Teargas and smoke in pandemic times

The root of public unrest

I do wonder if the right questions are asked that try to determine why people protest and those protests sometimes lead to the destruction of life and property in the aftermath of what the people consider is police brutality as the wheels of justice roll with lethargy and inertia if they do ever turn at all.

If there were a sense of justice that law enforcement was fully accountable for their actions in their call to duty without a seeming blanket of exculpation built into the system to exonerate working from the premise the police are infallible and the victim can never be innocent, maybe, just maybe, the frustrations of the people won't be pouring out onto the streets, they would allow the system of justice to run its course.

Weed out the rotten cops

The police forces know the bad eggs amongst their lot, sworn allegiances and unquestioned support amongst the ranks leaving the institutions operating beneath the standards of probity and integrity and they harbour the undesirables always stores up trouble for the future when for each infraction by the irresponsible crew they are assured immunity to go out to act with more impunity.

They should stop shielding the worst amongst their ranks, punish them and kick them out before they kindle the tinder of societal unrest and set in trail irreparable damage.

America is imperfect, grossly flawed, and has constantly been in a pressure cooker tensioned situation since its birth. The more we think things are improving there are many examples of where things are no better. To then be cursed with a leadership that has no facility or capacity to unify the people in a common purpose for the good is like Ichabod is enthroned on One Nation unto God.

Teargassing, smoking, and respiratory pandemics

There is much difficulty controlling violent protests, angry mobs, and riotous crowds in ordinary times. Crowd dispersal with tear gas during a global pandemic exacerbated by a possibly airborne virus that could cause respiratory distress and grave illness as we are instructed to keep safe distances between each other computes on the side of the unbelievably incredulous like no one is using their senses.

One other thing, I would hope the pandemic addresses with some determination is smoking on the streets either from cigarettes or vaping. For if the social-distancing requirement is to prevent contracting COVID-19, what should not be happening is people walking into the clouds of smoke or vapour expelled from the lungs of possibly infected people.

Ban it, treat it

I do not think it would be safe to have people trying to dodge smoke trails too as they walk the streets. It would call for designated smoking areas along with radical programmes to get people off tobacco because it would not augur well for pavement rage to develop from people taking umbrage to others who in their carefree use of tobacco products visibly pollute the air we breathe as we incidentally, walk into their smoky slipstream.

For the purposes of full disclosure, I started smoking at 14 and gave it up at 18. I cannot remember what inspired it, I just stopped, I did not enjoy it anymore. I used to smoke menthol cigarettes then. Now, my doctor considers having dropped smoking over 3 decades ago as being a non-smoker.

Editorial: What really triggered the riots

Getting back at the truth

London and other cities and towns around the United Kingdom have experienced a whole series of community destruction efforts through riots, lootings, arson and deaths much of which brings into stark focus the city that will host the Olympics in 2012.

For all the indignation, revulsion and disgust at the spate of criminality meted out with impunity by those who in the confusion have found opportunity to satisfy a baser anti-social inclination we may miss some essential truths about these events.

We must with all sincerity condemn the violence and destruction of life and property whilst working to bring those culprits to book because a society cannot thrive on this kind of lawlessness.

The tinder box effect

However, one cannot fail to notice the tinder-box effect of the original trigger for what happened afterwards. Riots do not just happen out of vacuum, they are usually the whirlwind harvests of sowing to the wind.

This sordid tale started when some police unit after a somewhat notorious person an alleged drug-dealer and gang member decided to accost him as he rode as passenger in a mini-cab on the streets of London.

There surely might have been other places where this man might have been apprehended without much altercation but whoever put this plan together thought the risks of a problem would be minimised if they engaged him fully armed with the risk of endangering the life of the mini-cab driver all in the name of law enforcement.

We have now been informed that the person to be apprehended might have been armed but there is no indication that he tried to defend himself and every suggestion that the negotiation tactic the police adopted was to shoot first and then ask questions later.

What triggers riots

There will be many questions to ask and the first answers should have been given to the family of Mark Duggan [1], explaining in full detail, with all consideration, sympathy and definitely promptly what transpired between the police and the 29-year old father of 4.

Before they undertook that serious responsibility the consequences of their actions had already lit a slow fuse towards discontent, vigils, demonstrations, public unrest and riots.

Like many other riots before, it takes the basic semblance of the abuse of police power and the unresponsiveness of the police to the gravity of the situation to set things off and the rest becomes history. In others, it has been race or religious tensions and sometimes acts of the government where that are disconnected from their electorate.

Simmering societal issues

In our advanced societies we maintain an uneasy calm in the midst of simmering tensions of societal breakdown that just requires that last straw to break the laden camel’s back. As most as politicians and their ilk continue to suggest that other city riots were unconnected copy-cat activities we continue to live in the untruth of the structural breakdown in first the discipline culture and then the sense responsibility certain of our citizenry might have towards their communities.

The fact is, this can happen in any Western country so easily when the somewhat disenfranchised sense injustice and indifference by the actions of those we trust to uphold the law.

The fact the riots spread to other major cities around the United Kingdom simply belies similarities with the concerns of the immediately affected community which was only 26 years ago the centre of another major riot, the Broadwater Farm riot [2] which again were triggered originally by police interaction that lead to the death of a member of the public.

