Flags Don't Make Patriots

Two Cities Changing

As I stepped out for a walk traversing the cities of Manchester and Salford, I noticed many changes in places I had not visited in quite a while; I'm talking a couple of years.

However, what was more interesting were the Union Jack flags flying on lampposts in some performative display of what some might think is patriotism.

The Absence of Historical Understanding

Frankly, I am quite unimpressed because patriotism requires a keen understanding and sense of history that would suggest learning and study. I cannot ascertain that some of the agitators in this cause have acquired such knowledge.

For instance, I am an Englishman as I am British. My parents were born in Nigeria when it was part of the British Empire, and hence they were, into early adulthood, subjects of the Crown before Nigeria gained independence in 1960.

By the good fortune of providence, I was born in England, and at that time we automatically acquired citizenship by birth.

When Ignorance Meets Aggression

One man, because I looked different and had an accent, had the temerity to question my status in an aggressively racist rant on a train some years ago. Other fellow citizens called the police on him, and after spending the night in a cell, he was prosecuted, convicted, and paid fines totalling £750.

If he had had a basic appreciation of British history and the context of the brutality of the British Empire happening abroad, whilst the profits built stately homes here, he might have been restrained and saved himself the humiliating consequence of baseless assumptions. But that expectation is like casting pearls before swine.

True Patriotism Requires No Flag

I do not need a flag to be patriotic. I do my civic duty by voting, and if called for jury service, I will attend. I belong in a society of values: fairness, justice, respect, and the consideration of others, knowing no one is above the law.

I believe we should treat each other with dignity and courtesy, seeking to live harmoniously with others regardless of race, creed, class, gender, ability, orientation, or status.

Identity Beyond Symbols

In all those situations of understanding and celebrating our Britishness, it is not flags that matter, but our sense of identity expressed in our humanity towards having a common purpose to make our world a better place.

That is why I think hoisting flags is an empty gesture. It is not representative of any particular value; it is, in essence, patriotism misguided and probably informed by a position of ignorance.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Is Kemi Badenoch suffering a midlife identity crisis?

Kemi’s Nigerian baggage

Once again, Kemi Badenoch, the Leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, is in the news, not for policy ideas on how she intends to lead His Majesty’s government, if she becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but by defining herself against her Nigerian ancestry.

Her new tirade is about how she no longer sees herself as Nigerian, while how you identify is quite left to the individual. One can only wonder if our principal is suffering an identity crisis in trying to situate herself comfortably in the minds of the electorate she desperately needs to appeal to. [The Guardian: Kemi Badenoch says she no longer sees herself as Nigerian despite upbringing]

Gosh! A baby girl

The difference between her and me? I did have a childhood I vividly remember in the UK, born of parents who were students and residents rather than of a mother gaming the system for pecuniary advantage, the likes of whom forced the government of Margaret Thatcher to change the rules of birthright citizenship.

Kemi might protest until she is blue in the face that her mother was not engaged in birth tourism and consequently she herself was not an accidental anchor baby, but let us speculate on how having a medical doctor father in Nigeria, it was expedient for her mother to travel to the UK for medical treatment, and then she pops out in a maternity hospital, how convenient.

On the other hand, my mother was heavily pregnant with my sister, as anyone would have noticed in the last picture we took before boarding the plane on our departure from the UK. How things might have been different if someone had counselled my mother about the need to anticipate the opportunities Kemi now has for her then-unborn daughter.

Embracing all influences

I identify with Nigeria by heritage and influence through some of my formative years, but now, I have spent about 40 years living in Europe, and I do not define myself through the denigration of Nigeria as she does. When I was in primary school, most of us Black kids had foreign accents, and our schoolmate children of immigrants or expatriates in Nigeria mostly had Nigerian accents.

I am broadly European, even though I have a mastery of Yoruba and an understanding of Hausa. I do not pretend to know Nigeria that well, and I spent more time than Kemi in Nigeria, but left 35 years ago.

I'm affected daily by Nigeria because I have family and relations there, and a thriving and prosperous Nigeria is a comfort for all of us of Nigerian heritage in the diaspora. Yes, there are bad memories as there are fond memories, but it is in the UK that I have experienced muggings, racism, prejudice, and all sorts of attacks on the person.

I didn't live in the Netherlands for 13 years, trying to please the Dutch by putting down England or Nigeria, I embraced all influences that make up my third culture kid identity.

She needs a better narrative

In Kemi’s case, it is both political and personal, the need to constantly redefine herself in the context of Nigeria. If we set aside the circumstances of her birth through her mother for some unforeseen benefit as the story gets told, her pronouncements framed in a negative mindset about Nigeria are becoming unfortunate.

Eventually, someone is going to ask her what she intends to do in government and whether she can drop the Nigerian baggage she lugs around as a chip on her shoulder and see herself as just a black English girl who happens to have Nigerian parents.

I have no problems saying I am an Englishman with a Nigerian heritage and European influences, accent and all. More importantly, I am comfortable in my own skin; I dare say, she exhibits a form of self-loathing with an eagerness to belong and please.

