Coronavirus streets in Cape Town - LI

Rich as could be seen

A Bentley coupe was about to turn into the road in front of me and at the steering wheel was a man with the gentility of rich sophistication, he could have used an eau de Cologne of crisp new currency notes, that he might be described as stinking rich.

It was the highly understated art of making a statement, nothing showy, yet to the eye unmistakably posh. To all appearances on his way from one place to another, not in a rush or hurry to get anywhere.

Poor as could be warmed

A man in a wheelchair, just out of the way on a wide pavement minding his own business and a stranger wraps a jacket around him, a gift, from an angel, a present it was, and sounds of gratitude rent the morning air as one good deed brings warmth and a new lesson of our common humanity.

For on these streets, destitution resides like it has been here a long time with title deeds and not leaving anytime soon. For one man crossed the main road to pick up a discarded used face mask which he then puts on, I cannot tell if he had to, to access premises demanding that precautionary measure. I make a mental note to always have spare face masks on my person.

Needs as could be met

A lady gestures to me, mumbling something incomprehensible even as the message of need cannot be misunderstood. I dip in my pocket and produce a high-value note that I hand to her. She bursts into tears. I do not wait to comfort her, but I pray a silent prayer that we all find places to shed the tears of thankfulness.

We live to give blessings, we belong to one another, for the lack in one is a slack that affects all, even the advice that we contribute to charities does not seem to affect or touch the people me meet on our streets seeking a basic handout for food and sustenance. The pretence of a safety net being available to help assuage our sense of guilt and duty is all that, a pretence because if it did go far, we probably would rarely have such encounters.

Why Ask Why Do Poor People 'Waste' Money On Luxury Goods?

A very good question

From Facebook, I came upon this controversial headline, Why Do Poor People 'Waste' Money On Luxury Goods? It is in my view one of the best-written commentaries on the sociology of hedonism and consumption.

I will not attempt to rewrite the article here, I suggest you click on the link and read; however, there some interesting points that the person raised that are good for discourse.

Respecting others in how we present ourselves

The issue of balancing means with acquisition in pursuit of keeping up with the Joneses or putting up a façade is something I have opined about that I think plagues one of the cultures of my ancestry.

Besides, a very robust exchange on Twitter about appearance and respect went along the lines of a lady taking offence at being approached by a man in sagging trousers.

I could understand what she meant, I opined about how appearance is a function of comportment, and the way people might react to us.

Presentable is not exactly acceptable

In this, I see the conflict or the confusion between presentable and acceptable. The article takes a stab at it with this, “Presentable is the bare minimum of social civility. It means being clean, not smelling, wearing shirts and shoes for service and the like. Presentable as a sufficient condition for gainful, dignified work or successful social interactions is a privilege.”

“In contrast, ‘acceptable’ is about gaining access to a limited set of rewards granted upon group membership. I cannot know exactly how often my presentation of acceptable has helped me but I have enough feedback to know it is not inconsequential.”

I have found that there are elements of presentable that ease the way for being acceptable, but one should know the difference between sophisticated and ostentatious, just as the subtlety of understated compares to the vulgar to the Englishman in me.

I believe these matters of presentable and acceptable reach beyond goods and things to personality, the names we bear or the ones we dare to give our children, the way we engage friends and strangers, and it is a function of comportment.

Keeping up with the Joneses

However, we return to the question that highlights another aspect of character, the earn-and-spend culture that means we have nothing in store for the future and exemplified in the immediate gratification of acquiring for status instead of status being the determinant of acquisition.

None of which is entirely healthy regardless of status, if the need to have is to satisfy a vacuous want to be seen having something to be able to belong or show-off.

Yet, there is a market for this type of person because the virtue of contentment and the wisdom that informs better choices for deciding what is presentable and hopefully acceptable is different from what drives the acquisition of things.

What our presentable should do

What we do in striving for the presentable is to allow the gatekeepers open the doors to where we can be acceptable, it requires we either know the defaults of presentable or acquire the Shibboleth of acceptable.

This is quite different from self-aggrandisement, the luxury good from underwear through designer wear, accessories and expensive toys in the quest to belong. Thereby presenting a public face of plenty underpinned by a private penury.

