Where shall we put our hope?

In plenty and in poverty

There is no doubt that we love Cape Town, but we visit a city of stark contrasts. The opportunities and privileges we have brings into a Cape Town of luxury, of access, of comfort and a relative sense of safety and security.

Yet, around the hotel where we are staying, we cannot miss or ignore another face of Cape Town, not so much that of the poor, but one of the destitute. I differentiate between the poor and the destitute from a personal viewpoint of the poor having shelter and sustenance, those who have basic needs met, but are stretched to consider wants.

In the case of the destitute, they have no shelter or live in makeshift settings prone to changes in nature and the abuse of authority figures, they cannot determine when or where their next meal will come from. Some are in threadbare clothes and probably have no access to basic cleaning facilities.

Great policy minds required

The other day, I walked into a convenience store and I was accosted by two people, not for money, but things, I acquiesced and by the time I was paying, there was milk formula, baby diapers, soft drinks and basic foodstuffs at the checkout. One of the men, knelt in thanks, I was quite embarrassed as I asked him to get up.

It was an opportunity for them, and for me, there was both the means and opportunity to affect a situation, though, it was nowhere near the solution. There are no easy answers to the poverty and destitution issue in South Africa. You can’t even begin to think of jobs before you have installed a kind of welfare system to make these people suitable for any work environment and this is if they have the skills required to do the jobs.

Either way, there would have to be some poor laws and institutions for the poor to give them a sense of human dignity to raise them to some kind of opportunity. It would take some creative and inspired policy-making to address the destitution problem and this would should be different from policies to address basic poverty, accommodation, access to services and the broader unemployment issues with the matter of giving the majority the skills to exploit opportunities that arise.

Is there hope for the many?

Another cohort is the pre-teen street kids, in any progressive society, these kids should be in school and cared for by responsible adults in some setting. I fear residential institutions because of histories of physical and sexual abuse. However, society does owe these unfortunate young members the possibility of a bright future. This requires selfless humanitarian work for which the government should be a major sponsor and supporter.

There is much that ails South Africa, not everyone has a voice or one that must be heard and acted upon. This especially for the poor and destitute for whom the wasted Jacob Zuma years and the preoccupation with the state capture machinations have left them further behind than humanity should countenance for much longer.

We who come to appreciate the beauty of South Africa do contribute to the growth of the economy, but we are not the answer to the question that many South Africans have been asking since 1994. Where shall we put our hope?

Courtesy of the William Kentridge exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town.

In the aftermath of Grenfell Tower

From that fateful night in June,
And the days that followed that conflagration,
Nary a tower block that I see,
Fills with the angst of the souls therein,
For in the other was the struggle and fight,
Against the rigid and established order,
That bullied and threatened,
Those who spoke and wrote of foreboding disaster,
The indifference of officialdom was palpable,
As the double-barrelled named,
Could hardly be bothered,
At the shrieking of the poorer,
In a borough of the stupendously rich,
To wit, they sought to beautify,
The Babel of today,
They spent pounds and saved pennies,
With cladding that offered skin-deep beauty,
Low in the building on that night,
A fire started that should not have spread,
But like tinder, the cladding lit,
And a ladder it became for the fire to climb,
To the top, the flames did race,
In the building, the victims did panic,
Many in flat and stairwells trapped,
As they succumbed to fumes and smoke,
By the time we knew what had happened,
Over four score souls had perished,
The councillors with their tin ears,
Ignored the tragedy as they had ignored the residents,
She of whom was spoken of as strong and stable,
Lacked the paps for care and compassion,
Scurrying she raced from the heart of the matter,
As selfless neighbours showed great humanity,
In it, we saw the great divide,
That had become an unbridgeable cavern,
Between the have-nots and have yachts,
Our unequal society indicted and convicted,
Which makes me constantly wonder,
When I see a tower teeming with life,
Do they all sleep in there safe and sound?
Knowing that from disaster they can flee,
If an ugly day does come like in June,
Where many in the edifice of mock-beauty,
Were cruelly and atrociously cremated alive,
Because someone somewhere did not care,
About life and livelihood that brings no profit,
To their selfish political aims,
In my city, I see many a tower,
Stripped of the panels of superfluity,
Revealing the raw underbelly,
That might well save a life or two,
As we find in many tests conducted,
All around the land and abroad,
That the safety we took for granted,
Was a standing crematorium,
We must not rest on this matter,
Until the culpable and accessory,
That conspired in this murderous enterprise,
See the sternest face of the law,
Even after that is done,
It would never really be,
Justice for the victims of Grenfell Tower.

