up for a directional, purposeful and determined leader not ready to brook unnecessary distractions from people who are not ready to follow the example of the servant-leader.

The Ambassadorial gift

One good example of this leadership style is in the appointment of ambassadors and high commissioners to other countries.

This list is awaiting approval by the Senate it would have been drawn up by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in conjunction with party operatives and some other power brokers.

Ambassadorial appointments can be ways of placating political rivals or sending them out of the political fray; it could also be a tactical move of planning the retirement of untouchable senior civil servants; sometimes it rewards service to Nigeria or lumbers Nigeria’s image with buffoons.

Accepting, lobbying or declining

The ex-Chairman of the People’s Redemption Party – Dr. Ahmadu Ali was one of the political appointees being placated and moved out of the political fray with an appointment to South Africa.

That happens to be the most significant political and economic entity in Africa, but Dr. Ali would have none of it, he was lobbying to go to the UK or the USA – it makes you wonder if representing Nigeria is the choice of the selectors or the selected.

Some people are going to dreadful countries like Burma and Zimbabwe, who does Dr. Ahmadu Ali really think he is?

My view is if we do have an operating and functional government in Nigeria, that government should be the final arbiter as to who represents Nigeria where – it is left for that person to take the honour and serve or respectfully decline and move on.

Career or political?

All governments need elements of political representation but a balance should be struck with technocratic and career representation – the list shows ambassadors appointed from a political or career diplomatic perspective – politicians might have to be properly schooled in diplomatic speak, Nigeria is too significant a country to have bumbling gaffes from our ambassadors.

Well, the President would have none of Dr. Ali’s truculence and he has asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs to appoint a career diplomat to the South African position with the hope the person would relish the opportunity and serve with distinction.

Influence peddling is passé

Dr. Ali must now realise that political influence peddling for positions of importance would not cut the muster with the President – he would not have people gum up the works because of what they think they deserve instead of humbly accepting the honour of representing the country.

I would hope that Dr. Ali would be committed to political oblivion from now on as a lesson to others who think Nigeria owes them when in fact they owe Nigeria a duty of selfless service for the opportunities they have gained from Nigeria and in many cases they ways they have relentlessly abused those opportunities for personal gain.

The least they could do is considering representing Nigeria with distinction in restitution and if they would not, their wings should be clipped and Nigeria move on.

The Chancellery in Deutschland

I remember just over 3 years ago, I visited to the Nigerian Consulate in Germany and met the ambassador, I was not sure of what to think of the setup, it was full of obsequious and fawning workers.

No one spoke out of turn, all the bowing, genuflection and Sirs by the score – it was suffocating. I was even advised only to speak when spoken to.

I think not, one cannot have a decent education and then be a dummy when in the presence of dignitaries – there is the matter of protocol and there is the matter of polite and intelligent conversation.

The ambassador was extremely pleasant and warm in his demeanour, he was engaging and generous with his time offering access to his home and a chauffeur-driven service to take us round town – it was a relief to see the difference between demeaning sycophancy and elevating mutual respect.

I would think the ambassador sometimes craves the company of people who can honestly speak their minds – I could be irreverent but there was no reason to be in his company.

Back to the matter at hand – Good job, Yardy.

Nigeria: Yar'Adua healthy from Germany with love

Rushed out to Germany again

This situation continues to baffle me, that we have a President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who needs to fly out to see his private doctors in Germany anytime he has an ailment.

Someone must be telling me that in that great oil-producing nation there is nobody nor any institution with the knowledge, expertise, equipment and location to treat our President.

The situation is so damning as it is laughable and the joke is made all the more derisive when his spokesman suggests that he had an allergic reaction – is there an adrenalin nurse in the house?

I would suppose there was someone in Nigeria to administer some palliative medicine to arrest the allergic reaction whilst he travelled 7 hours on a plane to Wiesbaden in Germany see his doctor.

The real mandate to the Ministry of Health

In fact, we see the messing around that has been happening in the Ministry of Health with the fraudulent disbursement of bonuses to staff for keeping Nigeria in a disgraceful situation.

The oversight committee in the Senate does not seem to know there is a conflict of interest in taking money for junkets from an arm of the Executive when you are in the legislature – rather than having junkets in Ghana, as if Nigeria does not have team-building and bonding facilities good enough for its representatives – they should have been working on ensuring there is at least a facility of world standard that could address medical problems of our leaders.

Again, the irony and shamelessness is really not lost on anyone when the spokesman goes on to say, “There is nothing that precludes the president from seeking healthcare abroad. Even leaders in advanced countries do that.”

We have a health emergency

I am not sure Chirac, Bush, Blair, Shroeder, Koizumi, Howard, Berlusconi, Martin or Putin (That is the G8 leadership at around 2004) have ever left their countries to seek treatment when the best in their country is at their beck and call. It would be disingenuous of me to suggest that the best in Nigeria are not good enough for our President.

The spokesman however acquiesces to the feeling we all have, as he says, “I share the position that our country should be able to make travelling abroad for medicals (sic), either for the President or any other citizen, a matter of choice rather than of necessity.” He took the words out of my typing.

Then we are given the political spiel about critical challenges, access and commitment – meanwhile, Yar’Adua recuperates from Germany with love till Tuesday after a week of being away.

Do we have a health emergency? We do; the possibility of the bad luck of losing a President and Goodluck stepping in – Nigeria could not suffer worse luck – I am down on my knees with fervent supplication in sack-cloth and ashes – This should not be our lot.

