A WEIRD prism is just one perspective

Influences of significance

When my dad said over a decade ago, “You have always thought like a Westerner.” I feigned ignorance of what he implied, but it got me thinking about things that baffle me daily. How it is that my worldview on many issues and situations are so radically different from many with whom I am supposed to share a heritage.

Then again, I realise that I have also fallen into a trap and a misconception about culture and values needing to converge to a Judeo-Christian Western construct with the view that those who appear to deviate from such might not represent the best of our humanity.

How marriage changed us

Indeed, many of our international laws of trade, of industry, of life, or of diplomacy follow a broadly western model that has become a synonym for modern and civilised, we miss out on understanding other constructs, cultures, civilisations, and customs that makes other members of our diverse humanity uniquely different, interesting, and rich.

This was brought into stark relief when I listened to a podcast The West and the Rest by Matthew Syed on BBC Radio 4 on his Sideways series, which started with the observation of different psychological responses to what was studied and expected in the West to how intriguingly the advent of Christianity changed marital norms like forbidding marriage to cousins, opening clans to strangers and birthed the kind of innovation and mindset that typifies the West today. [BBC Radio 4 Sideways Podcast: 3. The West and the Rest]

Weird as we come

It begs the question about who the weird ones are, we in the west or the non-western cultures. Whilst there is no way I will pass for a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), I am most definitely one of the WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialised Rich and Democratic), a psychological term that was defined in the 2000 book, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich.

Having an audible copy of this book, it would probably give me an appreciation of why I think differently and why I should make ample accommodation for how other cultures will not converge to my worldview. This would mean we need to negotiate and agree on certain principles, attitudes, and rules for the good of humanity even if implementations will differ.

I come away with the insight that cultural divides will only be bridged with an openness of the mind and the putting away of the western hubris that has led us on spectacularly failed escapades of sowing seeds of our kind of civilisation around the world.

Read or listen

The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous [Amazon]

 

Just for the asking

We have been put to the test,
At the drawbridges of Fortress West,
Where a gatekeeper says lest,
The invited returns not to their nest,
They cannot, for now, be a guest,
For reasons that we must contest,
And quite vehemently protest,
Though our means are modest,
Our aims are completely honest,
Once more we find we must wrest,
To show our very best,
Against policies that do suggest,
We can’t be better than the rest,
On this, we are really pressed,
As it must well be stressed,
That what was then professed,
And would like to be redressed
At the point that it’s again addressed,
Is the leave granted to the quest,
To enter freely unsuppressed,
To be trusted wholly as possessed,
Of good character duly manifest,
To act as agreed and expressed,
And depart without arrest,
When due as one did truly attest,
We stand the readiest,
To leave you all impressed,
It is just a simple request,
A visit as if you haven’t guessed.

Clerical child sex abuse was by human-beings not the devil

I am incensed

I got asked yesterday about the news that the Catholic Church in the Netherlands taking responsibility and acting proactively to deal with the issues of child sexual abuse in the church and institutions run by the church.

I responded saying I was incensed about the fact that the abuse happened at all recalling the many scandals and reports that highlighted how children were taken advantage of by so-called respected pillars of society.

A probe is being conducted headed by a Protestant to investigate claims, somehow, they expect the abused to come out and report the crimes against their persons like someone reporting the trivia of a penny falling through some grating on the street – some of us just want to get on with our lives not recount the dark times of our childhood. Thank you.

The West is hardly the whole

In the West, we might well have expended and exhausted ourselves with the news and happenings in the United States and Ireland; that it has come so close to the Vatican might well just show that this is really a problem.

I volunteered my conversant a few bits of information, that I was abused as a child by people in whose care I had been placed by my parents intimating him of the fact that whilst it might be “easier” to raise matters of abuse in the West, we cannot seem to countenance the fact that it happens in Nigeria and dare I say, even in Africa.

In fact, all the revelations we have heard of in the “enlightened” and “empowered” West might well be the tip of a humongous ice-berg of global child sexual abuse where societies are literally intimated by the awe of the church and its priesthood they are not to be able to challenge such heinous and sinful conduct.

The ones we so respect

Child sexual abuse is however not limited to faith-based organisations to which we entrust the care of our children, it happens in homes, amongst relations and with members of society to whom we pay respect and fear to dare when we see wrong.

This is not to castigate the many helplful and selfless organisations that have pitched tent in Africa, South America and Asia to help where our governments or welfare systems have failed, but to pretend the issue of child abuse has been fully exposed in the West and dealt with is to be naïve about the nature of humanity regardless of location.

