Thought Picnic: When Support Becomes Self-Insertion

A Childhood Memory

It was July 1977. My father had lost his great-aunt, the wife of my great-grandmother's younger brother. From letters he and his great-uncle exchanged in the 1960s, I could see this man had been a highly respected mentor and confidante. The funeral would take place in our hometown, and we would all attend.

At the graveside, as the priest finished the oblations of dust to dust and ashes to ashes, we all proceeded to sprinkle earth on her coffin. At that moment, I became inconsolably distraught. I began bawling and weeping, overcome with grief. I literally became a distraction. Even as we left the graveside, people continued to console me.

One thing I noted about that day was that no one else, not even the grandchildren, put up such a performance. I was genuinely affected, but others might have wondered why I was weeping more than the directly bereaved.

Learning to Respond

Understanding how to respond to human misery is essential in ways that may not be easily understood. We often mistake our kind of engagement as sharing in the burden of others' misery when it is not.

This became quite apparent to me after my first encounter with cancer. Before that, I had neither the understanding nor the frame of reference to appreciate what people were going through. I could offer a sense of concern, perhaps a lot of sympathy, and possibly some empathy.

On occasion, I have inserted myself into another's misery by narrating my own tale of woe instead of listening to them and offering both comfort and succour.

Nowadays, my experience of cancer, its mental toll, pain, and other life issues makes me knowledgeable enough. Yet I would never suggest to someone in that situation that I know what they are going through, even when I understand their predicament based on what I have experienced.

Finding the Balance

Fundamentally, what is important is not being more affected than those who are truly affected, more distressed than those genuinely distressed, or becoming too ingrained in a situation to which we have no direct connection or relationship. We need to be aware of the degree of affinity, determined from intimate to acquaintance, and further to belonging, whether in a community or through some other sense of identification.

Then again, there is a place for activism on behalf of others. Causes with which we identify can benefit ourselves and others, addressing issues like disengaged officialdom, injustices, advocacy, and knowledge sharing, as I do when informing others about prostate cancer.

However, my prostate cancer awareness activity does not become one where I begin to bear the prostate cancer risk of others. That is not helpful to anyone, and that is the broader lesson: be conversant without becoming absorbed, be understanding without becoming overbearing, and beware of inserting yourself into an issue so completely that you become the issue through how you express yourself about matters for which you have deep feelings.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Manchester Pride has become a purposeless Bacchanalia

Profit before purpose

The August Bank Holiday Weekend in Manchester has for long been set aside for the celebration of Manchester Gay Pride, though the Gay has been dropped from the name to make the festival that starts from Friday through Monday more widely celebratory or possibly more commercially palatable to the mainstream.

One can see that our city has had an influx of patrons who are here to revel and party along with anything else they can get up to. Yet, I cannot say we are as residents that the Manchester Pride apparently represents are happy with the state of affairs. Manchester Pride is now a business.

More profit without purpose

Yet, the roots of LGBTQI+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer, Intersex and other related identity groups) Pride are in agitation, protest, activism, and campaigns against persecution, prosecution, discrimination, injustice, abuse of power and authority, violence, harassment, unfairness and the denial of common rights and privileges enjoyed by mainstream society. [Wikipedia: Pride parade]

At the beginning of the month, we learnt that Manchester Pride will no more be supporting key community support charities as the LGBT Foundation’s condoms and lube initiative and George House Trust that supports people living with HIV. [BBC News: Manchester Pride ends support for safer sex scheme]

Losing the reason for existence

For years, we have enjoyed the celebration and supported the activism to ensure the humanity of LGBTQI+ people are respected and not violated by political, civil, religious, social, or economic groups whilst also ensuring influential interests do no negate the progress in human rights gained in the last half-century.

The freedoms we have in the West compared with the absence of such in many countries around the world where LGBTQI+ people face persecution and capital punishment calls for constant sober reflection, the causes fought for and won here still need the support of the free to gain traction and victories where those like us have none.

This is not to agitate against festivities; indeed, we must celebrate, but not lose purpose or focus on community support and partnership locally and beyond. Sadly, Manchester Pride has become a project without a cause and as it is now, bereft of purpose.

This is not our pride

In my 8 years of living in Manchester, each year the Pride parade was passed in front of my apartment block, I bring a folding chair out of my home to sit and watch the apparent celebration of all. The parade did not happen because of the pandemic last year and this year, they have concentrated on partying on the premise that artists who have had a bad pandemic year need more support.

