Thought Picnic: In person or at keyboard, we are people

It is all about people still

There are places on the Internet where I have pitched tents and invited people to picnic with me in the Wild West frontier of the dangerous and unpredictable climes of an ethereal or Internet world that presumes to confer some anonymity where in reality, it hardly does.

The kind of abstraction that allows you to interact from your keyboard that whoever you engage is not so much human but characters you read on the screen might easily rob you of the essential qualities of humanity from basic courtesy and consideration to sympathy, maybe empathy, and a functioning expression of emotional intelligence.

That we can forget that we are dealing with other human beings can unwttingly creep upon us making us completely unaware of what we might be doing and the harm we are causing others. Now, in general, I might pass for quite old-fashioned, and to some, it might be a failing, but my demeanour is one cultivated over decades of education and example, necessary for establishing respectful relationships.

Just a greeting then begin

Just as I cannot see myself entering a room of strangers without offering a greeting before asking a question or making a statement, the same goes for what happens online, the comportment, the respect, the courtesy is no less valid if all you do is encounter people at the tap of your keyboard keys and from what you read on your monitor.

This became an issue when I engaged someone who had time and again visited a forum where on entering he simply made a demand without a greeting. For me, it was irritating and entitled with a bearing of utter disrespect, the audacity of such an attitude was an affront that it could just from its demonstration be acceptable, but not if I had anything to do with it.

Challenging the uncouth

I addressed it suggesting the immediate demand could likely be the formality in places I have never been and how it cannot be considered proper. To which he responded that no one else had complained and I was only one out of so many making an issue of it. Whilst I agreed that I alone took umbrage, you do not need a democracy or a vote to determine the need to treat others with courtesy and respect, it should be a given without any need for prevarication or argument.

The point I was making was simple, when you enter a room of strangers, whether in a live setting or online and have any requests to make, you gain their attention respectfully and courteously with a greeting, now, if that is not a reasonable premise, we might as well all be uncultured and Barbarians. My interlocutor was having none of it, I was an irritation questioning his lien to act as he will in an open forum.

Unwelcomed for obduracy

Open as the forum was, it had clear rules and unwritten norms of courtesy that hinting and addressing were not getting across to our friend. Upping the stakes, I suggested I could both complain and kick him out of the forum. He was not backing down, daring me to do whatever I would and still making his case that a singular request for decorum was insignificant compared to the silent majority of the unperturbed. Yet, to do the right thing should not be a subject of election but one of enthusiastic intention with commensurate action.

And so, with the vested ability and authority I had in the forum, the said person was ejected though not banned, their card is marked. Any new return without a requisite greeting will be frostily met with ejection and without prior engagement. What saddens me is how people act against their best self-interests with obstinacy and obduracy. There is a moment to acquiesce and accept failings when pointed out, and with some humility you can earn the respect of others, but if you default to haughty determinism, you will always come off worse and be excluded from polite company.

That is old-fashioned society and I like it, everyday.

Thought Picnic: Of Justin Bieber in London with that look

Unconcerned

Now, apparently, a Mr Justin Bieber has been on a UK tour, having been in Manchester the week before when I was up there and then in London as the weekend rolled in.

I do not particularly care for his kind of music but I have seen the female folk swoon and squeal with glee at his appearance and performance that I can quite patently say I do not want whatever they are on to make them see whatever they are seeing or hear whatever they are hearing.

Then again, for the kind of music the young man purveys, he has become rather financially successful and some credit for his upbringing should go to his tenacious mum, Pattie Mallette whose intrusion into the public sphere has now included her sententiously religious opinions about abortion.

Unabashed

He turned 19 on the 1^st of March and he allegedly was staying at The Langham London which along with its luxurious opulence will not be lacking in the class and grace of a decent gourmet restaurant, however, the dear boy thought he might have a kebab instead, we cannot for now vouch for what kind of meat might be on the skewer with the food industry horsing around on pigs and cows that we might just be racing camels at the Grand National if all the horses enter the food chain.

One should not begrudge the man the need for something less exquisite, the presence of means does suddenly accrue to good bearing and exemplary mien, these things cannot be brought and only so much can be taught.

Unimpressed

It turns out that he left the hotel topless and what a body he appears to have but the low-hanging trousers exposing the full complement of his underwear must be the lowest expression of oafish conduct I have seen since I last told some boys on an Amsterdam shopping street to pull up their trousers and stop assaulting and outraging public decency with cack-ridden slips.

Every picture captured of the boy, because it does not become a man to be in such a state of undignified exposure, rankles with revulsion that makes one give up the hope of rescuing a fashion victim that has no doubt become a fashion suicide.

The worst bit of this display of gaol fashion that was attributed to men in prison who allowed themselves this demonstration to suggest they were available to be used as sex objects is the many others who will model their slouching gait and backside exposure tendencies after this Justin Bieber enterprise which should attract much excoriation and opprobrium.

