Thought Picnic: Cultivating the art of conversation

Begin the talk

There are so many places I have been to, diverse and strange, all of which if the opportunity comes I will strike up a conversation starting with subjects from the mundane to the serious.

The English usually start with the weather and before you know it, the conversation wends and weaves, in and out, around and about anything, no preconception governs the direction and exchanges as the chat ebbs and flows.

On trains and on planes, I have had uncanny moments with people I could not have chosen to sit in proximity to me, the distance of randomness closed down by experiences intertwined into the fabric of the varied human story.

Converse to art

There are times I have resisted the self-absorption of social media distractions to interact, genuflect, and exercise a broader range of expression that comes with the physical presence of another human being who by interest or sense of adventure is doing the same as myself, it is a wonderful thing.

The art of conversation needs greater utility and honing, even conversation for the mere sake of it alone can be enriching and fulfilling bringing with it humour and mirth, knowledge and wisdom, insight and direction, advice and opportunity, there is really no telling what can result, but one cannot doubt its usefulness.

Do not fear

The worst that can happen is that some people will remain glum, but the tongue-tied are not necessarily dumb, they just need to be eased into a comfortable place to be engaged.

We must be careful that modernity and technology does not rob us of this experience as we bury our heads in concentrated engagement with devices and tools, completely oblivious of our surrounds to appreciate the beauty of nature, the natural and the native means of interaction amongst our nearest human neighbours.

Civility with awareness

In doing so, we begin to lose the ability to observe as our sense of awareness wanes giving way to less civilised and uncultured tendencies, like ignoring when we are being addressed, mindlessly walking in public places at risk of bumping into others or walking into the path of danger or even just the simple act of asking for directions.

We surely have not advanced in civilisation to lose the essential utility of civility. We need to give ourselves breaks from these distractions to enrich ourselves with useful sensory communication that comes from deploying the art of conversation as every opportunity we can find.

Start with the familiar, the common and the easy and that could well lead to the intricately complex. We are bundles of experiences too diverse to be constrained to silence, let us break the ice and talk.

Nigeria: My Observations of the Dana Air Crash Aftermath

Untold tragedies

Last weekend, Nigeria was hit by unimaginable tragedies that would have far-reaching consequences and hopefully significant changes for the good in what we are and who we are as people and part of the greater humanity of the world.

To have two air crashes in the space of 24 hours was just unmitigated disaster that had to be systemic in its Genesis and utterly appalling to all concerned, only the whole truth can begin to assuage the pain of loss suffered by all affected, the loss of life in both tragedies just leaves one numb as questions linger.

From what has been observed, reported and gleaned from most especially, the Dana Air crash on Sunday on the outskirts of Lagos, it is pertinent that some fundamental issues be highlighted in our approach to disaster and emergency response in Nigeria – these need to be addressed by all forms of communication, information dissemination, education and public enlightenment.

Bad or negligent maintenance?

The comment I had with regards to the cargo plane crash in Ghana of an aircraft that took off from Nigeria was related to the assumption that the brakes had failed. I opined that no matter how badly an aircraft is serviced, brake failure is not what you expect to hear of, it would appear I had spoken too soon on the matter of airworthiness and aircraft safety.

The next day, with less than an hour in the air and approaching Lagos to land, Dana Air lost its two engines and crashed into a highly populated area of Lagos, there had to be something fundamentally wrong with the aircraft for it to lose two engines on such a short flight, we hope that the black boxes reveal much more about why this happened.

Initially, there are these issues, our preparedness for impending emergencies when Mayday calls are made and what possible action the crew might have taken after the Mayday call to avert ploughing into crowded areas.

Obviously, the matter of maintenance of fleets of aircraft, their airworthiness, the age of the fleet and the other issues surrounding the regulation of airlines in Nigeria are brought to the fore by these tragedies, one will hope that all systems and processes have been above board but serious doubts remain.

Feeding our bizarre appetites for the macabre

On the ground we were met with another set of troubling circumstances.

Crowds had gathered out of curiosity and interest to view and gawp, not doing much to help the victims of either the crash before the plane exploded or those whose houses had been demolished by reason of impact and collision.

Then the first pictures that appeared showed the crowds standing on parts of the destroyed aircraft risking the contamination of essential evidence that would have had to be gathered to determine the cause of the crash.

Soon afterwards, other pictures appeared in their full gruesomeness of the presumably dead in some cases and possibly gravely injured but barely alive. The picture takers had no scruples about posting the grotesque, macabre and downright intrusively disrespectful of the victims as if they were doing a great service of wholesome dissemination of information.

It behoves one to condemn in the clearest terms the inurement we have acquired to tragedy that we think nothing of sharing these shocking pictures almost for the fun of having the technology to project the utterly reprehensible – we have seen the same in the appetite for sexually explicit rape videos, the unfortunate blowing to smithereens of a bomb disposal officer and much else – you wonder where does the savage Neanderthal in us stop gaining ascendancy and allow a sense of civility and humaneness to make us cultured humans again.