Even though I have never attended any of the concerts, I have contributed to Manchester Pride until 3 years ago when it became obvious that representation and community engagement was less an impetus for their existence. Having built on the success of LGBTQI+ activism, they have now abandoned that for the commerce and profit at the expense of those they portend to represent.

There is no doubt that there is a need to arrest the decline of purpose with a change of the trusteeship, executive, and management of Manchester Pride, the sooner, the better for the good of all. This is not our pride; it is just a Bacchanalia that has usurped an LGBTQI+ identity.

The selfless and vicarious LGBT activism of Uche Maduagwu

Act 1 Seen Enough

It was not a few months ago that Uche Maduagwu who I do not know from Adam came out as ‘proudly gay’. He is apparently a Nigerian actor and so probably well known in Nigeria. Now, I am completely unconcerned about Uche Maduagwu’s sexuality, but when viewed in the context of Nigeria, the fact that an ordinary but albeit influential person, who is just ordinary first and whatever else and then happens to be gay, can be interesting, yet should be insignificant. [Gay Times: Nigerian actor Uche Maduagwu comes out as “proudly gay”]

In a recent Instagram post, Mr. Maduagwu now claims he is not gay, he was just fighting for LGBT rights that appear to have cost him movie roles, endorsements, and his relationship with his girlfriend. I sympathise. Now, Mr. Maduagwu may choose to be gay or not at any time of his convenience like he is assuming a movie role; many LGBT+ Nigerians do not have that luxury, it is not a fad, it is their lives.

Instagram post of Uche Maduagwu

This is our lives

LGBT+ Nigerians are also not fair-weather activists of causes that look expedient until they are at risk of losing jobs, status, relationships, or even their lives. We all have to live with our reality, the dangers and experiences, too numerous to relate, and for all the treasures in the world, we do not deny ourselves but live our truth.

Mr. Maduagwu, God bless him, can be a chameleon or an impostor, by providence or talent, he is an actor and maybe we should thank him for his selfless activism and as if we do not have enough occupying our minds for our safety and survival in Nigeria and elsewhere, his plight is an unnecessary distraction.

We wish him well, but whether he will be forgiven for earning notoriety at our expense, time will tell. Sometime in the future, he might have an epiphany that he is a proud person, and not soon after denying his personhood to be something yet undefined but even more interesting that we cannot ignore his method, his acting and the genius we will never believe he was.

Octogenarians fearing a future dominance of F1 by black drivers?

At the crossroads of equity

For much of my writing, whilst I have written about identity and the relative circumstances that confer privilege and opportunity towards my circumstances, I cannot say I have been an activist.

The surge in global protests and activism after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May, has agitated people, institutions, companies, organisations, and personalities with sometimes soul-searching introspection instructing positive responses with the promise for change and confounded others with indifference and the absence of awareness as they suggest there is nothing amiss.

Memorials and symbols have been revisited for context and significance, highlighting the plight of minorities around the world with the clamour for equality, equity, justice and fairness.

In certain recent events, I have found a spectrum of representation that had me thinking of how minorities fit in and thrive in host communities, especially at work.

Choosing between activism and presence

In an interview with The Guardian, Michael Emenalo, 55, once the Technical Director for Chelsea Football Club, was the lone black senior executive in the English Premier League. Early in the interview, he surmised about his status and his projection of it. “I had to choose whether I would let my activism be a distraction or allow my presence to be an inspiration.”

[The Guardian: Michael Emenalo: ‘The narrative that white is good has to change’]

This is a concept I fully recognise and can relate to. I cannot say I was a flagbearer in certain positions that I have occupied in my career, but it was significant that other ethnic minorities seeing me in those roles found that their aspirations were not limited. More to the point, we cannot all be activists, sometimes just being at the top table is activism enough.

My primary function was not a human resource component of diversity and inclusion, but I represented it and gave light to opportunities those who saw me could pursue. My professional work spoke for itself even if there were times between being patronised and being belittled, you kept at what you do, and the end result proved how and why you were there.

When silence no more works

Then we have Lewis Hamilton, 35, of a much younger generation and a highly accomplished lone black man in Formula 1 who recently has been championing the need for Formula 1 to be more embracing and inclusive by opening up opportunities to those who might not see a pathway to a career in Formula 1.

His advocacy and activism are prominent whilst not distracting from his professional expertise where he currently leads the driver standings having been 6-time world champion. It goes without saying that few sportsmen have achieved his feat and dominance, not only in the UK but in the world. Yet, it is instructive that many others of lesser achievement and in other sports have been knighted whilst he remains an MBE.

