until you can walk in my skin you don't know shit

"I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race." - a white person

stumbled on the article below while reading this blog and it got me thinking about the things we (and i mean blacks) have to deal with all the time.

Its easy for some white person and i'm refering to certain bloggers (ok i'll name one, naijablog) who think because he lives in Nigeria, it automatically gives him the right to dish out advice and all.
As a white person you will never ever understand what it feels like to be one of us, so please until you can walk in my skin you don't know shit...


White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

"I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group"

Peggy McIntosh

Through work to bring materials from women's studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women's statues, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can't or won't support the idea of lessening men's. Denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women's disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended.

Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there are most likely a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.

I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.

Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in women's studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, "having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?"

After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we are just seen as oppressive, even when we don't see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.

My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow "them" to be more like "us."

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Daily effects of white privilege

I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.

2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.

3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.

4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.

7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.

8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.

10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.

11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person's voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.

12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone who can cut my hair.

13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.

16. I can be pretty sure that my children's teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others' attitudes toward their race.

17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.

18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.

19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.

24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.

25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.

26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children's magazines featuring people of my race.

27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.

28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.

29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present setting, even if my colleagues disagree with me.

30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.

31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.

32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.

33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.

34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.

35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.

36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.

37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.

38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.

39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.

40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.

41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.

42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.

43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.

44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.

45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.

46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin.

47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal with us.

48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.

49. My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.

50. I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.


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Elusive and fugitive

I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one's life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.

In unpacking this invisible knapsack of white privilege, I have listed conditions of daily experience that I once took for granted. Nor did I think of any of these perquisites as bad for the holder. I now think that we need a more finely differentiated taxonomy of privilege, for some of these varieties are only what one would want for everyone in a just society, and others give license to be ignorant, oblivious, arrogant, and destructive.

I see a pattern running through the matrix of white privilege, a patter of assumptions that were passed on to me as a white person. There was one main piece of cultural turf; it was my own turn, and I was among those who could control the turf. My skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make. I could think of myself as belonging in major ways and of making social systems work for me. I could freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything outside of the dominant cultural forms. Being of the main culture, I could also criticize it fairly freely.

In proportion as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated. Whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit, in turn, upon people of color.

For this reason, the word "privilege" now seems to me misleading. We usually think of privilege as being a favored state, whether earned or conferred by birth or luck. Yet some of the conditions I have described here work systematically to over empower certain groups. Such privilege simply confers dominance because of one's race or sex.

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Earned strength, unearned power

I want, then, to distinguish between earned strength and unearned power conferred privilege can look like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or to dominate. But not all of the privileges on my list are inevitably damaging. Some, like the expectation that neighbors will be decent to you, or that your race will not count against you in court, should be the norm in a just society. Others, like the privilege to ignore less powerful people, distort the humanity of the holders as well as the ignored groups.

We might at least start by distinguishing between positive advantages, which we can work to spread, and negative types of advantage, which unless rejected will always reinforce our present hierarchies. For example, the feeling that one belongs within the human circle, as Native Americans say, should not be seen as privilege for a few. Ideally it is an unearned entitlement. At present, since only a few have it, it is an unearned advantage for them. This paper results from a process of coming to see that some of the power that I originally say as attendant on being a human being in the United States consisted in unearned advantage and conferred dominance.

I have met very few men who truly distressed about systemic, unearned male advantage and conferred dominance. And so one question for me and others like me is whether we will be like them, or whether we will get truly distressed, even outraged, about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance, and, if so, what we will do to lessen them. In any case, we need to do more work in identifying how they actually affect our daily lives. Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn't affect them because they are not people of color; they do not see "whiteness" as a racial identity. In addition, since race and sex are not the only advantaging systems at work, we need similarly to examine the daily experience of having age advantage, or ethnic advantage, or physical ability, or advantage related to nationality, religion, or sexual orientation.

Difficulties and angers surrounding the task of finding parallels are many. Since racism, sexism, and heterosexism are not the same, the advantages associated with them should not be seen as the same. In addition, it is hard to disentangle aspects of unearned advantage that rest more on social class, economic class, race, religion, sex, and ethnic identity that on other factors. Still, all of the oppressions are interlocking, as the members of the Combahee River Collective pointed out in their "Black Feminist Statement" of 1977.

One factor seems clear about all of the interlocking oppressions. They take both active forms, which we can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant groups one is taught not to see. In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.

Disapproving of the system won't be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitude. But a "white" skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us. Individual acts can palliate but cannot end, these problems.

To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these subject taboo. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.

It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.

Although systemic change takes many decades, there are pressing questions for me and, I imagine, for some others like me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light-skinned. What will we do with such knowledge? As we know from watching men, it is an open question whether we will choose to use unearned advantage, and whether we will use any of our arbitrarily awarded power to try to reconstruct power systems on a broader base.

Peggy McIntosh is associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women. This essay is excerpted from Working Paper 189. "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies" (1988), by Peggy McIntosh; available for $4.00 from the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, Wellesley MA 02181 The working paper contains a longer list of privileges.

This excerpted essay is reprinted from the Winter 1990 issue of Independent School.

he's having a baby

My life is about to change (big time!!!) yep its going to be scary and exciting at the same time and my life is never going to be the same again.
I'm going to be a father sometime in july (or whenever the little sprog decides to show up). As the day gradually approaches the panic is becoming apparent.

Mrs Ijebuman seems to be coping fine despite the fact that she'll be doing most of the work, while yours truly still can't believe that in a couple of weeks i will be a dad.
I've been reading a book called 'he's having a baby' by Jack O'Sullivan and it has gone a long way in allaying my fears about how totally unprepared i am to face fatherhood.

But many questions still linger, will i bond with this baby? will i be a good father or be a typical naija dad who is only interested in the child's education and nothing else..

and then the financial costs oh dear...

Sports and Stereotypes

The world cup has started and everyone seems to be football mad (except me). A colleague at work has been commenting about the performance of the African teams so far, his view is that in a few years time the African teams will dominate the competition.
I had a strong suspicion where he was going with this conversation and wasn't surprised when he concluded that blacks have certain physical attributes that makes them better at sports (namely football and athletics) than other races.
Oh well might as well give up the day job and take up a sport....

Which brings me to the article i stumbled on recently by John Hoberman on the sociological impact of such 'thinking'


"There is no suggestion of racial tension. Why is that possible there but not in the church, or in the schools, or anywhere else? Because whenever the playing field is even, and the rules are public and the goals are clear, we can all move to the next level. We want an even playing field" - Jesse Jackson

Race and Sport: The Social Costs of Black Dominance
By: John Hoberman


The global prominence of African and African-American athletes represents for many people a clear example of racial progress in the modern world. Here, after all, is an international subculture in which black people can assert themselves and enjoy success to a degree that makes the world of sport look like an interracial utopia. Compared to other venues of competition and endeavour, such as business, science or the law, the sports world is, in fact, an extraordinary social phenomenon that seems to contradict some familiar racial stereotypes. The sheer celebrity of the black athletic star seems a refutation of the colonial anonymity of the black masses, his wealth contrasts with traditional images of black poverty, while his honored status appears to dissolve centuries of racial subordination. The utopian potential of sport in this sense has long intrigued the African-American leader Jesse Jackson. Describing the stadium crowd at an American professional football game, he marvels that there is \"no suggestion of racial tension. Why is that possible there but not in the church, or in the schools, or anywhere else? Because whenever the playing field is even, and the rules are public and the goals are clear, we can all move to the next levelWe want an even playing field\". (1)

The past century of integrated sport has demonstrated that interracial athletic competition has both positive and negative effects. The sports world does present a model of racial integration that makes more comprehensive social reforms easier for many people to imagine. It has provided many black people around the world with opportunities for social and economic advancement. It has also provided a platform for a small number of courageous black athletes to demand racial reforms in the larger societies to which they belong.