The crowds and civic responsibility

What annoyed me the most was the way crowds impeded the access of emergency services to the accident scene. You wonder if we need basic civics classes to be told and to know that emergency services should and must have priority of access, right of way and literally no impediment to getting to an accident scene.

Their ability to access the scene without obstruction and then the ability to leave the scene freely with victims for medical care must not need for anyone to be informed. Alas! I learnt something of Nigerians I somewhat did not know in 46 years of being associated with that country, we are ostentatious, hedonistic and found with the most modern of things but are primitive, backward and ignorant when it comes to emergency response either by the services or by the reaction of the people at large – it was at first shameful, then unforgivable and ultimately beneath contempt.

That the armed forces had to use whips and twigs to beat away the crowds like animals to cordon off the place for the emergency services and investigation of the air crash site speaks volumes, there are issues of crowd control but more importantly as a matter of civic responsibility people should just know to make way, disperse and make allowances for constituted authority to have way.

It is something we most definitely have to address, probably to promulgate laws that criminalise people and owners of any obstructions in the way of emergency services when they are out to fulfil their urgent duties.

Fuelling oil fires with water

The fire services unpreparedness in dealing with an aircraft fires, was evident from one of the pictures I saw. Water? At first, they did not have enough to quench the fires, but more importantly, aircraft fires are doused with foam because the active propellent is kerosene – water is the very last thing you need to attack a burning inferno fuelled by petroleum products.

Now, the houses that caught fire by reason of the accident might well have needed fire-fighting with water but I doubt a distinction was made of what caused the fires and how to tackle each fire as they raged.

To read that rescuers clashed at the scene of the crash just took my breath away. What were they thinking? How could they not reach a compromise of coordination for the sake of those they came to help? Even in the midst of such great tragedy egos and megalomania reared its ugly head as if this was some competition or contest for a prize – it is shameful.

Rescue minded even when recovering

Then, the authorities had immediately switched to recovery mode as soon as the crash was announced saying there were no survivors when information suggested the plane did not catch fire for another 20 minutes after impact giving the impression some might have survived the crash only to die from negligence and the lack of sensibility of gawking crowds when at least some rescue attempts should have been made.

This informs our mind-set of disaster, we are so lucky in sub-Saharan Africa not to suffer from earthquakes else no one will care if people were buried alive and died weeks after, people discovering the bones many years after the event.

We need a new thinking to disaster response that all is not lost until we have done all possible to assess, access, investigate, review and confirm by examination that indeed, all is lost. The first action should always be to rescue possible survivors and the recovery of remains must be the very last resort without extinguishing all hope.

The last affront

As if the tragedy was not palpable enough, the flight manifest was made public long before all relatives and survivors had been informed of the tragedy. In a country where the management of data is poor and the collection of the same for use is sketchy, one might say the only way to get the information out was to publicise it but for people to first learn of bereavement on social media or the news wires before they were individually and personally addressed as they waited in vain at the airports or watched television at home does leave much to be desired.

We have to have better ways to handling this kind of information, with dignity for the victim, with respect and consideration for their relatives and survivors and much more with a sense of compassion. The press comes after those particular humane needs have been satisfied with all due care and attention.

People with hearts of gold

My friends, there is much to think about after this tragedy and I am moved at the way people have acted with great resolve and initiative to help the victims on the ground, to obtain therapy and counselling for families, to gather help and succour for all concerned – we have the capacity for great human compassion, you sometimes wish a few more of those with minds like that were there to help in the immediate aftermath of the crash. See #DanaCrashAction

#DanaCrashAction: Immediate Relief Aid, Relief Materials Drop-Off Points

Other views on the Nigerian Aviation industry can be found in the links below. Presented as tweets.

Nigerian Aviation: Break It Up To Make It Up – by @DoubleEph http://t.co/WVCUVanv Nigerians have no business running airlines.

Great reporting from @yibukun & @jongambrellAP on the horrible #Nigeria plane crash. http://soc.li/omx2vPE

BBC News - Lagos plane crash: Nigeria suspends Dana Air licence http://bbc.in/NeMq72

How old is your plane in Nigeria? http://is.gd/x3QNtm by@jeremyweate Then in the United States http://is.gd/ROplio Crikey!

BBC News – Global Air disasters timeline http://bbc.in/qMyUmf

Timeline of air disasters in Nigeria.

Brawlers with keyboards

Those rotten comments

Hardly three months ago, had I written about how the blogging world was getting infiltrated by brawlers with keyboards and now I have had to entertain some on my blog.

These are people who usually have no blogs of their own but squat in the comment areas of other people’s blogs placing comments that are strongly worded, poorly delivered and generally incoherent.

What grates me is not that they disagree with the main thrust of the blog, but rather than deal with the ideas expressed like intelligent and reasoning people they use personal attacks to try and convey they points.

Don’t get me wrong, these people probably do have good thinking heads; it is only that they lack good writing skills such that their “so-called” reasoned ideas are lost under a cloud of diatribe, vitriol, abuse and disconnected generalisations.