This is not to conflate the global sport with British honours, but you wonder how much further his presence being an inspiration as in the case of Michael Emenalo needs to go for his activism to really attract more ethnic minorities to the sport.

Afflicting the comfortable

This is where two Caucasian veterans of Formula 1 appear to have been ruffled, but starting with Bernie Ecclestone, 89, who used to run Formula 1 when he said in June, "In lots of cases, black people are more racist than what white people are."

[BBC Sport: Lewis Hamilton says Bernie Ecclestone comments on race 'ignorant']

Even if Mr Ecclestone’s viewpoint was anecdotal, it was very unhelpful in addressing the issue of opening up Formula 1 to opportunities for ethnic minorities building up from gathering and scouting raw talent to nurturing them through apprenticeships, internships, and expertise acquisition schemes that would culminate in being able to compete on merit alone for openings in Formula 1.

Next came Mario Andretti, 80, in whose words you could see that Lewis Hamilton had begun to afflict the comfortable. They would rather he was silent than activist, with the hope that either organically or by happenstance the opportunities will just show, but Lewis Hamilton has been a Formula 1 driver since the 2007 season, that’s thirteen years and he remains alone.

“I have a lot of respect for Lewis, but why become a militant? He's always been accepted and he's earned everyone's respect.” Mario Andretti

The big problem they refuse to see

Sir Jackie Stewart, 81, then says he doesn’t think there is a problem. Well, I say, if after 13 years and 6 world championships, the figurehead ethnic minority symbol simply needs to double down on the accelerator of his car without highlighting issues within his sport, that would be unfortunate.

“He's quite vocal about these elements, I don't think there's as big a problem as there might seem.” Sir Jackie Stewart.

[Sky Sports: Lewis Hamilton responds to Mario Andretti, Sir Jackie Stewart comments: 'Just disappointing']

I am glad that Lewis Hamilton is not backing down to this trio of octogenarian symbols of white privilege laying out unforgivable tropes, because essentially, they are saying he should be grateful even though he is in his position by dint of hard work and great ability, and that he is being difficult as he is compelling his sport to radically review how it brings talent to the fore.

Then you have this niggling feeling that there is a foreboding and premonition haunting old white men, perish the thought that Formula 1 might become dominated by black drivers, they had better lament it now before a distant future invades the sanctity of their figurative Tutankhamun pyramids making them turn in their mummified graves.

I leave the last word to Lewis Hamilton from the BBC Sport article referenced earlier on this blog.

“It makes complete sense to me now that nothing was said or done to make our sport more diverse or to address the racial abuse I received throughout my career.

If someone who has run the sport for decades has such a lack of understanding of the deep-rooted issues we as black people deal with every day, how can we expect all the people who work under him to understand? It starts at the top.

Now the time has come for change. I will not stop pushing to create an inclusive future for our sport with equal opportunity for all. To create a world that provides equal opportunity for minorities.”

Our mother, the example of community involvement

Our mother, the partisan

My sister, Ibukun Olawepo-Johnson, wrote on Facebook about our mum and her activism, even I learnt a few things too that I had to ask if I could share what she had written, below.

Yesterday I was talking to my cousin about the presidential visit (to Lagos), I told him I can bet my last kobo that my mum was at the stadium in Surulere.

It dropped in my mind that we have a lot of lazy youth in this country, my mum retired from the civil service after 35 years of service. I think she was even kept on for one extra year because of the beautiful work she did when she was in service.

Our mother, the principal

All throughout the time I knew her, she was a principal and she was a principal in all the trouble areas in Ejigbo, Okota and Oshodi where she had running battles with thugs and difficult students, (I would add, teachers and some presumably family friends who thought she did not deserve her position), she fought them to a standstill and won the battle. She was last promoted to special principal grade.

[Some backstory information, my mother was asked to start a school from scratch at the age of 34 in 1977, she created and ran Ejigbo Community High School for probably 13 years. Just over a year ago, I think in the 40th year of the establishment of the school, the alumni of the school honoured her with a commemoration and thanks for her leadership, mentorship and contributions to the community.]

Our mother, the activist

After she left service she was still very active, later when she moved to her house in Ejigbo, she joined the Community Development Association (CDA) group on her street and became the Chairman of her CDA, somewhere along the line she joined politics and she is a strong member of APC in her area.

My mum had the option of retiring and watching things unfold in her community, but she chose to be involved. Even when my younger sister was ill, and she was her primary caregiver, she still found the time to be involved in what was going on in her community.

When glaucoma almost made her blind, she was still attending CDA and APC meetings and activities at over 75 years old. [We were able to get some of the best medical help to save her eyesight. She is even more up and about with community, political and church activities.]