Nigerians getting agitated by each outburst by Kemi are missing the point. The issue is not Nigeria; Kemi is still struggling with who she thinks she is, and well into midlife, she has not found a clearly positive narrative to embrace all the influences that make up her multifaceted identity.

Thought Picnic: The potential ransom of dual-citizenship

The potential ransom of citizenship

The return of British-Iranians Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, and Anoosheh Ashoori, 67, to British soil this morning that is so very welcome and heart-warming rings a cautionary tale of familial attachment and affinity that can put people with multinational citizenship in peril and jeopardy. [BBC News: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori back with families]

It was a sad development that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori became pawns of international diplomacy where Iran was ready to persecute people of other nationalities who returned home to see family with trumped-up charges of espionage or insurrection in order to gain leverage in negotiations that in no way concerned the victims.

In the end, the release of these two people was obtained for the UK ensuring moneys to the tune of over £400 million owed Iran from the 1970s was paid back. I would not think of the interest, but that is a princely sum.

In things outside our control

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s situation was not made any easier by the gormless idiocy of the then Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, who at a House of Commons hearing suggested her activities in Iran were not altogether altruistic and that was used in another trial to turn the screws and incarcerate her for more time.

Then I think of many of us with dual or more citizenships who have close families in lands where freedoms, liberties, and expression are monitored, curtailed, or prosecuted. The apparent bounty that seems to hang on our heads when the malevolent either of state or private agency determine that they exact a price out of denying us our freedom by any means.

Much as I have family in Nigeria and many contemporaries do visit with ease, I do not have some rosy view of bliss, security, or safety, if I ever ventured there, despite the many assurances I have received from too many to mention.

I know how I feel

I left the country over 31 years ago, somewhat imperilled and I am not convinced that some of that past as well as the very present including the intervening years where my being abroad keeps out of the ambit of unguarded retribution does not present a clear and present danger to my wellbeing if I visit under any guise.

Besides, those who could almost pride themselves on being quite conversant with the Nigerian ways have quite spectacularly fallen for the wiles and scams that certain desperate can wreak on us and our resources. I have taken the stance that I am not comfortable with visiting Nigeria, and it is unnecessary to burden myself with the angst of attempting to override my deepest premonitions.

It might well be that there is nothing to my feelings than irrationality, I can live with that and the only reason Nigeria features in my purview is more at the behest of others than of any particular wish or desire of mine. When I consider it took almost 25 years for me to set foot on African soil with an official visit to South Africa in May 2015, I think I have a good idea of where my home is, and where next I am thinking of setting up home. It is not in Nigeria and that is a settled matter. Thank you.

Thought Picnic: My Identity

To the point

“What is your birth country?” She asked. That for me was a different way of asking that question and probably the best way of asking it. She sat next to me on a flight from Paris to Manchester, she being on the last leg of a long journey from South Africa.

I have always has to tackle the rather bizarre question of where I am from or rather, where I am originally from because a majority of those who ask that question probably have not concept of the kind of origination I belong to.

My identity is related to my nativity as it is to cultural influences that are as a result of where my parents took me and where I have myself gone.

I come from many places

In essence, I do not have the traditional constructs of roots and definitions people expect me to have. I am proud of the product of the parts that constitute my identity and can conveniently espouse the many strands of who I am with pride and no sense of lacking a heritage.

My birth country is England, my parents are Nigerian; my mother-tongue is English, my mother’s tongue is Yoruba; I have spent more than half my life in Europe, and I identify more strongly as an Englishman than I do British, I find common cause with Nigeria because some of the fondest memories of my childhood were in Nigeria.

A multicultural construct

Besides, having lived outside England and Nigeria by living in the Netherlands for over 12 years, I have found both my Englishness and my Nigerianness accentuated and heightened as I appreciate more the profound influences of both my birth country and the country of my ancestry on my outlook to life and things.

I belong to that growing exclusive group of people called Third Culture Kids, we celebrate rather than repudiate who we are, we are a new kind of world citizen, well-travelled, quite exposed and difficult to fit into conventional identity pigeon-holes.

This group is growing

The more there is global mobility, there more you will see people like me and the sooner you begin to realise that we can choose to belong anywhere we choose to belong by reason of birth, heritage, residence or passport, the easier it would be not to have to ask where we are originally from.

That is because, we are originally from, anywhere and usually not where you think we should be from.

For the record, I am an Englishman of Nigerian parentage, when I have the choice, I am Black English than Black British, I do not have to explain why I feel I have more in common with the English than I do with the Welsh or with the Scots. That is just the way things are.

Decade Blogs - Saratu Abiola - On Nigeria and Why Writing Matters

Decade Blogs

If it has not yet occurred to readers of my blog, one of the reasons why I thought of this #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging was to encourage writing. Writing our own stories, in our own way, with our own voice, the best way we can.

