It is 31 years of japa

We left and never wept

When I think of it, at this time 31 years ago, I had just arrived in the UK on a flight from Lagos which was the last time I was in Nigeria. I have since then not found any inclination or urge to return either for sentimental or other reasons, it feels like o broke free from a system and a situation and that was the end of the matter.

Even as I write, too much of what I read and hear of Nigeria is not just scary, but terrifying. If not the abuse of power by the rich and powerful, it is the menace of agents beyond the control of the state terrorising the regions that the state in attempting to arrest the situation almost always descends into atrocity and criminality.

Our hopes for something

Then again, I commend the many, especially among the youth that has been able to make Nigeria work for them after a fashion, their tenacity and resilience cannot be poohpoohed, they have shown that regardless of the circumstances, there is ability and possibility even as things could be better to expand opportunity for broader ascendancy in the citizenry.

Nigeria for me is just a place to observe and assess, my involvement and engagement is necessitated by relationships in the familial and the fraternal, beyond that, my energies and prospects are being directed to other places. Over time, I have increasingly doubted any anticipation of my return, even for the particular. We are done. Yet, my dream for Nigeria remains one for peace and prosperity for the majority marshalled by those who have a good clue of what they are doing. That alone is the welfare for everyone anywhere with a Nigerian connection.

Blog - From a Nigeria 30 years ago

Japa – Urban dictionary

That boarding pass of the 30th of December, 1990.

Nigeria: The exodus of 'I have only one life' Nigerians

Our early privilege

Around the time we left secondary school, we were children of middle-class and upwardly mobile parents who were at or approaching the pinnacle of their careers. Many of them, our parents were educated abroad where they had us, children, typically in their mid-20s.

At that time, there was no particular desire amongst us to leave Nigeria, tertiary education was of the standard that was quite competitive and engaging. That we had NYSC (National Youth Service Corps) teachers who had studied abroad did not necessarily make us yearn for an exit, Nigerian seemed to present opportunity and prospect, some of our colleagues spent the summer holidays abroad and still returned to finish their school.

The dream that died

Somehow, has the democracy of the second republic transitioned into military rule, that apparent Nigerian dream was becoming a nightmare. Obviously, the connections we had through the networks of our parents gave us access, be it nepotism or favoritism, a helping hand, and good word here or there, hurdles were smoothed away, but the incumbency of the middle-classes was beginning to shift for even more egregious corruption.

At a point, not even merit coupled with any level of preferential treatment to get you anywhere in Nigeria, the system was gummed up by bureaucracy, corruption, and rent-seekers. In the space of a decade, our accents and apparent privilege got us nowhere. Nigeria was no more working for us and there began the exodus, the exit to where at least we believed more than when our parents were abroad that we could not only thrive, but a semblance of meritocracy gave us a fighting chance.

The first mass exodus

Some of us armed with first degrees or just citizenship by birth knew that the promised land that our parents returned to was not the promised land where we could with grit, talent, and daring begin to live our best lives. Besides, the strictures of tradition, culture and control that stifled our freedom of expression in Nigeria was to be broken out of when we escaped.

From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, we left Nigeria disillusioned young people to begin new lives abroad just as the government was running a losing battle about losing us to a world that appeared to need us, or so we believed. I would suppose many of us who were born abroad in the 1960s and the 1970s left Nigeria and probably never returned.

The new brain drain

There is a new exodus in play, just as the one we can remember that those in government today were the same faces that could not convince us of the Nigerian dream then. They might not be like those of us of the other exodus, but I would suggest they are the “I have only one life” cohort. They have decided that in the scheme of things the possibility of a different Nigeria is probably remote or impossible and they need to act to provide opportunity and dreams for themselves and their children.

Many of them are highly qualified Nigerians in a Nigeria that is not working for them as they realise there is a global talent market yearning for them and the diversity in expertise they can bring to environments that allows for competition and is rarely gamed by overreach or the abuse of power, where the rule of law, at least in the letter of it appears to be respected and the powerful or influential cannot mess you up on the whim of megalomania.

