I used to tease my mum when she would twist my ears for doing or saying something wrong, I’d say “violence is the refuge of the ignorant”... of course she thought it was rude. Whilst then it was just a JOKE, I believe it best describes what is going on in many boroughs in London, and across the United Kingdom. Ignorance, ignorant parenting, and disrespect for the law as a result of to ignorance to what it takes for good governance. Where there is ignorance, violence becomes the only mode of communication.
As street fires, petrol bombs, disgruntled teens and adults rioting without a cause swept across many areas of the United Kingdom, I did a quick mental analysis of the areas of London that were affected. I admit; it is a vast generalisation to say that most of these areas are home to a lot of the less privileged, less educated people living on benefits, etc, however for the sake of my argument let’s agree that they are. It begs the question is social welfare the best route for a nation.
The riots have been masked as being a protest against particular ethnic groups being picked on and treated wrongly, while that may or may not be the case, the riots have not been solely about that. After watching a series of interviews with the rioters stupid enough to show their face on television, it has become evident that there is no unifying cause, no message that the rioters want us to hear, no burning issue they want the prime ministers attention over. They just took an opportunity to collect what they haven’t worked for, as they always have.
These rioters have enjoyed a mandatory free education that while not as good as a private education is still GOOD, they enjoy free healthcare, uninterrupted power, pastoral care is also free on the NHS, free housing. In addition to all this if they are still unable to secure employment they collect fortnightly (or weekly, I’m not sure) benefits for food, a hoodie from primark(had to pop in a joke there), and for most alcohol, cigarettes, and on the odd week a spiky dog collar for those beasts they carry around London to scare people. This is the model I have always argued that we ought to follow in Nigeria. I thought that it was necessary for us to give out benefits, housing, and everything that a wealthy person can provide for themselves to those who can’t, but I am now being forced to reconsider this.
Whatever comes free is never valued. Perhaps if these rioters understood the importance of hard work to survive, if they hadn’t taken for granted the free education they enjoyed, and actually made the best of it, if they understood that they would be homeless if they didn’t work to pay rent, if they knew they would not have the luxuries of food and clothing that they have without a job perhaps they may have thought twice about taking to the streets to pilfer from a society that provides to them at no cost to themselves.
I will not change my position on the need for a social safety net in Nigeria so quickly, because we do still need to provide at the very least primary and secondary education for all, healthcare, power. However, we also need to consider that there are side effects to “free everything”. Free breeds disrespect, ignorance to the inside workings of a society and its government, and when the ignorance becomes full grown its only refuge is in violence.
Xoxo.
Disclaimer: I am not for a second suggesting all the people in the areas of rioting are uneducated and underproviledged as this is inaccurate, it was merely a generalisation made as food for thought on the issue of welfare, and I mean no offense by it.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Regression
I got a forward email recently with pictures of Lagos back in the day, in the 60’s and 70’s...
...There were pavements, department stores, there was no filth lining the streets. I’ll go beyond the pictures and assume that people could walk across town without fear of armed robbery, being knocked over by a 12 year old okada driver and his passenger who is carrying 3 split unit air conditioners on his head, or fear of their car being engulfed in pot holes large enough to engulf them.
In the 60’s and 70’s we were on a journey somewhere and had we continued along that path, dare I say that we may have far superseded development in many parts of the world. Somewhere along the line our development was derailed by mass consumption of a cocktail of greed, uncontrollable population growth, oil money, and a double shot more greed. The previous generation traded the greater good for personal gain, and at the rate we are going the cocktail is becoming more potent. In years to come we may look back to the two-thousands and say... “wow the good old days”
At some point in history union bank had more sophisticated operations than HSBC (then Midland bank), whilst Midland was still using paper tickets, Union bank had some form of automation. We had clean beaches, attracting tourists from far and near, we had safe roads, and a clean environment. However somewhere along the line we went into regression, we started going ‘up the down staircase’, undid what was done, and drove further into under development. The story department store that once stood on broad street has been replaced with market stalls selling poor quality 2nd hand goods. I never went into Kingsway stores, but I am sure the merchandise in the store was Nigerian – My grandfather had a mini studio in there so by virtue of that I shall assume that other Nigerians sold their merchandise. We swapped home grown goods for made in China, our domestic products were no longer desired, and even if they had been there was no infrastructure to support it. We exchanged a maintenance culture for a cost cutting strategy. It is no longer noble to make an honest living with your skills and talents, it is more expedient to “go into politics”, trade – making a dollar out of 15 cents... And so the regressive spiral continued till we landed ourselves in this black hole, further and further inside a dark under-developed abyss.