I am proud to say that I have a few first time writers and some relapsed writers who have since revived their dormant blogs, then I have the veterans who write either for a living or for pleasure and we are all enriched by the experience.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

I have known Saratu Abiola as both a voracious reader and an incisive writer, more so a very good reviewer of books, novels, texts, award shortlists and opinions. I am always in a mad rush to see what she has put up on her blog.

Besides maintaining a blog titled Method to the Madness she tweets with the Twitter handle @saratu and is the Political Editor for Nigerians Talk that “provides a Nigerian perspective of issues, and we feature opinion and analysis with a distinctive Nigerian point of view.”

The first paragraph of her piece here is a litany of the typical Nigerian story at any point in time, but as she weaves her thoughts into a narrative, we are given a perspective of what is the Nigerian psyche, our survival instinct and what writing does to give us a clearer perspective of things. This is good reading.

On Nigeria and Why Writing Matters

Another day, another scandal. Someone stole U.S. $50 billion from the crude oil account mere months after someone bought two armoured vehicles that seem to be covered by an invisibility cloak since no one has ever seen them. Let’s not forget, of course, the many days in which schools have been closed, the number of days since the constitutional review process has been abandoned, the impending nationwide strike by doctors, the number of heists pulled that we do not yet even know about. [Reuters] [Vanguard Nigeria] [Vanguard Nigeria] [Premium Times Nigeria] [Premium Times Nigeria]

There is a lot that ails Nigeria and if one reads the news daily or even engages with one’s political environment at all it is sure to be overwhelming. So out of step are our collective reaction to our national malaise that it is tempting as someone who writes – be it fiction or on a blog – to dedicate one’s life to attempting to find the right words to shaking ourselves out of our collective national slumber. What, then, brings about the impetus to write?

There is a recurrent conversation in circles that I orbit about what exactly our responsibilities are to our country as politically-conscious, young Nigerians who want better for Nigeria in creating the country of our dreams. It is a good question, and one worth asking in a country where we are all complicit in the mess that we find ourselves in.

I’m quick to shrug off any moral and/or ethical responsibility ascribed to me, because I know I owe neither a group nor a narrative any room in shaping my life. But I do understand that when you’re in a situation as dire as Nigeria is, with a leadership void as wide and as open as the hungriest mouth, the desire to mould yourself into what is missing in your environment even if it means bending yourself well out of shape.

Writing has helped in seeking answers to this question, but it has also helped to re-centre priorities to more personal aspirations in important ways that I don’t always see. In the daily hustle and bustle of my life, as I jump from one project to another, it is easy to forget that in our pursuit for a better Nigeria, it is important to first seek a better us.

My writing allows me time and tools to process my thoughts; it is my way of keeping my brain-space tidy. I write infrequently, so the jumble of thoughts in my head is like a tornado just swept through it, so the pressure is on each piece of writing to count. Not always a good thing, as it adds undue pressure, but here I am.

Nigeria is very much like that tornado, because it is easy in the aftermath of yet another week of not having light [In Nigerianese, light and electricity supply are synonymous.] or a trip somewhere that makes you wonder why more people are not taking up arms and throwing rotten tomatoes at every government official they can find, to feel the pressure bunching up in your shoulders that must find a way to be released. For me – and I imagine it is so for many bloggers – writing is it, even if it what I’m writing about is not ostensibly about politics.

A friend said to me once: “Saratu, we are all surviving o. Even rich people! IBB [Ibrahim Babangida] and OBJ [Olusegun Obasanjo] and Otedola [Femi Otedola] and Dangote [Aliko Dangote], they are all merely surviving. Look at how we are all scrambling to get all the money we can possibly get, as if we need it to hibernate in winter! If they were sure that they would never be broke and that even if they were less rich it won’t be the worst thing in the world, they’d stop stealing. But that’s not the country we live in. Money rules all. Nothing else matters.”

In a country where we are all in survival mode, the most important relationships we have are transactional ones that help ensure our survival. But what if the urgency we feel about this need for survival was translatable into other less tangible, less capitalistic pursuits? What if we found that our hunger for relevance, for respect, for pride, could be sated in other less avaricious ways?

The urge to write always serves for me as a constant reminder of a more personally fulfilling goal that I could attain from a well within myself. Knowing that it is there and knowing what it does for me is invaluable.

A Full Yoruba Prostration in the Centre of Manchester

Seeking insight on sight

I found myself at the much improved Arndale Shopping Centre in Manchester where just 17 years ago on my very second visit to Manchester the IRA set off a bomb that had shards of glass fall on someone hardly 10 yards from where I was standing.

For a while, I have been thinking of my sight, the state of my natural eye-sight as compared to when I have my glasses on, basically, I have not had an eye-test since well before I fell ill, so I walked into an opticians to have a test with the hope that I will walk out with a pair of glasses in an hour – well, that is the spiel but nothing could be further from the truth.