Some hard facts

The fundamental thread that links all these riots can be summed up in one basic statement – “They who think they have no stake in society will not suddenly assume the responsibility of protecting their communities.”

However, in a boxed-list of opinions towards the bottom of an article on the Daily Mail Online, certain prominent figures expressed their views [3] and those simply encapsulate the whole reason for this anarchy that needs to be addressed root-and-branch because setting in motion the wheels of punishment for crime without reviewing the causes of crime will just leave our society a worse off place.

Sources

[1] The death of Mark Duggan - Wikipedia

[2] 1985 Broadwater Farm riot

[3] Daily mail Online | Rudderless Met crippled by liberalism

Nigeria: Gone is the Jos I knew

Memories long gone

One of the dangers of sweet memories is to allow them to dictate your view of contemporary events. However, it is a lesson in life to appreciate fully and embrace the good memories on which to build expectations of the future whilst leaving behind those memories that shackle you to experiences you would rather not relive.

In fact, Demi Moore expresses [1] that sentiment better by saying, “The key is to hold onto the love you had and what you gained and don't get attached to what you lost.”

A time of adventure

The news of riots [2] in the city of Jos, Nigeria fills me with regrets of paradise lost, some of my formative and excitingly adventurous years were lived in the suburb of Rayfield, Jos.

This was a place where I could read a Famous Five [3] or Secret Seven [4] adventure and think this is possible in my backyard, then go out to have fun on my bicycle with friends.

I cannot understand what has become of Jos such that in the past decade there has been these religious riots pitting Muslims against Christians [5].

Jos was idyllic, temperate, it had in the 1970s a good proportion of Caucasians and it was probably the most anglicised city in Nigeria.

The then head of state, General Yakubu Gowon was from that area and I remember the many times he visited his hometown that we went out to the railway crossing at Bukuru waving Nigerian flags as he passed by.

The divisions emerge

Indeed, I could not have known that much about rivalries between the tribes, but there were songs that depicted some of the animosity between them, the Birom, the Angas, the Jukun and the Tiv as inhabitants of the then Benue-Plateau State.

There were the Hausa and the Fulani but they represented the union language of the region just as Muslims and Christians seemed to co-exist without malice, rancour or schism.

One can only lament the way that political forces that have no consideration and concern for their followers have exploited subtle differences between the people to foment savagery in rioting, unnecessary mob violence and killing.

The power brokers whose selfish interests are to fill their pockets and those of their sycophantic minions have been unconscionable to the extreme; as far as they are concerned, hell can reign in Jos if they cannot hold the reins of power, lives are dispensable as collateral damage to meet their needs but none of them would be found culpable for the heinous crimes that have been committed.

No concept of being Nigerian

One is also saddened that after 48 years of independence and after 94 years of the existence of the entity called Nigeria, the concept of Nigerian-ness has not taken root in the psyche of the people.

Tribal and religious affiliations still matter to many and they become the fodder for barbarian plunder, such that the riots brought on by one political party not winning a local election has been reduced to religious fighting between Christians and Muslims.

It begs the question why Nigerians cannot break free from primitive identities of tribal and religious affiliation to that which is borne out by progressive ideas, vigorous discourse, healthy debate and civilised engagement.

Is there a broad-based coalition?

The impression was that a Christian party had won in what was a predominantly Muslim area – the concept of a Christian or Muslim party must be abhorrent enough, but could there have been a case where the supposedly predominantly Muslim area did think that the other candidate was better?

This question would seem to elevate the standard of Nigerian politics to a level never attained before, but the possibility is there.

For self-appointed leaders of ill-repute to portend that they know the wishes of the voters long before they have cast their ballots would be to make the idea of democratic determination a moot point and completely irrelevant; this needs to change.

Seeking redress with civility

Ideally, there should be ways and means of challenging results of an election in a civil manner and processes put in place to verify to the satisfaction of all concerned if the tally of votes represents the clear wishes of the people.

That level of civility is unfortunately not in the capabilities of our political leaders and the ability to trust the results of our electoral processes has never really been in the gift and abilities of our electoral officials.

The opportunity to seek appropriate redress is ditched in favour of appealing to our basest instincts, excite the latent savage and feed the dormant beast, let the usually restrained animal lose on the innocent and defenceless and carnage reigns without bringing us anywhere near a solution.

The ungodly pretending to be religious

Hundreds of people killed in country where if God were to have a nap He would not find a nanosecond to blink for the number of times He is presumably called upon is amazing – people had replaced their prayer beads, rosaries, bibles and Korans with machetes and impliments that inflict grievous bodily harm and death.

The shocking thing is some leader would find ayah or verse to justify these actions in the name of God and all that is good.

I submit that the perpetrators are hardly Godly people by any stretch of the imagination, they believe they call on a deity and are in the service of some higher being but this is no religion, it is a just a horde of animals seeking a label of sorts and the greater shame it is of Nigerians to be portrayed in such bad light.

As for the childhood memories I have of Jos, they have become memories only - almost never to be the reality for kids in Jos today or in the near future – it is a sorry and sordid state of affairs, unfortunately.

Source

[1] Demi Moore at UK premiere of Flawless – Telegraph

[2] Nigerian city counts its dead after days of Christian-Muslim riots | World news | The Guardian

[3] The Famous Five (series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] The Secret Seven - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] BBC NEWS | Africa | Nigerian city tense after riots