But it is also important to recognize the limits to progress that apply within this interracial domain. Racial integration in the sports world is relatively easy precisely because, as Jesse Jackson suggests, the more intractable social problems are left outside the stadium. At the administrative level, moreover, the colonial racial hierarchy remains quite intact. The blacks who currently wield influence in the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the international sports federations can be counted on the fingers of one hand: Anita de Frantz (IOC), Keba Mbaye (IOC), Lamine Diack (IAAF). Of the ten members who were expelled or resigned from the IOC in 1999, a conspicuous number were black Africans who lacked the political connections that might have saved them. But when the powerful European soccer official Lennart Johannson made a racist remark about black Africans in 1996, he retained his position. (2)

The upward mobility and wealth achieved by the most successful black athletes dominates media coverage and promotes an illusory sense of social advancement for blacks as group. Who would guess, in a world of NBA millionaires, that the net worth of the average African-American home is only one-tenth that of its white counterpart? In a similar vein, omnipresent images of vigorous black athletes help to camouflage the disastrous health problems of both African and African-American populations. One black superstar can put a happy face on an entire system of racial injustice. Even a conscientious and politically progressive figure like Pel - one of the few elite athletes ever to serve as a government minister - has inadvertently distracted public attention from the enormous racial inequities that characterize Brazilian society. In a similar fashion, the sensational feats of Kenyan runners displace coverage of the political tyranny that is destroying their society.

The social costs and failures associated with racially integrated sport have been underestimated precisely because they cannot function as signs and portents of the racial progress globalization requires. The racial integration of European soccer, for example, has been accompanied by many racist mainfestations that raise troubling questions about the social utility of multiracial sport. A spokesman for the German Soccer Federation said in 1995, for example, that his sport stood for \"problem-free integration.\" (3) But what sport symbolizes does not always match the reality inside the stadium. In years past black soccer players in German stadiums would hear calls of \"Hush, hush, hush, nigger in the bush!\" or watch as bananas rained down the field. (4) More recently it has been good form for a German team to have at least one African player, but the effects of such initiatives are not clear. 85) Charles Friedek, a German triple-jumper who is the son of an African-American father and a German mother, commented last year: \"We [blacks] can win medals for them, but they won\'t let us in. When they see us in the stadium in our athletics clothes, they cheer us. If we walk on the street in our athletics clothes, then they think of us as asylum-seekers.\" (6) Generations of African-American athletes (and soldiers) have made the same discovery about their own tenuous civic status, no matter how many medals they won \"for their country\".

The social problems exist across Europe. The Dutch national soccer team includes important black players from Surinam whose relations with their white teammates have at times been contentious. (7) In Italy one black player was hanged in effigy inside the stadium, and another subjected to other forms of racist abuse when he was on the field. \"We are disgusted, not only by the poor idiots who reject Ze Maria on account of his skin colour, but even more by the silent masses around them,\" Gazzette dello Sport commented. (8) In Some European stadiums the spectators screech like chimpanzees at the sight of a black player. \"It\'s a deep problem\", an Italian sports official said in 1997. \"In the lower leagues, you hear the chanting when a player of African descent comes on to the field. But I\'m not even sure that I\'d call that racism. It\'s stupid emulation, a kind of generalized adolescent babble that the fans direct at the player without even knowing intellectually that what they\'re doing is racist\". Nor is this behaviour just a matter of crowd psychology, since the racial slurs come from some of the white players as well as their fans. (9)

The sociological point here is that racial integration inside the stadium remains essentially symbolic - an arrangement one might call \"virtual integration\" - and has not succeeded as the social engineering strategy some have imagined it to be. In a word, athletic stardom is not equivalent to fully human status, let alone equal social status, in the eyes of many Europeans.

This implicit distinction between the black athlete and the fellow citizen has been exploited by the extreme right in France. The racist politician Jean-Marie Le Pen attracted international attention in 1996 when he told his followers that the multiracial French national soccer team could not really represent France because it included too many \"foreigners\". These athletes, he complained, either did not know how to sing the national anthem or did not sing it \"lustily\" like the (all-white) teams of certain other nations. (10)

More ominously, Le Pen has invoked the idea of racial athletic aptidude to justify a racial hierarchy that subordinates blacks. Le Pen has stated that he believes in the \"inequality of the races.\" History has demonstrated, he says, that the races \"do not have the same evolutionary capacity.\" The 1996 Olympic Games, for example, had shown that \"there was an obvious inequality between the black and white races.\" (11) The neo-fascist newspaper Rivarol mocks the idea that soccer in France might become a \"fantastique laboratoire d\'intgration.\" (12)

Le Pen\'s simplistic racial theory of genetically programmed black runners and white swimmers is one example of how multiracial sport has given nineteenth-century racial anthropology a new lease on life. As Franz Fanon pointet out in Black Skin, White Masks (1952), Western racism has always identified black people with their bodies to an extraordinary degree. For this reason, stereotypes of black athletic superiority are now firmly established as the most recent version of a racial folklore that has spread across the face of the earth over the past two centuries. At the same time a corresponding belief in white athletic inferiority pervades popular thinking abourt racial differences. Such ideas probably do more than anything else in our public lives to encourage the idea that blacks and whites are biologically different in meaningful ways. Conservative racial thinkers such as Charles Murray and Dinesh D\'Souza have claimed that black athletic superiority is evidence of more profound racial differences, and there is no telling how many people, black and white, may agree with them. (13)

Behind its cosmopolitan faade, multiracial sport in the Age of Globalization retains a number of colonial features: a predominance of white administrators, the emphasis on black physicality, a white monopoly on leadership positions (coaches and managers) on the field, and white monopoly on leadership positions (coaches and managers) on the field, and white dominance of media and technology. Worst of all, there is what one Italian sports official has called \"a new slave market\" - the importation into Europe of hundreds of black African teenagers as raw material to be tested, trained, and most often discarded by European professional soccer teams. (14) Small Wonder that stereotypes of \"The African personality\" thrive in this milieu. African marathoners, who have enjoyed much success, run \"too anarchistically\", says the Spanish runner Martin Fiz. (15) They must learn to run patiently, says the German coach Dieter Hogen. (16) The Nigerian soccer team, a British sportswriter comments, \"has the force, the ability, the courage that belies African disorganisation.\" (17) Rather than neutralizing such ideas, the multiracial sports world acts as a megaphone that amplifies and broadcasts racial folklore of this kind to an international audience that has already become accustomed to all-black sprint finals and the overwhelming superiority of East African distance runners.