Squinty eyes with puny pupils

In any case, the tests began with a check on the strength of my glasses, then what prescription might be right by peering into kaleidoscopic instruments that brought a colourful hot-air balloon into focus before jets of air were shot at my eyes to test my eye pressure.

Then, reading the charts where F, P and R or Y and V had you seeing one thing and thinking another, though it is better not to second-guess the system and let the natural sight guide you.

The light tests to observe the back of my eyes left the optometrist running the tests thrice before he decided my pupils were too small that I needed my pupils dilated with the help of rather stinging eye drops; this easily added another 45 minutes to a visit that I thought will not be over an hour and 15 minutes.

Choices between frames and types of lenses took their toll between avoiding the trendy whilst at the same time getting something fashionable and traditional enough to fit my generally conservative and typically formal look, I just about succeeded but my lenses were not in stock; which means another visit to Manchester in two weekends rather than having the glasses posted by mail without the benefit of a fitting in the shop.

I’m an Englishman

However, something more bizarre happened, a loquacious young man, well-dressed in a single-breasted suit with all buttons done up walked in apparently to fix his glasses and when he saw me he came over to ask where I was from. I already sussed he was probably Nigerian and Yoruba but I had to avoid being accused of sorcery.

The answer I always give to that question is, I am from many places, starting with my being an Englishman of Nigerian parentage. He scoffed at the idea that I might be denying my Nigerian heritage but the real story is I have spent almost two-thirds of my life outside Nigeria apart from the fact that I was not born in Nigeria.

The optician’s assistant who has Pakistani parents was also born in England and we stated that the fundamental difference between us and him was that he was naturalised whilst we were born here, it meant that he could lose his acquired British citizenship whilst we could never be denied our status by any organ of the state.

Undue familiarity

By which time, we had exchanged mobile phone numbers and he had learnt I could speak Yoruba and on realising I was over twice his age, he prostrated in typical Yoruba genuflection in the shop, I had to pick him up and tell him it was unnecessary.

At the back of my mind, the familiarity was getting concerning as he fawned in language and action towards me, suggesting I could become his new father he having lost his father only the year before.

From then on, he addressed me as daddy as we made to leave the opticians and walk out of the Arndale Centre.

Tales of convenience

A number of uncanny situations came up, I could not say if he was channelling me or he was genuine, as he fed off my answers to find affinity, like going to the same secondary school as I did though I had left long before he was born – now, the whole story on reflection does not seem to fit together if he is 23, he has lived in the UK since 2002 and he apparently finished secondary school in Nigeria.

In any case, he said he had just moved up to Manchester from Cambridge and when I said I lived in London, he averred that he once lived in Edgware.

As we conversed, I had a phone call from a friend that interrupted flow of communication though he seemed to be keen on talking over the conversation I was having on the phone.

The loaded invitation

I promptly ended the phone conversation and asked about Nigerian restaurants in Manchester, he offered that instead I come to his home where his wife who from his rather chauvinistic tone was available to cook and make homely meals for me and I could also have the opportunity to bless his new born son in more traditional ways than through Christian provenance.

It made me more uncomfortable that I was ready to tell him that I was too much a stranger to be invited to his home just like that.

No apple for this worm

Then I saw the toilets and politely excused myself to use the conveniences; by the time I came out he had disappeared, it was like a hit-and-run event, as if my break for toilets had interrupted a confidence trickster’s ploy to inveigle his way into my confidences and in turn relieve me of something that he might have wanted to use to his nefarious ends.

I was both relieved and strangely concerned but somewhat happy that I had been left to my own devices. I can only wonder what he can be up to and though I have his number, I will rather wait for him to call if he would, else, one can deem the encounter one of those where providence and good fortune have spared me much pain and the embarrassment of being used or worse abused.

But the ‘Coming to America’ moment was a classic, in the middle of Manchester, well away from the cultural hotpot of Yoruba civilisation, a man recognises the presence of an elder and prostrates fully in respect – let us not read too much into what the intentions or ulterior motives were – encounters like this are just as well the spice of life.

Was this respect on retrospect? I do not know.

Tough Parenting Truths Living in the UK

Nigerians in contrast

I attended a church function on Saturday where they were celebrating their fifth year anniversary and they had laid out a three-day event to commemorate the occasion. Having lived in the Netherlands for 12 years and now in the UK with the fact that I attended a very international church where the communication was bilingual, this setting was a bit unfamiliar to me.

I sometimes find myself in amazingly contrasting worlds and none could have been as stark as the Buddhist funeral I attended on Friday and this Pentecostal Christian event I was attending on Saturday.

Our affinities

My presence was by reason of my gracious hosts in the UK and by far my closest family in Europe, they are quite involved in the close-knit community of the church where, for the affinities of extended relations, my nephew and my niece are members of the choir apart from him being an accomplished artiste in his own right.

As we dispensed with the formalities of genuflection and greetings with every Nigerian attention to pomp, ceremony and pageantry, we were told the session would be a seminar on ‘Parenting’ and the main speakers were to be a judge and a social worker.