It still works for some

You still have to give it to those who still believe in the Nigerian dream and seem to thrive in Nigeria despite the lack of ease of doing business, a rotten and intemperate regulatory system that thwarts rather than encourages initiative and innovation, corruption, crumbling infrastructure and the security challenges.

Many Nigerians are thinking, I have only one life and I doubt I want to waste the best part of my productive years daydreaming about a different Nigeria when there could be any other place where my achievements and abilities can find the scope to thrive. For some, even from Nigeria, the world has been their oyster, but for others, they have jumped at the opportunity to emigrate with the feeling that when pit against obstacles abroad they have a more probable chance of coming out on top than struggling in Nigeria.

Use the opportunities that come

This is not to celebrate the exodus from Nigeria of talent and brains, but I left Nigeria over 30 years ago and I know what that had given me in life and experience. It might well be that on balance Nigeria does not deserve many of its youth because the system gives little credence to what they have to contribute.

The world however needs amazing brains and Nigerians constitute a pool of talent the world cannot do without. Maybe after making it abroad, some might return to be honoured at home.

You have one life, take it to the world and make history, that is my treatise to every young Nigerian.

Thought Picnic: A bag of life to pack

In the mind in a swirl

In visualisations and vivid imagination my daily thoughts are consumed by proposals and plans, the prospect of emigration, the destination being South Africa.

Thinking of the major to minor of what it entails, first for me and then critically and crucially for the lives I will be responsible for as they begin to thrive in their own aims, goals, and careers.

Much of if seems like the stuff of dreams, then dreams do come true, and in a sense as apprehensive as I sometimes feel, I am not afraid the possible is quite possible indeed.

I have emigrated a number of times and in some ways, I must be a bit more experienced whilst I try to recapture that sense of youthful adventure that drives you to things that give life every chance to become both testimony and story.

From a Nigeria 30 years ago

The outlay

I really thought I will not write a blog today, but Brian said, I could do it and it will be an auspicious thing because it commemorates the day I have not forgotten.

It was a Sunday, the 30^th of December 1990 that I took a delayed flight with Nigeria Airways from Lagos to London and that was my departure from Nigeria. Things moved quite quickly in the space of 7 or so weeks.

I was a partner in a desktop publishing firm we called NextStep Limited when we decided on updating our equipment by making a trip to the United Kingdom. The activity would have been performed by a former business partner of the principal, but at the last minute, I was added to the trip, somewhat to protect our interests.

The situation

On the 18^th of November, I had arrived in England for a business trip that was to last a week, however, that stretched to two weeks because some of the kit we had acquired was to be delivered later than our previously scheduled stay. That night, Chris Eubank beat Nigel Benn in a boxing match.

That former business partner once worked for Nigeria Airways and knew his way around, all the VAT returns for our purchases of over £4,000 went into his UK account. Laden with our kit, I returned to Nigeria on the 2^nd of December, by which time John Major had supplanted Margaret Thatcher.

Whilst in the UK, I learnt that I had the skills for a thriving computer technical support market if I ventured the idea, I got a copy of my long birth certificate as it was not obtained my parents when they got the short version. With that in hand, I applied for the Certificate to the Right of Abode which only had a 3-week processing time compared to the 18-month waiting list for a British passport.

The execution

The interview was a breeze, more the exchange of banter about failed interviews and with my special visa to hand, I bought my one-way ticket to London for the price of NGN 3,200. I was ready to go even if very few believed my plans would be executed. I had determined I was going to leave before 1990 was over.

My 25^th birthday was given prominence at the Christmas party for the staff of Deji Sasegbon Publishers, a legal publishing outfit for which I was a consultant and through whom I had the bulk of my airfare to travel to the UK, as part of our contractual agreement signed some 14 months before.

The memory

The exchange rate then was NGN 15 to £1 and though I have left for a generation, Nigeria has not left me, I am impacted and affected by many things in Nigeria, most completely out of my control by inimical policies that take no consideration for the people. I cannot report that things have improved for the majority even as some have prospered.

On the matter of returning, even for a visit, I am undecided, and the passage of time has made it quite unlikely regardless of the event or the occasion, I think and dream of Nigeria, it is not home, just a place of memories, attachments, and influence. My hope is still that Nigeria finds peace and prosperity and hopefully at the hands of people who know what they are doing and will not squander the rare opportunities to do so.

