Saddened Poles on Russian returns without other prejudices

Another Pole lost in Russia

The week past had a few things rattle us but somewhat show the amazing collage of life and its events that we live in to experience and contemplate on.

Just yesterday we were greeted with an unfortunate tragedy which cost the life of the President of Poland [1] on Russian soil as he was on his way to commemorate the massacre of the Polish elite by Soviet Russian forces 70 years before.

Our hearts go out to the people of Poland on this great loss, sometimes history pens itself long before have the time to collect the thoughts around us to understand the significance of how it would affect us – but today, it is sympathy and condolences that matter.

The theatre of the caged primate

In the middle of the week, we were offered a glimpse in a future that the ruling party of South Africa would do well to avoid. A youth leader who had become a law unto himself spewing out rhetoric that belongs to times we would rather not remember.

I was compelled to write [2] that Julius Malema was the face of the worst of African youth, many commentators were forced to agree even though the young man seems to have a populist message that appeals to the basest of our instincts with the ability to inspire to the reprehensible and the despicable.

This embarrassment of a person had quite embarrassed the leadership of the ANC that they were forced to release a statement [3] reprimanding the miscreant and they set out a range of principles and views as to how anyone in leadership should conduct themselves for the good of South Africa at large.

One would hope Mr. Malema’s propensity for the theatre of the encaged primate would be restrained for the redeemed character of a probably rational human-being with a sense of responsibility and comportment – my expectations of him are however not that high.

Artyom Savelyev

The story of the 7-year old Russian boy returned like a malfunctioning toy [4] to the “shop of adoption” by a 33-year old [The original news story say she was 27] American nurse still riles and irks beyond comprehension.

The more one reads of the tale, the more incensed one gets as they try to paint themselves as victims [5] in the light of their utterly abhorrent behaviour.

The questions pile up from how two supposedly motherly women (this includes the adoptive grandmother) could have schemed to commit this heinous act to how isolated they are in their community.

In the light of other adoption mishaps [6] of Americans on children of Russian progeny, one can almost thank the heavens for Artyom’s good fortune of not being murdered and buried in the back garden where his toys lay idle [7].

It is amazing that they did not seek professional help to address the issues they raised in their adoption annulment note but with the use of the Internet which is a revelation of the bad influences of seeking information and assistance online probably obtained legal advice and then procured a stranger to help dump the child 7 time zones away from his source orphanage.

A Nobody if not American?

However, what matters the more is the reaction of society to this contemptible travesty of humanity and care – the idea that this child has no rights in the United States because he had not yet been registered as a citizen even though the adoption had been finalised and he had been with his adoptive family for at least six months is inexcusable.

Surely, your life and welfare cannot be insignificant and inconsequential because you are not American, though if he were American the basic charge of child abandonment would have been leveled.

Indeed, it is probably for some of the most particular import to bear American citizenship but in this case, to split hairs about the citizenship Artyom whilst Russians take umbrage and Americans assume a position of indifference and the legal inability to act is just unspeakable at best – meanwhile, that rotten family obtain vindication by default.

I fear, it sets forth a precedent that affords the abuse of non-Americans with impunity and without consequence. There must be some responsibility and accountability for what happened to Artyom regardless of the fact that many Russo-American adoptions are a reflection of failings within the Russian system.

Add your voice to this matter by joining the Facebook [8] page that supports Artyom Savelyev.

Sources

[1] BBC News - President Lech Kaczynski's body returns to Poland

[2] South Africa: Malema, the glaring face of the worst of Africa's youth [akin.blog-city.com]

[3] allAfrica.com: South Africa: Zuma Repudiates Youth Leader Over Attack on Journalist

[4] Artyom Savelyev deserves a loving mother [akin.blog-city.com]

[5] Grandmother: Boy terrorized adoptive family in US : News from the Associated Press

[6] Russia furious over adopted boy sent back from US

[7] In Tenn., Reminders of a Boy Returned to Russia - NYTimes.com

[8] Facebook | Support Artyom Savelyev

A sense of detachment

Questions of home and away

Going to Warsaw left me in the throes of deep introspection, as I walked up the Royal Route after purchasing an umbrella to shield me from the percentage likelihood of rain that had been forecast for today.

I had just witnessed the military parade rehearsal that took place outside my hotel for the national day which would be Wednesday. There was no goose-stepping but I could have sworn that the way the arms of the macho men swung and the gait which represented taking marching orders would not have gone amiss on a supermodel’s catwalk.

I am no expert in things military and hereby apologise if the depiction of my observations comes across as insulting, I liked the marches, the martial music and very well imbibed the sense of the occasion – these were proud Polish men.

