"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
none but ourselves can free our minds"
- Bob Marley
Introduction
I was indeed fascinated when the organization that I work for nominated me for a two week course in London.
I was fascinated because the last time I had anything to do with the United Kingdom was in 1986 when I stopped writing the Institute of Cost & Management Accountants’ (now CIMA) examinations after passing the Foundation A &B of the body.
So it was with great expectations and joy that I left Nigeria on the 2nd of June and by the time we landed at Heathrow airport, I was not dreaming afterall.
Our plane landed at about 2.30pm and after immigration formalities we had to wait for more than one hour to collect our baggage.
I had arranged for a friend to meet me at the airport and after waiting for another half an hour I decided to take a cab to my hotel - Fox & Goose on Hanger Lane, Ealing. The driver, a Ghanaian was very friendly and in less than five minutes he started to narrate to me the economic and social pressures confronting him in London. I advised him to go back to his country and help contribute his quota to the development of the place.
He told me that he had considered that option several times but could not muster enough courage to actualize it. He however promised me that he will take the decisive step very soon. The African connection really worked for me because he gave me some tips about survival strategies in London.
By the time I was checked into my room, I was too tired to do any other thing so I retired for the day after my prayers.
The following day was a Sunday and I woke up a little late. I had breakfast and McDonalds and lunch at an Indian restaurant close to my hotel. The owner was at first apprehensive when I entered the restaurant but he later relaxed and we had useful discussions on poverty, underdevelopment, the G-8 summit and his native country India. I seized the opportunity to inform him of my admiration and respect for Mahatma Gandhi and my disappointment over the desecration of all that he lived and died for by the succeeding generations of Indians.
My reservation at Fox & Goose was just for two nights and I was told that I could not extend it so I had to look for another hotel. Once again the African connection worked for me. The cab driver was very friendly and he offered to take me to a decent hotel. He did. And in addition, he advised me on several issues including the need for me to conserve my funds. He also gave me hints about the pranks usually paid by cab drivers to make their passengers pay more and how I can avoid such situations. He also instructed me on how to get to my training centre (at Alperton House) from the hotel.
To these friends of mine whose names I have withheld for personal reasons, I say a big Thank you.
I spent most of the evenings indoors watching television and I was delighted when one of the stations (I think it was BBC) ran a documentary on Bob Marley. I sat glued to my television for almost two hours and had to delay my Ishai prayers until a few minutes to 12midnight. It was awesome as speaker after speaker paid glowing tributes to the late Bob Marley. However, looking at the socio-cultural environment in London today, one is at a loss whether the average Londoner has learnt anything from the message of this great man. Bob Marley spent some years of his adult life in London.
The Doctrine of Dog eat Dog
I woke up early on Monday morning and headed straight for the training centre at Alperton House.
After registration and the exchange of pleasantries, the training programme started at 9am.
The programme co-ordinator gave an insight into the society that we have just found ourselves when he gave the pep talk on leadership, success and survival.
He told us that the concept of dog-eat-dog is central to achieving success in life. He went on to tell us how we can retain competitive edge in the workplace by adopting and applying this principle.
Of course I disagreed with him on the grounds that there is no one perfect way of measuring success and that human beings need not be beastly in their pursuit of any goal. I also informed him that the concept of dog eat dog is cruel with disastrous consequences as can be seen today in Iraq, Afghanistan, United States of America, Darfur and even in some corporate organizations that are being weakened not by market/external forces but by internal strife caused by ambition, greed, nepotism, corruption etc.
According to Gandhi in his book The Story of My Experiment with Truth, “…..morality is the basis of things, and that truth is the substance of all morality”. Not laws or some inhuman theories that seek to reduce man to the level of beasts. As I said earlier, inspite of the plethora of laws and regulations in the United Kingdom, crime ranging from stealing of petrol (₤18million was lost in 2006), kidnapping, house breaking, murder, manslaughter, binge driving, drunkenness, car theft, credit card scams etc are on the increase.