The need for fairness in taxes

Easy to file

I just filed my taxes with the Dutch tax authorities called Belastingdienst and if anything being the son of an accountant and having every mutation of the anti-accountancy gene in my being, they have the simplest tax filing system in the whole wide world.

It is all done electronically, you download a programme, install it and you just go through the sequence of filling in the numbers then use your DigID code to file the stuff – all done in under 20 minutes.

All you require are a number of Year Summary (Jaaropgave in Dutch) letters you get from your employer or employment agency, your mortgage lender, the community value of your home based on the assessment of your local government and a number of insurance details.

I do not complicate my tax filing with receipts of taxi rides and other little expenses, the time spent adding up pennies (cents) ends up losing you pounds (Euros).

When I looked at the summary of my returns I suddenly realised I was so much into the top tax band, it made me sick, I was paying so much at 52%.

Tax breaks away from home

Now, I moved to the Netherlands at a time when the UK Labour Party was introducing a new tax code called IR35 where as a self-employed owner of a company my income was to be taxed at source rather than after it had gone through the company – there was an exodus at a time when the UK needed IT personnel.

At the same time, the Netherlands had been attracting brains and skills for decades with what they called the 35% ruling which gave you the first 35% of your income tax-free before the local taxes apply.

At that time, you could claim back literally everything, soon after they closed a number of loopholes and reduced the tax break to 30% and most of those claims did not go through as easily as before.

The issue here when it comes to taxes is not that people do not like to pay taxes but that when taxes do not have an element of fairness, people who pay more tend to feel they are getting nothing back.

If I had stayed in the UK, I would have been looking for an extra GBP 20,000 a year in taxes for a situation where the transport system would not have improved, where I still had to pay heavily for essential health services through insurance and where access to social services were restricted because I did not have a disadvantaged or poor profile.

Moving to the Netherlands with my career profile allowed me to take advantage of a tax break that can run for 10 years before one settles into the full Dutch tax whack.

Infiltrating tax havens

An interesting issue about the fairness of rates of tax is brewing in Europe, surreptitiously; the German secret service through bribery involving a large sum of money (€5 million or $7.3 million) and subterfuge obtained names of German citizens with bank accounts in Liechtenstein who presumably have hidden their wealth from the taxman at home.

They have been trying to obtain this information from Liechtenstein and they have been unable to break the confidentiality clauses that make the Liechtenstein banking system a favoured haven for who feel entitled to have greater percentage of their hard-earned wealth in their pockets than in the wasteful hands of big government.

In fact, it appears an informant had also offered some information about Britons to the UK tax authorities for a price, but they turned the offer down.

Tax fairness would defeat tax evasion

Now, they are accusing Liechtenstein of aiding and abetting tax evaders which is a rather grave if not scurrilous accusation.

Germany now plans to tighten the screws on European tax havens, because they presumably foster tax evasion.

Well, I think that attack plan is wrong headed, because the issue is not necessarily the legality of taxation, I am sure everyone would willingly pay their taxes; the problem is the fairness of the system of taxes.

Crown Prince Alois, the hereditary prince of Liechtenstein went to the crux of the matter when he said of the German system – “If it were a more direct democracy with a better tax system perhaps its citizens would not cheat”.

Hard words, but ones that have the bitter taste of the truth, most of the tax systems in Europe and the United States are warped, over-burdening, unfair and not delivering value for money for the people who contribute the most.

Liechtenstein is not the problem, they are not the tax evaders, Germany is the problem, their tax regime is burdensome and unfair leading their citizens to seek havens for their large incomes.

It is evidently a matter of human nature to find ways to circumvent a feeling of unfairness and if one has the means to implement the measures, they would; in this case in tax havens that have strict confidentiality laws.

A taxed purpose

Whilst tax provides a means of revenue generation for the government, it behoves the government to ensure the moneys go to activities in a prudent manner for managing infrastructure and services without wastefulness - wishful thinking.

I am not sure that taxing for redistribution of wealth is a fair thing, it penalises those who really do work hard to succeed and lets off those we might wrongly assume do too little to get ahead or do nothing at all but leech on the state having children irresponsibly and so on – a reactionary diatribe.

The aspect of repricing is general and based on consumption and representation which implies that “rulers tax citizens and citizens demand accountability” - is almost Utopian.

The only way we can hold people accountable for the way our taxes are spent is through elections that just get rid of politicians; we still retain the same mandarins.

For instance, in the UK, the government has committed over GBP 50 billion in taxpayer’s money in shoring up the Northern Dust and with nationalisation assumed for taxpayers twice that in liabilities and not one head has rolled in government or the government agencies that govern the banking system.

Reform and rewrite

In the end, the real work to be done is in addressing, reviewing and rewriting the tax codes of these countries, I do not think anything can justify paying anything near 50% in taxes.

I did at least three 220 hour months in 2007 and this was NOT for the government or so someone who sits at home each day expecting me to pay for their willingness to remain jobless and not take up opportunities where they have no other choices – I had work to do.

What would it take for governments and lawmakers to reform the tax code? People like me waving placards and persuading our representatives that have a bit of capitalist backbone to see the benefits of fairness in taxation rather than penalising us for being successful to make the less successful feel good.

Then I remember when someone racially abused me a few years ago by suggesting that we black people come to his country for welfare - the reality of my response just makes me angrier about taxes. “I probably pay more taxes than you earn in a year and that goes into the government to have idiots like you speak to me like that.” How true.

Other readings

Taxation in the United States – Complex

Federal Tax Reform