So, returning to the topic of the brain drain, at times I felt I could persuade a lot more people to leave Poland for Western Europe, but then I also felt that many are probably happy to stay in the motherland, patriotic and proud in service of their nation and probably calling those who left traitors even though the ones in Diaspora could return with wads of cash but a sense of detachment from events back home.

That sense of detachment suddenly overwhelmed me as I had a quick peek at pampered class travel to Nigeria after almost two decades.

Then I wondered what one would be doing there, how one would be received, whether it is safe to contemplate or one was just getting delusionary.

I have no answers, but seeing the Poles at home and those abroad, the Nigerian situation does become quite interesting.

As Cheta stated in a comment about the Polish brain drain; if Poland does manage to survive this hit and recover, it can be instructive for Nigeria. For now, my view is, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala sets the standard for returnees and it was not a pleasant experience after a while, unfortunately.

Should I have another look at those air fares or let indecision feed on my introspection as another decade rolls by?

The Polish brain drain

The stars have departed

My hotel stands on the site of one of the grandest palaces in Warsaw which was taken down in the 60s.

I was afraid that the supposed migration of Poles to better paying jobs in Western Europe might impact on the quality of service that one would encounter in the hotel and other places.

Things have been alright, though the phone probably rings up to 10 times before someone picks up the phone at the front desk, I even had to call to have a “Do Not Disturb” notice sent to my room to prevent housekeeping staff from opening my door especially if I was perchance in a state of indecent exposure.

I have stayed in many a 5* hotel, but I sometimes feel the stars in my current hotel have emigrated to Western Europe too.

Nowhere was this fear of the brain, skills and knowledge drain of Poland more evident than when I walked across the Pilsudski (Victory) Square to the trendy bar on the ground floor of a Norman Foster building (Biurowiec Metropolitan Building, Warsaw) – all the bartenders were busy flipping bottles delivering exotic vodka cocktails with aplomb.

The bar did not have a sherry, not a drop, then I asked for a port and the bartender did not know what a port was – I settled for an orange juice as I waited for the abatement of rain to return to the relative sophistication of my hotel.

PAWIAK!

Of evil and good

Whilst man can be capable of heartfelt selfless and incomparably magnanimous good, their propensity for unimaginable and abominable evil cannot be discounted.

In Poland, I had planned to see some of the machinations of the Nazi and Russian occupation of a country and people who for hundreds of years fought to gain self-determination and only just attained it in 1989 after the fall of Communism.

An English expatriate who sold up in England and moved to live in more affordable Poland offered to take me to a site that featured the deepest and darkest memories of man’s inhumanity to man.

Pawiak (Peacock) Prison

Pawiak Prison which was built by the Russians in the early 19^th century as a political prison and a entry point for Poles that would eventually be sent to the gulags of Siberia.

The Russians, Poles after their first independence 1918 and finally, the Nazis used this prison for all sorts of devilish inquisition and unspeakable torture.

The main elements of the sprawling prison that extended the whole length of the street above ground has disappeared as the perpetrators of evil tried to obliterate evidence of their deeds, but the underground cells have been converted into a museum now called the Mausoleum of Memory of Martyrdom and the Pawiak museum.

Memories, dark memories

As I approached the museum, memorial stones of groups that were persecuted in the prison lined the outer walls and there stood eerily, a tree without leaves – now replaced with a fibre-glass replica as the original tree is being infused with chemicals to give it a more enduring quality – with little posters which I later learnt to be obituary notices.

Down into the cellar, one long corridor with cells on either side where the occupancy of two was usually bumped up 14 in some cases. Spartan and barren those cells were, the social rooms were really communal places were people visited toilets in the presence of everyone else.

Refusing mental slavery

Then one room with relics of an age so palpable, rosaries made from hardened bread, poetry too grim and yet full of hope because of the enduring power of having breath to dream, to wish, to desire and above all pain able to keep true to a quest and aspiration for liberty and freedom.

This prison did not house criminals, rather, it was the minds and brains of Poland, the intellectuals, people who were emancipated who allowed their God-given ability for self-determination to gain ascendancy over the peasantry of the many who allow themselves to be lead by the nose by every trendy doctrine including the most heinous ones.

Like Bob Marley once sang - emancipate yourselves from mental slavery - no matter the cost as that is what makes us men and separates us from animals.

A death carnival of men

37,000 of these people perished in this prison and 60,000 were sent to concentration camps. Basically, totalitarianism and despotic regimes cannot countenance independent thought because it is the predisposed entitlement of men to live free of bondage and repression.

After signing the visitors’ book, I went into the main museum which showcased the many concentration camps that thrived in Poland – Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, Treblinka and Warschau where 200,000 non-Jewish Poles perished at the hands of the Nazis.