The UK: In a country where the poor are roasted for the privileged

The ringing question

"What does it take to get the voice of the poor in this country heard?" A member of the audience at the BBC Question Time broadcast on Thursday the 16^th of June 2017.

On the 14^th of July, Grenfell Tower, an apartment block of 24 storeys was reported to be on fire around 1:00 AM, what was shocking was the rapidity with which the fire spread with resulting fatalities that could rise to over 100. [Grenfell Tower fire - Wikipedia]

What made this fire and tragedy more shocking was the fact that the tower block residents, the Grenfell Action Group had been complaining and agitating about fire safety and hazards from as far back as 2013. [Grenfell Action Group]

Money for style over safety

In recent years, a £8.7 million refit was done to the apartment block, completed in 2016, the activity included a suspected accelerant cladding that is banned in Germany and the United States of America, which might give a lie to the idea that our building safety regulations are worth the paper they are written on.

The refit which could have included fitting in a sprinkler system at the cost of £138,000 was not done, invariably putting aesthetics above the safety of human life.

It goes without saying that a whole institutional framework in the British establishment involving council apparatchiks, councillors, mayors and ministers are responsible for not learning lessons of the past, ignoring pertinent concerns, sitting on reports and recommendations that should have been expedited and implementing stringent cuts in the relentless pursuit of cutting the deficit at the expense of the human lives of the poor considered insignificant, irritant and irrelevant to their absurdly greater purpose and goals.

Mining for a forced-upon humanity

When the Prime Minister visited the scene of the tragedy yesterday, it failed to occur to her that leadership includes taking the brickbats whilst being there to offer succour, sympathy, comfort, empathy and assurances to the victims. She failed to use her humanity and the opprobrium that resulted after other leading politicians and senior royalty visited and interacted with the people has forced her to find the smidgen of compassion eked out with duress.

It goes without saying that Theresa May has lost the moral right to be the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Despite her remedially late actions, if at the first opportunity the Prime Minister of this great country could not for whatever reason meet with victims of an entirely avoidable tragedy exacerbated by some member of her cabinet, she by all terms cannot then aver that she has the authority to negotiate Brexit on our behalf.

The matter is about humanity, it is political, it is social, it is economic, it is about government, it is about caring, it is about a more equal society and for the unfortunate souls lost in the Grenfell Tower fire, it is the realisation that no one thought they mattered until the clamour for justice has forced the cossetted and comfortable political class to feign a sense of empathy with the poor who normally wield very little power and rarely have their voices heard.

The poor left to rot

In the last 7 years, the changes in society security entitlements, the outsourcing of eligibility criteria to death panels with a profit motive, the cuts to public services, the starving of the National Health Service to ready the institution for a fire sale to the moneyed classes, the dearth of buildings and accommodation for the working classes and the favouring of the rich over the poor in terms of access and policy initiatives has been a race to the bottom that has widened the chasm between the rich and the poor to an unbridgeable existence.

We have a democracy in name only that in its reality is the government of the people, by the few for the fewer still.

That is why the question at the beginning of this blog needs asking, “What does it take to get the voice of the poor in this country heard?”

Hold them criminally responsible

The blood of the innocently shed out of indifference, disinterest, the lack of consideration and concern revelling in institutional inhumanity shall be visited on the heads of all those responsible. Nothing but a criminal prosecution of the whole chain of responsibility that allowed the Grenfell Tower tragedy would be adequate justice.