Our mother, the example

It's a shame on all of us that are under 70, we have the power to be involved in our communities, yet all we do is make noise on social media, criticising the government in our various offices and the country without getting involved to bring about the changes we want.

No one will hand power over to us, we need to be involved get involved in politics.

It is time we clean it up if we feel it is a dirty game.

We need to stop all this ranting and noise making, we need to make the next necessary move to bring on change and take our communities to the next level.

The elders will only hand over to the youth if only the youth are actively involved.

Campaign for your own candidate, don't say my vote does not count; go out to vote and ensure that votes are counted before leaving the polling booth. Demand good governance in your locality and attend CDA meetings.

Change begins with you and me.

Start from your house, move into your street, on to your local government area, then your office, all the way until you get to the very top.

Postscript

This characteristic of community involvement is not unique to our mum, our dad is also quite involved in the community also. From as far back as I can remember when we returned from the UK, the renovation of our homestead, the bringing of electricity supply to our village, the building of the new village cathedral, a new secondary school and many other activities to help people in their careers, businesses and general needs.

They are examples of a standard well beyond whatever we have ever attempted, yet they show a way to what can be achieved when we have the commitment, drive and a vision to make a difference in people, situations and communities.

In this, we begin to commend that exemplary lives of our parents.

Decade Blogs - Chuba Ezekwesili - The Hidden Costs of University Strikes

Decade Blogs

Chuba Ezekwesili in his piece for my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging writes about the true costs of strikes in the tertiary educational sector in Nigeria.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

I would not once suggest that he might have experienced another hidden cost first hand by reason of a relation who might have returned home with headaches about the inscrutable, intractable, interminable and incessant default to industrial dispute between academia and the government of the day.

Yet, I have some really enlightening conversations with Chuba, his mother and his brother on Twitter, whilst his blogs when published are quite insightful and knowledgeable in the use of facts and data and in offering useful opinion and thinking points.

On Twitter, he goes by the handle @ChubaEzeks and blogs at http://naijanomics.me/, and I am honoured to have him write for my series.

Students are most affected by the strikes, whether they are in school, graduated or seeking admission. Chuba identifies those areas and laments about the fact that students do not seem to realise how affected they are to get agitated enough to demand engagement, change, accountability and responsibility.

That is in my view, a great shame, indeed.

The Hidden Costs of University Strikes

Got back to Nigeria over a year ago and I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity of experiencing a fuel strike and a Universities Union strike. As should be clear to anyone, strikes negatively affect the economy directly and indirectly. The direct costs of strikes are mostly financial. [BBC News] [Vanguard Nigeria]

According to Reuters, the 2012 fuel strike cost Nigeria $1.2 billion after only 8 days of striking. Also, the Punch newspaper estimates that the total sum in salary for the lecturers during period of the ASUU strike may run into billions of naira. So yes, we’ve lost billions thanks to these strikes, but there’s more to them than financial loss.

The indirect costs are less obvious and perhaps more potent to the economy in the long run. Worse still, these indirect costs tend to be far greater in the skilled sectors-especially the academic sector-than in the non-skill sectors. Why? Cause it has long lasting effects that cannot be solved solely through money. Atrophy of knowledge. Knowledge – like a muscle – declines the less one makes use of it.

Academic schedules are created with strategic amounts of time to ensure that students are able to learn as much as possible. Sadly, the unpredictable nature of strikes immediately interrupts such learning processes. “The academic calendar of the students has already been disrupted. This would mean the adjustment of their timetable and a delay in their year of graduation. The man hours lost over this period would have to be paid for,” notes Professor Yomi Akinyeye, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, the University of Lagos.

Worse still, it creates a wedge in knowledge assimilation. During the strike process, students forget a major part of what had been previously taught. Add this to the fact that with the Nigerian rote method of learning, assimilation is hardly possible. So, with an absence in tutorship, the rate of atrophy is much faster. Consequently, when the strike is over, students are guaranteed to return back to school dumber than they left. How then are they all meant to graduate with Upper Second Class degrees?

Given enough strikes, students can end up spending 2-3 more years attempting to obtain a measly degree. Worst still, by the time these student graduates, they'll be inducted into the one year of NYSC Service. By the end of their NYSC year, few will be retained at their Primary Place of Assignment i.e. where they 'worked'.