The colonial dynamics of international sport also apply to the relationship between African American Athletes and the predominantly white society that watches, celebrates and sometimes resents them. While African Americans have believed in sport as an engine of racial progress since the 1920s, the limitaitons of this strategy have become evident during the period of \"black dominance\" in major sports that is now about a generation old.
In addition, the African-American athlete has become an international role model whose overwhelming media presence misrepresents African Americans as a group. Based on what their media show them, one black American wrote me form Thailand, South Asians have no reason to believe that African Americans do anything but play sports. The 1996 inaugural issue of Brazil\'s first magazine for blacks included stories on Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman of the NBA - a curious pair of world citizens with whom to celebrate black progress. Such caricatured versions of black identity are constantly being generated by the athleticzing of the black image that has become a staple of global advertising.

Most of the familiar images of black athletes in the United States do not serve the social advancement of African Americans. In recent years black athletes have been involved in a highly publicized series of criminal cases that have begun to worry the white owners of professional teams. The recent banning of a throat-slashing gesture by the national Football League was widely interpreted as an attempt to control the violent impulses of black players. (18) The merging of a showy black athletic style with the crime-ridden \"hip-hop\" culture of the popular music industry has further promoted the identification of black athletes with criminal behavior. This is a significant phenomenon in a society where most whites already believe blacks to be violence-prone by nature.

The social and political activism once practiced by African-American sports heroes like Jackie Robison and Muhammad Ali is defunct. Like the vast majority of elite athletes everywhere, African-American athletes are essentially apolitical. Until his recent and ineffectual endorsement of Bill Bradley\'s presidential candidacy, Michael Jordan hand shown absolutely no interest in political principles or controversy. One black sports columnist has called basketball players \"most politically oblivious group of athletes\" in the United States. (19) When the NBA players union attempted to mount a labour action in December 1998, the league\'s white administrators easily defeated them, and the intellectual competence of the black athlete was dealt yet another blow. (20) While African-American athletes in team sports now have an annual income approaching $2 billion, their financial contributions to higher education have been negligible. (21)

Conflicts between black athletic and academic achievement remain a serious problem. Over-identification with athletes and the world of physical performances limits the development of black children by discouraging academic achievement in favour of physical self-expression. A survey released in 1997 showed that two-thirds of African-American teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 believed they would be able to support themselves as professional athletes. (22) Another factor driving this symdrome is an intense peer pressure that equates academic excellence with effeminacy and racial disloyalty and identifies \"blackness\" with physical prowess. All of these social phenomena demonstrate that it is time to relieve black people everywhere of the athletic identity our colonial legacy has inflicted upon them.

The price of Ignorance

No one truly understands the price we pay for ignorance.

ignorance
The condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed
dictionary.com

The government spends billions on NEPA or whatever its called now and the power situation has still not improved, (in fact its actually worse than it was 10 years ago). What happened to all the money?
Just like the telecommunication sector (where ex NiTel employees now successfully run Private Telcos after destroying NiTel) , the power situation will never improve in Nigeria until private power companies start operating. (i.e Private power companies run by ex NEPA officials...).
The selfish gene is truly alive in naija

The government introduces a discriminatory sex law, the whole debate is hijacked by people who obviously are so scared of their own sexuality but choose to hide behind their so called religious beliefs. The words of Martin Niemöller comes to mind;
'First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left
to speak up for me.'
It's a slippery slope when government starts regulating morality…

The Lagos state government builds a solar power station (as part of a pilot scheme) for the residents of Bishop Kodji Island.
According to the The Punch Newspaper "Our correspondent who visited the village last Thursday said that the solar panel had been switched off by officials in charge of the project as a result of which the villagers could not enjoy electricity.
It was gathered that the solar panel was switched off because some of the villagers tried to connect electricity from the panel to their homes illegally. This, it was learnt, caused the panel to trip off and the village thrown into darkness."

The Ogun state government repairs a water pumping station that has been out of action for decades, a few weeks later the station is vandalised. The government repairs it and a few weeks later it is vandalised again, this time it can't be repaired.
The people have no water but the owners of water tankers are happy..

Millions of Nigerians are struggling to survive but if you attended an owambe party where people 'spray' dollars or opened a copy of Ovation and saw headlines like 'Chris Uba Hosts The Mother Of All Parties' , You might be forgiven for thinking that everything is well in Nigeria and it is truly the happiest place on earth. (talk about an anomaly - Nigeria tops happiness survey and yet life expectancy is 47, strange indeed...)


Quote: "Power in the hands of an ignorant man, is like a rocket launcher in the custody of a terrorist." - Reuben Abati

The Rich List

"The generation before mine, looted my inheritance and forced me to work in another country, where less qualified people get better jobs than my country folks because of the colour of their skins, of course I am not bitter, why should I be"

my cousin wrote this email and sent it to me and a couple of his friends, i'm posting it here as it touches on issues that affects all Nigerians/Africans.

---------
To some of you who have been asking me about investment ideas, this is where I get things of my chest. If you are of nervous disposition, this is where you should stop reading.

I read with interest the list of the richest people in the UK, guess what!, not a single African. There was even an Asian list. We know there are several Africans who have looted their national treasuries and are probably as rich as hell, obviously those of ill forgotten funds cannot be counted.

So, to my real reason for writing this, why are we not making money in the UK?.

1) We don't have the capital or the number of people to support our ventures
2) We never come together as there are too many 419ers amongst us. Like the people at home, several of us would rather steal from their friends than work honestly for their money, the result, we don't get anywhere at all.
3) We spend most of our time having great parties, without any plans for the future.
4) Unlike the other groups in the UK, we are completely divided and we will rather do our own little things, which normally gets us no where. If you are one of those ˜buy to let" entrepreneurs, before you start writing to me about how wrong I am, please take a few minutes to consider your options. If you are doing so well why are the banks making record profits?.

For some of you interested in properties, have you tried to buy abandoned or struggling hotels, old schools, a warehouses or public houses for conversion. These are property investments outside the reach of most people, but by coming together you can convert these buildings into apartments. Look at the scenario, a 200 bed former hospital on 80 acres of land, costing £2m, look at the potential when you convert a property like this, with land in short supply, you can convert the property into apartments, and use the land to build on, but you ask me how many people have £2m to burn, definitely not one of us, as individuals, but can you imagine if several of you come together and buy shares in a company, buy the building, renovate, sell some of the apartments, let out others, use the money to convert even more. Amongst us are probably the best brains money can buy, but yet divided we will get nowhere, together though, we are a formidable force.
Unless you can rent rooms in a house, its now difficult to make money from property in the UK.

I know some of you will want to rush off and start on this idea, e-mail me and I will advise you on what to do. I am doing same with a few of my friends, there are enough properties to go round. There are pubs and hotels in distress and there are so many "first time buyers" looking for cheap and affordable houses.

Several of you have attended all the start up business courses on "how to make money from no deposit" property deals. Please spare me the details, if you have money to waste, please continue to attend those courses, if those ideas are so good do you think they will be selling them to you. Can you imagine Richard Bronson or even the Donald Trump trying to tell you how to make money from business or properties?.

Don't even get me going about Franchising, I have analysed so many business plans, your chances of making money on several of them are so slim, the camel and the eye of the needle come to mind.

The only way to make serious money is hard work, nobody will make money and then give it to you. Its just not going to happen, mate. So my advise, get together with people you trust. There is no point in trying to make money by ripping people off, you will end up in jail. There is a lot of money to be made, save well, work together, and most importantly don't get ripped off, even legitimately.

