The supermarket trolley on the move

In the folly of a trolley

The times that I have chosen to do my walking exercises to avoid encounters with unruly owners with their devil dogs in public parks present a new kind of solitude and quietness for contemplation and reflection. Then again are the observations one makes of the somewhat ordinary and yet attractive.

The uncharted and relatively insignificant life of the supermarket trolley is one that seems to fill me with intrigue and genuine interest. I will use trolley for the rest of the blog.

Typically, a trolley will be arrayed with similar trolleys at the entrance of a supermarket, a refundable charge for use allows the trolley to be detached from its mooring to other trolleys and after usage, it is returned for the click mooring to release the coin inserted to gain use of the trolley.

The trolley quite adrift

In some instances, the customer fails to return the trolley to the mooring post and the coin is trapped in the trolley release mechanism, but that is not the issue here. Obviously, the command and control of a trolley around the supermarket and when wheeled towards a vehicle in the car park can present an irreverent waywardness no matter how much the customer attempts to steer it. It is a wonder that licenses are not required to steer those beasts.

However, my chronicling of the odyssey of the trolley comes from seeing the trolleys a long way away from the home supermarket, on a pathway, in the river, idling in the fields, or full of rubbish rather than consumer goods and groceries.

Meeting the tunnel trolley

For instance, walking through a pedestrian tunnel three days ago, there was a trolley halfway into the tunnel party blocking the pathway and a bit askew. I did wonder where it had come from. Perish the thought that it had automation, or it arrived there by some poltergeist phenomenon. A certain human being must have got it that far and decided to abandon it there.

The next day, the trolley was on its back, the handlebar and the hind wheels on the ground looking up like the wire sculpture of a yawning hippopotamus. The thought crossed my mind, but I did not dwell on it, as for the questions, there were many to think of too.

The story-making trolley

Then, at another brisk walk through the tunnel, the trolley had righted itself, now on its four wheels and did I notice there was a wheel brake to stop it from being wheeled away from the perimeter of the home supermarket. Yet, it had escaped by velocity, anti-social behaviour, or a quest for liberation. Let’s not wonder too much. It was now well placed at the entrance of the tunnel as if standing sentry.

You can expect, I did expect to see the trolley again as I traipsed through the pedestrian tunnel again, but it had gone. I half-expected to see it along the route between the interconnecting tunnels, footpaths, and bridges, but no, it was nowhere to be seen. Not that I have trolleys for company, but there might have been an unspoken conversation between us that was missed on my last traversal.

The trolley back at home

Another 750 yards on, it clicked, there is a large supermarket and the trolley from its colour scheme must have belonged there. If I had tagged it, as one cannot take the name of the trolley, I do wonder of out of the formation of trolleys in resolute order bettering a military parade, I could have asked the trolley for fallout for a dressing down or a commendation.

Herein is the quandary:
for the trolleys that roam,
a long way from home,
is there any hope,
for how they should cope?

Taught what wrought not

Taught what wrought not

Pertaining to the things that I ought,
Even in the presence of much thought,
The pressures of battles I have fought,
Making me feel quite overwrought.

The creeping fear of losing the plot,
Avoiding things done falling to rot,
Using my wits and wiles is all I got,
To ensure nothing at all goes to pot.

Finding the stream in which to be caught,
To make for a rather better case and lot,
Even if for the work success can’t be bought,
We still strive beyond what we sought.

Thought Picnic: Analysing the Cultism in our Religion

Between religions and cults

An article titled When Does a Religion Become a Cult? [1] In the Wall Street Journal inspired this blog and whilst the main thrust of the write-up offered the signs that make religious cults evident, there was a possibility that certain of those perspectives were not necessarily all-encompassing.

Being on expert on the subject I have however witnessed first-hand people who have joined up to religious organisations seeking some solution to life’s problems and ended up becoming people with altered personalities, narrowed views of life, extreme fundamentals and spewing out doctrinal teachings that border on blasphemy to evident apostasy looking like new revelation.