Meanwhile, the need to expedite action to rehouse the victims and find means of ameliorating compensation for them must be the most urgent consideration. It is shocking that in the 5^th largest economy in the world we suffered such a display of the dereliction of duty to our poor as if we were in some lawless and chaotic Bantustan.

No, I do not think the government have nearly begun to feel the aggrieved sense of injustice and anger from the people, that they presided over this atrocity must be a blot on their records, recorded for posterity without the mercy of sophistry. These leaders who engage with soundbite are completely out of touch with our reality. Send them packing forthwith.

Nigeria: Finding an accommodation for ourselves

Dreaming of the unreal

As Nigerians, we have perfected the art of analysis paralysis to the point of proffering solutions that are forgivably idealistic but have no semblance of realism or practicability in the light of prevailing circumstances.

There is nothing wrong in seeking Nirvana, our own Shangri La, the Utopia of perfection for our country and situation, it is the substance of hope and a possibility but it needs some grounding in what is reasonable and realisable or else we become dreamers and theorists, builders of castles in the air and act as if inebriated to the point of hallucination and delirium.

The burden of the past

On the other end, it is the past and history that holds us back, our memories too keen that we are unable to see change happening before our eyes as a dogmatic sense of permanence in the character and demeanour of others become the unaltered view of the people who might have changed – distrust and negative perceptions becloud our judgement to our detriment of seeing the mildest good in others.

Indeed, there are men that have done unspeakable evil, if there are means to bring them to justice then we should avail ourselves of those means to the fullest extent of the law. What is not proper is to take the law into our own hands and constitute ourselves into a lynching mob of prosecutor, jury and judge – process is the hallmark of a civilised society and the people who inhabit that community.

Beyond the obvious wrongs

I believe that for all the wrong the man is capable of doing, they are also humanly and humanely capable of good either as a nature of their humanity or in expiation for the wrongs done before – it might be difficult to find context, purpose and intent in doing those things, but for whatever good is on offer, it must find some commendation much as the wrong can find excoriation – both are worthy of acknowledgement.

The Good Samaritan in the bible was not a religious man, the religious man passed to the other side of the road, nor was he a pious man, he was just a man who saw a fellow man in need and out of their shared and common humanity he did everything to help the wounded stranger who had no name nor identity apart from the fact that he was just another man in need.

The old cow is smart

We sometimes need to rise above the petty prejudices and dogmatism that blinds us to issues where a pragmatic approach can be as useful as the advice I received long ago to have as much sense as an old cow to eat the hay and leave the baling wire.

Many of our old Nigerian leaders come with a lot of baling wire and very little hay, but the old cow knows the food is the hay and the baling wire is certainly not part of her diet, the cow does not abandon the hay just because it is nicely or crudely baled – that is knowledge, it is wisdom and it is being pragmatic and as humans, we are indeed capable of even better judgement, that comes with discrimination and discernment.

Imperfect people

I have learnt not to totally condemn those of questionable nature and as it were unaudited sources of wealth, we have no systems and processes in place to address those injustices properly, however, that I accept the little good they can bring to their communities does not mean they are totally absolved and rehabilitated, one can elicit the good from the bad in appreciating the multidimensional nature of human beings and that is a good thing.

In the end, for some, pennies from heaven are as valuable as pounds in the pockets of those who do not need the help offered.

Way to go

For a better Nigeria, we might only be able to negotiate returns of some of what was looted by reason of uncompromised leadership that can wield the necessary leverage and use the bully pulpit to make these people amenable to those demands, beyond that, we need strong and independent institutions from here on to tackle the cancer of corrupt enterprise and malfeasance that infests all levels of endeavour in Nigeria.

However, today, thief and chief, sinner and saint, honest and dishonest, honourable and dishonourable, corrupt and incorruptible, unreasonable and reasonable, dogmatic and pragmatic, the rich and the poor, indifferent and concerned, apathetic and sympathetic, religious and nonreligious and every Nigerian will just have to find an accommodation for each other to do what we can to take the country forward.