A black hole where nothing works, yet we circle around the destruction, destitution and debris of a city once destined for greatness in our luxury cars, wearing luxury clothes, oblivious to the failed state we live in. It begs the question, how far back do we have to go before we actually notice how desperate our situation is. Perhaps till when we have regressed as far back as wearing tiger skin toga’s and sitting in mud caves rubbing sticks together to make fire. We have played politics for too long; we have free styled development for too long; it is about time we put aside the charade and realise that we are regressing at an incredible rate, we need to put a plan in place, we need to manage our population, solve our infrastructure, resuscitate our healthcare system, redefine our government, and most importantly fix our educational system. We can no longer wait for the government to do these things, we have given them 50 years. The private sector must begin to lead change, else in 30 years our generations will be sending emails with pictures of flooded streets, okada crowded bridges, lamenting about the good old days when we had 2 hours of light a month. It is never too late to be the great country that we could’ve been.
Xoxo.
...There were pavements, department stores, there was no filth lining the streets. I’ll go beyond the pictures and assume that people could walk across town without fear of armed robbery, being knocked over by a 12 year old okada driver and his passenger who is carrying 3 split unit air conditioners on his head, or fear of their car being engulfed in pot holes large enough to engulf them.
In the 60’s and 70’s we were on a journey somewhere and had we continued along that path, dare I say that we may have far superseded development in many parts of the world. Somewhere along the line our development was derailed by mass consumption of a cocktail of greed, uncontrollable population growth, oil money, and a double shot more greed. The previous generation traded the greater good for personal gain, and at the rate we are going the cocktail is becoming more potent. In years to come we may look back to the two-thousands and say... “wow the good old days”
At some point in history union bank had more sophisticated operations than HSBC (then Midland bank), whilst Midland was still using paper tickets, Union bank had some form of automation. We had clean beaches, attracting tourists from far and near, we had safe roads, and a clean environment. However somewhere along the line we went into regression, we started going ‘up the down staircase’, undid what was done, and drove further into under development. The story department store that once stood on broad street has been replaced with market stalls selling poor quality 2nd hand goods. I never went into Kingsway stores, but I am sure the merchandise in the store was Nigerian – My grandfather had a mini studio in there so by virtue of that I shall assume that other Nigerians sold their merchandise. We swapped home grown goods for made in China, our domestic products were no longer desired, and even if they had been there was no infrastructure to support it. We exchanged a maintenance culture for a cost cutting strategy. It is no longer noble to make an honest living with your skills and talents, it is more expedient to “go into politics”, trade – making a dollar out of 15 cents... And so the regressive spiral continued till we landed ourselves in this black hole, further and further inside a dark under-developed abyss.
A black hole where nothing works, yet we circle around the destruction, destitution and debris of a city once destined for greatness in our luxury cars, wearing luxury clothes, oblivious to the failed state we live in. It begs the question, how far back do we have to go before we actually notice how desperate our situation is. Perhaps till when we have regressed as far back as wearing tiger skin toga’s and sitting in mud caves rubbing sticks together to make fire. We have played politics for too long; we have free styled development for too long; it is about time we put aside the charade and realise that we are regressing at an incredible rate, we need to put a plan in place, we need to manage our population, solve our infrastructure, resuscitate our healthcare system, redefine our government, and most importantly fix our educational system. We can no longer wait for the government to do these things, we have given them 50 years. The private sector must begin to lead change, else in 30 years our generations will be sending emails with pictures of flooded streets, okada crowded bridges, lamenting about the good old days when we had 2 hours of light a month. It is never too late to be the great country that we could’ve been.
Xoxo.
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