America: Coppers gone Wild

Let’s cut to the chase.
Eric Garner. Mike Brown, Sean Bell… Flashback. Amadou Diallo…. #involuntary Martyrdom.

I don’t think the brutality and excessive force even on to the point of death is a new phenomenon.

2 factors are contributing to the outburst in frequency of these events: One, the ubiquity of cell phone cameras. No one needs a jury these days. If you look long enough someone filmed it.
Secondly, the social media age has made the world a much smaller place. Not only most things don’t go ununnoticed, they get noticed rather quickly. For example, #Ferguson is as big as Ukraine and Iraq depending on the news channels you indulge in.

The formula in those specific events often goes as follow:
subject: Police.
Violent Verb: [insert Euphemism]
Object : Unarmed Black _______

I will explore this in my next blog post but hear me out: America’s relationship with the black community has been a nuptial where only one of the parties said “I do”…[unlike any other of America’s spouses]. Needless to say, in forced, arranged marriages, physical abuse is often inevitable.

The Jews in Egypt went through something similar. How did they get around it? Exodus. Tinkering thoughts….

Crimea votes. Should she be forced to play for the Team after she requested a trade ?

There is nothing , nothing more democratic than a referendum. A referendum is actually democracy by definition. By the people for the people!!!

If Biafrans want to secede from nigeria … Via a referendum… (…We know the end of that story)

Similarly If Crimeans want to ‘secede’ from Ukraine via a referendum… Let’s just say I am pretty sure we don’t need a Gallup Poll to predict the outcome of these votes…

Or hypothetically … Mmmh check this out, in the name of perspectives…. If Puerto Rico wanted to cut ties from USA… Via a referendum… Could the autonomy of Crimea vis-a-vis Ukraine be (loosely) comparable to that of PR… Towards the USA.. For the sake of perspectives, we shall make that leap. Now imagine how puerto RIcans would feel if they were told: you voted but you ain’t going nowhere. Or how would Mainland Americans feel about Puerto Ricans.

By virtue of such a referendum to even be mentioned, let alone take place, all ties between Kiev and south Eastern peninsula have been bruised, all relationships blistered, and the future shall never be the same. If the legitimacy of the Crimean referendum is rejected by the West … Crimea, forced to remain as part of Ukraine would be awkwardly unproductive. It’s like playing for a team after you’ve DEMANDED to be traded… It’s a soul-less body.

Oh yeah… But It’s not that straightforward, Darlington. It’s a lot more complicated than that.

Or is it ?

Here are my general thoughts… It is extremely patronizing and elitist of any external body to publically reject the vote of the people of another autonomous body.

Granted, Putin is flexing his neo-coldwar muscles. But it’s unfair to force Crimeans to live in the Ukraine that they rejected…

John Kerry should come home. The US has more than enough on its plate. And as for The EU, it’s a LOSE-LOSE situation… sad to say …Putin was tactical in Syria … His tactics in the Crimean Crisis aren’t short of a step ahead of the west’s Either. I guess It’s in his backyard after all.

China’s Shopping Cart.

One of my favorite blogs to pass time on is Kim Jong Il looks at things, primarily because it is timeless. Granted, I haven’t had much time to blog lately, but I decided specifically today to create something similar, which I will from hereon I term “China’s shopping cart”.

The Asian powerhouse has a lot of money. What looks like retail therapy to some, actually has an undertone. China wants to be number one. Everyone does. But China has slightly a different approach to become #1: They will buy their way into it and if it means buying the number one of anything to become number one, then so be it. In economic theory, that may sound perfectly legit, but the idea that you are #1 has very little thing to do with money. cough, cough Manchester City. lol  This statement is true only for those who don’t worship gold coins. And so without further ado….

P.S: This shopping cart is a costco-sized shopping cart, with the IKEA wheels on it, not your regular walmart one that persists on going towards your right 😛

1– The Ivorian Superstar, Didier Drogba fresh off a win of the most prestigious title in club football: The Champion’s league was added to “China’s Shopping Cart” at an estimated 15 million dollars a year by Shangai Shenhua.Dont be mad at me. Vent your frustrations at this article or this one.

So that was really what startled me into writing this post. But with a little more research, guess what I found.

2– Western Art: China has equally taken the art market by storm, buying the prosperous Picasso “Femmes lisant” at Sotheby’s for $21.4m and a Michelangelo black-chalk drawing at Christie’s for £3.2m ($5m). To the point that at Sotheby’s or Christie’s , the joke is whenever you see an Asian face the prices go up by 10 per cent. Read More here.