The best business at the moment for Africans is in churches, its legitimate and the church ministers have flashy cars and justify everything about how you need to pay 10% of your earning to support their expensive life styles. The 10% in the bible was before the introduction of the current tax systems.


Your next question to me is why the heck are you doing this?. I hasten to say, I dislike people who take advantage of other people, whether a church minister, a government worker, the plumber who charges £300 for half a day's job or people selling "how to get rich quickly ideas".
If you think I am bitter, of course not. Due to some idiots back in my country, I and several of my country men and women and their children are languishing in strange countries as second class citizens, toiling away for pennies, doing menial jobs and getting insulted in the process. Should I be bitter?, of course not. The generation before mine, looted my inheritance and forced me to work in another country, where less qualified people get better jobs than my country folks because of the colour of their skins, of course I am not bitter, why should I be, our kids are now strangers to their own land and like the Israelites will continue to dream of the land of milk and honey. I don't want any e-mail from you IT consultants, doctors and dentists on £1000 a day telling me how rich you are, but I do want to hear from people who should have been on the rich list i.e worth £60m.

For anybody with Investment ideas, from buying a pub, properties, new business, franchising, tax etc I will analyse it for you, free. You may not like what I tell you, but i will give my honest opinion.

If you or your parents are one of the looters in Nigeria, please don't even try and contact me, it will get my blood boiling, same for 419ers.

My mission in life, is to make sure that we have one genuine African on the list of the 1000th richest people in the UK by 2010, at which point only people with £100m will be eligible. I am just tired of people telling me that if Nigerians are so dynamic, smart and hardworking why are they not on the "bloody list". Roller-skate ready and 4 years to go.


Signed

Ade
----------

Quote: "Money is called currency, because it is designed to flow through you. Money doesn't change you; it only reveals who you truly are." ~ Anon

get involved by sponsoring an African child today:
http://www.plan-uk.org/wherewework/westafrica/

Hey Abbott Pt 3 (a rejoinder from Ms Abbott)

Ms Abbott responds...

see previous posts
Hey Abbott
Hey Abbott Pt 2

DIANE ABBOTT
Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington
HOUSE OF COMMONS, LONDON SW1A 0AA

24 Answering Service: (020) 7219 3000 Parliamentary Telephone: (020) 7219 4426
E-mail address: drejerc@parliament.uk Parliamentary Facsimile: (020) 7219 4964



18 May 2006


You contacted me about an article I wrote for a Jamaican newspaper about Nigeria. First let me apologise for taking so long to respond. We had local elections in Hackney at the beginning of this month and the campaign took up a great deal of my time.

Obviously I am sorry if my article caused offence. That certainly was not my intention. I realise that the title was quite provocative. But you will appreciate that I am not personally responsible for that.

But I am a little baffled by the response to the article. I wrote it after my second visit to Nigeria in the past six months. In preparation for both those visits I read widely about Nigeria. The issues that I raised in my article were: the fragility of Nigeria's democracy, corruption, religious strife in the North and the tragic situation in the Niger Delta due to oil pollution and the activities of Shell and other oil companies. And I know from my reading and research that these issues have been written about extensively by politicians, academics and journalists. Some of the judgements I have read from serious political scientists have been much harsher on Nigeria than anything in my article. So I could not have expected that, by merely discussing these issues, I would have excited the vitriolic response that I did.

Many people have taken offence at the comparison with Jamaica and speculated as to why I did not mention Jamaica's own serious problems with crime and violence. But the article is just one column from the regular weekly columns that I write for the paper. In other columns I have discussed at length Jamaica's own problems. The comparison with Jamaica was not meant to be slighting to Nigeria, but merely to engage the interest of Jamaican readers.

One of the issues that I raised was the attempt to alter the constitution to allow President Obasanjo to serve a third term. This was raised with me everywhere I went in Nigeria. After all my discussions I came to the conclusion that this would have undermined democracy in Nigeria so I was pleased to see that the Senate has voted the proposal down. But I do not see how it helps those struggling in Nigeria on this, and other human rights issues, to pour abuse on anyone who tries to discuss them.

The most important thing is that I was criticising the Nigerian government and multi-national corporations, I was not attacking the ordinary people of Nigeria.

I am disturbed by how quickly some of my correspondents have assumed that I am anti-Nigerian and responded with an anti-Jamaican diatribe. I have been a political activist in Britain for thirty years. Everybody who knows me understands that the last thing that I am is anti-African.

However I have had some supportive letters from Nigerians. One of them quoted from the great Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. I will leave you with this quote that comes from his novel "The Trouble with Nigeria"

"Quite clearly, patriotism is not going to be easy or comfortable in a country as badly run as Nigeria is. And this is not made any easier by the fact that no matter how badly a country may be run, there will always be some people whose personal, selfish interests are, in the short term at least, well served by the mismanagement and the social inequities…. Naturally, they will be extremely loud in their adulation of the country and its system and will be anxious to pass themselves off as patriots and to vilify those who disagree with them as troublemakers or even traitors. But doomed is the nation which permits such people to define patriotism for it"

With all best wishes


Diane Abbott MP
-----------------------------

No wonder Ms Abbott is concerned even The Guardian has an article about it and an interesting quote from moi

"Another British Nigerian, in south London, wrote: 'We intend to mobilise and inform Nigerians in her constituency that she only represents the interests of "Jamaicans" and not of other nationalities."

'Think Jamaica is bad? Try Nigeria ... ' How Diane Abbott enraged a community
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1774633,00.html


Quote: "Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself." ~ Harvey Fierstein

get involved by sponsoring an African child today:
http://www.plan-uk.org/wherewework/westafrica/

i'm lovin it

I'm lovin it

I'm talking about Youtube Its like Napster in 99 before it went all 'legal'.
In the last few weeks i've had the opportunity of seeing music videos i haven't seen in years. Shalamar's a night to remember, Kurtis Blow's Basketball, Klymaxx's meeting in the ladies room and Malcolm Mclaren's buffalo girls.

Watching these videos from way back reminds me of how much of a TV addict i was in the 80s. I think i was permanently glued to NTA2 Channel 5 and LWT (Lagos weekend TV, you couldn't touch this station when it came to showing pirated stuff ; ))

I know i'm probably going to come across like an old timer but i have to say the 80s was the best decade ever !!

Interesting Times (in Nigeria)

old Chinese saying (or curse?)
"May you live in interesting times”

I've been trying to stop myself from blogging about the whole third term brouhaha in Naija. Its not that i'm not concerned about the current events in the country, its just that to be honest i'm just bored, fed up, don't care, don't give a shit etc.
I'm kind of at that point where i'll rather just face the important things in my life than read about the shit happening in naija.

But you couldn't keep me away from naija news, so i had to laugh when i read the news story about the presidency revoking AIT's licence
Presidency revokes AIT's network licence
http://odili.net/news/source/2006/may/10/600.html

Senator Uche Chukwumerije on Tuesday said the Presidency has cancelled the Network Licence of Africa Independent Television (AIT) and has issued a 21-day ultimatum to the television station to vacate its Asokoro office in Abuja.

Addressing reporters at the end of debate on general principles of the amendment of the 1999 Constitution, Chukwumerije, who is Leader of the 2007 Movement said the cancellation is part of efforts to frustrate the ongoing debate in the senate over tenure extension.
He confirmed that an ultimatum had already been given to AIT to vacate its the Abuja office.