Unacceptable

If my life had taken another course, a 19-year old kid would probably have been a 3^rd or 4^th child and I cannot see how regardless of situation, circumstance or peer pressure where any of my children would have been allowed to walk the streets inappropriately dressed to fit in with a nominally uncouth culture and appearance.

Being proper and properly attired is a matter of breeding, class and comportment without having to be dependent on means.

At this point, if there were occasion to warrant a cacophonous imposition on my aural faculties of this man’s crooning croaks my estimation of this very successful man who William Shakespeare would have effusively praised by saying, “You show yourself highly fed and lowly taught,” would not move one to find the slightest respect for his standing.

You only have to see the pictures to understand where I am coming from.

Nigeria: Roll Back These First Lady Red Carpets

A Brief History of First Ladies

The concept of First Lady and the aura of officialdom that it carries was invented in the United States of America where the spouse of the sitting President or a lady relative in the case of an unmarried or widowed President served as the hostess of the White House.

Whilst there is no constitutional provision for the First Lady, there are elements of protocol and dignities conferred on her by reason of the position her husband holds.

Lisa M. Burns in her book First Ladies and the Fourth Estate: Press Framing of Presidential Wives (2008) suggests the following themes in First Ladyship in the United States of America as public woman (1900–1929); as political celebrity (1932–1961); as political activist (1964–1977); and as political interloper (1980–2001).

A Vulgarity of First Ladies

The same idea seems to have taken hold around the world with cliques of regional First Ladies gathering for all sorts of projects spanning one, some or all of those themes and more.

Nowhere has this role become even more prominent to include another theme of political aggrandisement and abuse than in Nigeria.

Sadly, the more recent First Ladies in Nigeria have left the graces and comportment one would have expected of them to become vain as exemplified sadly in the death by misadventure of Mrs Stella Obasanjo after a botched cosmetic surgery procedure, greed as depicted in the Wikileaks exposés of Mrs Turai Yar’Adua and Mrs or rather Dame Patience Jonathan appears to combine vanity, greed and a lack of moderation that leaves one astounded beyond words.

A Truth Commission Bites

Whilst it is difficult not to catch a whiff of vendetta against the previous governor of Ogun State, the establishment of the Ogun State Truth Commission under the chairmanship of Hon. Justice Pius O. Aderemi JSC (Rtd.) has brought some focus that should hopefully start the discourse about the role of First Ladies in Nigeria, having recommended the prosecution of the wife of the erstwhile governor of Ogun State.

Justice Pius Aderemi as a former justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria I will presume is of the legal mind to properly assess these roles and even offer recommendations on how these roles should be undertaken.

Take Notice

A number of key statements in his recommendations are important to note and develop.

“The proven excesses of Mrs. Olufunke Daniel arose from the widespread abuse of spouses of Governors and Presidents when there is no legal basis for the office of First Lady in Nigeria. The State and Federal Governments should evolve an administrative mechanism that ensures that wives of Governors and Presidents carry out what they perceive to be their duties unobtrusively.”

“It is the view of the Commission that the victim established a prima facie case of criminal offence against Mrs. Olufunke Daniel,” Justice Aderemi said. “Mrs. Olufunke Daniel undoubtedly held herself out as a Public Officer by moving to the Petitioner’s house with armed police escorts and ordering the policemen to beat Mr. Odunaya.”

These two paragraphs are without doubt very lucid in the arguments that form the basis for putting the so-called First Ladies of any sitting official or even First Gentlemen, First Spouses or First Partners in their places.

The inference drawn here is that certain wives of Governors and Presidents have been given to both excess and abuse while answerable to no one, even though the immunity from prosecution their spouses have does not apply to them.

As We Stand

However the key points I want to make from these two paragraphs are the following.

• There is no legal basis for the office of any First Lady in Nigeria.
• An administrative mechanism that ensures that wives of Governors and Presidents carry out what they perceive to be their duties unobtrusively is need, more like a Code of Conduct and Ethics.
• The wife of a Governor or President can be criminally liable and is not above the law if anyone might need to seek redress for their actions.
• The wife of a Governor or President is not a Public Office, whilst they might have protective detail by reason of their status they do not have authority to use such detail to exact the law or forment activities that should be delegated and commanded by law enforcement officers.
• Now for reasons of protocol, the First Lady with her spouse present should be accorded the status, respect and dignities commensurate with her spouse when accompanying him.

Diplomacy and Courtesies

There is however nothing in the Order of Precedence Act that identifies a Nigerian First Lady of any description in her own right, no wives of any public officials are accorded any relevance in the absence of their husbands.

The fact that the wife of a Public Official is NOT a Public Official just by reason of marriage means they are not covered by the Order of Precedence.

Husbands may however confer rights of representation to non-official functions on their wives to stand in their stead and officiate thereby but not in the substantive office of their spouses.

Any dignities, graces, courtesies and respect accorded the wife of a public official is by reason of the respect given to her husband, that respect does not automatically endow a right or status of superiority on the wife when her husband is absent.