My boarding pass from the 30^th of December 1990.

A score years from Amsterdam

Arrival Schiphol

Twenty years ago, today was a Saturday, I had packed a suitcase, left for the airport and boarded a flight to Amsterdam. At Schiphol Airport, Dick van Galen Last, now deceased, who I had met in Paris some 3 years before was waiting to collect me having offered to give me boarding for as long as it took to find my feet.

Thus, began my over 12-year sojourn in the Netherlands, the culmination of a series of events that began in January 1999 when a relationship of almost 7 years came to an end. It presaged a turbulent year of career upheavals, house moves, job changes, and a period of interesting adventure.

I was in London, having gone back to work in Ipswich where I rebased myself for 6 months thinking things had changed in my head from the 3 years before, but I learnt that situation was not a solution to turmoil. The job I took up was not offering the fulfilment I had hoped for and so I resigned as the end of November, just at the cusp of the Millennium, depending on where you place it.

Mid-life marauding

In the New Year, I returned to my original lodgings in London and found that the search for work was fraught with difficulty, applications going out by the truckload, responses returning by the trickle and interviews rarely leading to offers. That was when John Coll, also deceased, suggested I see an occupational psychotherapist.

We met for a chat in Central London whilst I relayed what my circumstances were. His view was that I was doing quite well even if I was not getting the results I wanted. It was also a difficult realisation of having gone through probably half a million pounds in earnings without having much to show for it. There are two things I took away from our conversation, that I was going through a mid-life crisis a decade early and the need to change something radically in my life, location, career, or purpose.

A romance in Europe

That set me on the quest to look for work outside the UK, something I was quite reticent to consider for years. In that same conversation, I was informed that Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands presented the best choices for opportunities. Soon, I was on a flight to Munich for an interview with Compaq, I was not as forward-looking as was expected, I dismissed Intellisense in its infancy as bunkum. I stayed in Munich for a week, it was just before the Dot-Com bubble burst, how I tried to persuade a stockbroker in a Munich sauna to cash out as if I was that prescient.

Back in the UK, I scored an interview, it was conducted at the office of a recruitment agency where set questions were posed to us and the whole charade recorded on video for the customer to review in a team of technicians before selecting those they thought knowledgeable enough. I got the job and was commuting the Reading whilst still looking at prospects on mainland Europe.

A clean break

For the first time ever, I was in a shift pattern of work, 12-hour days every 4 days and 2 days off. The pay was not close to my peak, but the hours made up for it. In the second week of taking the role, I heard back from a prospect in Amsterdam, they wanted a face-to-face interview and as luck would have it, it fell on the days I was off. I took an EasyJet flight to Amsterdam, attended the interview and returned the next day when my laptop suffered a battering at the hands of baggage handlers.

I have not flown EasyJet since then. On my return, I received an offer for the job in Amsterdam. On having a conversation with my manager in Reading, we decided on a quick and clean break, it was fine with me. I hated the work environment, people were promoted beyond their capabilities to manage the team, it was cliquey and toxic, I was glad to be shot of the place.

That is how I began the Dutch phase of my life history, it would be one of the best decisions I ever made; the opportunity to begin again, make a new life, find new friends, and live new experiences. Much as I tried, my conversational Dutch was poor, I became an Englishman abroad.

Nigerians, I hail you

29 years already

I wrote a blog exactly a year ago and ended it with the paragraph below without telling that other story. I do not this blog would be the space for it either, it would probably go into my story, if I get the inspiration, motivation and will to take it beyond the chapters I have already written.

On the 30^th of December 1990, I left Nigeria, on Nigeria Airways flight WT808 running almost 3 hours behind schedule. I had £15 in my pocket and a future ahead of me. That is another story.

Blog - My last 4 weeks in Nigeria, 28 years ago (The business angle)

I wonder why I commemorate the 30^th of December, it has been 29 years since I left Nigeria, it is strange that if work commitments had not necessitated my travel to South Africa in 2015, I would never have set foot in Africa since I left.

Gone but not done

Like I would normally protest on Twitter, my having left Nigeria that long ago has not meant a disengagement from the country of my forebears. I cherish and guard my Nigerian heritage jealously as much I try to be informed and well acquainted with issues and events therein.

