OUR DIFFERENCES SHOULD NOT DIVIDE US. HELP SOMEONE! - BY PAUL INYANG

Paul Inyang, Odenton, MD 

Just the other day my good friend Dr. Ohiro wrote about love and our differences. It was a timely piece and insightful especially because it is about real life events. Stories like that grab us and leaves us thinking about our humanity. Differences are not so new to us but the human story behind such issues are the ones that remain with people. It got me to thinking about a summer job I once had. I took my long vacation down south—Charlotte North Carolina.

In my financial desperation I took on selling Tupperware. You have never been used until you do a job like this one. Your salary it totally dependent on commission for selling every piece in a set of dishes or house ware. The worse part is that you have to drive around strange neighborhoods, trying to sell unattractive products to equally uninterested and financially strapped “customers”. Worse yet, you have to generate your own leads. I want you to imagine a black foreigner with a thick accent trying to sell dishes and knives in a blue collar white neighborhood. There are other names for such neighborhoods but I will stay away from such references.  I happened to knocked on the door of an old lady and in a flash was face to face with a shot gun and someone shouting—“n…..g…r get off my damn porch”. My life flashed before me and I thought I would be blown to smithereens. You can imagine the race of the person I am referring to and juxtapose that with the notion of the South, white robes, burning crosses and the confederate flag. I know that I am bombarding some of you with images that you may not be familiar with but they are all symbols of hate. Believe it or not it made no difference to me, because I was a hungry and a motivated young man. I ran for the day but subsequently went back—foolishly in my naiveté. I simply did not know better. Perhaps if I did, I would not have done so.

History is for the books but what I found out much later, is that people live them and if one is fortunate enough to live through it, they do have a story to share. But ultimately, I made some friends in that neighborhood who were able to guide me to safety—though most of them could not afford to buy from me except for a few and a very special lady—the same one who pointed a gun at me. I believe, I was just a lucky guy or just fell into the category of the fool who by all accounts, as they they say, is taken care of by God.

The story is a much longer one because it did not happen overnight. People are not always who they appear to be until you are able to understand that there is always a story behind what you see. Yes, we are different and I must have appeared to be “something” to my lady friend but somehow we got past it. Hate has no place in our world and we have actually more in common than we care to admit. The problem is that we rarely take the time to encounter each other in meaningful ways. We may also not have the patience or the intuitive persistence to find out about each other and hear our different stories. You really do not know anyone until you can stop the noise in your head and listen to them tell you their true story. It may expose your vulnerability but it will make you human. Most of all, it will help you learn to love despite our differences. So be kind to others—especially those you may not know or understand. Help someone.

IT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE THIS WAY

Vanity now reigns in a world where love, humane values and generosity ought.   All forms of 

hatred are increasingly becoming the building blocks of a cottage industry that is reshaping a world that could otherwise do without social injustice, more hate, more malice and unimaginable levels bigotry.  Therefore we leave ourselves and posterity in a situation where those who consider pride, mistrust, hate and cruelty as virtues are increasingly the ones with the closest access to the loudest megaphones.  It wasn't supposed to be this way.

We have left behind a time when a person's word was his/her bond and people were recognized and respected for their humanity. Now we celebrate people for the sizes of their bank accounts and amount of material possessions that they have acquired, regardless of the manner in which they acquired the possessions.  Society now frequently judges the quality and stature of a man by his wealth rather than by the quality of his character.  People and institutions are afraid to rein in a
rich man for bad behavior while those that we perceive as poor have just about lost their right to be considered human. Consequently, advocates for the poor must now work harder than they ever did to ensure that the poor are fed and housed, and that the poor can maintain a hope that somehow, our world can regain a conscience and become a just world that includes them.   Unfortunately, the task of caring advocates for equality and justice is made even harder because even the poor and oppressed
now have among them very large contingents of bigoted and ignorant individuals  that are cheerleaders for their oppressors.  As a result, hateful bigotry, pride and cruelty has become prevalent at all levels of society, even among those who virtually live in houses of worship.  Truly, it wasn't supposed to be this way.

Through history, wars have been fought against bigotry. That was the reason for World War II, the American Civil War and America's involvement in Kosovo as recently as 1999.  Today, the hateful rhetoric constantly directed at Nigeria's new president, Buhari, by members of the party that he vanquished, the cruelly racist venom spewed daily at President Obama of the United States, the
inhumanity that is perpetrated by racist and oppressive police officers, the Islamic State (ISIS), Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, the Klu Klux Klan (KKK), Latin American drug lords and other terrorist groups around the world are such that one is left wondering when the world went off the rails and what hope there is for future generations.  Today, we have people all over the globe who wish that slavery never ended, people who would have our world apologize for rising against ethnic cleaning and authority figures who would rather that a big part of our population did not exist because they possess the "wrong" skin color, bear the "wrong" names, live on the "wrong" side of the tracks, practice the "wrong" religion and belong to the "wrong" political parties.