Proscribe this anomaly

However, crude this may sound, the excesses and abuses of First Ladies in Nigeria now requires we roll back the red carpets, dispense with the nauseating obsequiousness and tone down on the unnecessary genuflection and fawning.

They should return to being hostesses of the Presidential villas and Governor’s houses to be sometimes invited to cut the tape at garden bazaars. The entourages and corteges of the sycophantic apparatchiks clogging up our streets to the inconvenience of the many should stop forthwith.

In fact, we should only see or hear of the those First ladies when their husbands are out and about, this whole charade has become nuisance that even the utterly uncultured can no more abide.

Away with the Marie Antoinettes of our age.

References

Flash: Truth Commission Recommends Gbenga Daniel’s Wife, Monarch, Others For Trial « News Bytes

Nigeria: The First Lady Syndrome | AllAfrica

Order of Precedence of Public Officers in Nigeria [PDF Download]

Editorial: Yahoo! Reprehensible Ya-hooligans

Maybe important

The sacking of Carol Bartz, the CEO of Yahoo! yesterday most definitely had great effect, the markets were hoopla as the almost 3 year tenure of the lady came to an abrupt end.

Now, Yahoo! had to do what they had to do having seen that she had failed to appreciably turn around the fortunes of the company but it would be remiss of observers to think that the CEO runs a company like a fiefdom without the team that constitutes the board and management of that organisation.

Appalling action

However, none of that bothers me as much as the manner of sacking of this lady; she was apparently sacked over the phone. The excuse being proffered was that she was on the other side of the country and the most immediate contact that could be made to deliver this “world-ending” news was to deliver it over the phone.

I am not persuaded in the slightest of this view, for all the cut-throat competition and the cut-and-thrust of corporate politics it would be rather unfortunate if the basic tenets of good manners, courtesy, decorum, gentlemanliness and I dare say chivalry were lost for the expediency of pleasing the market.

At worst, the immediate and prompt summoning of Carol Bartz to an emergency board meeting to deliver the news to her in person is the least that should have been expected of those who by circumstance might have been highly fed, lowly taught and quite lacking in breeding.

Apes on boards

This masterstroke of palace coups ranks high in the annals of ignominy and will not have Yahoo! shooting up the charts of the next best company to work for; the callousness of sacking a colleague of such importance by such clinically repugnant tactics does make the men involved appear to fit better in an ape colony than in the company of polite society.

I will expect any Yahoo! employee with the slightest dignity and honour to be considering the precariousness of their positions if this could happen to their CEO.

One can only wish that this type of reprehensible behaviour does not become the staple of boardroom putsches where cads on executive boards begin to give much credence to the one funny play on Yahoo! – Ya-hooligans, this sort just make your skin crawl.

Ban Ki-moon ducks for dear life

The natural occurrence of mortars

The UN Secretary General was in no doubt that he was in Baghdad yesterday when during a press conference he was greeted by phenomena that is a natural as the tremors of Tokyo and as constant as night follows day; a mortar bomb attack.

Ever since the photogenic, articulate, decorous and intelligent Sérgio Vieira de Mello was bombed out and killed along with 22 UN staff in August 2003, I have had issues with the UN sitting inside the cauldron of Mesopotamia getting roasted by matters once avoidable.

Unannounced but known

However, it was in some way important for Mr. Ban Ki-moon to be welcomed in this manner, and at least realising that the pejorative "Gringo" Zone with all its boulders and reinforcements can still be under siege.

More interestingly Afghanistan and Iraq probably remain the two countries where important dignitaries cannot pre-announce their arrival, it does not then mean that the insurgents and terrorists cannot read the signs that some Very Irritating Ponce, sorry, I meant VIP, is visiting and in need of a welcoming bang.

No class at all

Then the matter of reflex, class and decorum; I have many times seen instances where in a restaurant or at a banquet table, a chair is being adjusted for the lady to sit down and she reaches down to feel for the chair before sitting down - it betrays a lack of confidence if not class and breeding - no gentleman or servant would allow for the seat not to be where the lady should be sat, those who know just sit, knowing what should be known - tapping my nose.

In Baghdad, one could see Mr. Ban Ki-moon duck with ruffled self-preservation before he recovered his composure, in fact, the way security did not immediately rush to his aid and bundle him out showed just how too ordinary this mortar thing was, that Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki hardly flinched.

Bad briefing and the loss of mien

I would surmise that Mr. Ban Ki-moon was poorly briefed of what to expect in Iraq and hence how to conduct himself in a situation where a typically large firework goes off unexpectedly and diplomacy is losing that stiff-upper lip Englishness where aristocracy continued to dance even when the hall they were in was collapsing upon their heads - at least, finish that piece of music before seeking refuge.

One might just lament that diplomacy has now been pared down to being able to speak many languages with a forked tongue, being able to recognise or exude airs and graces is now only to be seen in the Courts of Louis XVI of old - Alas!.