The contention with parents, relations, and friends is whether I can be persuaded to return for a visit. I have not convinced myself of the sense of security, safety, or comfort that this would afford me. Until I can get that sorted in my head, I can categorically say, it is not on my agenda.

Blog - Nigeria: You'll keep hearing from us in the diaspora

The retiree then

We can only hope that the man who has negotiated for himself the best retirement package of his generation and peers soon moves on to a sort of retirement home. Our witness of his first regime in the 1980s is what ushered in the Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, the annulment of the 1993 elections and then Sani Abacha.

Whatever his plans were then appeared to be a systematic regimentation of Nigeria towards a North Korean style of socialist control of not just the systems but the minds of the people. Whilst we were not barred from leaving the country, the message was we shouldn’t. It is without a doubt that Muhammadu Buhari has some animus towards Nigerians based abroad, maybe because much as we can criticise him, we are beyond his junta-inspired grasp. [See the blog below.]

Blog - Nigeria: President Buhari, get to work and honestly, shut up!

The retiree now

Meanwhile with his 1980s mindset, he rules the roost, retired of ideas, policy or direction much as we can recount that after he exited national politics he was involved in no activity until he rekindled his entitlement to leadership that he fought for thrice before winning. The people beguiled with the spectre of integrity that doesn’t appear to radiate beyond the man.

Now, he lives in the best residence gets the best medical attention in London that flounces off to at a whim, flies in a presidential jet arriving in countries where all courtesies to a head of state are a diplomatic necessity whilst the country teeters on the edge of incomprehensibility, the youth unable to adequately plan a future in their country of birth, they are leaving if they can.

Nigerians, I hail you

Yet, I must commend those who have found ways to thrive in that environment, but there is another wave of the Exodus like those of my generation who left about 3 decades ago and they are not planning on returning.

In my view, you can make a success of your life anywhere in the world if you have the drive, the ambition, the skills, and the sheer determination, by God, we have spunk. Many leave Nigeria and get to live their best lives. I just hope we have enough people left to really take the country forward, even those of us who have left, pray constantly for a better Nigeria.

My last 4 weeks in Nigeria, 28 years ago (The business angle)

My departure boarding pass issued on the 30^th of December 1990.

Taking the next step

Twenty-eight years ago today, I left Nigeria to return to the UK, I had only returned from the UK 4 weeks earlier, having been on a business trip for a firm in which I was part owner with a 30% stake, we called it NextStep Limited and it specialised in desktop publishing, offloading the burden of typesetting and printing from traditional methods to technologies provided by personal computers running Xerox Ventura Publisher.

NextStep Limited probably would have gone far if the majority partner was not too full of himself expecting subservience and obeisance, but two events in the 4 weeks of my return put paid to that relationship. The first was during a conversation when he dipped his hand in his pocket and threw money at me across the table. I picked up the wad and put it back in front of him saying, my parents have never thrown money at me, neither can you.

Maybe not a good step

The second event resulted in me saying to him, “You don’t give a 24-year old 30% of a company and think that is the end of his life, I will throw it away and start over again somewhere else.” It wasn’t that I was not full of gratitude, I just could not stand being treated with disrespect just because I was younger.

Whilst I was beginning to give more of my time to NextStep Limited, I had 4 other contractual engagements going. The most important was with Deji Sasegbon Limited, a legal publishing outfit that had just finished publishing the Nigerian Supreme Court Cases in 40 volumes and it was this that brought me into the purview of my patron and majority partner at NextStep Limited who was also a lawyer and a director at the United Bank of Africa.

On an earlier step

He was a Nigerian bigwig and I was an atypical young ‘Nigerian’, well, Deji Sasegbon who gave me my big break saw me differently, he had the wealth, influence and authority to employ me outright to work for him. Instead, he offered me a deal, he said, “Akin, I want you to consult for me, teach my staff to know the workings of desktop publishing, take on the complex stuff and for that, I will give you a monthly stipend and your flight ticket whenever you are ready to leave for the UK is paid for.”