The detail is not in the devil

I just read three news stories that I micro-blogged as tweets, then I realised there might well be a sinister ploy towards absolution that we cannot allow to stand.

Chief exorcist says Devil is in Vatican http://is.gd/adQHF New battle lines drawn or an atrocious distraction from Catholic sins?

Cardinal says celibacy partly to blame for clerical sex abuse http://is.gd/adSvT Sex is part of life, morality is the detail.

Catholic sex abuse scandals are 'evidence the Devil is in the Vatican http://is.gd/adZ9X Confused - celibacy & devil to blame now?

Having read in one place that the devil was in the Vatican and then another that partly blamed celibacy for clerical sex abuse the deduction that linked the sexual abuse to the devil was just too much for me.

People not phantoms at work

It is adults in positions of authority, responsibility and power that take advantage of innocent children to fulfil their perverted sexual lusts, to try and mask that very obvious earthly activity behind some supernatural or paranormal manifestation that excites religious passion and possible acquiescence is deplorable and contemptible at best.

I know the people who abuse me and I know the ones who abused others I knew, they had names, they had influence, they were respected and to everyone around us, they were beyond reproach – they were neither gods, nor were they devils, they were flesh and blood like you and me.

We must never lose sight of that clear fact and everything must to done to bring those nasty people to justice, no matter what façade they have been able to put up to mask their devilish acts.

A devilish act does not a devil make and I will not allow the Catholic Church to pass off those acts as if the people are not liable for their activities because they are under the influence of some devil – I will not buy that view and by God, we must all condemn that view before it gains any traction. Today!

America: Maniac with razor blades

From Russia with pique

When going to negotiate, it is best to be able to do that form a position of strength. However, the moment your sanity is questioned you will have an uphill task to be taken seriously and that can become insurmountable.

Very recently, President Putin of Russia has been sabre-rattling and implacable on the matter of missile defence system America has been trying to plant in Eastern Europe to protect its allies from a threat that only now exists in the wild imagination of some.

Iran as far as we know is developing nuclear technologies, however, it is not at least clear to what end – the Iranians say their activities are to peaceful ends of energy sufficiency, America has however cajoled quite a few countries into thinking these activities are geared towards weaponisation threatening the military balance in the Middle-East.

Iran for the elephants’ duel?

There is that fear, but it is yet unfounded, Russia at least does not believe that these activities for a nuclear weapons ability, we also know that Russia is currently building Iran’s first nuclear plant.

It might be that Iran is becoming a theatre of war where it is the grass on which two elephants would fight to the death, but America, for now has its hands full with the debacle in Iraq as Russia has its coffers full with the proceeds of oil money.

One has to commiserate with Iran’s position being flanked on two sides by alien armies, I still believe that it would be remiss and irresponsible of any government of the country, theocratic, democratic or tyrannical not to be engaged in some possible invasion deterrent strategy which might include developing nuclear weapons if necessary.

There would have been no impetus for Iran’s dabbling if Iraq had not been so ignominiously stripped of its leadership and dignity, being left a military mess without foreseeable end.

Respect and equality critical for negotiations

Global politics does not always have to favour the World-Order according to the narrowly-focused view of the West being always in ascendancy, in fact, the only way to win in negotiations is to treat other parties with respect, equality, patience and temperance.

Mr. Putin was able to point to the issue of North Korea where this kind of negotiating spirit has yielded dividends in view of the fact that they already have nuclear weapons, even if the project is stopped, the brains cannot lay fallow, they have to engaged purposefully or they would be bought up by stateless organisations with nefarious objectives.

So the announcement this week of sanctions freezing Iran out of the American monetary system has been greeted with defiance from Iran, another record-high for oil prices where Iran and Russia are the sellers and a qualified put-down by President Putin.

“Why worsen the situation and bring it to a dead end by threatening sanctions or military action?” Putin asked. “Running around like a madman with a razor blade, waving it around, is not the best way to resolve the situation.”

Razor blades hurting us

It would appear, America really is clueless about how to resolve issues with nations that are diametrically opposed to their world view – in the same week, President Bush was blowing hot and cold over Cuba that they have not been able to change for almost 5 decades re-affirming the measures imposed before I was born and reaching no intended solution. Is Cuba not just 90 miles south of the United States of America? And they want to set the world to rights elsewhere.

As President Putin continues with, “Why keep rocking the foundations of the international law, encourage and develop separatism in Europe and the ex-Soviet space?”