Those searching for a job afterwards will be faced with job applications with a requirements like "Applicant must not be older than 24". Consider also that this requirement gets worse as time passes. If one cannot get an entry level job this year due to one's age and lack of work experience, then his/her situation is bound to worsen the next year. This is the reality of thousands of graduates. A system that holds the students back and proceeds to alienate them once they attempt to be economically productive.

Interestingly enough, the consequence of this regressive game of strikes reaches further back to those outside of the University gates: applicants attempting to get into these universities. The delay in the academic calendar of Universities causes a backlog of applicants who end up with more competition over time.

Do the math: the more the applicants to a constant and finite number of universities will only result in the rejection of capable students.

Students will be rejected, not because of their academic inability, but because there’s simply lack of university spaces to accommodate the backlog of applicants. Most of these Secondary School students will have to wait a few years before they can be admitted into these Universities with subpar education.

Within their universities, they will face the same issue of strikes that kept them out of these same universities for so long. Then, they will eventually graduate and be faced with the same age barrier as the rest of those before them.

Sadly, the interesting part of the strike system is that it never affects the two major jousting parties; at least not significantly. The Government suffers no adverse effect from it; after all, the professors are not drilling oil, so their strike is inconsequential to them.

The professors on the other hand do not significantly feel the weight of such strikes as most of them probably have speaking engagements and other projects on the side. Best part of it, they can’t get fired; ask Nyesom Wike, the Education Minister, he tried. [ThisDay Online] [Premium Times]

Once we begin to understand where the incentives lie, we begin to understand who really endures the most of these strikes: the students. Many of whom might be unaware of the true cost of the strike and might just be happy to get back to school.

The game of strike in the education sector might have ended now, but assuredly, another strike will commence once the $1.3bn Government payout runs out. There’s something to continuity that takes more than $1.3bn. The money is nothing but a Band-Aid for a problem that cuts much deeper. It would take the overhaul of a system that encourages incompetence and lack of accountability.

Like Mr. Akin's persistent 10 years of blogging - which has made him proficient - adopting an efficient system improves efficiency & specialisation.

Besides, students must understand the need to become more vocal about how they choose to influence their academic lives, no one bears the cost more than them.

Students were disappointedly quiet during this ASUU strike, and unless they become vocal about the accountability of funds supposedly doled out to ‘improve their education’, they’ll be nothing but pawns on the chessboard of power. Those with the most to lose need to be the most vocal.

Decade Blogs - Bisi Alimi - 10 Years of Blogging

Decade Blogs

Bisi Alimi is so many things I would have loved to be, open, direct, engaged, challenging, gregarious, talented and amazing.

Yet, all those words do not half begin to describe this man who excites passions in people in a spectrum so divergent from persuasively acceptable to the implacably unacceptable.

He gives voice to those who because of culture, stigma, fear and dangers imposed by circumstance and society are unable to engage in the pursuit of happiness.

A classic example of one who though rejected by his homeland has become a global citizen dining with princes and speaking with kings.

It goes to show if your cause is for the greater expression of our humanity and the freedom to live our lives to the fullest potential without the negative encumbrances of religion, creed, doctrine, laws, morality or sententiousness, the world would listen. I am highly honoured to know him as a friend.

Even more pleased that he agreed out his heavy schedule to contribute to my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Bisi Alimi consults in Training, Research, Public Speaker and International Development Consultant on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues, he tweets with the handle @BisiAlimi and his website is located at http://www.bisialimi.com. I would let his piece speak for itself. Enjoy.

10 Years of Blogging

When I got the DM (direct message) from Akin Akintayo to write for the 10^th year anniversary of his blogging adventure, I went in a state of panic.

Now this panic was not about my being empty of mind of what to write, no it was never about that, because when it comes to writing, I think I have a lot to say. My panic stemmed from the challenge it takes to write for Akin Akintayo. How on earth will I be able to live up to the expectation of his blog devotees?

Over the course of 10 years, he has built for himself a fan base that not only read his blog for his articulate reasoning, but also for is unashamedly exigent use of English, something that for me is a no go area.

Then just while going to bed on the night of 17^th December, I received the biggest inspiration ever. I realised that my place is never to compete with this man I call Uncle Akin. I realised that I will never be like him and I should never be like him. I realised that this is not a time for me to show to his fan base that I can at least put together two sentences or know a bit of grammar and that I hardly use spell check for his writing (though that will be telling lies).

I realised that this is the time for me to celebrate one of the many that has come to change my life forever, someone that I not only call an uncle, but have upgrade to the position of a father, a brother and even more confidante.