The judge - Justice Ola Omotosho was, I was informed, the first Judge of Nigerian descent appointed to the bench in the UK.

Views from the bench

Justice Ola Omotosho gave us an interesting perspective of life on the bench and the kinds of cases she has to deal with, along with the sympathies of being an ethnic minority with the duty of interpreting the laws that appear to change too frequently for anyone to keep up with.

However, addressing more pertinent matters, she clarified that having the status of “Indefinite Leave to Remain” in the UK does not confer British citizenship rights that when such persons enter the crime and punishment system, the presumption is to deal with them as foreign nationals and the status will be withdrawn in favour of deportation.

She also explained that whilst there might be extenuating circumstances in terms of the length of stay in the UK mitigating the appeal of a deportation order, however, these situations are rare and are dealt with on an individual basis.

The fallacy of proxy marriages

Being of Nigerian heritage, it is understandable that her fellow judges would seek her opinion on certain issues that they might not fully understand by reason of cultural, traditional or religious differences and they can expect that, as a judge, she will be forthright, honest and frank with her views.

One area she suggested is turning into a scam is the issue of proxy marriages, where the families and relations of the partners in the marriage gather in foreign lands to conduct the supposed marriage ceremony whilst lawyers in the UK print out certificates meant to facilitate the immigration regularisation process.

She said lawyers come up with tall tales to presumably help desperate people who easily part with their money and still end up with no solutions. The system eventually gets wise about all these tricks, the moment the numbers indicate something is amiss.

The plight of stateless children

Then she talked about the issue of stateless children who would have arrived in the UK as young kids and although their parents might have all the legal statuses to remain in the UK, the residence status of their children is left unresolved.

The problems emerge when, sadly, the child encounters the law or ructions in the family lead to the child being kicked out of their home. Without the necessary papers that give them a legal status in the UK, such children get caught in a legal status limbo where they can get no help and risk avoidable deportation.

Basically, she was saying above all else, confirming the status of your children should be of the highest priority at the earliest opportunity.

From discipline to abuse to jail

Then she touched on the matter of abuse and the fact that children have rights that are protected and defended by the state. Abusive parents who run afoul of the law will almost certainly go to jail and that the law was not partial to the idea that the purpose of discipline that became abuse was to preserve the family unit.

One last point she made was about spousal abuse, as far as she was concerned, regardless of being Christian, she had no sympathy for any circumstances of domestic violence and her candid advice was for the abused to get out of that relationship. By implication, there was nothing godly about a marriage where there was no mutual respect and the presence of abuse.

The right to well-being of a child

The Social Worker who is also a pastor addressed the matter of abuse defining it as anything that impacts on the well-being of a child and that included physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, emotional abuse, neglect and abdication of parental responsibility.

She was at pains to suggest that the authorities will get involved and investigate all claims, as the judge said earlier; no one wants a Baby P scenario on their hands again.

Unlike in Nigeria, a child's word has equal weight as that of an adult before the law and lying will not help the situation because the authorities will seek to determine root causes.

Provision is not love

I found the seminar quite refreshing and to hear establishment figures of Nigerian heritage be so forthright was quite a first for me.

The Social Worker stressed the need for parental involvement in all aspects of the child's development and most of all having a reward system as part of the discipline mix and that parents need to show more love to their children.

I would have liked for the issue of love to be dealt with better, especially clarifying that provision is not love. The provision of shelter, food, clothing, education, parental care and protection to the child are responsibilities the society expects of the parent or guardian towards their wards but these are outward expressions that do not necessarily fulfil a child’s need for love which is an emotional investment on the part of the parent.

Integrate or face disintegration

The subtext of the seminar was not lost on me, the tendency for ethnic minorities not to integrate and understand their host societies along with the differences between customs and laws leaves many learning very hard lessons that reach into the wider community.

There is no doubt that the pastors at the church wanted to speak to a particular demographic either directly or indirectly as the judge was even gracious enough to suggest that most of her advice might not pertain to the audience attending but to our friends.

Having heard what was shared at the seminar the more apt title of the seminar would have in my view been ‘Tough Parenting Truths Living in the UK.’

Acknowledgement: This is the first blog that I have engaged a ‘sub-editor’ to review before posting. He annotated the blog, made punctuation and spelling corrections whilst advising me to refine certain paragraphs for clarity and concision.

In view of that, I thank Mike Sutton for taking the time to review this piece and making it better than I could have attempted a few times over.

Thought Picnic: The Little Things

Too means more

The question I seem to hear frequently pertains to how I am settling in back in London. I decided when I tweeted a few days ago about returning home to England that there was no point explaining to people why home could by ancestry be Nigeria and home by reason of birth and many factors of my upbringing and outlook could be England too.

The operative word being too to indicate a shared allegiance rather than an abandoned one, as one person engaged me during the closing ceremony of the Olympics – I had tweeted that I was proud to be British too even though I identify more as English and rarely if I could help it as Black British – my race whilst it is used for identification purposes to help others is hardly a function of my expression or projection – I rarely see it until someone points it out.