More so, we now have a situation in the world where the war on terrorism is the hammer and anyone who has a contrarian view is a nail, no other view exists in the face of a pummelling hammer, it does not augur well for anyone and very few countries can pay for oil running to $100 per barrel.

The world is a lot more than stopping a country from playing with uranium.

Desiring a Palestinian Passover

Hamas – the democratic will of the people

Recently, I have been involved in vigorous commentary, debate and dispute on the issue of Palestinian democracy.

More so, because the election of Hamas by the popular vote of the Palestinian people in response to urgings from the West to democratise has now given the West the opportunity to now bring the Palestinian people to their knees – in poverty, hunger and death.

I cannot stress enough, the fact that Hamas was elected on the complete platform of their “repugnant” views of the eradication of Israel, the continuation of their armed struggle against occupation (what the West calls terrorism), the creation of an Islamic state in the land of Palestine, their well known anti-corruption message and their commendable social services in Gaza.

Grace augmenting injustice

Israel, exists by the grace of all who have allowed it to thrive to the detriment of the occupied peoples as they bully the populace with tanks and gun ships against the primitive incursions and attacks composed of suicide bombers and home-made rockets.

The rhetoric about the elimination of Israel thrives on the fact that an injustice coming to 60 years still shows no prospect of resolution.

The Palestinians cannot go to war to claim what they believe to be their land and the 1967 line is continually breached with impunity most especially by foreign Jews who believe in a literal land of Israel to the exclusion of any other people - settlers - they are called.

An unjust world of hypocrites

Then I read that the UNRWA is under so much duress by the influence of Israel that they cannot freely distribute aid to the starving Palestinian refugees, the report is harrowing; even as essential other aid is withheld because of a democratic choice the Palestinians have made in voting for Hamas – ideology and all.

At the same time, I read that Nuclear North Korea is about to allow the UN access back in the country to distribute food aid to starving Koreans.

This is the same UN that is supporting the persecution of non-Nuclear Iran as we prepare for what might possibly another major skirmish in the Middle-East perpetrated by the United States.

I get fed up with the idea that the United States feels the International community is acquiescent to purveying their vituperation in the direction of Iran. Just as we had with the coalition of the coerced, more are being coerced into the uncomfortable situation of endorsing detrimental action against Iran.

A Palestinian Passover – I dream

Now that Israel has closed the crossing necessary to get food aid to people in Gaza in preparation for the Passover.

They in their festivities of celebrating the passing over of the angel of death breathe despair, destitution, deprivation, debt, desolation and death on a people who are already on their knees, almost scratching the ground for food.

It would be to the utter shame and disgrace of the West if the pictures that moved humanity on Ethiopia some 20 years ago, would now migrate as far north as the Middle-East.

Here is waiting for the day that the Palestinians would also celebrate their own Passover, when they rise to take their land and celebrate in the joy of deliverance from a world that is steeped in standards not worthy of the weight of human history but expressive of total human misery.

The unjust condemnation of Palestinian choice

A Democratic exasperation

You can imagine my exasperation with the whole concept of the exercise of democratic privilege when people are empowered to govern but emasculated by the lack of financial and moral support.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Palestinian situation. The world or the West in particular having clamoured for ages incessantly for the people of Palestine to be given a voice in the deciding who leads them finally got that wish fulfilled.

Unfortunately, as the new Knesset was being sworn in, the Islamic Jihad found another martyr to blow up a Tel Aviv restaurant and Hamas gets abraded for not doing anything about it.

Now, let us juxtapose this situation against the motion that was about to be slated at the Knesset yesterday for its dissolution of the 17^th Knesset before commencement.

MK (Member of Knesset) Zevulun Orlev of the National Union-National Religious Party is of the opinion that Kadima lacks an ideology having been the brainchild of Ariel Sharon who fell into a coma literally in the conception stages of that party.

His words, “Kadima is creating a patchwork government devoid of ideology that is already tottering and won't last long”

The choices were stark

With that said, one wonders if the Palestinians did study the political choices before them before voting. It would be insulting to their intelligence to suggest that all parties in the Palestinian elections did not have their ideologies, ideas, programmes, promises and faults.

To the Palestinian people the corrupt and ineffective Fatah movement of which Yasser Arafat was leader did little to assuage the sufferings and problems of their people.

Hamas demonstrates the conscience of its people

It is however, on record and visible to all concerned that the Hamas movement though labelled terrorist in the West has done more than many other organisation to address socio-economic issues; these being very much in line with what the Palestinian majority requires.