I met @forakin over a year ago. I met him via twitter; it was one of those ‘Bisi you have to meet @forakin’ kind of tweets. I followed him and after few tweets and retweets, we agreed to meet in the spring of 2012. As usual, it was a raining and sunny day in London. We met just at the Starbucks by the London Underground Embankment Station.

I will be very honest; I had no idea how the day would end, but I was pretty excited meeting this man. I have a very bad habit, when I get introduced to people; I do a background check on them online. I want to know if they have a web presence, who they are, what they stand for and what informs their ideology, so I did the same and that was when I saw his blog, read some of them, and I was overtaken by pride and fear.

I can remember spending about two hours with him inside that Starbucks café, talking politics, sexuality, economy, travelling and many other things. Right there and then, I was sure we would surely be friends for life.

That day set the pace of a lifetime journey with @forakin and me. I have listened to him with so much admiration. There are few people in this world that can tell me what to do, and I will do. There are very few people in this world I dare not look in the face. I can humbly say @forakin is at the top of that list.

We both have been through a lot together. Like a little boy I have had the opportunity to listen to him tell the story of his life. Many tales brought tears to my eyes, many were great delights, and many were exciting. However, one thing stood clear, all the things he has shared with me have helped in shaping my views about myself and other people.

If I have the time I will list one million and one ways he has influenced myself, however, there are few that are worth mentioning.

I remembered the many conversations we have had about challenges in life. How he has overcome many of the tests life has tossed his way. I remembered many times, him looking in my eyes when I got really scared and doubted myself, telling me that I can do it.

Like a father, whenever I am on stage speaking, I look with pride into the audience and see @forakin, his eyes and head urging me on.

While I have the luxury of never doing anything wrong, he will never let my bad behaviour go unchecked. He has such strong position on making me a good man that he will not sit back and allow me to go astray.

I remembered the many nights he will call or text me just to let me know that he believes in me. At the peak of my depression in the spring of 2013, he along with Funmi Iyanda was there for and with me.

I remembered your decision to take me away to take me to Torquay when my relationship broke down thereby giving me back my self-confidence and self worth. You took the time to let me enjoy the beauty of nature while I nurtured my inner man. I remembered many times you have cried and laughed with me. I remembered many times I came back from work and you have made me wonderful “Asaro”. I also remembered many nights we had gone to bed hungry because there was no food at home.

However, like father and son we disagree on many issues, we never see eye to eye on many issues, but we never allow our differences to destroy the amazing relationship we share.

There are many more things I would have loved to say, but even now as I am writing, the fear of his walking stick pointing at me with a smile on his face that at the same time is telling “I wont take no such rubbish from you” has stopped me in my track.

Akin Akintayo, with pride for being one of the very few on twitter and in real life that can say they know you personally and have drank from your river of love, wisdom, passion, intelligence and humility, I say congratulations of being an enigma.

Finally, I will not finish this essay without saying “Uncle Ilu Oyinbo”, your love for me is immeasurable. Thank you for being one of the cornerstones of my strength and allowing me to share with you the joy of brotherhood.

The Career Activist: Raising Public Causes for Private Purses

Porn for our times

Snippets of information gathered from sources so varied and diverse and woven in a yarn of a nightmare too bizarre for words that one reels with shock.

As the century turned there came those whose sophistry opened the purse strings of funding for projects that were to attend to pressing needs of people dying of a disease that had defied cure but not the management of it.

Collection tins were shaken in the streets of rich countries tugging at the heartstrings of a public that could only spare little but augmented with international aid budgets you had a pool of resource ready to be plundered by the savvy.

As our screens are filled with famine porn, disease porn, malnutrition porn, disaster porn, war porn and whatever pornography that engages the mind and excites altruistic activists to demonstrate, protest and agitate for more action, the money mountains piled up to be doled out to frontmen, spokespersons, activists and espousers of causes we all seem to hold dear in lands afar.

Black holes of aid

Closer to the needy, there are activists who are doing a lot with very little, their resources stretched to the limit and still they are coping with the situation whilst they are insulated from the real funding they need by middlemen elite who have become professional panhandlers with access to international organisations and influential persons.

With the urgency to act at what has always been a crisis exploited by some who had assumed the role of activist, spokesperson and head of some organisation – be it a non-governmental organisation (NGO) or a community based organisation (CBO) with a cause that is at best a guzzler of dollars for the leaders and a dispenser of cents to the led, money has flooded into named projects and selected hands to do what has generated much paperwork activity but no fulfilling result.

The rain is not getting to the ground, that is why the crops have failed and yet more clouds gather for a monsoon – that is the metaphor for the snippets of stories that have accompanied aid activism for many projects to do with family planning, alleviating poverty, addressing diseases as malaria, tuberculosis and most especially HIV/AIDS.

