A rough week,missing reference points and The State of Africa

Another extended time away from blogging, partly work-related, partly because it seemed like this past week was meltdown time for a few people close to me- from one friend's blazing, hurtful rows with his siblings to the mysterious, tragic death of another friend's ex, it's been quite some week...... and it's tested my counselling and support skills to the max

At a conference last week, the compere was apparently a famous presenter of a television programme in the 70s, and so when she stepped on stage and welcomed us, saying what I can only assume were her trademark phrases, there was an "Ooohhh" sweeping through the audience as seemingly everyone but me was drawn on a raft of nostalgia back to the 70s. Then during one of the sessions, we were shown the photographs of four leaders and asked to identify what they had in common- I easily identified Margaret Thatcher, Mahatma Gandhi and Oprah Winfrey, but struggled with the fourth. I was later told by the English woman sitting next to me that it was Captain Kirk from Star Trek. I've never liked science fiction, or anything remotely like it and so had no interest at all in either Star Trek or Star Wars, which accounts for my ignorance. But then my neighbour didn't recognize Oprah either, so there.... But on a more serious note, the episode had me musing on the importance of cultural reference points, and how as an immigrant, you are sometimes adrift in that world.......

I'm reading The State of Africa by Martin Meredith at the moment. I had circled it for several months in the library with the wariness I reserve for books by Westerners professing to pontificate on Africa, but finally took it out last week. I must say so far, he hasn't said anything to make me fling the hefty tome down in disgust and I'm learning a lot about the immediate pre-independence history of other African countries. While I read a lot of Nigerian history books growing up, my wider African 20th century history is shamefully deficient, a gap I'm all too willing to fill. Granted that this is one man's perspective, but the first few chapters seem fairly balanced, although he appears to be making a case (not totally unconvincingly) that part of the problem with Africa today was to do with a sudden and unplanned rush to independence pushed by the post-Second World War agitation that swirled up in the fifties and sixties. And worsened by the vindictive response of some of the colonial powers, notably France in Guinea and Belgium in the Congo, to these agitations.....

Strangely enough, it seems to have been published in the United States as The Fate of Africa....

To google or not to google,a sense of deja vu and jazzed liberal democrats

There are too many things on my mind today, so I'll just ramble- First off was yesterday's news that Google had agreed to censor sites available on its Chinese site in a deal with the Chinese government to be able to continue to do business in China. I felt this was in direct contradiction of its corporate motto "Don't be evil" and so my first instinct was to move my blog from Blogger (which is owned by Google) in protest. Easier said than done.
As soon as I got online I did a Google search (!!!) for "leaving Blogger”. This didn't yield much in terms of practical advice for an IT-challenged blogger like me...(or maybe Google had filtered out the best options...thinking conspiracy here...). And so I had to weigh my options- was it better to stop blogging completely, or to continue using Blogger in spite of my disapproval of Google’s actions? As you can see I chose the latter, and ended up staying put.

So having started with that little dilemma, I moved to reflect on Nigeria-two days ago there had been a planned peaceful demonstration in support of the illegally impeached governor of Oyo State. Yesterday’s newspapers had a photograph of a policeman dragging the leader of the demonstration away, in a brutal display of force that immediately took me back to the late 199os when Sani Abacha the military dictator held Nigeria in his iron grip. To add to the feeling of déjà vu, the Nigerian Information minister, in a manner reminiscent of Abacha’s uncouth ministers attacked Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Prize laureate for his suggestion that in supporting the breakdown of the rule of law in Oyo State, President Obasanjo had committed an impeachable offence. The “honourable” minister, Frank Nweke, whose most recent memorable legacy was unveiling the anti-homosexuality law a few days ago, asked what Wole Soyinka could lay claim to as a legacy beyond the establishment of the Pyrates Confraternity, which he claimed had led to the proliferation of cults in Nigerian universities. This style of guttersnipe communication, where any government criticism was met with a barrage of blistering personal attacks was honed under the Abacha government, and for those of us who lived through those dark days, seeing a return to such tactics under a so-called democratic government was sad.