There also no doubt in anybody’s mind that the Hamas ideology did not recognise Israel as a nation and they use tools of dissent albeit suicide bombers at certain times to highlight their message.

Israel over the years tired to decimate the leadership of Hamas through targeted assassinations, which included a blind old man in a wheelchair, but we could not find it in our hearts to condemn such measures.

Hamas is now the political force in Palestine, who along with their ideologies has considered reneging or ignoring the agreements made by previous governments on behalf of the Palestinians – I think that is also their prerogative.

Subverting ideology through blackmail

Having now clearly seen and heard the will and voice of the Palestinians, I find it unconscionable that leading democracies in the world can ask Hamas to change the ideology on which they won elections.

This would be tantamount to asking the American Republican Party to change from conservative values to liberal, if not communist values having just won an election. We all know that that would never happen in the West, so why demand it of Hamas?

We are now left in a very sorry situation where the self-same leading democracies have withheld funding to the Hamas-led government in order to force a change in the principles and platform on which Hamas was elected. That is patently not fair and definitely anti-democratic.

It begs the question that Kadima a party with no clear ideology assumes power in that sense of obscurity and Hamas with a well-documented ideology assumes power and they are assessed from different perspectives.

The poorer democracies speaking up

I would hope that the Arab states would step up to the challenge and ensure that the fledgling democracy in Palestine survives despite the animosity of the West. This would do well to slow down the democratic crusade marching into the Middle East, as many would see this as typical double standards.

As for dealing with the suicide bombers; if you want Hamas to be effective, you will have to put your money where your mouth is – It is to the shame of Europe, American and Japan that it is Russia, Qatar and Iran that is stepping forward to honour the decisions of a long-oppressed people.

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Just too many days of holiday in Nigeria

Naijablog is my thinking window on Nigeria

I got involved in a discussion on my favourite blog Naijablog which is run by an Englishman living in Nigeria with his beautiful Nigerian wife.

He remonstrated about unannounced holidays and the way one religious holiday seems to be a holiday for all religions.

This is true, because extended families are usually comprised of different religious affiliations; it is of kindred importance than religious holidays do not depend on the individual's religion.

Then other commentators went on to talk about work and holidays in the West, productivity, relaxing and getting industry to make Nigeria thrive.

After Miss Anonymous said this, “We'll keep wracking our brains. BUT, who will implement them?” My reply appears below.

Dear Miss Anonymous

I am sorry to sit on the fence on this one.

24 years ago, I returned home from a student's protest when the NITEL building was burning down and President Shagari jetted over the flames to India to receive a doctorate degree, just weeks after they announced Indian degrees were inferior to Nigerian ones.

My father took me aside and said, there was a time Nigeria was worth dying for, now, it is everyman to his own.

My honest accountant father though quite successful never got entrenched in corporate settings because he always thwarted attempts to defraud companies where he was CFO.

Evil bedevils the good

Rather than be honoured or rewarded, he received death threats, he did the smart thing then and branched out into farming with moderate success. Now, close to being a septuagenarian he is back with the accountancy he loved.

Nigeria, no doubt has promise and potential, but many of us also got our fingers burnt trying to speak up for probity, prudence and forthrightness.

Charred fingers and frustrated times

I participated in student union politics in the 80's and had to contend with demigod lecturers who wasted our years there.

I went into consultancy, each time I presented a bill; someone wanted a cut to the extent that I had to tell he that my bill was not negotiable, if he was desirous of payback he had to resolve that without my input.

This is apart from the fact that he had nothing to do with my securing the opportunity, nor did he contribute in anyway to help get the work done.

A bale of money to bail out

Once also, I had to sign a bail form for my employees stating I had not paid anything for their release, having paid a hefty sum under the counter to the police.

This again after my business partner corralled all everyone in the holding company into detention on the suspicion that some other employee from a different company has been stealing company property.

He did not even have the courtesy to inform me of that situation.

Nigeria – a dream I once had

The catalogue of experiences of almost 20 years of sojourn in Nigeria would mark anyone, I had my share.

Nigeria is probably a radically changed place from my own experiences and things are probably better, but it would take some convincing to prise me out of the comfort of Europe to prospect in Nigeria for anything.

Meanwhile, you will have my support advisory and international as hopefully the vision I had of Nigeria in the 70s.

In my way, I died for Nigeria once; I would not hurt one single hair of my bald head again.