Deji Sasegbon, unfortunately, passed away two years ago, to him I owe a great debt of gratitude, more importantly, he treated me with dignity and respect, it was always a pleasure to work for him. When I told him I was leaving for the UK, whilst he was saddened, he understood and bid me Godspeed.

Blog - Adieu D-Shash! (Deji Sasegbon)

Definite the worst step

At NextStep Limited, one of the jack-of-all-trades businesses my partner was involved in was selling Christmas cards. Some staff in that other business had stolen some of those cards and my partner corralled every employee including my own staff at NextStep Limited and had them banged up in a police cell without the courtesy of informing me. I spent a whole day negotiating bail conditions for my staff, or at least my staff did the negotiating because I did not speak with the language or accent the police understood. I got them out, but that was the very last straw for me.

Whilst, there was a kind of youthful exuberance in the way I decided to break that NextStep Limited relationship. In the circumstances, that was my only option. There was no other engagement where I had been treated as disdainfully as I was with that man. I divested myself of my other engagements and handed over to my able assistant and threw away NextStep Limited.

After my departure, my ex-business partner attempted to besmirch my name to my family and other contacts I made on my business visit to the UK, suggesting I had made off with material and some other stuff. The only thing I took from NextStep Limited was my participation. It was his desperate attempt to assuage his ego when he had been dealt the same hand of discourtesy he had dealt me.

My good friend later wrote to me saying, when you left NextStep, there were no other steps to take.

On an airline step

This was a man who got his sister a job for in the foreign exchange department of the Central Bank of Nigeria, on arranging the foreign exchange for our business travel, she pilfered a full 20% of that transaction. He had more leeches and hangers-on around him filching, dissembling, needing and stealing, everyone was coming to him with business deals and scams, he probably invested in more scams than viable businesses.

He came to me with a proposition that I accepted because I thought it was a good idea, with hindsight, I should have taken some advice and I would have gotten the best legal advice money could buy for free from Deji Sasegbon or any of his partners and lawyers, all of whom I had a good relationship with.

On the 30^th of December 1990, I left Nigeria, on Nigeria Airways flight WT808 running almost 3 hours behind schedule. I had £15 in my pocket and a future ahead of me. That is another story.

Thought Picnic: Twenty Five Years from Nigeria

A decision for change

Twenty-five years ago today, I boarded a Nigeria Airways flight with a one-way ticket from Nigeria to England. It is strange that I came to such a decision in the space of not more than seven weeks.

As a partner in a desktop publishing firm, I had only returned from the UK, 4 weeks before, after a two-week business trip that was more than an eye-opener about the opportunities I could have in the UK.

Of the many exciting jobs I was doing in Nigeria, most of the people I sealed contracts with, gave me the comfort of appreciating the skill I brought to bear within their businesses and in that acknowledged that expertise with a commensurate and sometimes generous compensation.

A law onto himself

The one person I had issues with was an egotistical, megalomaniac of a lawyer who through whatever levers he was able to pull was a director of the United Bank for Africa and besides his legal practice had a traditional printing press, my role was to introduce desktop publishing to reduce the turnaround time from orders to finished product.

However, for all that was able to offer in that setting, for which I owned 30% of the company, he just could not get his head around the fact that I was half his age, never obsequious and though respectful, quite irreverent.

This caused unnecessary tensions between us that he callously took out on my staff that for me the situation became untenable. Beyond that, I had to run the gauntlet of rent-seekers who always thought they deserved a cut from contractual fees, for just knowing that I had won a contract and I was getting paid.

A tumultuous existence

In another area, I was being blackmailed for who I was, then elsewhere, people seemingly pulling strings on my behalf to continue my education in Nigeria, got them tangled in unexplained processes, it began to look like I could jettison everything I was doing in Nigeria and seek to start a new life abroad.

I guess, it all came to a head when my so-called partner threw money across the table towards me, I took exception to that disrespectful behaviour that I told him, “You don’t give a 24-year old 30% of a company and then think that is the pinnacle of achievement, I will throw it away and start all over again.” That is what I did.

The action plan

In the four weeks of December leading to my departure, I obtained the Entitlement to the Right of Abode, which took three weeks to obtain considering the waiting list for a full British passport was 18 months long, got my one-way ticket, handed over my contracts to my deputy and bid the people who mattered goodbye.