Penny-wise, pound-foolish

We all have our stories, but I tried to sum it up in this tweet that I posted earlier, “The context of presentable and acceptable in terms of the decisions we make and how we spend can be the difference between foolish and wise.”

Back to the article, if you have not yet read it, Why Do Poor People 'Waste' Money On Luxury Goods? – A very good question with a long backstory.

Switzerland: A misunderstanding of racist proportions - Great for tourism

I know what I want

When I bought my home about 12 years ago, one of the things I went shopping for was a bed, a good sturdy bed that will stand the test of use and time that I sought advice from my estate agent where best to go.

It was on the other side of town, in Amsterdam, so I mounted my bicycle and was outside the shop in about 25 minutes. The shop owner walked up to me and asked what I wanted and I told him, I was somewhat immediately profiled and he thought what I needed was the ordinary box spring variety, I allowed him his spiel before I specifically told him what I really wanted, it was deeper in the store.

I strode in and immediately saw what I was looking for, wooden, carved, polished and really sturdy to the touch, the feel and the hold apart from it being quite heavy – I pointed at it and immediately he said it was too expensive – maybe it was, but that was what I wanted.

Means-profiling

He remonstrated until I snapped back at him, “Who told you I can't pay for it? That is the bed I want and let’s be done with it.” With that came grudging respect, an offer to deliver the bed at any time of my convenience into the late evening and the service I should have had from the moment I showed up as a customer – Courtesy, respect, friendliness and helpfulness.

What had happened to me was I was ‘means-profiled’ by reason of some subjective quality, probably race, in the mind of the shop owner, he had thought – “I have seen many shoppers come here and this chap cannot afford the best goods I have in my store, I will not waste my time with him window shopping, I’ll just show him what belongs to the affordable profile of his type.”

We all suffer it

I am sure many of us have been ‘means-profiled’, belittled, patronised and basically disrespected on the premise of some subjective and prejudicial perception of another and in those circumstances have had to endure a looming humiliation from people who honestly think they are doing us some good or as a shop attendant said to Oprah Winfrey in Zurich recently, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

In the narration Oprah Winfrey gave and one should not have to introduce her, she was in Switzerland to attend TinaTurner’s wedding when she decided to go shopping without an entourage or posse. [The Oprah Interview with CBS ET – The story has since been edited after I first read it.]

A clear perception

She walked into one of the Trois Pomme luxury shops in Zurich on Bahnhofstrasse, probably with the name Prada Donna and a conversation ensued where she wanted a particular bag and the shop attendant refused thrice to obtain the bag for her with a clear statement that it was too expensive.

It is not that the attendant, did not want to serve Oprah, but the attendant concentrated on showing Oprah bags she did not want, as Oprah pressed thrice to have a look at the $40,000 bag before she left the shop having been pitied, sympathised with, belittled and patronised, with a lovely statement from the attendant, “Oh, I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

In fact, Oprah delivered that line with a mock-Swiss accent, highlighting occasions of subtle racism that she has encountered as a self-made billionaire, successful and powerful global media figure who just happens to be African-American.

No, she didn’t say that

As the backlash began to grow against the store, then, Zurich and possibly might even engulf Switzerland and create a seething animosity to any encounter with the Swiss from here on, the shop owner, Trudie Goetz, so lacking in nuance and perception of the grave situation that had been triggered, first apologised for the “misunderstanding” and then palmed it off with, "We don't have any facial recognition here.”

You have to ask, what can be so misunderstood with a simple request as, “Please can I see that bag?”? Especially, when that request was made thrice, giving time to exercise the utmost patience and avoid the need to flare up like a diva that you are probably in your rights to do, if you needed to.

The one about facial recognition is beneath contempt, it is lower than a rotten snake’s belly. Why should a shop have to have face recognition to determine whether a stranger is of means or a pauper to decide what service they should get?

Strike off Switzerland?

No, but the smarter heads in charge of tourism for Zurich and Switzerland are in crisis and damage-limitation overdrive because the last thing any city that thrives on the rich and tourism needs is this kind of publicity – not in a million years, the cost will be unquantifiable.