Chukwumerije also raised an alarm over a plot to remove Senate President Ken Nnamani over his insistence on following the rules in the course of the on-going debate.

Said Chukwumerije: "The 2007 Movement is outraged by the evident determination of the Presidency to violate all rules, reduce and contract our democratic space in order to get its immediate partisan goal of elongating its tenure of office. In the last two weeks, the Presidency has intensified violation of citizens' rights to freedom of speech and association through three-pronged attacks.

Even Shakespeare couldn't come up with the tragicomedy going on in Naija today. When the likes of Chukwumerije become democrats fighting against dictatorship, you gotta laugh. Unless i'm wrong he used to be IBB's mouthpiece or was it Abacha's, many moons ago. As information minister the guy was a complete joke, even worse than the former iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf AKA Comical Ali

but i digress
The issue in naija today is still the same as always, those who want to hold on to power or influence if the dictator stays on and those who will lose out if that happens.
Political alliances change so fast in Naija that i won't be surprised if Atiku changes his mind and then decides to support OBJ for a third term in the "interest of peace"

There's a cancer growing in that country and we need some serious chemotherapy (social revolution to get rid of the political idiots in power) to deal with it. I don't give a damn about third term, as long as we have the usual recycled politicians leading the country we're not going anywhere..

enough said

Labour in meltdown

Yesterday's local election was the perfect opportunity for the electorate to give labour a bloody nose. The Labour party lost over 200 seats (mostly to the Conservatives). My ward which had been predominantly labour is now tory.

I'm really surprised at the turn of events, i thought it was about local issues but it has somewhat turned into a referendum on the performance of the current government.

In my ward the conservative councillors hardly campaigned, it was the incumbent labour councillors that were running around, going from house to house, sending out fliers etc, and they still lost.

The political landscape is definitely changing, the British National Party is making inroads in London, winning 11 seats in Barking. While the conservatives (under new leader David Cameron) are back in favour after a decade out in the political wilderness.
People are really pissed off with the Labour government and even though they voted them back in at the national elections last year, the electorate was prepared to punish them at the local level this time around.

hey Abbott (part 2)

previous post: Hey abbott
got an interesting letter today, it seems the jamaican observer published the email i sent in response to Diane Abbott's article Think Jamaica is bad? Try Nigeria

Which explains why i got a letter from some anonymous fool called Sogey. I won't be surprised if this 'Sogey' person is an assistant to Ms Abbott. Since she wrote the article she has kept a very low profile (i wonder why..)

Anyway this guy 'Sogey' sent me a two page letter on how "great" Jamaica is (yawn) but was too much of a coward to reveal his identity or details so i could respond.

Black youth's murder treated as race crime

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1761425,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1764165,00.html
Police investigating the murder of a black teenager in Kent said yesterday they were treating the attack as racially motivated. Christopher Alaneme, 19, described as a "popular young man with lots of friends", was stabbed to death in an apparently unprovoked attack as he walked along Sheerness High Street just before midnight on Friday.
SNIP
Mr Alaneme, whose family is of Nigerian origin, was from London but had been living in Sheerness. His murder occurred on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the racist killing of Stephen Lawrence in Eltham, south-east London.

I hope the police find the killers and hopefully it doesn't end up like the Damilola Taylor case
........................

face v Baker: No more 'sweet love'

It's strange when two of your favourite artists sue each other. Apparently Babyface is suing Anita Baker (story here)
The man behind some of the biggest love songs of the late 80s and 90s, recently divorced his wife (which explains why his current CD 'Grown and Sexy' has a song called 'goin outta business')
but i digress
I really hope 'face and anita sort this out soon, we need them doing what they do best, providing great music.

The figures don't add up

life expectancy, getting worse or improving???

I was reading an article about Okonjo-Iweala (Nigeria's finance minister) on the BBC news site but got sidetracked by the stats listed about Nigeria. Life expectancy seems to have dropped from 51 in 2000 to 47 in 2005.

Now I love facts and figures (i'm that sad), and i was quite interested in doing a comparison of the life expectancy of the average Nigerian over the years.
A quick seach on the net reveals the following figures

Year	1955	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000	2005 (prognosis)	2015 (prognosis)	2050 (prognosis)
Life expectancy at birth (Number of years)	36.5	38.2	42.0	46.1	50.2	52.5	51.5	52.3	63.9

The calculations were done in 2000
source: http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator_detail.cfm?IndicatorID=18&Country=NG

I'm a bit curious about how the figures are calculated, what criteria is used in measuring life expectancy in countries like Nigeria where records are not kept. (that's why we have to shut down the whole country for a week to do a census). What population sample are these figures based on?

According to wikipedia
'Life expectancy is the average number of years remaining for a living being (or the average for a class of living beings) of a given age to live. Life expectancy is also called average life span or mean life span, in distinction to maximum life span. Life expectancy is also defined as the age at which 1/2 of age cohorts have died.'

But here's the interesting part
'Life expectancy is heavily dependent on the criteria used to select the group. In countries with high infant mortality rates, the life expectancy at birth is highly sensitive to the rate of death in the first few years of life. In these cases, another measure such as life expectancy at age 10 can be used to exclude the effects of infant mortality to reveal the effects of other causes of death. Typically, life expectancy at birth is specified. To calculate it, it is assumed that current mortality levels remain constant throughout the lives of the hypothetical newborns.'

What i find surprising is that life expectancy was much worse in the 50s,60s and 70s than it is now.
This is strange 'cause if you were born in the 60s or 70s you were likely to know, not only your grandparents but your great grandparents (and in some cases your great great grandparents, Ok so people had kids earlier).
If you also factor in the fact that many people did not know their date of birth or the high infant mortality rates during that period, it really makes you wonder where they got the figures from.

methinks just like the population figures bandied about, this figure is just a guestimate.

Strangers in their own land

“They Do Not Own This Place”
Government Discrimination Against “Non-Indigenes” in Nigeria
http://hrw.org/reports/2006/nigeria0406/

The population of every state and local government in Nigeria is officially divided into two categories of citizens: those who are indigenes and those who are not. The indigenes of a place are those who can trace their ethnic and genealogical roots back to the community of people who originally settled there. Everyone else, no matter how long they or their families have lived in the place they call home, is and always will be a non-indigene.

The concept of “indigeneity”—the idea that there is a meaningful distinction to be made between “host” and “settler” communities—is not entirely an artificial construct. Nigeria is a nation of more than 130 million people, but many Nigerians belong to ethnic communities so small that they fear being absorbed into the larger populations around them and losing control of their identity as a community. The distinction between indigenes and non-indigenes may help to guarantee Nigeria’s more than 250 ethnic groups the power to preserve their unique identities—their culture, traditions and traditional institutions of governance—by maintaining some cultural distance between themselves and other Nigerians.

This rationale, however, has been twisted beyond recognition by state and local policies, often unsupported by any law or other form of legal justification, that marginalize and exclude non-indigenes in ways that have nothing to do with the preservation of cultural identity and autonomy. As a matter of government policy, many states refuse to employ non-indigenes in their state civil services, and most if not all of Nigeria’s thirty-six states deny them the right to compete for academic scholarships. State universities generally discriminate against non-indigenes in their admissions policies and charge higher fees to non-indigene students who do manage to secure admission. Non-indigenes must also contend with a range of less formal discriminatory practices, such as barriers to political participation and discrimination in the provision of basic services and infrastructure to their communities, that government does nothing to stop or even discourage. All of these practices have been made more harmful—and become more controversial—by increasing levels of chronic poverty throughout Nigeria.