If one is to simulate this using the Pavlovian theory of motivation, it is easy to conclude that the laws and regulations are indeed the conditioned stimulus for this sorry state of affairs. Man has lost it all and is reverting to laws instead of taking steps to restore the dignity of man. It is a shame!
It is the belief and internalization of destructive concepts such as this that has resulted in the palpable tension and distrust in this society. Children are not even spared as child kidnapping and paranoia is on the increase. Family ties and values departed this shore a long time ago.
The consequence? These are, amongst others “divided communities” and “communities that are suspicious of each other”. This state of affairs is undoubtedly bothering the government such that it is now making spirited efforts at restoring the old and cherished values of the British (I will return to this later).
At tea time the participants who are mostly from Nigeria launched into hot debates on topics ranging from OBJ (some Nigerians indeed are missing him), to politics and women.
Infact almost all the women agreed that Nigerian women married to Nigerian men in England are terrorizing their husbands because of the power that the law and the justice system have bestowed on them. They concluded that the Nigerian married men in the United Kingdom are nothing but “glorified houseboys” to their wives. This is in sharp contrast to African cultures, values and practices which bestows the headship of the household on the man. So an African man loses his identity and rights simply because he is living in a foreign land. Na wa oo. A case of robbing Peter to pay Paul I heard you say.
A story was told of how a Nigerian man bore all the insults from his wife while he was living with his wife in London but divorced her immediately they landed in Lagos when they eventually returned home; he did not even allow her to go with him to their residence.
Humanity In Chains
As I stated earlier, I began to relate with the people and my environment the moment I landed at Heathrow airport.
The scope of my interactions however was limited to the distance covering Heathrow, Hanger Lane, Alperton, Wembley and Harrow as at the time of writing. Within this circumference, I visited shops, malls, and food joints including hotels.
The first thing that struck me was the fact that this is a society with too many laws. It is not impossible that one can spend a life time studying the laws and yet not be able to avoid flouting one or two in daily pursuit of one’s legitimate business. Such infraction may not necessarily be premeditated or willful; it may simply arise from the imperfections of human nature.
There are laws to cover every conceivable aspect of the life of human beings such that residents are seen and regarded as robots by those in authority.
Indeed before the end of June, it will be an offence for residents to drink in their homes! I am convinced that my dog in Nigeria has more freedom than the residents of this city. And are the laws effective? Recent statistics reported in the news, especially on BBC reveal that the converse is the case; criminal activities are on the increase. For instance, it was reported that over 11million criminal cases were recorded in 2006 alone while over 60,000 people were interrogated.
As a result of this, the residents live in perpetual fear (a great source of worry, suspicion and hatred) – inside the bus, elevators, tubes, shops, eating joints, hotels etc. This phobia is growing and eating up men, women and children..
According to Mohandas Gandhi ”There is an orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is no blind law; for no blind law can govern the conduct of living beings.”
I observed that people are generally cold, unfriendly, disrespectful, unreceptive and wear long faces; people don’t smile in this place. If you dare approach a “white man” for directions or assistance in locating a place, you are almost likely to meet a brickwall.
Even Indians, whose forefathers suffered discriminations, indignity and several abuses in the United Kingdom until Mohandas Gandhi and other civil rights groups came to their rescue even discriminate against blacks. It does not matter if you are a lawyer, an accountant or a medical doctor and he is a shop attendant or janitor. It does not matter whether you earn ten times his annual salary and in the upper income bracket, he approaches you with an arrogant display of “superiority”.
Perhaps the new area of study called artificial intelligence will be patronized by this people to enable them know, upon sighting everyman the class to which he/she belongs.
If Nigerians are the happiest people in the world, then going by my experiences so far, it may not be entirely wrong to say that the residents of London are the most cynical people in the world.
It is therefore a welcome relief that the government is proposing Britain Day in her bid to bring back the cherished values of the British and to restore the dignity of man to residents.
However, there are good things to talk about London and these will be covered in the concluding part coming soon.
Thanks for having read this article.
Taslim Anibaba (FCA) 5th June, 2007
tanibaba@yahoo.com
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Posted by Robot| 06.06.2007 10:43