President Buhari of Nigeria

In today's politics, it is no longer sufficient or even necessary to debate ideas; people must now shout and beat down their opponents who they believe they must present as inferior and terrible human beings unworthy of respect. Society now honors those who can shout the loudest and rewards them with adoration, money and promotion.  Therefore, talk media hosts and their guests must shout at
one another to maintain high ratings, evangelical pastors must shout at their congregations through microphones to build up their prestige and fill their pews.  Regardless of race, class or culture, many men in today's world continue to perpetuate the old faulty thinking that they must shout down their female partners if they are to be considered qualified to lay claim to manhood.

As I see it, this is an increasingly unjust world replete with failed institutions and organizations, failed leaders and failed followers. Our world has lost its way and must begin a journey back to basics.  Everyday, we are digging for ourselves holes from which we must begin to climb out because it could become too late.  Perhaps we should long and work for a day when love, justice and truth take their rightful places in the community of mortals. I write this knowing that I may be asking too much.  But it is perhaps also because there is a part of me that believes in the inherent goodness of man. This is not to say that I think that man is by nature good and imperfect but that I believe that it is possible for man to possess, attain and display some measure of goodness because man, after all, was made in the image of a good Creator.

AFRICA AND AFRICANS: A CONTINENT AND PEOPLE IN NEED OF A MIRROR

Across Africa, human life is being ravaged by poverty, disease, armed conflict and very bad leadership. How a continent so blessed in natural and human resources can also seem so cursed is inexplicable because it is unfathomable.  Yet, that is Africa's plight.  Immensely blessed by God, Africans have inflicted pain on their own Continent - and continue to do so.  By so doing, they (we) have made the Continent seem as though it is forsaken by its Creator. For several decades, the African mindset has been programmed to believe that Africans are not responsible for Africa's problems. Instead, non-Africans (mostly Westerners) are blamed for the conditions of life in Africa. In the circumstances, there is a consequent expectation that the responsibility for resolving Africa's perpetual state of crisis belongs to non-Africans. In my opinion, that reasoning smacks of a level of intellectual dishonesty that stinks to the utmost.

There is no denying the fact that Africa had its unfair share of oppression and exploitation at the hands of European colonialists who pillaged the Continent, tortured the African people, and battered them physically, psychologically, emotionally and economically. African history is replete with evidence of the destruction that those decades of thievery, trickery and violence by European colonialists represented. But it is also true that African nations have had a long time since their varying years of independence to stand on their feet and design their own fate. Unfortunately, most have not done so. Instead, people who claim to be African leaders have done nothing but run their countries to the ground. In my opinion, it is time for Africans to end the blame game and begin to hold themselves and their so-called leaders accountable for the plight of the Continent and its inhabitants.

I am conscious of the fact that this is a touchy position that I am expressing, but it is only because this position represents a fact that many of my fellow Africans would rather avoid.  I dare anyone to provide a convincing description of how white people are responsible for the genocide in Sudan's Dafur region in recent years; or for the ongoing violence in Somalia; or for the murderous plundering of Liberia by Samuel Doe and the likes of Charles Taylor; Mugabe's murderous dictatorship in Zimbabwe; the instability in the Congo, Chad, Niger and other African countries; or for the dictatorial rule in Guinea-Bissau, the murderous "Lord Resistance Army" in Uganda, Nigeria's Goodluck Jonathan's band of thieves and Boko Haram, and the ultra corrupt leadership in Togo, Cote d'Ivoire, Burundi, the Republic of Benin and other African countries.


Honesty demands that we take a sincere look into our souls if we desire to see Africa's plight more clearly. When we do so, we can begin to understand our own roles in the saga that Africa has come to represent for several decades now.  When we are honest with ourselves, we will know exactly what we must do to restore the Continent to a level of glory that Africa once experienced.  We will also be able to see a glaring image of a Continent that, for centuries, has been victimized first by foreigners, and then by its own people. We will see a Continent in which people aspire to become corrupt bosses rather than honest leaders. We will see an African continent, indeed a Mother, that was once raped by strangers and is now being raped by its own children who posterity placed in positions to care for her. There is no greater form of abuse than this, and there is no greater sense of responsibility than for all Africans to look in the mirror and make the individual and collective change that is needed for Africa to be restored to respectability.