Too much for me

When, I got to one end of this room, the back wall was filled with portraits of persons who were believed to have died in this prison, I could not look at anymore of the stuff in the museum again, I had to get out, it is unimaginable what went on in that prison over 60 years ago, thankfully, the doors or the walls could not talk, but places where innocent blood has been spilt can never keep silent and will never sleep.

I felt the weight of the place and the price that many paid for the freedoms we now take for granted and are ready to give up for the temporary safety from terrorism real and contrived.

Our duty to rise in honour

And we all citizens of this world, beneficiaries of this great emancipation of humanity from savagery to enlightened civilisation, who have hardly had to fight to the death for any of the rights we now enjoy denigrate the many who were sacrificed and martyred for the selfsame fundamental human rights subsuming our objectivity and logical analysis to accepting the patently unacceptable.

The illegal wars, the rape of Zimbabwe, the troubles in Darfur, the abuse of democracy in Nigeria, the plight of the Palestinians, the men who still seek freedom all around the world – all these take lightly the great sacrifices of fellow human-beings hardly a century before.

I sometimes wonder if we would ever learn from history not to commit the same mistakes, my visit to Pawiak convinces me that we have not, I do wonder what the eventual visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau would teach me.

Never forgotten

However, since men learnt to record events in writing, sketching and photography, we cannot wilfully ignore the realities of times past, the smiling guards, the medical staff and the suffering people – the history of mankind in a microcosm of evil.

To Pawiak memories and many places like this, we owe, if only a fraction, no matter how minuscule, our freedom to express ourselves.

Thank you!

Insult laws an insult to democracy

Humourlessly derisive

Sometimes, one is almost in great shame to be African when news of crass stupidity emanates from the continent about leaders who think they are demigods.

Obviously, there is probably some sense in protecting public officials from unwarranted insults and verbal attacks accompanied by threats of violence.

However, the whole thing about insulting leaders and having the freedom of expression of the culprits curtailed to the extent of exercising the law of crime and punishment is a bit of overkill.

Indeed, some culprits might have to be cautioned in order to forestall civil unrest, but that should be as a very last resort.

Lèse Majesté

In Thailand where lèse majesté laws are part of the culture, it is understandable that revered monarchies can expect a level of protection from unnecessary assaults to their person or office, however, there is a Quid pro quo in this relationship - between king and subjects; the monarch should be seen to carry his office with grace and respect to the point of being irreproachable.

What I fail to appreciate is leaders who assume a position of authority either by democratic mandate or some putsch of suspicious intent who then suddenly arrogate to themselves lèse majesté mystique as if they were kings anointed of God to rule over man and not answerable to anyone.

This kind of primitive exercise of humourless conduct is unbecoming of democracies not to talk of the 21^st Century, of all times.

Writing fiction as truth

So, a secondary school teacher asks a final-year class to write a humorous essay about the mistress of a fictitious African leader; some zealous sycophant comes across the material and automatically suggests that the President of Mali has been insulted.

This becomes a charge that goes to court and they end up with suspended jail terms in a hearing that took place in a closed court.

So much for democracy in Mali if it cannot be underpinned by the all important freedom of expression because some patronage seeking prosecutor has been consumed with irrational zeal and reckless abuse of office and error of judgement. This is unlike a case in Zambia where the courts are not only more circumspect, they were reasonable and stopped the deportation of a satirical journalist for using animal metaphors to describe the president.

Insult laws an insult to democracy

It would appear laws similar to this silly exercise in stupidity called "insult laws" exist in 48 out of 53 countries in Africa, allowing for the freedom of press to be curtailed and giving the government to power to stifle debate, dissent and opposition.

Germany and Poland has laws that make it illegal to insult foreign heads of state, especially those present in Polish territory when it comes to Poland and that is sensible enough.

If only we could see more noblesse oblige and less lèse majesté aggrandisement, we might just get on with making Africa less of a global laughing-stock when more important things are there to be done.

Makes you wonder, if the President of Mali really does have a mistress, a concubine, a harlot, a harem, a dominatrix in his palace or he is given to more unmentionable lewd conduct?

Now, I would be persona-non-grata in Mali along with Thailand, Turkey, Zambia and Zimbabwe. I am doing fine.

Stupid laws

Becoming persona non grata in Thailand

Cellophane skinned lion hearts

Seriously obsessed with gays

Obsessed about gays

The archbishop beat me to it, but one cannot help but notice the all-pervasive obsession with homosexuality amongst seemingly heterosexual macho men or fertile women all around the world. I do have time for Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a perceptive, practical, conciliatory world figure who I do respect.