Squandered on self

Suites at conferences where the footmen invited can barely get a place that they literally lie in slave ship formation on some benevolent floor, as the elite select choice persons for sensual pleasure, living the life of oil sheiks to hedonistic for polite phrasing, they have danced on the graves of the many who suffered needlessly as funds were diverted to acquisitive ostentatious living with unconscionable impunity – Woe betide the ones that remain in this activity even as some are long dead.

The money made available for these causes was unbelievably too much and as they shared the largesse amongst themselves, fights broke out and with those fights some light came into what they were up to but whatever is known is just the tip of the iceberg of schemes hatched in minds so reprobate and rotten beyond redemption.

Sadly, as the love of money is the root of all evil, the dissenters and whistle-blowers have run the risk of loss as great as the loss of support, the loss of influence and even the loss of life (assassinations portrayed as armed robbery murders), the corrupt enterprise built on aid activism that appeals to wealthy donors cannot be allowed to suffer the scrutiny necessary to ensure that funds allocated reach the projects advocated.

Lavish lifestyle

Accountability in the evil enterprise of the aid industrial complex peopled by career activists is of the utmost urgency, auditors have to follow the money from the hand-out for things to be done to the handoff of things completed.

It is contemptible that aid is somewhat now intricately linked with lavish lifestyles because of the lack of transparency and accountability; the altruistic activist is rare, many have joined a cause for the money and the lifestyle than for the purpose and the project.

As Imran Khan observed about aid in this June 2013 interview with the New Statesman, “the ruling elite use aid to finance their lavish lifestyle.”

10 years before, Senator Grassley reported, “Over the years, we've seen incidents in which federal funds for HIV/AIDS have been squandered through overcharges for medicines and laboratories, embezzlement of program funds to support lavish lifestyles, or even diversion of AIDS funds to finance political campaigns.”

The great shame

This is not a problem specific to Pakistan or the United States, it is pervasive and the snippets could well involve Nigerians; a story that is in need of telling as more aid and support flows into fences dressed as NGOs with activists jetting around the globe from conference to conference, peddling influence and living large with no care in the world for anyone but themselves.

The greatest tragedy of this abuse of aids funds which might well be found in many countries and it has had its run in Nigeria too is in these words by Senator Grassley, “It’s tragic if people die because the funds they need to survive are being diverted, misspent, or wasted.”

The fact is the funds did come but they were diverted and people died – for this alone, there must be accountability and justice, it is criminal that people have gotten away with this and risen up the ranks as if this is insignificant and of no consequence – it is a shame, a great shame.

Give Your Voice To Rights That Don't Matter To You In 2013

Harmony from afar

The old song goes, “I’ll like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony …” We all know that the world is singing many songs and mostly never the same words, or the same tempo and harmony is so distant that we hold hands and sway our heads into a dreamland of Utopia hoping it signifies peace and harmony.

To sing we need a voice and to that voice we need the words, lyrics that represent our humanity, our struggles, our victories, our losses, our pains, the quest for justice, the call for war, the identities we have or the differences we want to project – there is much for song and much to do.

A world riven

The voice is important, it is critical to producing the sound we need all to hear to bring people to listen so that they can reason and then hopefully they can agree.

We live in an unequal world riven with great injustices, wars, disease, poverty, dispute and much else with people populating the broadest spectrum of extremes between palatial comfort and atrocious discomfort – we cannot stand still and watch the world go by.

Lend your voice

I challenge you to lend your voices this year to that which is just, that which is fair, that which lifts and confers rights on the least amongst us and the most different from us.

We should extricate ourselves from rules, creeds, customs, beliefs, traditions and cultures that bind us to age-old systems that persecute and prosecute others needlessly and become the Good Samaritan of humanity setting people free to be the best they can be because of the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity we all belong to.

Stand!

Let colour, tribe, language, region become insignificant and enter the global village of what allows us to laugh together rather than cry in anguish, what makes us shout in unison than shoot at each other and what lets us embrace those we once saw as lepers rather than ostracise them.

There is much to stand up and be counted for in the quest for human rights and the protection of the same, the campaigning against abuse; the abuse of children, of women, of the vulnerable and of the powerless, rolling back the cloudy pall of sententiousness for the fresh air of acceptance and the fight against institutionalised corruption, racism, rape, victimisation and oppression.

Your voice, the seed

This is not a call to forsake your values but to use your values better to give value to others that you might once have been tempted if only in the slightest to deem worthless.