Taken as a whole, these discriminatory policies and practices effectively relegate many non-indigenes to the status of second-class citizens, a disadvantage they can only escape by moving to whatever part of Nigeria they supposedly belong in. But many Nigerians have no real ties to the regions they are said to originate from, and feel that they should have some way of becoming full citizens of the places they call home. Worse still, Nigeria is home to communities of people who are discriminated against as non-indigenes even though their families have occupied their land for a century or more and no longer have any idea where their ancestors migrated from. A Nigerian who cannot prove that he is an indigene of somewhere by producing a “certificate of indigeneity” is discriminated against in every state of the federation and is barred from many opportunities at the federal level as well.

Nigeria’s federal government has done nothing to curb this state and local discrimination against non-indigenes, even though it makes a mockery of the Nigerian Constitution’s guarantee of freedom from discrimination. While high-ranking federal officials including even President Olusegun Obasanjo have publicly denounced the growing negative impact of Nigeria’s indigene/settler divide, federal government policies have served to reinforce and legitimize its consequences.

In addition to their direct human impact on the lives of non-indigenes, these discriminatory policies have served to aggravate intercommunal tensions that are dangerously volatile in and of themselves. After more than four decades of disastrously corrupt and unaccountable governance, the benefits that are meant to go with Nigerian citizenship are in desperately short supply. As poverty and unemployment have both become more widespread and more severe in Nigeria, competition for scarce opportunities to secure government jobs, higher education and political patronage has intensified dramatically. Many Nigerians believe that this desperate competition between citizens for some basic level of economic security lies near the heart of most of the country’s intercommunal conflicts. As the secretary general of Nigeria’s Catholic Secretariat put it, “Poverty in Nigeria has assumed the moral character of war, and this is what you see reflected in much of the ethnic violence in this country.”1

Against this background of scarcity and competition, disagreements over who are and are not entitled to call themselves indigenes have been made more intense and ultimately more violent by the increasingly burdensome economic consequences of losing the debate. Perhaps just as important, government policies that enhance the importance of indigeneity have heightened intercommunal divisions because they have served to erode the very meaning and importance of national citizenship, subordinating it in many respects to Nigerians’ ethnicity and ancestry. Indeed, in many important respects state and local governments treat their non-indigene constituents like citizens of a foreign country.

By failing to exercise leadership on the indigeneity issue, the Nigerian federal government has turned a blind eye to violations of some of the most fundamental rights guaranteed to its citizens by the Nigerian Constitution and international human rights law. Human Rights Watch calls on the Nigerian government to signal a clear departure from this shameful record by sponsoring, publicizing, and then enforcing legislation that places clear limits on the kinds of distinctions that can be made between indigenes and non-indigenes and expressly outlaws the harmful discriminatory practices described in this report.

This report is based largely on a six-week Human Rights Watch research mission to Nigeria in late 2005 that included field research in Kaduna, Kano, Plateau and Delta states as well as interviews in Abuja, Lagos and Ibadan. During the course of that mission, Human Rights Watch conducted interviews with a broad range of individuals including government officials, civil society activists, community and youth leaders, victims of indigeneity-related discrimination, and individuals who had participated in violent conflicts between indigene and settler communities.
read full report

Nigeria discrimination condemned
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4943700.stm

Millions of Nigerians are being treated like second-class citizens because they cannot prove their roots lie in the area where they live, a report says.
Lobby group Human Rights Watch says state governments regularly deny access to jobs and basic services to people seen as non-indigenous.

This official discrimination helps fuel ethnic and religious conflict, it says.
There are more than 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria. Thousands have been killed in communal clashes since 1999.

As Nigerians have migrated around the country, their origins have become a major social and economic issue.
If a person cannot prove they are descended from the original settlers of the area where they live, they're categorised as "non-indigenes".

It does not matter if their family has lived in the area for more than a century.
HRW says state and local governments regularly deny non-indigenes access to government jobs, academic scholarships, even access to basic services.

An elderly Hausa resident of Zangon-Kataf in southern Kaduna said his family had lived there for 200 years but he still faced harassment and violence.
Their homes were burnt to the ground in 1992.

"Our parents were born here and we ourselves were born here. We know no other place other than here and so we have nowhere else to go," he said.

Sand clashes
The author of the report, Chris Albin-Lackey, says the discrimination is often driven by local leaders, seeking to divert blame for their own failings.
"By denying non-indigenes access to certain economic and educational opportunities, they're seeking to curry favour with their indigene constituents," he says.

"At the end of the day it's really a failure of leadership on the part of the federal government that has allowed all of this to happen."
Human Rights Watch says this discrimination helps fuel ethnic and religious violence, as poor communities struggle over control of resources.

Just two weeks ago in central Nigeria, there was a dispute over whether a non-indigene had the right to take sand from a river bed to build a house.
It sparked clashes which left more than 20 people dead.

Human Rights Watch says the federal government must legislate to end the discrimination.
Changing ingrained attitudes on the ground, though, could prove more difficult.

Oil for the Lamps of China

The title is taking from the 1935 film 'oil for the lamps of china'

China and Nigeria agree oil deal
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4946708.stm

China has secured four oil drilling licences from Nigeria as President Hu Jintao continues his week-long tour of Africa, his second in three years.
In exchange China will invest $4bn (£2.25bn) in oil and infrastructure projects in Nigeria.
China will buy a controlling stake in Nigeria's 110,000 barrel-a-day Kaduna oil refinery and build a railroad system and power stations.
Nigeria, Africa's top oil exporter, has long been viewed by China as a partner.

The Chinese interest in Africa is welcome but we need to 'shine our eyes well well' (like my peeps will say) This time around the relationship has to be of mutual benefit. (No giving away of the family heirlooms for a mirror or was it for religion??)
There's a saying 'beware of greeks bearing gifts', As long as we Africans are aware that there's no free lunch and we ensure that we actually gain something from the relationship rather than letting China use us as a source of cheap raw materials.

The Chinese are unlike the west, in the sense that they just want to do business and do not really care about who they do business with. China has a policy of not interfering in the internal politics of other countries so its unlikely they'll have any qualms about Obj's third term 'politricks'.
I suppose what concerns me about China apart from not caring who they do business with, is what they intend to do with their growing economic and political power. China today is like a sleeping tiger, as regards to its political and military clout. One day it will wake up to this reality and show its teeth, so until we know what they are really up to 'make we shine eye well well o'

Quote: Behind every successful man there are a lot of unsuccessful years - Bob Brown

Dance with my father

The Luther Vandross song Dance with my father has been playing in my head all day. Its been exactly 2 years since my father died and yet it feels as if it happened not too long ago.

Never dreamed that he would be gone from me
If I could steal one final glance, one final step, one final dance with him
I'd play a song that would never, ever end
'Cause I'd love, love, love
To dance with my father again

I never danced with my father but i can relate to the song, as its all about a son missing his father and the time they spent together.

