An embarrassment of heritage
I was rather
discomfited by the news of the
conviction of 8 teenagers yesterday for the killing of another teenager in
2010.
There are issues
with gang warfare and disputes in London but the brazenness with which these
youngsters carried out their assault on another in plain public view leaves one
wondering what our society has become.
One teenager stood
in the middle of the road wielding a samurai sword and they ended up chasing
the victim into a busy London Underground Station where they as many as 15 in
number attacked, stabbed, kicked and punched the poor 15-year old Sofyen
Belamouadden to death.
That is bad enough,
but when I read the names of the perpetrators involved, I feel a sense of eerie familiarity as
Junior Bayode, Obi Nwokeh, Christopher Omoregie, Samsom Odegbune, Femi Oderinwale and Victoria Osoteku
all appear to have Nigerian surnames.
They have some Nigerian connection
That is not to say
that these people are Nigerian, but one can safely assume they have some
connection with Nigeria by reason of parentage and possibly heritage.
The other two might
well have Nigerian connections but that is not evident from their names. What
bothers me is what the parents and guardians of these kids might have been up
to that their wards have ended up on the extreme side of the law having congregated
with impunity in the mob act of killing someone else in plain view.
I appreciate that
these kids might never have visited Nigeria or experienced what many might call
a traditional Nigerian upbringing that gives the parent licence to brutalise
their wards in what we broadly call discipline but discipline in and of itself
cannot just be corporal punishment – we need to adapt the tools of affirmation
and chastisement to the societies we find ourselves in.
Adapting parenting influence
Whereas in Nigeria
it is probably enough to dispatch parental responsibility by just being a
provider of shelter, food, education and basic welfare, the differences in
societal values and expectations mean that parents have to be more involved in
attending to the emotional needs of their wards and this is something many might
not have found examples of in their own upbringing.
I dare say, where
ethnic minorities fail to integrate congregating in conurbations of ghettoised
indifference, they shirk in the fundamental responsibility of understanding the
pressures their wards face and the society in which they wards are growing – religion
and social events amongst ourselves are not enough, we cannot recreate our local
villages abroad and hope that it will suffice – it does not.
Just because we
cannot bring our kids up the “Nigerian” way does not absolve us of our
responsibility in society to bring our kids to respect the rule of law, the
dignity of labour and the earning of respect through purposeful activity rather
than menace – gangs are fundamentally antithetical to this thinking and one can
say it arises because parents are absent from what they are supposed to be
doing.
Misguided parental goals
Over the last few
years, I have found too many instances where kids of Nigerian heritage have
been victims or perpetrators of violent crime, if we must have children in
foreign societies it behoves us to exert ourselves to bring them up in
environments where they are first not under threat and then not influenced by
negative role models.
The preoccupation
with keeping up appearances and status in our marooned Diaspora communities
when the greater task of separation and integration is of essence for the sake
of our children is atrocious – children are better inspired and encouraged by
aspirational guardians who provide positive role models that their wards can
emulate.
A parenting challenge
It is all too easy
to suggest children have become wayward and are the black sheep of the family
but if their formative years were spent under a responsible adult’s care and
hopefully guidance, then that is probably where things also went wrong – what
children end up becoming does not occur in a vacuum.
Looking at those 6
Nigerian names, should be a warning shot across the bows of ethnic parenthood
in foreign lands that your involvement is pertinent, that the game plan for
child rearing cannot follow the script we once had or experienced back at home and
that we cannot spend all hours in the pursuit of filthy lucre if we want the
peace of children who will in future go on to live successful, independent
lives away from unsavoury encounters with the law and the shame that it brings.