Missing the little thing

The little things in their subtlety are quite significant in their import; too implicitly meant I was not only British but I had another which my almost too smart assailant missed in his determination to denigrate my person, it presented an opportunity for giving an education but I doubt he had the competence to assimilate the fundamentals.

Leaving the Netherlands has literally closed one chapter in my life and offered me the opportunity to open a new chapter. The return offers a new beginning and prospects are coming in just as I have seemingly gotten a new lease of life.

The little effects

The little thing is a just a SIM card, a number in the UK, a temporary address in the UK and the CV looks like freshly baked bread still warm hardly minutes out of the oven; a perspective realigned is an opportunity within grasp – who knows what might come of this?

Two days ago, it was a little pin connector on my laptop AC adaptor and that was the end of its useful life an urgent replacement was sought and by happenstance a call came in and my good friend of 26 years replaced it. The replacement died within 30 minutes and there wasn’t too much little talk at the shop for it to be replaced without quibbles.

A little touch

With that came the other little bit of knowledge about the smartcard travel-cards known as the Oyster card, I have been overcharged a few times because the system assumes I have not completed my journey which is crazy else I would have been marooned within the transport network rather than getting to my many destinations – each entry and exit point is gated and I have not taken a leap of fatality bounding over any gates.

No one will for now admit that some of the algorithmic logic encoded in the system is bilking us but it is a gathering storm. I dare say when the system fails there is not automatic reset mechanism to restore the overcharge, for all the technology at play we are back to filling forms – it is so much an inconvenience, no one bothers.

Many little ends

Yet, the little things are remarkably wonderful, a little detour and you bump into a friend, a little sideways glance and you see something that has always been there but you never noticed, a little spice and you break out in sweats, a little more and the scales are tipping that you cover your eyes in horror and why is it that I can read the littlest print without my glasses and cannot make out the features of a face hardly 2 metres away?

A little spot of bother for eyeing the bigger picture.

Thought Picnic: Wearing an Incredible Smile to India

Smile!

There probably is a prayer that should cross one’s lips even you are not a spiritual person. “May my face continually light up with a smile and laughter fill my mouth with all the joy that it brings.”

That is the way I felt when I collected my passport this afternoon from the agency that handles visa management for the Indian Embassy in the Netherlands.

As I had written before in a blog about my experiences without directly mentioning India, I am planning on attending courses in India before the year runs out.

It means nowt to them

Now, by holding a British passport, I thought I would be insulated from the bureaucratic insurmountables (sic) of other citizenry but I learnt a good few things in the process.

I do need a visa to visit India, no matter what I want to do there, I do not get treated like a European citizen even though most Indians visiting mainland Europe would in terms get a Schengen visa.

However, what really got to me was the idea that my British citizenship by birth along with a British passport could count for almost nothing if your parents are Nigerian.

Head spinning hoops

Whilst one can appreciate their need of ancestral facts with regards to people of Indian heritage seeking to acquire Indian citizenship, it should really not extend to those whose countries have already processed and affirmed the status of their citizens.

Apart from the hoops that one had to leap through with regards to the right visa to apply for which for me started as a tourist visa, then a business visa until we settled on an entry visa, all of which included 5 visits to 3 different locations trying to ensure all that was required was done, I had to fill in a supplementary form and pay an extra fee predicated on my ancestry.

Of days, months long

Altogether, the processing an entry visa according to the website site could take up to 8 weeks, the filling in of the supplementary form, another 10 days and there was every reason to think one would be marooned in the Netherlands without papers for a good two and a half months – some bordering on the untenable.

I wrote to our consulate about the matter of my citizenship and I did get a reply; something along the lines that it is good to know that this is happening and that it will be forwarded to some department. My response is still in the draft folder; I really could not be bothered any further.

Yearning, waiting, hoping

What I knew I want to happen beyond where I had control to influence things was the abundance of favour spiritual and temporal, there wasn’t much time left and the closer we got to the time, the dearer the flights become.

Each day, I checked the online tracking service not sure of what other status to expect apart from the fact that my application had been sent to the Indian Embassy in The Hague. Late on Friday, the status had changed signifying I should come to collect my passport but no indication as to whether I had been granted the visa.

One did suspect, if the who process took 6 working days, they probably had looked at all the documentation I submitted and decided there was no need to pursue the ancestry issue.

Phew! That was a race

In some cases, I could content I had one of the most complete applications for my type of visa, besides all the documents of self-cognisance and a local government document indicating when I arrived in the Netherlands, the training firm sent a letter of invitation, their certificate of incorporation and their licence to trade with exceptional status.

The visa is like none I have ever seen before; it looks like my passport identity page with machine readable information and my picture with particular detail about my mission – not for the faint-hearted.

Now, I have just a few days to get things ready for a month-long trip which would be intensive training and examinations in readiness for 2012. I had better start packing; at least, I have already been to the pharmacy to replenish my supply my pills.