OUR LOVE VACUUM

Several months ago, I spent an evening with a 91 year-old man that I had just met for the first time.  He invited me to his very beautiful home and, as he walked me through and introduced his family to me in the pictures all over his wall and his cabinets and desks, I was drawn to a picture of one of his grandsons, an attorney based in the Midwest.  The young man was leaning and praying over a name stone somewhere in Poland.  I asked questions about that picture, and then we talked about a picture taken with all of his children, and another that had his wife, himself and two granddaughters.  He informed me that his wife died 2 years ago – 3 weeks after that photograph was taken.  After answering my questions about that and other pictures, including one taken just with his wife, my host said in his soft voice: “Let’s go back and sit at the table”. 

As we walked back to the table, I remarked that he was a really blessed man to have such a successful family. Then he said: “I was also a very successful business man who made payroll for hundreds of staff every week….but what’s the use? In the end, what does anything amount to?”  In an emotional state, he discussed the loss of his wife and his loneliness despite frequent contacts by his family.  He opened a window for me into his life and I realized that, unlike anyone that I knew, his childhood was cut very short by a vacuum in man’s refusal to apply the Golden Rule that we love others as much as we love ourselves.  When I asked him about his childhood in Poland, his response hit me like a pack of bricks: “I’ve got a number”, he said, “do you want to see it?”  Without waiting for my response, he undid his left sleeve and showed me a tattooed number that, as a child, he was given in the Holocaust camp at Auschwitz. I was dumbfounded.  When I gathered myself, I told him that my son had visited a Holocaust camp in Austria (Mathausen) as a teenager and still would not discuss the experience.  “I was there in that camp too at age 13, then I was returned to Germany when I was 15”, my guest told me.

Is there anyone reading this article who has “a number”?  Is there any reader of this article whose life was forcefully wasted in a Holocaust camp for no reason other than his/her heritage?  I often forget that I was born and raised with privilege – a reality that I was reminded of when I traveled with my son to a few African countries last summer, including the country of my birth.  We (I included) spend so much time discussing the privileged status of others and we neglect to see that we might also be privileged in ways that are different.  If I saw that man before I got to spend time with him, I would have focused on the obvious aspects of his life, not knowing the less glamorous aspects of the road that he traveled.  So it is difficult for us to love as we ought because between us is a vacuum of knowledge that we as humans remain unwilling to bridge.  I do not believe what some would have us believe: that we lack the capacity to bridge that gap or to love.  Instead, I believe that we choose not to, partly because it seems easier to capitalize on differences either for personal or group gain than it is to let ourselves become humble and vulnerable enough to love those that we consider more or less privileged, different, offensive or less in status than us.

It is time to pray and work hard for our neighbors, our communities and our world to fill that vacuum that seems to be getting even wider due to what appears to be our diminishing willingness to love others.  Sometimes I desire to imagine a situation in which humanity loves with genuine zest, knowing that the night is far spent and that we have a responsibility to put on the armor of light to brighten a world that has become increasingly darker in my lifetime.  I know that this is wishful thinking at best, but knowing that does not prevent me from praying that God should grant us the wisdom, strength, courage and guidance to love one another as He desires.

WHAT'S IN A BIRTHPLACE? - PART 2

The last time I recall standing up to people overseas on behalf of the United States was during the presidency of President George W. Bush.  That was almost a frequent occurrence at the time and it was always in Europe.  Bush-Cheney had been responsible for committing the greatest foreign policy blunder in living memory by lying the United States to war and taking many countries along. We know that over 100,000 Iraqis and over 4,000 Americans were killed in that senseless war that was based entirely on a lie.  Clearly, the world has yet to recover from that Bush-Cheney act.  While my opposition to that war was very solid even before it started, and was published in a local newspaper in my area, it was difficult to accept anyone in Europe bashing the United States (and my President who I voted twice against and with whom I completely disagreed on almost everything) for heinous actions that much of the West, not just the US, was responsible for.  Soon one occasion in Europe, I stopped obvious hypocrisy by reminding the US/Bush critiques that, to the extent that their own countries were part of the Bush-Cheney coalition that destroyed Iraq and turned the world into an unsafe place, they were just as culpable and it would be best if they kept their mouths shut because, at least from where I come, hypocrisy is not a virtue.  To their point that the American electorate was "foolish" to have re-elected President Bush, I reminded them that they had all also re-elected their own war-mongering, lying leaders and, except for Jose Maria Anser of Spain, no European leader was punished by the electorate.  Needless to say that the conversation ended.