And so to the UK where the leadership race for the Liberal Democrats, the nation's third largest party collapsed into farce. If this had happened in Nigeria, everyone would be asking "Dem jazz dem?" or to paraphrase "Are they under the influence of supernatural forces?- (jazz being a colloquial euphemism for what I suppose the Westerner would call juju)

Considering that the race had been necessary because a section of the party had insisted on Charles Kennedy stepping down as a result of his drinking problems, the withdrawal of one of the contenders at the weekend over revelations that he (Mark Oaten, a married father of two) had paid for the services of a rent boy only worsened the perception of a party unravelling at the edges. This wasn't helped by the disclosure this morning by yet another front-runner (Simon Hughes) that contrary to his previous avowals (some as recent as last week) that he was not gay, he has had both homosexual and heterosexual relationships in the past. The media, especially the tabloids have lapped this up and gone to town- there's nothing like a bit of sex scandal to get the tabloids here going- but I can't help marvelling at the naivete of the two candidates. Did they really think that in this media obsessed culture, they could run for such a high profile position and keep their secrets safe?

On homosexuality, free speech and a gaping divide?

I have just realized how draconian the proposed Nigerian executive bill banning gay marriage is. It not only prohibits gay marriage -which by the way no-one in Nigeria has demanded- (in what is described as a "pre-emptive step by the Minister of Information) but also "any form of protest to press for rights or recognition (for homosexuals)".

In addition, quoting the honourable Minister "it is an offence for anybody to contract a marriage or have a relationship with a person of the same sex.. If you do, it carries a sentence of five years imprisonment without the option of fine, and if you aid or support in any way, anybody of the same sex to contract a relationship or marriage, it will also attract five years imprisonment."

Surely this is a gross transgression of the rights to free speech and association and is going to open the floodgates for the most grotesque witchhunt. How on earth is "any form of protest", "aiding or supporting" or indeed "relationship" going to be interpreted? Two men or two women living together or sharing a bed as commonly happens in the chronically housing-deficient cities of Abuja and Lagos ? An article supporting equal rights for gay people? Could this post constitute a breach of these laws?

And all this from a president and ruling class whose appetite for all sorts of sexual shenanigans is legendary. The hypocrisy of it is stunning especially when members of the ruling class (and their children and step-children) are free to live as they like, leaving the common man and woman at the mercy of draconian rules like these.

Why do we refuse to accept that cultures are dynamic and that the way to shape them is to leave matters open for reasoned, intelligent debate? Why are we so afraid of debate? Plastic surgery, the internet, and embezzling communal funds are all un-African. Would that my president would exhibit similar zeal towards these "vices" as he has towards homosexuality!

A friend points out that these changes are probably being driven by the Anglican Church in Nigeria, horrified to discover gay members (whom they had always claimed did not exist) in their midst http://snipurl.com/lx21

Meanwhile, the whole debate has been causing sparks to fly on two Nigerian blogs- Black Looks http://snipurl.com/lx22 and Trae Days http://snipurl.com/lx24 with what appears to be a clear distinction in opinion between Nigerians living abroad and those living in Nigeria.........

Nigeria, anthropology,the pull of water and recent reading

I've always loved anthropology- not sure why, perhaps it's related to my love for stories. That was how I first discovered anthropology, as a child going to the adult library and flipping open books on anthropology and finding that they told stories much like the fiction books I loved to read. I suspect that my interest in anthropolgy has been sharpened since coming to live in the UK- as an outsider looking in on a different culture- I am constantly fascinated by the rituals and activities that make up different cultures and how people understand and explain their behaviour within those contexts. I've also found now that when I go back to Nigeria, I sometimes look at my society through new and different eyes.Like one evening I was walking down a Lagos street I had lived on for years (before I moved to the UK) and I suddenly thought, what a magnificent sunset, and reached for my camera to capture it. And then I felt guilty- like a voyeur or tourist- I had walked down that street many times when I lived on it and had never noticed or particularly remarked on the sunset.....

I think contemporary Nigeria is great subject material for anthropologists- how for instance the same people who profess a rigid and unbending religious fundamentalism square it with their illicit sexual escapades, stealing government money, bending the rules, flamboyance and conspicuous consumption in the face of grinding poverty. I recently stumbled across this article by an American anthropologist married to a Nigerian http://www.righttodecide.org/downloads/download.php?doel=CultureHealthSexuality20045YouthsinsexNigeria.pdfwhich is the kind of thing I think about.

Walked up a cliff on Saturday with a friend and watched the sun set on the bay below. We wondered about human beings and beaches, and our attraction to them. I thought it was more to do with water- human beings are dran to large bodies of water-the sea, rivers, streams ,falls. Perhaps it's because we're 70 per cent water...............

I just finished (virtually simultaneously) two books - Ian McEwan's Saturday (for the second time) which was beautiful, haunting and eloquent and Clare Sambrook's Hide and Seek, an account of a child who disappears on a school trip recounted in the voice of his nine year old brother. A challenging task and I think it worked but I was somehow strangely underwhelmed by the story.