In all, I am thankfully for how this burdensome process is looking hitch free and putting a smile on my face.

Verdonk force fed humble pie

Facing a farcical loss of face

The suspense, needless the tension as we waited with bated breath for a result, a verdict, maybe call it a confirmation.

But, it was an about face without the face saving element she was given 6 weeks to conjure up.

Only six weeks ago Ayaan Hirsi Ali was given six weeks to explain why she should remain a Dutch citizen, a situation that lead to her immediate resignation from the Dutch parliament and serious concern amongst the expatriate and immigrant communities.

The Dutch Second Chamber convened an emergency session to debate that decision which was handed down by Mrs Rita Verdonk, the Minister of Immigration and Integration as well as then aspiring to the leadership pf the Liberal party.

The session ran till 3:00AM and Mrs Verdonk was given six weeks to ensure that every legal possibility was explored to ensure that Ms Hirsi Ali retained and remained a Dutch citizen without fail.

We be not fools

Mrs Verdonk milked the whole six weeks of reflection, reconsideration and indecision, during which she also lost the race to lead the Liberal Party - thankfully.

For almost two weeks rumours have been trickling out that this issue would be resolved in Ms Hirsi Ali's favour, however, to pretend that this redress would undo the peripheral damage would be naïve.

It now appears, the face saving formula has included agreeing that Ms Hirsi Ali - using her grandfather's family name, who should have applied with Magan using her father's name was not really untruthful about using either.

Ms Hirsi Ali herself has also offered commentary to exonerate Mrs Verdonk for her faux pas, which has now been rectified by this so-called loophole. This is beginning to bore me.

She lost us the World Cup

This does not get Mrs Verdonk completely out of the hot water because we are still licking our wounds in the aftermath of that record card dealing World Cup match against Portugal.

One of the best football players ever besides Pele in the person of Johann Cruyff has said Mrs Verdonk cannot be completely blameless for our exit in refusing to allow the person of Salomon Kalou to become Dutch and depriving us the football talent that might have made a difference.

In the same vein, she also deprived the Ivory Coast the same football talent in not being decisive about the issue early enough.

Basically, one can argue that Mrs Verdonk is a liability whose brief to promote integration if not patriotic allegiance has only created bad press in the representation of the Dutch to the world at large.

Time to give her a title in appreciation and pension her off.

References

Dutch ex-MP retains citizenship

After all the fuss, Hirsi Ali to keep Dutch citizenship

Hirsi Ali exonerates Verdonk for passport gaffe

No nice words for Mrs Verdonk

An Engaging Reality Show – the Dutch Parliament in session

The Dutch have a penchant for straight talking but always seem to act towards a form of consensus or compromise.

Nowhere was that more evident than in the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament when an emergency debate was called to address the Ayaan Hirsi Ali issue with the minister – Mrs Rita Verdonk.

Expatriates like myself hardly watch Dutch television, but somehow expatriates had a compelling desire to witness the events in the Dutch Parliament which ran on till about 3:00AM.

This is, I think, the fourth time in less than 2 years that Mrs Verdonk has been called to the parliament to address issues the legislature think border on abuse of power, abuse of privilege, the lack of due process and abrogation of procedure.

The Hirsi Ali case had a considerably high profile, being that the decision Mrs Verdonk made automatically meant Mr Ali cannot continue to be a Member of the Dutch Parliament.

Backslash, Slash, Backspace, Backslash - Questions

The MPs had a field day posing questions and questioning rationale, it looked like we were going for the full showdown, but for all the times that Mrs Verdonk has like a chastised school pupil appeared before the house, things have almost gone to the brink, but there was always a pull back.

There is no doubt that Ms Ali used false information to register as an asylum seeking, there might have been reason for any asylum seekers to use a false name for expedient reasons of leaving behind their history and making them untraceable till such a time as they are ready to be exposed.

Mrs Verdonk as also right within the remit of her ministerial duties to institute an investigation to ascertain the circumstances in which Dutch citizenship was granted and the validity of that exercise.

Communications schizophrenic

However, whilst the letter send to Ms Ali indicates that her Dutch citizenship is invalid, it gives her leave to appeal within 6 weeks, but in play of words that definitely exasperated a not few MPs Mrs Verdonk opined that she observed rather than affirmatively indicated that situation.

The debate that ran through issues like the minister’s truthfulness, understanding of the law, appreciation of the power of parliament and deference to its demands, hardly any MPs could find words of praise at her actions.

Rather, one ex-leader of her party did express surprise at the speed of resolution of the inquiry alluding to the fact that the backlog of claims in the immigration department would have been cleared up if things were that efficient. They are not – that department is an utter bureaucratic mess.

Called to order

In the end, Mrs Verdonk – The Iron Lady and my Lady Oddjob has been ordered, yes, ordered, to review the case of Ms Ali on the status of her citizenship and where it is found that her claim is valid, it should be accelerated.