I had in two weeks towards the end of November during my visit to the UK, learnt that I had knowledge and skills for a market hungry for people who knew what they were doing. I could think of the number of times I demonstrated the utility of a product to sales staff who were supposed to know better.

How I viewed it

On that day, the 30^th of December 1990, I left home with a bag and probably about £20, gathered my closest friends who saw me off at the airport and waited to board my flight which was to take-off at 11:00 AM, it was delayed, we eventually lifted off at 3:00 PM.

In many ways, that trip meant different things to different people, and whilst their concerns were valid in the context of their opinions, mine was simply this, I am returning to the land of my birth, I am more comfortable in the England about what I know and can get a headway with that and that there was a future ahead of me, if I was determined enough to seize it.

Where my mind was

My arrival in England was met with conflicting advice from different quarters, however, I am happy that I joined up with a crowd that not only believed in me but did everything to encourage me in getting on my own two feet and making a successful life in the UK.

It is interesting that I left Nigeria with literally no sense of nostalgia except for certain cravings for the cuisine many years later. Yet, the truth is for all the time I spent in Nigeria, I was always treated like an outsider, in a way, I never followed any of the rules, the norms or the customs, invariably, it also meant I was excused from adherence in certain ways, except where elements of coercion came into play to force me to toe the line.

Of freedom and independence

The greatest freedom that came with my leaving Nigeria was the ability to stop the interference of many who seemed to hold sway over decisions I wanted to make. That sense of independence that came with leaving Nigeria and starting all over again has been a constant refrain in my life, either in moving countries or surviving cancer.

In all those years, I am thankful to all that have held me in their thoughts, in prayer, in action, in advice, in support, in friendship, in mentoring and many other innumerable areas. Things have not been perfect, but I cannot relive the past with a future ahead of me. I cannot live a different life from what I have now, but I can live what I have to the best of the abilities and blessings that come my way.

Chart your course and make it sure, then come back and tell a story.

$6Billion to keep youth in Africa with boring and farming

Lost in the waters of migration

I am not sure if I should see this as a welcome development but it is a start.

The images of migrants and asylum seekers hanging on for dear life as they cross the desert and set sail in boats that are basically watery graves, that come into their own when the occupants are far from help are distressing enough.

Then those who seem to come within sight of help from fishermen trawlers who try to balance out the economic need for more fishing than the compassionate need to save desperate life, usually plumb for the former and they are left to be overcome by the seas and lost.

Money to keep them at home

The fact that the West African Economic Monetary Union (UEMOA) has noticed the problem and decided on a development initiative to help migrants seek opportunities at home is heartening.

$6 billion has been earmarked to this effort, $5bn of which was pledged by foreign donors and the African Development Bank since last November.

I am however not sure that where this money gets directed to would be the panacea to the youth of Africa risking their lives for the uncertain but compelling opportunities in the West.

Boring and farming opportunities

This is supposed to help halt the emigration of young people from the West African region with the exciting job prospects of drilling 3,000 boreholes which should benefit the arid Sahel region, hence allowing people to earn more for their crops giving them less reason to leave their rural existence to the cities where their disappointments might encourage emigration.

I am not aware of many of a youthful age who work on farms or want to eek out an existence on farmer where elements of genuine fair trade do not exist, or enough is known as to how to manage their produce for markets beyond the local ones.

The longer term incentive

It would have been a different thing if these youth were given decent educational opportunities and national governance dealt with issues of nepotism, corruption and abuse of authority such that these youth can meritoriously gain a foothold in the economies of their countries and career prospects that would occupy them with developing their scopes of influence.

The only real development here is the recognition of the emigration of the youth, beyond that, this would probably be another white elephant, with this kind of money about, one would have expected a better inspired goal for giving the youth hope in their futures at home.

There is no doubt that this money would help rural areas, but to stem the flow of the youth from West Africa to the West, somebody should go back to the drawing board and come up with something that would work.