Quote: 'Elephants are never tired of carrying their tusks' - anon

get involved by sponsoring an African child today:
http://www.plan-uk.org/wherewework/westafrica/

The Political Importance of Diasporas (referenced article)

The Political Importance of Diasporas
http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=313

By Steven Vertovec
University of Oxford

Over the past 25 years, diasporas have increasingly become significant players in the international political arena.

Examples of such politically active diaspora communities are the Jewish-, Greek-, Cuban- and Armenian-American associations that represent some of the strongest lobbies in Washington, DC. Diasporic Iraqi groups and individuals played crucial roles in encouraging American military intervention in Iraq in 2003.

Many countries, such as Israel and Armenia, regard their diasporas as strategically vital political assets, while others, such as India, the Philippines, and other migrant-sending countries, have been recognizing the massive contributions their diasporas make through remittances.

There are many reasons why, over the past few decades, such diasporas have become more prominent on the world stage. New communication technologies have improved abilities to mobilize, and multiculturalism policies in receiving countries have revitalized ethnic pride and assertiveness.

Also important are the growth of economic resources due to swelling migrant numbers, and the profound changes in the world political system itself as more democratic nation-states emerged following the fall of communist regimes.

In a range of policy areas today — including foreign affairs, economic development, and international migration — the place of diasporas increasingly needs to be considered.

Contested Definitions
"Diaspora" is a word of Greek origin meaning "to sow over or scatter." Until fairly recently, the historical Jewish experience provided the archetype: forced expulsion and dispersal, persecution, a sense of loss, and a vision of return.

Over the past decade or so, however, "diaspora" has become a term of self-identification among many varied groups who migrated or whose forbearers migrated from one place to another or to several other places.

Observable in a multitude of websites (a Google search gives close to four million hits for "diaspora"), most self-described diasporas do not emphasize the melancholy aspects long associated with the classic Jewish, African, or Armenian diasporas. Rather, they celebrate a culturally creative, socially dynamic, and often romantic meaning.

For example, one Indian diaspora website states, "The Diaspora is very special to India. Residing in distant lands, its members have succeeded spectacularly in their chosen professions by dint of their single-minded dedication and hard work. What is more, they have retained their emotional, cultural and spiritual links with the country of their origin. This strikes a reciprocal chord in the hearts of people of India."

Also, any longed-for return to the homeland now tends to be downplayed in favor of ideological identification or transnational practice that can link the scattered community with the homeland. Today, self-defined diasporas tend to find esteem — and a kind of strength-in-numbers — through using the term.

This shift in the adoption and meaning of "diaspora" has undoubtedly caused some confusion and stimulated debate. In a burgeoning body of literature, academics across the humanities and social sciences often disagree on contemporary definitions of "diaspora," its typical reference points, characteristic features, limits, and social dynamics.

Critics of the term "diaspora" object to the ways it may suggest homogeneity and a historically fixed identity, as well as values and practices within a dispersed population. And who decides who belongs, and according to what criteria? Is it normally based on original nation-state, religion, regional, ethno-linguistic or other membership criteria? Is descent the only defining condition of membership — and for how many generations after migration does membership last?

In order to have real meaning, claims and criteria surrounding diasporic boundaries and membership should be self-ascribed. It seems illegitimate for others to decide if a person is part of a diaspora if she does not regard herself as part of such a group.

Belonging to a diaspora entails a consciousness of, or emotional attachment to, commonly claimed origins and cultural attributes associated with them. Such origins and attributes may emphasize ethno-lingustic, regional, religious, national, or other features. Concerns for homeland developments and the plight of co-diaspora members in other parts of the world flow from this consciousness and emotional attachment.

Such a definition cuts through questions around the number of generations passed, degree of linguistic competence, extent of co-ethnic social relations, number of festivals celebrated, ethnic meals cooked, or style of dress worn. That is, just "how ethnic" one is does not affect whether and to what extent someone might feel themselves part of a diaspora.

With such an understanding, we can appreciate how diasporic identification may be lost entirely, may ebb and flow, be hot or cold, switched on or off, remain active or dormant. The degree of attachment — and mobilization around it ? often depends upon events affecting the purported homeland.

Natural disasters, conflicts, and changes of government tend to bring out such attachments. For example, the Asian tsunami in December 2004 mobilized Sri Lankan, Indian, Thai, and Indonesian groups abroad (see related article).

Actual exchanges of resources or information, or marriages or visits take place across borders — between members of a diaspora themselves or with people in the homeland — are transnational activities. To be transnational means to belong to two or more societies at the same time. At that moment, the diaspora functions as a transnational community.

When such exchanges do not take place (sometimes over many generations), but people maintain identification with the homeland and co-ethnics elsewhere, there is only a diaspora. In this way, not all diasporas are transnational communities, but transnational communities arise within diasporas.

Today, technology makes it far easier for groups to function as transnational communities for identity maintenance and political mobilization. In particular, cheap air travel and phone calls, the Internet, and satellite television have made staying in touch affordable. Indeed, the proliferation of diaspora-related websites testifies to the strength of common interests and identity.

Diasporic identifications may be multiple, too, depending on the criteria used. The same individual may consider herself to be part of a global Hindu population or a dispersed community of Swaminarayanis (sect), Indians (nation-state), Gujaratis (state or language), Patidars or Patels (caste and sub-caste), Suratis (dialect and region), or villagers. These do not rule each other out. Moreover, any one of a person's identities may be dormant or active transnationally.

Finally, in conceiving diasporas we should resist assumptions that views and experiences are shared within a dispersed population despite their common identification. This is especially the case among diasporas of people who migrated at different historical junctures.

Awkward encounters or serious intra-diaspora conflicts tend to arise as new waves of migrants meet people of previous waves who preserve bygone traditions or who left with greatly differing political views and circumstances. Vehemently anti-Castro, pre-1962 Cuban ?migr?s may clash with Cuban migrants who are "children of the Revolution."

Sometimes, there is a lack of communication and interaction when an earlier wave of migrants comes from a different social or economic class than a later wave. For example, a previous generation of migrants may have had very limited communication with, or knowledge about recent events in, the homeland although they still have ethnic pride. They may have little in common with a fresh wave of highly politicized refugees or exiles who are wholly absorbed with cultural and political changes in the homeland.

Conversely, to the embarrassment or dismay of new migrants, the well-established diaspora communities in the destination country might promote "long-distance nationalism" and believe in some of the most right-wing and reactionary forms of ethnic exclusivism and patriotism.

Diaspora Politics

Political interests and activities within diasporas are certainly nothing new. Historical studies of migrant communities indicate the considerable degree of political engagement-from-afar evident at least 100 years ago.

At present, we can broadly observe a variety of ways — many similar to these historical forms — in which internationally dispersed social groups mobilize and undertake a range of electoral and non-electoral political activities.

Different diaspora-based associations may lobby host countries to shape policies in favor of a homeland or to challenge a homeland government; influence homelands through their support or opposition of governments; give financial and other support to political parties, social movements, and civil society organizations; or sponsor terrorism or the perpetuation of violent conflict in the homeland.

Global networks of diaspora associations sometimes engage in mass protest and consciousness-raising about homeland-related issues. Following the 1999 capture of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, organized mass demonstrations among Kurds took place in dozens of localities around the world, bringing Kurdish issues to worldwide attention.