Effective Controls

It is instructive that analysts of cult phenomena suggest a number of criteria that define cults as behaviour control, information control, thought control and emotional control. Beyond this are two other categories defined as financial control and extreme leadership.

What apparently indicates as control is different for different cultures and one can suggest that in open and freer societies the elements of control are probably more obvious and directly impacting on the adherents of such cult followings.

In this sense, one could be deluded into thinking that cults rarely exist in African cultures because the controlling forces do not appear to be enforced in a seemingly policed environment rather people tend to abdicate the free moral agency they have and submit themselves to the controlling influence of their leaders and then flock together with the false sense of safety in community.

Indirect but controlling nonetheless

There are many elements of behaviour control masquerading as religious creeds with interminably long lists of dos and don’ts of with absurd logic pandering to ancient rites that have long been superseded by modern ways that are conveniently ignored.

Information control usually presents as doctrinal diktat breeding anti-social forms of extremist and intolerant attitudes encouraged by the laziness of congregations to review criticisms no matter how constructive those views might be.

With a plaint and fawning audience, thought control is easy, people who are brought up in patriarchal societies might not be disposed to inquisitiveness or questioning the basis of the tenets they adhere to. There is a self-censorship in place that automatically kicks-in when a “Man of God” speaks, acts or commands as some vague dread of the supernatural instils the fear that allows for bling-followership and no critical assessment of the circumstances the person is in.

The aspect of emotional control is easy, as humility is confused with accepting humiliation and the guilt complex is exacerbated by painting scenarios that leave adherent apparently eternally grateful for the succour the leadership appears to provide.

In the pocket of the mind

Financial control is almost as innocuous as it is diabolical, holy texts are trotted out to convince, persuade, cajole, tease and in the extreme defraud as people are first convinced of a monetary key to blessing and almost compelled from the pulpit to give everything to the point of pain; whilst mind-control is quite difficult to assess, the beholden are already taken.

The religious leader regaled in the best flaunts this luxurious appearance as something to aspire to but only available through deeper financial commitment as hopes and desires are played and teased with the eventual promise of success which is almost within grasp – the spur is captivating to keep the people striving. The message gets perverted to “Use God and Love Money”.

By which time extreme leadership does not look that extreme any more, people who have willingly and freely associated that they have been subsumed and the leader either by design or unwittingly earns a cult following of almost sycophancy at some presumed closeness to God.

The slide to a cult

In any event, very little needs to be done to exercise absolute control as varying degrees of control as pertains to the earlier criteria could have inadvertently created a self-sustaining cult environment, the participants so completely oblivious of the fact that they have also stuck so close to a commune they cannot cut loose.

The sad thing is many are already in cults thinking they are fervent followers of some religion, the distinction between the terms almost impossible to distinguish. The analysts however conclude that every coercive religious group harbours the telltale trait of untoward secrecy – however, secrecy might well be hidden in everyday language, a lot being said but a dog whistle to those who know.

If members experience impediments in relationships, ideas or travel and the group’s finances are suspect and non-transparent, one might just say, following the money will just take you deep into the grotto of a cult.

Sources

[1] Mitch Horowitz: When Does a Religion Become a Cult? - WSJ.com

Nigeria: Gulags of learning

Suspended for rightful protest

Some areas where educational institutions do not seem to have improved in Nigeria are those of situation analysis, student discipline, leadership and fostering an atmosphere where ideas and opinions flourish.

I write this as I read in the papers that 5 students were suspended indefinitely [1] from the Olabisi Onabanjo University having been recorded on television protesting against the raising of school fees - nothing in the story suggests they were up to anything else.

I would not go into details of that, but I would relay my own experiences of this failing.

Summer School gets hot

In the summer of 1980, I returned to school for Summer School in preparation for secondary school final examinations, we were to spend 4 weeks and for me some of those lectures were quite enlightening and instructive, I probably gained a lot in the first two weeks than I did in a whole half-term of regular school.

One weekend night, some of the more adventurous, if not the more idiotic boys in my class, who had their hormones running wilder than their brains could control them to remain human, went out to the girl’s hostels to meet up and do more with the girls.