Next up on my reading list- the Granta Africa edition with stories and articles by Chimamanda Adichie (an excerpt from her forthcoming novel, Half of A Yellow Sun), Helon Habila, BinyavangaWainaina with his searing, witty How to Write About Africa http://www.granta.com/extracts/2615 , Moses Isegawa and Segun Afolabi among others.

The Nigerian president chases rats

Today in Nigeria, there is a militant Niger Delta group holding Shell employees hostage and threatening to ground all oil exports from Nigeria until their demands (including the release of their leader, currently standing trial for treason) are met. In the South Western state of Oyo, there is a constitutional impasse as two men lay claim to the governorship- one claiming that the incumbent has been impeached, and the incumbent arguing that having obtained a judgement that pronounced the impeachment illegal, he remains the rightful governor. There is the potential threat of violence, as the supporters of the two men square up for a fight. And there are millions of Nigerians living in poverty, suffering from entirely preventable diseases, and hungry. And the president's own son testifies that corruption remains rife at the highest echelons of the Nigerian government.

Against this daunting backdrop, it was cheering news to hear that the Nigerian government had put forward a bill, initiated by the President himself, to outlaw same sex marriage and to make it an offence punishable by a 5 year sentence for any Nigerian citizen to participate in a gay marriage. He caps it by reiterating that oft repeated triteness espoused by such eminences as the venerable Mugabe that homosexuality is "unAfrican". Mugabe remained stoically silent when soon after his pronouncement, evidence that Canaan Banana, his guerilla colleague and then president of Zimbabwe had been involved in a homosexual relationship with one of his aides emerged.

I am reminded of the saying among my people of the man whom, while his home burns is busy chasing the rats emerging from the burning hut, instead of trying to put out the fire. Whatever your opinions are on same sex partnerships, surely you must agree that it's not our most pressing problem.....

Reading Eshun and reflecting on identity, Teju Cole,Chika Unigwe & Sheba Foods

Have just finished Ekow Eshun's Black Gold of the Sun which I found eyeopening. Part memoir, part travelogue, it's Eshun's exploration of his identity. Brought up in England but born of Ghanaian parents, he feels increasingly isolated in London and visits Ghana in an attempt to find himself (so to speak). It was interesting for me because I had never really seriously considered the position of people in that situation. I'd always assumed that they just ought to embrace their Africanness in an unproblematic fashion, but Eshun lays out through his experiences, why it's not so simple........and making me appreciate even more my parents' decision to bring us up largely in Nigeria....

Stumbled across the most delightful Nigerian travel blog in words and pictures- It's a lyrical haunting travel diary by Teju Cole (which I suspect is a pseudonym) and he says it will disappear at the end of January- I hope not! http://tejucole.typepad.com/teju_cole/

The Nigerian Belgian writer, Chika Unigwe who has often dropped by this blog to leave messages and comments has been nominated for the Dutch Vrouw & Kultuur Debutprijs 2006, which is for the best first book in Dutch by a woman writer. Well done!

Also stumbled across this website http://www.shebafoods.com/which boasts that it's the first to manufacture ready prepared Nigerian food. I'm not sure they deliver to the UK but I loved looking at the photographs of delicious looking plates of good Naija food....

Woody Allen, Nollywood parallels and forgotten trivia

Went to see Woody Allen's new film Matchpoint -which has received praise and criticism in fairly equal measure- over the weekend. The plot was straight out of a Nigerian home video (and this is no criticism- just a reflection on the "universality" of the theme)- poor boy meets rich boy, they become friends, rich boy's sister falls in love with poor boy, and so he is absorbed into the rich family, his life changes, but then he cheats on his rich wife, unleashing a whirlwind of catastrophe. While there were no references to supernatural powers, which might have popped up in a Nollywood movie, the portrayal of the lifestyles of the rich- their huge mansions and glamorous parties could have come straight out of a Nigerian movie, except that this was set in London and was about the English rich.

It's a thriller and the plot twists and turns satisfyingly but I loved most that it was set in London, and portrayed the beauty of that city. Perhaps in response to criticisms that Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral,Notting Hill, Bridget Jones, Love Actually) paints an unrealistically white portrait of London, Woody made sure that they were faces of colour aplenty in HIS film- mostly walk on/extra roles (or what is known in Nollywood as waka pass) but there....