Homeland nation-states themselves may reach out to engage the political interests of diaspora populations. Making provisions for dual citizenship and/or nationality is one way for countries to reach migrants. There is now an upward global trend in the prevalence of dual citizenship/nationality, both in terms of people possessing it and states allowing it.

It is estimated that more than a half-million children born in the United States each year, who are American citizens automatically, have at least one additional nationality. Of course, many policymakers in migrant-receiving countries are unhappy about this, believing that people should only have allegiance to one flag and loyalty to one state.

In migrant-sending countries, dual citizenship sometimes has been difficult to push through governments since domestic politicians tend to see the disadvantages. They often feel that "absentee" voting might give too much influence to people living outside the country.

Indeed, expatriate votes are of concern to many countries with sizable diasporas. This was recently felt during the Iraqi election in January 2005, when over one million Iraqi expats were expected to have a major impact on results. In fact, only one-fourth of those eligible actually registered to vote.

Other cases demonstrate how overseas nationals may return home en masse to participate in elections, which has happened in Turkey and Israel, sometimes with political parties paying for flights. Migrants also may vote in large numbers at overseas embassies, as during recent Indonesian and Algerian elections.

The weight of diaspora interests and support sometimes leads to special forms of representation in governments or dedicated ministries for diasporas. A prime illustration of diasporic political payoff occurred in 1990 when Croatians abroad donated $4 million towards the election campaign of Fanjo Tudjman and were subsequently rewarded with representation in parliament: 12 of 120 seats were allotted to diaspora Croats ? more than allotted to Croatia's own ethnic minorities.

The money diaspora populations send home is highly sought by many countries (developing or not). Hence, numerous governments now offer their nationals abroad special foreign currency accounts, incentives or bonds for expat investment, customs or import incentives, special property rights, or privileged access to special economic zones.

To keep the diaspora politically interested as well as to sustain financial flows, politicians in countries of emigration often invoke solidarity among their expatriate nationals. This was exemplified in 1990 when Irish President Mary Robinson proclaimed herself leader of the extended Irish family abroad.

During Vincente Fox's campaigning among Mexicans in California in 2000, he similarly played upon the broader boundaries of an imagined nation by declaring he would be the first president "to govern for 118 million Mexicans" — including 100 million in Mexico and 18 million living outside the country.

And in his inaugural speech in 2002, Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki appealed to all Kenyans abroad "to join us in nation-building."

Nation-Building and Wrecking

History provides many examples of nation-creation projects fashioned in exile; Garibaldi, Lenin, Gandhi, and Ho Chi Min all spent time abroad. Leaders of several "stateless diasporas" — Kurds, Kashmiris, and Sri Lankan Tamils among them ? struggle towards such projects today.

Diasporas play an increasingly significant part in the development of nation-building in poor countries and in ones which have undergone major transformation, such as Eastern European and former Soviet states. This is due to a number of factors, including access to economic resources, greater ease in communication and travel, and the large number of expatriate professionals and entrepreneurs who have skills and experience to offer.

The foremost means of diasporic nation-building comes through individual remittances, followed by hometown associations and charitable initiatives that directly affect economic development, poverty reduction, and capacity building. Governments of migrant-sending and receiving countries, international agencies, and academics are now paying considerable attention to the relationship between diasporas and development.

Another, related field gaining notice concerns the potential diasporas have for reducing brain drain in developing countries. Innovative national and international programs for "tapping the diaspora" have been put in place so that home countries can access expatriate expertise, knowledge, and experience (as well as external networks for trade, communications, and technological development).

One of the best known is the UN Development Program's Transfer of Knowledge through Expatriate Nationals (TOKTEN), which began in Turkey in the 1970s and is now established in some 50 countries. The program supports thousands of emigrant nationals with professional expertise to return to their countries of origin and work for a few weeks or months, though some choose to stay longer.

Another mode of nation-building, or at least maintenance, comes through disaster relief. There are many examples of substantial aid flowing from diasporas following catastrophes such as Hurricane Mitch in Central America in 1998 and the earthquakes in Turkey in 1999 and in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2001. Diaspora groups relevant to areas throughout the Indian Ocean responded generously to the December 2004 tsunami, as mentioned earlier.

Yet even where such humanitarian responses arise, corrosive diaspora politics may be present. According to reports, diaspora aid to Gujarat after the 2001 earthquake served to sustain anti-Muslim pogroms. There have been claims that various Tamil organizations collected money for Sri Lankan tsunami victims that was in fact used for weapons and materials for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Diasporas can also actively be involved in nation-wrecking when there is violence and war in the homeland. Diasporic groups have played major roles in fomenting and supporting conflict in places as diverse as Ethiopia, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, Kashmir, Israel, and Palestine.

Financial support may flow from various parts of a diaspora to insurrectionist groups or a particular government's efforts to eradicate them. When this is an interethnic conflict, two or more diasporas might be pitted against each other, as was evident in the break-up of Bosnia.

Diasporas may take part in efforts to resolve conflict and to sustain post-conflict reconstruction, such as in Eritrea and Sri Lanka. But with the money they send home, they can increase the risk of renewed conflict in the years immediately following an upheaval, according to a World Bank Report.

Conclusion

Even though they reside outside of their or their parents' home countries' borders, many people regard themselves as legitimate members of its collective identity and socio-political order.

But diasporic identities and activities tend to have differential implications for homelands and host countries.

For host countries, the dual political loyalties suggested by diasporas may raise fears of "enemies within" and terrorist sleeper cells. Such suspicions can feed into racism and other forms of discrimination.

A further question with social and policy importance arises in host countries: does diasporic attachment — passive or active — hinder immigrant integration? Some argue that immigrants will never truly integrate if they are constantly looking "back home." Others say that only by maintaining strong ethnic and transnational bonds can migrants build the confidence they need to successfully incorporate themselves.

With regard to their national diasporas, homelands certainly want remittances and may appreciate lobbying, but they may resent too much political involvement. That is why some offer limited forms of dual nationality without extending too much by way of voting and parliamentary representation.

With regard to all these dimensions of diasporic political impact, diversity within diasporas must be stressed. In any case of lobbying, charitable donation, or conflict support, "the diaspora" rarely acts as one. Most diasporas, whether based on ethno-linguistic or national criteria, include opposing factions and dissenting voices. These, however, are often muffled by better organized, networked, and financed actors, who are often the ones pushing nationalist or ethnic agendas.

Diasporas powerfully embody broader trends in the changing nature of nation-states. Today, national/ethnic identification, political community, and place of residence do not automatically fit together neatly.

Instead, migrants have multiple attachments that modern technology has facilitated. Their political identities and practices are shaped between and within the contexts of both migrant homelands and host societies.

This is an irreversible trend that policymakers should be conscious of when reconsidering any adjustments to immigration and integration policies. We cannot expect today's migrants simply to cut their roots.

Steven Vertovec is Professor of Transnational Anthropology at the University of Oxford and Director of the British Economic and Social Research Council's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS).

Bodies Exhibition

The controversial bodies exhibition hit London this week, shame they wouldn't allow any pictures of the exhibits.
The exhibition is quite similar to Gunther von Hagens BodyWorlds which i saw at Brick lane some years ago.
Great exhibit, definitely worth seeing (worth the price just to see what the lungs of a cigarette smoker looks like)

Bodies Exhibition

An interesting fact from the bodies exhibition