When the girls refused to come out to play, the boys went on a rampage, destroying property and harming a few of the girls in the process, I think a few needed hospital treatment.

Judge and jury without justice

In the morning, the teaching staff and the Board of Governors met to review the situation and decide on what to do. Without interviewing any of the boys and on the emotive situation of observing the girls, they decided to close the Summer School with immediate effect.

They also decided none of the boys would return to the boarding house for the rest of their final year, having been a boarder for four years I spent my last and most important year in secondary school as a day student.

Now, the Board of Governors might have thought they were offering the best disciplinary action in excluding us from boarding school, but they never considered that without the regimen of supervision in a boarding house a good few of the boys would go off the rails.

The damage and the harshness

I believe the set of 1976-1981 could have been one of the highest achieving sets with regards to the final examinations but that unfair punishment of everyone without the investigation of who really was involved and culpable probably destroyed what could have been a solid foundation for the future of many.

Much as I did get into polytechnic the next academic year, in the end, I lost a good few years before I finally got my education back on track.

In what was a very striking observation, the vice-principal came round to supervise us packing our things in readiness for leaving Summer School, she saw two of us and said ruefully, “I am sure you were never involved in the fracas but a few unruly boys have spoilt it for everyone, even with this fate, I wish that you still encounter good fortune.”

It remains one of the things I hold against Remo Secondary School, Sagamu, I was only 14 and they never once admitted they did us wrong and it would always be a black mark on every other good thing that that school brought to helping mould the person I am now.

A letter to the hounds

Another instance was after a students’ unrest at Yaba College of Technology in 1984, we were sent home and then on re-entry we had to sign an undertaking of conformance to rules that registered us into some sort of slave camp.

One student had written a letter to the Nigerian Guardian questioning a number of unsettling activities in the school which for the sake of objectivity was critical, truthful and balanced.

However, the authorities would have none of this, so every lecturer was trying to find out who A. Joseph was, and because my first name begins with an A, I was asked at least thrice if I was the A. Joseph.

Where they should have been working together to resolve the issues raised, they were baying for blood like hounds, they wanted a scapegoat and thankfully, they never got that particular person.

A good number of us rather vocal student activists just never managed to make it out of the college with a result.

Manufacturing drones

Schools are stripping out individuality, independence and initiative; people pass through school but the school does not pass through them, we end up with drones that have excelled in regurgitating information rather than expressing knowledge, their intelligence is stifled and intellect is mediocre because they have been through the educational mangling machine that produces clones not thinkers.

You cannot express yourself, you should subsume self to the commonality of sameness or you would be punished severely – our schools are mortgaging our future because teachers, lecturers, principals, professors and chancellors would not be challenged, they would brook no questions and condemn every alternative thought.

Gulags of learning

Debate is for the outcasts, people on the road to rustication because they upset the peace equilibrium that dictates that your freedoms are only the ones you enslave yourself to and your rights are theirs to dictate – they are the benevolent masters who know what is best for you, you can never think through any problem.

Our schools have become worse than prisons, they have become gulags of learning; learning to conform, learning to obey, learning to submit and learning to be silent – they have become a malignant cancers that need to be excised from our society forthwith – the 21^st Century cannot afford to have drones, people schooled for military style obedience, people whose brains have become so idle they can no more think.

The power of the school

Forget the concept of freedom of expression, the school can make or break your life and almost always get away with it even if you win your case; you bare the mark like Cain and would never be forgiven.

How schools acquired this malevolence escapes me except for the explanation that many teachers are not in their jobs for the love of the impartation of knowledge and the development of minds but are frustrated failures that have no goodwill or inspiration.

I am still thankful that I have had teachers, lecturers and professors who have promoted the thinking culture all for selfless and noble reasons; I commend them and hope they can take hold of their schools and turn them around for the greater good of society.

Sources

[1] THISDAY ONLINE / Nigeria news / Keyamo Flays Suspension of Ogun Varsity Students

NB: I have used school in the broadest possible sense to encompass all institutions of learning.