Yesterday, I discerned that we would not hit the streets in protest, but expect the Dutch to do something about it – this compromise is as good as it gets – the minister does not entirely lose face, the government does not collapse and parliament gets to impose its will.

There is a Dutch ambivalence to this issue, in that the many I have chatted to, on the face of it commend Mrs Verdonk for following the law, but when I raise issues of the exercise of the law requiring a human face and the possible negative effect on expatriates or the fact that a Dutch a language that thrives on exceptions cannot seem to seen exceptions in the imposition of the law, Mrs Verdonk’s esteem falls.

This is probably part of my integration, trying to understand the Dutch psyche – where I would have thought a big slap on the wrist would have sufficed with an admonition and liberal sanction, the obstinate adherence to laws has undone all the parties involved.

The chastised Verdonk

Mrs Verdonk can as well put paid to the idea of leading her party at the end of May – it is a case of an opportunist being overtaken and outplayed by the opportunity. Like Samson, his exercise of power in trying to destroy his enemies also brought the building down on himself.

I would not rejoice too early, but I cannot wait to see Mrs Verdonk come second best in the leadership race for the Liberal Party.

However, it is only in Dutch politics that the most high profile minister of the realm is a minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Justice.

Apart from the Prime Minister who has had a makeover from his erstwhile Harry Potter looks, one wonders who those who run portfolio ministries are – Finance, Interior Matters, Foreign Affairs, Justice and Defence – they all probably have not been mentioned once for anything significant, this year.

Bizarre, but that is living in the Netherlands – amazing place!

References

The Verdonk Archive

Expatica's Dutch news in English: MPs order Verdonk to reconsider Hirsi Ali's status:

Expatica's Dutch news in English: Hirsi Ali: fast decision amazes ministers:

Lady Oddjob draws ire and fire

I need not say anymore, the Liberal Party has been accused of scandalous opportunism in supporting Mrs Verdonk’s actions.

The Verdonk Archive

Lady Oddjob decapitates Poster Child

Ruthless Rita

Not that we feared that this would be the result of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s tribulations, but the swiftness with which Mrs Rita Verdonk, the never elected but influential minister of Integration and Immigration has discounted 14 years of acquiescence to the Dutch way of life is legendary and without precedent.

Basically. Ms Ali has now been told, she was never a Dutch citizen, and hence, by inference she cannot continue to be a Member of Parliament.

Mrs Verdonk personally called her last night to deliver the message.

There are more than enough mitigating circumstances for Ms Ali’s Dutch citizenship to be revalidation in spite of her misdemeanours of 14 years ago.

She, like I have said before, is probably the most high profile integrated immigrant in the Netherlands besides the Princess Maxima who is Argentinean by birth but married to the Crown Prince Willem-Alexander.

No encouragement whatsoever

It provides no encouragement for those of us who strive to begin appearing relevant in more ways than just paying rates and taxes in the Netherlands.

This is not to say that adherents of Islam would be shedding a tear nor would it bring the general ethnic communities unto the streets – however, it should bring the Dutch out in protest against unconscionable intolerance masquerading as enforcing the ministerial prerogative of the law. [1]

Basically, on this matter, Mrs Verdonk has been a shameless opportunist who has sacrificed the Dutch citizenship of a fellow countrywoman for the quest to appear tough in immigration with the hope that her Liberal Party would vote she in as leader.

I do sincerely hope that the Party does see through this charade of political expediency and deny her any opportunity to foist that on more that the already unfortunate few that have come under her gaze.

Seriously, that a minister who has never faced an electorate can invalidate the election of a representative of a Dutch constituency sets new precedent – we are in wildly uncharted waters.

Good Luck and Godspeed, Ms Ali

Meanwhile, we can only wish Ms Ali good fortune in her new endeavour with the AEI as she considered her position in the Netherlands and the way irrational ministers are allowed to thrive in notoriety to the demolition of everything the Dutch hold dear.

I do not for once condone the fact that Ms Ali lied in her asylum application, but we have to see beyond the possibly, harangued and frightened 22-year-old who had escaped the throes of Africa for bright possibilities in Europe and how well she has done to account for her misdeeds.

A humanity that cannot forgo the illiberal for the tolerant and apply mercy in the face of obvious guilt cannot hope to rehabilitate who have fallen to a state of acceptance.

The figurehead for that view of humanity should likewise depart for wiser and more mature heads to facilitate fairness, justice and mercy in keeping with up with the civility of this age. This is just so, not Dutch, at all.

About Oddjob

The Oddjob nickname comes from the James Bond film, Goldfinger where there Korean bodyguard called Oddjob uses his bowler hat with a shard steel rim as a Frisbee which could decapitate victims.

This got ascribed to Mrs Verdonk when she threw her hat in the ring to contest the leadership of the Liberal party. Hence, Lady Oddjob.

As it now transpires, Lady Oddjob has decapitated the Poster child of Dutch integration.

References

[1] Hirsi Ali – Reactions

[2] Hirsi Ali to quit

The Lady Oddjob Archive