On the tube on Sunday morning, I was sitting next to an English mother and daughter- mother probably in her late sixties, daughter late thirties and early forties, sort of upper-middle class in their dress and speech- they were chatting about the play they had been to see the previous night- Mary Queen of Scots and they then segued into trying to list the wives of Henry VIII. They kept this up for five minutes, and kept omitting one . I struggled with the propriety of eavesdropping but knowing how maddening things like that can be, in the end as I turned to leave the train, I said "It was Katherine Howard". The surprised, amused delight on their faces lit my day for a few minutes......

Now I wish someone will do the same for me - there's an aria from an opera in the Woody Allen that keeps buzzing in my head- I think it's Verdi, my friends I went to see the film with think it's Mozart.....unfortunately I can't write it out......

Alternative visions of hell, some cheering news from Nigeria,another impeachment & a blabbing First Son

In a taxi yesterday to a meeting, the driver's black and dreadlock-wearing- so a "brother" and as we settled in, he says to me in that Caribbean lilt- Freezin' isn' it? So I say yes, I agree that it is freezin'. And so he continues, "When I tink of 'ell, for me it's cold, ice cold, not fire. For me to wake up and not to ' ave the warmt' and heat of the sun- that's 'ell" I did point out to him my experience one February when I left the freezing winter of the UK for hot, humid Lagos and how after the first few days of dripping,grimy, sweaty traipsing around town, I was nearly screaming to go back to the cold.......

It's been an eventful few weeks in Nigeria.

Hot on the heels of the announcement that the Nigerian government was going to provide free anti-retroviral medicines to everybody living with HIV, there was another announcement that the government was ordering the release of a good half of the prison population- many of whom had never even been brought to trial. If you have ever visited a Nigerian prison, there again is another alternative vision of hell. So this was cheering news on both counts, even if the talk still needs to be translated into a walk.....

Less cheering, was the impeachment and arrest of another Nigerian governor, Rasheed Ladoja of Oyo State, largely because he had refused to kowtow to an elderly glorified thug who claims that he controls power in Oyo State....of course, being Nigeria, the story is a lot more complicated than that...but hey I only have so much time to spend on this blog....

Then there was the Gbenga Obasanjo interview (or non-interview as his lawyers now insist)
Dr Obasanjo the medical doctor-turned-businessman son of the Nigerian president (or the Nigerian First Son, if we are to follow the nomenclature adopted by the Abacha scions when their father was in power) had allegedly granted an interview with Omoyele Sowore, the daring former student activist and erstwhile correspondent on Elendu reports, the guerilla style rough and ready website that in the last year has blown the whistle on a number of Nigerian politicians-exposing their palatial houses abroad and their murky business dealings. In said interview, http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/content/view/2241/55/ it is evident that there was no love lost between Gbenga and his stepmother, the late recently departed First Lady, but even more interesting than the politics of the famously libidinous Nigerian president's household; are his son's pronouncements on the persistence of corruption at all echelons of the government, his admittance that "only the foolish ones are getting caught", his inference that even some of those close to the President- including the Vice President, one of the more respected ministers, and perhaps his late stepmother and her son- are all involved in not so clean deals, his assertion that his father is a lot older than his official age of 67 and his insistence that his father has no plans of fixing a third term in office for himself. He also admits to being associated with some of the foreign investments in the privatisation of national assets- which perhaps explains why this US trained medical doctor abandoned medicine for "business" soon after his father came to power and displays a worryingly deep knowledge of how easy it is to obtain false passports and presumably open bank accounts in parts of Eastern Europe......

He has since denied granting the interview, saying that he only gave Sowore a lift during which to paraphrase him "they evinced their patriotic views" as Nigerians do whenever they are gathered, while his father has allegedly slapped a gag order on him insisting that the views of the son in no way represent those of the father.

Vaguely reminds me of how another fixture of the Nigerian social and "business" circle, Kojo nearly got his father, the illustrious Kofi Annan into hot water.....

Yet more cryptic steps into the theatre of the dance that is Nigerian politics in 2006 .....

No, BBC, Africa is not one or two countries

This morning, on the radio there was an extensive report on witchcraft in the "African community" living in the UK - talking about a "pastor" who repeatedly allegedly told parents who were members of his church that their children were possessed and/or were witches and needed to have the witchcraft beaten out of them or even killed. Horrific though the report was, I was disturbed by the fact that throughout the report, there were references suggesting that these beliefs and practices were common in the African community , yet all the specific references and instances presented were to only two countries-the Congo and Angola.