What the youth want

What the youth need is relevant education, untrammelled opportunity, inspired mentoring, the ability to use the skills they have acquired and access to finance for the entrepreneurially minded to become independent and productive members of their societies – if they become the engineers and project managers of the borehole projects with the requisite skills to run projects to their beneficial conclusions, we might have something going, if it is to sweat out digging and toiling like slave hands ordered around by overpaid under-qualified foreign “experts”, this would be a non-starter.

Let us see how this evolves.

My Shehecheyanu - 7 Dutch Years

On Saturday the 20^th of May 2000, I set sail for a land far away from home, to live with people of a strange tongue, they welcomed me, succoured me and gave me new perspectives, vision, aims and goals. Home was London the land was the Netherlands.

I am thankful for the way things have turned out; I am still a wayfaring man at heart looking for ways to continual remain relevant in the many spheres of my life.

Whilst my religious inclinations are in an abeyance of sorts, deep down in my heart and soul, I thank the Almighty God for all the blessings and favour that have come my way and sustained me through funny, happy, strange, restless and crazy times, which are many.

I can with gladness of heart say my personalised version of the Shehecheyanu, the special Jewish prayer at august occasions.

Blessed are You, My God,
Creator of time and space,
Who has supported me, protected me,
And brought me to this moment.

I love the Netherlands.

The Cacophony of Rules vs The Silence of the Indifferent

We love the Netherlands

It probably has not dawned on my readership why my obsession with Lady Oddjob the Minister for Integration and Immigration or rather appropriately, of disintegration and emigration has been vociferous and bordering on the vituperative and virulent.

I now think I can put together a general context that depicts Dutch officialdom; but also affects immigrants and expatriates alike.

First, we non-indigenes come to the for many reasons, we bring with us, our culture, heritage, values and outlook to life which we have to intertwine and weave into the fabric of the host society as we adapt and integrate.

Some are better at integrating than others, most especially the younger ones in terms of language learning and relationships building.

There probably is a tendency for those who can, of right, live in the without application to vegetate to their expatriate communities if they encounter the slightest difficulty in the language and relationships building or social area. It is however, not for the want of trying.

In general, we love this place, we love the people, they have a varied and vibrant history and that is why we came here and live here. I make my home in the , happily, joyfully and fulfillingly.

Amsterdam is not Dutch Society

The tourist view the Netherlands usually extrapolated from the experiences in Amsterdam which is hardly the typical Dutch mien, when you come to settle, it is a whole new set of rules; you hit officialdom and are let utterly exasperated at the lethargy, disinterest, indifference and nonchalance of people who come to work to be seen and not necessarily to serve – you will eventually get attention, however, by then, you are at your wits end.

Digging up history to support a generalisation could be a bit unfair, but they do not necessarily have their roots in falsehood, a pattern and mode of life has been astutely observed over time to arrive at those conclusions that urban legends then tend to perpetrate.

Agreement through silence and acquiescence

Suffice it to say that indifference, collaboration, adherence and personal interest, first with officialdom that followed the rules and the populace which accepted that guidance, lead to the Netherlands losing 75% of their Jewish population to the Holocaust.[1][2][3]

Only a few years ago, we were overcome with the angst about whether Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl who journaled her time in hiding was the greatest Dutch person or an immigrant who just happened to be in the [4]. Yet, a tourist’s visit to Amsterdam is probably not complete without a visit to Anne Frank’s House.

So, Mrs Verdonk’s assertion that she is only following the rules as she sees them has historical precedence in the fact that her campaign slogan had the hallmarks stemming from one used by an ultra right-wing party and also from the perception in times past that the Nazi interpretation of the rules was the accepted and valid interpretation. [5][6]

Indifference is lethal

As she threw her hat into the ring for the leadership of the Liberal Party, it was important to remember the words of The Reverend Martin Niemöller, who clearly expressed how indifference can come back to haunt you in a very harrowing way, and this is what he said of the Nazis.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out

because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out

because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the labor leaders, and I did not speak out

because I was not a labor leader.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out

because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no one

left to speak out for me.

The Reverend Martin Niemöller

A lot is happening in the world today, that has people who can speak up adopting the “does not affect me” stance, I do wonder who would be left to speak up for them.