The voice amongst our friends, in our communities, in our societies, in our countries and well beyond that into the world is what will make the difference to both your lives and those of others around you.

Appeal to reason and reasonableness, persuade but do not dismiss, disagree but refuse to be disagreeable, you are allowed to be irreverent without being disrespectful – call out the hypocrites and expose falsehood – stand with the honest, just and true always because they will always matter.

Know yourself, know others

There is no shelter in excuses and using moral equivalences to justify your position stop you having the essentially critical self-examination and self-scrutiny you need to adapt and change for the better.

There is a voice in you that needs to be heard, in your experiences, your intellect, your unique thinking unclouded by indoctrination, and the better world you want to see – Speak up, stand out, make waves – for when your voice is heard for the least amongst you, you protect both yourselves and others from future oppression that could be overwhelming and unassailable if in your silence you lost those who would have done everything to stand with you and for you.

Make it a year where you fight for rights that mean nothing to you but mean the most to those whose lives and the pursuit of happiness depend on it.

Happy New Year!

Thought Picnic: In Support of Activism

Causes without course

Recently, I have found myself attending meetings where the ideas discussed are far from mainstream.

From a pragmatic perspective, there is no reason for those ideas not be part of the package of the good life of humanity but for all sorts of reasons due to history, culture, traditions, creeds, tenets, laws, religion, beliefs or politics people suffer unmitigated and unnecessarily bad consequences.

The voices are many

In such cases, the cause might well be lost for the individual but it does not have to be lost for society.

What keeps that cause alive is the voices, the many voices of those in favour, those against and those somewhat indifferent but available to be persuaded of the arguments of all sides.

Now, I know that certain voices are extreme, strident, aggressive and uncomfortable but that is the nature of activism and the drive for change.

The method is insignificant

There are times I have not agreed with the methods used but I very well appreciate the broader intentions, which are to achieve a goal that would do humanity a lot of good.

We have seen this in the rights movements to enfranchise the masses, women and then minorities, the activism to extend rights to the underprivileged and much more.

The battles are diverse and unceasing, but the victory for humanity even after great setbacks is only in a matter of time.

Channelling the inconceivable

This brings me to an interesting case of historical literature published in 1868, in the novel Phineas Finn, there is a recorded conversation as to how public policy is formulated and it is interesting that in the political arena, this seems to fetch true all the time.

Attributed to Anthony Trollope, this how the conversation went and I highlight the words that show the progression from inconceivable to essential.

"Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable; – and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made.”

“It is no loss of time,” said Phineas, “to have taken the first great step in making it.”

“The first great step was taken long ago,” said Mr. Monk, – ”taken by men who were looked upon as revolutionary demagogues, almost as traitors, because they took it. But it is a great thing to take any step that leads us onwards.”

The initiators were not popular

The previous two paragraphs indicate that the discourse about a cause must never die and apparently the first step leading to the adoption of such policies would normally have been planted as a seed by those at the time of conception society might have castigated, excoriated, persecuted, prosecuted and even martyred but that is for history to discover and eventually document.

It is why I am never discouraged when a greater cause hits the buffers because of the political discourse of the day, it will never be the end and much will change over time to bring the good to bear of what is currently unacceptable but tolerated.

The Overton Window

Joseph P. Overton then came up with an aspect of political theory that illustrated the narrow window within which an idea might gain acceptance and consequently evolve into policy. This became known as the Overton Window.

The degrees of acceptance in increasing order of acceptance was listed as follows:

• 1.    Unthinkable
• 2.    Radical
• 3.    Acceptable
• 4.    Sensible
• 5.    Popular
• 6.    Policy

Someone will always have to think the unthinkable which with time after convincing others might be seen radical but over the course of time the argument is persuasive enough to be acceptable and might well become sensible enough to be offered as a popular choice by which time there is enough support to make it policy.

Change is inevitable

There are positive and negative trajectories to this but I believe the momentum for change will be for the better if amongst the articulate and prominent voices we have, those who are able to convey with great conviction the reasonableness of an idea that the unreasonableness of the status quo will have to be abandoned.

That is why I am in support of all forms of activism, some could well be counter-productive but in that quagmire the ideas will eventually find refinement and any reasonable person engaging logic with critical thinking and objective discernment will become an ally in the cause for the advancement of humanity, in communities, in societies or in nations at large.

The two-state solution for Palestine and Israel is not inconceivable, having women ordained as bishops in the Church of England is not impossible and the notion that homosexuality is unafrican has a course to travel from unreasonableness to a fact of reality – it has always been part of humanity.