The worst part of this is, if such rotten treatment can be meted out to a global personality like Oprah Winfrey, we the lesser personalities who are striving to be popular in the smallest sphere of influence with might have numbering on just the fingers of one hand, have no chance.

Now, I have been to Switzerland twice before, to Zurich and Geneva – these are supposed to be global cities of renown, I had a wonderful time, I met good and friendly people, I loved the place, I love the lakes, but if this kind of attitude lurks in the underbelly of some of the people one might encounter, it is easy to keep Switzerland off one’s itinerary without much effort.

Nigeria: Rich Man, Poor Man Billionaires

Setting the O. K. Corral

I was awoken to the tweets and Facebook comments of people who had read a Forbes blog [1] that followed the Forbes 2011 Billionaires’ List that included two Nigerians.

There was Aliko Dangote [2] who had made the list for 4 years running but also had seen a rise on percentage terms of 557% of his wealth in a year to maintain his 1^st position in Nigeria and now become the richest in Africa.

For a man who had been in business for over 30 years and despite his various business activities had been stuck in the low billions until the public offering of this commercial vehicle that brought in the bucks, there could be no dispute to the fact that he was that well-heeled.

Then the man who places second in Nigeria is Mike Adenuga [3] but a good 544 places behind the 51^st placed Aliko Dangote in the world and this is Mr. Adenuga first showing on the Forbes List, though he might have been on the radar in the earlier years as one to watch but his recent valuation does not touch any of the three previous estimations of his compatriot.

Making the billionaires list with audited sources of income is a feat in itself especially if that derives from industry and services rather than from political power as is usually the case with many disreputable African moneybags who have gained a form of respectability from roguery and are unabashed to display their ill-gotten gains.

A billionaire’s row amongst minions

The contention however that has come out of Nigeria and even so the supporters of the second-placed Mr. Adenuga is that he cannot be that far behind Mr. Dangote.

Now, this is not some isolated issue but an endemic problem of one-upmanship and penis-envy, powerful Nigerians and their sycophants cannot bear to think there is someone more powerful than their potentate, surely not more influential or richer.

However, no one can present corroborated or undisputed figures to close the gap between Adenuga and Dangote but the sentiment and illusion exists that the valuations are too conservative as outrageous comparisons are made to give credence to fallacy.

The fantasy numbers game

I could remember when the census figures [4] were published in 2007 and though it was just 370,000 odd people between Kano State (9,383,682) and Lagos State (9,013,354), politicians were plucking figures out of the air of Lagos State having at least 14 million people but no one had verifiably counted that number, they just needed to say it long enough for the precipitation of supposition upon supposition to become fact.

So, one supporter was willing to bet, though no wager was placed that Mike Adenuga was worth at least $10 billion or $15 billion; I would suppose there is nothing about the $5 billion difference when Mr. Adenuga is said to be worth a paltry $2 billion.

Another did not know what he was worth but knew he was worth over $20 billion which conveniently puts Mr. Dangote in the shade and then the same person allows a swing of $15 billion in chicken change to aver that if Mr. Adenuga was poor he would be worth at least $5 billion.

A pissing contest – Not!

They were so aggrieved by the valuation that they urged the correspondent to seek an interview with Mr. Adenuga who his staff address as Dr. Adenuga whilst might be because of the conferment of an honorary doctorate rather than academic ability, he has an MBA.

It is doubtful that Mr. Adenuga would subscribe to a pissing contest to prove he can do it better but if Aliko Dangote had not made the astronomical gains he made last year, he would have been at $2.1 billion (2010) and created less agitation but because a new man has joined the billionaire’s club a ravilry should ensue considering Dangote lost in 2009 from an even higher valuation in 2008.

The issue is no more about billionaires but that absurd case of Nigeria having a rich billionaire and a poor billionaire – just part of the usual Nigerian narrative and possible grist to the mill of Nollywood imitating life.

Sources

[1] Mike Adenuga Is Not A Poor Nigerian Billionaire, His Reps Say - Kerry A. Dolan - Shades of Green - Forbes

[2] Forbes - Aliko Dangote

[3] Forbes - Mike Adenuga

[4] Akin Akintayo: Gauging the Nigerian 2006 Census