Why art? Why pay that much money for Art? when arguably China has some of the best art in the world, granted markedly different from western culture. Because, and this is my opinion, #thethirst for being validated.

3- Africa. Wait, did China really buy Africa? Well to be politically correct, no. They only bought African leaders. But the dissertation  of the neo-colonization of some African countries (give or take) emancipating from “Francafrique to Chinafrique” will not consume me this morning. I rebuke it :). But I urge you to feel free and indulge. Start here if you are bilingual.  

4. IBM, the computer division. This needs no explanation. If you had an IBM thinkpad, and now you have a lenovo thinkpad, you will see my point. No more comments on this.  Granted, that’s a bit of older news, but here is some more info on China buying the computer giant.

5. I came accross this picture on google. And I was like, wait someone thought of my title before. A picture is worth a thousand words:

….Regardless of how you feel, it is happening. Is it good or bad? I don’t know. But It’s chinese.

Cheers

The Nigerian Revolution. #OccupyNigeria and #FuelSubsidy Removal.

The Consequences of things do not always corroborate with the magnitude of the event that has caused them. Forexample, it would be ‘nostradamesque’  to predict  that the assassination of the Archduke of Austria, Franz Ferdinand, would have caused one of the greatest wars on earth thus far, mainly The First World War .

Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa is on edge. Notorious for corruption at all levels has been recently stricken with Acts of Terrorism from the self-acclaimed group Boko Haram. Nigeria, albeit Africa’s biggest oil producer, imports refined petrol due to mismanagement and lack of resources to refine oil into petrol and other fuels. Many pundits  affirm that Nigerians regard cheap fuel as the only benefit they get from the nation’s oil wealth.

Then on the Dawn of 2012, Jonathan Goodluck does the unthinkable: A Removal of a fuel subsidy, which in turn causes  petrol prices and transport fares to double.

Let’s look at the numbers:

If gas price goes from 3.25 $ a gal to nearly 7$ a gal in the US, it is almost guaranteed that America will undergo a revolution.  So the anger is justified. Folks are allowed to march. But I SEE BEYOND THAT.

The subsidy removal, like the assassination of Franz could possible be the event that sets a cascade of revolution in Subsaharian Africa. We have just witnessed the Arab spring in 2011. Lo and behold, in 2012 the movement spreads south, until, from Cairo to CapeTown, Africa is purged of its malaise, mainly a phenomenon comparable to “an Ostwald Ripening”  where the wealthy over time strip the poor into poverty, by bypassing, amending, disrespecting the constitution when they see fit.

Most may direct their anger at President Goodluck, for his failed policies and his inability to protect Nigerians from Boko Haram. But I propose something slightly different, perhaps even revolutionary.

I say thank you Jonathan. You’re the good luck Nigeria has been waiting for. For the first time, since I can recall, a decision from the top, the highest office, has in a very direct way affected, the ailing people at the lowest of the lowest. This is important, because in Nigeria, like in most other african countries, citizens are so far removed from the political process. So far in that when they are passionately involved, the majority of them of course, it is for the wrong reasons. Now the subsidy removal, in a singular way, I can assure you, will engage an electoral process that is based on substance and plans of the candidate, rather than tribe affiliation. And in such cases, indifference, which has been rampant in the citizen predisposition to its leaders (at home and abroad), raises questions of sanity.

Randall Terry said “Most of the Ten Commandments are negative. The purpose of Law is not to mandate good behavior. That concept comes from a REVOLUTION” precisely the French One. In the words of a Nigerian Activist Japheth Omojuwa himself, a personal inspiration in the twitter world for me as well: “NIGERIA HAS JUST EARNED HERS”

Brain Drain in Africa _ BBC interview

BBC Africa recently did a special broadcast on the launching of 3 Pan African Universities/Research Centres on the continent of Africa, precisely in Cameroon, Kenya  and Nigeria. This initiative is directly aimed at reversing what I consider (arguably) to be the largest threat to the continent’s demise – not famines, not the unjust exploitation of mineral resources, not even ethnic/religious based wars. Neither  am I referring to the exponentially ravaging effect of corruption, and nevermind the moral worsternization.