Oh...I recall another incident in Moscow where one of the speakers at a conference that I was attending - a Russian professor dubbed as one of the country's leading Sociologists - told us that there were two kinds of civilizations, a black civilization characterized by violence, crime, brutality, etc and a white civilization characterized by peace, intelligence, sense of responsibility, respect, etc.  Of course he got off the stage immediately after he spoke without a chance to ask him any questions. Most of us from the United States and Canada responded by holding up the conference and declaring it over until he was brought back to apologize and acknowledge that his presentation was not the product of any scholarship.  In that instant, we knew that by binding together, we were exercising a responsibility to humanity and to our respective countries with sizable numbers of black citizens (and residents).

Now, fast-forward several years.  About a week and half ago, I sat comfortably at a bus terminal in a quiet university town in Nigeria, about 7 hours drive away from the airport from which I was scheduled to fly out of the country later that night.  I was at the terminal because the airport from which I would normally fly to my departure city was closed due to runway renovations.  Just a few feet from where I sat, a religious woman was holding court.  As she spoke, the crowd around her grew larger and a few people were seriously searching websites on their cell phones and increasingly looking puzzled.  I realized that she was "educating" her audience about the "demonic and immoral" leadership of the United States.  "Look at the picture of President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron of Britain kissing", she told them.  "I have always known that President Obama is gay.  I know that most of you didn't know that.  Now you know".  One man who identified himself as a lawyer responded: "President Obama is a black man with a white mother.  A white President can get away with being gay in America or being born outside of the United States but Obama would never even be President one day longer if they found out he was gay - and there is no way America would not know that even before he became President.  That is not possible".   The woman confidently repeated her claims, directed the audience to some political and religious conservative websites, answered a bunch of questions and then asked them: "Does any of you know that Michele Obama is a man"?  There was a loud gasp from puzzled listeners, one of whom said: "She is not.  No way. Look at the resemblance between their first daughter and the President".  "Mrs. Obama is a man", she said emphatically. Those children were born through surrogates.  Google 'Michele Obama and the blue dress'.  I doubted that myself until I saw the blue dress.  Then I said: 'Finally, they are exposed'".

Without a pause for reaction, this woman moved on to her next lie: "Do you know that the so-called Williams sisters (Serena and Venus) are men"? Another gasp, and then one man said: "Serena is too beautiful to be a man".  Other men agreed but the woman was unimpressed. "Don't be deceived", the "lecturer" responded, "Look at Kris Jenner!  May that Mr. Williams rot in hell for adopting 2 little black boys, dressing them up as girls and making them learn how to play tennis.  He wanted them to dominate the world of tennis just as Obama's mother gave birth to him in Kenya and took him in secret to the United States so that her gay son would become President and change this beautiful world to a gay world".  Now, there was silence and confusion.  She obviously now had the stage in her palms.  As if that wasn't enough, she got up from her seat and said: "Do you know how Joan Rivers the American comedienne died? She died after revealing that Obama is gay.  So, add one and one and you don't need me to tell you who killed her".

At that point, I had heard enough.  My responsibility to the US and Nigeria, and even more to humanity, led me to put a stop to the craziness.  In the process, I taught the crowd how to fact-check with the same cell phones that they were holding in their hands and I reminded them that even in the woman's own religion, which is mine as well, believers are encouraged to engage in some research to verify that what preachers were telling them was true.  No sooner had I finished speaking than I heard the following announcement bellow across the terminal: "Please take note of what happened in this here just now and research what you read in order to know the truth before you speak.  As we have just been reminded, many things that we read are not true.  Take some time to find out the truth before you believe it".

Things do in fact happen for a purpose and we are sometimes placed in certain situations for reasons that defy explanation.  Sometimes we don't even know why.  By the way, did I mention that I was born in that same university town where this happened?  So, things do in fact go full cycle sometimes.  My quest is not to search for the reason why I was born in Nigeria, or why I was in my birth town on that day at that time.  Instead, my desire is to be grateful to my father for his lectures and to always warmly embrace the blessing of being a national of two countries, both of which I love very dearly.  Certainly, with such a blessing come responsibilities.  When my time on earth is spent, I want to be able to see my father again and thank him, and also thank my mother for her role in educating me for the first few years of my life before her transition to heaven.  When the bell tolls for me, I want it said of me that I embraced and fulfilled my responsibilities to my two countries and that I did so in a manner that glorified God.  When He welcomes me to His Kingdom, may my Maker say: "Welcome, my son, you were not perfect but you used very well the talents that I gave you and you honored the country that I had you born in and the one that I additionally blessed you with.  By so doing, you made me happy and my grace covers your imperfections".  So help me God.