Such people are also fouling up the blog space that the freedom to express ideas is suffering aspects of censorship lightly called moderation; I have seen at least three blogs I visit consider moderation, two of which have already introduced it.

Communication for the globe

I can understand that language like “I respectfully disagree” or “With all due respect” may sound archaic, but even when we meet strangers we do try to present ourselves in the best light and not like riff-raff; why should that be different when you comment in other people’s blog space?

I live and work in an international community with people from all around the globe and where my language of communication is English; expression, tone and delivery play a great part in communication, persuasion and convincing people of your point of view – for me, shouting out expletives would not bull-doze walls and boulders, rather, that would close all doors and I speedily lose respect for that person.

Let us have a good time

When, months ago, Tom Peters had to introduce moderation on his blog because brawlers with keyboards were having a field day, the guide to placing comments could well become the gold standard for accepting comments on any blog space.

I quote verbatim from Tom Peters’ blog those points for clarity sake.

Are there ground rules for posting comments?

We want to have our community commenting on our posts. We like your comments. We want your comments. But we ask you to please follow a few basic rules so that we all can have a good time here.

No personal attacks, please. Disagree with ideas, but don't attack people.

Please keep the foul language to a minimum. Damn is okay. If you must be more graphic than that, please make liberal use of asterisks.

Please refrain from going on at length. Succinct is a good word to keep in mind. Please don't cut and paste posts from your or someone else's site into our comments. If you feel others would like to read something you've posted/read elsewhere, please link to it.

We will edit out comments that run afoul of these rules, though we'll let you know by email if you've done us the courtesy of leaving a valid email address. If you prefer to keep your email address private, and we support your right to do so, then, sorry, you'll be edited without notice.

Thanks for visiting our site. (We really do like having you here.)

The polite challenge

I have highlighted in bold-italics the most important part of the advisory, “so that we can all have a good time here”; it might be a challenge for some to try and place their comments in that light, but when writing for what might be a global audience, it is not too much to ask.

He does accept that foul language might manifest itself, but damn is the limit, beyond which asterisks make the point quite clearly, he has not used the word polite or temperate where people like me will find that quite important.

I generally do not receive that much comment traffic, so, I have not reached the point where moderation might yet be necessary, but NaijaBlog who introduced moderation very recently could only be commended for having endured so much before some brawlers forced his hand.

My challenge to those people is, launch your own blog and let us see if you are capable of inspired originality rather than common fare and heckling.

Losing our blogging civility to poor and bad comments

Many cultures and negative comparisons

Sometimes my affinity for Nigeria, Nigerian things and conversation with Nigerians can be dampened and stretched beyond tolerable acquiescence.

Most especially in the world of web logging, the ability to stimulate commentary is lost to commentators who in their quest to be heard and not necessarily be listened to lose the ability to intelligently inform and converse.

Over time, many have made comments of their observations of Nigeria in the light of their experiences, these might reflect as praise, criticism or somewhere in between.

Being someone who lives in a foreign country as I am English, living in the Netherlands and of Nigerian parentage, I find that I always am comparing values, cultures, norms and standards amongst these different societies, anything I voice the negatives in debate I could expect a response which might fall anywhere between complete acceptance or utter rejection.

Magnanimous in listening

However, I hold the greatest respect for those who can take criticism, argue their points with civility and intellect that belies their upbringing and education which might persuade me of a better view.

The unfortunate thing is when people go for the lowest common denominator, taking offence at the criticism, insult or insensitivity descend to the same level of the protagonist and spew the same kind of invective in response.

It helps no one at all, rather, the opportunity to persuade and present your objective perspective in ways that allow you take the higher moral ground is lost without redemption.

Brawlers with keyboards

The baser instinct of the human being appeals more to the primitive than the civilized and where restraint cannot be exercised, it becomes a free-for-all fracas unlikely to be witnessed amongst wild beasts.

Along with that comes others who cannot be healed of the verbal diarrhoea, highly strung, quick-to-comment/slow-to-think, primed for a punch-up with aggression that makes a black mamba’s reflexes pale in comparison – their main goal is to antagonise any voice of reason.

They just cannot be seen to step back and observe, hold their peace and apply even the slightest iota of reason to their comments. They come in as fodder, fouling up the commentary landscape such that voyeurs (readers) are almost titillated beyond sexual ecstasy. The indecency of it all.

Arcahic as it might sound, I am still of the opinion that discretion is always, always, always, always the better part of valour. Sadly, many are impervious to that ability to separate, distinguish, think, meditate, reflect, write, reflect, edit and post.

People of that ilk are better left as Internet acquaintances if they ever get that far.

The privilege to comment

A web logger offers their opinion on any matter that excites their interest from whatever perspective – the allowance of free commentary from anyone without moderation should in the least be seen as a privilege. The abuse of that privilege is uncouth at best and unprintable at worst.

There are many who are still to realise that fact and it makes blogging all the poorer for it.