I will not even try to start to unpick what appeared to be the subtext of the whole report and investigation; and while I would be the last person to ask that wrongdoing be swept under the carpet, it is disheartening that in 2006, the supposedly liberal and enlightened BBC still sees Africa as one huge, unyielding mass of misery, and is unable to discern the rich complex weave that is Africa

As to the assertion that these beliefs and practices are common in the "African community" in the UK, I ask- where is the evidence ? I have a wide network of Nigerian friends, colleagues and family living in the UK and have never come across these beliefs or practices among them.

There are many self professed Caucasian English witches and only yesterday on the same programme, there was reference to a scandal in northern Wales about ten years ago where several children were taken into care because their parents were thought (falsely as it later turned out) to have been subjecting them to "Satanic rituals and abuse", and it did not lead to suggestions that these beliefs and practices were rife among the population of this Northern Welsh town or Welsh people in general.......

Pronouncing Menzies and the deception of accents

About six weeks before Christmas, I flipped over in bed, still half asleep and pushed the button on my radio, just in time to hear the venerable John Humphrys on Radio 4 introducing someone high up in the Liberal Democrat party whom he called Sir Ming somebody.....I instantly sat up..I'd often ruminated on the question of the Chinese in Britain- there's quite a large number of them (it appears to me) but you never quite see them represented on television, the newspapers or in politics as often you increasingly see Brits of African or South Asian heritage, and so I was interested to hear of this apparently high ranking politician with what sounded like a Chinese name. When he spoke though, he certainly had no trace of a Chinese accent but that didn't mean much- I'm used to hearing the poshest cut- glass accents from Africans, Asians, or whoever- one of my weirdest experiences of how an accent can fool you was years ago at the British Council library somewhere in Nigeria. I had entered this room and had heard what appeared to be the poshest English accent coming from behind a bookshelf and so I had expected to see a very white English man and was therefore almost visibly shocked on turning the corner to confront a gentleman whose antecedents were obviously rooted in South East Asia....but I digress. I then tried googling Sir Ming and Liberal Democrat and it soon became obvious that the gentleman in question was actually Sir Menzies Campbell, a trusty Scot and now interim leader of the Liberal Democrats;and that the correct pronounciation for Menzies is Mingis or Menghis or Minghis- or something to that effect. Now I had long ago learnt about the English predilection for tripping up the unwary with names like Featherstonehaugh (pronounced Fanshawe) and Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumley) and so on, but I had no idea that the Scots also engaged in such skulduggery- I mean Mingis for Menzies....come on.....and they say Tunde is hard to pronounce.......!

2006, Siena, the Italian-Nigerian connection and finally reading Zadie and Rushdie

Haven't been on here in a while....first it was the "merriment" of New Year and then I had to go to Calais for a day, taking the ferry from Dover (so I finally got to see the white cliffs....) and then spent a week in Tuscany, so it's my first few days back at work and I have only just started getting back to my normal rhythm. At midnight on New Year's Day it was kind of good to get lots of text messages and calls from friends and family all over the world. Try as hard as I could, there was no getting through to the Nigerian mobile networks- I suspect everyone was trying to do the same as I was.......I finally did get through though and spoke to my folks which was good.

Siena and the part of Tuscany around it was great- fantastic food (especially for a meat lover like me) , great wine and lots of art to see within a fairly circumscribed area- did a lot of walking and so found that I haven't actually piled on weight the way I normally do at Christmas......On a visit to the amazing mediaeval cathedral in Siena, I couldn't help again wondering how on earth they dreamt this up, planned and executed it with the minimal technology available... I remember reading somewhere an interview with Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian Nobel Prize laureate, where he said Italy was his favourite part of Europe, because he felt at home there...or words to that effect and I think I can see what he means- the Italians are very like Nigerians in their loudness, their flamboyance, their general over the topness- the ubiquitous sunglasses perched on every face, the fur coats in which virtually every matron was swathed in, the ostentatious use of mobile phones, the carabinieri smoking in front of a no smoking sign........

The other outstanding thing about Siena was the constant references in their history, their art, their politics to their rivalry with Florence. Funny thing was, I was in Florence last year and I don't recall much talk about rivalry with Siena. No points for guessing who's won the prominence contest then......

I also read Zadie Smith's On Beauty and Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown and I enjoyed both. I think On Beauty is Zadie Smith's best book yet, and although parts of it seemed to be trying too hard to sound like a classic and not just a contemporary book to be discarded to the dustbins of time, I was gripped and held by the story- which is always important for me in any book.

The Rushdie started off a bit slow and confusing for me but then soared into the lyrical, humour- tinged celebration of the sub continent- in this case focusing on Kashmir- for which I have always loved his work. His references to a Kahmir where Muslim and Hindu lived peaceably together resonated deeply....