The Church in its various guises has split over so many issues, in this day, it would have been more edifying if they were split on how best to handle to the scourge of HIV/AIDS - by missionary work or sending aid - maybe Darfur - by finding ways of isolating the government of Sudan or finding ways of safely getting medical and food aid to the refugees - or global poverty.

This is where the Church may be seen as relevant and responding to the needs of people, it also helps the work of evangelism as people see the work of Christ exhibited selflessly by fellow human-beings.

Galvanised on the negative

Unfortunately, the church cannot seem to galvanise itself on the work of compassion and love, their energies are being expended on the sexual preferences of people who would rarely visit church.

Those who visit and decide to fellowship in the communion are castigated and ostracised; they become the objects of pontifical proclamations of evil such that those barely interested in church do not bother themselves with the matter any more.

There may indeed be chapter and verse of fork-lifted scripture to condone and encourage animosity against homosexuals, but I cannot recall the Gospel being preached in that manner or tone - basically, you cannot get religion into people if religion would not first accept them as they are and then teach them how to live and grow in the tenets or doctrines of the same.

The gates are closed and slammed shut, long before the people who probably need church have had time to walk down the road that leads to the parish.

One would not be remiss at noticing that the church has definitely lost its way, the message of charity and compassion has been lost in the cacophony of conservative activism and some moral debate which in no way addresses fundamental human suffering as we see in the world today.

A right-wing ambush of shame

Move to Moscow last weekend and a peaceful protest to ask the Mayor of Moscow to allow a gay march, something that freely happens in most Western capitals is overrun by right-wing yobs throwing Nazi salutes for the purity of Russia.

It makes you wonder, if the spread of right-wing intolerance is the better image for a country or the simple acceptance of the fact that a minority people can be different and they too just have as much rights as any other citizen of that great country.

The question then becomes - what is it about homosexuality that agitates heterosexuals so radically?

Definitely, something deep down in heterosexual psyche is in need of psychoanalysis because I have never seen homosexuals get agitated about the gathering of homosexuals, they all probably grew up amongst that lot and have had to live with bigotry, intolerance and violence that comes at them every day.

That old rope

Many would say, I have heard that before, even the just recently deceased Reverend Jerry Falwell subjected himself to abject ridicule when he suggested that Tinky-Winky in the Children's TV show - Teletubbies was homosexual because of the purple colour of the body suit and his handbag.

No doubt it does look a bit suggestive; a spokesperson for children's rights in Poland picks up this dirty rag 8 years on. Ewa Sowinska first thought the character was female then thought male; asexual did not occur to her, fair enough.

She wants a psychological evaluation of Tinky-Winky to be done to determine if Teletubbies is suitable viewing for Polish children.

Now, I have seen how enthralled little children get with watching Teletubbies, it would be like snatching milk from the mouth of babies in order to protect them from - you tell me.

How do we get people like this to express such dastardly opinions in public and still appear sane? We are all obsessed with homosexuality - the sooner we own up the better we would feel about ourselves and the self-loathing that exacerbates the externalisation of unwarranted anger against harmless people who just want to get on with their lives.

That last question I asked 18 months ago lingers - Does gay marriage affect the relationship between you and your partner? If Yes; Why? If No; What is the problem?

Spooky Brother Act as Spook goes to Court

Facial identities spook Polish leadership

And so we have a situation in Poland where the difference between the President and the Prime Minister is clearly elusive.

The President - Lech has just sworn in the Prime Minister - Jaroslaw who happens to be his identical twin brother. Whilst they have both attained their status by merit of democratic success, the jury is out as to how this bodes for the future of Poland.

I suppose this real life Brother Act is just aping the lyrics of the Hollywood film Sister Act where she sings, I will follow him …

We can now rest assured that whilst minutes are recorded of formal meetings between leaders of a nation, we might be lucky to receive the weeks of deliberations as either twin probably already reads the mind of the other. Poland is going through a spooky season.

The vice of spook defacements

Talking about spooks, one sister is in court claiming substantial damages from the Vice President and the Architect for exposing her a spook in contempt of the actions of her husband in debunking the mountain of lies that lead us to Iraq.

In fact, I wish it were more of a class action suit, because the Special Counsel has shied away from the controversial by only indicting the lowly Chief of Staff in the Vice President's office. With the nickname scooter, it was quite ominous that he literally had to scoot out of office with a broken limb.

Anyway, I would hope this case runs its course, not only did the culprits hold the whole secret service in contempt, considering how they are trying hard to keep their own illegal activities secret, they endangered the lives of many who might have collaborated with Valery Plame and ruin the career of the young lady to further their own ends.

It was spiteful, unconscionable, despicable and beneath contempt - the law should have a look into this and justice should exact a heavy price to show that nobody even as high as the President is above the law.

Bully for you - Sister!