WHAT'S IN A BIRTHPLACE? - PART 1

Whenever I tell friends and relatives of my plan to visit Nigeria, some ask me why - as if I need a reason to visit a country in which my father gave me the most important lessons about life and love of country years before he made the transition to the world beyond.  "It does not matter to me where you choose to settle and spend the rest of your life", he once told me. "It will not bother me where you choose to marry from", he continued, "all I want is that you always remember that Nigeria is the land of your birth, and it is home.  I want you to know that God in His infinite wisdom put rivers on lands where he knew His water would be safe.  Perhaps that's the reason He ordained that you would be born in Nigeria". 

In retrospect, I did not understand the deeper meaning of any of my father's statements but I thought I did.  It took decades to get here but I believe that I now know what it all means.  It means that however beautiful and comfortable another town or country may be or feel, there is a reason why one's birthplace would be the one chosen by the omniscient God and, while one may never know what that reason was, it behoves a person to regard that birthplace with some sense of reverence, respect and responsibility. 

Quite recently, I spent a week in Nigeria, the country that I have always been proud to call the land of my birth.  The headline occasion was my niece's wedding.  However, I accepted the opportunity to also address a very large group of Law students at Delta State University.  As I took the stage and spoke, I could sense in the students a high amount of respect, a remarkable yearning for knowledge, and strong sense of gratitude to a man who was introduced (and they obviously perceived) as a son of Nigeria who went abroad and made good but could also have greatly succeeded in Nigeria where he obtained his undergraduate degree.  As I received their standing ovation and then listened to a "vote of thanks" presented to me by the designated student at the end of the session, I could almost hear my father's voice reminding me that I was born in Nigeria for a reason.  I could almost hear him tell me that there was a reason why I was standing on that podium; and I could almost hear him remind me of my responsibilities to the land of my birth.  At the same time, I wondered if the students in front of me truly understood the magnitude of their good fortune to have had the renowned Professor Badaiki, who is one of Africa's leading scholars in Constitutional Law, arrange this opportunity for them to interact with me on that day.  Did they know how fortunate they are to be in school in an age where so much knowledge is at the finger tips of the willing student?  Did they know that they also have a responsibility to their nation?  Would they be willing to do the selfless work that is needed to transform their society and provide hope to generations that come behind them? I do not know the answer to any of these questions but I told them that the future of Nigeria's people and democracy hangs on their willingness to serve professionally, honestly, sincerely, generously and selflessly; and their ability to always choose truth and justice with courage.

No less than 90% of the questions that the students asked me were about race, racism and social justice in the United States.  One student asked me: "How can anyone be sure that racism has not permeated your justice system in the United States to the point where black people should never expect justice to be fair"? Another asked: "Why was the white boy who killed nine black people in a church in South Carolina get treated as a king when he was being arrested?  We know that he would definitely have been killed had he been black".  That question was immediately followed by another one: "Why did the judge in whose court the murderer of those nine black Christians was arraigned last week say that the family of the killer should also be seen as victims in the same way as the families of the nine murdered people"? "Why do white police officers always kill black people in the US"?, another asked.  "Would you please explain to us the human factors that you perceive in the American jury system"? Why..."?  "Why...?"  "Why..."?

On this day in Nigeria, I discussed with the students the role of power in policing and reminded them that the three of the police officers indicted for the murder of Mr. Gray in Baltimore were black.  I informed them that, relative to much of Europe and even India, the United States is a young country but the difference between the US and others is our acknowledgment that not only are we not a perfect nation, our journey to a less porous union is one that is often made longer every time police officers and racists act in ways to which the students were alluding.  I requested them to mention any racially heterogeneous country in the world in which racial integration has occurred as well as it so far has in in the United States.  After a few moments of deep thinking, the word "None" coming from many lips echoed through the packed auditorium.  In answering the questions that I was asked, I was reminded of three things: First, that people around the world know a lot more about the United States and Americans than Americans do about the world.  Second, thanks to technology, the claim that the world is now one global village is not an overstatement.  Third, that even in my birthplace, I am not only seen through multiple lenses but I also have a responsibility to uphold the best values of my adopted country. 

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