What is it then? It’s the brain drain-  Many leave Africa yearly to become intellectual assets to some countries, that quite frankly could reappropriate the help.  You can look at it from many prospectives but here is one of many downsides of brain drain:  when the bright minds are exported, on one hand  they are forced to watch, albeit from afar and  rather tortuously the imbecility of those who stumbled upon power, and are adamant of never letting go. On the other hand, and certainly more pragmatic, as a developing continent seeking to be freed of the neo-colonialism monster by forging paths  of TRUE independence and one day  soar on its own , the continent of Africa is going to need all the help it can get. And no not FOREIGN AID, but WELCOME BACK HOME AID… Whether it be in the form of industrial, infrastructure, agricultural, and/or academic revolution.

To give you an idea in Statistics – Right out of Wiki-

Conservatively speaking, “Brain drain has cost the African continent over $4 billion in the employment of 150,000 expatriate professionals annually.”^[43] According to UNDP, “Ethiopia lost 75 per cent of its skilled workforce between 1980 and 1991,” which harms the ability of such nations to get out of poverty. Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia are believed to be the most affected. In the case of Ethiopia, the country produces many excellent doctors, but there are more Ethiopian doctors in Chicago than there are in Ethiopia.^[44]

Echoing the same idea, South African President Thabo Mbeki said in his 1998 ‘African Renaissance‘ speech:

“In our world in which the generation of new knowledge and its application to change the human condition is the engine which moves human society further away from barbarism, do we not have need to recall Africa’s hundreds of thousands of intellectuals back from their places of emigration in Western Europe and North America, to rejoin those who remain still within our shores! I dream of the day when these, the African mathematicians and computer specialists in Washington and New York, the African physicists, engineers, doctors, business managers and economists, will return from London and Manchester and Paris and Brussels to add to the African pool of brain power, to enquire into and find solutions to Africa’s problems and challenges, to open the African door to the world of knowledge, to elevate Africa’s place within the universe of research the information of new knowledge, education and information.”

The Pan African Universities recent launches are a positive initiative, and may I say, a push to get the ball rolling in the right direction disregarding of its naysayers- I personally remain optimistic that under the patronage of the African Union, the consortium of nations involved will pledge that these institutions will steer clear of national woes. For more details on the PAUs, follow this report by Star Africa:

Am I willing to go back?
In the words of a polarizing basketball player: Come this summer I’ll be READY to take my talents to….

And oh yeah, BBC interviewed me of all people- Click  HERE for the sound bytes of the live interview FOCUS on The Pan African Universities. (Second half of the Interview) .

“Education isn’t preparation for life, it is life itself” – John Dewey

Reform in Nigeria : Who to Follow on Twitter

While everyone contributes in a tweet or two to spreading the word and raising awareness in the many ailing areas of Nigeria, these twitter accounts are in a special way linked to specific reforms in an attempt to dare I say “better” the most populous country of Africa.

– @bubusn – for #LightNigeria – need not be said, his tweets literally aid in sparking energy that we soon hope will contribute to lighting up Nigeria.

– @tejucole – a personal favorite, with his wit and peculiar way of ‘syntaxing’ his tweets, he is a media reform guru.

– @OMOJUWA. Not enough can be said of his fight against corruption and for the upbringing of genuinely better citizens of Nigeria. He wills and tweets it into existence with his #OMOJUWA24 hashtag.

– @ebuka is what I dubbed your casual ‘HeadlineNewsNigeria’ twitter account of all things sports, culture and Pop, and ‘stuffs’ that would resonate with the young vibrant revolutionary twitter demographic.

I will follow up and update this list as I come across more activist for a Better Nigeria.

Follow me @SirDarlington.

NIGERIA IS 51

1-For the Diaspora, especially OUR GENERATION that they be more proactive and less talkative, #WePrayToTheLord

#Nigeria #51

2-For inter-religious peace amongst all faiths, that the Truth & Love of God triumphs over individual agendas, #WePrayToTheLord
#Nigeria #51

3-For Nollywood, that they never cease to be the authentic voice of Nigeria/Africa- #WePrayToTheLord

#Nigeria #51

4-For #BokoHaram, that they realize that LOVE is far stronger than HATE, #WePrayToTheLord

#Nigeria #51

5-For our elected officials, that their inauguration be not synonymous of their coronation, #WePrayToTheLord

#Nigeria #51

6-For All nigerians, that they ask what they can do 4 their country and not what their country can do 4 them, #WePrayToTheLord
#Nigeria #51

7-For the supereagles, that they soar high in the air like they once did in 1994-1996, #WePrayToTheLord

#Nigeria #51

8-Friends of this day, good day.

I am thankful.

#Nigeria.