I, as both a British and European citizen do not have to be concerned about the way asylum seekers and immigrant non-European Union citizens are treated by the authorities and the hubris of the minister – I have inalienable European rights, but when you see language bans, forced contraception and people’s lives messed about for political point-scoring, one had better speak up now, because each new attack is an erosion of the whole body of rights in humanity that we possess and cherish.

Poor judgement for opportunism

This informs the situation where Mrs Verdonk’s actions in the case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali ended the political career of two very popular women in Dutch politics – the one of Hirsi Ali and hers. [6]

In what she did, she exuded that part of Dutch ambivalence that would make your skin creep, we immigrants sometimes do wonder if we can every fully understand what the Dutch regard as norms. As integrated as Hirsi Ali was, her undoing was that she did not adopt the “Live and let live” complacency to a the serious problem of Islamic dehumanisation of womanhood, she talked and talked out loud – that is not a Dutch norm – not at all.

Whose kind of immigrant?

So, the question remains what kind of immigrant does the want?

In what is looking like the mentality that traded Manhatten for we have three clear cases this year that show that Mrs Verdonk’s lack of judgement and perception is a handicap to any claim to leadership.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali might not have been the most loved or lovable immigrant/politician in the but she had one of the highest profiles, she is both well educated, successful and feted generously by the international community. She was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2006. Now deprived of her elected membership of the Second Chamber and Dutch citizenship, she is emigrating to the to take up a post with the American Enterprise Institute – with or without a Dutch passport.

Salomon Kalou, a very talented footballer from the Ivory Coast whose brother is going to the World Cup for the home country as captain, was recognised in spite of the 16 million eligible Dutch and probably 1000 qualified footballers, this immigrant was consider a valuable and probable asset to the Dutch dreams of football glory.

Against the better judgement of professionals where we know for a fact that people who can bring talent to the Netherlands can be fast-tracked to citizenship, his application was thwarted in a public spat that leaves much to be desired. [7]

This young man readily had a space in the Ivory Coast team to play in the world cup, but opted for the cold north in the where his application was messed around that it was too late for him to play for either the or .

Transferred to the Chelsea Football Club for a princely sum; a resounding vindication of the fact that the young man could have been a very valuable asset to the football team – he leaves for .

Taida Pasic, arrived from Kosovo at the age of 12 with her family, she quickly picked up Dutch and ended up being the best in her class for years – just months before her final exams, she became embroiled in an immigration situation which involved sending her back to Kosovo. At one time, she was handcuffed by officials in the presence of her classmates.

The brilliant girl who has since returned to Kosovo but was granted the unique dispensation of sitting her Dutch exams in the Dutch embassy wants to study law in the elite University of Leiden and a foundation in the has already offered to sponsor both tuition and living expenses.

She should return under a student’s visa and Mrs Verdonk better do well not to stand in her way this time.

Such is the way our love for the goes unrequited because some mandarin of officialdom bellows with salivating and sick-making sputum like Cerberus – Who goes there?

Many have suffered

These are the ones we know which Mrs Verdonk has through ultra vires exposed to the press in her quest to burnish her tough right-wing image.

The number of times the Second Chamber has suffered the sobriquet of a barking dog without a bite begins to bother me as Mrs Verdonk has been called at least 5 times to explain herself to parliament.

After the debate which is usually characterised with Dutch plain speaking and deference without the genuflection, Mrs Verdonk sometimes cuts the image of an unassailable overload who has one answer and everything point to that one answer to the exasperation of the members of the Second Chamber.

Rather than sanction her or pass a vote of no confidence on her, détente reigns as she is given a mandate to execute and another chance to sin again. Where the courts have ordered her to reflect she has been slothful to the point of almost mocking the context of our democracy because her populist views buoys her in the eyes of the general populace.

Where there is no effective sanction these high profile dramas of sacrificing talent and human welfare of opportunistic advantage would continue. Thankfully, the last time this happened she burnt her own bridges too. I suppose, when a mountain is immovable we can only hope there is volcano underneath it ready to help it self-destruct.

These issues should count against her, regardless of the trouble she might eventually cause – parties and people of the far right are beginning to woo her, and as long as she believes is following the rules, she might be tempted to break ranks – hopefully, that would be breaking ranks into obscurity.